Lupealux.and Dcsrochcs 
 
 Photogravure From an Original Drawing
 
 Illustrated Sterling Edition 
 
 The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau 
 
 The Secrets of a Princess 
 
 The Middle Classes 
 
 BY 
 HONORE de BALZAC 
 
 With Introductions by 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 BOSTON 
 DANA KSTKS \: COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1901 
 BY 
 
 JOHN D. AVIL 
 
 All Rights Reserved
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION i x 
 
 THE RISE AND FALL OF CESAR 
 BIROT7EAU: 
 
 (Grandtur et Decadence de Cksar Birotteau) 
 
 I. HIS APOGEE - I 
 
 II. CESAR'S STRUGGLES WITH MISFORTUNE - - 171 
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS - - 325 
 
 
 (Les Secrets de la Princes se de Cadignan) 
 
 Translator, ELLEN MARRIAGE 
 
 PART II 
 INTRODUCTION .... 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES .... 
 (Les Petits Bourgeois : Translator. CLARA BELL) 
 
 TOL. 141
 
 THE RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 AND 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 FEW books of Balzac's have been the subject of more diverse 
 judgment than Cesar Birotteau. From the opinion of the 
 unnamed solicitor, who told Madame Serville that it was an| 
 invaluable work to consult on bankruptcy, to that of M. Paul 
 Lacroix (beloved of many as the Bibliophile Jacob), that it 
 might be forgiven for the sake of Le Pere Goriot and the 
 Peau de Chagrin, there is not perhaps quite so great a dis- 
 tance as may appear; but other expressions, opposed not 
 merely in form, but in fact, might probably be collected. 
 
 As for the unfavorable division of these opinions there is 
 no difficulty in discovering their causes ; and there should be 
 little, save in the case of blind partisans, in acknowledging 
 their partial validity. Although the book opens with one of 
 Balzac's most brilliant pieces of actual human observation 
 the description of the vague and half-delirious terror of 
 waking from a bad dream, and though the subsequent con- 
 versation between Cesar and Constance has the merit of no 
 vulgar curtain-lecture, it soon goes off into one of those 
 endless retrospective narrations which are among the greatest 
 blots on the Comedie, which utterly stop the action, and 
 which, in the case of very many readers who are not gifted 
 with the faculty of what may be called literary mountaineer- 
 ing, are very likely to cause the putting down of the book. 
 To this initial difficulty has to be added the choking of the 
 latter part with those bankruptcy details which did so charm 
 the professional mind of Laure Balzac's learned friend, and 
 
 (W.
 
 x INTRODUCTION 
 
 which, for unprofessional minds, have something which is 
 very much the reverse of charm. The reader of only moderate 
 athletic powers, who has with difficulty struggled through 
 and up the sloughs and slopes of the previous history of the 
 Birotteau business, is hardly to be blamed if he gives up the 
 attempt in despair after some attempt on the slippery "screes" 
 of commercial law which Balzac has delighted to strew over 
 the higher ground. 
 
 Complaints of these drawbacks, I repeat, would be, and 
 are, just. Nevertheless, though the list of the faults of the 
 book is not even yet exhausted, it will be a very great pity 
 if any one is baffled by them and fails to go through to the 
 end. For Cesar Birotteau is a book than which none of Bal- 
 zac's is more thoroughly vecu, as his countrymen say, more 
 thoroughly inspired with the personal sympathies and ex- 
 periences of the author; and this with Balzac was always a 
 guarantee of success. He, too, knew bankruptcy well, and 
 not merely by his studies in the lawyer's office ; for though I 
 believe he never actually "passed the court" (even his print- 
 ing and publishing operations, disastrous as they were, termi- 
 nated in arrangements), he was face to face with it all his 
 life. He, too, knew the attraction, the fatal attraction of 
 une bonne affaire, such as he speaks of in one of his letters 
 une bonne affaire qui ne demande que cent mille francs. He 
 was perfectly capable of buying up all the nuts in Paris in 
 order to make hair-oil of them; I should not be at all sur- 
 prised if he had actually had in view this very speculation. 
 And he thought he knew the ways of bankers and folk of 
 that kind ; though, whether he did or not, the sons of Zeruiah 
 were usually as much too hard for him as they were for 
 Birotteau. Hence there is even in the driest details, even in
 
 INTRODUCTION xl 
 
 the most long-winded reportage of the book, the throb of per- 
 sonal interest, the pulse and pant of life. 
 
 The action and characters also are interesting, if not, on 
 the whole, quite artistically probable. It will be observed 
 that the hero does a little underlie the constant objection of 
 the Devil's Advocate to Balzac, that almost every one of his 
 good characters is more or less of a fool. Even a. keen man 
 of business may, of course, be easily outwitted in a game 
 of pure speculation a proposition which we need not go to 
 France, or examine the long list of "crashes" from the ficti- 
 tious terrains de la Madeleine to the real Panama, in order 
 to establish. And a very keen man of business may be im- 
 prudently expensive in a combined fit of personal vanity and 
 affection for his family. But it is a little of a stretch on the 
 credulity of the reader to represent a plodding tradesman 
 like Birotteau, who, as we are expressly told, had an old- 
 fashioned horror of "paper," as not merely incurring large 
 speculative obligations, but as stripping himself of every rap 
 of ready money while exposing himself to an unusual demand 
 for it. The picture of his going a-borrowing and a-sorrowing 
 is drawn with great power and with much vivacity ; but here, 
 too, his simplicity is a thought exaggerated. And Con- 
 stance's affection for, and fidelity to, an unattractive man, 
 whom she saw to be little better than a fool, may be thought 
 improbable in an ideal beauty with a clear head, while some 
 may even say that ideal beauties are almost always extremely 
 stupid. Yet, again, in Cesarine, Momus may point to that 
 superficiality and vagueness which usually, if not always, 
 mar Balzac's treatment of an "honest" girl. 
 
 Yet these things will not, any more than those formerly 
 mentioned, make any fair or genial judge give up the book to
 
 Xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 a lower class than that of Balzac's best, if not of his very best. 
 Whatever faults Birotteau may have, his goodness and his 
 probity and, let us add (though it be a little illegitimate), 
 his tragic end, make him one of the author's most sympa- 
 thetic personages, as are also his wife and daughter. If 
 Popjnot is rather the virtuous apprentice of the stage, and 
 Du Tillet. the wicked ditto, who is not punished, the former 
 is at least attractive ; and Pillerault, the good uncle, certainly 
 cannot be accused of foolishness. All the minor figures 
 come in well for the action whenever Balzac will let them 
 act, and not be talking himself; and even the bankruptcy 
 affair acquires a sort of interest from the rapidity and bustle 
 of its conduct. As for the ball that famous and elaborate 
 instance of the penalties and disappointments of elaborately 
 engineered and anticipated pleasure it is excellent. Nor 
 should we close without special commendation for Claparon, 
 a less labored personage than some of the author's, but a very 
 happy sketch of rascality which is not exactly scoundrelism, 
 because, though entirely unscrupulous, it is not in the least 
 malign. 
 
 The book was originally published after a fashion not un- 
 common in France, but, I think, hardly, if at all, known in 
 England, with no publisher's name, and not for sale, but as a 
 bonus jointly given by the Figaro and the Estafette to their 
 subscribers for 1838. It bore that date, but was actually 
 issued in November 1837. In this form it had two volumes, 
 three parts (the present two, and a third, Le Triomphe de 
 Cesar), and sixteen chapters with headings. Eepublished by 
 Charpentier in 1839, it lost the chapter-, but kept the part- 
 headings, the last being omitted when it became a Scene de la 
 Vie Parisienne in the general arrangement of the Comedie 
 (1844).
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan is, or rather is part 
 of, one of Balzac's most remarkable fictitious creations the 
 history of Diane de Maufrigneuse. This lady, who pervades at 
 least a dozen of the stories, shorter and longer, is the subject 
 of dispute between those who say that Balzac's grandes dames 
 are rather creatures of the stage and of the inner conscious- 
 ness than of life, and those who, as the saying is, take them 
 for gospel. The latter do not seem to bring forward any 
 argument except Balzac's greatness and a certain fascination 
 about the personage. The former, besides dwelling on the 
 obvious touches of exaggeration in the portrait, ask what op- 
 portunity Balzac had of really acquainting himself with the 
 ways and manners of the Faubourg Saint-Germain ? They 
 admit the competence of the Duchesse de Castries, but point 
 out that he did not know her very long; that he was to all 
 appearance in the position, dangerous for a faithful portrait- 
 painter, of having been taken up and dropped by her ; and 
 that she was, so far as is known, his only intimate or much- 
 frequented acquaintance of the kind. It is not necessary to 
 argue this question at length. The piece, however, has the 
 special interest of having been at first dedicated to Theophile 
 Gautier. It was written at Les Jardies in June 1839, and 
 first appeared two months afterwards in the Presse, under the 
 title of La Princesse Parisienne. This it kept when it ap- 
 peared next year in volume form, published by Souverain, 
 but forming part of a collection entitled Lc Foyer de V Optra. 
 In both these forms it was divided into eight chapters, with 
 titles in the newspaper, without them in the book. In 1844, 
 when it entered the Comedie as a Scdne de la Vie Parisienne, 
 it lost its old divisions and took its present title. 
 
 G. S.
 
 THE RISE AND FALL OF CESAR 
 BIROTTEAU 
 
 Eetail Perfumer, 
 
 | Deputy-Mayor of the Second Arrondissement, Paris, Chev- 
 alier of the Legion of Honor, etc. 
 
 To Monsieur Alphonse de Lamartine, 
 from his admirer, 
 
 De Balzac. 
 
 I. 
 
 CESAR'S APOGEE 
 
 THERE is but one brief interval of silence during a winter 
 night in the Hue Saint-Honore ; for to the sounds of carriages 
 rolling home from balls and theatres succeeds the rumbling 
 of market gardeners' carts on their way to the Great Market. 
 During this pause in the great symphony of uproar sent up 
 by the streets of Paris, this cessation of traffic towards one 
 o'clock in the morning, the wife of M. Cesar Birotteau, of 
 the retail perfumery establishment near the Place Vendome, 
 dreamed a frightful dream, and awoke with a start. 
 
 She had met her double. She had appeared to herself, 
 clad in rags, laying a meagre, shriveled hand on her own shop- 
 door handle. She had been at once in her chair at the cash 
 desk and on the threshold; she had heard herself begging; 
 she had heard two selves speaking in fact, the one from the 
 desk, the other from the doorstep. She turned and stretched 
 out her hand for her husband, and found his place cold. At 
 that her terror grew to such a pitch that she could not move 
 her head, her neck seemed stiffened to stone, the walls of her 
 throat were glued together, her voice failed her; she sat up 
 
 (1)
 
 2 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 rigid and motionless, staring before her with wide eyes. Her 
 hair rose with a painful sensation, strange sounds rang in her 
 ears, something clutched at her heart though it beat hard, she 
 was covered with perspiration, and yet shuddering with cold 
 in the alcove behind the two open folding doors. 
 Fear, with its partially morbific effects, is an emotion which 
 puts so violent a strain upon the human mechanism, that the 
 mental faculties are either suddenly stimulated by it to the 
 highest degree of activity, or reduced to the last extremity 
 of disorganization. Physiology has long been puzzled to ac- 
 
 1 count for a phenomenon which upsets its theories and stulti- 
 fies its hypotheses, although it is simply and solely a shock 
 
 . brought about spontaneously, but, like all electrical phenom- 
 ena, erratic and unaccountable in its manifestations. This 
 explanation will become a commonplace when men of science 
 will recognize the great part played by electricity in human 
 thinking power. 
 
 Mme. Birotteau was just then enduring the pangs which 
 bring about a certain mental lucidity consequent on those 
 terrible discharges when the will is contracted or expanded 
 by a mysterious mechanism. So that, during a lapse of time, 
 exceedingly short if measured by the tickings of a clock, but 
 incommensurable by reason of the infinite rapid impressions 
 which it brought, the poor woman had the prodigious power 
 of uttering more thoughts and of calling up more memories 
 than would have arisen in her mind in its normal state in the 
 course of a whole day. Her soliloquy during this vivid and 
 painful experience may be resumed in a few words she 
 uttered, incongruous and nonsensical as they were : 
 
 "There is no reason whatever why Birotteau should be out 
 
 i of bed. He ate so much veal ; perhaps it disagreed with him. 
 But if he had been taken ill, he would have waked me up. 
 These nineteen years that we have slept here together under 
 this roof, he has never got up in the middle of the night with-' 
 out telling me, poor dear! He has never slept out except 
 when he was on guard. Did he go to bed when I did ? Why, 
 yes. Dear me ! how stupid I am 1"
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 3 
 
 She glanced over the bed. There lay her husband's night- 
 cap, moulded to the almost conical shape of his head. 
 
 "Can he be dead? Can he have made away with him- 
 self? Why should he?" she thought. "Since they made 
 him deputy-mayor two. years ago, I haven't known what to 
 make of him. To get mixed up with public affairs, on the 
 word of an honest woman, isn't it enough to make you feel 
 sorry for a man? The business is doing well. He has just 
 given me a shawl. Perhaps it is doing badly ! Pshaw ! I 
 should know of it if it were. But is there any knowing what 
 is in the bottom of a man's mind? Or a woman's either? 
 There is no harm in that. Haven't sales amounted to five 
 thousand francs this very day! And then a deputy-mayor 
 is not likely to kill himself; he knows the law too well for 
 that. But where can he be ?" 
 
 She had no power to turn her head; she could not stretch 
 out a hand to the bell-rope, which would have set in motion a 
 general servant, three shopmen, and the errand boy. The 
 nightmare that lasted on into her waking moments was so 
 strong upon her that she forgot her daughter, peacefully sleep- 
 ing in the next room, beyond the door which opened at the 
 foot of the bed. 
 
 "Birotteau!" She received no answer. She fancied that 
 she had called aloud, but, as a matter of fact, she had only 
 spoken in her thoughts. 
 
 "Suppose he should have a mistress? But he has not wit 
 enough for that," she thought, "and then he is too fond of 
 me. Didn't he tell Mme. Eoguin that he had never been un- 
 faithful to me, even in thought? Why, the man is honesty 
 itself ! If any one deserves to go to heaven, he does. What 
 he finds to say to his confessor, I don't know. He tells him 
 make-believes. For a Eoyalist as he is (without any reason 
 to give for it, by the by), he does not make much of a puff 
 of his religion. Poor dear, he slips out to mass at eight 
 o'clock as if he were running off to amuse himself on the sly. 
 It is the fear of God that he has before his eyes ; he does not 
 trouble himself much about hell. How should he have a
 
 4 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 mistress? He keeps so close to my apron-strings that I get 
 tired of it. He loves me like the apple of his eye ; he would 
 put out his eyes for me. All these nineteen years he has 
 never spoken a harsh word to myself. I come before his 
 daughter with him. Why, Cesarine is there . . . (Cesarine! 
 Cesarine!) Birotteau never has a thought that he does not 
 tell me. It was a true word he said when he came to the sign 
 of the Little Sailor and told me that it would take time to 
 know him. And he's gone ! . . . that is the extraor- 
 dinary thing!" 
 
 She turned her head with an effort, and peered into the 
 darkness. Night filled the room with picturesque effects, 
 the despair of language, the exclusive province of the painter 
 of genre. What words could reproduce the whimsical shapes 
 that the curtains took as the draught swelled them, or the 
 startling zigzag shadows that they cast? The dim night- 
 light flickered over the red cotton folds; the brass rosette of 
 the curtain-rest reflected the crimson gleams from a central 
 boss, bloodshot like a robber's eyes ; a ghostly gown was kneel- 
 ing there; the room was filled, in fact, with all the strange, 
 unfamiliar appearances which appall the imagination at a 
 time when it can only see horrors and exaggerate them. 
 
 Mme. Birotteau fancied that she saw a bright light in the 
 next room, and a thought of fire flashed across her; but she 
 caught sight of a red bandana handkerchief, which looked 
 to her like a pool of blood, and in another moment she dis- 
 covered traces of a struggle in the arrangement of the furni- 
 ture, and could think of nothing but burglars. She remem- 
 bered that there was a sum of money in the safe, and a gen- 
 erous fear extinguished the cold ague of nightmare. Thor- 
 oughly alarmed, she sprang out on to the floor in her night- 
 dress, to go to the assistance of the husband whom she fancied 
 as engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with assassins. 
 
 "Birotteau ! Birotteau !" she cried in a voice of anguish. 
 
 The retail perfumer was standing in the middle of the 
 adjacent room, apparently engaged in measuring the air 
 with a yard stick. His dressing-gown (of green cotton,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 6 
 
 with chocolate-colored spots) covered him so ill that his bare 
 legs were red with the cold, but he did not seem to notice this. 
 
 \yhen Cesar turned round with a "Well, what is it, Con- 
 stance?" he looked as a man absorbed by his schemes is apt 
 to look so ludicrously foolish, that Mme. Birotteau began 
 to laugh. 
 
 "Dear me, Cesar, how queer you look !" said she. "What 
 made you leave me alone without saying anything? I 
 nearly died of fright. I did not know what to think. What 
 are you after, open to every wind that blows ? You will catch 
 your death of cold. Birotteau ! do you hear ?" 
 
 "Yes, wife; here I am," and the perfumer returned to the 
 bedroom. 
 
 "There, come along and warm yourself, and tell me what 
 crotchet you have in your head," returned Mme. Birotteau, 
 raking among the ashes, which she hastily tried to rekindle. 
 "1 am frozen. How stupid it was of me to get up in my 
 night-dress ! But I really thought you were being murdered." 
 
 The merchant set down the bedroom candlestick on the 
 chimney-piece, huddled himself in his dressing-gown, and 
 looked about in an absent fashion for his wife's flannel petti- 
 coat. 
 
 "Here, pussie, just put this on," said he. "Twenty-two 
 
 by eighteen " he added, continuing his soliloquy. "We 
 
 could have a magnificent drawing-room." 
 
 "Look here ! Birotteau, you seem to be in a fair way to lose, 
 your wits. Are you dreaming?" 
 
 "No; I am thinking, wife." 
 
 "Then you might wait ; your follies will keep till daylight 
 at any rate," cried she, and, fastening her petticoat under 
 her sleeping jacket, she went to open the door of their daugh- 
 ter's room. 
 
 "Cesarine is fast asleep. She will not hear a word. 
 Come, Birotteau, tell me about it. What is it?" 
 
 "We can give the ball." 
 
 "Qive a ball ! We give a ball ! My dear ! on the word 
 of an honest woman, you are dreaming !" 
 
 "Dreaming? not a bit of it, darling. 
 2
 
 6 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Listen ; you should always do your duty according to your 
 station in life. Now the Government has brought me into 
 prominence, I belong to the Government, and it is incum- 
 bent upon us to study its spirit and to forward its aims 
 by developing them. The Due de Richelieu has just put an 
 end to the occupation of the Allied troops. According to M. 
 de la Billardiere, official functionaries who represent the city 
 of Paris ought to regard it as a duty each in his own sphere 
 of influence to celebrate the liberation of French soil. Let 
 us establish beyond proof a genuine patriotism which shall 
 put those accursed schemers that call themselves Liberals to 
 the blush, eh ? Do you think that I do not love my country ? 
 I mean to show the Liberals and my enemies that to love the 
 King is to love France !" 
 
 "Then do you think that you have enemies, my poor 
 Birotteau?" 
 
 . "Why, yes, we have enemies, wife. And half our friends 
 in the quarter are among them. They all say, 'Birotteau 
 has such luck ; Birotteau was once a nobody, and look at him 
 now! He is deputy-mayor; everything has prospered with 
 him.' Very well ; there is a nice disappointment still in store 
 for them. You should be the first to hear that I am a Cheva- 
 lier of the Legion of Honor; the King signed the patent 
 yesterday !" 
 
 "Oh ! well then, dear, we must give the ball," cried Mme. 
 Birotteau, greatly excited. "But what can you have done 
 so great as to have the Cross?" 
 
 Birotteau was embarrassed. 
 
 "When M. de la Billardiere told me about it yesterday," 
 said he, "I asked myself, just as you did, what claim I had to 
 it. But, after thinking it over, I saw that I deserved it, and 
 ended by approving the action of the Government. To begin 
 with, I am a Royalist, and I was wounded at Saint-Roch in 
 Vendemiaire; it is something, isn't it, to have borne arms 
 for the good cause in those times? Then some of the mer- 
 chants think that the way I discharged my duties as arbi- 
 trator at the Consular Tribunal had given general satisfac-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 1 
 
 lion; and lastly, I am a deputy-mayor, and the King is dis- 
 tributing four Crosses among the municipal authorities in 
 the city of Paris. After they had gone into the claims of the 
 deputy-mayors for a decoration, the Prefect put me down 
 at the top of the list. The King, too, is sure to know my 
 name; thanks to old Kagon, I supply him with the only hair 
 powder he will use ; no one else has the recipe -for the powder 
 the late Queen used to wear, poor dear august victim ! The 
 Mayor hacked me up with all his might. What was I to 
 do? If the King gives me the Cross when I don't ask him 
 for it, it looks to me as if I could not decline it without fail- 
 ing in respect. Was it my doing that I was made a deputy- 
 mayor? So as we have the wind in our sails, wife, as your 
 uncle Pillerault says when he is in a joking humor, I have 
 made up my mind that we must live up to our high position. 
 If I am to be somebody, I will have a try at being whatever 
 Providence meant me to be; a sub-prefect, if such is my 
 destiny. And you make a great mistake, wife, when you 
 imagine that a citizen has discharged all the duty he owes 
 his country when he has supplied his customers with scent 
 across the counter for a score of years. If the State de- 
 mands the co-operation of our intelligence, we are as much 
 bound to give it, as to pay succession duty, or the door and 
 window tax, et cetera. Do you want to sit at your desk all 
 your life? You have been there a pretty long time (God 
 be thanked). The ball will be a private fete of our own. 
 No more of the shop; for you, that is. I shall burn the 
 signboard The Queen of Roses, and the words CESAR BIROT- 
 TEAU (LATE KAGON), EETAIL PERFUMER, shall be painted 
 out on the shop-front. I shall simply put up PERFUMERY 
 in big gold letters instead. There will be room on the mez- 
 zanine floor for a cash desk and the safe, and a nice little 
 room for you. I shall make the back-shop and the present 
 dining-room and kitchen into a warehouse. Then I mean 
 to take the first floor next door, and make a way into it 
 through the wall. The staircase must be altered so that 
 we can walk on the level out of one house and into the
 
 8 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 other. We shall have a fine set of rooms then, furnished 
 up to the nines. 
 
 "Yes. I will have your room done up, and contrive a 
 boudoir for you, and C6sarine shall have a pretty room. 
 You must engage a young lady for the shop, and she and 
 the assistant and your waiting-maid (yes, madame, you 
 shall have a waiting-maid) shall have rooms on the second 
 floor. The kitchen must be on the third floor. The cook 
 and the errand-boy shall be lodged up there, and we will 
 keep the stock of bottles, and flasks and china on the fourth. 
 The workrooms can be in the attics, so when people come 
 in they will not see bottles being filled and stoppered and 
 labeled, nor sachets being made. That sort of thing is all 
 very well for the Rue Saint-Denis, but it won't do in the 
 Eue Saint-Honore ! Bad style. Our shop ought to be as 
 snug as a drawing-room. Just tell me this : are we the only 
 perfumers who have come in for honors? Aren't there 
 vinegar makers and mustard manufacturers who have a 
 command in. the National Guard, and are well looked on at 
 the Tuileries? Let us do as they do, and extend the busi- 
 ness, at the same time making our way in society." 
 
 "One moment, Birotteau. Do you know what I think 
 while I hear you talk? Well, to me, it is just as if a man 
 was starting out on a wild-goose chase. Don't you remem- 
 ber what I told you when there was talk of your being made 
 mayor? A quiet life before all things, I said; you are about 
 as fit for public life as my arm for a windmill sail. Grand 
 doings will be the ruin of you. 
 
 "You did not listen to me; and here the ruin has come 
 upon us. If you are going to take part in politics, you must 
 have money ; and have we money ? What ! you mean to burn 
 the signboard that cost six hundred francs, and give up the 
 Queen of Roses and your real glory? Leave ambition to 
 other people. If you put your hand in the fire, you get 
 singed, don't you? Politics are very hot nowadays. We 
 have a hundred thousand francs good money invested out- 
 side the business, the stock, and the factory, have we? If
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 9 
 
 you have a mind to increase it, do now as you did in 1793. 
 The funds are at seventy-two, buy rentes; you would have 
 ten thousand livres a year coming in without drawing any- 
 thing out of the business. Then take advantage of the 
 transfer to marry our Cesarine, sell the business, and let 
 us go and live in your part of the world. Why, any time 
 for these fifteen years you have talked of buying the Treas- 
 ury Farm, that nice little place near Chinon, with streams, 
 and meadows, and woods, and vineyards, and crofts. It 
 would bring you in a thousand crowns a year, and we both 
 of us like the house. It is still to be had for sixty thou- 
 sand crowns, and my gentleman must meddle and make in 
 politics, must he? 
 
 "Just remember what we are we are perfumers. Six- 
 teen years ago, before you thought of the Superfine Pate 
 des Sultanes and the Carminative Toilet Lotion, if any one 
 had come and said to you, 'You will have money enough 
 to buy the Treasury Farm,' wouldn't you have been wild 
 with joy? Very well; and now, when you can buy the 
 property which you wanted so much that you talked of 
 nothing else every time that you opened your mouth, you 
 begin to talk of squandering the money that we have earned 
 by the sweat of our brows, ours I may say, for all along I 
 have sat there at the desk like a dog in a kennel. Now, in- 
 stead of turning five halfpence into six farthings, and six 
 farthings into nothing at all, wouldn't it be better to have 
 a daughter married to a notary in Paris, and a house that 
 you can stay at, and to spend eight months in the year at 
 Chinon? 
 
 ''Wait till the funds rise. You can give your daughter 
 eight thousand livres a year; we will keep two thousand for 
 ourselves, and the sale of the business will pay for the 
 Treasury Farm. We will take the furniture down into the 
 country, dear, it is quite worth while, and there we can live 
 like princes, while here one must have at least a million to 
 cut a figure." 
 
 "That is just what I expected," said Cesar Birotteau,
 
 10 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Oh ! you think I am very foolish, no doubt, but I am not 
 so foolish but that I have looked at the thing all round. At- 
 tend to what I am going to say. Alexandra Crottat is a 
 son-in-law that would suit us to a T, and he will have Ro- 
 guin's practice; but do you imagine that he would be satis- 
 fied with a hundred thousand francs? (always supposing 
 that we pay down all our ready money when we marry our 
 daughter; and I am of that way of thinking, for I would 
 have nothing but dry bread for the rest of my days to see 
 her as happy as a queen and the wife of a Paris notary, as 
 you say.) Very well, but a hundred thousand francs down, 
 or even eight thousand francs of rentes, would go no way 
 towards buying Roguin's practice. 
 
 "Young Xandrot (as we call him) thinks, like every- 
 body else, that we are a great deal richer than we are. If 
 that father of his, a rich farmer who sticks to his property 
 like a leech, does not sell something like a hundred thou- 
 sand francs worth of land, Xandrot will not be a notary, 
 for Roguin's practice is worth four or five hundred thou- 
 sand francs. If Crottat does not pay half the money down, 
 how will he manage the business? Cesarine ought to have 
 a portion of two hundred thousand francs, and we should 
 retire like decent citizens of Paris on fifteen thousand 
 livres a year in the funds; that is what I should like. If I 
 could make you see all this as clear as daylight, you would 
 have nothing left to say for yourself, eh ?" 
 
 "Oh ! if you have the wealth of the Indies " 
 
 "So I have, darling. Yes/' he put his arm round his 
 wife's waist, and tapped her gently with his fingers, im- 
 pelled by the joy that shone from every feature of his face. 
 "I did not want to say a word about this to you till the 
 thing was ripe, but, faith ! to-morrow perhaps it will be 
 settled. This it is. 
 
 "Roguin has been proposing a business speculation to me, 
 so safe that he and one or two of his clients, and Ragon, and 
 your uncle Pillerault, are going into it. We are to buy 
 some building land near the Madeleine. Roguin thinks
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 11 
 
 that we can buy it now for a quarter of the price it will fetch, 
 in three years' time when the leases will be out, and we 
 shall be free to exploit it. There are six of us; each agrees 
 to take so much; I am finding three hundred thousand 
 francs for the purchase of three-eighths. If any of us are 
 short of money, Roguin will advance it, taking a mortgage 
 on the share of the land as security. Pillerault, old Ragon, 
 and I are going to take half of it among us; but I want to 
 have it registered in my name, so as to keep hold of the 
 handle of the pan and see how the fish are frying. Roguin 
 himself, under the name of M. Charles Claparon, will be 
 joint-owner with me ; he will give a guarantee to each of his 
 partners, and I shall do the same with mine. The deeds 
 of purchase will be private deeds until we have all the lands 
 in our hands. Roguin will look into it, and see which of the 
 purchases must be completed, for he is not sure that we can 
 dispense with intermediary registration, and yet transfer a 
 separate title to the buyers when we break up the estate into 
 separate lots ; but it would take too long to explain it to you. 
 
 "When the building land has been paid for, we shall have 
 nothing to do but fold our arms, and in three years' time 
 we shall have a million. Cesarine will be twenty years old, 
 we shall have sold the business, and then, God willing, we 
 will go modestly toward greatness." 
 
 "Well, but where are the three hundred thousand francs 
 to come from?" asked Mme. Birotteau. 
 
 "My dear little woman, you know nothing of business. 
 There are the hundred thousand francs in Roguin's hands; 
 I will pay them down. Then I shall borrow forty thou-t 
 sand francs on the buildings and the land that our factory 
 stands on, over in the Faubourg du Temple, and we have 
 ^twenty thousand francs in bills and acceptances in the port- 
 folio altogether that makes a hundred and sixty thousand 
 francs. There remain a hundred and forty-thousand francs 
 to be raised; I will draw bills to the order of M. Charles 
 Claparon the banker; he -will advance the money, less the 
 discount. And there are our three hundred thousand
 
 12 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 francs ; and you don't owe an account until it is due. When 
 the bills fall due, we shall be ready for them, with the profits 
 of the business. If we should find any difficulty in meeting 
 them, Roguin would lend me the money at five per cent on a 
 mortgage on my share of the building land. But there is 
 no need to borrow. I have discovered a specific for making 
 the hair grow, a Comagen oil. Livingston has put up a 
 hydraulic press for me down yonder for the hazel-nuts; all 
 the oil should be squeezed out at once under such strong 
 pressure. In a year's time the probabilities are that I shall 
 have made a hundred thousand francs at least. I am thinking 
 about a placard with Down with Wigs! for a heading. It 
 would make a prodigious sensation. You don't notice how 
 I lie awake. These three months past Macassar Oil has not 
 let me sleep. I mean to do for Macassar!" 
 
 "So these are the fine plans that have been running in 
 your head for a couple of months, and not a word to me 
 about them. And I have just seen myself begging at my 
 own door ; what a warning from Heaven ! There will be 
 nothing left to us after a while except our eyes to cry with 
 over our troubles. Never shall you do it so long as I am 
 alive; do you hear, Cesar? There is some underhand work 
 somewhere that you do not see; you are so straightforward 
 and honest that you don't suspect others of cheating. What 
 makes them come to offer you millions? You are giving 
 bills; you are going beyond your means; and how if the Oil 
 does not take? Suppose that the money does not come in, 
 suppose that you do not sell the building lots, how are you 
 going to meet the bills? With the hazel-nut shells? You 
 want to rise in the world ; you don't intend to have your 
 name over your own shop-door any longer; you mean to 
 take down the sign the Queen of Roses and yet you are 
 making up rigmaroles of prospectuses and placards, and 
 Cesar Birotteau's name will be posted up at every street- 
 corner, and all over the hoardings, wherever there is build- 
 ing going on." 
 
 "Oh, no such thing! I shall open a branch business
 
 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 13 
 
 under the name of Popinot. I shall take a shop somewhere 
 near the Rue des Lombards, and put in young Anselme 
 Popinot to look after it. I shall pay a debt of gratitude 
 which we owe to M. and Mme. Ragon by starting their 
 nephew in a business that may make his fortune. The poor 
 Eagons have looked very seedy for some time past, I have 
 thought." 
 
 "There ! those people are after your money." 
 "Why, what people, my charmer? Your own uncle, who 
 loves us like his own life, and comes to dine here every Sun- 
 day? Then there is that kind old Ragon, our predecessor, 
 who plays boston with us; old Ragon, with a record of forty 
 years of fair dealing. And lastly, do you mean Roguin, a 
 notary of Paris, a man of fifty, who has been in practice for 
 twenty-five years? A notary of Paris would be the best of 
 the bunch if all honest folk were not equally good. My 
 partners will help me out at a pinch. Where is the plot,, 
 darling? Look here, I must give you a piece of my mind. 
 On my word as an honest man, it weighs upon me. You 
 have always been as suspicious as a cat ! As soon as we had 
 two pennyworth of goods in the shop, you began to think 
 that the customers were thieves. A man has to go down 
 on his knees to beg and pray of you to allow your fortune 
 to be made. For a daughter of Paris, you have scarcely any 
 ambition! If it were not for your eternal fears, there 
 would not be a happier man than I am. If I had listened 
 to you, I should never have made the Pate des Sultanes nor 
 the Carminative Toilet Lotion. We have made a living out 
 of the shop, but it was those two discoveries and our soaps 
 that brought in the hundred and sixty thousand francs 
 which we have over and above the business! But for my 
 genius, for I have talent as a perfumer, we should be petty 
 shopkeepers, hard put to it to make both ends meet, and I 
 should not be one of the notable merchants who elect the 
 judges at the Tribunal of Commerce; I should neither have 
 been a judge nor a deputy-mayor. Do you know what I 
 should have been? A shopkeeper like old Ragon, no
 
 14 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 offence to him, for I respect shops ; a shop has been the mak- 
 ing of us. After selling perfumery for forty years, we 
 should have had three thousand livres a year, as he has; and 
 as prices go now, when things are twice as dear as they used 
 to be, we too should have had hardly enough to live upon. 
 (Day after day, it goes to my heart more and more to think 
 of that old couple. I must come at the truth; I will have 
 it out of Popinot to-morrow.) Yes, if I had taken advice 
 of you, of you that are afraid of your own luck, and are 
 always asking if you will have to-morrow what you hold to- 
 day, I should have no credit, nor the Cross of the Legion of 
 Honor, and I should not be looked on as a man who knows 
 what he is about. Oh, you may shake your head; if this 
 succeeds, I may be deputy for Paris some day. Aha! I was 
 not named Cesar for nothing; everything has succeeded with 
 me. This is inconceivable! Everybody out of my own 
 house admits that I have some capacity; but here at home, 
 the one person that I want so much to please, and I toil and 
 moil to make her happy, is just the very one who takes me 
 for a fool." 
 
 There was such a depth of real and constant affection in 
 these phrases, divided up by eloquent pauses and hurled 
 forth like cannon balls (as is the wont of those who take up 
 a recriminating attitude), that Mme. Birotteau in her secret 
 heart felt touched, but, wife-like, she took advantage of the 
 love she inspired to gain her own ends. 
 
 "Very well, Birotteau/' said she, "if you love me, let me 
 be happy in my own way. Neither you nor I have had any 
 education; we do not know how to talk, nor how to flatter 
 like worldly-wise people, and how can you expect that we 
 should succeed in office under Government? I myself 
 should be quite happy at the Treasury Farm. I have always 
 been fond of animals and birds, and I could spend my time 
 quite well in looking after the poultry, and living like a 
 farmer's wife. Let us sell the business, marry our Cesarine, 
 and let your Imogen alone. We will pass the winters in Paris 
 in our son-in-law's house, and we shall be happy ; nothing in
 
 EISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 15 
 
 politics nor in business could change our ways. Why should 
 you try to eclipse other people? Is not our fortune enough 
 for us ? When you are a millionaire, will you be able to eat 
 two dinners a day? Do you want another wife? Look at 
 uncle Pillerault ! He is wisely satisfied with what he has, 
 and spends his life in doing good. What does HE want with 
 fine furniture? For I know you have been ordering furni- 
 ture; I saw Braschon in the shop, and he was not here to 
 buy scent." . j 
 
 "Well, yes, darling, there is some furniture ordered for 
 you. The workmen will begin to-morrow under an archi- 
 tect recommended by M. de la Billardiere." 
 
 "Good Lord, have mercy upon us!" 
 
 "Why, you are unreasonable, pet. Do you think that, 
 fresh and pretty as you are, you can go and bury yourself 
 at thirty-seven at Chinon? I myself, thank the Lord, am 
 only thirty-nine. Chance has opened up a fine career to 
 me, and I am going to enter upon it. If I manage wisely, 
 I can found a house famous among Paris citizens, as people 
 used to do, build up a business, and the Birotteaus shall 
 be like Eoguin, Cochin, Guillaume, Le Bas, Nucingen, Sail- 
 lard, Popinot, and Matifat, all of whom are making, or have 
 made, their mark in their quarter. Come ! come ! if this 
 speculation were not as safe as gold ingots " 
 
 "Safe !" 
 
 "Yes, safe. I have been reckoning it out these two 
 months. Without appearing to do so, I have been making 
 inquiries as to building, at the Hotel de Ville, and of archi- 
 tects and contractors. M. Grindot, the young architect 
 who is to remodel our place, is in despair because he has no 
 capital to invest in our speculation." 
 
 "He knows that there will be houses to build; he is urg- 
 ing you on so as to gobble you up." 
 
 "Can people like Pillerault, like Charles Claparen, and 
 Eoguin be taken in? The gain is as certain as the profits 
 on the Pate, you see." 
 
 "But why should Eoguin want to spoei^tej -de^r, when
 
 1C RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he nas bought his practice and made his fortune? I see 
 him go by sometimes; he looks as thoughtful as a minister; 
 he has an underhand look that I do not like; he has secret 
 cares. In five years he has come to look like an old rake. 
 Whose word have you for it that he will not take to his heels 
 as soon as your money is in his hands? Such things have 
 been known. Do we know much about him ? It is true that 
 we have been acquainted for fifteen years, but he is not one 
 that I would put my hand into the fire for. I have it ! he 
 has ozaena; he does not live with his wife; he has mistresses 
 no doubt, and they are ruining him ; there is no other reason 
 for his low spirits that I see. As I dress in the morning, 
 I look through the blinds, and I see him going home on foot. 
 Where does he come from? Nobody knows. It looks to 
 me as if he had another establishment somewhere in town, 
 and he spends one way, and madame another. 
 
 "Is that a life for a notary? If they make fifty thou- 
 sand francs and get through sixty thousand, there will be 
 an end of the money; in twenty years time they would be 
 as bare as shorn lambs; but if a man is used to shine, he will 
 plunder his friends without mercy. Charity should prop- 
 erly begin at home. The little rascal du Tillet, who used to 
 be with us, is one of his cronies, and I see nothing good in 
 that friendship. If he could not find out du Tillet, he is 
 very blind ; and if he knows him, why does he make so much 
 of him? You will say that there is something between Ro- 
 guin's wife and du Tillet. Very well; I look for no good 
 from a man who has no sense of honor where his wife is con- 
 cerned. And in any case, aren't the owners of the building 
 lots very stupid to sell the worth of a hundred francs for a 
 hundred sous? If you were to meet a child who did not 
 know what a louis was worth, would you not tell him? 
 Your stroke of business looks to me myself very much like 
 a robbery, no offence to you." 
 
 "Dear me! what queer things women are sometimes, and 
 how they mix up their ideas ! If Roguin had never med- 
 dled in the matter, you would have said, 'Stay, Cesar, stop
 
 EISB AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 17 
 
 a bit ; .you are acting without consulting Eoguin, it will come 
 to no good.' In this present instance he is pledged as it 
 were, and you tell me '* 
 
 "No; it is a M. Claparon." 
 
 "But a notary's name cannot appear in a speculation." 
 
 "Then why should he do something against the law? 
 What do you say to that, you who are such a stickler for 
 the law?" 
 
 "Just let me go on. Eoguin is going into it himself, and 
 you tell me that it will come to no good. Is that sensible? 
 Again you say, 'He is doing something against the law/ 
 But his name will appear in it if necessary. And now you 
 tell me that 'he is rich.' Might not people say as much of 
 me? Eagon and Pillerault might just as well say of me, 
 'Why are you going into this when you are wallowing in 
 riches?'" 
 
 "A tradesman is one thing and a notary another," ob- 
 jected Mme. Birotteau. 
 
 "In short, my conscience is quite clear," Cesar went on. 
 "People who sell, sell because they cannot help it; we are 
 no more robbing them than we rob fund-holders when we 
 buy at seventy-five. To-day you buy building lots at to- 
 day's prices; in two years time it will be different, just as 
 it is with rentes. You may be quite sure, Constance-Barbe- 
 Josephine Pillerault, that you will never catch Cesar Birot- 
 teau doing anything that is against the law, nor against his 
 conscience, nor unscrupulous, or not strictly just and fair. 
 That a man who has been in business eighteen years should 
 be suspected in his own family of cheating!" 
 
 "Come, Cesar, be pacified ! A wife who has known you 
 all that time knows the depths of your soul. You are the 
 master after all. You made the money, didn't you? It is 
 yours ; you can spend it. We might be brought to the lowest 
 depths of poverty, but neither your daughter nor I would 
 ever say a single word of reproach. But listen. When you 
 invented the Pate des Sultanes and the Carminative Toilet 
 Lotion, what risk did you run? Five or six thousand
 
 18 
 
 francs perhaps. To-day you are risking all you have on a 
 single stake, and you are not the only player in this game, 
 and some of the others may turn out sharper than you are. 
 
 "You could give this ball and have the rooms redecorated, 
 and spend a thousand francs over it a useless expense, but 
 not ruinous but as to the Madeleine affair, I am against it, 
 once and for all. You are a perfumer; be a perfumer, and 
 jnot a speculator in building land. We women have an in- 
 stinct that does not lead us astray. I have warned you; 
 now act on your own ideas. You have been a judge at the 
 Tribunal of Commerce, you know the law, you have steered 
 your boat wisely, and I will follow you, Cesar ! But I shall 
 have misgivings until I see our fortune on a sound basis and 
 Cesarine well married. God send that my dream was not 
 prophetic !" 
 
 This meekness was annoying to Birotteau. He had re- 
 course to a simple stratagem, which he found useful on such 
 occasions. 
 
 "Listen, Constance; I have not really given my word, 
 though it is as good as if I had." 
 
 "Oh ! Cesar, there is nothing m'ore to be said, so let us 
 say no more about it. Honor before riches. Come, get into 
 bed, dear; there is no firewood left. Besides, it is easier 
 to talk in bed if it amuses you. Oh ! the bad dream I had ! 
 Good Lord, to see yourself! Why, it was fearful! . . . 
 Cesarine and I will make a pretty number of neuvaines for 
 the success of the land." 
 
 "Of course, the help of God would do us no harm," Bi- 
 rotteau said gravely, "but the essence of hazel-nuts is a 
 power likewise, wife. I discovered this, like the Pate des 
 Sultanes, by accident; the first time it was by opening a 
 book, but it was an engraving of Hero and Leander that 
 suggested this new idea to me. A woman, you know, pour- 
 ing oil on her lover's head; isn't it nice? The most certain 
 speculations are those that are based on vanity, self-love, or 
 a regard for appearances. Those sentiments will never be 
 extinct."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 19 
 
 "Alas, I see that clearly." 
 
 "At a certain age," pursued Birotteau, "men will do any- 
 thing to grow hair on their heads when they have none. 
 Hairdressers have told me for some time past that they are 
 selling hair-dyes and all sorts of drugs that are said to pro- 
 mote the growth of the hair as well as Macassar Oil. Since 
 the peace, men live more among women, and women do not 
 like bald heads, eh! eh! mimi! So the demand for that 
 class of article can be explained by the political situation. 
 
 "A composition which would keep your hair in good con- 
 dition would sell like bread, and all the more so because the 
 essence will doubtless be approved by the Academie des 
 Sciences. Perhaps kind M. Vauquelin will do me another 
 good turn. I shall go to submit my notion to him to-mor- 
 row, and ask him to accept that engraving which I have 
 found at last after inquiring for it for two years in Ger- 
 many. M. Vauquelin is engaged in analyzing hair, pre- 
 cisely the subject, so Chiffreville (who is associated with 
 him in the production of chemicals) tells me. If my dis- 
 covery concurs with his, my essence will be bought by both 
 sexes. There is a fortune in my idea, I repeat. Good 
 Heavens! I cannot sleep for it. Eh! luckily, little Popinot 
 has the finest head of hair in the world. With a young lady 
 in the shop whose hair should reach to the ground, and who 
 should say (if the thing is possible without sinning against 
 God or your neighbor) that the Comagen Oil (for it is de- 
 cidedly an oil) counts for something in bringing that about; 
 all the grizzled heads will be down upon it like poverty upon 
 the world. And I say, dearie, how about your ball? I am 
 not spiteful, but I really should like to have that little rogue 
 of a du Tillet, who swaggers about and never sees me on 
 'Change. He knows that I know something that is not 
 pretty about him. Perhaps I let him off too easily. How 
 funny it is, wife, that one should always be punished for good 
 actions ; here below, of course ! I have been like a father to 
 him ; you do not know all that I have done for him." 
 
 "Simply to hear you talk of him makes my flesh creep.
 
 20 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEATJ 
 
 If you had known what he intended to do to you, you would 
 not have kept the theft of three thousand francs so quiet (for 
 I have guessed how the thing was arranged). If you had 
 put him in the police court, perhaps you might have done a 
 good many people a service." 
 
 "What did he mean to do to me?" 
 
 "Nothing. Birotteau, if you were inclined to listen to 
 me to-night, I would give you a bit of sound advice, and that 
 is to let du Tillet alone." 
 
 "Would not people think it very strange if I were to for- 
 bid an old assistant my house after I had been his surety 
 for twenty thousand francs when he first started in business 
 for himself. There, let us do good for its own sake. And 
 perhaps du Tillet has mended his ways." 
 
 "Everything must be put topsy-turvy here !" 
 
 "What is this about topsy-turvy? Why, it will all be 
 ruled like a sheet of music. So you have forgotten already 
 what I have just told you about the staircase, and how I 
 have arranged with Cayron, the umbrella merchant next 
 door, to take part of his house ! He and I must go together 
 in the morning to see his landlord, M. Molineux. I have 
 as much business on hand to-morrow as a Minister." 
 
 "You have made me dizzy with your plans," said Con- 
 stance; "I am muddled with them; and besides, Birotteau, 
 I am sleepy." 
 
 "Good-morning," returned her husband. "Just listen 
 I say good-morning, because it is morning now, mimi! Ah, 
 she has dropped off to sleep, dear child ! There ! you shall 
 be the richest of the rich, or my name will not be Cesar any 
 longer," and a few minutes later Constance and Cesar were 
 peacefully snoring. 
 
 A rapid glance over the previous history of this house- 
 hold will confirm the impression which should have been 
 conveyed by the friendly dispute between the two principal 
 personages in this Scene, in which the lives of a retail shop- 
 keeper and his wife are depicted. This sketch will explain,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTBAU 21 
 
 moreover, the strange chances by which Cesar Birotteau be- 
 came a perfumer, a deputy-mayor, an ex-officer of the Na- 
 tional Guard, and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. By 
 laying bare the depths of his character and the springs of 
 his greatness, it will be possible to comprehend how it is that 
 the vicissitudes of commerce, which strong heads turn to 
 their advantage, become irreparable catastrophes for weaker 
 spirits. Events are never absolute; their consequences de- 
 pend entirely upon the individual. The misfortune which 
 is a stepping-stone for genius, becomes a piscina for the 
 Christian, a treasure for a quick-witted man, and for weak- 
 lings an abyss. 
 
 A cotter, Jacques Birotteau by name, living near Chinon, 
 took unto himself a wife, a domestic servant in the house of a 
 lady, who employed him in her vineyard. Three sons were 
 born to them; his wife died at the birth of the third, and 
 the poor fellow did not long survive her. Then the mistress, 
 out of affection for her maid, adopted the oldest of the cot- 
 ter's boys ; she brought him up with her own son, and placed 
 him in a seminary. This Frangois Birotteau took orders, 
 and during the Revolution led the wandering life of priests 
 who would not take the oath, hiding from those who hunted 
 them down like wild beasts, lucky to meet with no worse fate 
 than the guillotine. At the time when this story begins he 
 was a priest of the cathedral at Tours, and had but once left 
 that city to see his brother Cesar. On that occasion the 
 traffic in the streets of Paris so bewildered the good man 
 that he dared not leave his room; he called the cabs "half- 
 coaches," and was astonished at everything. He stayed one 
 week, and then went back to Tours, promising himself that 
 he would never revisit the capital. 
 
 The vinedresser's second son, Jean Birotteau, was drawn 
 by the army, and during the early wars of the Revolution 
 promptly became a captain. At the battle of the Trebbia, 
 Macdonald called for volunteers to storm a battery, and 
 Captain Jean Birotteau charged with his company and fell.
 
 22 RISE AND FALL QF CESAR BiKO'iTEAU 
 
 It appeared to be the destiny of the Birotteaus that other 
 men should supplant them, or that events should be too 
 strong for them wherever they might be. 
 
 The youngest son is the chief actor in this Scene. When 
 Cesar was fourteen years old, and could read, write, and 
 cipher, he left the district, and with one louis in his pocket 
 set out on foot for Paris to make his fortune. On the rec- 
 ommendation of an apothecary in Tours, M. and Mme. 
 Ragon, retail perfumers, took him as errand boy. Cesar 
 at that time was possessed of a pair of hobnailed shoes, a 
 pair of breeches, blue stockings, a sprigged waistcoat, a 
 countryman's jacket, three ample shirts of good linen, and 
 a stout walking-stick. His hair might be clipped like a 
 chorister's, but he was a solidly-built Tourangeau; and any 
 tendency to the laziness rampant in his district was coun- 
 teracted in him by a strong desire to make his way in the 
 world. Perhaps he was lacking somewhat in brains as in 
 education, but he had inherited upright instincts and scrupu- 
 lous integrity from his mother, who had "a heart of gold," 
 as they say in Touraine. 
 
 Cesar was paid six francs a month by way of wages. He 
 boarded in the house, and slept on a truckle-bed in the attics 
 next to the servant's room. The shopmen showed him how 
 to fetch and carry and tie up parcels, to sweep out the shop 
 and the pavement before it, and made a butt of him, break- 
 ing him in to business after the manner of their kind, and 
 contriving to blend a good deal of amusement (for them- 
 selves) with his instruction. M. and Mme. Ragon spoke to 
 him as if he were a dog. Nobody cared how tired the ap- 
 prentice might be, and he was often very tired and footsore 
 of a night after tramping over the pavements, and his 
 shoulders often ached. The principle "each for himself," 
 that gospel of great cities, put in application, made Cesar's 
 life in Paris a very hard one. He used to cry sometimes 
 when the day was over, and he thought of Touraine, where 
 the peasant works leisurely, and the mason takes his time 
 about laying a stone, and toil is judiciously tempered by
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 23 
 
 idleness; but he usually fell asleep before he reached the 
 point of thinking of running away, for his morning's round 
 of work awaited him, and he did his duty with the instinc- 
 tive obedience of a yard dog. If he happened to complain, 
 the first shopman would smile jocosely. "Ah, my boy," said 
 he, "life is not all roses at the Queen of Roses, and larks 
 don't drop ready roasted into your mouth; first catch your 
 lark, and then you want the other things before you cook it." 
 
 The cook, a stout Picarde, kept the best morsels for her- 
 self, and never spoke to Cesar but to complain of M. and 
 Mme. Eagon, who -left her nothing to purloin. On one 
 Sunday at the end of every month she was obliged to stop 
 in the house, and then she broke ground with Cesar. Ur- 
 sule, scoured for Sunday, was a charming creature in the 
 eyes of the poor errand boy, who, but for a chance, was 
 about to make shipwreck on the first sunken reef in his 
 career. Like all human beings who have no one to care for 
 them, he fell in love with the first woman who gave him a 
 kind glance. The cook took Cesar under her wing, and 
 secret love passages followed, at which the assistants jeered 
 unmercifully. Luckily, two years later, the cook threw 
 over Cesar for a young runaway from the army, a fellow- 
 countryman of hers who was hiding in Paris; and the 
 Picard, a land-owner to the extent of several acres, allowed 
 himself to be drawn into a marriage with Ursule. 
 
 But during those two years the cook fed her lad Cesar 
 well, and explained to him the seamy side of not a few of 
 the mysteries of Paris. Motives of jealousy led her to instil 
 into him a perfect horror of low haunts, whose perils seem- 
 ingly were not unknown to her. In 1792 Cesar, the basely 
 deserted, had grown accustomed to his life; his feet were 
 used to the pavements, his shoulders accommodated to pack- 
 ing-cases, his wits to what he called the humbug of Paris. 
 So, when TJrsule threw him over, he promptly took comfort, 
 for she had not realized any of his intuitive ideas as to senti- 
 ments. Lascivious, bad-tempered, fawning, and rapacious, 
 a selfish woman, given to drink, she had jarred on Birot-
 
 24 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 teau's unsophisticated nature, and had opened out no fair 
 future to him. At times the poor boy saw with dismay 
 that he was bound by the strongest of ties for a simple heart 
 to a creature with whom he had no sympathy. By the time 
 that he was set free he had developed, and had reached the 
 age of sixteen. His wits had been sharpened by Ursule and by 
 the shopmen's jokes; he set himself to learn the business. 
 Intelligence was hidden beneath his simplicity. He watched 
 the customers with shrewd eyes. In his spare moments he 
 asked for explanations concerning the goods; he remem- 
 bered where everything was kept; one fine day he knew the 
 goods, prices, and quantities in stock better than the newer 
 comers, and thenceforward M. and Mme. Ragon looked on 
 him as a settled institution. 
 
 When the Requisition of the terrible year II. made a clean 
 sweep of Citizen Ragon's house, Cesar Birotteau, promoted 
 to be second assistant, improved his position, received a 
 salary of fifty livres per month, and seated himself at the 
 Ragons' table with joy unspeakable. The second assistant 
 at the sign of the Queen of Roses had by this time saved six 
 hundred francs, and he now had a room filled with furni- 
 ture such as he had for a long time coveted, in which he 
 could keep the belongings which he had accumulated under 
 lock and key. On Decadis, dressed after the fashion of an 
 epoch which affected rough and homely ways, the quiet, 
 humble peasant lad looked at least the equal of other young 
 citizens, and in this way he overleapt the social barriers 
 which in domestic life would, in different times, have been 
 raised between the peasant and the trading classes. 
 Towards the end of that year his honesty won for him the 
 control of the till. The awe-inspiring Citoyenne Ragon 
 saw to his linen, and husband and wife treated him like one 
 of the family. 
 
 In Vendemiaire 1794 Cesar Birotteau, being possessed of 
 one hundred gold louis, exchanged them for six thousand 
 francs in assignats, bought rentes therewith ?.t thirty francs, 
 paid for them when depreciated prices ruled on the Ex-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 25 
 
 
 
 change, and hoarded his stock-receipt with unspeakable de- 
 light. From that day forward he followed the rise and fall 
 of the funds and the course of events with a secret anxiety 
 that made his heart beat fast at the tidings of every victory 
 or defeat which marked the history of that period. 
 
 At this critical period M. Ragon, sometime purveyor of 
 perfumes to Her Majesty Queen Marie- Antoinette, confided 
 to Cesar Birotteau his attachment to the fallen tyrants. 
 This confidence was an event of capital importance in 
 Cesar's life. The Tourangeau was transformed into a 
 fanatical adherent of Royalty in the course of evening con- 
 versations after the shutters were put up, the books posted, 
 and the streets quiet without. Cesar was simply obeying 
 his natural instincts. His imagination kindled at the tale 
 of the virtuous deeds of Louis XVI., followed by anecdotes 
 told by husband and wife of the good qualities of the Queen 
 whom they extolled. His tender heart was revolted by the 
 horrible fate of the two crowned heads, struck off but a few 
 paces from the shop door, and he conceived a hatred for a 
 system of government which poured forth innocent blood 
 that cost nothing to shed. 
 
 Commercial instincts made him quick to see the death 
 of trade in the law of maximum prices, and in political 
 storms, which always bode ill to business. In his quality 
 of perfumer, moreover, he loathed a Revolution that for- 
 bade powder, and was responsible for the fashion of wear- 
 ing the hair a la Titus. The tranquillity secured to the na- 
 tion by an absolute monarchy seemed to be the one possible 
 condition in which life and property would be safe, so he 
 waxed zealous for a monarchy. 
 
 M. Ragon, finding so apt a disciple, made him his assist- 
 ant in the shop, and initiated him into the secrets of the 
 Queen of Roses. Some of the customers were the most 
 active and devoted of the secret agents of the Bourbons, and 
 kept up a correspondence between Paris and the West. 
 Carried away by youthful enthusiasm, electrified by contact 
 with such men as Georges, La Billardiere, Montauran, Bau-
 
 26 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 
 
 van, Longuy, Manda, Bernier, du Guenic, and Fontaine, 
 Cesar flung himself into the conspiracy of the 13th Vende- 
 miaire, when Eoyalists and Terrorists combined against the 
 dying Convention. 
 
 Cesar had the honor of warring against Napoleon on the 
 steps of the Church of Saint-Koch, and was wounded at the 
 beginning of the action. Every one knows the result of this 
 attempt. The obscurity from which Barras' aide-de-camp 
 then emerged was Birotteau's salvation. A few friends 
 carried the bellicose counter-hand home to the Queen of 
 Roses, where he lay in hiding in the garret, nursed by Mme. 
 Ragon, and lucky to be forgotten. Cesar's military courage 
 had been nothing but a flash. During his month of con- 
 valescence he came to some sound conclusions as to the ludi- 
 crous alliance of politics and perfumery. If a Royalist he re- 
 mained, he made up his mind that he would be simply and 
 solely a Royalist perfumer, that he would never compromise 
 himself again, and he threw himself body and soul into his 
 calling. 
 
 After the 18th Brumaire, M. and Mme. Ragon, despair- 
 ing of the Royalist cause, determined to retire from the per- 
 fumery trade, to live like respectable private citizens, and to 
 cease to meddle in politics. If they were to receive the full 
 value of their business, it behoved them to find a man who 
 had more honesty than ambition, and more homely sense than 
 brilliancy, so Ragon broached the matter to Ms first assistant. 
 Birotteau hesitated. He was twenty years old, with a thou- 
 sand francs a year invested in the public funds; it was his 
 ambition to go to live near Chinon as soon as he should have 
 fifteen hundred francs a year, and the First Consul, after con- 
 solidating his position at the Tuileries, should have consoli- 
 dated the national debt. He asked himself why he should 
 risk his little honestly-earned independence in business. He 
 had never expected to make so much wealth; it was entirely 
 owing to chances which are only embraced in youth ; and now 
 he was thinking of taking a wife in Touraine, a woman who 
 should have an equal fortune, so that he might buy and cul-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 27 
 
 tivate a little property called the Treasury Farm, a bit of land 
 on which he had set longing eyes since he had come to man's 
 estate. He dreamed of adding more land to the Treasury 
 Farm, of making a thousand crowns a year, of leading a happy 
 and obscure life there. He was on the point of refusing the 
 perfumer's offer, when love suddenly altered his resolutions 
 and multiplied the total of his ambitions by ten. 
 
 Since Ursule's base desertion, Cesar had led a steady life; 
 this was partly a consequence of hard work, partly a dread of 
 the risks run in pursuit of pleasure in Paris. Desire that 
 remains unsatisfied becomes a craving, and marriage for the 
 lower middle classes becomes a fixed idea, for it is the one way 
 open to them of winning and appropriating a woman. Cesar 
 Birotteau was in this case. The first assistant was the respon- 
 sible person at the Queen of Roses; he had not a moment to 
 spare for amusement. In such a life the craving is still more 
 imperatively felt; so it happened that the apparition of a 
 handsome girl, to whom a dissipated young fellow would 
 scarcely have given a thought, was bound to make the greatest 
 impression upon the steady Cesar. 
 
 One fine June day, as he was about to cross the Pont Marie 
 to the He Saint-Louis, he saw a girl standing in the doorway 
 of a corner shop on the Quai d'Anjou. Constance Pillerault 
 was a forewoman in a linen-drapery establishment, at the sign 
 of the Little Sailor, a pioneer instance of a kind of shop which 
 has since spread all over Paris, with painted signboards more 
 or less in evidence, flying flags, much display. Shawls are 
 suspended in the windows, and piles of cravats erected like 
 card castles, together with countless devices to attract custom, 
 ribbon streamers, showcards, notices of fixed prices; optical 
 illusions and effects carried to the pitch of perfection which 
 has made of shop windows the fairyland of commerce. 
 
 The low prices asked at the sign of the Little Sailor for the 
 goods described as "novelties" had brought this shop, in one 
 of the quietest and least fashionable quarters of Paris, an 
 unheard-of influx of custom. 
 
 The aforesaid young lady behind the counter was as cele-
 
 28 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 brated for her beauty as La belle Limonadiere of the Cafe 
 des Milles Colonnes at a later day, and not a few others whose 
 unfortunate lot it has been to attract faces young and old, 
 more numerous than the paving stones of Paris, to the win- 
 dows of milliners' shops and cafes. The first assistant from 
 the Queen of Roses, whose life was spent between Saint-Koch 
 and the Rue de la Sourdiere, in the daily routine of the per- 
 fumery business, did not so much as suspect the existence of 
 the Little Sailor, for retailers in Paris know very little of 
 each other. 
 
 Cesar was so violently smitten with the beautiful Constance 
 that he hurried tempestuously into the Little Sailor to bar- 
 gain for half-a-dozen linen shirts. Long did he haggle over 
 the price, bale after bale of linen was displayed for his inspec- 
 tion; he behaved exactly like an Englishwoman in a humor 
 for shopping. The young lady condescended to interest her- 
 self in Cesar's purchase; perceiving, by certain signs which 
 women understand, that he had come to the shop more for 
 the sake of the saleswoman than for her goods. He gave his 
 name and address to the young lady, who became quite indif- 
 ferent to the customer's admiration as soon as he had made 
 his purchase. The poor assistant had done but little to gain 
 Ursule's good graces ; if he had been sheepish then, love now 
 made him more sheepish still; he did not dare to say a syl- 
 lable, and was, moreover, too much dazzled to note the in- 
 difference which succeeded to the smiles of this siren of com- 
 merce. 
 
 Every evening for a week he took up his post before the 
 Little Sailor, hanging about for a glance as a dog waits for 
 a bone at a kitchen door; regardless of the jibes in which the 
 shopmen and saleswomen indulged at his expense; making 
 way meekly for customers or passers-by, watchful of every 
 little change that took place in the shop. A few days later, 
 he again entered the paradise where his angel dwelt, not so 
 much to purchase pocket-handkerchiefs of her as with a view 
 of communicating a luminous idea to the angel's mind. 
 
 "If you should require any perfumery, mademoiselle," he
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 29 
 
 remarked, as he paid the bill, "I could supply you in the same 
 way." 
 
 Constance Pillerault daily received brilliant proposals, in 
 which there was never any mention of marriage ; and though 
 her heart was as pure as her white forehead, it was not until 
 the indefatigable Cesar had proved his love by six months of 
 strategical operations," that she deigned to receive his atten- 
 tions. Even then she would not commit herself. Prudence 
 had been demanded of her by the multitudinous number of 
 her admirers wholesale wine merchants, well-to-do bar-keep- 
 ers, and others, who made eyes at her. The lover found a sup- 
 porter in her guardian, M. Claude-Joseph Pillerault, an iron- 
 monger on the Quai de la Ferraille, a discovery made by the 
 secret espionage which is pre-eminently a lover's shift. 
 
 In this rapid sketch, it is impossible to describe the delights 
 of this harmless Parisian love-intrigue; the little extrava- 
 gances characteristic of the shopman the first melons of the 
 season, the little dinners at Venua's, followed by the theatre, 
 the drives into the country in a cab on Sunday must be 
 passed over in silence. Cesar was not a positively handsome 
 young fellow, but there was nothing in his appearance to repel 
 love. Life in Paris and days spent in a dark shop had toned 
 down the high color natural to the peasant lad. His thick 
 black hair, his Norman breadth of shoulder, his sturdy limbs, 
 his simple straightforward look, all contributed to prepossess 
 people in his favor. Uncle Pillerault, the responsible guar- 
 dian of his brother's child, made various inquiries about the 
 Tourangeau, and gave his consent ; and in the fair month of 
 May 1800, Mile. Pillerault promised to marry Cesar Birot- 
 teau. He nearly fainted with joy when Constance-Barbe- 
 Josephine accepted him as her husband under a lime-tree at 
 Sceaux. 
 
 "You will have a good husband, my little girl," said M. 
 Pillerault. "He has a warm heart and sentiments of honor. 
 He is as straight as a line, and as good as the Child Jesus; 
 he is a king of men, in short." 
 
 Constance put away once and for all the dreams of a brill-
 
 30 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 iant future, which, like most shop girls, she had sometimes 
 indulged. She meant to be a faithful wife and a good mother, 
 and took up this life in accordance with the religious pro- 
 gramme of the middle classes. After all, this part suited her 
 ideas much better than the dangerous vanities tempting to 
 a youthful Parisian imagination. Constance's intelligence 
 was a narrow one; she was the typical small tradesman's 
 wife, who always grumbles a little over her work, who re- 
 fuses a thing at the outset, and is vexed when she is taken 
 at her word; whose restless activity takes all things, from 
 cash-box to kitchen, as its province, and supervises every- 
 thing, from the weightiest business transactions down to 
 almost invisible darns in the household linen. Such a 
 woman scolds while she loves, and can only conceive 
 ideas of the very simplest; only the small change, as it 
 were, of thought passes current with her; she argues about 
 everything, lives in chronic fear of the unknown, makes con- 
 stant forecasts, and is always thinking of the future. Her 
 statuesque yet girlish beauty, her engaging looks, her fresh- 
 ness, prevented Cesar from thinking of her shortcomings; 
 and, moreover, she made up for them by a Roman's sensitive 
 conscientiousness, an excessive thrift, by her fanatical love 
 of work, and genius as a saleswoman. 
 
 Constance was just eighteen years old, and the possessor of 
 eleven thousand francs. Cesar, in whom love had developed 
 the most unbounded ambition, bought the perfumery business, 
 and transplanted the Queen of Roses to a handsome shop near 
 the Place Vendome. He was only twenty-one years of age, 
 married to a beautiful and adored wife, and almost the owner 
 of his establishment, for he had paid three-fourths of the 
 amount. He saw (how should he have seen otherwise?) the 
 future in fair colors, which seemed fairer still as he measured 
 his career from its starting-point. 
 
 Roguin (Eagon's notary) drew up the marriage-contract, 
 and gave sage counsels to the young perfumer ; he it was who 
 interfered when the latter was about to complete the purchase
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 31 
 
 of the business with his wife's money. "Just keep the money 
 by you, my boy ; ready money is sometimes a handy thing in 
 a business," he had said. 
 
 Birotteau gazed at the notary in admiration, fell into the 
 habit of consulting him, and made a friend of Roguin. Like 
 Ragon and Pillerault, he had so much faith in notaries as a 
 class, that he placed himself in Roguin's hands without ad- 
 mitting a doubt of him. Thanks to this advice, Cesar started 
 ibusiness with the eleven thousand francs brought him by 
 Constance; and would not have "changed places" with the 
 First Consul, however brilliant Napoleon's lot might seem 
 to be. 
 
 At first the Birotteau establishment had but one servant- 
 maid. They lodged on the mezzanine floor above the shop. 
 In this sort of den, passably furnished by an upholsterer, the 
 newly-wedded pair entered upon a perennial honeymoon. 
 Mme. Cesar at her cash desk was a marvel to see. Her famous 
 beauty exercised an enormous influence on the sales ; the dan- 
 dies of the Empire talked of nothing but the lovely Mme. 
 Birotteau. If Cesar's political principles were tainted with 
 Royalism, it was acknowledged that his business principles 
 were above suspicion; and if some of his fellow-tradesmen 
 envied him his luck, he was believed to deserve it. That shot 
 on the steps of the Church of Saint-Roch had gained him a 
 certain reputation he was looked upon as a brave man, and 
 a man deep in political secrets; though he had nothing of 
 a soldier's courage in his composition, and not even a rudi- 
 mentary political notion in his head. 
 
 On these data the good folk of the Arrondissement made 
 him a Captain of the National Guard, but he was cashiered 
 by Napoleon (according to Birotteau, that matter of Vende- 
 miaire still rankled in the First Consul's mind), and thence- 
 forward Cesar was invested with a certain halo of martyrdom, 
 cheaply acquired, which made him interesting to opponents, 
 and gave him a certain importance. 
 
 Here, in brief, is the history of this household, so happy 
 in itself, and disturbed by none but business cares.
 
 32 EIS3 AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTBAU 
 
 During the first year, Cesar instructed his wife in all the 
 ins and outs of the perfumery business, which she was admi- 
 rably quick to grasp; she might have been brought into the 
 world for that sole purpose, so well did she adapt herself to 
 her customers. The result of the stocktaking at the end of 
 the year alarmed the ambitious perfumer. After deducting 
 all expenses, he might perhaps hope, in twenty years' time, 
 to make the modest sum of a hundred thousand francs, the 
 price of his felicity. He determined then and there to find 
 some speedier road to fortune, and, by way of a beginning, 
 to be a manufacturer as well as a retailer. 
 
 Acting against his wife's counsel, he took the lease of a shed 
 on some building land in the Faubourg du Temple, and 
 painted up thereon, in huge letters, CESAR BIROTTEAU'S FAC- 
 TORY. He enticed a workman from Grasse, and with him 
 began to manufacture several kinds of soap, essences, and 
 eau-de-cologne, on the system of half profits. The partner- 
 ship only lasted six months, -and ended in a loss, which he had 
 to sustain alone ; but Birotteau did not lose heart. He meant 
 to obtain a result at any price, if it were only to escape a 
 scolding from his wife ; and, indeed, he confessed to her after- 
 wards that, in those days of despair, his head used to boil like 
 a pot on the fire, and that many a time, but for religious prin- 
 ciples, he would have thrown himself into the Seine. 
 
 One day, depressed by several unsuccessful experiments, he 
 was sauntering home to dinner along the boulevards (the 
 lounger in Paris is a man in despair quite as often as a 
 genuine idler), when a book among a hamperful at six sous 
 apiece caught his attention; his eyes were attracted by the 
 yellow dusty title-page, AbdeJcer, so it ran, or the Art of 
 Preserving Beauty. 
 
 Birotteau took up the work. It claimed to be a translation 
 from the Arabic, but in reality it was a sort of romance 
 written by a physician in the previous century. Cesar hap- 
 pened to stumble upon a passage therein which treated of 
 perfumes, and with his back against a tree in the boulevard, 
 he turned the pages over till he reached a footnote, wherein
 
 \M 
 
 With his back against a tree in the Boulevard, he turned the pages over
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIlxuiTEAU 33 
 
 the learned author discoursed of the nature of the dermis and 
 epidermis. The writer showed conclusively that such and 
 such an unguent or soap often produced an effect exactly 
 opposite to that intended, and the ointment, or the soap, acted 
 as a tonic upon a skin that required a lenitive treatment, or 
 vice versa. 
 
 Birotteau saw a fortune in the book, and bought it. Yet, 
 feeling little confidence in his unaided lights, he went to 
 Vauquelin, the celebrated chemist, and in all simplicity asked 
 him how to compose a double cosmetic which should produce 
 the required effect upon the human epidermis in either case. 
 The really learned men so truly great in this sense that they 
 can never receive in their lifetime all the fame that should re- 
 ward vast labors like theirs are almost always helpful and 
 kindly to the poor in intellect. So it was with Vauquelin. 
 He came to the assistance of the perfumer, gave him a for- 
 mula for a paste to whiten the hands, and allowed him to 
 style himself its inventor. It was this cosmetic that Birot- 
 teau called the Superfine Pate des Sultanes. The more 
 thoroughly to accomplish his purpose, he used the recipe for 
 the paste for a wash for the complexion, which he called the 
 Carminative Toilet Lotion. 
 
 He took a hint from the Little Sailor., and was the first 
 among perfumers to make the lavish use of placards, hand- 
 bills, and divers kinds of advertisement, which, perhaps not 
 undeservedly, are called quackery. The Pate des Sultanes 
 and the Carminative Toilet Lotion were introduced to the 
 polite world and to commerce by gorgeous placards, with the 
 words Approved by the Institute at the head. The effect of 
 this formula, employed thus for the first time, was magical. 
 Not France only, but the face of Europe was covered with 
 flaming proclamations, yellow, scarlet, and blue, which in- 
 formed the world that the sovereign lord of the Queen of 
 Roses manufactured, kept in stock, and supplied everything 
 in his line of business at moderate charges. 
 
 At a time when the East was the one topic of conversation, 
 in a country where every man has a natural turn for the part
 
 34 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 of a sultan, and every woman is no less minded to become a 
 sultana, the idea of giving to any cosmetic such a name as 
 the Pate des Sultanes might have occurred to any ordinary 
 man, it needed no cleverness to foresee its fascination; but 
 the public always judges by results, and Birotteau's reputa- 
 tion for business ability but grew the more when he indited a 
 prospectus, and the very absurdity of its language contributed 
 to its success. In France we only laugh at men and things 
 who are talked about, and those who fail to make any mark 
 are not talked about. So although Birotteau's stupidity was 
 real and not feigned, people gave him credit for playing the 
 fool on purpose. 
 
 A copy of the prospectus has been procured, not without 
 difficulty, by the house of Popinot & Co., druggists in the Rue 
 des Lombards. In a more elevated connection this curious 
 piece of rhetoric would be styled an historical document, and 
 valued for the light that it sheds on contemporary manners. 
 Here, therefore, it is given : 
 
 CESAR BIROTTEAU'S 
 SUPERFINE PATE DES SULTANES 
 
 AND 
 
 CARMINATIVE TOILET LOTION. 
 
 A MARVELOUS DISCOVERY ! 
 
 Approved by the Institute. 
 
 " For some time past a preparation for the hands, and a toilet 
 lotion more efficacious than Eau-de-Cologne, have been generally 
 desired by both sexes throughout Europe. After devoting long 
 nights to the study of the dermis and epidermis of both sexes for 
 both attach, and with reason, the greatest importance to the soft- 
 ness, suppleness, bloom, and delicate surface of the skin M. Birot- 
 teau, a perfumer of high standing, and well known in the capital 
 and abroad, has invented two preparations, which from their first 
 appearance have been deservedly called ' marvelous ' by people of
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 35 
 
 the highest fashion in Paris. Both preparations possess astonish- 
 ing properties, and act upon the skin without bringing about pre- 
 mature wrinkles, the inevitable result of the rash use of the druga 
 hitherto compounded by ignorance and cupidity. 
 
 "These inventions are based upon the difference of tempera- 
 ments, which are divided into two great classes, are indicated by 
 the difference of color in the pate and the lotion ; the rose-colored 
 preparations being intended for the dermis and epidermis of per- 
 sons of lymphatic constitution, and the white for those endowed 
 with a sanguine temperament. 
 
 "The pate is called the ' Pate des Sultanes, ' because the specific 
 was in the first instance invented for the Seraglio by an Arab 
 physician. It has been approved by the Institute on the report of 
 our illustrious chemist Vauquelin, and the lotion, likewise approved, 
 is compounded upon the same principles. 
 
 ' ' The Pate des Sultanes, an invaluable preparation, which exhales 
 the sweetest fragrance, dissipates the most obstinate freckles, 
 whitens the skin in the .Host stubborn cases, and represses the per- 
 spiration of the hand from which women suffer no less than men. 
 
 ' ' The ' Carminative Toilet Lotion ' removes the slight pimples 
 which sometimes appear inopportunely on ladies' faces, and contra- 
 vene their projects for the ball ; it refreshes and revives the color 
 by opening or closing the pores of the skin in accordance with the 
 exigencies of the temperament, while its efficacy in arresting the 
 ravages of time is so well known already that many ladies, out of 
 gratitude, call it the ' Friend of Beauty. ' 
 
 "Eau-de-Cologne is purely and simply an ordinary perfume with- 
 out special efficacy, while the Superfine Pute des Sultanes and the 
 Carminative Toilet Lotion are two active remedies, powerful agents, 
 perfectly harmless in their operation of seconding the efforts of 
 nature ; their perfumes, essentially balsamic and exhilarating, 
 admirably refresh the animal spirits, and charm and revive ideas. 
 Their merits are as marvelous as their simplicity ; in short, to 
 woman they offer an added charm, while a means of attraction is 
 put within the reach of man. 
 
 "The daily use of the Carminative Toilet Lotion allays the smart- 
 ing sensation caused by shaving, while it keeps the lips red and 
 smooth, and prevents chapping; it gradually dissipates freckles by 
 natural means ; and finally, it restores tone to the complexion. 
 These results are the signs of that perfect equilibrium of the
 
 36 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 humors of the body, which ensures immunity from the migraine 
 to those who are subject to that distressing complaint. In short, 
 the Carminative Toilet Lotion, which may be used in all the opera- 
 tions of the toilet, is a preventive of cutaneous affections, by per- 
 mitting free transpiration through the tissues, while imparting a 
 permanent bloom to the skin. 
 
 ' ' All communications should be prepaid, and addressed to M. 
 Csar Birotteau (late Ragon), Perfumer to her late Majesty, Queen 
 Marie-Antoinette, at the ' Queen of Roses, ' Rue Saint- Honore, 
 near the Place Vend&me, Paris. 
 
 "The price of the Pate is three livres per tablet, and of the Toilet 
 Lotion, six livres per bottle. 
 
 " To prevent fradulent imitations, M. Birotteau warns the public 
 that the wrapper of every tablet bears his signature, and that his 
 name is stamped on every bottle of the Toilet Lotion. ' ' 
 
 The success of this scheme was due, as a matter of fact 
 (though Cesar did not suspect it), to Constance, who pro- 
 posed that they should send sample cases of the Carminative 
 Toilet Lotion and the Superfine Pate des Sultanes to every 
 perfumer in France or abroad, offering, at the same time, a 
 discount of thirty per cent as an inducement to take a gross 
 of either article at a time. 
 
 The Pate and the Lotion were really better than similar 
 cosmetics, and the simple were attracted by that distinction 
 made between the two temperaments. The discount was 
 tempting to hundreds of perfumers all over France, and each 
 would take annually three hundred gross or more of both 
 preparations; and if the profits on each article were small, 
 the demand was great, and the output enormous. Cesar \v;is 
 able to buy the sheds and the plot of land in the Faubourg 
 du Temple. He built a large factory there, and had the 
 Queen of Roses magnificently decorated. The household be- 
 gan to feel the small comforts of an easier existence, and the 
 wife quaked less than heretofore. 
 
 In 1810 Mme. Cesar predicted a rise in house rents. At 
 her instance her husband took the lease of the whole house 
 above the shop, and they removed from the mezzanine floor
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 37 
 
 (where they had begun housekeeping together) to the first 
 floor. A piece of luck which befell them about this time de- 
 cided Constance to shut her eyes to Birotteau's follies in the 
 matter of decorating a room for her. The perfumer was made 
 a judge of the Tribunal of Commerce. It was his character 
 for integrity and conscientiousness, together with the esteem 
 in which he was held, that gained this dignity for him; 
 thenceforward he must be considered as a notable among the 
 tradesmen of Paris. 
 
 He used to rise at five o'clock in the morning to read hand- 
 books on jurisprudence and works which treated of commer- 
 cial law. With his instinct for fair dealing, his uprightness, 
 his readiness to take trouble all qualities essential for the 
 appreciation of the knotty points submitted to arbitration 
 he was one of the most highly esteemed judges in the Tribu- 
 nal. His faults contributed no less to his reputation. Cesar 
 was so conscious of his inferiority that he was ready and will- 
 ing to take his colleagues' opinion, and they were flattered by 
 the attention with which he listened to them. Some of them 
 thought a good deal of the silent approbation of such a lis- 
 ener, reputed to be a hard-headed man ; others were delighted 
 with his amiability and modesty, and extolled him on those 
 grounds. Those amenable to his jurisdiction lauded his be- 
 nevolence and conciliatory spirit, and he was often called in 
 to act as arbitrator in disputes wherein his homely sense sug- 
 gested to him a kind of Cadi's justice. 
 
 He managed to invent and use throughout his term of office 
 a style of his own ; it was stuffed with platitudes, interspersed 
 with trite sayings, and pieces of reasoning rounded into 
 phrases which came out without effort, and sounded like elo- 
 quence in the ears of shallow people. In this way he com- 
 mended himself to the naturally mediocre majority, con- 
 demned to penal servitude for life and to views of the earth 
 earthy. 
 
 Cesar lost so much time at the Tribunal that his wife put 
 pressure upon him, and thenceforward he declined the costly 
 honor. 
 
 *
 
 38 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 In the year 1813 this household, thanks to its constant 
 unity, after plodding along through life in a humdrum fash- 
 ion, entered upon an era of prosperity which nothing seem- 
 ingly ought to check. 
 
 M. and Mme. Eagon (their predecessors), Uncle Pillerault, 
 Eoguin the notary, the Matifats (druggists in the Eue 
 des Lombards who supplied the Queen of Roses), Joseph 
 Lebas (a retail draper, a leading light in the Eue Saint- 
 Denis, successor to Guillaume at the Cat and Racket), Judge 
 Popinot (Mme. Bagon's brother), Chiffreville (of the firm 
 of Protez & Chiffreville), M. Cochin (a clerk of the Treasury, 
 and a sleeping partner in Matifat's business), his wife, Mme. 
 Cochin, and the Abbe Loraux (confessor and director of the 
 devout among this little circle) made up, with one or two 
 others, the number of their acquaintance. Cesar Birotteau 
 might be a Eoyalist, but public opinion at that time was in his 
 favor ; and though he had scarcely a hundred thousand francs 
 beside his business, was looked upon as a very wealthy man. 
 His steady-going ways, his punctuality, his habit of paying 
 ready money for everything, of never discounting bills, while 
 he would take paper to oblige a customer of whom he was 
 sure, all these things, together with his readiness to oblige, 
 had brought him a great reputation. And not only so; he 
 had really made a good deal of money, but the building of his 
 factories had absorbed most of it, and he paid nearly twenty 
 thousand francs a year in rent. The education of their only 
 daughter, whom Constance and Cesar both idolized, had been 
 a heavy expense. Neither the husband nor the wife thought 
 of money where Cesarine's pleasure was concerned, and they 
 had never brought themselves to part with her. 
 
 Imagine the delight of the poor peasant-parvenu when he 
 heard his charming Cesarine play a sonata by Steibelt or sing 
 a ballad ; when he saw her writing French correctly, or making 
 sepia drawings of landscape, or listened while she read aloud 
 from the Eacines, father and son, and explained the beauties 
 of the poetry. What happiness it was for him to live again in 
 this fair, innocent flower, not yet plucked from the parent
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 39 
 
 stem; this angel, over whose growing graces and earliest de- 
 velopment they had watched with such passionate tenderness; 
 this only child, incapable of despising her father or of laugh- 
 ing at his vant of education, so much was she his little 
 daughter. 
 
 When Cesar came to Paris, he had known how to read, 
 write, and cipher, and at that point his education had been 
 arrested. There had been no opportunity in his hard-working 
 life of acquiring new ideas and information beyond the per- 
 fumery trade. He had spent his time among folk to whom 
 science and literature were matters of indifference, and whose 
 knowledge was of a limited and special kind; he himself, 
 having no time to spare for loftier studies, became perforce 
 a practical man. He adopted (how should he have done other- 
 wise?) the language, errors, and opinions of the Parisian 
 tradesman who admires Moliere, Voltaire, and Eousseau on 
 hearsay, and buys their works, but never opens them ; who will 
 have it that the proper way to pronounce armoire is ormoire : 
 or means gold, and moire means silk, and women's dresses 
 used almost always to be made of silk, and in their cup- 
 boards they locked up silk and gold therefore, ormoire is 
 right and armoire is an innovation. Potier, Talma, Mile. 
 Mars, and other actors and actresses were millionaires ten 
 times over, and did not live like ordinary mortals ; the great 
 tragedian lived on raw meat, and Mile. Mars would have a 
 fricassee of pearls now and then an idea she had taken from 
 some celebrated Egyptian actress. As to the Emperor, his 
 waistcoat pockets were lined with leather, so that he could 
 take a handful of snuff at a time ; he used to ride at full gal- 
 lop up the staircase of the orangery at Versailles. Authors 
 and artists ended in the workhouse, the natural close to their 
 eccentric careers; they were, every one of them, atheists into 
 the bargain, so that you had to be very careful not to admit 
 anybody of that sort into your house. Joseph Lebas used to 
 advert with horror to the story of his sister-in-law Augustine 
 who married the artist Sommervieux. Astronomers lived on 
 spiders. These bright examples of the attitude of the bour-
 
 4fl RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 geois mind towards philology, the drama, politics, and science 
 will throw light upon its breadth of view and powers of com- 
 prehension. 
 
 Let a poet pass along the Hue des Lombards, and some stray 
 sweet scent shall set him dreaming of the East; for him, 
 with the odor of the Khuskus grass, would come a vision of 
 Nautch girls in an Eastern bath. The brilliant red lac would 
 call up thoughts of Vedic hymns, of alien creeds and castes; 
 and at a chance contact with an ivory tusk, he would mount 
 an elephant and make love, like the king of Lahore, in a 
 muslin-curtained howdah. 
 
 But the petty tradesman does not so much as know whence 
 the raw materials of his business are brought. Of natural 
 history or of chemistry, Birotteau the perfumer, for instance, 
 knew nothing whatever. It is true that he regarded Vauque- 
 lin as a great man, but Vauquelin was an exception. Cesar 
 himself was about on a par with the retired grocer, who sum- 
 med up a discussion on the ways of growing tea by announc- 
 ing with a knowing air that "there are only two ways of 
 obtaining tea from Havre or by the overland route." And 
 Birotteau thought that aloes and opium were only to be found 
 in the Rue des Lombards. People told you that attar of 
 roses came from Constantinople, but, like eau-de-cologne, it 
 was made in Paris. These names of foreign places were 
 humbug; they had been invented to amuse the French nation, 
 who cannot abide anything that is made in France. A French 
 merchant has to call his discovery an English invention, or 
 people will not buy it; it is just the same in England, the 
 druggists there tell you that things come from France. 
 
 Yet Cesar was not altogether a fool or a dunce ; an honest 
 and kind heart shed a lustre over everything that he did and 
 made his a worthy life, and a kindly deed absolves all possible 
 forms of ignorance. His unvarying success gave him assur- 
 ance; and, in Paris, assurance, the sign of power, is taken 
 for power itself. 
 
 Cesar's wife, who had learned to know her husband's char- 
 acter during the early years of their marriage, led a life of
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 41 
 
 perpetual terror; she represented sound sense and foresight 
 in the partnership ; she was doubt, opposition, and fear, while 
 Cesar represented boldness, ambition, activity, the element 
 of chance and undreamed-of good luck. In spite of appear- 
 ances, the merchant was the weaker vessel, and it was the wife 
 who really had the patience and courage. So it had come to 
 pass that a timid mediocrity, without education, knowledge, 
 or strength of character, a being who could in nowise have 
 succeeded in the world's slipperiest places, was taken for a 
 remarkable man, a man of spirit and resolution, thanks to 
 his instinctive uprightness and sense of justice, to the good- 
 ness of a truly Christian soul, and love for the one woman 
 who had been his. 
 
 The public only see results. Of all Cesar^s circle, only 
 Pillerault and Judge Popinot saw beneath the surface; none 
 of the rest could pronounce on his character. Those twenty 
 or thirty friends, moreover, who met at one another's houses, 
 retailed the same platitudes, repeated the same stale common- 
 places, and each one among them regarded himself as superior 
 to his company. There was a rivalry among the women in 
 dinners and dress ; each one summed up her husband in some 
 contemptuous word. 
 
 Mme. Birotteau alone had the good sense to show respect 
 and deference to her husband in public. She saw in him the 
 man who, in spite of his private weaknesses, had made the 
 wealth and earned the esteem which she shared along with 
 him; though she sometimes privately wondered if all men 
 who were spoken of as superior intellects were like her hug- 
 band. This attitude of hers contributed not a little to main- 
 tain the respect and esteem shown by others to the merchant, 
 in a country where wives are quick-witted enough to belittle 
 their husbands and to complain of them. 
 
 The first days of the year 1814, so fatal to Imperial France, 
 were memorable in the Birotteau household for two events, 
 which would have passed almost unnoticed anywhere else; 
 but they were of a kind to leave a deep impression on simple 
 Bouls like Cesar and his wife, who, looking back upon their 
 past, found no painful memories.
 
 42 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 They had engaged a young man of two-and-twenty, Ferdi- 
 nand du Tillet by name, as first assistant. The lad had come 
 to them from another house in the perfumery trade, where 
 they had declined to give him a percentage of the profits. He 
 was thought to be a genius, and he had been very anxious to 
 go to the Queen of Roses, knowing the place, and the people, 
 and their ways. Birotteau had engaged him at a salary of a 
 thousand francs, meaning that du Tillet should be his succes- 
 sor. This Ferdinand du Tillet was destined to exercise so 
 great an influence over the family fortunes, that a few words 
 must be said about him. 
 
 He had begun life simply on his Christian name of Ferdi- 
 nand. There was an immense advantage in anonymity, he 
 thought, at a time when Napoleon was pressing the young 
 men of every family into the army; but if he had no name, 
 he had been born somewhere, and owed his birth to some 
 cruel or voluptuous fancy. Here, in brief, are the few facts 
 known as to his name and designation. 
 
 In 1793 a poor girl of Tillet, a little hamlet near the An- 
 delys, bore a child one night in the cure's garden at Tillet, 
 tapped on the shutters, and then drowned herself. The good 
 man received the child, named him after the saint of that day 
 in the calendar, and reared him as if he had been his own son. 
 In 1804 the cure died, and the little property that he left was 
 insufficient to complete the education thus begun. Ferdinand, 
 thrown upon Paris, there led the life of a freebooter, amid 
 chances that might bring him to the scaffold or to fortune, 
 to the bar, the arnw, commerce, or private life. Ferdinand, 
 compelled to live like a very Figaro, first became a commer- 
 cial traveler, then, after traveling round France, and seeing 
 life, became a perfumer's assistant, with a fixed determination 
 to make his way at all costs. In 1813 he considered is expe- 
 dient to ascertain his age, and to acquire a status as a citizen; 
 he therefore petitioned the Tribunal of the Andelys to 
 transfer the entry of his baptism from the church records to 
 the mayor's register; and, further, he asked that they should 
 insert the surname of du Tillet, which he had assumed, on
 
 RISE" AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 43 
 
 the ground of his exposure at birth in the commune of that 
 name. 
 
 He had neither father nor mother; he had no guardian 
 save the procureur-imperial ; he was alone in the world, and 
 owed no account of himself to any one ; society was to him 
 a harsh stepdame, and he showed no mercy in his dealings 
 with society, knew no guide but his own interests, found all 
 ( means of success permissible. The Norman, armed with 
 these dangerous capacities, combined with his desire to suc- 
 ceed the crabbed faults for which the natives of his province 
 are, rightly or wrongly, blamed. Beneath his insinuating 
 manner there was a contentious spirit ; he was a most formi- 
 dable antagonist a blustering litigant, disputing another's 
 least rights audaciously, while he never yielded a point him- 
 self. He had time on his side, and wearied out his opponent 
 by his inflexible pertinacity. His principal merits were those 
 of the Scapins of old comedy; he possessed their fertility of 
 resource, their skill in sailing near the wind, their itch to 
 seize on what seems good to have and hold. Indeed, he meant 
 to apply to his poverty a motto which the Abbe Terray applied 
 in statecraft; he would make a clean record by turning hon- 
 est later on. 
 
 He was endowed with strenuous energy, with the military 
 intrepidity which demands good deeds or bad indifferently 
 of everybody, justifying his demand by the theory of personal 
 interest ; he was bound to succeed ; he had too great a scorn of 
 human nature ; he believed too firmly that all men have their 
 price; he was too little troubled by scruples as to the choice 
 of means, when all were alike permissible; his eyes were too 
 fixedly set upon the success and wealth that should purchase 
 absolution for a system of morals which worked thus not to 
 be successful. 
 
 Such a man, between the convict's prison on the one hand, 
 and millions upon the other, must of necessity become vin- 
 dictive, domineering, swift in his decisions, a dissembling 
 Cromwell scheming to cut off the head of probity. A light, 
 mocking wit concealed the depth of his character ; mere shop-
 
 44 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIKOTTEAU 
 
 man though he was, his ambition knew no bounds; he had 
 comprehended society in one glance of hatred, and said to 
 himself, "You are in my power." He had vowed that he 
 would not marry before he, was forty years old. He kept his 
 word with himself. 
 
 As to Ferdinand's outward appearance, he was a slim, 
 well-shaped young fellow, with adaptable manners that en- 
 abled him at need to take any tone through the whole gamut 
 of society. At first sight his weasel face was not displeasing ; 
 but after more observation, you detected the strange expres- 
 sions which are visible on the surface of those who are not at 
 peace with themselves, or who hear at times the warning voice 
 of conscience. His hard high color glowed under the soft 
 Norman skin. There was a furtive look in the wall-eyes, 
 lined with silver leaf, which grew terrible when they were 
 fixed full on his victim. His voice was husky, as if he had 
 been speaking for long. The thin lips were not unpleasing, 
 but the sharply-pointed nose and slightly rounded forehead 
 revealed a defect of race. Indeed, the coloring of his hair, 
 which looked as if it had been dyed black, indicated the social 
 half-breed, who had his cleverness from a dissolute great lord, 
 his low ideas from the peasant girl, the victim of seduction; 
 who owed his knowledge to an incomplete education; whose 
 vices were those of the waif and stray. 
 
 Birotteau learned, to his unbounded amazement, that his 
 assistant went out very elegantly arrayed, came in very late, 
 and went to balls at bankers' and notaries' houses. These 
 habits found no favor with Cesar. To his way of thinking, 
 a shopman should study the ledgers, and think of nothing but 
 the business. The perfumer had no patience with folly. He 
 spoke gently to du Tillet about wearing such fine linen, about 
 visiting cards, which bore the name F. du Tillet manners 
 and customs which, according to his commercial jurispru- 
 dence, should be confined to the fashionable world. 
 
 But Ferdinand had established himself in this house to 
 play Tartuffe to Birotteau's Orgon; he paid court to Mme. 
 Cesar, tried to seduce her, and gauging his employer with
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 45 
 
 appalling quickness, judged him as his wife had previously 
 judged. Du Tillet only said what he meant to say, and waa 
 both reserved and discreet; but he unveiled opinions of man- 
 kind and views of life in a fashion that dismayed a timorous, 
 conscientious woman, who thought it a sin to do the slightest 
 wrong to her neighbor. In spite of the tact which Mme. 
 Birotteau employed, du Tillet felt her contempt for him; 
 and Constance, to whom Ferdinand had written several 
 amorous epistles, soon noticed a change in the manners of 
 her assistant. He began to behave presumptuously, to give 
 others the impression that there was an understanding be- 
 tween them. Without informing her husband of her private 
 reasons, she recommended him to dismiss the man, and Birot- 
 teau was of his wife's opinion on this head. Du Tillet's dis- 
 missal was resolved upon; but one evening, on the Saturday 
 before he gave notice, Birotteau balanced his books, as he was 
 wont to do every month, and found that he was three thou- 
 sand francs short. He was in terrible consternation. It was 
 not so much the actual loss that affected him as the suspicion 
 that hung over his three assistants and the servant, the 
 errand-boy, and the workmen. On whom was he to lay the 
 blame ? Mme. Birotteau was never away from the cash desk. 
 The book-keeper, who lodged in the house, was a young man 
 of eighteen, Popinot by name, a nephew of M. Ragon, and 
 honesty itself. Indeed, on Popinot's own showing, the money 
 was missing, for the cash did not agree with the balance. 
 Husband and wife agreed to say nothing, and to watch every 
 one in the house. 
 
 Monday came, and their friends came to spend the evening. 
 Every family in this set entertained in turn. While they 
 played at bouillotte, Roguin the notary put down on the table 
 some old louis-d'or which Mme. Cesar had taken some days 
 before of a bride, Mme. d'Espart. 
 
 "Have you been robbing the poor-box?" asked the per- 
 fumer, laughing. 
 
 Roguin said that he had won the money of du Tillet at a 
 banker's house on the previous evening, and du Tillet bore
 
 46 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAtf 
 
 him out- in this without a blusL As for the perfumer, he 
 turned crimson. When the visitors had gone, and Ferdinand 
 was about to go to bed, Birotteau called him down into the 
 shop, on pretence of business to discuss. 
 
 "We are three thousand francs short in the cash, du Tillet," 
 the good man said, "and I cannot suspect anybody. The mat- 
 ter of the old louis-d'or seems to be too much against you to 
 be passed over entirely, so we will not go to bed till we have 
 found out the mistake, for, after all, it can be nothing but a 
 mistake. Very likely you took the louis on account of your 
 salary." 
 
 Du Tillet owned to having taken the louis. The perfumer 
 thereupon opened the ledger; the assistant's account had not 
 yet been debited with the sum. 
 
 "I was in a hurry. I ought to have asked Popinot to enter 
 it," said Ferdinand. 
 
 "Quite true," said Birotteau, disconcerted by this off-hand 
 coolness. The Norman had taken the measure of the good 
 folk among whom he had come with a view to making his 
 fortune. 
 
 The perfumer and his assistant spent the night in checking 
 the books, the worthy merchant knowing all the while that 
 it was trouble thrown away. As he came and went he slipped 
 three banknotes of a thousand francs each into the safe, 
 pressing them between the side of the drawer and the groove 
 in the safe; then he pretended to be tired out, seemed to be 
 fast asleep, and snored. Du Tillet awakened him in triumph, 
 and showed exaggerated delight over the discovery of the mis- 
 take. 
 
 The next morning Birotteau scolded little Popinot and 
 Mme. Cesar in public, and waxed wrathful over their care- 
 lessness. 
 
 A fortnight later, Ferdinand du Tillet entered a stock- 
 broker's office. The perfumery trade did not suit him, he 
 said; he wanted to study banking. At the same time, he 
 spoke of Mme. Cesar in a way that gave the impression that 
 motives of jealousy had procured his dismissal.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 47 
 
 A few months later du Tillet came to see his late employer, 
 and asked him to be his surety for twenty thousand francs, 
 to complete the guarantees required in a matter which was to 
 put him in the way of making his fortune. Seeing Birot- 
 teau's surprise at this piece of effrontery, du Tillet scowled 
 and asked the perfumer whether he had no confidence in him. 
 Matifat and two men with whom Birotteau did business were 
 there at the time; his indignation did not escape them, 
 though he controlled his anger in their presence. Perhaps 
 du Tillet had returned to honesty; a gambling debt or some 
 woman in distress might have been at the root of that error 
 of his ; and the fact that an honest man. publicly declined to 
 have anything to do with him might launch a man, still 
 young, and perhaps penitent, on a career of crime and mis- 
 fortune. The angel of mercy took up the pen and set his 
 signature on du Tillet's papers, saying as he did so that he 
 was heartily glad to do a small service for a lad who had been 
 very useful to him. The color came into the good man's face 
 as he told that kindly lie. Du Tillet could not meet his eyes, 
 and doubtless at that moment vowed an eternal enmity, the 
 truceless hate that the angels of darkness bear the angels of 
 light. 
 
 Du Tillet kept his balance so skilfully upon the tight rope 
 of speculation, that he was always fashionably dressed, and 
 was apparently rich long before he was rich in reality. When 
 he set up a cabriolet he never put it down again; he held his 
 own in the lofty spheres where pleasure and business are 
 mingled, among the Turcarets of the epoch for whom the 
 crush-room of the Opera is a branch of the Stock Exchange. 
 
 Thanks to Mme. Eoguin, whom he had met among the 
 Birotteaus' circle, he became rapidly known in high financial 
 regions. Ferdinand du Tillet had attained a prosperity in 
 nowise delusive ; he was on an excellent footing with the firm 
 of Nucingen, to whom Eoguin had introduced him; and he 
 had not been slow to secure the Keller connection, and to 
 make friends among the upper banking world. Nobody 
 knew where the young fellow found the vast capital which
 
 46 RISE AND FALL OF CESAE BIROTTEAU 
 
 he could command, but they set down his luck to his intelli- 
 gence and honesty. 
 
 The Kestoration made a personage of Cesar Birotteau, 
 and, in the vortex of political crises, he not unnaturally 
 forgot these two cross events in his household. The tenacity 
 with which he had held to his opinions for though since his 
 wound it had been a strictly passive tenacity, he still held to 
 his principles for decency's sake had brought him patronage 
 in high quarters, precisely because he had asked for nothing. 
 He received an appointment as major in the National Guard, 
 though he did not so much as know a single word of com- 
 mand. 
 
 In 1815 Napoleon, inimical as ever to Birotteau, ejected 
 him from his post. During the Hundred Days, Birotteau 
 became the bete noire of the Liberals in his quarter ; for party 
 feeling began to run high in that year among the commercial 
 class, who hitherto had been unanimous in voting for peace 
 for business reasons. 
 
 After the second Eestoration, the Royalist Government 
 found it necessary to manipulate the municipal body. The 
 prefect wanted to transform Birotteau into a mayor, but, 
 thanks to his wife, the perfumer accepted the less conspicu- 
 ous position of deputy-mayor. His modesty added not a little 
 to his reputation, and brought him the friendship of the 
 mayor, M. Flamet de la Billardiere. Birotteau, who had seen 
 him at the Queen of Roses in the days when Royalist plotters 
 used to meet at Ragon's shop, suggested his name to the 
 Prefect of the Seine, who consulted the perfumer on the 
 choice. M. and Mme. Birotteau were never forgotten in the 
 mayor's invitations, and Mme. Birotteau often asked for 
 charitable subscriptions at Saint-Roch in good society. 
 
 La Billardiere warmly supported Birotteau when it was pro- 
 posed to distribute the Crosses awarded to the municipal body; 
 when names were being weighed, he laid stress upon Cesar's 
 wound received at Saint-Roch, on his attachment to the 
 Bourbons, and on the respect in which Birotteau was held. 
 So the minister, who, while he endeavored to undo the work
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 49 
 
 of Napoleon, was wishful to make creatures of his own, and 
 to secure partisans for the Bourbons from the ranks of com- 
 merce, and among men of art and science, included Birotteau 
 in the list of those to be distinguished. 
 
 This favor, together with the glory which Cesar already 
 ghed around him in his Arrondissement, put him in a posi- 
 tion that was bound to magnify the ideas of a man who had 
 met hitherto with nothing but success; and when the mayor 
 told him of the approaching distinction, it was the final argu- 
 ment which urged the perfumer into the speculation which 
 he had just disclosed to his wife; for it opened up a way of 
 quitting the perfumery trade, and of rising to the upper 
 ranks of the Parisian bourgeoisie. 
 
 Cesar was forty years old. Hard work at his factory had 
 set one or two premature wrinkles in his face, and slightly 
 silvered the long bushy hair, on which the constant pressure of 
 his hat had impressed a glossy ring. The outlines of his hair 
 described five points on his forehead, which told a story of 
 simplicity of life. There was nothing alarming about the 
 bushy eyebrows, for the blue eyes, with their clear, straight- 
 forward expression, were in keeping with the honest man's 
 brow. His nose, broken at his birth, and blunt at the tip, 
 gave him the astonished look of the typical Parisian cockney. 
 His lips were very thick, his chin heavy and straight. It 
 was a high-colored face with square outlines, and a peculiar 
 disposition of the wrinkles, altogether it was of the ingen- 
 uous, shrewd peasant type ; and his evident physical strength, 
 his sturdy limbs, broad shoulders, and big feet, all denoted 
 the countryman transported to Paris. The large hands, 
 covered with hair, the creases in the plump finger-joints, 
 and broad, square-shaped nails at the tips, would ajone have 
 attested his origin if there had not been signs of it about his 
 whole person. 
 
 He always wore the bland smile with which a shopkeeper 
 welcomes a customer; but this smile, assumed for business 
 purposes in his case, was the outward and visible expression 
 of inward content, and reflected the serenity of a kindly soul
 
 50 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 His distrust of his species was strictly confined to the bus- 
 iness; he parted company with his shrewdness as he came 
 away from the Exchange or shut his ledger. Suspicion for 
 him was one of the exigencies of business, like his printed 
 bill-heads. 
 
 There was a comical mixture of. assurance, fatuity, and 
 good-nature in his face, which gave it a certain character of 
 its own, and redeemed it, to some extent, from the vapid uni- 
 formity of Parisian bourgeois countenances. But for the ex- 
 pression of artless wonder and trustfulness, people would 
 have stood too much in awe of him ; it was thus that he paid 
 his quota of absurdity that put him on a footing of equality 
 with his kind. 
 
 It was a habit of his to cross his hands behind him while 
 speaking; and when he meant to say something particularly 
 civil or striking, he gradually raised himself on tiptoe once 
 or twice, and came down heavily upon his heels, as if to em- 
 phasize his remark. Sometimes in the height of a discussion 
 he would suddenly swing himself round, take a step or two as 
 if in search of objections, and then turn abruptly upon his 
 opponent. He never interrupted anybody, and not seldom 
 fell a victim to his finer punctilious observance of good man- 
 ners, for others did not scruple to take the words out of his 
 mouth, and when the worthy man came away he had been un- 
 able to put in a word. 
 
 In his wide experience of business he had acquired habits 
 which others sometimes described as a mania. For instance, 
 if a bill had not been met, he would put it in the hands of the 
 process-server, and give himself no further trouble about it, 
 save to receive the capital, interest, and court expenses. The 
 matter might drive the customer into bankruptcy, and then 
 Cesar went no further. He never attended a meeting of 
 creditors; his name never appeared in any list; he kept his 
 claims. This system, together with an implacable contempt 
 for bankrupts, had been handed down to him by old M. Ra- 
 gon, who, after a long commercial experience, had come to 
 the conclusion that the meagre and uncertain dividend paid
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 51 
 
 under the circumstances was a very poor return for the time 
 wasted in law proceedings, and held that he could spend his 
 time to better purpose than in running about after excuses 
 for dishonesty. 
 
 "If the bankrupt is an honest man, and makes his way 
 again, he will pay you," M. Eagon was wont to say. "If he 
 has nothing, and is simply unfortunate, what is the good of 
 tormenting him ? And if he is a rogue, you will get nothing ' 
 in any case. If you have a name for being hard on people, 
 they will not try to make terms with you ; and so long as they 
 can pay at all, you are the man whom they will pay." 
 
 Cesar kept his appointments punctually; he would wait 
 for ten minutes, and nothing would induce him to stay any 
 longer, a characteristic which was a cause of punctuality 
 in others who had to do with him. 
 
 His dress was in keeping with his appearance and habits. 
 No power on earth would have induced him to resign the white 
 lawn neck-cloths with drooping ends, embroidered by his wife 
 or daughter. His white drill waistcoats, adorned with a 
 double row of buttons, descended low upon his prominent 
 abdomen, for Birotteau was inclined to corpulence. He wore 
 blue breeches, black silk stockings, and walking-shoes adorned 
 with ribbon bows that were apt to come unfastened. Out of 
 doors his too ample green overcoat and broad-brimmed hat 
 gave him a somewhat Quakerly appearance. On Sunday 
 evenings he wore a coat of chestnut-brown cloth, with long 
 tails and ample skirts, and black silk breeches; the corners 
 of the inevitable waistcoat were turned down a little to dis- 
 play the pleated shirt-front beneath, and there were gold 
 buckles on his shoes. Until the year 1819 his person was 
 further adorned by two parallel lines of watch-chain, but he 
 only wore the second when in full dress. 
 
 Such was Cesar Birotteau a worthy soul, from whom the 
 mysterious powers that preside at the making of man had 
 withheld the faculty of seeing life or politics as a whole, and 
 the capacity of rising above the social level of the lower mid- 
 dle class; in all things he was destined to follow in the ruts
 
 32 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 of the old road ; he had caught his opinions like an infection, 
 and he put them in practice without examining into them. 
 But if he was blind, he was a good man; if he was not very 
 clever, he was deeply religious, and his heart was pure. In 
 that heart there shone but one love, the light of his life and 
 its motive power; for his desire to rise in the world, like the 
 meagre knowledge that he had learned in it, had its source in 
 his love for his wife and daughter. / 
 
 As for Mme. Cesar, at that time, at the age of thirty-seven, 
 she so exactly resembled the Venus of Milo, that when the Due 
 de Biviere sent the beautiful statue to France, all her ac- 
 quaintance recognized the likeness. A few short months, 
 and trouble so swiftly spread its sallow tinge over the daz- 
 zling fairness of her face, so ruthlessly darkened and hollowed 
 the blue-veined circles in which the beautiful hazel eyes were 
 set, that she came to look like an aged Madonna ; for in the 
 wreck of her beauty she never lost her sweet ingenuousness, 
 though there was a sad expression in the clear eyes; and it 
 was impossible not to see in her a still beautiful woman, staid 
 in her demeanor, and full of dignity. Moreover, during this 
 ball of Cesar's planning, her beauty was to shine forth 
 radiantly for the last time to the admiration of beholders. 
 
 Every life has its apogee; there is a time in every exist- 
 ence when active causes bring about exactly proportionate 
 results. This high noon of life, when the vital forces are 
 evenly balanced and put forth in all the glory of their 
 strength, is common not only to organic life ; you will find it 
 even in the history of cities and nations and institutions and 
 ideas, in commerce, and in every kind of human effort, for, 
 like noble families and dynasties, these too have their birth 
 and rise and fall. 
 
 How comes it that this argument of waxing and waning 
 is applied so inexorably to everything throughout the system 
 of things? to death as to life; for in times of pestilence, 
 death runs his course, abates, returns again, lies dormant. 
 Who knows but that our globe itself is a rocket somewhat 
 longer lived than other fireworks ?
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 53 
 
 History, telling over and over again the reasons of the rise 
 and fall of all that has been in the world in the past, might 
 be a warning to man that there is a moment when the active 
 play of all his faculties must cease; but neither conquerors, 
 nor actors, nor women, nor writers heed the wholesome 
 admonition. Cesar Birotteau, who should have looked upon 
 himself as having reached the apogee of his career, mistook 
 the summit for the starting-point. He did not know the 
 reason of the downfalls of which history is full; nay, neither 
 kings nor peoples have made any effort to engrave in imper- 
 ishable characters the causes of the catastrophes of which the 
 history of royal and of commercial houses affords such con- 
 spicuous examples. Why should not pyramids be reared anew 
 to put us constantly in mind of the immutable law which 
 should govern the affairs of nations as well as of individuals : 
 When the effect produced is no longer in direct relation with 
 nor in exact proportion to the cause, disorganization sets in? 
 And yet these monuments are all about us in legends, in 
 the stones that cry out to us of a past, and bear perpetual 
 record to the freaks of a stubborn Fate whose hand sweeps 
 away our illusions, and makes it clear to us that the greatest 
 events resolve themselves at last into an Idea, and the "Tale of 
 Troy" and the "Story of Xapoleon" are poems and nothing 
 more. 
 
 Would that this story might be the Epic of the Bourgeoisie ; 
 there are dealings of Fate with man which inspire no voice, 
 because they lack grandeur, yet are even for that very reason 
 immense: for this is not the story of an isolated soul, but of 
 a whole nation of sorrows. 
 
 Cesar as he dropped off to sleep feared that his wife might 
 bring forward some peremptory objection in the morning, 
 and laid it upon himself to wake betimes and settle everything. 
 As soon as it grew light, he rose noiselessly, leaving his wife 
 asleep, dressed quickly, and went down into the shop just as 
 the boy was taking clown the numbered shutters. Birotteau, 
 finding himself in solitary possession, stood waiting in the 
 doorway for the assistants, watching critically meanwhile 
 5
 
 54 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 the way in which Eaguet the errand boy discharged his duties, 
 for Birotteau was an old hand. The weather was magnificent 
 in spite of the cold. 
 
 "Popinot, fetch your hat and your walking shoes, and tell 
 M. Celestin to come down ; you and I will go to the Tuileries 
 and have a little talk together," said he, when Anselme came. 
 
 Popinot, that admirable foil to du Tillet, whom one of 
 those happy chances which induce a belief in a protecting 
 Providence had established in Cesar's household, will play 
 so great a part in this story, that it is necessary to give a 
 sketch of him here. 
 
 Mme. Eagon's maiden name was Popinot. She had two 
 brothers. One of them, the youngest of the family, was at 
 the present time a judge in the Tribunal of First Instance 
 of the Seine. The older had gone into the wool-trade, had 
 lost his patrimony, and died, leaving his only son to the 
 Eagons and his brother the judge, who had no children. The 
 child's mother had died at his birth. 
 
 Mme. Eagon had found this situation for her nephew, and 
 hoped to see him succeed to Birotteau. Anselme Popinot 
 (for that was his name) was short and club-footed, a dis- 
 pensation common to Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Talley- 
 rand, lest others thus afflicted should be too much discouraged. 
 He had the brilliant complexion covered with freckles which 
 usually distinguishes red-haired people; but a clear forehead^ 
 eyes like agates streaked with gray, a pretty mouth, a pale 
 face, the charm of youthful diffidence, and a want of confi- 
 dence in himself, due to his physical deformity, aroused a 
 kindly feeling towards him in others. We love the weak, 
 and people felt interested in Popinot. 
 
 Little Popinot, as everybody called him, took after his 
 family. They were people essentially religious, whose vir- 
 tues were informed by intelligence, whose quiet lives were full 
 of good deeds. So the child, brought up by his uncle the 
 judge, united all the qualities pleasing in youth; he was a 
 good and affectionate boy, a little ba.-hful, but full of en- 
 thusiasm; docile as a lamb, but hard-working, faithful, and
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 55 
 
 steady, endowed with all the virtues of a Christian in the 
 early days of the Church. 
 
 When Popinot heard of the proposed walk to the Tuileries. 
 the most unlooked-for remark that his awe-inspiring em- 
 ployer could have made at that time of day, his thoughts 
 went to his own settlement in life, and thence all at once to 
 Cesarine, the real queen of roses, the living sign of the house. 
 He had fallen in love on his very first day in the shop, two 
 months before du Tillet's departure. He was obliged to stop 
 more than once on his way upstairs, his heart so swelled, and 
 his pulses beat so hard. 
 
 In another moment he came down, followed by Celestin, 
 the first assistant. Then Anselme and his employer set out 
 without a word for the Tuileries. 
 
 Anselme Popinot was just twenty-one years of age; Birot- 
 teau had married at one-and-twenty, so Anselme saw no 
 hindrance to his marriage with Cesarine on that score. It 
 was her beauty and her father's wealth that set enormous 
 obstacles in the way of such ambitious wishes as his, but love 
 grows with every up-leaping of hope; the wilder the hopes, 
 the more he clung to them, and his longings grew the stronger 
 for the distance between him and his love. Happy boy, who 
 in a time when all and sundry are brought down to the same 
 level, when every head is crowned with a precisely similar hat, 
 can still contrive to create a distance between a perfumer's 
 daughter and himself the scion of an old Parisian family ! 
 And he was happy, in spite of his doubts and fears ; every day 
 of his life he sat next to Cesarine at dinner ; he set about his 
 business with a zeal and .enthusiasm that left no element of 
 drudgery in his work; he did everything in the name of 
 Cesarine, and never wearied. At one-and-twenty devotion is 
 food sufficient for love. 
 
 "He will be a merchant some of these days ; he will get on," 
 Cesar would say, speaking of Anselme to Mme. Ragon, and 
 he would praise Anselme's activity in the filling-out depart- 
 ment, extolling his quickness at comprehending the mysteries 
 of the craft, relating how that, when goods were to be sent
 
 56 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 off in a hurry, Anselme would roll up his sleeves and work 
 bare-armed at packing the cases and nailing down the lids, 
 and the lame lad would do more than all the rest of them 
 put together. 
 
 There was another serious obstacle in the way of the or- 
 phan's success. It was a well-known and recognized fact that 
 Alexandre Crottat, Eoguin's head-clerk, the son of a rich 
 farmer of la Brie, hoped to marry Cesarine; and there were 
 other difficulties yet more formidable. In the depths of 
 Popinot's heart there lay buried sad secrets which set a yet 
 wider gulf between him and Cesarine. The Eagons, on whom 
 he might have counted, were in difficulties; the orphan boy 
 was happy to take them his scanty salary to help them to eke 
 out a living. But in spite of all these things, he hoped to 
 succeed ! More than once he had caught a glance from 
 Cesarine, and beneath her apparent pride he had dared to 
 read a secret thought full of tender hopes in the depths of her 
 blue eyes. So he worked on, set in a ferment by that gleam of 
 hope, tremulous and mute, like all young men in a like case 
 when life is breaking into blossom. 
 
 "Popinot," the good man began, "is your aunt quite well ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Somehow she has seemed to me to have an anxious look 
 for some time past; can something have gone askew with 
 them? Look here, my boy, you must not make a stranger of 
 me, that am almost like one of the family, for I have known 
 your Uncle Eagon these five-and-twenty years. When I first 
 came to him, I was fresh from the country, and wore a pair of 
 hobnailed boots. They call the place the Treasury Farm, 
 but all I brought away with me was one gold louis which my 
 godmother gave me, Madame the late Marquise d'Uxelles, 
 who was related to le Due and Mme. la Duchesse de Lenon- 
 court, who are among our patrons. So I always say a prayer 
 every Sunday for her and all the family : and her niece, Mme. 
 de Mortsauf, in Touraine. has all her perfumery from us. 
 Customers are always coming to me through them. There is 
 M. de Vandenesse, for example, who spends twelve hundred
 
 57 
 
 francs with us every year. One ought to be grateful from 
 prudence, if one is not grateful by nature; but I am a well- 
 wisher to you, without an afterthought, and for your own 
 sake." 
 
 "Ah, sir, if you will allow me to say so, you had a level 
 head." 
 
 "No, my boy, no; that won't do everything. I don't say 
 that my headpiece isn't as good as another's, but I stuck to 
 honesty through thick and thin; I was steady, and I never 
 loved any one but my wife. Love is a fine vehicle, a neat ex- 
 pression of M. de Villele's yesterday at the Tribune." 
 
 "Love!" cried Popinot. "Oh! sir, do you ?" 
 
 "Stop a bit, stop a bit ! There is old Roguin coming along 
 the further side of the Place Louis XV. at eight o'clock in the 
 morning. What can the old boy be about?" said Cesar to 
 himself, and he forgot Anselme Popinot and the hazel-nut oil. 
 
 His wife's theories came up in his memory, and instead 
 of turning into the garden of the Tuileries, he walked on to 
 meet the notary. Anselme followed at a distance, quite at a 
 loss to explain the sudden interest which Birotteau appeared 
 to take in a matter so unimportant; but very happy in the 
 encouragement which he derived from his employer's little 
 speech about hobnailed boots, and louis-d'or, and love. 
 
 Roguin, a tall, burly man, with a pimpled face, an almost 
 bald forehead, and black hair, had not formerly been lacking 
 in comeliness; and he had been young and ambitious once 
 too, and from a mere clerk had come to be a notary ; but now 
 a keen observer would have read in his face the exhaustion 
 and fatigue of a jaded seeker after pleasure. When a man 
 plunges into the mire of excess, his face hardly escapes with- 
 out a splash, and the lines engraved on Roguin's countenance 
 and its florid color were alike ignoble. Instead of the pure 
 glow which suffuses the tissues' of men of temperate life and 
 imparts a bloom of health, there was visible in Roguin the 
 tainted blood inflamed by a strain against which the body 
 rebelled. His nose was meanly turned up at the end, as is apt 
 to be the case with those in whom humors taking this channel
 
 58 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 induce an internal affection, which a virtuous Queen of 
 France innocently believed to be a misfortune common to the 
 species, never having approached any man but the King suf- 
 ficiently closely to discover her mistake. Roguin's efforts to 
 disguise his infirmity by taking quantities of Spanish snuff 
 served rather to aggravate the troublesome symptoms, which 
 had been the principal cause of his misfortunes. 
 
 Is it not carrying flattery of society somewhat too far to 
 paint individuals always in false colors, to conceal in certain 
 cases the real causes of their vicissitudes, so often brought 
 about by disease? Physical ills, in their moral aspects and 
 the influences that they bring to bear on the mechanism of 
 life, have perhaps been too much neglected hitherto by the 
 historian of manners. Mme. Cesar had rightly guessed the 
 secret of Roguin's married life. 
 
 His wife, a charming girl, the only daughter of Chevrel, 
 the banker, felt an unconquerable repugnance for the poor 
 notary, which dated from the night of her marriage, and had 
 been determined to demand an immediate divorce. But 
 Roguin, too happy to have a wife who brought him five hun- 
 dred thousand francs, to say nothing of her expectations, 
 had implored her not to enter her plea, leaving her her 
 liberty, and accepting all the consequences of such a compact. 
 Mme. Roguin, mistress of the situation, treated her husband 
 as a courtesan treats an elderly adorer. Roguin soon found 
 his wife too dear, and, like many another Parisian, had a 
 second establishment in the town. At first the expenditure 
 did not exceed a moderate limit. 
 
 For a while Roguin found, at no great outlay, grisettes who 
 were too glad of his protection ; but at the end of three years 
 he fell a prey to a violent sexagenarian passion for one of the 
 most magnificent creatures of the time, known as La belle 
 Hollandaise in the calendars of prostitution, for she shortly 
 afterwards fell back into that gulf, which her death made 
 illustrious. One of Roguin's clients had formerly brought her 
 to Paris from Bruges; and when, in 1815, political considera- 
 tions forced him to fly, he made her over to the notary.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 59 
 
 Roguin had taken a little house in the Champs-filysees for 
 his enchantress ; he had "furnished it handsomely, and had 
 allowed himself to be led by her, until he had squandered 
 away his fortune to satisfy her extravagant whims. 
 
 The gloomy expression, which vanished from Roguin's 
 countenance at the sight of his client, was connected with 
 mysterious events, wherein lay the secret of du Tillet's rapid 
 success. While du Tillet was still under Birotteau's roof, on 
 the first Sunday which gave him an opportunity of observing 
 how M. and Mme. Roguin were situated with regard to each 
 other, his plans had undergone a change. His designs upon 
 Mme. Cesar had been subordinated to another purpose; he 
 had meant to compel an offer of Cesarine's hand as compensa- 
 tion for repulsed advances; but it cost him the less to give 
 up this marriage since he had discovered that Cesar was not 
 rich, as he had believed. Then du Tillet played the spy on 
 the notary, insinuated himself into his confidence, obtained 
 an introduction to La belle Hollandalse, ascertained the terms 
 on which she stood with Roguin, and learned that she was 
 threatening to dismiss her adorer if he curtailed her ex- 
 travagance. La 'belle Hollandaise was one of those scatter- 
 brained creatures who take money without disturbing them- 
 selves as to how it was made, or how they come by it; women 
 who would give a banquet with a parricide's crowns. She 
 took no thought for the morrow, and was careless of yes- 
 terday. The future for her meant after dinner, and eternity 
 lay between the present moment and the end of the month, 
 even when she had bills to fall due. Du Tillet was delighted 
 to find a first lever to his hand, and began his campaign by 
 obtaining a reduction from La belle Hollandaise, who agreed 
 to solace Roguin's existence for thirty thousand francs in- 
 stead of fifty thousand, a kind of service which sexagenarian 
 passion rarely forgets. 
 
 At length, one night after deep potations, Roguin opened 
 out his financial position to du Tillet in an after-supper 
 confidence. His real estate was mortgaged to its full value 
 under his wife's marriage settlement, and in his infatuation
 
 60 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he had appropriated moneys deposited with him by his 
 clients; more than half the value of his practice had been 
 embezzled in this way. When lie had run through the rest ; 
 the unfortunate Roguin would blow his brains out, for he 
 thought he should diminish the scandal of his failure by ex- 
 citing the pity of the public. Du Tillet, listening, beheld 
 success, rapid and assured, gleaming like a flash of lightning 
 through the obscurity of drunkenness. He reassured Roguin, 
 and repaid his confidence by persuading him to fire his pistols 
 into the air. 
 
 "When a man of your calibre takes such risks upon him- 
 self/' said he, "he ought not to flounder about like a fool ; he 
 should set to work boldly." 
 
 Du Tillet counseled Roguin to help himself to a large sum 
 of money, and to intrust it to him (du Tillet) to speculate 
 boldly with it on the Stock Exchange, or in some other en- 
 terprise among the hundreds that were being started at that 
 speculative epoch. If the stroke was successful, the two of 
 them should found a bank, speculate with the deposits, and 
 with the profits the notary should satisfy his cravings. If the 
 luck went against them, Roguin should go abroad, instead of 
 killing himself, for his devoted du Tillet would be faithful to 
 the last penny. It was a rope flung out to a drowning man, 
 and Roguin did not see that the perfumer's salesman was 
 fastening it round his neck. 
 
 Du Tillet, master of Roguin's secret, used it to establish 
 his power over the wife, the husband, and the mistress. Mme. 
 Roguin, to whom he gave warning of a disaster, which she 
 was far from suspecting, accepted du Tillet's assiduities, and 
 then it was that the latter left the perfumer's shop, feeling 
 that his future was secure. It was not difficult to persuade 
 the mistress to risk a sum of money that in case of need she 
 might not be obliged to go on the street. The wife looked 
 into her affairs, and accumulated a small amount of capital, 
 which she handed over to the man in whom her husband 
 placed confidence, for at the outset the notary put a hundred 
 thousand francs into the hands of his accomplice. Brought
 
 BISE AND FALL OF OKSAB BIROTTEAU 61 
 
 ixt this way into close contact with Mme. Roguin, du Tillet 
 eontrived to transform interest into affection, and to inspire 
 a, violent passion in that handsome woman. In his specula- 
 tions on the Stock Exchange he naturally shared in the profits 
 of his three associates, but this was not enough for him; he 
 had the audacity to come to an understanding with an oppo- 
 nent, who refunded to him the amount of fictitious losses, 
 for he played for his own hand as well as for his clients, 
 
 As soon as he had fifty thousand francs, he was sure of 
 making a large fortune. He watched with the eagle's eye that 
 was one of his characteristics, over the phases of political life 
 in France; he speculated for a fall in the Funds during the 
 campaign of France, and for a rise when the Bourbons came 
 back. 
 
 Two months after the return of Louis XVIII., Mme. 
 Roguin possessed two hundred thousand francs, and du Tillet 
 a hundred thousand crowns. In the notary's eyes this young 
 man was an angel ; he had restored order in his affairs. But 
 La belle Hollandaise fell a victim to a wasting complaint 
 which nothing could cure, a virulent cancer called Maxime 
 de Trailles, one of the late Emperor's pages. Du Tillet dis- 
 covered the woman's real name from her signature to a docu- 
 ment. It was Sarah Gobseck. Then he remembered that he 
 had heard of a money-lender of the name of Gobseck; and, 
 struck by the coincidence, paid a visit to that aged discounter 
 of bills, and providence of young men with prospects, to find 
 out how this female relative's credit stood with him. The 
 bill-broking Brutus proved inexorable where his grand-niece 
 was concerned, but du Tillet himself managed to find favor 
 in his eyes by posing as Sarah's banker with capital to invest. 
 The Norman and the money-lender found each other con- 
 genial. 
 
 Gobseck wanted a clever young fellow who could look after 
 a bit of business abroad for him just then. The return of the 
 Bourbons had taken a State auditor by surprise. To this 
 financier, wishful to stand well at Court, it had occurred that 
 he might buy up the debts contracted by the Princes in Get-
 
 62 
 
 many during the emigration. He offered the profits of the 
 affair, which for him was purely a matter of policy, to any 
 one who would advance the necessary money. Old Gobseck 
 had no mind to disburse moneys over and above the market 
 value of the debts, into which a shrewd representative must 
 first examine. Money-lenders trust nobody ; they must always 
 have a guarantee; the occasion is omnipotent with them; 
 they are ice when they have no need of a man, affable and 
 obliging when he is likely to be useful. Du Tillet knew the 
 immense part played, below the surface, in the Paris money 
 market by Werbrust and Gigonnet, discount brokers of the 
 Rue Saint-Denis and Rue Saint-Martin, and by Palma, a 
 banker in the Faubourg Poissonniere, who was almost always 
 associated with Gobseck. He therefore offered to pay down 
 caution money, requiring on his own side a share in the 
 profits of the transaction, and asking that these gentlemen 
 should employ in the money-lending business the capital 
 which he should deposit with them. In this way he secured 
 supporters. Then he accompanied M. Clement Chardin des 
 Lupeaulx on a trip to Germany during the Hundred Days, 
 and came back with the Second Restoration, with some added 
 knowledge that should lead to success rather than with actual 
 wealth. He had had an initiation into the secrets of one of 
 the cleverest schemers in Paris; he had won the goodwill of 
 the man whom he had been set to watch; a dexterous juggler 
 had laid bare for him the springs of political intrigue and the 
 rules of the game. 
 
 Du Tillet's intelligence was of the order which understands 
 at half a word; this journey formed him. On his return he 
 found Mme. Roguin still faithful; but the poor notary was 
 expecting Ferdinand with quite as much impatience as his 
 wife. La belle Hollandaise had ruined him again! 
 
 Du Tillet, questioning La belle Hollandaise, could not 
 elicit from her an account that represented all the money 
 which she had squandered. And then it was that he discov- 
 ered the secret so carefully kept from him Sarah Gobseck's 
 infatuation for Maxime de Trailles, known at the very outset
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAH BIROTTEAU 63 
 
 of his career of vice and debauchery for a political hanger-on 
 of a kind indispensable to all good government, and for an 
 insatiable gambler. After this discovery du Tillet understood 
 old Gobseck's indifference to his grand-niece. 
 
 At this critical juncture, du Tillet the banker (for by this 
 time he was a banker) strongly recommended Eoguin to put 
 by something for a rainy day; to engage some of his richest 
 clients in a business speculation, and then to keep back con- 
 siderable sums out of the money paid over to him, in case he 
 should be compelled to become a bankrupt in the course of a 
 second career of speculation. After various rises and falls 
 in the price of stocks, which brought luck only to du Tillet 
 and Mme. Eoguin, the notary's hour struck. He was in- 
 solvent, and thereupon, in his extremity, his closest friend 
 exploited him, and du Tillet discovered that speculation 
 in building land in the neighborhood of the Madeleine. 
 Naturally, one hundred thousand francs which Birotteau 
 had deposited with Eoguin until an investment should 
 be found for them, were paid over to du Tillet, who, 
 bent upon compassing the perfumer's ruin, made Eoguin un- 
 derstand that he ran less risk by ensnaring his own intimate 
 friends in his toils. 
 
 "A friend," said du Tillet, "will not go all lengths even in 
 anger." 
 
 There are not many people at this present day who know 
 how little land was worth per foot in the district of the Ma- 
 deleine at this time; but the building lots must necessarily 
 shortly be sold for more than their momentary depreciation, 
 caused by the necessity of finding purchasers who would 
 profit by the opportunity. Now it was du Tillet's idea to 
 reap the benefit without keeping his money locked up in a 
 lengthy speculation. In other words, he meant to kill the 
 affair, so that a corpse which he knew how to resuscitate 
 might be knocked down to him. 
 
 In such emergencies as this, the Gobsecks, Palmas, 
 Werbrusts, and Gigonnets all lent each other a hand, but du 
 Tillet did not know them well enough to ask them to help
 
 64 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 him; and, besides, he meant to hide his action in the matter 
 go thoroughly that, while he steered the whole business, he 
 might receive all the profits and none of the disgrace of the 
 robbery. So he saw the necessity of one of those animated 
 lay figures termed men of straw in commercial phrase. The 
 man who had once before acted the part of a stock-jobber 
 for him seemed to be a suitable tool to his hand, and he in- 
 fringed the Divine rights by creating a man. Of a former 
 commercial traveler, without a farthing on this earth, with 
 no ability, no capacity save for empty rambling talk on all 
 sorts of subjects, and but just sufficient wit to suffer himself 
 to be drilled in a part and to play it without compromising 
 the piece, and yet endowed with the rarest sense of honor 
 that is to say, a faculty for silently accepting the dishonor 
 of his principal of him, du Tillet made a banker, the orig- 
 inator and promoter of commercial enterprises on the largest 
 scale; him he metamorphosed into the head of the firm of 
 Claparon. 
 
 Should the exigencies of du Tillet's affairs at any time 
 demand a bankruptcy, it was to be Charles Claparon's fate to 
 be delivered over to Jews and Pharisees, and Claparon knew 
 it. Still, for the present, the scraps and pickings that fell 
 to his share were an El Dorado for a poor devil who, when 
 his chum du Tillet came across him, was sauntering along 
 the Boulevards with no prospects beyond the two-franc piece 
 in his pockets ; so his friendship for and devotion to du Tillet, 
 swelled by a gratitude that did not look to the future, and 
 stimulated by the cravings of a dissolute and disreputable 
 life, led him to say Amen to everything. 
 
 When he had once sold his honor, he saw that it was risked 
 with so much prudence, that at length he came to have a 
 sort of dog-like attachment for his old comrade du Tillet. 
 Claparon was a very ugly performing poodle, but he was 
 ready at any moment to make the leap of Curtius for his 
 master. 
 
 In the present scheme Claparon was to represent one-half 
 of thp purchasers of the lots, as Birotteau represented the
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 65 
 
 other half. Then the bills which Claparon would receive 
 from Birotteau should be discounted by some money-lender, 
 whose name du Tillet would borrow; so that when Roguin 
 absconded with the rest of the purchase-money, Birotteau 
 would be left on the brink of ruin. Du Tillet meant to direct 
 the action of the assignees; there should be a forced sale of 
 the building land, and du Tillet meant to be the purchaser ; 
 he would buy it for about half its value, and pay for it with 
 Roguin's money and the dividend of the bankruptcy; so 
 under different names he was in possession of the money paid 
 down by the perfumer and his creditor to boot. 
 
 It was a prospect of a goodly share of the spoils that led 
 Roguin to meddle in this scheme ; but he had practically sur- 
 rendered himself at discretion to a man who could and did 
 take the lion's part. It was impossible to bring du Tillet 
 into a court of law, and the notary in a remote part of 
 Switzerland, where he found beauties of a less expensive 
 kind, was lucky to have a bone flung to him ouce a month 
 or so. 
 
 The ugly scheme was no deliberate invention, no outcome 
 of the broodings of a tragedian weaving a plot, but the result 
 of circumstances. Hatred, unaccompanied by a desire for re- 
 venge, is as seed sown upon the granite rock : du Tillet swore 
 to be revenged upon Cesar Birotteau, and the prompting was 
 one of the most natural things in the 'world; if it had been 
 otherwise, there had been no quarrel between angds of dark- 
 ness and the angels of light. 
 
 Du Tillet could not, without great inconvenience, murder 
 the one man in Paris who knew that he had beeu guilty of 
 petty theft; but he could sully his old master's name and 
 crush him until his testimony was no longer admissible. For 
 a long time past the thought of vengeance had been germi- 
 nating in his mind ; but it had come to nothing. The rush 
 of life in Paris is so swift, and so full of stir, chance counts 
 for so much in it, that even the most energetic haters do not 
 look very far ahead; yet, on the other hand, if the constant 
 ebb and flow is unfavorable to premeditated action, it affords
 
 60 KISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 excellent opportunities for carrying out projects that lurk in 
 politic brains, clever enough to lie in wait for the chances 
 that come with the tide. Du Tillet had had a dim inkling 
 of the possibility of ruining Cesar from the moment when 
 Roguin first opened out his case to him ; and he had not mis- 
 calculated. 
 
 Roguin, meanwhile, on. the point of leaving his idol, 
 drained the rest of the philtre from the broken cup, going 
 daily to the Champs-filysees, and returning home in the small 
 hours. There were grounds, therefore, for Mme. Cesar's 
 suspicious theories. When a man has made up his mind to 
 play such a part as du Tillet had assigned to Roguin, he 
 perforce acquires the talents of a great actor ; he has the eyes 
 of a lynx and the penetration of a seer; he finds ways of 
 magnetizing his dupe, so the notary had seen Birotteau long 
 before Birotteau set eyes on him; and when he saw that he 
 was recognized, he held out a hand while he was still at some 
 distance. 
 
 "I have just been making the will of a great person who 
 has not a week to live," said he, with the most natural air 
 in the world, "but they have treated me like a village doctor 
 sent a carriage to fetch me, and let me go home afoot." 
 
 A slight cloud of suspicion which had darkened the per- 
 fumer's brows cleared away at these words; but Roguin had 
 noticed it, and took good care not to be the first to speak 
 about the building land, for he meant to give his victim the 
 finishing stroke. 
 
 "After a will come marriage-contracts," said Birotteau; 
 "such is life. Ah ! by the by, Roguin, old fellow, when do 
 we make a match of it with the Madeleine, eh ?" and he tapped 
 the other on the chest. Among men, the best-conducted 
 bourgeois will try to appear a bit of a rogue with the wo- 
 men. 
 
 "Well, i*t is to-day or never," returned the notary with a 
 diplomatic look. "We are afraid that the affair will get 
 noised abroad; already two of my richest clients want to go 
 into the speculation, and are very keen about it. So you
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIKOTTEAU 67 
 
 can take it or leave it. After twelve o'clock this morning 
 1 shall draw up the deeds, and until one o'clock it is open to 
 you to join us if you choose. Good-bye. Xandrot made a rough 
 draft of the documents for me last night, and I am about 
 to read them through this very minute." 
 
 "All right, the thing is settled, you have my word," cried 
 Birotteau, hurrying after the notary, and striking hands upon 
 it. "Take the hundred thousand francs that were to have 
 been my daughter's portion." 
 
 "Good," said Eoguin, as he walked away. 
 
 In the brief interval as Birotteau returned to young 
 Popinot he felt a sensation of feverish heat run through 
 him, his diaphragm contracted, sounds rang in his ears. 
 
 "What is the matter, sir?" asked the assistant, looking at 
 his employer's pale face. 
 
 "Ah, my boy, I have just concluded a big piece of business 
 with a single word. No one in such a position can help feel- 
 ing some emotion. You know all about it, however; and be- 
 sides, I brought you here so that we could talk comfortably 
 where no one will listen to us. Your aunt is pinched; what 
 did she lose her money in? Tell me about it." 
 
 "My uncle and aunt put their capital into M. Nucingen's 
 bank, and were obliged to take over shares in the Worstchin 
 mines in settlement of their claims; no dividends have been 
 paid on them as yet, and at their time of life it is difficult 
 to live on hope." 
 
 "Then how do they live ?" 
 
 "They have been so good as to accept my salary." 
 
 "Good, Anselme, good," said the perfumer, looking up 
 with a tear in his eyes; "you are worthy of the attachment I 
 feel for you. And you shall be well rewarded for your ap- 
 plication in my service." 
 
 As he spoke, the merchant grew greater in his own es- 
 timation as well as in Popinot's eyes; a sense of his ad- 
 ventitious superiority was artlessly revealed in his homely 
 and paternal way of speaking. 
 
 "What ! Can you have guessed my passion for ?"
 
 68 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "For whom ?" asked the perfumer. 
 
 "For Mademoiselle Cesarine." 
 
 "Boy !" cried Birotteau, "you are very bold. But keep 
 your secret carefully; I promise to forget it, and you shall 
 go out of the house to-morrow. I don't blame you; the 
 devil no ! In your place I should have done just the same. 
 She is so pretty." 
 
 "Ah, sir !" cried the assistant, in such a perspiration that 
 his shirt felt damp. 
 
 "This cannot be settled in a day, my boy. C6sarine is 
 her own mistress, and her mother has her ideas. So keep 
 yourself to yourself, wipe your eyes, hold your heart well in 
 hand, and we will say no more about it. I should not blush 
 to have you for a son-in-law. As the nephew of M. Popinot, 
 judge of a Tribunal of First Instance, and as the Eagons' 
 nephew, you have as good a right to make your way as an- 
 other, but there are ifs and huts and ands! What a devil of 
 a notion you have sprung upon me in the middle of a talk 
 about business ! There, sit you down on that bench, and 
 business first and love affairs after. Now, Popinot, is there 
 mettle in you ?" said Birotteau, looking at his assistant. "Do 
 you feel that you have courage enough to wrestle with those 
 that are stronger than you ? for a hand-to-hand fight, eh ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "To keep up a long and dangerous combat ? - " 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 drive Macassar Oil from the field!" cried Birotteau, 
 drawing himself up like one of Plutarch's heroes. "We must 
 not undervalue the enemy ; he is strong, well intrenched, 
 and formidable. Macassar Oil has been well pushed. It is 
 a clever idea, and the shape of the bottles is out of the com- 
 mon. I had thoughts of a triangular bottle for this plan of 
 mine, but after mature reflection, I am inclined for little 
 blown glass flasks covered with wicker work ; they would look 
 mysterious, and the public like anything that tickles their 
 curiosity." 
 
 "It would cost a good deal," said Popinot. "Everything
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 69 
 
 light to be on the cheapest possible footing, so as to allow 
 a heavy discount to the trade." 
 
 "Eight, my boy; those are sound principles of business. 
 Bear in mind that Macassar Oil will show fight! 'Tis a 
 specious thing; the name is attractive. It is put before the 
 public as a foreign importation, and we, unluckily, are in 
 our own country. Look . here, Popinot, do you feel strong 
 enough to do for Macassar? To begin with, you will oust 
 it from the export trade; it seems that Macassar really does 
 come from the Indies, so it is more natural to send French 
 goods to the Indians than to ship them back the stuff that 
 they are supposed to send to us. So there's the export trade 
 for you ! But it will have to be fought out abroad, and all 
 over the country; and Macassar Oil has been so well ad- 
 vertised, that it is no use blinking the fact that it has a 
 hold; it is pushed everywhere, and the public are familiar 
 with it." 
 
 "I will do for it !" cried Popinot, with eyes on fire. 
 
 "And how?" returned Birotteau. "It is like the im- 
 petuosity of these young people ! Just hear me out." 
 
 Anselme looked like a soldier presenting arms to a Marshal 
 of France. 
 
 "I have invented an oil, Popinot, an oil which invigorates 
 the scalp, stimulates the growth of the hair, and preserves 
 its color an oil for both sexes. The essence should have no 
 less success than the Pate and the Lotion, but I do not want to 
 exploit the secret by myself; I am thinking of retiring from 
 business. I want you, my boy, to bring out the Comagen 
 from the Latin word coma, which means hair (so M. 
 Alibert, physician to the King, told me). In Berenice, 
 Eacine's tragedy too, there is a king of Comagenej a lover of 
 the beautiful queen who was so famous for her hair ; no doubt 
 it was out of compliment to her that he called his kingdom 
 Comagene. How clever these great men of genius are ! they 
 descend to the smallest details." 
 
 Little Popinot listened to these incongruities, evidently 
 meant for his benefit, who had had some education, and yet 
 
 kept his countenance. 
 6
 
 70 RISE ASTD FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Anselme," continued Birotteau, "I have cast my eyes on 
 you as the founder of a wholesale druggist's business in the 
 Rue des Lombards. I will be a sleeping-partner, and find 
 you the capital to start it with. When we have begun with 
 the Comagen, we will try essence of vanilla and essence of 
 peppermint. In short, by degrees we will go into the drug 
 trade and revolutionize it, by selling articles in a concentrated 
 form instead of the raw products. Are you satisfied, am- 
 bitious young man?" 
 
 Anselme was so overcome that he could not reply, but his 
 tear-filled eyes made answer for him. It seemed to him that 
 this offer was the outcome of a fatherly indulgence which 
 said, "Deserve Cesarine by earning wealth and respect." 
 
 "I too will succeed, sir," he said at last, taking Birotteau's 
 emotion for astonishment. 
 
 "Just what I was at your age," cried the perfumer ; "those 
 were just the very words I used ! Whether you have my 
 daughter or no, at any rate you will have a fortune. Well, 
 my boy, what has come to you?" 
 
 "Let me hope that by gaining the one I may win the 
 other." 
 
 "I do not forbid you to hope, my dear fellow," said Birot- 
 teau, touched by Anselme's tone. 
 
 "Very well, sir; may I begin to look out at once for a 
 shop, so as to begin as soon as possible?" 
 
 "Yes, my boy. To-morrow we will shut ourselves up in 
 the factory. You might look in at Livingston's on your way 
 to the Rue des Lombards, and see if my hydraulic press will 
 be in working order by to-morrow. To-night, at dinner-time, 
 we will go to see that great man, kind M. Vauquelin, and 
 ask him about this. He has been investigating the composi- 
 tion of hair quite lately, trying to find out its coloring mat- 
 ter, and where it comes from, and what hair is made of. It 
 all lies in that, Popinot. You shall know my secret, and all 
 that remains to do is to exploit it intelligently. Look in 
 at Fieri Berard's before you go round to Livingston. My 
 boy, M. Vauquelin's disinterestedness is one of the great
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 71 
 
 troubles of my life. You cannot get him to accept anything. 
 Luckily, I found out from Chiffreville that he wanted a Ma- 
 donna at Dresden, engraved by one Miiller, and after two 
 years of inquiry for it in Germany, Berard has found a copy 
 at last a proof before letters on India paper; it cost fifteen 
 hundred francs, my boy. And now to-day our benefactor 
 shall see it in the ante-chamber when he comes to the door 
 with us; framed, of course, you will make sure of that. So 
 in that way we shall recall ourselves to his memory, my wife 
 and I ; for as to gratitude, we have put his name in our pray- 
 ers every day these sixteen years. For my part, I shall never 
 forget him; but, you know, Popinot, these men of science are 
 so deep in their work, that they forget everything, wife and 
 children, and those they have done a good turn to. As for 
 the like of us, our little intelligence permits us to have warm 
 hearts at any rate. That is some comfort for not being a great 
 man. These gentlemen at the Institute are all brain, as you 
 will see ; you will never come across one of them in a church. 
 There is M. Yauquelin, always in his study when he isn't in 
 his laboratory ; I like to believe though that he thinks of God 
 while he analyzes His works. This is the understanding: 
 I am to find the capital, I will put you in possession of my 
 secret, and we will divide the profits equally, so there will be 
 no need to draw up a deed. Good success to us both ! We 
 will tune our pipes. Off with you, my boy ; I have affairs of 
 my own to see after. One moment, Popinot ; in three weeks' 
 time I am going to give a grand ball, have a suit of clothes 
 made, and come to it like a merchant already in a good way 
 of business " 
 
 This last piece of kindness touched Popinot so much that 
 he grasped Cesar's large hand in his and kissed it. The good 
 man's confidence had nattered the lover, and a man in love 
 is capable of anything. 
 
 "Poor fellow !" said Birotteau, as he watched his assistant 
 hurrying across the gardens of the Tuileries, "if Cesarine 
 only cared about him ! But he limps, his hair is the color of 
 a basin, and girls are such queer things ! I can scarcely be-
 
 72 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 lieve that Cesarine . . . And then her mother would like 
 to see her a notary's wife. Alexandre Crottat would make her 
 a rich woman ; money makes anything endurable, while there 
 is no happiness that will stand the test of poverty. After 
 all, I have made up my mind that my girl shall be mistress 
 of herself, so that she stops short of folly." 
 
 Birotteau's next-door neighbor, Cayron by name, was a 
 dealer in umbrellas, sunshades, and walking sticks. He came 
 from Languedoc, his- business was not doing well, and Cesar 
 had helped him several times. Cayron asked nothing .better 
 than to contract his limits, and to effect a proportionate sav- 
 ing in house rent by giving up two first-floor rooms to the 
 wealthy perfumer. 
 
 "Well, neighbor/' said Birotteau familiarly as he entered 
 the umbrella shop, "my wife consents to the enlargement of 
 our place. If you like, we will go round and see M. Moli- 
 neux at eleven o'clock." 
 
 "My dear M. Birotteau," returned he of the umbrella shop, 
 U I have never asked anything for the concession on my part, 
 but you know that a good man of business ought to turn every- 
 thing to money." 
 
 "The deuce !" cried the perfumer ; "I have no money to 
 throw away, and I am waiting to know if my architect thinks 
 the thing feasible. 'Before you settle anything,' so he said, 
 'we nmst know whether the floors are on a level ; and then we 
 must have M. Molineux's leave to make an opening in the 
 wall, and is it a party wall ?' And after that I shall have to 
 turn the staircase in my house, so as to alter the landing and 
 have the whole place level from end to end. There will be a 
 lot of expense, and I don't want to ruin myself." 
 
 "Ah, sir," cried the Languedocien, "when you are ruined, 
 heaven and earth will come together and have a family." 
 
 Birotteau stroked his chin, raised himself on tiptoe, and 
 came down again. 
 
 "Besides," Cayron went on, "I only ask you to take this 
 
 paper of me " and he held out a little statement for five 
 
 thousand francs and sixteen bills.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 73 
 
 "Ah !" said the perfumer, turning them over, "all for small 
 amounts, at two months and three months " 
 
 "Take them of me, and don't charge me more than six per 
 cent," pleaded the umbrella dealer humbly. 
 
 "Am I a Jew?" asked the perfumer reproachfully. 
 
 "Goodness, sir, I took them to du Tillet that used to be 
 your assistant, and he would not have them at any price; 
 he wanted to know how much I would consent to lose, no 
 doubt." 
 
 "I know none of these signatures," said the perfumer. 
 
 "Well, we have funny names in the cane and umbrella 
 trade ; they are hawkers." 
 
 "Well, well; I do not say that I will take the lot, but I 
 might manage to take all at the shortest dates." 
 
 "Don't leave me to run after those horse-leeches that drain 
 us of the best part of the profits, for a thousand francs at 
 four months ; take the lot, sir ! I do so little discounting, 
 that no one gives me credit; that is the death of us poor re- 
 tailers in a small way." 
 
 "Well, well, I will take your little bills. Celestin shall 
 settle it with you. Be ready at eleven. Here comes my archi- 
 tect, M. Grindot," added the perfumer, as he saw the young 
 man whom he had met by appointment at M. de la Billar- 
 diere's house on the previous evening. "Unlike most men of 
 talent, you are punctual, sir," said Cesar, in his most genteel 
 manner. 
 
 "If punctuality in the phrase of a king who was a clever 
 man as well as a great statesman is the courtesy of kings, 
 it is no less the fortune of architects. Time time is money ; 
 most of all for you artists. Architecture combines all the 
 other arts, I permit myself to say. We will not go through 
 the shop," he added, as he showed the way to the sham car- 
 riage entrance. 
 
 Four years ago M. Grindot had taken the Grand Prix d' 
 Architecture; and now, he had just returned from a three 
 years' sojourn in Eome at the expense of the State. While 
 he was in Italy the young artist had thought of his art; in
 
 74 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Paris he turned his attention to money-making. Govern- 
 ments alone can give the necessary millions to erect public 
 buildings and monuments to an architect's enduring fame; 
 and it is so natural, when fresh from Home, to take one's self 
 for a Fontaine or a Percier, that every ambitious young archi- 
 tect has a leaning towards Ministerialism ; so the subsidized 
 Liberal, metamorphosed into a Koyalist, sought to find pa- 
 trons in power ; and when a Grand Prix conducts himself after 
 this fashion, his comrades call him a sycophant. 
 
 Two courses lay open to the youthful architect he might 
 serve the perfumer or make as much as he could out of him. 
 But Birotteau the deputy-mayor; Birotteau, the future pos- 
 sessor of half that building estate near the Madeleine, where 
 a quarter full of handsome houses was sure to be built sooner 
 or later, was a man worth humoring, so Grindot sacrificed 
 present gain to future opportunities. Patiently he listened 
 to the plans, ideas, and vain repetitions of this shopkeeping 
 Philistine, the artist's butt and laughing-stock, and the par- 
 ticular object of his scorn, and followed the perfumer about 
 his house, bowing respectfully to his ideas. When Birotteau 
 had said all that he had to say, the young architect tried to 
 give a summary of his own views. 
 
 "You have three windows looking out upon the street in 
 your own house," he said, "as well as the window that is 
 wasted on the stairs and required for the landing. To these 
 four windows you add two^on the same floor in the next house, 
 by turning the staircase so that you can walk on level from 
 one end to the other on the side nearest the street." 
 
 "You have understood me exactly," said the amazed per- 
 fumer. 
 
 "To carry out your plan, we shall have to light the new 
 staircase from above, and contrive a porter's lodge in the 
 plinth." 
 
 "Plinth?" 
 
 "Yes ; the part of the wall under the " 
 
 "I see, sir." 
 
 "As to your rooms, and their arrangement, and decoration,
 
 RISE AND PALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 75 
 
 give me carte-blanche. I should like to make them 
 worthy " 
 
 "Worthy ! You have said the very word, sir." 
 
 "How long can you give me to carry out this scheme of 
 decoration ?" 
 
 "Twenty days." 
 
 "What are you prepared to put down for the workmen?" 
 
 "Well, what are the repairs likely to mount up to ?" 
 
 "An architect can estimate the cost of a new building al- 
 most to a centime," said the other; "but as I have not under- 
 taken a bourgeois job as yet (pardon me, sir, the word slipped 
 out), I ought to tell you beforehand that it is impossible for 
 me to give estimates for alterations and repairs. In a week's 
 time I might be able to make a rough guess. Put your confi- 
 dence in me; you shall have a charming staircase lighted 
 from above, and a pretty vestibule, and in the plinth 
 
 "The plinth again !" ' 
 
 "Do not be anxious. I will find room for a little porter's 
 lodge. The alteration and decoration of your rooms will be 
 a labor of love. Yes, sir, I am thinking of art and not of 
 making money. Above all things, if I am to succeed, I must 
 be talked about, must I not ? So, in my opinion, the best way 
 is not to haggle with tradesmen, but to obtain a good effect 
 cheaply." 
 
 "With such ideas, young man," Birotteau said patroniz- 
 ingly, "you will succeed." 
 
 "So you will yourself arrange with the bricklayers, painters, 
 locksmiths, carpenters, and cabinet-makers; and I, for my 
 part, undertake to check their accounts. You will simply 
 agree to pay me a fee of two thousand francs ; it will be money 
 well laid out. Put the whole place into my hands by twelve 
 o'clock to-morrow, and tell me whom you mean to employ." 
 
 "What is it likely to cost at first sight ?" asked Birotteau. 
 
 "Ten to twelve thousand francs," said Grindot, "without 
 counting the furniture ; for, of course, you will refurnish the 
 rooms. Will you give me the address of your carpet manu- 
 facturer? I ought to come to an understanding with him 
 about the colors, so as to have a harmonious unity."
 
 76 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "M. Braschon in the Rue Saint-Antoine has my order," 
 said the perfumer, assuming a ducal air. 
 
 The architect made a note of the address on one of those 
 little tablets which are unmistakably a pretty woman's gift. 
 
 "Well," said Birotteau, "I leave it all to you, sir. Still, 
 wait until I have arranged to take over the lease of the two 
 rooms next door, and obtained permission to make an opening 
 through the wall." 
 
 "Send me a note this evening," said the architect. "I must 
 spend the night in drawing plans. We architects would rather 
 work for a city merchant than for the King of Prussia, that 
 is to say, as far as our own taste is concerned. In any case, 
 I will set about taking measurements, the height of the rooms, 
 the dimensions of the door and window embrasures, and the 
 size of the windows." 
 
 "It must be finished by the date I have given, or it is no 
 good." 
 
 "It certainly must," returned the architect. "The men 
 shall work day and night, and we will employ processes for 
 drying the paint; but do not let the builders swindle you, 
 make them quote beforehand, and have the agreement in 
 writing." 
 
 "Paris is the only place in the world where one can make 
 such strokes of the wand," said Birotteau, indulging in a 
 flourish worthy of some Asiatic potentate in the Arabian 
 Nights. "Do me the honor of coming to my ball, sir. All 
 men of talent do not feel the contempt for trade which some 
 heap upon it; and I expect you will meet one scientific man 
 of the highest rank M. Vauquelin of the Institute ! besides 
 M. de la Billardiere, M. le Comte de Fontaine, M. Lebas a 
 judge, and President of the Tribunal of Commerce; and sev- 
 eral magistrates, M. le Comte de Granville of the Court 
 Royal, and M. Popinot of the Court of First Instance, M. 
 Camusot of the Tribunal of Commerce, and his father-in-law 
 M. Cardot. . . . Perhaps, oven M. le Due de Lenon- 
 court, first Gentleman of the Bedchamber. It is a gathering 
 of my friends, quite as much in honor of er the liberation
 
 EISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 77 
 
 of the soil as to celebrate my promotion to the Order of 
 the Legion of Honor." 
 
 Grindot's gesture was peculiar. 
 
 "Possibly I have deserved this signal mark of royal 
 favor by the discharge of my functions at the Consular 
 Tribunal, and by fighting for the Bourbons on the steps of 
 Saint-Koch's Church on the 13th Vendemiaire, when I was 
 wounded by Napoleon. These claims to " 
 
 Constance, in morning dress, came out of Cesarine's bed- 
 room, where she had been dressing; her first glance stopped 
 her husband's fervid eloquence ; he cast about for some every- 
 day phrase which should modestly convey the tidings of the 
 glory awaiting him on the morrow. 
 
 "Here, mimi, this is M. de Grindot, a distinguished young 
 man of great talent. This gentleman is the architect whom 
 M. de la Billardiere recommended; he will superintend our 
 little alterations here." 
 
 The perfumer placed himself so -that his wife could not 
 see him, and put his finger on his lips as he uttered the word 
 little. The architect understood. 
 
 "Constance, this gentleman will take the dimensions of the 
 rooms. Let him do it, dear," said Birotteau, and he whisked 
 out into the street. 
 
 "Will it cost a great deal?" Constance asked the architect. 
 
 "No, madame ; six thousand francs, roughly speaking " 
 
 "Koughly speaking!" cried Mme. Birotteau. "Sir, I beg 
 of you not to begin without an estimate, and to do nothing 
 until a contract has been signed. I know the way of those 
 gentlemen the builders six thousand means twenty thou- 
 sand. We are not in a position to squander money. I beg of 
 you, sir, although my husband is certainly master in his own 
 house, to leave him time to think this over." 
 
 "Monsieur told me, madame, that he must have the rooms 
 finished in twenty days; if we make a delay, you may incur 
 the expense without obtaining the result." 
 
 "There is expense and expense/' said the fair mistress of 
 the Queen of Roses.
 
 78 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Eh ! madame ; is it so very glorious, do you think, for an 
 architect who would like to erect public monuments to super- 
 intend alterations in a private house? I only undertook the 
 little commission to oblige M. de la Billardiere, and if you are 
 alarmed ' 
 
 He made as if he would withdraw. 
 
 "Well, well, sir," said Constance, going back to her room. 
 Once there she hid her head on her daughter's shoulder. 
 "My child," she cried, "your father is ruining himself ! He 
 has engaged an architect who wears moustaches and a royale 
 on his chin, and talks about erecting public monuments ! He 
 will fling the house out of the windows to build us a Louvre. 
 Cesar is always in a hurry when there is anything crazy to be 
 done; he only told me about the plan last night, and he is 
 setting about it this morning." 
 
 "Bah! mamma, never mind papa; Providence has always 
 taken care of you," said Cesarine, putting her arms about her 
 mother. Then she went to the piano, to show the architect 
 that a perfumer's daughter was no stranger to the fine arts. 
 
 When the architect came into the room, he was surprised by 
 Cesarine's beauty, and stood almost dumfounded. For the 
 artist saw before him Cesarine just come from her little room, 
 in her loose morning-gown, fresh and blooming with the fresh- 
 ness and the bloom of eighteen years, blue-eyed, r.nd slender, 
 and fair-haired. Youth gave the elasticity (so rare in Paris) 
 which lends firmness to the most delicate tissues ; youth tinted 
 the blue network of veins throbbing beneath the transparent 
 skin with the color adored by painters. For though she lived 
 in the relaxing atmosphere of a Parisian shop, where the fresh 
 air can scarcely penetrate, and the sunlight seldom comes, 
 the outdoor life of Roman Trasteverine could not have been 
 a more successful beautifier than Cesarine's manner of living. 
 Her thick hair grew erect like her father's, and being dressed 
 high, afforded a view of a well-set neck among a shower of 
 curls the elaborate coiffure of the damsels of the counter, 
 in whom a desire to shine inspires a more than English atten- 
 tion to trifling details in matters of the toilette.
 
 RISE AND FALL, OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 79 
 
 Cesarine's beauty was neither that of an English court 
 lady nor of a French duchess, but the plump and auburn- 
 haired comeliness of Rubens' Flemish women. She had inher- 
 ited her father's turned-up nose, but its delicacy of outline 
 gave a sprightly charm to a face, of the essentially French type 
 so well rendered by Largilliere. The rich silken tissue of the 
 skin indicated the abundant vitality of girlhood. Her moth- 
 er's broad brow was lighted by a girlish serenity, untroubled 
 by care, and there was a tender grace in the expression of the 
 blue liquid eyes of the happy-hearted, fair-haired maid. If 
 happiness had taken from her face the romantic interest 
 which painters inevitably give to their compositions by an 
 expression somewhat too pensive, the vague, wistful instincts 
 of the young girl who has never left her mother's wing made 
 an approach to this ideal. With all her apparent slenderness, 
 she was strongly made. Her feet indicated her father's peas- 
 ant origin, a racial defect, like the redness of her hands the 
 sign-manual of a purely bourgeois descent. Sooner or later 
 she was sure to grow stout. Occasionally young and fashion- 
 able women had come within her ken ; and in course of time 
 she had acquired from them the instinct of dress, certain ways 
 of carrying her head, and manners of speaking and moving, 
 thus copied, which turned the heads of the assistants and 
 other young men; in their eyes she seemed to have a distin- 
 guished air. 
 
 Popinot had vowed to himself that no woman but Cesarine 
 should be his wife. This mobile blonde, whom a glance 
 seemed to read, who seemed ready to melt into tears at a 
 harsh word, was the one woman in whose presence he could 
 feel conscious of masculine superiority. The charming girl 
 inspired love, without leaving time to consider whether or no 
 she had sufficient esprit to ensure that the love should be last- 
 ing ; but what need is there for what we in Paris call esprit, in 
 a class where the essential elements of happiness are good 
 sense and virtue? 
 
 In character, Cesarine was a second edition of her mother, 
 slightly improved by an education which had taught her
 
 80 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 superfluous accomplishments. She was fond of music, and 
 had made a crayon drawing of the Madonna of the Chair; 
 she perused the works of Mesdames Cottin and Riccoboni, 
 and the writings of Fenelon, Racine, and Bernardin de Saint- 
 Pierre. She never appeared at her mother's side at the cash- 
 desk save for a few moments before dinner, or when, on rare 
 occasions, she took her place. Her father and mother, like 
 all self-made people, who hasten to plant the seeds of ingrati- 
 tude in their children by putting the younger generation on 
 a higher level, delighted to make an idol of Cesarine, who, 
 happily, possessed the good qualities of her class, and did not 
 take advantage of their weakness. 
 
 Mme. Birotteau followed the architect's movements with 
 earnest, anxious eyes ; looking on in consternation, calling her 
 daughter's attention to the strange gyrations of the footrule, 
 as Grindot took his measurements after the manner of archi- 
 tects and builders. For her, each one of those strokes of the 
 wand seemed to lay the place under an evil enchantment, and 
 boded ill to the house; she would fain have had the walls less 
 lofty and the rooms smaller, and dared not put any questions 
 to the young man as to the results of this sorcery. 
 
 "Be easy, madame," he said, with a smile; "I shall not carry 
 anything away." 
 
 Cesarine could not help laughing. 
 
 "Sir," pleaded Constance, who did not so much as notice 
 the architect's quip, "aim at economy; some day we may be 
 able to make you a return " 
 
 Before Cesar went to M. Molineux, the landlord of the 
 next house, he asked Roguin for the transfer of the lease 
 which Alexandra Crottat was to have drawn up. As he came 
 away from the notary's house, he saw du Tillet at Roguin's 
 study window. Although the liaison between his sometime 
 assistant and Mme. Roguin was a sufficient explanation of du 
 Tillet's presence in the house at a time when the negotiations 
 for the building land wore impending, Birotteau, trustful 
 though he was, felt uncomfortable. Du Tillet's animated 
 face suggested that a discussion was going on.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 81 
 
 "Suppose that he should be in the business ?" he asked him- 
 self, in an access of his commercial prudence. 
 
 The suspicion flashed like lightning across his mind. He 
 turned again and saw Mme. Roguin at the window; and then 
 the banker's presence no longer looked so suspicious. 
 
 "Still, how if Constance was right?" he asked himself. 
 "How stupid I am to pay any attention to a woman's notions ! 
 However, I will talk it over this morning with our uncle. 
 It is only a step from the Cour Batave, where M. Molineux 
 lives, to the Rue des Bourdonnais." 
 
 A suspicious onlooker, a man of business with some experi- 
 ence of rogues, would have been warned; but Birotteau's 
 previous career, together with his lack of mental grasp (for he 
 was but little fitted for retracing a chain of inductions, a 
 process by which an able man arrives at a cause), all led to his 
 ruin. He found the umbrella dealer dressed in his best, and 
 was starting away with him to the landlord, when Virginie, 
 the servant, caught her master by the arm. 
 
 "The mistress hopes you will not go out again, sir 
 
 "Come I" cried Birotteau ; "some more women's notions !" 
 
 "Without taking your cup of coffee. It is ready for you." 
 
 "Oh ! all right. I have so many things in my head, neigh- 
 bor," said Birotteau, turning to Cayron, "that I do not listen 
 to my stomach. Be so good as to walk on ; we shall meet each 
 other at M. Molineux's door, unless you go up and explain the 
 matter to him first. We should save time that way." 
 
 M. Molineux was an eccentric person of independent means, 
 a specimen of a kind of humanity which you will no more find 
 out of Paris than you will find Iceland moss growing any- 
 where out of Iceland. The comparison is but so much the 
 more apt, for that the man in question belonged to that doubt- 
 ful borderland between the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
 which awaits the Mercier, who shall classify the various 
 cryptogamia which strike root, thrive, or die among the plaster 
 walls of the strange unwholesome old houses affected by the 
 species. 
 
 This particular human plant was an umbellifer, to judge
 
 8? RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 by the blue tubular cap which crowned a stem sheathed in a 
 pair of greenish-colored breeches, and terminated by bulbous 
 roots enveloped in list slippers. At first sight the plant 
 seeins harmless and colorless enough; there is certainly noth- 
 ing to suggest poison in its appearance. In this strange frea"K 
 of nature you would have recognized the typical shareholder, 
 who believes in all the news which the daily press baptizes 
 with printer's ink, whose "Look at the paper" is a final ap- 
 peal to authority; this (you would have thought) was the 
 bourgeois, essentially a lover of order, always (in theory) in 
 rebellion against the powers that be, to whom in practice 
 he punctually yields obedience; a ferocious creature, take 
 him singly, who grows tame in a crowd of his like. The 
 man who is obdurate as a bailiff where his dues are concerned, 
 gives fresh groundsel to his birds, and saves the fish-bones 
 for the cat; he looks up in the middle of making out a receipt 
 to whistle to the canary ; he is suspicious as a turnkey, but will 
 hurry to invest his money in some doubtful undertaking, 
 and then try to recover his losses by the most sordid mean- 
 ness. The noxious qualities of this hybrid growth are only 
 discovered by use; its nauseous bitterness requires the coction 
 of some piece of business wherein its interests are mingled 
 with those of men. 
 
 Like all Parisians, Molineux felt a need to make his power 
 felt. He craved that particular privilege of a sovereignty 
 more or less exercised by every creature, down to the very 
 porter, over a larger or smaller number of victims a woman, 
 a child, a clerk, or lodger, a horse, a dog, or monkey that 
 part of domination which consists in handing on to another 
 the mortifications received by an aspirant to higher spheres. 
 The tiresome little old person in question, having neither 
 wife, nor child, nor niece, nor nephew, treated his charwoman 
 so harshly that she gave him no opportunity of venting his 
 spleen upon her, and avoided all collision with him by a 
 rigorous discharge of her duties. 
 
 So his appetite for domestic tyranny being thus balked, 
 he was fain to find other ways of satisfying it. B-5 had made
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 83 
 
 a patient study of the 'law of landlord and tenant, and of 
 the legal aspects of the party-wall ; he had fathomed the mys- 
 teries of jurisprudence with regard to house-property in Paris, 
 and was learned in its infinitely minute intricacies with re- 
 gard to boundaries and abutments, easements, rates, charges, 
 regulations for the cleansing of the street, hangings for Fete- 
 Dieu processions, waste-pipes, lights, projections over the 
 public way, and the near proximity of insanitary dwellings. 
 All his mental and physical energies, all his intelligence was 
 devoted to maintaining his authority as a landlord with a 
 high hand; he had made a hobby of his occupation, and the 
 hobby was becoming a mania. 
 
 He loved to protect citizens against encroachments on their 
 rights, but opportunities occurred so seldom that his thwarted 
 passion expended itself upon his tenants. A tenant became 
 his enemy, his inferior, his subject, his vassal. He felt that 
 their homage was a due, and regarded those who passed him 
 without a salutation on the stairs as boors. He made out 
 his receipts himself, and sent them at noon on the quarter 
 day; and those who were behindhand received a summons by 
 a certain hour. Then followed a distraint and costs, and all 
 the cavalry of the law came into the field with the celerity 
 of "the machine," as the headsman calls his instrument of 
 execution. Molineux gave no grace and no delay; his heart 
 was indurated on the side of rents. 
 
 "I will lend you the money if you want it," he would say 
 to a solvent tenant, "but pay me my rent; any getting be- 
 hindhand with the rent means a loss of interest for which the 
 law provides no remedy." 
 
 After a prolonged study of the skittish humors of suc- 
 cessive tenants who conformed to no standard and, like suc- 
 cessive dynasties, nor more nor less, invariably overturned the 
 institutions of their predecessors, Molineux had promulgated 
 a charter, which he observed religiously. By virtue of it, 
 the good man never did any repairs; none of his chimneys 
 smoked, his staircases were always in order, his ceilings white, 
 his cornices above reproach, his floors held securely to the
 
 84 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAtJ 
 
 joists, and there was no fault to find with the paint. All the 
 locks had been put in within the last three years, every window 
 pane was whole, and as for cracks in the walls, they did not 
 exist; he could see no broken tiles in the floors till the 
 tenants were leaving the house. He usually appeared upon 
 the scene to receive the incoming tenants with a locksmith and 
 a painter and glazier, very handy fellows, he said. The 
 tenant was doubtless at liberty to make improvements ; but if 
 the thriftless creature redecorated his rooms, old Molineux 
 set his wits to work, and pondered night and day how to dis- 
 lodge him and let the newly papered and painted abode to 
 another comer. He set his snares, bided his time, and began 
 the whole series of his unhallowed devices. There was no 
 subtlety in the regulations of Paris with regard to leases that 
 he did not know. He indited polite and amiable communica- 
 tions to his victims; but beneath the manner, as beneath the 
 harmless and obliging expression of the pettifogging scribbler 
 himself, lurked the spirit of a Shylock. 
 
 He must always be paid six months in advance, to be de- 
 ducted from the last half-year's rent, subject to a host of 
 thorny conditions of his own invention. He assured him- 
 self thai' the value of the tenant's furniture, was sufficient 
 to cover \}ie rent, and reconnoitered every new tenant like a 
 detective when he came in. There were some occupations 
 which he olid not like, and the least sound of a hammer 
 frightened him. When the time came for handing over a 
 lease, he kept it back for a week, conning it over for fear it 
 should contain what he denominated notary's et ceteras. 
 
 Apart from his character of landlord, Jean-Baptiste 
 Molineux was apparently good-natured and obliging. He 
 could play a game of boston without complaining of being 
 badly seconded by his partner; his stock subjects for conver- 
 sation were of tho ordinary bourgeois kind, and he found 
 the same things laughable the arbitrary acts of bakers 
 (the rascals), who give short weights, which are winked at 
 by the police, the herok seventeen deputies of the Left. He 
 read the Cure Meslier'b Bon Sens, yet went to mass, halting
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 85 
 
 between Deism and Christianity; but he subscribed nothing 
 for sacramental bread, under the plea that you must resist the 
 encroachments of the priesthood. The indefatigable redresser 
 of grievances would write to this effect to the newspapers, 
 though the newspapers neither inserted his letters nor re- 
 plied to them. Molineux was, in short, in many respects 
 the ordinary estimable citizen who burns a yule log at Christ- 
 mas, draws for king on Twelfth Night, plays tricks on the 
 1st of April, makes the round of the boulevards when the 
 weather is fine, goes to watch the skating; and on days when 
 there are to be fireworks in the Place Louis XV., will take 
 his place there at two o'clock in the afternoon with a piece ol 
 bread in his pocket, so as to be "in the front row." 
 
 The Cour Batave, where the little old man lived, is a re- 
 sult of one of those freaks of the speculative builder which 
 cannot be explained after they have taken substantial form. 
 It is a cloister-like building with its freestone arcading, it* 
 covered galleries surrounding the court with a fountain 
 in the middle a thirsty fountain with its lion jaws agape, 
 not to supply, but to ask for water of every passer-by. Pos- 
 sibly it was intended for a sort of Palais-Royal to adorn the 
 Faubourg Saint-Denis. There is a little light and stir of 
 life during the day in the unwholesome pile shut in on all 
 four sides by tall houses; it lies in the centre of a labyrinth 
 of dank alleys, where the rheumatism lurks for the hurry- 
 ing foot-passenger, a maze of dark narrow passages which 
 converge here and connect the Quartier des Halles and the 
 Quartier Saint-Martin by the famous Eue Quincampoix; 
 but at night there is no spot in Paris more deserted, and 
 these little slums might be called the catacombs of commerce. 
 It is the sink of several industries; and if there are few 
 natives of Batavia proper, there are plenty of small trades- 
 men. 
 
 Naturally, all the suites of rooms in this merchant's palace 
 have but one outlook into the central courtyard and for 
 this and other reasons the rents asked are of the lowest. M< 
 
 Molineux inhabited one of the angles of the building. Con- 
 7
 
 86 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 siderations of health had prompted the choice of a sixth-floor 
 lodging; for fresh air was only to be had at a height of sev- 
 enty feet from the ground. From the leads, where the worthy 
 owner of house-property was wont to take exercise, he enjoyed 
 a charming view of the windmills of Montmartre. He grew 
 flowers up there too, in defiance of police regulations against 
 these hanging-gardens of the modern Babylon. His sixth 
 floor establishment consisted of four rooms, without counting 
 the water-closets on the floor above, a valuable property to 
 which his claim was incontestable; he had the key, he had 
 established them. On a, first entrance, an indecent bareness 
 at once revealed the miserly nature of the man. Half-a- 
 dozen straw-bottomed chairs stood in the lobby; there was a 
 glazed earthenware stove; and on the walls, covered with a 
 bottle-green paper, hung four prints bought at sales. la 
 the dining-room you beheld a couple of sideboards, two cages 
 full of birds, a table covered with oilcloth, a weather-glass, 
 mahogany chairs with horsehair cushions, and through a 
 French window a view of the aforesaid hanging-gardens. 
 Short, antiquated green silk curtains adorned the sitting- 
 room, and the white painted wooden furniture was uphol- 
 stered in green Utrecht velvet. As for the furniture of the 
 old bachelor's room, it was of the period of Louis XV. ; 
 disfigured by prolonged wear, and so dirty that a woman in 
 a white gown would have shrunk from contact with it. The 
 chimney-piece boasted a clock ; the dial, between two columns, 
 served as a pediment beneath a statuette of Pallas brandish- 
 ing a lance a fabulous personage of antiquity. The tiled 
 floor was so littered over with plates full of scraps for the 
 cats, that it was scarcely possible to move about without 
 setting a foot in one of them. Above the rosewood chest of 
 drawers hung a pastel Molineux in his youth. Add a few 
 books, tables covered with shabby green card-board boxes, a 
 case full of the stuffed forms of some departed canaries on 
 a console table, and, to complete the list, a bed so chilly-look- 
 ing that it might have been a rebuke to a Carmelite. 
 
 Cesar Birotteau was charmed with Molineux's exquisite
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 87 
 
 politeness. He found the latter in his gray flannel dressing- 
 gown, keeping an eye on the milk set on a little cast-iron 
 plate warmer, in a corner of the hearth, while he poured the 
 contents of a brown earthen pipkin, in which he had been 
 boiling coffee grounds, into his cafetiere by spoonfuls at a 
 time. The umbrella dealer had opened the door, lest his 
 landlord should be disturbed in this occupation; but Moli- 
 neux, holding mayors and deputy-mayors ("our municipal 
 officers," as he called them) in great veneration, rose at first 
 sight of the magistrate, and stood cap in hand until the great 
 Birotteau should be seated. 
 
 "No, sir ... Yes, sir ... Ah, sir, if I had 
 known that I was to have the honor of housing a member of 
 the municipal government of Paris amid my humble Penates, 
 pray believe that I should have made it my business to repair 
 to your house ; although I am your landlord, or on the point 
 of being " 
 
 Here Birotteau by a gesture entreated him to put on his 
 cap. 
 
 "I shall do nothing of the kind ; I shall remain bareheaded 
 until you are seated, and have put on your hat if you have 
 a cold. My room is rather chilly; my narrow means do not 
 permit God bless you, Mr. Deputy-mayor !" 
 
 Birotteau had sneezed while fumbling for his 'papers. He 
 held them out, not without remarking that to save any delay 
 he had had them made out at his own expense by M. Eoguin 
 his notary. 
 
 "I do not call M. Eoguin's knowledge in question; 'tis an 
 old name, well known in the Parisian notariat; but I have 
 my little ways of doing things, and I look after my affairs 
 myself, a hobby excusable enough; and my notary is 
 
 "But this is such a simple matter," said the perfumer, 
 accustomed to prompt decisions on the part of buyers and 
 sellers. 
 
 "Simple!" echoed Molineux "Nothing is simple where 
 house property is concerned. Ah ! you are not a landlord, 
 eir ; so much the happier you ! If you but knew the lengths
 
 88 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 to which a tenant will push ingratitude, and what precautions 
 we have to take ! Now just listen to this, sir : I have a ten- 
 ant " and for fifteen minutes Molineux held forth, rela- 
 ting how that JVI. Gendrin, a draughtsman, had eluded the 
 vigilance of the caretaker in the Rue Saint-Honore. M. 
 Gendrin had perpetrated scandals worthy of a Marat, obscene 
 drawings ! and the police tolerated it, nay, they were made 
 with the connivance of the police ! Then this Gendrin, an 
 artist of thoroughly immoral character, had gone back to the 
 house with loose women, and made it impossible to go up 
 and down the stairs, a prank worthy of a man who drew 
 caricatures to ridicule the Government. And why all these 
 misdeeds? . . . Because he was asked to pay his rent 
 on the 15th! Gendrin and Molineux were about to go to 
 lav; about it ; for while the artist did not pay, he insisted on 
 occupying the empty rooms. Molineux received anony- 
 mous letters from Gendrin no doubt threatening to mur- 
 der him some night in the alleys about the Cour Batave. 
 
 "Things have arrived at such a pitch, sir," he went on, 
 "that the Prefect of Police, to whom in confidence I related 
 my difficulty (at the same time, I took the opportunity of 
 saying a word or two touching the alterations that ought to 
 be made in the provisions of the law for such cases), gave me 
 an authorization to carry firearms in self-defence." 
 
 The little old man got up to look for his pistols. 
 
 "Here they are, sir !" cried he. 
 
 "But you have nothing of that kind to fear from me, sir," 
 said Birotteau, glancing at Cayron with a smile that plainly 
 expressed his pity for such a man. 
 
 Molineux caught the glance, and was shocked to see such 
 a look on the countenance of a "municipal officer," whose 
 duty it was to see to the safety of those in his district. He 
 could have forgiven it in anybody else, but in Birotteau it 
 was unpardonable. 
 
 "Sir," Molineux answered dryly, "one of the most highly 
 respected judges in the Consular Tribune, a deputy-mayor, 
 and an honorable merchant, would not condescend to such
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 89 
 
 baseness, for baseness it is ! But in this particular case you 
 want the consent of your landlord, M. le Comte de Granville, 
 before you make a hole in the wall, and stipulations must be 
 made in the agreement touching the restoration of the wall 
 on the expiration of the lease. As a matter of fact, too, the 
 rent is a great deal lower than it will be; rents will go up all 
 about the Place Vendome ; they are going up already ! The 
 Eue Castiglione is about to be built. I am binding myself 
 down I am binding myself " 
 
 "Let us have done with it/' said Birotteau. "What do 
 you want? I have had enough experience of business to 
 guess that your reasonings can be silenced by the great argu- 
 ment money ! Well, how much do you want ?" 
 
 "Nothing but what is fair, sir. How long has your lease 
 to run ?" 
 
 "Seven years," answered Birotteau. 
 
 "What may not my first floor be worth in seven years' 
 time?" cried Molineux. "What will two furnished rooms 
 let for over in your quarter ? More than two hundred francs 
 a month very likely ! I am binding myself ; binding myself 
 down by a lease. So we will set down the rent at fifteen hun- 
 dred francs. At that figure I will consent to receive you as 
 a tenant for the two rooms instead of M. Cayron here," 
 giving the dealer a sly wink, "and let you have them on lease 
 for seven consecutive years. The opening in the wall you 
 will make at your own charges, subject to your bringing to 
 me proof that M. le Comte de Granville sanctions it and 
 waives all his rights in the matter. Whatever happens in 
 consequence of the small opening, the responsibility will rest 
 upon you ; but you shall be in nowise bound to reinstate the 
 wall so far as I am concerned; you shall pay me down five 
 hundred francs now instead; we never can tell what may 
 happen ; and I don't want to run about after anybody to put 
 up my wall again for me." 
 
 "The conditions seem to me scarcely fair," put in Birot' 
 teau. 
 
 "Then you must pay me down seven hundred and fifty
 
 9u RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 francs hie et nunc, to be carried forward till the last six 
 months of possession; the lease will be a sufficient discharge. 
 Oh ! I will take bills of exchange for value received in rent, 
 at any date you please, so that I have my guarantee. I am 
 a plain-dealing man, and go straight to the point in business. 
 We will stipulate that you shall wall up the door on my stair- 
 case, where you have no right of way ... at your own 
 expense ... in brick and mortar. Eeassure yourself, 
 I shall not call upon you to make it good when the lease 
 expires; I shall regard the five hundred francs as an indem- 
 nity. You will always find me reasonable, sir." 
 
 "We in business are not so particular," said the perfumer; 
 "if we had all these formalities, we should do no business 
 at all." 
 
 "Oh, in business, that is quite another thing, especially 
 in the perfumery line, where everything slips off and on like 
 a glove," said the little old man, with a sour smile. "But 
 with house property in Paris, sir, you cannot be too particu- 
 lar. Why, I had a tenant in the Rue Montorgueil 
 
 "I should be very sorry to delay your breakfast, sir," said 
 Birotteau; "here are the deeds, set them right, all that you 
 ask me is agreed to; let us sign the documents to-morrow, 
 and give our promises by word of mouth to-day, for to-mor- 
 row my architect must be put in possession of the place." 
 
 Molineux looked again at the umbrella-dealer. "There is 
 part of the term expired, sir ; M. Cayron has no mind to pay 
 for it; we will add the amount to the little bills, so that the 
 agreement will run from January to January. That will 
 be more business-like." 
 
 "So be it," said Birotteau. 
 
 "There is the halfpenny in the shilling for the porter " 
 
 "Why, you are not allowing me to use the staircase and 
 the doorway; it is not right that " 
 
 "Oh ! but you are a tenant !" cried little Molineux in 
 peremptory tones, up in arms for the principle involved. 
 "You must pay door and window taxes and your share of the 
 rates. If once we clearly understand each other, sir, there
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 91 
 
 will be no difficulties hereafter. Is your business rapidly 
 increasing, sir ; are you doing well ?" 
 
 "Yes/' said Birotteau, "but that is not my reason. I am 
 inviting a few of my friends, partly to celebrate the evacua- 
 tion of the foreign troops, partly on the occasion of my own 
 promotion to the Legion of Honor " 
 
 "Aha!" cried Molineux, "a well-deserved .honor/' 
 
 "Yes," said Birotteau. "It may be that I have shown 
 myself not unworthy of this signal mark of royal favor by 
 acting in my capacity at the Consular Trib.unal, and by 
 fighting for the Bourbons on the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 
 13th of Vendemiaire, where I was wounded by Napoleon; 
 these claims " 
 
 "Equal those of our heroes in the late army. The ribbon is 
 red, because it has been dyed in blood shed for France/' 
 
 At these words, a quotation from the Const itutionnel, 
 Birotteau could not resist the impulse to invite little Moli- 
 neux, who grew quite incoherent in his thanks, and was 
 almost ready to forgive the slight which had been put upon 
 him. The old man went as far as the stairhead with his new 
 tenant, overwhelming him with civilities. 
 
 As soon as they were outside in the Cour Batave, Birotteau 
 looked at Cayron with an amused expression. 
 
 "I did not think that there was such a weak-minded crea- 
 ture in existence," he said ; "idiot" had been on the tip of his 
 tongue, but he suppressed it in time. 
 
 "Ah, sir!" said Cayron, "everybody is not as clever as 
 you are." 
 
 Birotteau might be excused for thinking himself a clever 
 man compared with Molineux; the umbrella-dealer's reply 
 drew a pleasant smile from him ; he took leave of his compan- 
 ion with a regal air. 
 
 "Here am I at the Market," he said to himself; "let us 
 arrange about the hazel-nuts." 
 
 After an hour spent in making inquiries, the market- 
 woman referred Birotteau to the Rue des Lombards., the 
 headquarters of the trade in nuts for confectionery, and
 
 92 KISE AND FALL OF CESAK BIROTTEAU 
 
 there his friends the Matifats informed him that the only 
 wholesale dealer in hazel-nuts was one Mine. Angelique 
 Madou, resident in the Rue Perrin-Gasselin ; and that this 
 was the one house in the trade for genuine Provengal filberts 
 and white Alpine hazel-nuts. 
 
 The Rue Perrin-Gasselin lies in a quadrangle bounded 
 by the Quay, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue de la Ferronnerie, 
 and the Rue de la Monnaie, a labyrinth of slums which are, 
 as it were, the entrails of Paris. Here countless numbers 
 of heterogeneous and nondescript industries are carried on ; 
 evil-smelling trades, and the manufacture of the daintiest 
 finery, herrings and lawn, silk and honey, butter and tulle, 
 jostle each other in its squalid precincts. Here are the head- 
 quarters of those multitudinous small trades which Paris no 
 more suspects in its midst than a man surmises the functions 
 performed by the pancreas in the human economy. In this 
 congested district, in which one Bidault of the Rue Grenetat 
 (otherwise known as Gigonnet the pawnbroker) played the 
 part of leech, the whole stock of goods sold in the Great 
 Market is kept. The ancient mews are warehouses where tons 
 of oil are stored; the old coach-houses hold thousands of 
 pairs of cotton stockings. 
 
 Mme. Madou, sometime a fish-wife, had gone into the 
 "dry-fruit line" some ten years before this present year of 
 grace, on her entrance into a partnership with the late owner 
 of the business, who had an old-established connection among 
 the ladies of the Great Market. Her beauty, of a vigorous 
 and provocative order, had disappeared in excessive stout- 
 ness. She lived on the ground floor of a yellow dilapidated 
 house, held together by iron cramps at every story. The 
 departed dealer in dry fruit had succeeded in ridding him- 
 self of competitors, and had secured a monopoly of the trade ; 
 so that in spite of some slight defects of education, his suc- 
 cessor could continue in the same groove, and came and went 
 in her warehouses, old out-buildings, stahles, and workshops, 
 where she waged war against insect life with some success. 
 
 Mme. Angelique Madou dispensed with counting-house,
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 98 
 
 safe, and book-keeping (for she could neither read nor write), 
 and answered a letter by blows of the fist, for she looked upon 
 it as an insult. In other respects she was a good-natured 
 soul, with a high-colored countenance, and a bandana hand- 
 kerchief tied about her head beneath her cap, and a trumpet 
 voice which won the respect of the carmen who brought goods 
 to the Eue Perrin-Gasselin,and whose "rows" with her usually 
 ended in a bottle of petit blanc. She could not well have 
 any trouble with the growers who supplied her, for she always 
 paid cash on delivery, the only way of carrying on such a 
 business as hers, and Mother Madou went into the country 
 to see them in the summer-time. 
 
 Birotteau found this shrewish saleswoman among her 
 sacks of hazel-nuts, chestnuts, and walnuts. 
 
 "Good day, my dear lady/' said Birotteau flippantly. 
 
 "You dear!" returned she. "So you have pleasant recol- 
 lections of your dealings with me, have you? Have we met 
 each other at Court?" 
 
 "I am a perfumer, and what is more, deputy-mayor of the 
 Second Arrondissement of Paris, and I have a right to ex- 
 pect a different tone from you." 
 
 "I marry when I have a mind," said the virago ; "I am no 
 customer at the mayor's office, and don't trouble deputy- 
 mayors much. And as for my customers, they adore me, and 
 I talk to 'em as I please. If they don't like it, they may take 
 themselves somewhere else." 
 
 "See what comes of a monopoly," muttered Birotteau. 
 
 "Popole ? that's my godson ; he has been up to some foolery 
 perhaps; have you come for him, your worship?" she asked, 
 in milder tones. 
 
 "No. I have the honor to inform you that I come to you as 
 a customer." 
 
 "All right. "What is your name, my lad? I haven't seen 
 you here before." 
 
 "If that is the way you talk, you ought to sell your nuts 
 cheap," said Birotteau, and he mentioned his name and des- 
 ignation.
 
 94 
 
 "Oh ! you afe the famous Birotteau with the handsome wife. 
 Well, and what weight do you want of these little dears of 
 hazel-nuts, honey?" 
 
 "Six thousand pounds weight." 
 
 "It is as much as I have," said the saleswoman, with a 
 voice like a cracked flute. "You are not in the do-nothing 
 line, marrying the girls, and making scent for them. Lord, 
 bless you ! you do a trade, you do ! Sorry I have so little for 
 you ! You will be a fine customer, and your name will be 
 written on the heart of the woman that I love best in the 
 world " 
 
 "Who may that be ?" 
 
 "Who but dear Madame Madou." 
 
 "What do you want for the nuts?" 
 
 "Twenty-five francs the hundred-weight to you, mister, 
 if you take the lot." 
 
 "Twenty-five francs," said Birotteau. "That is fifteen 
 hundred francs! And I shall very likely take a hundred 
 thousand pounds weight in a year!" 
 
 "But just look at the quality ; no husks !" cried she, plung- 
 ing a red arm into a sack of filberts. "Sound kernels, my 
 dear sir. Just think, now, the grocers sell their mixed dessert 
 fruits at twenty-four sous the pound, and in every four pounds 
 they put more than a pound of hazel-nuts. Am I to lose 
 money on the goods to please you ? You are a nice man, but 
 I don't care enough about you yet to do that. As you are 
 taking such a quantity, we might let you have them at twenty 
 francs, for it won't do to send away a deputy-mayor ; it would 
 bring bad luck to the young couples! A good article; just 
 feel the weight of them ! They wouldn't go fifty to the 
 pound! Sound nuts they are, not a maggot among them!'' 
 
 "Well, send six thousand pounds weight early to-morrow 
 morning to my factory in the Rue Faubourg-du-Temple, for 
 two thousand francs at ninety days." 
 
 "They shall be punctual as a bride at a wedding. Well, 
 good-bye, M. le Maire; we part good friends. But if it is 
 all the same to you," she added, following Birotteau into the
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 95 
 
 court, "I would rather have a bill at forty days, for I have 
 let you have them too cheap, arid I can't afford to lose the 
 interest on the money too. For all Ms sentimental ways, old 
 Gigonnet sucks the life out of us, as a spider sucks a fly." 
 
 "Very well, yes, fifty days. But I'll have the nuts by 
 weight, so as not to lose on the hollow ones. They must be 
 weighed or I'll have nothing to do with them." 
 I "Oh, the fox; he knows that dodge, does he?" said Mme. 
 Madou ; "you can't catch him napping. Those beggars in the 
 Hue des Lombards put him up to that ! Those great wolves 
 yonder are all in a league to devour us poor lambs." 
 
 The lamb was five feet high and three feet round; she had 
 not a vestige of a waist, and looked like a post in a striped 
 cotton gown. 
 
 As he went along the Eue Saint-Honore, the perfumer, 
 lost in his schemes, meditated on his duel with Macassar Oil. 
 He designed the labels, decided on the shape of the bottles, 
 the quality of the corks, the color of the placards. And people 
 say that there is no poetry in business ! Newton did not make 
 more calculations over the discovery of the famous binomial 
 theorem than Birotteau made for the "Comagen Essence" 
 (for it was an essence now; the words oil and essence pos- 
 sessed no definite meaning for him, and he went from the one 
 to the other). All these combinations were seething in his 
 head, and he mistook the ferment of an empty brain for the 
 germination of an idea. So absorbed was he in his medita- 
 tions, that he went past the Eue des Bourdonnais, and be- 
 thinking himself of his uncle, was obliged to retrace his 
 steps. 
 
 Claude-Joseph Pillerault, formerly a retail ironmonger at 
 the sign of the Golden Bell, was one of those human beings 
 whose exterior is the outward and visible expression of a 
 beautiful nature ; and heart and brain, language and thought, 
 his manner and the clothes that he wore, were all in harmony. 
 He was the only relation that Mme. Birotteau had in the 
 world, and upon her and on Cesarine Pillerault had centered 
 all his affections; for in the course of his business career
 
 96 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he had lost his wife and his son, and a boy whom he had 
 adopted, the son of his cook. 
 
 These cruel bereavements had given to the good man's 
 thoughts a cast of Christian stoicism, a lofty doctrine which 
 was the informing spirit of his life, and shed the radiance 
 of a winter sunset over his last years, a glow that brings no 
 warmth. There was a tinge of asceticism about the thin, 
 worn face, where sallow and swarthy tones were harmoni- 
 ously blended; you saw in it a striking resemblance to typi- 
 cal presentments of Time ; but the every-day cares of a retail 
 business had touched this face, there was less of the monu- 
 mental quality, less of the grimness insisted upon by painters, 
 sculptors, and designers of bronze figures for clocks. 
 
 Pillerault was of middle height, and thick-set rather than 
 stout. Nature had fashioned him for hard work and a long 
 life ; he was strongly built, as his square shoulders indicated ; 
 a man of phlegmatic temper, whose feelings, though he could 
 feel, did not lie on the surface. His quiet manner and reso- 
 lute face indicated that he was little given to the expression 
 of his emotions; but reserved and undemonstrative though 
 he was, there were depths of tenderness in Pillerault's nature. 
 The principal characteristic of the hazel eyes, with dark 
 specks in them, was their unvarying clearness. There were 
 deep furrows in a forehead sallowed by time, narrow, con- 
 tracted, and stern, and covered with gray hair, cut so short 
 that it looked like felt. Prudence, not avarice, wac expressed 
 in the lines of the thin lips. The brightness of the eyes told 
 of a temperate life; and, indeed, sincerity, a sense of duty, 
 and a real humility glorified his features and set off his face, 
 as health does. 
 
 For sixty years he had led a hard and dreary existence, 
 a constant struggle for a livelihood. It was the same story 
 as Cesar's own, with Cesar's luck omitted. Pillerault had 
 remained an assistant till he was thirty years old; he had 
 embarked his capital in business at an age when Cesar was 
 investing his savings in rentes; then the law of the maximum 
 had hit him hard, and his pickaxes and spades had been
 
 RISE AND PALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 91 
 
 requisitioned. His taciturn wisdom, his foresight, and logi- 
 cal clear-headedness had had their effect on his "ways of 
 doing business." His bargains were concluded as a rule by 
 word of mouth and difficulties seldom arose. Like most 
 meditative people, he was an observer; he said little, and 
 studied those who talked ; often he had declined good bargains 
 of which his neighbors had availed themselves, and subse- 
 quently repented, and vowed that Pillerault could smell out 
 a rogue. He preferred sure gains, if of the smallest, to bold 
 strokes of business involving heavy sums. 
 
 His stock of hardware consisted of grates, gridirons, cast- 
 iron fire-dogs, boilers, and copper caldrons, hoes, and such 
 agricultural implements as laborers use, somewhat unremu- 
 nerative branches of a business that involves continual drudg- 
 ery. Hardware is ponderous, awkward to handle, and difficult 
 to store, and the profits are not heavy in proportion; so 
 Pillerault had nailed up many a case, sent off many packages, 
 and unloaded many vans. Never had a competence been 
 more honorably earned, more thoroughly deserved, more to 
 the credit of the man who had made it. He had never asked 
 too much, had never run after business. Towards the end 
 of the time, you might have seen him smoking his pipe in the 
 doorway and watching his assistants at work. In 1814, 
 when he retired, his actual capital at first consisted of 
 seventy thousand francs, which he invested in Government 
 stock, that brought him in five thousand and some odd hun- 
 dred francs a year, with a further forty thousand francs 
 due in five years' time, when the assistant to whom he had 
 sold the business was to pay for it. On this amount, mean- 
 while, no interest was paid. For thirty years he had annually 
 made seven per cent on a turn-over of a hundred thousand 
 francs, and had lived on half his income. Such was his bal- 
 ance-sheet. 
 
 His neighbors, but little jealous of this by no means brill- 
 iant success, extolled his wisdom without comprehending it. 
 
 At the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue Saint- 
 Honore stands the Cafe David, where a few retired trades*
 
 96 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 men such as Pillerault, congregate of an evening to take 
 their coffee. At one time, Pillerault's adoption of his 
 cook's son had occasioned a few jokes among its frequent- 
 ers, such jokes as are addressed to a man looked 
 up to among his fellows, for the ironmonger received a re- 
 spect for which he had not sought; his own self-respect suf- 
 ficed him. So when Pillerault lost the poor young fellow, 
 there were more than two hundred people at the funeral who 
 followed his adopted child to the grave. He behaved heroic- 
 ally in those days, making no parade of his grief, bearing it 
 as a brave man bears sorrow. This increased the sympathy felt 
 in the quarter for the "good man," as they called him, and 
 the accent in which the words were spoken gave the words a 
 wider and ennobled meaning when they were applied to 
 Pillerault. 
 
 Claude Pillerault had become so accustomed to the sober 
 even tenor of his life, that when he retired from business 
 and entered upon the time of leisure, which hangs so heavily 
 on many a Parisian tradesman's hands, he could not unbend 
 and divert himself with the amusements of an idle life; he 
 made no change in his housekeeping; and his old age was 
 enlivened by his political opinions, which, let us admit it 
 at once, were those of the extreme Left. 
 
 Pillerault belonged to the artisan class, which the Revolu- 
 tion had brought into co-operation with the small shopkeep- 
 ers. The one blot on his character was the importance which 
 he attached to the victory of his principles; he dwelt fondly 
 on his rights, on liberty, on the great results of the Revolu- 
 tion; he firmly believed that his political freedom and exist- 
 ence were being undermined by the Jesuits, whose underhand 
 power the Liberals discovered, and threatened by the ideas 
 with which the Constitutionnel credited Monsieur the King's 
 brother. He was, however, consistent in his life and in his 
 ideas; there was nothing narrow in his political views; he 
 never abused his adversaries, he held courtiers in suspicion, 
 and believed in Republican virtues. He imagined that Man- 
 uel was guiltless of any excesses, that General Foy was a
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 99 
 
 great man, and Casimir Perier without ambition; to his 
 thinking, Lafayette was a political prophet, Courier a good 
 man. In short, he beheld noble chimerical visions. 
 
 The good man was domestic in his habits ; he made part of 
 the family circle in which his niece lived the Ragons, Judge 
 Popinot, Joseph Lebas, and the Matifats. Fifteen hundred 
 francs a year supplied his needs; the rest of his income was 
 spent in charitable deeds and in presents to his grand-niece; 
 four times a year he gave a dinner to his friends at Roland's 
 in the Rue du Hasard, and took them afterwards to the play. 
 He played the part of the old bachelor friend on whom mar- 
 ried women draw bills at sight for their fancies; for a 
 country excursion, a party for the Opera or the Montagnes- 
 Beaujon; and Pillerault would be very happy at such times 
 in the pleasure he was giving, and felt the gladness in other 
 hearts. 
 
 If Molineux's character was written at large in his queer 
 furniture, Pillerault's pure heart and simple life were no less 
 revealed by his surroundings. His abode consisted of a lobby, 
 a sitting-room, and bedroom. But for the difference in size, 
 it might have been a Carthusian's cell. The lobby, floored 
 with red tiles, which were beeswaxed, boasted but one win- 
 dow, hung with dimity curtains edged with scarlet; mahog- 
 any chairs with red leather cushions, and studded with brass 
 nails, stood against the wall, which was covered with an olive- 
 green paper, and adorned with pictures a Declaration of 
 Independence, a portrait of Bonaparte as First Consul, and a 
 Battle of Austerlitz. The furniture of the sitting-room, 
 doubtless left to the upholsterer, was yellow, and covered with 
 a flowered pattern ; there was a carpet on the floor ; the bronze 
 ornaments on the chimney-piece were not gilded. There was 
 a painted fire-screen before the grate; a vase of artificial 
 flowers under a glass shade stood on a console, and a liqueur 
 stand on a round table covered with a cloth. It was evident 
 from the unused look of the room that it was a concession to 
 convention on the part of the retired ironmonger, who rarely 
 received visitors.
 
 100 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 His own room was as bare as that of a monk or an old 
 soldier, the two men who make the truest estimate of life. In 
 the alcove a holy-water stoup caught the eye, a profoundly 
 touching confession of faith in a Republican stoic. 
 
 An old woman came in to do the work of the establishment ; 
 but so great was Pillerault's reverence for womankind, that 
 he would not allow her to clean his shoes, and made an ar- 
 rangement with a shoeblack. 
 
 His costume was plain, and never varied. He always wore 
 a coat and breeches of blue cloth, a cotton waistcoat, a white 
 cravat, and very low walking-shoes; and on high days and 
 holidays a coat with metal buttons. He rose, breakfasted, 
 went out, dined, and returned home when the evening was 
 over with the strictest regularity, for a methodical life con- 
 duces to health and length of days. Cesar, the Ragons, and 
 the Abbe Loraux alwa} r s avoided the subject of politics; those 
 of his own circle knew better than to court attack by trying 
 to convert him. Like his nephew and the Ragons, he put 
 great faith in Roguin ; for him a notary of Paris was always 
 a being to be venerated, and probity incarnate. In the matter 
 of the building land, Pillerault had examined it so thor- 
 oughly, that the remembrance of his investigations had given 
 Cesar moral support in the combat with his wife's fore- 
 bodings. 
 
 As Cesar climbed the seventy-two steps of the stairs which 
 led to the brown doorway of his uncle's rooms, he thought 
 within himself that the old man must be very hale to go 
 up and down them daily without a murmur. He found 
 the coat and breeches hanging on a peg outside, and Mme 
 Vaillant busy rubbing and brushing them; while the phil- 
 osopher himself, in his gray flannel dressing-gown, was 
 breakfasting by the fireside, and conning the reports of par- 
 liamentary debates in the Constitutionnel or the Journal 
 du Commerce. 
 
 "The affair is settled, uncle," said Cesar; "they are just 
 about to draft- the documents ; but if you have any doubts 
 or regret about it, tbore i s* : !l time to cry off."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEATJ 101 
 
 "Why should I cry off? It is a good piece of business, 
 but it takes some time to realize, like everything that is 
 safe. My fifty thousand francs are lying at the bank; the 
 last instalment of five thousand francs for my business was 
 paid in yesterday. As for the Ragons, they are putting 
 all that they have into it." 
 
 "Why, how do they live?" 
 
 "Never mind; they live, at all events." 
 
 "I understand you, uncle," said Birotteau, deeply 
 touched, and he grasped the austere old man's hands tightly 
 in his. 
 
 "What are you going to do about this business?" Pille- 
 rault asked abruptly. 
 
 "I shall take three-eighths; you and the Eagons will take 
 an eighth between you; I shall credit you with the amount 
 in my books until they decide the question of the deeds." 
 
 "Good ! Are you so very rich, my boy, that you pay 
 down three hundred thousand francs? It looks to me as 
 though you were risking a good deal of money outside your 
 business; won't the business suffer? After all, it is your 
 own affair. If you are pulled up, here are the funds at 
 ninety; I could sell out two thousand francs in consols. 
 Take care, though, my boy; if you come to me, you will be 
 laying hands on your girl's fortune." 
 
 "Uncle, you say the kindest of things as if they were a 
 matter of course; it goes to my heart to hear you." 
 
 "General Foy touched me after another fashion just now ! 
 There, at all events, it is settled. The building lots won't 
 fly away; we shall have them for half their value; and even 
 if we should have to wait six years, there will still be some- 
 thing in the way of interest; timber-yards would pay rent, 
 so we cannot lose. There is only one thing, and that is im- 
 possible Roguin will not run away with our capital " 
 
 "But that is what my wife said last night; she is 
 afraid 
 
 -"That Roguin will run off with our money," said Pille- 
 rault, laughing ; "and why ?" 
 8
 
 102 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Well, she says she doesn't like the cut of his features; 
 and, like all men who cannot have women, he is frantic 
 for " 
 
 An incredulous smile stole over Pillerault's face; he tore 
 a leaf out of a little book, filled in the amount, and signed 
 his name. 
 
 "Here, this is an order on the bank for a hundred thou- 
 sand fra*6, for Ragon's sin re and mine. Those poor 
 people, though, to make up the money, sold out their fifteen 
 shares in the Wortschin mines to your worthless rogue of a 
 du Tillet. Good people in sore straits; it goes to one's heart 
 to see it. And such good people they are, such noble people, 
 the flower of the old-fashioned bourgeoisie, in fact! Their 
 brother Popinot, the judge, knows nothing about it; they 
 are hiding their affairs from him, lest they should hinder 
 him from giving free course to his benevolence. People 
 who have worked as I did for thirty years " 
 
 "God grant that the Comagen Oil succeeds!" cried Birot- 
 teau, "and I shall be doubly pleased. Good-day, uncle; 
 you are coming to dine with us on Sunday with the Ragons 
 and Roguin, and M. Claparon is coming, for we are all going 
 to sign the papers the day after to-morrow ; to-morrow will be 
 Friday, and I don't want to do bus 
 
 "Do you really believe in those superstitions?" 
 
 "I shall never believe that the day when the Son of God 
 was put to death by men can be a lucky day, uncle. Why? 
 people stop all business even on the 21st of January." 
 
 "Good-bye till Sunday," said Pillerault abruptly. 
 
 "If it weren't for his political opinions/' said Birotteau 
 to himself, as he went downstairs again, "I do not know 
 where they would find his equal here below. What are 
 politics to him? He would get on very nicely without 
 thinking of them at all. His infatuation shows that no 
 one is perfect. Three o'clock already!" said Cesar, as he 
 entered his shop. 
 
 "Are you going to take these bills, sir?" asked Celestin, 
 holding out the umbrella-dealer's collection of bills.
 
 RISE AND PALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 103 
 
 "Yes, at six per cent, no commission. Wife, put out all 
 my things ready for me ; I am going to call on M. Vauquelin^ 
 you know why. Above i.,11 things, a white cravat." 
 
 Birotteau gave some orders to his assistants; he did not 
 see Popinot, guessed that his future partner had gone to 
 dress for the visit, and went up at once to his own room, 
 where the Dresden Madonna met his eyes in a magnificent 
 frame, according to his orders. 
 
 "Well, it looks fine, doesn't it?" 
 
 "Why, papa, say it is beautiful, or people will laugh at 
 you." 
 
 "Here is a girl for you that scolds her father! . . . 
 Well, for my own part, I like Hero and Leander quite as 
 much. The Madonna is a religious subject, which could 
 be hung up in an oratory; but Hero and Leander! Ah! I 
 will buy it, for the flask of oil suggested some ideas to me." 
 
 "But I don't understand, papa." 
 
 "Virginie, call a cab !" shouted Cesar, in a voice that 
 rang through the house. He had finished shaving, and the 
 shy Anselme Popinot appeared, dragging his feet, for he 
 thought of Cesarine. He had not discovered as yet that 
 he was not lame in the eyes of his lady-love, a sweet proof 
 of love, which only those to whom fate has given some 
 bodily deformity can receive. 
 
 "The press will be in working order to-morrow, sir," he 
 said. 
 
 "Very well. What is the matter, Popinot?" asked Cesar, 
 seeing Anselme's flushed face. 
 
 "I am so glad, sir; I have found a place, a front and 
 back shop, and a kitchen, and the rooms above, and a store- 
 room, all for twelve hundred francs a year, in the Rue des 
 Cinq-Diamants." 
 
 "We must -have an eighteen years' lease of it," said Birot- 
 teau. "But let us go to M. Vauquelin, and we can talk on 
 the way," and Cesar and Popinot drove away under the eyes 
 of the assistants, who were at a loss what to think of such 
 magnificent attire, and so unusual a portent as a cab, igno-
 
 104 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 rant as they were of the mighty matters that occupied the 
 owner of the Queen of Roses. 
 
 "So we shall soon know the truth about the hazel-nuts !" 
 said the perfumer. 
 
 "Hazel-nuts?" queried Popinot. 
 
 "You have my secret, Popinot," said the perfumer; "I 
 let slip the word Tiazel-nuts/ and that tells everything. 
 Hazel-nut oil is the only oil which produces any effect on 
 the hair ; no other house has thought of it. When I saw the 
 print of Hero and Leander, I said to myself, 'If the 
 ancients put so much oil on their heads, there must have 
 been some reason for it/ for the ancients ^are the ancients ! 
 In spite of modern pretensions, I am of Boileau's opinion 
 about the ancients. From that I came to the idea of hazel- 
 nuts, thanks to young Bianchon, the medical student, your 
 relative ; he told me that the students at the ficole put hazel- 
 nut oil on their moustaches and whiskers to make them 
 grow. All we want now is the illustrious M. Yauquelin's 
 approval. Enlightened by him, we shall not deceive the 
 public. Only just now I was over in the Market buying the 
 raw material of a saleswoman there; and in another mo- 
 ment I shall be in the presence of one of the greatest scien- 
 tific men in France for the quintessence of the matter. 
 There's sense in proverbs extremes meet. Trade is the 
 intermediary between vegetable products and science, you 
 see, my boy ! Angelique Madou collects the material, M. 
 Vauquelin digtils it, and we sell an essence. Hazel-nuts 
 are worth five sous the pound, M. Vauquelin will increase 
 their value a hundred-fold, and we shall perhaps do a ser- 
 vice to humanity; for if vanity is a plague of man, a good 
 cosmetic is a benefit." 
 
 The devout admiration with which Popinot listened to 
 the father of his Cesarine stimulated Birotteau's eloquence; 
 he indulged in the crudest rhetorical display that a phil- 
 istine's brain can devi?e. 
 
 "Be reverent, Anselme," he said, as they reached the 
 street in which Vauquelin lived; "we are about to enter
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 105 
 
 the sanctuary of science. Put the Madonna in evidence, 
 but without making a parade of it, on a chair in the din- 
 ing-room. If only I can manage to say what I want to say 
 without making a muddle of it!" cried Birotteau artlessly. 
 "Popinot, that man produces a chemical effect on me, the 
 sound of his voice makes me quite hot inside, and even gives 
 me a slight colic. He is my benefactor, Anselme, and in a 
 few minutes he will be your benefactor too." 
 
 Popinot turned cold at the words, set down his feet as 
 if he were treading on eggs, and looked uneasily round the 
 room. 
 
 M. Vauquelin was in his study when Birotteau was an- 
 nounced. The man of science knew that the perfumer was 
 a deputy-mayor and in high favor; he received his visitor. 
 
 "So you do not forget me now that you are so high up 
 in the world," he said; "well, between a chemist and a per- 
 fumer there is but a hand's-treadth." 
 
 "Alas ! there is a great distance between your genius and 
 a plain man like me, sir; and as for what you call 'being 
 high up in the world/ it is all owing to you, and I shall 
 never forget it in this world or the next." 
 
 "Oh ! in the next we shall all be equal they say, cobblers 
 and kings." 
 
 "That is to say, those kings and cobblers who have lived 
 piously," remarked Birotteau. 
 
 "Is this your son?" asked Vauquelin, looking at little 
 Popinot, who was beyond expression amazed to find nothing 
 extraordinary in the study. He had expected to see pro- 
 digious marvels, giant engines, vivified substances, and 
 metals flying about. 
 
 "No, sir ; but he is a young man in whom I am very much 
 interested, and he has come to entreat your goodness, which 
 is equal to your talent, and is it not infinite?" remarked 
 Birotteau diplomatically. "We have come, after an interval 
 of sixteen years, to consult you a second time on a matter 
 of importance, concerning which I am as ignorant ae a 
 perfumer."
 
 106 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR B1ROTTEAU 
 
 "Let us hear about it. What is it?" 
 
 "I know that the subject of hair occupies your nights, 
 and that you are devoting yourself to the analysis of the 
 substance ! While you have been thinking for glory, I have 
 been thinking too for trade." 
 
 "Dear M. Birotteau, what do you want of me an analysis 
 of hair?" 
 
 He took up a loose sheet. 
 
 "I am about to read a paper before the Academic des 
 Sciences/' he went on. "Hair is composed of a somewhat 
 large proportion of mucus, a little colorless oil, a larger 
 proportion of dark-greenish oil, and iron; I find a certain 
 amount of oxide of manganese, and of phosphate of lime, 
 and traces of carbonate of lime, and silica; sulphur enters 
 largely into its composition. The proportions in which these 
 different substances are present vary, and so cause the dif- 
 ferent colorings of hair. Red hair, for example, on analysis 
 yields much more of the dark green oil than the other kinds 
 give." 
 
 Cesar and Popinot opened their eyes ludicrously wide. 
 
 "Nine things," cried Birotteau. "What, are there metals 
 and oils in hair ? It takes the word of a man like you, whom 
 I venerate, to make me believe it. How extraordinary! 
 . . . God is great, M. Vauquelin." 
 
 "Hair is produced by a follicular organ," the great chem- 
 ist continued; "a follicle is a sort of bag open at both ends; 
 at the one end it is connected with nerves and blood-vessels, 
 and the hair issues from the other. According to some of 
 our. learned associates, one of whom is M. de Blainville, the 
 hair is dead matter expelled from the sac or secreting gland, 
 which is full of a pulpy tissue." 
 
 "It is like perspiration in sticks, as you might say," 
 cried Popinot, for which the perfumer promptly kicked his 
 shins. 
 
 Vauquelin smiled at Popinot's notion. On this, "He has 
 capacity, hasn't he?" said Cesar, looking at Popinot. "But 
 if hair is dead, to begin with, sir, you can't possibly restore it,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 107 
 
 and it is all over with us ! the prospectus is nonsense ! You 
 don't know how funny the public is; you can't go and tell 
 people " 
 
 "That there is a rubbish heap on their heads," said Popi- 
 not, trying to make Vauquelin laugh again. 
 
 "An aerial catacomb/' returned the chemist, keeping up 
 the joke. 
 
 "And the nuts that are bought !" cried Birotteau, with a 
 lively sense of the pecuniary loss. "But why do they 
 sell ? 
 
 "Eeassure yourself," said Vauquelin, smiling. "I see; 
 some secret for preventing the hair from falling out or 
 turning gray is the matter in question. Listen; here are 
 my conclusions after all my researches." 
 
 Popinot .pricked up his ears at this like a startled leveret 
 
 "The blanching of the fibres, dead or alive, is, in my 
 opinion, produced by an interruption of the secretion of the 
 coloring matter ; this theory would explain the fact that some 
 fur-bearing animals in cold climates turn white or some 
 lighter color at the beginning of winter." 
 
 "Hm! Popinot." 
 
 "It is evident," Vauquelin continued, "that the change of 
 color is due to sudden change in the temperature of the 
 circumambient air " 
 
 "Circumambient, Popinot mind that ! mind that \" cried 
 Cesar. 
 
 "Yes," said Vauquelin, "to alternations of cold and heat, 
 or to interior phenomena, which produce the same effect. 
 So, in all probability, headaches and other local affections 
 dissipate the fluid or derange the secretions. The inside of 
 the head is the doctor's province. As for the outside, put on 
 your cosmetics by all means." 
 
 "Well, sir," said Birotteau, "now I can breathe again after 
 what you say. I thought of selling the oil of hazel-nuts, 
 remembering the use the ancients made of oil for their hair; 
 and the ancients are the ancients, I am of Boileau's opinion, 
 Why did wrestlers oil themselves ?"
 
 108 RISE AND FALL OF CESAK BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Olive-oil would do quite as well as oil of hazel-nut i > * 
 said Vauquelin, who had paid 110 attention to Birotteau'? 
 remarks. "Any oil will do to protect the hair bulos from 
 outside influences injurious to the substances which it con- 
 tains in process of formation ; in course of deposit, we chem- 
 ists would say. Perhaps you are right; the essential oil of 
 hazel-nuts is an irritant, so Dupuytren once told me. I will 
 try to find out the difference between walnut and beech-nut 
 oils, colza, olive, and so forth." 
 
 "Then I am not mistaken," Birotteaa exclaimed triumph- 
 antly, "and a great man bears me out in my opinion. Macas- 
 sar is done for! Macassar, sir, is a cosmetic they give you, 
 that is, sell you, and sell very dear, to make your hair grow." 
 
 "My dear M. Birotteau," said Vauquelin, "there are not 
 two ounces of oil of Macassar in Europe. Oil of Macassar 
 produces not the slightest effect on hair. The Malays will 
 pay its weight in gold for it, because of its supposed pre- 
 servative action on the hair, not knowing that whale oil is 
 quite as good. No power chemical or divine " 
 
 "Oh ! divine do not say that, M. Vauquelin." 
 
 "Why, my dear sir, God's first law is conformity with 
 Himself; without unity there is no power " 
 
 "On, looked at in that way " 
 
 "No power whatever can make the hair grow on a bald 
 head, and you cannot dye white or red hair without danger; 
 but you will do no harm, and there will be no fraud in extol- 
 ling your oil, and I think that those who use it might pre- 
 serve their hair." 
 
 "Do you think that the Royal Academy of Science would 
 approve it?'' 
 
 "Oh ! it is no discovery," said M. Vauquelin. "And be- 
 sides, quacks have taken the name of the Academy in vain 
 so often, that it would not help you at all. My conscience 
 will not allow me to look on oil of hazel-nuts as a prodigy." 
 
 "What would be the best way of extracting it, by pressure 
 or by decoction?" asked Birotteau. 
 
 "You will obtain the most oil by pressure between two hot
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 109 
 
 plates; but if the plates are cold, it will be of better quality. 
 It ought to be applied to the skin itself, and not rubbed into 
 the hair," continued Vauquelin good-naturedly, "or the effect 
 will be lost." 
 
 "Mind you remember this, Popinot," said Birotteau, as 
 his face flushed up with enthusiasm. "You see in him, sir, 
 a young man who will reckon this day among the great days 
 of his life. He knew and revered you before he had seen 
 you. Ah ! we often talk of you at home ; a name that is 
 always in the heart comes often to the lips. We pray every 
 day for you, my wife and daughter and I, as we ought to do 
 for our benefactor." 
 
 "It is too much for so little," said Vauquelin, embarrassed 
 by the perfumer's voluble gratitude. 
 
 "Tut, tut, tut !" said Birotteau. "You cannot hinder us 
 from loving you, you who will accept nothing from me. You 
 are like the sun; you shed light around you, and those on 
 whom it shines can do nothing for you in return." 
 
 The man of science rose, smiling, to his feet; Birotteau 
 and Anselme Popinot rose also. 
 
 "Look round, Anselme; take a good look at this study. If 
 you will allow him, sir? Your time is so valuable, perhaps 
 he will never come here again." 
 
 "Well, are you satisfied with your business?" asked 
 Vauquelin, turning to Birotteau; "for, after all, we are both 
 of us men of business " 
 
 "Pretty well, sir," said Birotteau, going towards the din- 
 ing-room, whither Vauquelin followed him; "but it will take 
 a great deal of capital to start this oil under the name of 
 Comagen Essence " 
 
 " 'Essence' and 'Comagen' are two words that clash. Call 
 your cosmetic Birotteau's Oil ; or if you have no mind to blaze 
 your name abroad, take another Why, there is the Dres- 
 den Madonna. . . . Ah ! M. Birotteau, you mean us to 
 fall out at parting." 
 
 "M. Vauquelin," said the perfumer, taking both the chem- 
 ist's hands in his, "the scarce print has no value save for the
 
 110 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 persistent efforts which I have made to find it; all Germany 
 has been ransacked for a proof before letters on India paper ; 
 1 knew you wished to have it, you were too busy to procure 
 it yourself, so I have taken it upon myself to be your agent. 
 Please accept, not a paltry print, but the earnest efforts, 
 the care, and pains which prove a boundless devotion. I 
 should have been glad if you had wanted some substances 
 that could only be found in the depths of an abyss, that I 
 might come to tell you, 'Here they are !' We have so many 
 chances to be forgotten, let me put myself, my wife, and 
 daughter, and the son-in-law whom I shall have one day, all 
 before your eyes; and say to yourself when you see the Ma- 
 donna, 'There are honest folk who think of me.' " 
 
 "I accept it," said Vauquelin. 
 
 Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so much moved 
 were they by the kind tone in which the chemist spoke. 
 
 "Will you carry your kindness yet further?" asked the 
 perfumer. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Vauquelin. 
 
 "I am inviting a few of my friends (here he raised him- 
 self on tiptoe, but his face assumed a humble expression) 
 partly to celebrate the liberation of the soil, and partly on 
 the occasion of my own promotion to the Legion of Honor." 
 
 "Aha !" said Vauquelin in astonishment. 
 
 "It may be that I have shown myself worthy of this sig- 
 nal mark of royal favor, by discharging my functions at the 
 Consular Tribunal, and by fighting for the Bourbons on the 
 steps of Saint-Roch's Church on the 13th of Vendemiaire, 
 when I was wounded by Napoleon. . . . My wife is 
 giving a ball on Sunday in twenty days' time; will you come 
 to it, sir? Do us the honor of dining with us on that day; 
 and for my own part, it will be as if they had given me the 
 Cross twice. I will write to you in good time." 
 
 "Very well, yes," said Vauquelin. 
 
 "My heart is swelling with pleasure," cried the perfumer 
 when they were in the street. "He will come to my house ! 
 I am afraid that I have forgotten what he said about hair; 
 do you remember it, Popinot 7"
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 111 
 
 "Yes, sir, and in twenty years' time I shall still remember 
 it/' 
 
 "A great man, that he is ! What insight and what pene- 
 tration !" exclaimed Birotteau. "He went straight to the 
 point, he read our thoughts at once, and showed us how to 
 make a clean sweep of Macassar Oil. Ah ! nothing can make 
 hair grow, Macassar, so that is a lie! Popinot, there is a 
 fortune within our grasp. So let us be at the factory by 
 seven o'clock to-morrow morning, the nuts will come in, and' 
 we will make the oil. There is no use in his saying that any 
 oil will do; it would be all over with us if the public knew 
 that. If there were not a little hazel-nut oil and scent in 
 this composition of ours, what excuse should we have for 
 selling it at three or four francs for as many ounces ?" 
 
 "And you are to be decorated, sir !" said Popinot. "What 
 glory for " 
 
 "For commerce, isn't it, my boy ?" 
 
 Cesar Birotteau, sure of a fortune, looked so triumphant, 
 that the assistants noticed his expression, and made signs to 
 each other; for the appearance of a cab, and the fact that 
 their employer and his cashier had changed their clothes, 
 had given rise to the wildest imaginings. The very evident 
 satisfaction of the pair, revealed by the diplomatic glances 
 exchanged between them, and the hopeful eyes that Popinot 
 turned once or twice on Cesarine, announced that some im- 
 portant event was imminent, and confirmed the assistants' 
 suspicions. The smallest chance events in their busy and 
 almost monastic lives were as interesting to them as to any 
 prisoner in solitary confinement. Mme. Cesar's face (for 
 she responded doubtfully to the Olympian looks her husband 
 turned on her) portended some new development in the busi- 
 ness, for at any other time Mme. Cesar would have been 
 serenely content, Mme. Cesar, who was so blithe over a 
 good day, and to-day the takings had amounted to the extra- 
 ordinary sum of six thousand francs; some old outstanding 
 accounts had been paid. 
 
 The dining-room and the kitchen were both on the mezzu-
 
 112 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 nine floor, where Cesar and Constance had lived during the 
 first years of their married life. This dining-room, wherr 
 their honeymoon had been spent, looked like a little drawing- 
 room. The kitchen windows looked out into a little yard; 
 a passage separated the two rooms, and gave access to the 
 staircase, contrived in a corner of the back-shop. 
 
 Eaguet the errand boy looked after the shop while they sat 
 at dinner; but when dessert appeared, the assistants went 
 downstairs again, and left Cesar and his wife and daughter 
 to finish their meal by the fireside. This tradition had been 
 handed down from the days of the Ragons, who had kept up 
 all the old-fashioned customs and usages in full vigor, and 
 set the same enormous distance between themselves and the 
 assistants that formerly existed between masters and appren- 
 tices. Cesarine or Constance would then prepare the cup of 
 coffee, which the perfumer took in a low chair by the fire. 
 It was the hour when Cesar told his wife all the small news of 
 the day ; he would tell her anything that he had seen in Paris, 
 or what they were doing in the Faubourg du Temple, and 
 about the difficulties that arose there. 
 
 "This is certainly one of the most memorable days in our 
 lives, wife !" he began, when the assistants had gone down- 
 stairs. "The hazel-nuts have been bought, the hydraulic press 
 will be ready for work to-morrow, the matter of the building 
 lands has been concluded. And, while I think of it, just put 
 away this order on the bank," he went on, handing over to 
 her Pillerault's draft. "The redecoration of the rooms, our 
 new rooms, has been settled. Dear me ! I saw a very queer 
 man to-day in the Cour Batave !" 
 
 And he told the women about M. Molineux. 
 
 "I see," his wife broke in, in the middle of a tirade, "that 
 you will have to pay two hundred thousand francs !" 
 
 "True, my wife," said the perfumer, with mock humility. 
 "Good Lord! and how are we to pay it? for the building 
 lands near the Madeleine, that will be the finest quarter in 
 Paris some clay, must be taken as worth nothing." 
 
 "Some day," Cesar."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 113 
 
 "Dear, dear!" lie continued his joke "my three-eighths 
 will only be worth a million in six years' time. And how 
 shall we pay two hundred thousand francs?" asked Cesar, 
 making as though he were aghast. "Well, we will pay it with 
 this," and he drew from his pocket one of Mme. Madou's 
 hazel-nuts, which he had carefully kept. 
 
 He held it up between his thumb and finger. Constance 
 said nothing; but Cesarine, whose curiosity was tickled, 
 brought her father his cup of coffee with a "Come, now, papa, 
 are you joking?" 
 
 The perfumer, like his assistants, had noticed the glances 
 Popinot had given Cesarine during dinner ; he meant to clear 
 up his suspicions. 
 
 "Well, little girl, this hazel-nut is to work a revolution 
 in the house. There will be one less under our roof after to- 
 night/' 
 
 Cesarine looked straight at her father, as who should say, 
 "What is that tome?" 
 
 "Popinot is going away." 
 
 Although Cesar was a poor observer, although his remark 
 had been meant to prepare the way for the announcement of 
 the new firm of A. Popinot and Company, as well as for a 
 trap for his daughter, his father's tenderness told him the 
 secret of the vague emotions which sprang up in the girl's 
 heart, and blossomed in fed upon her cheek and brow, bright- 
 ening her eyes before they fell. Cesar thought at once that 
 Borne word had been exchanged between Cesarine and Popinot. 
 Nothing of the kind had happened ; the boy and girl under- 
 stood each other, after the fashion of shy young lovers, with- 
 out a word. 
 
 There are moralists who hold that love is the most involun- 
 tary, the most disinterested and least calculating of all pas- 
 sions, a mother's love always excepted, a doctrine which con- 
 tains a gross error. The larger part of mankind may be 
 ignorant of their motives; but any sympathy, physical or 
 mental, is nor>^ the less based upon calculations made by 
 brain or heart or animal instincts. Love is essentially an
 
 114 RISE AND FALL OF CTESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 egoistical affection, and egoism implies profound calculation. 
 For the order of mind which is only impressed by outward 
 and visible results, it may seem an improbable or unusual 
 thing that a poor, lame, red-haired lad should find favor in 
 the eyes of a beautiful girl like Cesarine ; and yet it was only 
 what might be expected from the workings of the bourgeois 
 mind in matters of sentiment. The explanation would ac- 
 count for other marriages that are a constant source of 
 amazement to onlookers, between tall or beautiful women 
 and insignificant men, or when some well-grown stripling 
 marries some ugly little creature. 
 
 For a man affected with any physical deformity, be it a club 
 foot, lameness, a hunch-back, excessive ugliness, spot, blemish, 
 or disfigurement, Roguin's infirmity, or other anomalous 
 affection for which his progenitors are not responsible, there 
 are but two courses open; he must either make himself feared, 
 or cultivate an exquisite goodness he cannot afford to steer 
 an undecided middle course between the two extremes like the 
 rest of humanity. The first alternative requires talent, genius, 
 or force of character ; for a man can only inspire terror by his 
 power to do harm, impose respect by his genius, or compel 
 fear by his prodigious wit. In the second he studies to be 
 adored; he lends himself admirably to feminine tyranny, 
 and is wiser in love than others of irreproachable physical 
 proportions. 
 
 Anselme Popinot had been brought up by the good Ragons, 
 upright citizens of the best type, and by his uncle the judge 
 a course of training which, with his ingenuous and religious 
 nature, had led him to redeem his slight deformity by the 
 perfection of his character. Constance and Cesar, struck by 
 a disposition which makes youth so attractive, had often 
 praised Anselme in Cesarine's hearing. With all their narrow- 
 ness in other respects, this shopkeeper and his wife possessed 
 nobility of soul and hearts that were quick to comprehend. 
 Their praises found an echo in the girl's own heart ; in spite 
 of her inexperience, she read in Anselme's frank eyes a pas- 
 sion that is always flattering, no matter what the age, rank, 
 or figure of the lover may be.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 115 
 
 Little Popinot, not being a well-shaped man, had all the 
 more reasons for loving a woman. Should she be fair, he 
 would be her lover till his dying day; love would give him 
 ambition; he would work himself to death to make his wife 
 happy; he would suffer her to be the sovereign mistress of 
 his home ; and her empire over him would be boundless. 
 
 This, crudely stated, is perhaps what Cesarine thought, 
 unconsciously within herself ; she had had a bird's-eye glimpse 
 of the harvests of love, and she had drawn her own infer- 
 ences ; her mother's happiness was under her eyes, she wished 
 no other life for herself; instinctively she discerned in 
 Anselme another Cesar, polished by education, as she herself 
 had been. In her dreams, Popinot was the mayor of an 
 arrondissement, and she liked to imagine herself asking for 
 subscriptions to charities in her district, as her own mother 
 did in the parish of Saint-Eoch. And so at length she forgot 
 that one of Popinot's legs was shorter than the other, and 
 would have been quite capable of asking, "Does he really 
 limp ?" She liked the clear eyes ; she liked to see the change 
 that came over them when, at a glance from her, they lighted 
 up at once with a flash of timid love, and then fell despond- 
 ently again. 
 
 Eoguin's head clerk, Alexandre Crottat, gifted with a pre- 
 cocious knowledge of the world, acquired by professional ex- 
 perience, disgusted Cesarine with his half-cynical, half-good- 
 natured air, after putting her out of patience with his 
 commonplace talk. Popinot's silence revealed a gentle 
 nature; she liked to watch the half-sad smile with which he 
 endured meaningless trivialities; the babble which made him 
 smile always roused a feeling of annoyance in her ; they smiled 
 or looked condolence at each other. 
 
 Anselme's mental superiority did not prevent him from 
 working hard with his hands; the way in which he threw 
 himself into everything that he did also pleased Cesarine; 
 she guessed that while all the other assistants said, "Cesarine 
 is going to be married to M. Eoguin's head clerk," Anselme,
 
 116 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 lame and poor and red-haired, did not despair of winning her. 
 The strength of a hope proves the strength of a love. 
 
 "Where ir, he going?" Cesarine asked, trying to look indif- 
 ferent. 
 
 "He is going to set up for himself in the Rue des Cinq- 
 
 Diamants ! And, upon my word, by the grace of God ! " 
 
 But neither his wife nor daughter understood the ejaculation. 
 When Birotteau's mind encountered any difficulty, he behaved 
 like an insect that encounters an obstacle, he swerved to left 
 or right; so now he changed the subject, promising himself 
 to speak of Cesarine to his wife. 
 
 "I told uncle your notions about Roguin and your fears; 
 he began to laugh," he went on, addressing Constance. 
 
 "You ought never to repeat things that we say between 
 ourselves," she cried. "Poor Roguin ! he may be the most 
 honest man in the world; he is fifty-eight years old, and I 
 expect he no more thinks " 
 
 She too broke off; she saw that Cesarine was listening, 
 and warned Cesar of that fact by a glance. 
 
 "So I did well to strike the bargain." 
 
 "Why, you are the master," returned she. 
 
 Cesar took both his wife's hands in his, and kissed her on 
 the forehead. That answer had always been her passive form 
 of assent to her husband's projects. And with that, Birot- 
 teau went downstairs into the shop. 
 
 "Come !" he cried, speaking to the assistants, "we will put 
 up the shutters at ten o'clock. We must do a stroke of work, 
 gentlemen ! We must set about moving all the furniture 
 from the first floor to the second to-night ! We shall have 
 to put the little pots into the big ones, as the saying is, so 
 as to give my architect elbow-room to-morrow. Popinot 
 has gone out without leave," said Cesar, looking round. "Oh ! 
 I forgot, he does not sleep here. He is gone to see about the 
 shop, or else he is putting down M. Vauquelin's ideas," he 
 thought. 
 
 "Wo kno\v why the furniture is being moved, sir," said 
 Celestin, spokesman for the two assistants and Raguet, who
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 117 
 
 stood by him. "May we be allowed to congratulate you on 
 an honor which reflects glory on the whole establishment? 
 . . . Popinot told us " 
 
 "Well, boys, it can't be helped ; I have been decorated. So 
 we are inviting a few friends, partly to celebrate the libera- 
 tion of the soil, and partly on the occasion of my own promo- 
 tion to the Legion of Honor. It may be that I have shown 
 myself worthy of this signal mark of royal favor by the dis- 
 charge of my functions at the Consular Tribunal, and by 
 fighting for the Royalist cause when I was your age, on the 
 steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th of Vendemiaire; and, on 
 my word, Napoleon the Emperor, as they called him, gave me 
 my wound. For I was wounded, and on the thigh, what is 
 more, and Mme. Ragon nursed me. Be brave, and you will 
 be rewarded ! So there, you see, my children, that a mishap 
 is never all loss." 
 
 "People don't fight in the streets nowadays," said Celestin. 
 
 "Well, we must hope," said Cesar, and thereupon he took 
 occasion to read his assistants a little homily, which he 
 rounded off with an invitation. 
 
 The prospect of a dance put new life into the three assist- 
 ants; under the stimulus of the excitement, the three, with 
 Virginie and Raguet, performed acrobatic feats. They came 
 and went up and down the stairs with their loads, and noth- 
 ing was broken, nothing was upset. By two o'clock in the 
 morning the removal was accomplished; Cesar and his wife 
 slept on the second floor, Celestin and the second assistant 
 occupied Popinot's room. The third floor was converted, for 
 the time being, into a furniture warehouse. 
 
 When the assistants had gone down into the shop after 
 dinner, Popinot, usually so quiet and equable, had been as 
 fidgety as a racehorse just arrived upon the course. A burn- 
 ing desire to do something great was upon him, induced by 
 a superabundance of nervous fluid, which turns the diaphragm 
 of the lover or the man of restless ambition into a furnace. 
 
 "What can be the matter with you ?" Celestin had asked. 
 
 "What a day ! I am setting up for myself, my dear fellow," 
 9
 
 118 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he whispered in Celestin's ear, "and M. Cesar is to be deco- 
 rated." 
 
 "You are very lucky; the governor is helping you/' ex- 
 claimed the assistant. 
 
 Popinot gave him no answer; he vanished, whirled away 
 by the wind the wind of success. 
 
 "Oh, as to lucky !" said an assistant, as he sorted gloves 
 in dozens, to his neighbor, who was busy checking the prices 
 on the tickets. "The governor has seen the eyes that Popinot 
 has been making at Mile. Cesarine; he is a shrewd one, the 
 governor, so he is getting rid of Anselme ; it would be difficult 
 to refuse outright, because of the relatives. Celestin takes 
 the trick for generosity/' 
 
 Anselme Popinot meanwhile had turned down the Rue 
 Saint-Honore and hurried along the Rue des Deux-ficus to 
 secure some one in whom his commercial second-sight beheld 
 the principal instrument of success. Judge Popinot had 
 once done a service to this young man, the cleverest commer- 
 cial traveler in Paris, whose activity and triumphant gift of 
 the gab was to earn for him at a later day the title of "The 
 Illustrious/' At this time the great commercial traveler was 
 devoting his energies to the hat trade and the "fancy-goods 
 line"; he was simply Gaudissart as yet, without the prefix, 
 but at the age of twenty-two he had already distinguished 
 himself; his magnetic influence upon customers was begin- 
 ning to be recognized. He was thin and bright-eyed at that 
 time; he had an eloquent face, an indefatigable memory, a 
 quick perception of the taste of those with whom he came 
 in contact; he deserved to be, what he afterwards became 
 the king of commercial travelers, the Frenchman par excel- 
 lence. 
 
 Popinot had come across Gaudissart some days previously, 
 and the latter had announced that he was about to go on a 
 journey ; the hope of finding him still in Paris had sent Po- 
 pinot flying down the Rue des Deux-ficus. At the coach-office 
 he learned that the commercial traveler had taken his place. 
 Gaudissart's leave-taking of his beloved city had taken the
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 119 
 
 shape of an evening at the Vaudeville, where there was a new 
 play. Popinot resolved to wait for him. To confide the 
 agency of the hazel-nut oil to this invaluable launcher of com- 
 mercial enterprises, already courted and cherished by the best 
 houses, was like drawing a bill of exchange on fortune ! 
 
 Popinot had claims on Gaudissart. The commercial trav- 
 eler, so skilled in the art of entangling that froward race, the 
 petty country shopkeepers, in his toils, had once allowed him- 
 self to become entangled in a political web, in the first con- 
 spiracy against the Bourbons after the Hundred Days; and 
 Gaudissart, to whom open air was a vital necessity, found 
 himself in prison with a capital charge hanging over him. 
 Judge Popinot, the examining magistrate, saw that it was a 
 piece of youthful folly that implicated Gaudissart in the 
 affair, and set him at liberty; but if the young man had 
 chanced upon a magistrate eager to commend himself to the 
 authorities, or upon a rabid Eoyalist, the luckless pioneer 
 of commerce might have mounted the scaffold. Gaudissart, 
 who knew that he owed his life to the judge, was in despair, 
 because a barren gratitude was all the return he could make ; 
 and as it was impossible to thank a judge for doing justice, 
 he had betaken himself to the Eagons, and there sworn fealty 
 to the family of Popinot. 
 
 While Popinot waited, he naturally spent the time in going 
 to see his shop in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants once more. He 
 asked for the landlord's address, so as to come to terms with 
 him about the lease. Then, wandering through the murky 
 labyrinth about the Great Market, with his thoughts full of 
 ways and means of making a rapid fortune, Popinot came 
 into the Eue Aubry-le-Boucher, and there met with a wonder- 
 ful and auspicious opportunity, with which Cesar's heart 
 should be gladdened on the morrow. Then he took up his 
 post at the door of the Hotel du Commerce at the end of the 
 Eue des Deux-ficus; and towards midnight heard, afar off, 
 a voice uplifted in the Eue de Grenelle; it was Gaudissart 
 singing a bit of the last song in the piece, to the accompani- 
 ment of the sound of a walking-stick, trailed with expression 
 upon the pavement.
 
 120 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Sir/' cried Anselme, suddenly emerging from the door- 
 way, "can I have a couple of words with you ?" 
 
 "Eleven, if you like," said the other, raising a loaded cane. 
 
 "I am Popinot," said poor Anselme. 
 
 "Right," said Gaudissart, recognizing his friend. "What 
 do you want? Money? Absent on leave, but there is some 
 somewhere. An arm for a duel ? I am at your service from 
 heel to head. 
 
 "You see him where he stands 
 Every inch a Frenchman and a soldier!" 
 
 "Come and have ten minutes' talk with me, not in your 
 room, we might be overheard, but on the Quai de 1'Horloge; 
 there is nobody there at this time of night," said Popinot, 
 "it is a question of the greatest importance." 
 
 "You are in a hurry, are you ? Come along !" 
 
 Ten minutes later, Gaudissart, now put in possession of 
 Popinot's secrets, recognized the importance of the matter. 
 
 "Approach, ye hairdressers and retail perfumers," cried 
 Gaudissart, mimicking Lafon in the Cid. "I will get hold of 
 all the perfumers of France and Navarre. Oh! I have it! 
 I was going away, but I shall stop here now and take agencies 
 from the Parisian perfumery trade." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "To choke off your competitors, innocent! By taking on 
 their agencies, I can make their perfidious cosmetics drink 
 to their own confusion in your oil, for I shall talk of nothing 
 else and push no other kind. A fine commercial traveler's 
 dodge ! Aha ! we are the diplomatists of commerce. Famous ! 
 As for your prospectus I will see to it. I have known Andoche 
 Finot since we were boys; his father is a hatter in the Rue 
 du Coq, the old fellow started me; it was through him that 
 I began to travel in the hat line. Andoche is a very clever 
 fellow ; he has the cleverness of all the heads that his father 
 ever fitted with hats. He is in the literary line; he does the 
 minor theatres for the Conrrier tlrs Spectacles. His father, 
 an old fox, has abundant reason for not liking cleverness ; he
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 121 
 
 doesn't believe in cleverness; it is impossible to make him 
 see that cleverness will sell,, and that a young man of spirit 
 can make a fortune by his wits ; indeed, as to spirit, the only 
 spirit he approves of is proof-spirit. Old Finot is reducing 
 young Finot by famine. Andoche can do anything, and he 
 is my friend, moreover, and I don't rub against fools (except 
 in the way of business). Finot does mottoes for the Fidele 
 Berger, which pays him, while the newspapers, for which he 
 works like a galley slave, snub him right and left. How 
 jealous they are in that line ! It is just like it is in the fancy 
 article trade. 
 
 "Finot wrote a splendid one-act comedy for Mile. Mars, 
 'the greatest of the great. (Ah! there's a woman that I ad- 
 mire!) Well, and to see it put on the stage at all, he had 
 to take it to the Gaite. Andoche understands prospectuses; 
 he enters into a man's ideas about business, he is not proud, 
 he will block out our prospectus gratis. Goodness ! we will 
 treat him to a bowl of punch and little cakes ; for, no nonsense, 
 Popinot; I will travel for you without commission or ex- 
 penses ; your competitors shall pay me, I will bamboozle them. 
 Let us understand each other clearly. The success of this 
 thing is a point of honor with me; my reward shall be to 
 be best-man at your wedding ! I will go to Italy, Germany, 
 and England ! I will take placards in every language with 
 me, and have them posted up everywhere, in the villages, at 
 church doors, and in all the good situations that I know in 
 country towns ! The oil shall make a blaze ; it shall be on 
 every head ! Ah ! your marriage will not be a marriage in 
 water-colors ; it shall be done in oils ! You shall have your 
 Cesarine, or I am not 'The Illustrious,' a nickname old 
 Finot gave me because I made a success of his gray hats. I 
 shall be sticking to my own line, too, the human head; oil 
 and hats, as is well known, are meant .to preserve the hair of 
 the public." 
 
 Popinot went to his aunt's house, where he was to spend the 
 night, in such a fever, brought on by visions of success, that 
 the streets seemed to him to be rivers of oil. He scarcely
 
 122 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 slept at all, dreamed that his hair was growing at a furious 
 rate, and beheld two angels, who unrolled above his head a 
 scroll (as in a pantomime), whereon the words Ccsarian 
 Oil were written; and he awoke, but remembered his dream, 
 and determined to give the name to the oil of hazel-nuts. He 
 saw the will of heaven revealed in this fancy. 
 
 Cesar and Popinot were both at the factory in the Fau- 
 bourg du Temple long before the hazel-nuts arrived. While 
 they waited for Mme. Madou's porters, Popinot in high glee 
 told the history of his treaty of alliance with Gaudissart. 
 
 "We have the illustrious Gaudissart for us; we shall be 
 millionaires!" cried the perfumer, holding out a hand to- 
 his cashier, with the air of a Louis XIV. receiving a Mare- 
 chal de Villars after Denain. 
 
 "And yet another thing," said the happy assistant, drawing 
 a bottle from his pocket, a gourd-shaped flask, flattened so as 
 to present several sides. "I have found ten thousand bottles 
 like this one, ready made and washed, at four sous and six 
 months' credit." 
 
 "Anselme," said Birotteau, beholding this marvel, "yester- 
 day (here his voice grew solemn), yesterday, in the garden 
 of the Tuileries yes, no longer ago than yesterday, your 
 words to me were, 'I shall succeed? To-day, I myself say to 
 you, 'You will succeed !' Four sous ! Six months ! An 
 entirely new shape ! Macassar is shaking in his shoes ; what 
 a deathblow for Macassar! What a good thing that I have 
 bought up all the nuts I could lay my hands on in Paris ! But 
 where did you find these bottles ?" 
 
 "I was waiting to speak to Gaudissart, and sauntering 
 about " 
 
 "Just as I once did," exclaimed Birotteau. 
 
 "And as I went down the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, I saw a 
 wholesale glass merchant's place, a dealer in bell-glasses and 
 glass shades, who has a very large stock ; I saw this bottle 
 Oh ! it stared me in the face like a flash of light ; something 
 said, 'Here is the thing for you !' "
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 123 
 
 "A born merchant ! He shall have my daughter/' mut- 
 tered Cesar. 
 
 "In I went, and saw thousands of the bottles standing there 
 in boxes." 
 
 "Did you ask him about them ?" 
 
 "You do not think me such a ninny !" cried Anselme, 
 grieved at the thought. 
 
 "Born merchant !" repeated Birotteau. 
 
 "I went in to ask for glass shades for little wax statuettes. 
 While I was bargaining for the glass shades, I found fault 
 with the shape of these bottles. That led to a general con- 
 fession; my bottle merchant went from one thing to another, 
 and told me that Faille and Bouchot, who failed lately, were 
 about to bring out a cosmetic, and wanted an out-of-the-way 
 shape. He distrusted them; he wanted half the money down; 
 Faille and Bouchot, hoping for a success, parted with the 
 money, and the failure came out while the bottles were being 
 made. When they put in a claim to the trustees for the rest, 
 the trustees compromised the matter by leaving them with 
 all the bottles and half the money that had been paid, as an 
 indemnity for goods which they said were absurdly shaped, 
 and impossible to dispose of. The bottles cost him eight sous, 
 and he would be glad to let any one have them for four. He 
 might have them on his hands for Heaven knew how long; 
 there was no sale for such a shape. 'Will you engage to 
 supply ten thousand at four sous ? I can take the bottles off 
 your hands ; I am M. Birotteau's assistant.' And so I opened 
 up the subject, and drew him out, led him on, and put pressure 
 on my man, and he is ours." 
 
 "Four sous !" said Birotteau. "Do you know that we can 
 bring out the oil at three francs, and make thirty sous, leaving 
 twenty to the retailers ?" 
 
 "The Cesarian Oil !" cried Popinot. 
 
 "Cesarian Oil ? . . . Ah, master lover, you have a 
 mind to flatter father and daughter. Very well; let it be 
 Cesarian Oil if you like. The Caesars conquered the world; 
 they must have had famous heads of hair."
 
 124 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Caisar was bald," said Popinot. 
 
 "Because he did not use our oil, people will say. The Ce- 
 sarian Oil at three francs; Macassar Oil costs twice as much. 
 Gaudissart is in it ; we shall make a hundred thousand francs 
 a year, for we will set down all heads that respect themselves 
 for a dozen bottles every twelve-month; eighteen francs of 
 profit ! Say there are eighteen thousand heads a hundred 
 and forty-four thousand francs. We shall be millionaires." 
 
 When the hazel-nuts arrived, Raguet and the work-people, 
 with Popinot and Cesar, cracked the shells, and a sufficient 
 quantity was pressed. In four hours' time they had several 
 pounds' weight of oil. Popinot took some of it to Vauquelin, 
 who presented him with a formula for diluting the essential 
 oil with a less expensive medium and for perfuming it. Po- 
 pinot straightway took steps for taking out a patent for the 
 invention and the improvement. It was Popinot's ambition 
 to pay his share of the expense of starting the enterprise, and 
 the devoted Gaudissart lent the money for the deposit. 
 
 Prosperity has an intoxicating effect, which always turns 
 weak heads. One result of this uplifted state of mind is read- 
 ily foreseen. Grindot came. He brought with him a sketch 
 in water-colors of a charming interior, the design for the 
 future rooms when furnished. Birotteau was carried away 
 with it. He agreed to everything, and the workmen began 
 at once; every stroke of the pickaxe drew groans from the 
 house, and from Constance. The painter, M. Lourdois, a very 
 wealthy contractor, who engaged to leave nothing undone, 
 talked of gilding the drawing-room. Constance interposed 
 at this. 
 
 "M. Lourdois," said she, "you have thirty thousand francs 
 a year of your own ; you live in your own house, and you can 
 do what you like in it ; but for people like us " 
 
 "Madame, commerce ought to shine; it should not suffer 
 itself to be eclipsed by the aristocracy. Besides, here is M. 
 Birotteau in the Government ; he is a public man " 
 
 "Yes, but he is still in the shop," said Constance aloud, 
 before the assistants and her five auditors; "neither he, nor 
 I, nor his friends, nor his enemies will forget that."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 125 
 
 Birotteau raised himself on tiptoe several times, with 
 his hands clasped behind his back. 
 
 "My wife is right," said he. "We will be modest in pros- 
 perity. Besides, so long as a man is in business, he ought to 
 be careful of his expenses, and to keep them within bounds; 
 indeed, he is bound by law not to indulge in 'excessive expendi- 
 ture.' If the enlargement of my premises, and the amount 
 spent on the alterations, exceeds a certain limit, it would be 
 imprudent in me to go beyond it; you yourself would blame 
 me, Lourdois. The quarter has its eyes upon me; successful 
 people are looked upon jealously and envied. Ah! you will 
 soon know that, young man," he said, addressing Grindot; 
 "if they slander us, at any rate let us give them no cause to 
 say evil of us." 
 
 "Neither slander nor spite can touch you/' said Lourdois; 
 "your position makes an exception of you ; and you have had 
 such a great experience of business, that you know how to 
 keep your affairs within due limits. You are shrewd." 
 
 "I have had some experience of business, it is true ; do you 
 know the reason why we are enlarging our house? If I ex- 
 act a heavy penalty to secure punctuality 'it is " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, . then, my wife and I are inviting a few friends, 
 partly to celebrate the liberation of the soil, partly on the oc- 
 casion of my promotion to the Order of the Legion of Honor." 
 
 "What, what ?" cried Lourdois. "Have they given you the 
 Cross?" 
 
 "Yes. It may be that I have shown myself worthy of this 
 signal mark of Koyal favor by discharging my functions at 
 the Consular Tribunal, and by fighting for the Royalist cause 
 on the 13th of Vendemiaire at Saint-Roch, when I was 
 wounded by Napoleon. Will you come and bring your wife 
 and your young lady ?" 
 
 "Enchanted by the honor you condescend to bestow upon 
 me," said Lourdois, a Liberal. "But you are a droll fellow, 
 Birotteau; yon TVIPRTI to -nnkc pure that I shall keep my word, 
 and that is why you ask me to come. Well, well; I will set
 
 126 RISE AND FAT.L t)F CESAR ^IROTTEAU 
 
 my best workmen on to it; we will have roaring fires to dry 
 the paint and use drying processes, for it will not do to dance 
 in a room full of steam from the damp plaster. The surface 
 shall be varnished, so that there shall be no smell." 
 
 Three days later, the announcement of Birotteau's forth- 
 coming ball created a flutter in the commercial world of that 
 quarter. And not only so, every one could see for himself 
 the timber props, necessitated by the hurried alteration of the 
 staircase, and the square wooden shaft holes, through which 
 the rubbish was shot into the carts beneath. The. men in their 
 haste worked by torchlight, for they had a night-and-day shift, 
 and this collected idlers and inquisitive gazers in the street. 
 On such preparations as these, the gossip of the neighborhood 
 reared sumptuous fabrics of conjecture. 
 
 On the Sunday, when the documents relative to the building 
 land were to be signed, M. and Mme. Kagon, and uncle Pille- 
 rault, came at four o'clock, after vespers. Cesar said that as 
 the house was so much pulled to pieces, he could only ask 
 Charles Claparon, Eoguin, and Crottat for that day. The 
 notary brought a co'py of the Journal des Dcbats, in which M. 
 de la Billardiere had inserted the following paragraph : 
 
 "We hear that the liberation of the soil will be celebrated 
 with enthusiasm throughout France; but, in Paris, the mem- 
 bers of the municipal administration have felt that the time 
 had come for reviving the splendor of the capital, which has 
 been eclipsed during the foreign occupation, from a feeling 
 of patriotism. Each of the mayors and deputy-mayors pro- 
 poses to give a ball, so that the winter season promises to be a 
 very brilliant one, and the National movement will be fol- 
 lowed up. Among the many fetes about to take place is the 
 much-talked-of ball to be given by M. Birotteau, recently 
 nominated for the Legion of Honor, and so widely known for 
 his devotion to the Eoyalist cause. M. Birotteau, wounded in 
 the affair of Saint-Roch on the 13th of Vendemiaire, and one 
 of the most highly respected judges of the Consular Tribunal, 
 has doubly deserved this distinction."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 12? 
 
 "How well they write nowadays !" exclaimed Cesar. "They 
 are talking about us in the paper," he added, turning, to 
 Pillerault. 
 
 "Well, and what of that ?" returned the uncle, who particu- 
 larly detested the Journal des Debats. 
 
 "Perhaps the paragraph may sell some of the Pate des Sul- 
 tanes and the Toilet Lotion/' said Mme. Cesar in a low voice 
 to Mme. Eagon. Mme. Birotteau did not share her husband's 
 exhilaration. 
 
 Mme. Ragon, a tall, thin woman, with a sharp nose and thin 
 lips, looked a very fair imitation of a marquise of the ancien 
 regime. A somewhat wide margin of red encircled her eyes, 
 as sometimes happens with aged women who have known 
 many troubles. Her fine austere face, in spite of its kindli- 
 ness, was dignified, and there was moreover a quaint something 
 about her which struck beholders, yet did not excite a smile, 
 a something interpreted by her manner and her dress. She 
 wore mittens; she carried in all weathers a cane umbrella, 
 such as Marie Antoinette used at the Trianon; her favorite 
 color was that particular pale shade of brown known as feuille- 
 morte; her skirts hung from her waist in folds, which will 
 never be seen again, for the dowager ladies of a bygone day 
 have taken their secret with them. Mme. Ragon had not 
 given up the black mantilla bordered with square-meshed 
 black lace ; the ornaments in her old-fashioned caps reminded 
 you of the filagree work on old picture-frames. She took 
 snuff with the dainty neatness and the little gestures which 
 a younger generation may recall, if they have been so fortu- 
 nate as to see their great-aunt or grandmother solemnly set 
 her gold snuff-box on the table beside her, and shake the stray 
 grains from her fichu. 
 
 The Sieur Ragon was a little man, five feet high at the 
 most, with a countenance of the nutcracker type. Two eyes 
 were visible, two prominent cheek-bones, a nose, and a chin. 
 As he had lost his teeth, he mumbled half his words, but he 
 talked like a brook, politely, somewhat pompously, and always 
 with a smile the same smile with which he had greeted the
 
 128 RISE AND FALL OF -CESAR B1ROTTEAU 
 
 fair ladies of quality whom one chance or another brought to 
 his. shop. His hair, tightly scraped back from his forehead 
 and powdered, described a snowy half-moon on his head, with 
 u pair of "pigeon's wings" on either side of a neat queue tied 
 with ribbon. He wore a cornflower-blue coat, a white waist- 
 coat, silk breeches and stockings, black silk gloves, and shoes 
 with gold buckles to them. The most peculiar thing about 
 him was his habit of walking out in the street hat in hand. He 
 looked rather like a messenger of the Chamber of Peers, or 
 some usher-in-waiting at the palace one of those attendant 
 satellites of some great power, which shine with a reflected 
 glory, and remain intrinsically insignificant. 
 
 "Well, Birotteau," he remarked, and from his tone he might 
 have been addressing an assistant, "are you sorry now, my 
 boy, that you took our advice in those days? Did we ever 
 doubt the gratitude of our beloved royal family ?" 
 
 "You must be very happy, my dear," said Mme. Eagon, 
 addressing Mme. Birotteau. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," returned the fair Constance, who always 
 fell under the charm of that cane umbrella, those butterfly 
 caps, those tight-fitting sleeves, and the ample fichu a la Julie 
 that Mme. Kagon wore. 
 
 "Cesarine looks charming. Come here, pretty child," said 
 Mme. Eagon. She spoke in a patronizing manner, and with 
 * high head-voice. 
 
 "Shall we settle the business before dinner?" asked uncle 
 Pillerault. 
 
 "We are waiting for M. Claparon," said Eoguin; "he was 
 dressing when I left him." 
 
 "M. Eoguin," Cesar began, "does he quite understand that 
 we are to dine in a wretched little entresol " 
 
 ("Sixteen years ago he thought it magnificent," murmured 
 Constance.) 
 
 "Among the rubbish, and with all the workmen about?" 
 
 "Pooh ! you will find him a good fellow, and not hard to 
 please," said Eoguin. 
 
 "I have left Eaguet to look after the shop ; we cannot come
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 129 
 
 in and out of our own door now ; as you have seen, it has ail 
 been pulled down/' Cesar returned. 
 
 "Why did you not bring your nephew?" asked Pillerault 
 of Mme. Eagon. 
 
 "Shall we see him later ?" suggested Cesarine. 
 
 "No, darling," said Mme. Ragon. "Anselme, dear boy, is 
 working himself to death. I am afraid of that close street 
 where the sun never shines, that vile-smelling Rue des Cinq- 
 Diamants; the gutter is always black or blue or green. I 
 am afraid he may die there. But when young people set 
 their minds upon anything !" she said, turning to Cesa- 
 rine with a gesture that interpreted "mind" as "heart." 
 
 "Then, has the lease been signed ?" asked Cesar. 
 
 "Yesterday, before a notary," Ragon replied. "He has 
 taken the place for eighteen years, but he pays the rent six 
 months in advance." 
 
 "Well, M. Ragon, are you satisfied with me?" Birotteau 
 asked. "I have given him the secret of a new discovery 
 in fact !" 
 
 "We know you by heart, Cesar," said little Ragon, taking 
 Cesar's hands, and pressing them with devout friendliness. 
 
 Roguin meanwhile was not without inward qualms. Cla- 
 paron was about to appear on the scene, and his habits and 
 manner of talking might be something of a shock to these 
 respectable citizens. He thought it necessary to prepare their 
 minds, and spoke, addressing Ragon, Pillerault, and the 
 women. 
 
 "You will see an eccentric character," he said ; "he hides 
 his talents beneath shocking bad manners; his ideas have 
 raised him from a very low position. No doubt he will 
 acquire better tastes in the society of bankers. You might 
 come across him slouching half-fuddled along the boulevard, 
 or in a cafe playing at billiards ; he looks like a great hulking 
 idiot. But nothing of the kind ; he is thinking all the time, 
 pondering how to put life into trade by new ideas." 
 
 "I can understand that," said Birotteau; "my best ideas 
 came to me while I was sauntering about, didn't they, dear ?"
 
 130 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Claparon makes up for lost time at night, after spending 
 the daytime in meditating over business combinations. All 
 these very clever people lead queer inexplicable lives," Koguin 
 continued. "Well, with all his desultory ways, he gains his 
 end, as I can testify. He made all the owners of our building 
 land give way at last; they were not willing, they demurred 
 at this and that; he mystified them tired them out; day 
 after day he went to see them, and this time the lots. are 
 ours." 
 
 A peculiar sounding broum! brown! characteristic of 
 drinkers of strong waters and spirits, announced the arrival 
 of the most grotesque personage in this story who was in 
 the future to enact the part of the arbiter of Cesar's des- 
 tinies. The perfumer hurried down the narrow, dark stair- 
 case, partly to tell Eaguet to close the shop, partly to make 
 his excuses for receiving Claparon in the dining-room. 
 
 "Eh, what? Oh, it will do very well for stowing the 
 vict , I mean for doing business in." 
 
 In spite of Eoguin's skilful opening, the entrance of the 
 sham great banker at once produced an unpleasant impres- 
 sion upon those well-bred citizens, M. and Mme. Eagon, 
 upon the observant Pillerault, and upon Cesarine and her 
 mother. 
 
 At the age of twenty-eight, or thereabouts, the former com- 
 mercial traveler had not a hair on his head, and wore a wig 
 of corkscrew curls. Such a manner of dressing the hair 
 demands a girlish freshness, a milk-white skin, and the 
 daintiest feminine charm; so it brought out all the vulgarity 
 of a pimpled countenance, a dark-red complexion, flushed like 
 that of a stage coachman, and covered with premature 
 wrinkles and deeply cut grotesque lines which told of a dis- 
 solute life ; its ill effects could be read only too plainly in the 
 bad state of his teeth and the black specks dotted over the 1 
 shriveled skin. 
 
 There was something about Claparon that suggested the 
 provincial actor who frequents fairs, and is prepared to play 
 any and every part, to whose worn, shrunken cheeks and
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 131 
 
 flabby lips the paint refuses to adhere; the tongue always 
 wagging even when the man is drunk; the shameless eyes, 
 the compromising gestures. Such a face as this, lighted 
 up by the hilarious flames of punch, little befitted a man ac- 
 customed to important business. Indeed, only after pro- 
 longed and necessary studies in mimicry had Claparon suc- 
 ceeded in adopting a manner not wholly out of keeping with 
 his supposed importance. Du Tillet had assisted personally 
 at Claparon's toilette, anxious as a nervous manager over 
 the first appearance of his principal actor, for he trembled 
 lest the vicious habits of a reckless life should appear 
 through the veneer of the banker. 
 
 "Say as little as you can," said his mentor; "a banker 
 never babbles; he acts, thinks, meditates, listens, and pon- 
 ders. So, to look like a real banker, you must .either not 
 speak at all, or say insignificant things. Keep those ribald 
 eyes of yours quiet ; look solemn at the risk of looking stupid. 
 In politics, be for the Government, but keep to generalities, 
 such as 'There is a heavy budget; compromise as parties 
 stand is out of the question; Liberalism is dangerous; the 
 Bourbons ought to avoid all collisions; Liberalism is a cloak 
 to hide the schemes of the Coalition; the Bourbons are in- 
 augurating an epoch of prosperity, so let us give them our 
 support, whether we are well affected to them or not ; France 
 has had enough of political experiments/ and the like. And 
 don't sprawl over all the tables; remember that you have to 
 sustain the dignity of a millionaire. Don't snort like a pen- 
 sioner when you take snuff; play with your snuff-box, and 
 look at your boots or at the ceiling before you give an answer ; 
 look as wise as you can, in fact. Above all things, rid your- 
 self of your unlucky habit of fingering everything. In so- 
 ciety a banker ought to look as if he were glad_ to let his 
 fingers rest. And look here! you work at night, you are 
 stupid with making calculations, there are so many things 
 to consider in the starting of an enterprise ! so much think- 
 ing is involved ! Grumble, above all things, and say that 
 trade is very bad. Trade is dull, slow, hard to move", per-
 
 132 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 plcxing. Keep to that, and let particulars alone. Don't 
 begin to sing drolleries of Beranger's at table, and don't 
 drink too much; you will ruin your prospects if you get 
 tipsy. Eoguin will keep an eye on you ; you are going among 
 moral people, respectable, steady-going folk, don't frighten 
 them by letting out some of your pot-house principles." 
 
 This homily produced on Charles Claparon's mind an effect 
 very similar to the strange sensation of his new suit of 
 clothes. The rollicking prodigal, hail-fellow-well-met with 
 everybody, accustomed to the comfortable, disreputable gar- 
 ments in which his outer man was as much at home as his 
 thoughts in the language that clothed them, held himself 
 upright, stiff as a poker in the new clothes for which the 
 tailor had kept him waiting to the last minute, and was as 
 ill at ease in his movements as in this new phraseology. He 
 put out a hand unthinkingly towards a flask or a box, then, 
 hurriedly recollecting himself, drew it in again, and in the 
 same way he began a sentence and stopped short in the mid- 
 dle, distinguishing himself by a ludicrous incoherence, which 
 did not escape the observant Pillerault. His round face, 
 like the rakish-looking corkscrew ringlets of his wig, were 
 totally out of keeping with his manner, and he seemed to 
 think one thing and say another. But the good folk con- 
 cluded that his inconsequence was the result of preoccupa- 
 tion. 
 
 "He does so much business," said Eoguin. 
 
 "Business has given him very little breeding," Mme. Ragon 
 said to Cesarine. 
 
 M. Roguin overheard her, and laid a finger on his lips. 
 "He is rich, clever, and honorable to a fault," he said, bend- 
 ing to Mme. Ragon. 
 
 "He may be excused something for such qualities as those," 
 said Pillerault to Ragon. 
 
 "Let us read over the papers before dinner," said Roguin. 
 "We are alone." 
 
 Mme. Ragon, Cesarine, and Constance left the contract- 
 ing parties, Pillerault, Ragon, Cesar, Roguin, and Claparon,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 133 
 
 to listen to the reading of the documents by Alexandre Crot- 
 tat. Cesar signed a mortgage bond for forty thousand francs 
 secured on the land and the factory in the Faubourg du Tem- 
 ple (the money had been lent by one of Eoguin's clients) ; 
 he paid over to Roguin Pillerault's order on the bank, gave 
 (without taking a receipt) twenty thousand francs worth of 
 bills from his portfolio, and drew another bill for the re- 
 maining hundred and forty thousand francs on Charles 
 Claparon. 
 
 "I have no receipt to give you," said that gentleman. 
 "You are acting for your own side with M. Roguin, as we 
 are doing for our share. Our vendors will receive their 
 money from him in coin; I only undertake to complete your 
 payment by paying a hundred and forty thousand francs for 
 your bills - " 
 
 "That is right," said Pillerault. 
 
 "Well, then, gentlemen, let us call in the ladies again, 
 for it is cold without them," said Claparon, with a look at 
 Roguin to see whether he had gone too far. 
 
 "Ladies ! . . . Ah ! mademoiselle is your young lady, 
 of course," said Claparon, looking at Birotteau, and straight- 
 ening himself up. "Well, well, you are not a bungler. Not 
 one of the roses that you have distilled can be compared with 
 her, and perhaps it is because you have distilled roses 
 
 "Faith !" said Roguin, interrupting him, "I own that I am 
 hungry." 
 
 "Very well, let us have dinner," said Birotteau. 
 
 "We. are to have dinner in the presence of a notary," said 
 Claparon, with an important air. 
 
 "You do a great deal of business, do you not ?" said Pille- 
 rault, purposely seating himself next to the banker. 
 
 "A tremendous amount, wholesale," replied Claparon; 
 "but trade is dull, hard to move there are canals now. Oh, 
 canals ! You have no idea how busy we are with canals. 
 That is comprehensible. The Government wants canals. A 
 canal is a want generally felt. All the trade of a depart- 
 10
 
 134 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 merit is interested in a canal, you know! A stream, said 
 Pascal, is a moving highway. The next thing is a market, 
 and markets depend on embankments, for there are a fright- 
 ful lot of embankments, and the embankments interest the 
 poorer classes, and that means a loan, which finally benefits 
 the poor ! Voltaire said, 'Canal, canard, canaille !' But 
 Government depends for information on its own engineers; 
 it is difficult to meddle in the matter, at least, it is difficult 
 to come to an understanding with them; for the Chamber 
 
 Oh ! sir, the Chamber gives us trouble ! The Chamber 
 
 does not want to grapple with the political question hidden 
 beneath the financial question. There is bad faith on all 
 sides. Would you believe this? There are the Kellers 
 well, then, Frangois Keller is a public speaker, he attacks 
 the measures of the Government as to the funds and canals. 
 He comes home, and then my fine gentleman finds us with 
 our propositions; they are favorable, and he has to make it 
 up with the aforesaid Government, which he attacked so 
 insolently an hour ago. The interests of the public speaker 
 clash with the interests of the banker; we are between two 
 fires. Now you understand how thorny affairs become; you 
 have to satisfy everybody the clerks, the people in the 
 chambers, and the people in the ante-chambers, and the 
 Ministers " 
 
 "The Ministers?" asked Pillerault, who wished to probe 
 this partner's mind thoroughly. 
 
 "Yes, sir, the Ministers." 
 
 "Well, then, the newspapers are right," said Pillerault. 
 
 "Here is uncle on politics," said Birotteau; 'M. Claparon 
 has set him off." 
 
 "Newspapers !" said Claparon, "there are some more con- 
 founded humbugs ! Newspapers throw us all into confusion ; 
 they do us a good turn now and then, but the cruel nights 
 they make me spend! I would as lief be without them; 
 they are the ruin of my eyes in fact, poring over them and 
 working oiit calculations." 
 
 "But to return to the Ministers," said Pillerault, hoping for 
 revelations.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAE BIROTTEAU 135 
 
 "Ministers have exigencies which are purely governmental. 
 But what am I eating; is it ambrosia?" asked Claparon, 
 interrupting himself. "Here is a sort of sauce that you only 
 have in citizens' houses; you never get it at grub-shops " 
 
 At that word, the ornaments on Mme. Ragon's cap skipped 
 like rams. Claparon gathered that the expression was low, 
 and tried to retrieve his error. 
 
 "That is what the heads of large banking firms call the 
 high-class taverns Very, and the Freres Provengaux. Well, 
 neither those vile grub-shops, nor our most accomplished 
 cooks, make you a soft, mellow sauce; some give you water 
 with lemon-juice in it, and others give you chemical concoc- 
 tions/' 
 
 The conversation at dinner chiefly consisted in attacks 
 from Pillerault, who tried to plumb his man, and only found 
 emptiness; he looked upon him as a dangerous person. 
 
 "It is going on all right/' said Roguin in Charles Claparon's 
 ear. 
 
 "Oh I I shall get out of my clothes to-night, I suppose/' 
 answered Claparon, who was gasping for breath. 
 
 "We are obliged to use our dining-room as a sitting-room, 
 sir," said Birotteau, "because we are looking forward to a 
 little gathering of our friends in eighteen days' time, partly 
 to celebrate the liberation of the soil " 
 
 "Right, sir; I myself am also for the Government. My 
 political convictions incline me to the statu quo of the great 
 man who guides the destinies of the house of Austria, a fine 
 fellow ! Keep what you have, to get more ; and, in the first 
 place, get more, to keep what you have. So now you know 
 the bottom of my opinions, which have the honor to be those 
 of Prince Metternich!" 
 
 "Partly on the occasion of my promotion to the Order 
 of the Legion of Honor/' Cesar went on. 
 
 "Why, yes, 1 know. Now who was telling me about that ? 
 Was it the Kellers, or Nucingen?" 
 
 Roguin, amazed at so much presence of inind, signified 
 his admiration.
 
 136 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Oh, no; it was at the Chamber." 
 
 "At the Chamber. Was it M. de la Billardiere ?" asked 
 Cesar. 
 
 "The very man." 
 
 "He is charming," said Cesar, addressing his uncle. 
 
 "He pours out talk, talk, talk, till you are drowned in 
 talk," said Pillerault. 
 
 "It may be," resumed Birotteau, "that I have shown my- 
 self worthy of this favor " 
 
 "By your achievements in perfumery; the Bourbons know 
 how to reward merit of every kind. Ah! let us stand by 
 our generous legitimate Princes, to whom we shall owe un- 
 heard-of prosperity about to be. For, you may be sure of 
 it, the Kestoration feels that she must enter the lists with 
 the Empire, and the Bestoration will make peaceful con- 
 quests ; you will see conquests ! . . ." 
 
 "You will no doubt honor us by coming to our ball, sir," 
 said Mme. Cesar. 
 
 "To spend an evening with you, madame, I would miss 
 a chance of making millions." 
 
 "He certainly is a babbler," said Cesar in his uncle's 
 ear. 
 
 While the waning glory of the Queen of Roses was about 
 to shed abroad its parting rays, a faint star was rising above 
 the commercial horizon; at that very hour, little Popinot 
 was laying the foundations of his fortune in the Eue des 
 Cinq-Diamants. The Eue des Cinq-Diamants, a short, nar- 
 row thoroughfare, where loaded wagons can scarcely pass 
 each other, runs between the Eue des Lombards and the 
 Eue Aubry-le-Boucher, into which it opens just opposite the 
 end of the Eue Quincampoix, that street so famous in the 
 history of France and of old Paris. 
 
 In spite of this narrowness, the near neighborhood of the 
 druggists' quarter made the place convenient; and from that 
 point of view, Popinot had not made a bad choice. The 
 (the second from the end nearest the Eue des Lorn-
 
 137 
 
 bards) was so dark, that at times it was necessary to work 
 by artificial light in the daytime. Popinot had taken pos- 
 session the evening before of all its darkest and most un- 
 savory recesses. His predecessor, a dealer in treacle and 
 raw sugars, had left his mark on the place; the walls, the 
 yard, and the storehouse bore unmistakable traces of his 
 occupation. 
 
 Imagine a large and roomy shop, and huge doors barred 
 with iron and painted dragon-green, the solid iron scroll- 
 work, with bolt heads as large as mushrooms by way of 
 ornament. The shop was adorned and protected, as bakers' 
 shops used to be, by wire-work lattices, which bulged at the 
 bottom, and was paved with great slabs of white stone, 
 cracked for the most part. The walls of a guard-house are 
 not yellower nor barer. Further on came the back-shop and 
 kitchen, which looked out into the yard; and behind these 
 again a second storeroom, which must at one time have been 
 a stable. An inside staircase had been contrived in the back- 
 shop, by which you gained two rooms that looked out upon the 
 street; here Popinot meant to have his counting-house and 
 his ledgers. Above the warehouse there were three small 
 rooms, all backed against the party-wall, and lighted by win- 
 dows on the side of the yard. It was in these dilapidated 
 rooms that Popinot proposed to live. 
 
 The view from the windows was shut in by the high walls 
 that rose about the dingy, crooked yard, walls so damp that 
 even in the driest weather they looked as if they had been 
 newly distempered. The cracks in the paving-stones were 
 choked with black, malodorous filth, deposited there during 
 the tenancy of the dealer in treacle and raw sugars. So 
 much for the outlook. As to the rooms themselves, only 
 one of them boasted a fireplace ; the floors were of brick, the 
 walls were unpapered. 
 
 Gaudissart and Popinot had been busy there ever since 
 the morning, putting up a cheap wall-paper with their own 
 hands in the ugly room; a journeyman paperhanger whom 
 Gaudiesart ferreted out had varnished it for them. The
 
 138 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 furniture consisted of a student's mattress, a wooden bed- 
 stead painted red, a rickety nightstand, a venerable chest of 
 drawers, a table, a couple of armchairs, and half-a-dozen ordi- 
 nary chairs, a present from Popinot the judge to his nephew. 
 Gaudissart had put a cheap pier-glass over the chimney- 
 piece. It was almost eight o'clock in the evening, and the 
 two friends, sitting before a blazing fire, were about to dis- 
 cuss the remains of their breakfast. 
 
 "Away with the cold mutton ! It is out of character in 
 a house-warming/' cried Gaudissart. 
 
 Popinot held up his last twenty-franc piece, which was 
 to pay for the pfospectus. "But I " he began. 
 
 "I? . . ." retorted Gaudissart, sticking a forty-franc 
 piece into his eye. 
 
 A knock at the street door reverberated through the yard. 
 It was Sunday, the workpeople were taking their holiday 
 away from their workshops, and the idle echoes greeted every 
 sound. 
 
 "There is my trusty man from the Kue de la Poterie," 
 Gaudissart went on. "For my own part, it is not simply 
 %' but <I have/ " 
 
 And, in fact, a waiter appeared, followed by two kitchen 
 boys, carrying between them three wicker baskets, containing 
 a dinner, and crowned by six bottles of wine selected with 
 discrimination. 
 
 "But how are we to eat such a lot of things?" asked 
 Popinot. 
 
 "There is the man of letters," cried Gaudissart. "Finot 
 understands the pomps and vanities. The artless youth 
 will be here directly with a prospectus fit to make your 
 hair stand on end (neat that, eh?), and prospectuses are 
 always dry work. You must water the seeds if you mean to 
 have flowers. Here, minions," he added, striking an at- 
 titude for the benefit of the kitchen-boys, "here's gold for 
 you." 
 
 He held out six sous with a gesture worthy of his idol, 
 Napoleon.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 139 
 
 "Thank you, M. Gaudissart," said the scullions, more 
 pleased with the joke than with the money. 
 
 "As for thee, my son," he continued, turning to the 
 waiter who remained, "there is a portress here. She 
 crouches in the depths of a cave, where at times she does 
 some cooking, as erewhile Nausicaa did the washing, simply 
 by way of relaxation. Hie thee to her, work on her trustful 
 nature; interest her, young man, in the temperature of thy 
 hot dishes. Say to her that she shall be blessed, and above 
 all things respected, highly respected, by Felix Gaudissart, 
 son of Jean-Frangois Gaudissart, and grandson of Gaudis- 
 sart, vile proletaries of remote lineage, his ancestors. Off 
 with you, and act in such a sort that everything shall be 
 good ; for if it isn't, I will make you laugh on the wrong side 
 of your face." 
 
 There was another knock at the door. 
 
 "That is the ingenious Andoche," said Gaudissart. 
 
 A stout young fellow suddenly entered. He had some- 
 what chubby cheeks, was of middle height, and from head to 
 foot looked like the hatter's son. A certain shrewdness 
 lurked beneath the air of constraint that sat on his rounded 
 features. The habitual dejection of a man who is tired of 
 poverty left him, and a hilarious expression crossed his coun- 
 tenance, at the sight of the preparations on the table and the 
 significant seals on the bottle-corks. At Gaudissart's shout, 
 a twinkle came into the pale-blue eyes, the big head, on 
 which a Kalmuck physiognomy had been carved, rolled from 
 side to side, and he gave Popinot a distant greeting, in which 
 there was neither servility nor respect, like a man who feels 
 out of his element and stands on his dignity. 
 
 Finot was just beginning to discover that he had no sort 
 of talent for literature ; he did not think of quitting his 
 calling; he meant to exploit literature by raising himself 
 on the shoulders of men who possessed the talent which he 
 lacked. Instead of doing ill-paid work himself, he would 
 turn his business capacities to account. He was just at the 
 turning-point; he had exhausted the expedients of humility;
 
 140 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he had experienced to the full the humiliation of failure; 
 and, like those who take a wide outlook over the financial 
 world, he resolved to change his tactics, and to be insolent 
 in future. He needed capital in the first instance, and 
 Gaudissart had opened out a prospect of making the money 
 by putting Popinot's oil before the public. 
 
 "You will make his arrangements with the newspapers," 
 Gaudissart had said, "but don't swindle him ; if you do, there 
 will be a duel to the death batween us; give him value for 
 his money !" 
 
 Popinot looked uneasily at the "author." Your true man 
 of business regards an author with mixed feelings, in which 
 alarm and curiosity are blended with compassion; and 
 though Popinot had been well educated, his relations' atti- 
 tude of mind and ways of thinking, together with a course 
 of drudgery in a shop, had produced their effect on his in- 
 telligence, and he bent beneath the yoke of use and wont. 
 You can see this by noticing the metamorphoses which ten 
 years will effect among a hundred boys, who when they left 
 school or college were almost exactly alike. 
 
 Andoche mistook the impression which he had made for 
 admiration. 
 
 "Very well. Let us run through the prospectus before 
 dinner, then it will be off our minds, and we can drink," 
 said Gaudissart. "It is uncomfortable to read after dinner; 
 the tongue is digesting too." 
 
 "Sir," said Popinot, "a prospectus often means a whole 
 fortune." 
 
 "And for nobodies like me," said Andoche, "fortune is 
 nothing but a prospectus." 
 
 "Ah! vefy good," said Gaudissart. "That droll fellow 
 of an Andoche has wit enough for the Forty." 
 
 "For a hundred," said Popinot, awestruck with the idea. 
 
 Gaudissart snatched up the manuscript, and read aloud, 
 and with emphasis, the first two words "Cephalic Oil!" 
 
 "I like Cesarian Oil better," said Popinot. 
 
 "You don't know thei" in the provinces, my friend," said
 
 RISE AM) FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 141 
 
 Gaudissart. "There is a surgical operation known by that 
 name, and they are so stupid, that they will think your oil 
 is meant to facilitate childbirth; and if they start off with 
 the notion, it would be too hard work to bring them all the 
 way back to hair again." 
 
 "Without defending the name," observed the author, "I 
 would call your attention to the fact that Cephalic Oil 
 means oil for the head, and resumes your ideas." 
 
 "Go on !" said Popinot impatiently. 
 
 And here follows a second historical document, a pros- 
 pectus, which even at this day is circulating by thousands 
 among retail perfumers. 
 
 GOLD MEDAL,, PARIS 1824* 
 
 CEPHALIC OIL 
 
 (Improved Patent). 
 
 No cosmetic can make the hair grow; and in the same way, it 
 cannot be dyed by chemical preparations without danger to the seat 
 of the intelligence. Science has recently proclaimed that the hair is 
 not a living substance, and that there is no means of preventing it 
 from blanching or falling out. To prevent xerasia and baldness, the 
 bulb at the roots should be preserved from all atmospheric influences, 
 and the natural temperature of the head evenly maintained. The 
 ' ' Cephalic Oil ," based on these principles established by the Royal 
 Academy of Sciences, induces the important result so highly prized 
 by the ancients, the Romans and Greeks, and the nations of the 
 North a fine head of hair. Learned research bas brought to light 
 the fact that the nobles of olden times, who were distinguished by 
 their long, flowing locks, used no other means than these; their 
 recipe, long lost, has been ingeniously rediscovered by A. POPINOT, 
 inventor of " Cephalic Oil. " 
 
 To preserve the glands, and not to provoke an impossible or hurt- 
 ful stimulation of the dermis which contains them, is, therefore, the 
 * The next "Quinquennial Exhibition,"
 
 142 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 function of " Cephalic Oil. " This oil, which exhales a delicious 
 fragrance, prevents the exfoliation of the pellicle; while the sub- 
 stances of which it is composed (the essential oil of the hazel-nnt 
 being the principal element) counteract the effects of atmospheric 
 air upon the head, thus preventing chills, catarrh, and all un- 
 pleasant encephalic affections by maintaining the natural tempera- 
 ture. In this manner the glands, which contain the hair- producing 
 secretions, are never attacked by heat or cold. A fine head of hair 
 that glorious product so highly valued by either sex -may be re- 
 tained to extreme old age by the use of ''Cephalic Oil," which 
 imparts to the hair the brilliancy, silkiness, and gloss which consti- 
 tutes the charm of children's heads. 
 Directions for use are issued on the wrapper of every bottle. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR USE 
 
 It is perfectly useless to apply oil to the hair itself: besides being 
 an absurd superstition, it is an obnoxious practice, for the cosmetic 
 leaves its traces everywhere. 
 
 It is only necessary to part the hair with a comb, and to apply the 
 oil to the roots every morning with a small sponge, proceeding thus 
 until the whole surface of the skin has received a slight application, 
 the hair having been previously combed and brushed. 
 
 To prevent spurious imitations, each bottle bears the signature of 
 the inventor. Sold at the price of THREE FRANCS by A. POPINOT, 
 Rue des Cinq-Diamants, Quartier des Lombards, Paris. 
 
 It is particularly requested that all communications b ir post should 
 be prepaid. 
 
 NOTE. A. POPINOT also supplies essences and pharmaceutical prep- 
 arations, such as neroli, oil of spike-lavender, oil of sweet almonds, 
 cacao-butter, cafeine, castor oil, "et csetera. " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said the Illustrious Gaudissart, address- 
 ing Finot, "it is perfectly written ! Ye gods, how we plunge 
 into deep science ! No shuffling ; we go straight to the point ! 
 Ah! I congratulate you heartily; there is literature of some 
 practical use !" 
 
 "A fine prospectus!" cried Popinot enthusiastically. 
 
 "The very first sentence is a deathblow to Macassar," said 
 Gaudissart, rising to his feet with a magisterial air, to pro-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR B1ROTTEAU 143 
 
 clain; with an oratorical gesture between each word, " 'You 
 cannot make hair grow. It cannot be dyed with- 
 out danger !' Aha ! success lies in that. Modern science 
 corroborates the custom of the ancients. You can suit your- 
 self to old and young. You have to do with an old man. 
 Aha, , sir! the Greeks and Eomans, the ancients, were in the 
 right; they were not such fools as some would make them 
 out to be ! Or if it is a young man. My dear fellow, an- 
 other discovery due to the progress of enlightenment; we are 
 progressing. What must we not expect from steam, and the 
 telegraph, and such like inventions? This oil is the out- 
 come of M. Vauquelin's investigations ! How if we were to 
 print an extract from M. Vauquelin's paper, eh? Capital! 
 Come, Finot, draw up your chair ! Let us stow the victuals, 
 and tipple down the champagne to our young friend's suc- 
 cess !" 
 
 "It seemed to me," said the author modestly, "that the 
 time for the light and playful prospectus has gone by ; we are 
 entering on an epoch of science, and must talk learnedly 
 and authoritatively to make an impression on the public." 
 
 "We will push the oil. My feet, and my tongue too, are 
 hankering to go. I have agencies for all the houses that 
 deal in hairdressers' goods, not one of them gives more than 
 thirty per cent of discount ; make up your mind to give forty, 
 and I will engage to sell a hundred thousand bottles in six 
 months. I will make a set on all the druggists, grocers, and 
 hairdressers! And if you will allow them forty per cent 
 on your oil, they will all send their customers wild for it." 
 
 The three young men ate like lions, drank like Swiss, 
 and waxed merry over the future success of the Cephalic 
 Oil. 
 
 "This oil goes to your head," said Finot, smiling, and 
 Uaudissart exhausted whole series of puns on the words, 
 oil, head, and hair. 
 
 In the midst of their Homeric 'laughter over the dessert, 
 the knocker sounded, and in spite of the toasts and the wishes 
 for luck exchanged among the three friends, they heard it.
 
 144 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "It is my uncle! He is capable of coming to see me/' 
 cried Popinot. 
 
 "An uncle?" asked Finot, "and we have not a glass!" 
 
 "My friend Popinot's uncle is an examining magistrate," 
 said Gaudissart, by way of reply to Finot; "there is no oc- 
 casion to hoax him, he saved my life. Ah ! if you had found 
 yourself in the fix I was in, with the scaffold staring you in 
 the face, where, kouik, off goes your hair for good!" (and 
 he imitated the fatal knife by a gesture), "you would be 
 apt to remember the ' righteous judge to whom you owe , the 
 preservation of the channel that the champagne goes down ! 
 You would remember him if you were dead drunk. You 
 don't know, Finot, but what you may want M. Popinot one 
 day. Saquerlotte! You must make your bow to him, and 
 thirteen to the dozen !" 
 
 It was, as a matter of fact, the "righteous judge," who 
 was asking for his nephew of the woman who opened the 
 door. Anselme recognized the voice, and .went down, candle 
 in hand, to light his way. 
 
 "Good-evening, gentlemen," said the magistrate. 
 
 The Illustrious Gaudissart made a profound bow. Finot 
 looked the newcomer over with drunken eyes, and decided 
 that Popinot's uncle was tolerably woodenheaded. 
 
 "There is no luxury here," said the judge, .gravely look- 
 ing round the room; "but, m\ boy, you must begin by being 
 nothing if you are to be something great." 
 
 "How profound he is !" said Gaudissart, turning to Finot. 
 
 "An idea for an article," said the journalist. 
 
 "Oh ! is that you, sir ?" said the judge, recognizing the 
 commercial traveler. "Eh ! what are you doing here ?" 
 
 l( i want to do all my little part, sir, towards making your 
 dear nephew's fortune. We have just been pondering over 
 the prospectus for this oil of his, and this gentleman here 
 is the author of the prospectus, which seems to us to be one 
 of the finest things in the literature of periwigs." 
 
 The judge looked at Finot. 
 
 "This gentleman is M. Andoche Finot," Gaudissart said,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 145 
 
 "one of the most distinguished young men in literature; he 
 does political leaders and the minor theatres for the Govern- 
 ment newspapers; he is a Minister who is by way of being 
 an author." 
 
 Here Finot tugged at Gaudissart's coat-tails. 
 
 "Very well, boys/' said the judge, to whom these words 
 explained the appearance of the table covered with the rem- 
 nants of a feast very excusable under the, circumstances. 
 
 "As for you, Anselme," he continued, turning to Popinot, 
 "get ready to pay a visit to M. Birotteau; I must go to see 
 him this evening. You will sign your deed of partnership; 
 I have gone through it very carefully. As you are going to 
 manufacture your oil in the Faubourg du Temple, I think 
 that he ought to make over the lease of the workshop to you, 
 and that he has power to sublet; if things are all in order, 
 it will save disputes afterwards. These walls look to me to 
 be very damp, Ansel me; bring up trusses of straw, and put 
 them round about where your bed stands." 
 
 "Excuse me, sir," said Gaudissart with a courtier's 
 suppleness, "we have just put up the wall-paper ourselves 
 to-day, and it is not quite dry." 
 
 "Economy! good!" said the judge. 
 
 "Listen," said Gaudissart in Finot's ear; "my friend 
 Popinot is a good young man ; he is going off with his uncle, 
 so come along and let us finish the evening with our fair 
 cousins." 
 
 The journalist turned out the lining of his waistcoat 
 pocket. Popinot saw the manoeuvre, and slipped a twenty- 
 franc piece into the hand of the author of his prospectus. 
 The judge had a cab waiting at the corner of the street, and 
 carried off his nephew to call on Birotteau. 
 
 Pillerault, M. and Mme. Eagon, and Roguin were play- 
 ing at boston, and Cesarine was embroidering a fichu, when 
 the elder Popinot and Anselme appeared. Eoguin, sitting 
 opposite Mme. Eagon, could watch Cesarine, who sat by her 
 side, and saw -the happy look on the girl's face when An- 
 selme came in, saw her. flush up red as a pomegranate
 
 146 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 flower, and called his head-clerk's attention to her by a sig- 
 nificant gesture. 
 
 "So this is to be a day of deeds, is it ?" said the perfumer, 
 when greetings had been exchanged, and the judge ex- 
 plained the reason of the visit. 
 
 Cesar, Anselme, and the judge went up to the perfumer's 
 temporary quarters on the second floor to debate the mat- 
 ter of the lease and the deed of partnership drawn up by 
 the elder Popinot. It was arranged that the lease should 
 run for eighteen years, so as to be conterminous with the 
 lease of the house in the Eue des Cinq-Diamants ; trifling 
 matter as it appeared at the time, it was destined later to 
 serve Birotteau's interests. 
 
 When they returned to the sitting-room, the elder Popi- 
 not, surprised by the confusion and the men at work on a 
 Sunday in the house of so devout a man, asked the reason 
 of it all. This was the question for which Cesar was wait- 
 ing. 
 
 "Although you are not worldly, sir, you will not object 
 to our celebrating our deliverance; and that is not all if 
 we are arranging for a little gathering of our friends, it is 
 partly also to celebrate my promotion to the order of the 
 Legion of Honor." 
 
 "Ah!" said the examining magistrate (who had not been 
 decorated). 
 
 "It may be that I have shown myself not unworthy of 
 this signal mark of Eoyal favor by discharging my func- 
 tions at the Tribunal . . . oh ! I mean to say Consular 
 Tribunal, and by fighting for the Royalist cause on the 
 steps " 
 
 "Yes," said the magistrate. 
 
 "Steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th of Vendemiaire, where 
 I was wounded by Napoleon." 
 
 "I shall be glad to come," said M. Popinot; "and if my 
 wife is well enough, I will bring her." 
 
 "Xandrot," said Roguin, on the doorstep, "give up all
 
 RISE AND FALL OP" CESAR BIROTTEAU 147 
 
 thoughts of marrying Cesarine; in six weeks' time you will 
 see that I have given you sound counsel." 
 
 "Why?" asked Crottat. 
 
 "My dear fellow, Birotteau is about to spend a hundred 
 thousand francs over this ball of his, and he is embarking his 
 whole fortune, against my advice, in this building-land 
 scheme. In six weeks' time these people will not have bread 
 to eat. Marry Mile. Lourdois, the house-painter's daugh- 
 ter; she has three hundred thousand francs to her fortune. 
 I have planned this shift for you. If you will pay me down 
 the money, you can have my practice to-morrow for a hun- 
 dred thousand francs/' 
 
 The splendors of the perfumer's forthcoming ball, an- 
 nounced to Europe by the newspapers, were very differently 
 announced in commercial circles by flying rumors of work- 
 people employed night and day on the perfumer's house. 
 The rumors took various forms; here is was said that Cesar 
 had taken the house on either side; there, that his drawing- 
 ing-rooms were to be gilded; some said that no tradespeople 
 would be invited, and that the ball was given to Government 
 officials only; and the perfumer was severely blamed for his 
 ambition ; they scoffed at his political aspirations, they denied 
 that he had been wounded ! More than one scheme was set 
 on foot, in the second arrondissement, in consequence of the 
 ball; the friends of the family took things quietly, but the 
 claims of distant acquaintances were vast. 
 
 Those who have favor to bestow, never lack courtiers; 
 and a goodly number of the guests were at no little pains 
 to procure their cards of admission. The Birotteaus were 
 amazed to find so many friends whose existence they had 
 not suspected. This eagerness on their part alarmed Mme. 
 Birotteau; she looked more and more gloomy as the days 
 went by and the solemn festival came nearer. She had 
 confessed to Cesar from the very first that she should not 
 know how to-act her part as hostess, and the innumerable small 
 details frightened her. Where was the plate to come from?
 
 148 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 How about the glass, the refreshments, the forks and spoons ? 
 And who would look after it all? She begged Birotteau to 
 stand near the door and see that no one came who had 
 not been asked to the ball ; she had heard strange things 
 about people who came to dances claiming acquaintance 
 with people whom they did not know by name. 
 
 One evening, ten days before the famous Sunday, Mes- 
 sieurs Braschon, Grindot, Lourdois, and Chaff aroux the con- 
 tractor having given their word that the rooms should be 
 ready for the 17th of December., there had been a laugh- 
 able conference after dinner in the humble little sitting- 
 room on the mezzanine floor Cesar and his wife and 
 daughter were making a list of guests and writing the cards 
 of invitation, which had been sent in only that morning, 
 nicely printed in the English fashion on rose-colored paper, 
 in accordance with the precepts laid down in the Complete 
 Guide to Etiquette. 
 
 "Look here !" said Cesar ; "we must not leave anybody out." 
 
 "If we forget any one," remarked Constance, "we shall 
 be reminded of it. Mme. Derville, who never called upon 
 us before, sailed in yesterday evening in great state." 
 
 "She was very pretty; I liked her," said Cesarine. 
 
 "Yet before she was married she was even worse off than 
 I," said Constance; "she used to do plain needlework in 
 the Eue Montmartre; she has made shirts for your father." 
 
 "Well, let us put the great people down at the top of the 
 list," said Cesar. "Write 'M. le Due and Mme. la Duchesse 
 de Lenoncourt,' Cesarine." 
 
 "Goodness! Cesar," cried Constance, "pray don't begin 
 to send invitations to people whom you only know through 
 the business. Are you going to ask the Princesse de Bla- 
 mont-Chauvry ? She is more nearly related to your late 
 godmother, the Marquise d'Uxelles, than even the Due de 
 Lenoncourt. And shall you ask the two MM. Vandenesse, 
 M. de Marsay, M. de Ronquerolles, M. d'Aiglemont ; in short, 
 all your customers? You are mad; honors are turning your 
 head "
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 149 
 
 "Yes! but M. le Comte de Fontaine and his family. Eh? 
 He used to come to the Queen of Roses under the name of 
 Grand-Jacques with the Gars (M. lc Marquis de Montauran 
 that was) and M. de la Billardiere, whom they called the 
 Nantais in the days before the great affair of the 13th of 
 Vendemiaire. And they would shake hands with you then, 
 and it was, 'My dear Birotteau, keep your heart up, and 
 give your life, like the rest of us, for the good cause !' We 
 are old fellow-conspirators." 
 
 "Put him down," said Constance ; "if M. de la Billar- 
 diere and his son are coming, they must have somebody to 
 speak to/' 
 
 "Set down his name, Cesarine," said Birotteau. "Im- 
 primis, His Worship the Prefect of the Seine; he may or 
 may not come, but he is the head of the municipal corpora- 
 tion, and 'honor to whom honor is due.' M. de la Billar- 
 diere, the mayor, and his son. (Write down the number 
 of the people after every name.) My colleague, M. Granet, 
 and his wife. She is very ugly, but, all the same, we can- 
 not leave her out. M. Curel, the goldsmith, Colonel of the 
 National Guard, and his wife and two daughters. Those 
 are what I call the authorities. Now for the bigwigs ! 
 M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse de Fontaine and their 
 daughter, Mile, fimilie de Fontaine." 
 
 "An insolent girl, who makes me come out of the shop 
 to speak to her at her carriage door in all weathers," said 
 Mme. Cesar. "If she comes at all, it will be to make fun 
 of us." 
 
 "In that case, perhaps she will come," said Cesar, who 
 meant to fill his rooms at all costs. "Go on, Cesarine 
 M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse de Granville, my land- 
 lord, the hardest head in the Court of Appeal, Derville 
 says. Oh ! by the by, M. de la Billardiere has arranged for 
 me to be presented to-morrow by M. le Comte de Lacepede 
 himself; it is only polite to ask the Grand Chancellor to 
 dinner and to the ball. M. Vauquelin. Put him down for 
 the dinner and for the ball too, Cesarine. And, while we
 
 150 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 remember it, all the Chiffrevilles and the Protez family. 
 M. Popinot, judge of the Tribunal of the Seine, and 
 Mme. Popinot. M. and Mme. Thirion, he is an usher of 
 the Privy Chamber, and a friend of the Ragons; it is said 
 that their daughter is to be married to one of M. Camusot's 
 sons by his first marriage." 
 
 "Cesar, do not forget young Horace Bianchon; he is M. 
 Popinot's nephew and Anselme's cousin," put in Constance. 
 
 "Ah, to be sure! Cesarine has put a figure four very 
 plainly after the Popinots. M. and Mme. Rabourdin; M. 
 Rabourdin is at the head of one of the departments in M. 
 de la Billardiere's division. M. Cochin of the same de- 
 partment, and his wife and son; they are sleeping-part- 
 ners in M. Matifat's concern; and while we are about it, 
 put down M. and Mme. and Mile. Matifat." 
 
 "The Matifats have been making overtures for their 
 friends, M. and Mme. Colleville, M. and Mme. Thuillier, 
 and the Saillards." 
 
 "We shall see," said Cesar. "Our stockbroker, M. Jules 
 Desmarets and his wife." 
 
 "She will be the prettiest woman in the room !" cried 
 Cesarine. "I like her, oh ! more than any one !" 
 
 "Derville and his wife." 
 
 "Just put down M. and Mme. Coquelin, who took over 
 uncle Pillerault's business," said Constance. "They made 
 so sure of being asked, that the poor little thing is having 
 a grand ball-dress made by my dressmaker a white satin 
 overskirt covered with tulle, embroidered with blue chicory 
 flowers. It would not have taken much to persuade her 
 to have a gold embroidered court-dress. If we left them 
 out, we should make two bitter enemies." 
 
 "Put them down, Cesarine; we must show our respect 
 for trade, for we are tradespeople ourselves. M. and Mme. 
 Roguin." 
 
 "Mamma, Mine. Roguin will wear her riviere, all her 
 diamonds, and her Mechlin lace gown.'' 
 
 "M. and Mme. Lebas," Cesar continued. '"And next,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 151 
 
 the President of the Tribunal of Commerce and his wife 
 and two daughters (I forgot to put them among the authori- 
 ties). M. and Mme. Lourdois and their daughter. M. 
 Claparon the banker; M. du Tillet, M. Grindot, M. 
 Molineux ; Pillerault and his landlord ; M. and Mme. Camu- 
 sot, the rich silk mercer, and all their family, the one at the 
 ficole polytechnique and the advocate; he will receive an 
 appointment as judge he is the one that is engaged to be 
 married to Mile. Thirion." 
 
 "It will only be a Provincial appointment/' said Cesarine. 
 
 "M. Cardot, Camusot's father-in-law, and all the young 
 Cardots. Stay ! there are the Guillaumes in the Rue du 
 Colombier, Lebas' wife's people, two old folk who will be 
 wall-flowers. Alexandre Crottat, Celestin " 
 
 "Papa, do not forget M. Andoche Finot and M. Gaudis-? 
 sart, two young men who have been so useful to M. Anselme."} 
 
 "Gaudissart? He got himself into trouble. But, never 
 mind, he is going away in a few days, and will travel for 
 our oil, so put him down ! As for Master Andoche Finot, 
 what is he to us ?" 
 
 "M. Anselme says that he will be a great man; he is 
 as clever as Voltaire." 
 
 "An author is he? They are all of them atheists." 
 
 "Put him down, papa; so far there are not so very many 
 men who dance. Besides, your nice prospectus for the oil 
 was his doing." 
 
 "He believes in our oil, does he?" said Cesar. "Put him 
 down, dear child." 
 
 "So I too have my proteges on the list," commented 
 Cesarine. 
 
 "Put M. Mitral, my process-server, and our doctor, M. 
 Haudry; it is for form's sake, he will not come. 
 
 "He will come for his game of cards," said Cesarine. 
 
 "Ah ! by the by, Cesar, I hope that you will ask M. 1'Abbe 
 Loraux to dinner!" 
 
 "I have written to him already," said Cesar. 
 
 "Oh ! we must not forget Lebas' sister-in-law, Mme. Au-
 
 152 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 gustine de Sommervieux," said Cesarine. "Poor little thiug ! 
 she is very unwell; Lebas said that she was dying of grief." 
 
 "See what comes of marrying an artist," cried the per- 
 fumer. "Just look at your mother; she has fallen asleep," 
 he said, in a low voice, to his daughter. "Bye-bye sleep 
 softly, Madame Cesar. Well, now," said Cesar, turning to 
 his daughter, "how about your mother's dress?" 
 
 "Yes, papa, everything will be ready. Mamma thinks 
 that she is to have a Canton crape gown like mine, and the 
 dressmaker is sure that there is no need to try it on." 
 
 "How many are there altogether?" Cesar went on aloud, 
 as his wife opened her eyes. 
 
 "A hundred and nine, with the assistants," said 
 Cesarine. 
 
 "Where are we going to put all those people ?" asked Mme. 
 Birotteau. "And when all is over, after the Sunday comes 
 Monday," she said naively. 
 
 Nothing can be done simply when people aspire to rise 
 from one social rank to another. Neither Mme. Birotteau, 
 nor Cesar, nor any one else might venture on any pretext 
 whatsoever on to the first floor. Cesar had promised the er- 
 rand-boy Eaguet a new suit of clothes if he kept watch 
 faithfully and carried out his orders properly. Like the 
 Emperor Napoleon at Compiegne, when he had the Chateau 
 restored for his marriage with Marie-Louise of Austria, 
 Birotteau wanted to see nothing till the whole was finished ; 
 he meant to enjoy "the surprise." So all unconsciously the 
 old enemies met, this time not on the field of battle, but 
 on the common ground of bourgeois vanity. M. Grindot was 
 to take Cesar over the new rooms like a cicerone exhibiting 
 a gallery to a tourist. 
 
 Every one in the house, moreover, had his or her own "sur- 
 prise." Cesarine, the dear child, had spent a hundred louis, 
 all her little hoard, on books for her father. M. Grindot 
 had confided to her one morning that there were two fitted 
 bookcases in her father's room, which was to be a study; 
 this was the architect's surprise; and Cesarine spent all her
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 153 
 
 savings with a bookseller. She had bought the works of 
 Bossuet, Eacine, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montes- 
 quieu, Moliere, Buffon, Fenelon, Delille, Bernardin de Saint- 
 Pierre, La Fontaine, Corneille, Pascal, and La Harpe; in 
 short, the ordinary collection of classics to be seen every- 
 where, books which her father would never read. A terrible 
 bookbinder's bill must of necessity be the result. 
 Thouvenin, that great and unpunctual artist and binder, 
 had undertaken to send the books home on the 18th at mid- 
 day. Cesarine had told her uncle in confidence of her diffi- 
 culty, and he had undertaken the bill. Cesar's surprise for 
 his wife took the shape of a cherry-colored velvet gown 
 trimmed with lace; it was of this dress that he had just spoken 
 to the daughter, who had been his accomplice. Mme. 
 Birotteau's surprise for the new Chevalier of Honor con- 
 sisted of a pair of gold buckles and a solitaire pin. Finally, 
 there was the surprise of the new rooms for the whole 
 family, to be followed in a fortnight by the great surprise 
 of the bills to be paid. 
 
 After mature reflection, Cesar decided that some of the 
 invitations must be given in person, and some might be de- 
 livered by Eaguet in the evening. He took a cab and handed 
 his wife into it (his wife, whose beauty suffered a temporary 
 eclipse from a hat and feathers and the last new shawl, the 
 cashmere shawl for which she had longed for fifteen years), 
 and away went the perfumers dressed in their best to acquit 
 themselves of twenty-two calls in a morning. 
 
 Cesar spared his wife the difficulties attendant on strain- 
 ing the resources of a bourgeois household to prepare the 
 various confections which the splendor of the occasion de- 
 manded. A treaty was arranged between Birotteau and the 
 great Chevet. Chevet would furnish the dinner and the 
 wines; he would provide a splendid service of plate (which 
 brings in as much as an estate to its owner), and a retinue 
 of servants under the command of a sufficiently imposing 
 mattre d'hotel, all of them responsible for their sayings and 
 doings. Chevet was to take up his quarters in the kitchen
 
 154 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 and dining-room on the mezzanine floor, and not to quit 
 possession until he had served up a dinner for twenty persons 
 at six o'clock, and a grand collation an hour after midnight. 
 The ices, to be served in pretty cups with silver-gilt spoons 
 on silver trays, would be supplied by Foy's Cafe, and the re- 
 freshments by Tanrade an added lustre to the feast. 
 
 "Be easy," Cesar said to his wife, who looked somewhat 
 over-anxious on the day before the great day. "Chevet, 
 Tanrade, and the people from Foy's Cafe will occupy the 
 mezzanine floor, Virginie will be on guard above, and the 
 shop shall be shut up. There is nothing left for us to do 
 but to strut about on the first floor." 
 
 On the 16th, at two o'clock, M. de la Billardiere came for 
 Cesar, They were to go together to the Chancellerie de la 
 Legion d'honneur, where Birotteau, with some ten others, 
 was to be received as a Chevalier by M. le Comte de 
 Lacepede. The perfumer had tears in his eyes when the 
 mayor came for him; the surprise which Constance had 
 planned had just taken place, and Cesar had been presented 
 with the gold buckles and solitaire. 
 
 "It is very sweet to be so loved," said he, as he stepped 
 into the cab; Constance and Cesarine standing on the 
 threshold, and the assistants gathered in a group to see 
 him go. All of them gazed at Cesar in his silk stockings 
 and black silk breeches, and the new coat of cornflower blue 
 on which the ribbon was about to blaze the red ribbon 
 which, according to Molineux, had been steeped in blood. 
 
 When Cesar came back at dinner-time, he was pale with 
 joy. He looked at his Cross in every looking-glass, for in 
 his first intoxication he could not be content to wear the rib- 
 bon only ; there was no tinge of false modesty about his ela- 
 tion. 
 
 "The Grand Chancellor is charming, dear," said he; "at a 
 word from M. de la Billardiere, he accepted my invitation; 
 he is coming with M. Yauquelin. M. de Lacepede is a great 
 man, yes, as great as M. Vauquelin. He has written forty
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 155 
 
 volumes. And then he is a peer of France as well as an 
 author. We must not forget to say 'Your Lordship/ or 'M. 
 le Comte,' when we address him." 
 
 "Do eat your dinner," remarked his wife. "Your father is 
 worse than a child," Constance added, looking at Cesarine. 
 
 "How nice that looks at your button-hole !" said Cesarine. 
 "They will present arms when you pass; we will go out to- 
 gether !" 
 
 "All the sentries will present arms to me." 
 
 Grindot and Braschon came downstairs as he spoke. "After 
 dinner, sir, you and madame and mademoiselle may like to 
 look over the rooms; Braschon's foreman is just putting up a 
 few curtain brackets, and three men are lighting the candles." 
 
 "You will need a hundred and twenty candles," said 
 Braschon. 
 
 "A bill for two hundred francs from Trudon," began Mme. 
 Cesar, but a look from the Chevalier checked her lamenta- 
 tions. 
 
 "Your fete will be magnificent, M. le Chevalier," put in 
 Braschon. 
 
 "Flatterers already !" Cesar thought within himself. "The 
 Abbe Loraux enjoined it upon me not to fall into their snares, 
 and to remain humble ; I will keep my origin in mind." 
 
 But Cesar did not understand the drift of the remark let 
 fall by the rich upholsterer of the Eue Saint-Antoine. 
 Braschon had made a dozen futile efforts to secure invitations 
 for himself and his wife, his daughter, aunt, and mother-in- 
 law. And so Cesar made an enemy. On the threshold, 
 Braschon did not call him again "M. le Chevalier." 
 
 Then came the private view. Cesar and his wife and 
 Cesarine went out through the shop and came in from the 
 street. The door had been reconstructed in a grand style, 
 the two leaves were divided up into square panels, and in the 
 centre of each panel was a cast-iron ornament, duly painted. 
 This kind of door, which is now so common in Paris, was at 
 that time the very newest thing. Beneath the double staircase 
 in the vestibule, opposite the door, in the plinth which had
 
 156 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 so disturbed Cesar's mind, a sort of box had been contrived 1 
 where an old woman could be ensconced. The vestibule, with 
 its black-and-white marble floor, and its walls painted to 
 look like marble, was lighted by a lamp of antique pattern, 
 with four sockets for the wicks. The architect had combined 
 a rich effect with apparent simplicity. A narrow crimson 
 carpet relieved the whiteness of the stone. The first landing 
 gave access to the mezzanine floor. The door on the staircase, 
 which gave access to the first-floor rooms, was in the same 
 style as the street door, but this was a piece of cabinet work. 
 
 "How charming I" said Cesarine. "And yet there is noth- 
 ing which catches the eye/' 
 
 "Exactly, mademoiselle, the effect is produced by the exact 
 proportions of the stylobates, the plinths, the cornice, and the 
 ornaments; and then I have not employed gilding anywhere; 
 the colors are subdued, and there are no glaring tones." 
 
 "It is a science," said Cesarine. 
 
 Then they entered the ante-room; it was simple, spacious, 
 and tastefully decorated; a parquet floor had been laid down. 
 The drawing-room was lighted by three windows, which 
 looked upon the street; here the colors were white and red; 
 the outlines of the cornices were delicate, so was the paint; 
 there was nothing to dazzle the eyes. The ornaments on the 
 mantel-shelf, of white marble supported on white marble col- 
 umns, had been carefully chosen; there was nothing tawdry 
 about them, and they were in keeping with the details of the 
 furniture. In fact, throughout the room a subtle harmony 
 prevailed, such as none but an artist can establish, by subordi- 
 nating everything, down to the least accessories, to the general 
 scheme of decoration ; a harmony which strikes the philistine, 
 though he cannot account for it. The light of twenty-four 
 wax candles in the chandelier displayed the glories of the 
 crimson silk curtains; the parquet floor tempted Cesarine to 
 dance. Through a green-and-white boudoir they reached 
 Cesar's study. 
 
 "I have put a bed here," said Grindot, throwing open the 
 doors of an alcove, cleverly concealed between the two book-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 157 
 
 "Either you or Mme. Birotteau may fall ill, and an in- 
 valid requires a separate room." 
 
 "But the bookcase is full of bound books! . . . Oh! 
 wife, wife !" cried Cesar. 
 
 "No, this is Cesarine's surprise." 
 
 "Pardon a father's emotion," exclaimed Birotteau, embrac- 
 ing his daughter. 
 
 "Of course, of course, sir," said Grindot. "You are in your 
 own house." 
 
 The prevailing tone of the study was brown, relieved by 
 green ; for by skilful modulations all the rooms were brought 
 into harmony with each other. Thus the prevailing color of 
 one room was more sparingly introduced as a subsidiary in 
 another, and vice versa. The print of Hero and Leander 
 shone conspicuous from a panel in Cesar's new sanctum. 
 
 "And you are to pay for all this ?" Cesar said merrily. 
 
 "That beautiful engraving is M. Anselme's gift to you," 
 said Cesarine. 
 
 (Anselme, like the others, had managed to afford his sur- 
 prise.) 
 
 "Poor boy ! he has done as I did for M. Vauquelin." 
 
 Mme. Birotteau's room came next in order. Here the archi- 
 tect had lavished splendors to please the good folk whom he 
 wished to use to his own ends. He had promised to make a 
 study of this redecoration, and he had kept his word. The 
 room was hung with blue silk, but the cords and tassels were 
 white; while the furniture, covered with white cashmere, was 
 relieved with blue. The clock on the white marble chimney- 
 piece took the form of a marble slab, on which Venus reclined. 
 The pretty Wilton carpet, of Eastern design, was the keynote 
 of Cesarine's apartment, a dainty little bedroom hung with 
 chintz ; there stood her piano, a pretty wardrobe with a mirror 
 in it, a small white bed with plain curtains, and all the little 
 possessions that girls love. 
 
 The dining-room lay behind Cesar's study and the blue-and- 
 white bedroom, and was entered by a door on the staircase. 
 Here the decorations were in the style known as Louis XIV.
 
 158 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 The sideboards were inlaid with brass and tortoise-shell; 
 there was a Boule clock, and the walls wero hung with stuffs 
 and adorned with gilt studs. 
 
 No words can describe the joy of these three human beings, 
 which reached its height when Mme. Birotteau, returning to 
 her room, found her new dress lying there on the bed ; the 
 cherry-colored velvet gown, trimmed with lace, which her hus- 
 band had given her. Virginie had stolen in on tiptoe to lay it 
 there. 
 
 "The rooms do you great credit, sir," Constance said, ad- 
 dressing Grindot. "More than a hundred people will be here 
 to-morrow evening, and you will be complimented by every- 
 body." 
 
 "I shall recommend you," said Cesar. "You will meet all 
 the first-rate people, and you will be better known in a single 
 evening than if you had built a hundred houses." 
 
 Constance, touched by what had happened, no longer 
 thought of the expense or of criticising her husband, and for 
 the following reasons. That morning, when Popinot had 
 brought the Hero and Leander, he had assured her that the 
 Cephalic Oil would be a success. Constance had always had 
 a high opinion of Popinot's abilities and intelligence, and 
 Popinot was working with unheard-of enthusiasm. The 
 money lavished by Birotteau on these extravagances might 
 amount to a good round sum, but the young lover had 
 promised that, in six months' time, Birotteau's share of the 
 profits on the sales of the oil would cover them. After nine- 
 teen years of apprehension, it was so sweet to put doubts aside 
 for a single day; and Constance promised her daughter that 
 she would not spoil her husband's joy by any afterthought, 
 but would give herself up entirely to gladness. So when M. 
 Grindot left them about eleven o'clock, she flung her arms 
 about her husband's neck and shed a few tears of joy. 
 
 "Ah, Cesar," she said, "you make me very silly and very 
 happy." 
 
 "If it will only last, you mean, do you not ?" Cesar asked, 
 smiling.
 
 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 159 
 
 "It will last ; I have no fear now/' said Mme. Cesar. 
 
 "That is right ; you appreciate me at last." 
 
 Those who have sufficient greatness of character to know 
 their weaknesses will confess that a poor orphan girl who, 
 eighteen years ago, had heen earning her living behind the 
 counter of the Little Sailor in the lie Saint-Louis, and a poor 
 peasant lad who had come on foot from Touraine, stick in 
 hand and with hobnailed shoes on his feet, might well feel 
 gratified and happy to give such a fete on an occasion so much 
 to their credit. 
 
 "Mon Dieu, I would willingly give a hundred francs for a 
 visitor," cried Cesar. 
 
 "M. PAbbe Loraux," announced Virginie, and the Abbe ap- 
 peared. The priest was at this time curate of Saint-Sul- 
 pice. Never has the power of the soul been more plainly re- 
 vealed than in this reverend ecclesiastic, who left a profound 
 impression on the minds of all those with whom he came in 
 contact. The exercise of Catholic virtues had given sublimity 
 to a harsh face, almost repellent in its ugliness ; it was as if 
 something of the light of heaven shone from it before the 
 time. The influences of a simple and sincere life, passing 
 into the blood, had modified those rugged features, the fires 
 of charity had chastened their uncouth outlines. In 
 Claparon's case, the nature of the man had stamped itself on 
 his face and degraded and brutalized it, but here the grace of 
 the three fair human virtues, Hope, Faith, and Charity, hov- 
 ered about the wrinkled lines. There was a penetrating 
 power in his words, slowly and gently spoken. He dressed like 
 other priests in Paris, and allowed himself a chestnut-brown 
 overcoat. No trace of ambition had sullied the pure heart, 
 which the angels would surely bear to God in its primitive 
 innocence; it had required all the kindly urgency of the 
 daughter of Louis XVI. to induce the Abbe Loraux to ac- 
 cept a benefice in Paris, and then he had taken one of the 
 poorest. 
 
 Just now he looked somewhat disquieted as he surveyed aW
 
 160 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 these splendors ; he smiled at the three before him, and shook 
 his head. 
 
 "Children," he said, "it is my part to comfort those that 
 mourn, and not to be present at festivals. I have come to 
 thank M. Cesar and to congratulate you. There is only one 
 festival that will bring me here the marriage of this pretty 
 maid." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later the Abbe took his leave, and 
 neither Cesar nor his wife had dared to show him the new 
 arrangements. The sober apparition threw a few drops of 
 cold water on Cesar's joyous ebullitions. 
 
 They slept that night amid the new glories, each taking 
 possession of the little luxuries and pretty furniture for which 
 they had longed. Cesarine helped her mother to undress be- 
 fore the mirror of the white marble toilet table; Cesar was 
 fain to use his newly-acquired superfluities at once; and the 
 heads of all the three were filled with visions of the joys of 
 the morrow. 
 
 The next day, at four o'clock, they had been to mass, and 
 had read vespers ; the mezzanine floor had been delivered over 
 to the secular arm, in the shape of Chevet's people, and 
 Cesarine and her mother betook themselves to their toilets. 
 Never was costume more becoming to Mme. Cesar than the 
 cherry-colored velvet gown with the lace about it, the short 
 sleeves adorned with lappets; the rich stuff and the glowing 
 color set off the youthful freshness of her shapely arms, the 
 dazzling whiteness of her skin, the gracious outlines of her 
 neck and shoulders. The naive happiness felt by every woman 
 when she is conscious that she looks at her best lent a vague 
 sweetness to Mme. Birotteau's Grecian profile; and the out- 
 lines of her face, finely cut as a cameo, appeared in all their 
 delicate beauty. Cesarine, in her white crape dress, with a 
 wreath of white roses in her hair, and a rose at her waist, her 
 shoulders and the outlines of her bodice modestly covered by 
 a scarf, turned Popinot's head. 
 
 "These people are eclipsing us," said Mme. Roguin to her 
 husband, as she went through the rooms.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 101 
 
 The notary's wife was furious. A woman can always meas- 
 ure the superiority or inferiority of a rival, and Mme. Roguin 
 felt that she was not as beautiful as Mme. Cesar. 
 
 "Pooh, not for long. In a little while the poor thing will 
 be ruined, and your carriage will splash the mud on her as 
 she goes afoot through the streets." 
 
 Vauquelin's manner was perfect. He came with M. de 
 Lacepede, who had brought his colleague in his carriage. To 
 Mme. Cesar, in her radiant beauty, the two learned 
 Academicians paid compliments in scientific language. 
 
 "You possess the secret, unknown to chemistry, of retaining 
 youth and beauty, madame." 
 
 "You are in your own house, so to speak, M. 1'Acade- 
 micien," said Birotteau. "Yes, M. le Comte," he went on, 
 turning to the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, "I 
 owe my success to M. Vauquelin. I have the honor of present- 
 ing to your lordship M. le President (of the Tribunal of 
 Commerce). That is M. le Comte de Lacepede, a peer of 
 France, and one of the greatest men in France besides; he 
 has written forty volumes," he added, for the benefit of Jo- 
 seph Lebas, who came with the President. 
 
 The guests were punctual. The ordinary tradesman's din- 
 ner party followed, abundant in good humor and merriment, 
 and enlivened by the homely jokes that never fail to provoke 
 laughter. Ample justice was done to the excellent dishes, 
 and the wines were thoroughly appreciated. It was half-past 
 nine before they went into the drawing-room for coffee, and 
 cabs had already begun to arrive with impatient dancers. An 
 hour later, the rooms were full, and the dance had become a 
 crush. M. de Lacepede and M. Vauquelin went, in spite of 
 entreaties from Cesar, who followed them despairingly to the 
 staircase. He had better fortune with the elder Popinot and 
 M. de la Billardiere, who remained. 
 
 With the exception of three women, Mile. Fontaine, Mme. 
 Jules, and Mme. Eabourdin, who severally represented aris- 
 tocracy, finance, and official dignities, and by their brilliant 
 beauty, dress, and manner presented a striking contrast to the
 
 162 BISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 rest of the assembly, the toilettes of the remainder were of the 
 heavy and substantial order, too suggestive of a well-lined 
 purse, which gives to a crowd of citizens' wives and daughters 
 a certain air of vulgarity, made cruelly prominent in the 
 present case by the daintiness and grace of the three ladies. 
 
 The bourgeoisie of the Hue Saint-Denis displayed itself 
 majestically in the full glory of its absurdities carried to the 
 burlesque point. It was that same bourgeoisie, nor more nor 
 less, which tricks its offspring out in the uniform of the 
 1 Lancers or of the National Guard, that buys Victories and 
 Conquests, The Old Soldier at the Plough, and admires The 
 Pauper's Funeral, which rejoices to go on Guard, goes on Sun- 
 days to the inevitable country house, is at pains to acquire a 
 distinguished air, and dreams of municipal honors; the bour- 
 geoisie that looks on every one with jealous eyes, and yet is 
 kindly, helpful, devoted, warm-hearted, and compassionate, 
 ready to subscribe for the orphan children of a General Foy, 
 for the Greeks (all unwitting of their piracies), for the 
 Champ d'Asile when it no longer exists; a bourgeoisie that 
 falls a victim to its own good qualities, and is flouted by a 
 social superiority which marks a real inferiority, for an igno- 
 rance of social conventions fosters that native kindliness of 
 heart ; a bourgeoisie which brings up frank-hearted daughters 
 inured to work, full of good qualities, which are lost at once if 
 they mingle with the classes above them; a common-sense, 
 matter-of-fact womankind, from among whom the worthy 
 Chrysale should have taken a wife ; that bourgeoisie, in short, 
 so admirably represented by the Matifats, the druggists in 
 the Rue des Lombards, who had supplied the Queen of Roses 
 for sixty years. 
 
 Mme. Matifat, anxious to appear stately, wore a turban on 
 her head, and was dancing in a heavy poppy-red gown em- 
 broidered with gold, a toilette that harmonized with a haughty 
 countenance, a Roman nose, and the splendors of a crimson 
 complexion. Even M. Matifat, so glorious when the National 
 Guard was reviewed, when you might see the chain and bunch 
 of seals blazing on his portly person fifty paces away, was ob-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 163 
 
 scured by this Catherine II. of the counting-house; yet her 
 short, stout, spectacled consort, with his shirt collar almost up 
 to his ears, distinguished himself by his deep bass voice and 
 by the richness of his vocabulary. 
 
 He never said "Corneille," but "the sublime Corneille." 
 Eacine was the "tender Eacine" ; Voltaire, oh ! Voltaire, 
 "takes the second place in every class, more of a wit than a 
 genius, but nevertheless a man of genius !" Eousseau, "a 
 gloomy, suspicious nature, a man over-brimming with pride, 
 who ended by hanging himself." He related tedious stock 
 anecdotes about Piron, who is looked upon as a prodigious per- 
 sonage among the bourgeoisie. There was a slight tendency 
 to obscenity in Matifat's conversation; he was an infatuated 
 admirer of theatrical divinities; and it was even said of him 
 that, in imitation of old Cardot and the wealthy Camusot, he 
 kept a mistress. Now and then Mme. Matifat would hastily 
 interrupt him on the brink of an anecdote by crying, at the 
 top of her voice, "Mind what you are going to tell us, old 
 man !" In familiar conversation she always addressed him 
 as "old man." The voluminous lady of the Eue des Lombards 
 caused Mile, de Fontaine's aristocratic countenance to lose 
 its repose; the haughty damsel could not help smiling when 
 she overheard Mme. Matifat say to her husband, "Don't make 
 a rush for the ices, old man ; it is bad style !" 
 
 It is harder to explain the differences which distinguish 
 the great world from the bourgeoisie than it is for the bour- 
 geoisie to efface them. The women, conscious of their 
 toilettes, felt that this was a holiday; they made no attempt 
 to conceal an enjoyment which plainly showed that this ball 
 was a great event in their busy lives ; while the three women, 
 each of whom represented a different higher social sphere, 
 were at that moment as they would be on the morrow. They did 
 not seem to be dressed for the occasion, had no desire to behold 
 themselves amid the unaccustomed marvels of their costume, 
 and showed no uneasiness as to its effect, which they had 
 ascertained once and for all as they put the last touches to 
 their ball dresses before the mirror ; there was no excitement
 
 164 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 in their faces ; they danced with the grace and ease of move' 
 ment which the forgotten sculptors of a bygone age caught 
 and recorded in their statues. But the others bore the im- 
 press of daily toil, toil showed itself in their attitude, in their 
 exaggerated enjoyment; their glances were naively curious, 
 their voices were not subdued to the key of the low murmur 
 which gives such an inimitable piquancy to ballroom conversa- 
 tion; and, above all things, they lacked the impertinent 
 gravity which contains the germ of epigram, the repose of 
 manner which marks those whose self-command is perfect. 
 So Mme. Rabourdin, Mme. Jules, and Mile, de Fontaine, who 
 had expected infinite amusement from this perfumer's ball, 
 stood out against the background of citizens' wives and 
 daughters, conspicuous by their languid grace, by the ex- 
 quisite taste displayed in their toilettes, and by their manner 
 of dancing, even as three principal performers at the Opera 
 are set off by the rank and file of supernumeraries on the 
 stage. Jealous and astonished eyes watched them. Mme. 
 Roguin, Constance, and Cesarine formed a link, as it were, 
 between these three aristocratic types and the tradesmen's 
 womankind. 
 
 At every ball a moment comes when excitement, or the tor- 
 rents of light, the gaiety, the music, and the movement of the 
 dance carries away the dancers, and all the shades of differ- 
 ence are drowned in the crescendo of the tutil. In a little 
 while the ball would become a romp. Mile, de Fontaine de- 
 termined to go; but as she sought the venerable Vendean. 
 leader's arm, Birotteau and his wife and daughter hastened 
 to prevent the defection of the aristocracy of their assembly. 
 
 "There is a perfume of good taste about the rooms which 
 really surprises me; I congratulate you upon it," said the 
 insolent girl, addressing the perfumer. 
 
 Birotteau was too much intoxicated by the compliments 
 publicly addressed to him to understand this speech; but his 
 wife flushed up, and did not know what to answer. 
 
 "This is a national festival which does you honor," Camu- 
 sot said.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 165 
 
 "I have seldom seen so fine a ball,'" said M. de la Billar- 
 diere, an official fib that cost him nothing. 
 
 Birotteau took all the congratulations seriously. 
 
 "What a charming sight, and how good the band is ! Shall 
 you often give us balls?" asked Mme. Lebas. 
 
 "What beautiful rooms! Did you plan them yourself?" 
 inquired Mme. Desmarets, and Cesar ventured on a lie, and 
 allowed it to be thought that he was the originator of the 
 scheme of decoration. Cesarine, whose list of partners for 
 the quadrilles was of course filled up, learned how much deli- 
 cacy there was in Anselme's nature. 
 
 "If I only listened to my own wishes," he had said in her 
 ear, as they rose from dinner, "I would entreat the favor of a 
 quadrille with you, but my happiness would cost our self-love 
 too dear." 
 
 Cesarine, who thought all men who walked straight un- 
 graceful in their gait, determined to open the ball with Popi- 
 not. Popinot, encouraged by his aunt, who had bade him be 
 bold, dared to speak of his love during the quadrille to the 
 charming girl at his side, but in the roundabout ways that 
 timid lovers take. 
 
 "My fortune depends on you, mademoiselle." 
 
 "And how?" 
 
 "There is but one hope which can give m? the power to 
 make it." 
 
 "Then hope." 
 
 "Do you really know all that you have said in those two 
 words?" asked Popinot. 
 
 "Hope for fortune," said Cesarine, with a mischievous 
 smile. 
 
 As soon as the quadrille was over, Anselme rushed to his 
 friend. "Gaudissart ! Gaudissart ! succeed, or I shall blow 
 my brains out." He squeezed his friend's arm in a Herculean 
 grasp. "Success means that I shall marry Cesarine. She has 
 told me so ; and see how beautiful she is !" 
 
 "Yes, she is prettily rigged out," said Gaudissart; "and 
 
 she is rich. We will do her in oil." 
 12
 
 16C RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 The good understanding between Mile. Lourdois and 
 Alexandre Crottat (Roguin's successor-designate) did not 
 escape Mme. Birotteau, who could not give up without a pang 
 the prospect of seeing her daughter the wife of a Paris no- 
 tary. Uncle Pillerault, after exchanging a greeting with 
 little Molineux, took up his quarters in an easy-chair near the 
 bookcase. Hence he watched the card-players, listened to the 
 talk about him, and went from time to time to the door to 
 look at the moving flower-garden as the dancers' heads 
 swayed in the figures of the quadrille. He turned a truly 
 philosophical countenance on it all. The men were unspeak- 
 able, with the exception of du Tillet, who had already learned 
 something of the manners of the fashionable world ; of young 
 Billardiere, an incipient dandy ; M. Jules Desmarets, and the 
 official personages. But among the faces, all more or less 
 comical, which gave the assembly its character, there was one 
 in particular, worn into meaningless smoothness like the head 
 on a five-franc piece issued by the Republic, but curious by 
 reason of its association with a suit of clothes. This person, 
 it will have been guessed, was none other than the petty tyrant 
 of the Cour Batave, arrayed in fine linen, yellowed with lying 
 by in the 'press, displaying a shirt frill of venerable lace, 
 secured by a pin with a bluish cameo. Short breeches of 
 black silk treacherously revealed the spindle shanks on which 
 he dared to repose his weight. Cesar triumphantly took him 
 round the four apartments devised by the architect on the 
 first floor of his house. 
 
 "Hey ! hey ! it is your own affair, sir," said Molineux. "My 
 first floor done up in this way will be worth another thou- 
 sand crowns." 
 
 Birotteau turned this off with a joke, but the little old 
 man's words and tone had been like the prick of a needle. 
 "I shall soon have my first floor again ; this man is ruining 
 himself!'' that was the underlying sense of that "will be 
 worth/' which had been a sudden revelation of Molineux's 
 claws. 
 
 The pale, meagre face and cruel eyes struck du Tillet,
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 167 
 
 whose attention had been called to the landlord in the first 
 instance by the watch-chain from which a pound weight of 
 trinkets hung and jingled, the green coat with white threads 
 in it, and the odd-looking, turned up collar, which gave the 
 old man somewhat the appearance of a rattlesnake. So the 
 banker went over to the little money-lender to learn how 
 he came to be at a merry-making. 
 
 "Here, sir," said Molineux, putting a foot into the 
 boudoir, "I am on M. le Comte Granville's property, but here" 
 (he pointed to the other foot) "I am on my own, for this 
 house belongs to me." 
 
 And Molineux, more than willing to gratify the only one 
 who had a mind to listen to him, was so charmed with du 
 Tillet's attentive attitude, that he described himself, and gave 
 an account of his habits, together with a complete history of 
 the sauciness of Master Gendrin, and an exact relation of 
 his transactions with the perfumer, without which transac- 
 tion the ball would not have taken place. 
 
 "Ah! so M. Cesar has paid his rent beforehand," said du 
 Tillet ; "nothing is more contrary to his habits." 
 
 "Oh ! I asked him to do so ; I am so accommodating with 
 my tenants!" 
 
 "If old Birotteau goes bankrupt," thought du Tillet, "that 
 little rogue will certainly make a capital assignee. Such cap- 
 tiousness is not often met with; he must amuse himself at 
 home, like Domitian, by killing flies when he is alone." 
 
 Du Tillet betook himself to the card-tables, where Claparon 
 (by his orders) had already taken his post. Du Tillet 
 thought that, screened by a lamp shade, at bouillotte, his 
 dummy banker would escape all scrutiny. As they sat 
 opposite one another, they looked such perfect strangers 
 that the most suspicious observer could have discovered no 
 sign of an understanding between them. Gaudissart, who 
 knew that Claparon had risen in the world, did not dare to 
 approach him ; the wealthy ex-commercial traveler had given 
 him the portentously cool stare of an upstart who does not 
 care to be claimed by an old acquaintance.
 
 168 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Towards five o'clock in the morning the ball came to an 
 end, like a spent rocket. By that time there only remained 
 some forty cabs out of a hundred or more which had filled 
 the Eue Saint-Honore ; and in the ballroom they were danc- 
 ing the boulangere, which later was succeeded by the cotillon 
 and the English galop. Du Tillet, Koguin, young Cardot, 
 Jules Desmarets, and the Comte de Granville were playing 
 bouillotte. Du Tillet had won three thousand francs. The 
 light of the wax-candles was growing pale in the dawn when 
 the card-players rose to join in the last quadrille. 
 
 In bourgeois houses this supreme enjoyment never comes 
 to an end without some enormities. Those who imposed awe 
 or restraint on the others are gone ; the intoxication of move- 
 ment, the hot rooms, the spirits that lurk in the most harm- 
 less beverages, relax the stiffness of the dowagers, who allow 
 themselves to be drawn into the quadrilles, and yield to the 
 excitement of the moment; men are heated, the lank hair 
 comes down over their faces, and their grotesque appearance 
 provokes laughter ; the younger women grow frivolous, flowers 
 have fallen here and there from their hair. Then it is that 
 the bourgeois Momus enters, followed by his antic crew! 
 Laughter breaks out in peals, and every one gives himself 
 up to the merriment, thinking that with morning labor will 
 resume its sway over him. Matifat was dancing with a 
 woman's hat on his head; Celestin was indulging in burlesque 
 movements. A few of the ladies clapped their hands noisily 
 when they changed the figures of the intermidable quadrille. 
 
 "How they are enjoying themselves !" said the happy Bi- 
 rotteau. 
 
 "If only they break nothing," said Constance, who stood 
 by Uncle Pillerault. 
 
 "You have given the most magnificent ball that I have 
 seen, and I have seen many," said du Tiilet, with a bow to 
 his late employer. 
 
 There is in one of Beethoven's eight symphonies a fantasia 
 like a great poem; it is the culminating point of the finale
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 169 
 
 of the Symphony in C minor. When, after the slow prepara- 
 tion of the mighty magician, so well understood by Habeneck, 
 the rich curtain rises on this scene ; when the bow of the en- 
 thusiastic leader of the orchestra calls forth the dazzling 
 motif, through which the whole gathered force of the music 
 flows, the poet, as his heart beats fast, will understand that 
 this ball was in Birotteau's life like this moment when his 
 own imagination feels the quickening power of the music, 
 of this motif, which in itself perhaps raises the Symphony 
 in C minor above its glorious sisters. For a radiant fairy 
 springs up and waves her wand, and you hear the rustling 
 of the purple silken curtains raised by angels; the golden 
 doors, carved like the bronze gates of the Baptistery in 
 Florence, turn upon their hinges of adamant, and your eyes 
 wander over far-off glories and vistas of fairy palaces. Forms 
 not of this earth glide among them, the incense of prosperity 
 rises, the fire is kindled on the altar of fortune, the scented 
 air circles about it. Beings clad in white blue-bordered tunics 
 smile divinely as they float before your eyes, shapes delicate 
 and ethereal beyond expression turn faces of unearthly 
 beauty upon you. The Loves hover in the air, filling it with 
 the flames of their torches. You feel that you are loved ; you 
 are glad with a joy that you drink in without comprehend- 
 ing it as you bathe in the floods of a torrent of harmony 
 which pours out for each the nectar of his choice ; for as the 
 music slides into your inmost soul, its desires are realized for 
 a moment. Then when you have walked for a while in 
 heaven, the enchanter plunges you back, by some deep and 
 mysterious transition of the bass, into the morass of chill 
 reality, only to draw you thence when he has awakened in you 
 a thirst for his divine melodies, and your soul cries out to 
 hear those sounds again. The history of the soul at the most 
 glorious point in that beautiful -finale is the history of the 
 sensations which this festival brought in abundance for Con- 
 stance and Cesar. But it was no Beethoven, but a Collinet, 
 who had composed upon his flute the finale of their commer- 
 cial symphony.
 
 170 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 The three Birotteaus, tired but happy, slept that morning 
 with the sounds of the festival ringing in their ears. The 
 building, repairs, furniture, banquets, toilettes, and 
 Cesarine's library (for the money had been repaid to her) 
 had altogether raised the expense of that entertainment, with- 
 out Cesar's having a suspicion of it, to sixty thousand francs. 
 So much did that luckless red ribbon, fastened by the King 
 to a perfumer's buttonhole, cost the wearer. If any mis- 
 fortune should befall Cesar Birotteau, this extravagance of 
 his was like to bring him into serious trouble at the police 
 court; a merchant lays himself open to a term of two years' 
 imprisonment if, on examination, his expenses are considered 
 excessive. It is, perhaps, more unpleasant to go to the Sixth 
 Chamber for simple bad management or for a foolish trifle, 
 than to come before a Court of Assize for a gigantic fraud; 
 and in some people's eyes it is better to be a knave than a 
 fool.
 
 II. 
 
 CE"SAR STRUGGLES WITH MISFORTUNE 
 
 ' A WEEK after the ball, that final flare of the straw-fire o^. 
 a prosperity which had lasted for eighteen years, and now was 
 about to die out in darkness, Cesar stood watching the 
 passers-by through his shop window. He was thinking of the 
 wide extent of his business affairs, and found them almost 
 more than he could manage. Hitherto his life had been quite 
 simple; he manufactured and sold his goods, or he bought 
 to sell again. But now there was the speculation in build- 
 ing land, and his own share in the enterprise of A. Popinot 
 & Company, besides a hundred and sixty thousand francs 
 worth of bills to meet. Before long he would be compelled 
 to discount some of his customers' bills (and his wife would 
 not like it), or there must be an unheard-of success on 
 Popinot's part; altogether, the poor man had so many things 
 to think of that he felt as if he had more skeins to wind 
 than he could hold. 
 
 How would Anselme steer his course? Birotteau treated 
 Popinot much as a professor of rhetoric treats a student; 
 he felt little confidence in his capacity, and was sorry that 
 he could not be always on hand to look after him. The ad- 
 monitory kick bestowed on Anselme's shins by way of a recom- 
 mendation to hold his tongue in Vauquelin's presence will 
 illustrate the fears which the perfumer felt as to the newly- 
 started business. Birotteau was very careful to hide his 
 thoughts from his wife and daughter, and from his assistant ; 
 but within himself he felt as a Seine boatman might feel if 
 by some freak of fortune a Minister should give him the 
 command of a frigate. Such thoughts as these, rising like 
 a fog in his brain, were but little favorable to clear think-
 
 172 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 ing, he stood, therefore, trying to see things distinctly in 
 his own mind. 
 
 Just at that moment a figure, for which he felt an intense 
 aversion, appeared in the street; he beheld his second land- 
 lord, little Molineux. Everybody knows those dreams in 
 which events are so crowded together that we pass through 
 a whole lifetime, dreams in which a fantastical being reap- 
 pears from time to time, always as the bearer of bad tidings 
 the villain of the piece. It seemed to Birotteau that fate had 
 sent Molineux to play a similar part in his waking life. That 
 countenance had grinned diabolically at him when the feast 
 was at its height, and had turned an evil eye on the splendor ; 
 and now when Cesar saw it again, he remembered the im- 
 pression which the "little curmudgeon" (to use his own ex- 
 pression) had given him but so much the more vividly, be- 
 cause Molineux had given him a fresh feeling of repulsion 
 by suddenly breaking in upon his musings. 
 
 "Sir/' said the little man in his vampire voice, "we did 
 this business in such an offhand fashion, that you forgot to 
 approve the additions to this little private covenant of 
 ours." 
 
 As Birotteau took up the lease to repair the omission, the 
 architect came in, bowed to the perfumer, and hovered about 
 him with a diplomatic air. 
 
 "You know, sir, the difficulties at the outset when you 
 are starting in business," he said at last in Birotteau's ear; 
 "you are satisfied with me; you would oblige me very much 
 by paying my honorarium at once." 
 
 Birotteau, who had paid away all his ready money and 
 emptied his portfolio, told Celestin to draw a bill for two 
 thousand francs at three months and a form of receipt. 
 
 "It is a very lucky thing for me that you undertook to pay 
 the quarter which your next-door neighbor owed," said 
 Molineux, with malicious cunning in his smile. "My porter 
 has been round to tell me that the authorities .have been af- 
 fixing seals to his property, because Master Cayron had disap- 
 peared from the scene."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU . 173 
 
 "If only they don't come down on me for the five thou- 
 sand francs," thought Birotteau. 
 
 ''People thought that he was doing very well," said Lour- 
 dois, who had just come in to hand his statement to the per- 
 fumer. 
 
 "No one in business is quite safe from reverses until he 
 retires," remarked little Molineux, folding up his document 
 with punctilious neatness. 
 
 The architect watched the little old creature with the pleas- 
 ure that every artist feels at the sight of a living caricature 
 which confirms his prejudices against the bourgeoisie. 
 
 "When you hold an umbrella over your head, you 
 generally suppose that it is sheltered if it rains," he ob- 
 served. 
 
 Molineux looked harder at the architect's moustache and 
 "royale" than at his face, and the contempt that he felt for 
 Grindot quite equaled Grindot's contempt for him. He 
 stayed on to give the architect a parting scratch. By dint of 
 living with his cats, there had come to be something feline 
 in Molineux's ways as well as in his eyes. 
 
 Just at that moment, Eagon and Pillerault came in to- 
 gether. 
 
 "We have been talking over this business with the judge," 
 Eagon said in Cesar's ear. "He says that in a speculation of 
 this kind we must actually complete the purchase and have 
 a receipt from the vendors if we are really to be severally pro- 
 priet 
 
 "Oh ! are you in the affair of the Madeleine ?" asked Lour- 
 dois. "People are talking about it; there will be houses to 
 build !" 
 
 The house-painter had come to ask for a prompt settle- 
 ment, but he found it to his interest not to press the per- 
 fumer. 
 
 "I have sent in my statement because it is the end of the 
 year," he said in a low voice for Cesar's benefit; "I do not 
 want anything." 
 
 "Well, what is it, Cesar?" asked Pillerault, noticing his
 
 174 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAL 
 
 nephew's surprise; for Cesar, overcome by the sight of the 
 statement, made no answer to either Ragon or Lourdois. 
 
 "Oh! a trifle; I took five thousand francs of bills from 
 a neighbor, the umbrella dealer, who is bankrupt. If he has 
 given me bad paper, I shall be caught like a simpleton." 
 
 "Why, I told you so long ago," cried Eagon; "a drowning 
 man will catch hold of his father's leg to save himself, and 
 drag him down with him. I have seen so much of bankrupt- 
 cies ! A man is not exactly a rogue to begin with ; but when 
 he gets into trouble, he is forced to become one." 
 
 "True," said Pillerault. 
 
 "Ah! if I ever get as far as the Chamber of Deputies, or 
 have some influence with Government . . ." said Birot- 
 teau, rising on tiptoe, and sinking back again on his heels. 
 
 "What will you do?" asked Lourdois. "You are a wise 
 man." 
 
 Molineux, always interested by a discussion on law, stayed 
 in the shop to listen; and as the attention paid by others is 
 infectious, Pillerault and Eagon, who knew Cesar's opinions, 
 listened none the less with as much gravity as the three 
 strangers. 
 
 "I should have a Tribunal and a permanent bench of 
 judges," said Cesar, "and a public prosecutor for criminal 
 cases. After an examination, made by a judge who should 
 discharge the functions of agents by procuration trustees and 
 registrar, the trader should be declared temporarily insolvent 
 or a fraudulent bankrupt. In the first case, he should be 
 bound over to pay his creditors in full; to that end, he 
 should be trustee for his own and his wife's property 
 (for everything he had, or might inherit, would belong 
 to his creditors) ; he should manage his estate for their 
 benefit and under their inspection; in fact, he should carry 
 on the business for them, signing his name, in every case, as 
 'such a one, in liquidation,' until everybody was paid in full. 
 But if he were made a bankrupt, he should be condemned to 
 stand in the pillory in the Exchange for a couple of hours, 
 as they used to do, with a green cap on his head. His own
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 175 
 
 property and his wife's, and his interest in any other estate, 
 should be forfeit to his creditors, and he should be banished 
 the kingdom." 
 
 "Business would be a little safer/' said Lourdois; "people 
 would think twice before going into a speculation." 
 
 "The law as it stands is never carried out," cried Cesar, 
 lashing himself up; "more than fifty merchants out of a hun- 
 dred could only pay seventy-five per cent, or they sell goods 
 at twenty-five per cent below invoice price, and spoil trade 
 in that way." 
 
 "M. Birotteau is in the right," said Molineux; "the law 
 allows far too much latitude. The entire estate should be 
 made over to the creditors, or the man should be disgraced." 
 
 "Bother take it," said Cesar, "at the rate at which things 
 are going, a merchant will become a licensed robber. By 
 signing his name he can dip in any one's purse." 
 
 "You are severe, M. Birotteau," said Lourdois. 
 
 "He is right," said old Eagon. 
 
 "Every man who fails is a suspicious character," Cesar 
 went on, exasperated by the little loss which rang in his ears ; 
 it was like the huntsman's first distant halloo to a stag. 
 
 As he spoke, Chevet's steward brought his invoice, a 
 pastry-cook's boy from Felix and the Cafe Foy arrived, to- 
 gether with the clarinet-player of Collinet's band, each with 
 an account. 
 
 "The Quart d'heure de Rabelais" smiled Eagon. 
 
 "My word, that was a splendid fete of yours," said Lour- 
 dois. 
 
 "I am busy," Cesar said, and the messengers departed, leav- 
 ing their invoices. 
 
 "M. Grindot," said Lourdois, who noticed that the archi- 
 tect was folding up a bill which bore Cesar's signature, "you k 
 will check my account and see that it is all in order ; you need 
 do nothing more than run through it, all the prices have been 
 agreed to on M. Birotteau's behalf." 
 
 Pillerault looked at Lourdois and Grindot. 
 
 "If architect and contractor settle the prices between them, 
 you are being robbed," he said in his nephew's eai.
 
 176 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR. BIROTTEAU 
 
 Grindot went out. Molineux followed and came up to him 
 with a mysterious expression. 
 
 "Sir," he remarked, "you heard what I said, but you did not 
 take my meaning; I wish you an umbrella when it comes on 
 to rain." 
 
 Fear seized on Grindot. A man clings all the more tightly 
 to gain which is not lawfully his; such is human nature. As 
 a matter of fact, too, this had been a labor of love for the 
 artist; he had given all his time and his utmost skill to the 
 alterations of the rooms; he had done five times as much 
 as he had been paid for, and had fallen a victim to his own 
 self-love. The contractors had had little difficulty in tempt- 
 ing him. And besides the irresistible argument, there was a 
 menace, understood though not expressed, of doing him an 
 injury by slandering him, and there was a y.et more cogent 
 reason for yielding the remark that Lourdois made as to the 
 building land near the Madeleine. Clearly, Birotteau did 
 not mean to put up a single house; he was only speculating 
 in land. 
 
 Architects and contractors are in somewhat the same rela- 
 tive positions as actors and dramatists ; they are dependent on 
 each other. Grindot, to whom Birotteau left the settlement 
 of the charges, was for the handicraftsman as against the 
 citizen-householder. So the end of it was that three large 
 contractors Lourdois, Chaffaroux, and Thorien the car- 
 penter declared him to be "one of those good fellows for 
 whom it is a pleasure to work." Grindot foresaw that the ac- 
 counts on which he was to have his share would be paid, like 
 his own fee. by bills; and this little old man had given him 
 doubts as to whether those bills would be met. Grindot was 
 prepared to show no mercy; after the manner of artists, the 
 most ruthless enemies of the bourgeois. 
 
 By the end of December, Cesar had invoices for sixty thou- 
 sand francs. Felix, the Cafe Foy, Tanrade, and others, to 
 whom small amounts were owing which must be paid in cash, 
 had sent three times for the money. In business these small 
 trifles do more harm than a heavy loss; they set rumors in
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 177 
 
 circulation. A loss which every one knows is a definite 
 thing, but panic knows no limits. Birotteau's safe was 
 empty. 
 
 Then fear seized on the perfumer. Such a thing had never 
 happened before in his business career. Like all people who 
 have almost forgotten their struggles with poverty, and have 
 little strength of character, this incident, a daily occurrence 
 in the lives of most petty shopkeepers in Paris, troubled 
 Cesar's brain. 
 
 He told Celestin to send in invoices to his own customers ; 
 such an unheard-of order had to be repeated twice before 
 the astonished first assistant understood it. The "clients" 
 the grand name that shopkeepers used to apply to their 
 customers, and retained by Cesar in speaking of them, in 
 spite of his wife, who had yielded at last with a "Call them 
 what you like, so long as they pay us" the "clients" were 
 wealthy people, who paid when they pleased ; in Cesar's busi- 
 ness there were no bad debts, though the outstanding accounts 
 often amounted to fifty or sixty thousand francs. The second 
 assistant took the invoice-book, and began to copy out the 
 largest amounts. Cesar stood in. fear of his wife. He did 
 not wish her to see his prostration beneath the simoom of 
 misfortune, so he determined to go out. 
 
 "Good-day, sir," said Grindot, coming in with the care- 
 less air that artists assume when they talk of business mat- 
 ters, to which they say they are entirely unaccustomed. "I 
 cannot obtain ready money of any sort or description for 
 your paper, so I am compelled to ask you to give me cash in- 
 stead. It is a most unfortunate thing for me that I must 
 take this step; but I have not been to the money-lender's 
 about it ; I should not like to hawk your name about ; I know 
 enough of business to know that it would be casting a slur 
 on it ; so it is to your own interest to " 
 
 "Speak lower, sir, if you please," said Birotteau in bewilder- 
 ment. "I am very much surprised at this." 
 
 Lourdois came in. 
 
 "Here, Lourdois," said Birotteau with a smile, "do you
 
 178 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAD 
 
 know about this? " he stopped short. With the good 
 
 faith of a merchant who feels secure, the poor man had been 
 about to ask Lourdois to take Grindot's bill, by way of laugh- 
 ing at the architect; but he saw a cloud on Lourdois' brow, 
 and trembled at his own imprudence. The harmless joke was 
 the death-knell of a credit not above suspicion. In such a 
 case a rich merchant takes back his bill; he does not offer 
 it. Birotteau felt dizzy; it was as if a stroke of a pickaxe 
 had laid open the pit which yawned at his feet. 
 
 "My dear M. Birotteau," said Lourdois, retiring with him 
 to the back of the shop, "my account has been checked and 
 passed; I must ask you to have the money ready for me by 
 to-morrow. My daughter is going to be married to young 
 Crottat; he wants money, and notaries will not wait and bar- 
 gain; besides, no one has ever seen my name on a bill." 
 
 "You can send round the day after to-morrow," said 
 Birotteau stiffly (he counted on the payment of the invoices). 
 "And you also, sir," he spoke to Grindot. 
 
 "Why can I not have it at once ?" asked the architect. 
 
 "I have my men's wages to pay in the Faubourg," said 
 Cesar, who had never told a lie. 
 
 He took up his hat to go with them; but the bricklayer 
 came in with Thorien and Chaffaroux, and stopped him just 
 as he shut the door. 
 
 "We really want the money, sir," said Chaffaroux. 
 
 "Eh ! I haven't the wealth of the Indies," cried Cesar, out 
 of patience; and he quickly put a hundred paces between 
 himself and the three visitors. "There is something under- 
 neath all this. Confound the ball ! Everybody takes you 
 for a millionaire. Still, there was something very strange 
 about Lourdois," he thought; "there is some snake in the 
 hedge." 
 
 He went along the Rue Saint-Honore without thinking 
 where he was going, feeling at a very low ebb, when at a 
 corner of the street he ran up against Alexandre Crottat, like 
 a battering-ram, or as one mathematician absorbed in the 
 working of a problem might collide with another.
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 179 
 
 "Ah! sir," exclaimed the future notary, "one word with 
 you ! Did Eoguin pay over your four hundred thousand 
 francs to M. Claparon?" 
 
 "You were there when the thing was done. M. Claparon 
 gave me no receipt of any kind; my bills were to he nego- 
 tiated. . . . Roguin ought to have paid them to him 
 . . . my two hundred and forty thousand francs in coin. 
 . . . He was told that the money was to be paid down 
 and the transaction completed. . . . M. Popinot of the 
 Tribunal says. . . . The vendor's receipt ! . . . But 
 . . . what makes you ask the question?" 
 
 "What makes me ask you such a question? To know 
 whether your two hundred thousand francs are in Claparon's 
 hands or Eoguin's. Roguin is such an old acquaintance of 
 yours, that he might have scrupled to take your money, and 
 handed it over to Claparon; if so, you will have had a nar- 
 row escape ! But how stupid I am ! He has made off with 
 them, for he has M. Claparon's money; luckily, Claparon 
 had only paid a hundred thousand francs. Roguin has ab- 
 sconded ; I myself paid him a hundred thousand francs for his 
 practice without taking a receipt; I gave it him as I might 
 give my purse to you to keep for me. Your vendors have not 
 been paid a stiver ; they have just been round to see me. The 
 money you raised on your land has no existence for you, nor 
 for the man of whom you borrowed it ; Roguin had swallowed 
 it like your hundred thousand francs ; which er he has not 
 had this long while. And he has taken your last payment of 
 a hundred thousand francs with him too; 1 remember going to 
 the bank for the money." 
 
 The pupils of Cesar's eyes dilated so widely that he could 
 see nothing but red flames before him. 
 
 "Your draft on the bank for a hundred thousand francs, 
 a hundred thousand francs of mine paid for the practice, 
 and a hundred thousand francs belonging to M. Claparon 
 three hundred thousand francs gone like smoke, to say noth- 
 ing of the defalcations that have yet to be found out," the 
 young notary went on. "They feared for Mme. Roguin's
 
 180 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 life ; M. du Tillet spent the night beside her. Du Tillet him- 
 self has had a narrow escape ! Eoguin has been pestering him 
 this month past to draw him into the Madeleine speculation, 
 but, luckily, all his capital was locked up in some project of 
 the Nucingens'. Eoguin wrote his wife a frightful letter. 
 I have just seen it. For five years he has been gambling with 
 his clients' money, and why ? To spend it on a mistress La 
 belle Hollandaise; he left her a fortnight before he made 
 this stroke. She had squandered till she had not a farthing; 
 her furniture was sold; she had put her name on bills of ex- 
 change. Then she hid from her creditors in a house in the 
 Palais-Royal, and was murdered there last evening by an 
 officer in the army. Heaven soon dealt the punishment to 
 her who, beyond a doubt, had run through Roguin's fortune. 
 There are women to whom nothing is sacred ; think of squan- 
 dering away a notary's practice ! 
 
 "Mme. Roguin will have nothing except what has been 
 secured to her by her legal mortgage, and all the scoundrel's 
 property has been mortgaged beyond its value. The practice 
 is to be sold for three hundred thousand francs! and I, 
 who thought I was doing a good stroke of business, must 
 begin by paying an extra hundred thousand francs for my 
 practice; I hold no receipt; and there are defalcations which 
 will eat up the value of the practice and the deposit of cau- 
 tion money. The creditors will think that I am in it if I say 
 anything about my hundred thousand francs, and you have to 
 be very careful of your reputation when you are beginning for 
 yourself. You will hardly get thirty per cent. Such a brew 
 to drink of at my age ! That a man of fifty-nine should take 
 up with a woman. . . . The old rogue ! Three weeks ago 
 he told me not to marry Cesarine, and said that before long 
 you would not have bread to eat, the monster !" 
 
 Alexandre might have talked on for a long while; Birot- 
 teau stood like a man turned to stone. Each sentence fell 
 like a stunning blow. He heard nothing in the sounds but his 
 death-knell; just as when Alexandre first began to speak, he 
 had seemed to see his own house in flames. He looked so
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTBATT 181 
 
 white, and stood so motionless, that Alexandre Crottat, who 
 had taken the worthy perfumer for a clear-headed, capable 
 man of business, was frightened at last. Roguin's successor 
 did not know that this stroke had swept away Cesar's whole 
 fortune. A swift thought of suicide flashed through the 
 brain of the merchant, so profoundly religious by nature. In 
 such a case suicide is a way of escape from a thousand deaths, 
 and it seems logical to accept but one. Alexandre Crottat 
 lent his arm, and tried to walk with him,, but it was impossible 
 Cesar tottered as if he had. been drunk. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Crottat. "My 
 good M. Cesar, pluck up heart a little ! It takes more than 
 this to kill a man ! Besides, you will recover forty thousand 
 francs ; the man who lent you the money had not the money 
 to lend, and did not pay it over to you; you might plead that 
 the contract was void." 
 
 "My ball. My Cross. Two hundred thousand francs' 
 worth of my paper on the market, and nothing in the 
 safe. . . . The Eagons, Pillerault. . . . And my 
 wife, who saw it all !" 
 
 A shower of confused words, which called up ideas that 
 overwhelmed him and caused unbearable pangs, fell like hail 
 laying waste the flower beds of the Queen of Roses. 
 
 "If only my head were cut off," Birotteau cried at last ; "it 
 is so heavy that it weighs me down, and it is good for nothing 
 in this . . ." 
 
 "Poor old Birotteau !" said Alexandre ; "then are you in 
 difficulties?" 
 
 "Difficulties !" 
 
 "Very well ; keep up your heart and struggle with them/' 
 
 "Struggle !" echoed the perfumer. 
 
 "Du Tillet used to be your assistant; he has a level head, 
 he will help you." 
 
 "Du Tillet?" 
 
 "Come along !" 
 
 "Good heavens! T don't like to go home like this," cried 
 
 Birotteau. "You that are my friend, if friends there are, you 
 13
 
 18 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR RIROTTEAU 
 
 who have dined with me, you ill whom 1 have taken an in- 
 terest, call a cab for me, for my wife's sake ; and come with 
 me, Xandrot . . ." 
 
 With no little difficulty Crottat put the inert mechanism, 
 called Cesar, into a cab. 
 
 "Xandrot." he said, in a voice broken with tears, for the 
 tears had begun to fall, and the iron band about his head 
 seemed to be loosened a little, "let us call at the shop. Speak 
 to Celestin for me. My friend, tell him that it is a matter of 
 life and death for me and for my wife. And let no one 
 prattle about Roguin's disappearance on any pretext whatever. 
 Ask Cesarine to come down, and beg her to allow no one to 
 say anything about it to her mother. You must beware of 
 your best friends, Pillerault, the Ragons, everybody " 
 
 The change in Birotteau's voice made a deep impression on 
 Crottat, who understood the importance of the request. On 
 their way to the magistrate, they stopped at the house in the 
 Rue Saint-Honore. Celestin and Cesarine were horrified to 
 see Birotteau lying back in white and speechless hebetude, as 
 it were, in the cab. 
 
 "Keep the affair a secret for me," said the perfumer. 
 
 "Ah !" said Xandrot to himself, "he is coming round ; I 
 thought it was all over with him." 
 
 The conference between Alexandre and the magistrate 
 lasted long. The President of the Chamber of Notaries was 
 sent for; Cesar was taken hither and thither like a parcel; 
 he did not stir, he did not utter a word. Towards seven 
 o'clock in the evening Alexandre Crottat took the perfumer 
 home again, and the thought of appearing before his wife 
 had a bracing effect on him. The young notary had the 
 charity to precede him, to tell Mme. Birotteau that her hus- 
 band had had a sort of fit. 
 
 "His ideas are confused," he said, making a gesture to de- 
 scribe a bewildered state of the brain ; "perhaps he should be 
 bled, or leeches ought to be put on him." 
 
 "I knew how it would be," said Constance nothing was 
 further from her thoughts than the actual disaster "he did
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 183 
 
 not take his medicine as usual at the beginning of winter, 
 and for these two months he has been working like a galley 
 slave, as if he had to earn his daily bread." 
 
 So Cesar's wife and daughter begged him to go to bed, and 
 Dr. Haudry, Birotteau's doctor, was sent for. Old Haudry 
 was a doctor of the school of Moliere ; he had a large practice, 
 and adhered to old-fashioned methods and out-of-date 
 formulae ; consulting physician though he was, he drugged his 
 patients like any quack doctor. He came, made his diagnosis, 
 and ordered the immediate application of a sinapism to the 
 soles of Cesar's feet; he detected symptoms of cerebral con- 
 gestion. 
 
 "What can have brought it on?" asked Constance. 
 
 "The damp weather," said the doctor. Cesarine had given 
 him a hint. 
 
 A doctor is often obliged professionally to talk nonsense 
 with a learned air, to save the honor or the life of persons 
 in health who stand about the patient's bed. The old physi- 
 cian had seen so much, that half a word sufficed for him. 
 Cesarine went out on to the stairs to ask about the treatment. 
 
 "Best and quiet; then when there is less pressure on the 
 head, we will venture on tonics." 
 
 For two days Mme. Cesar sat by her husband's bedside. 
 Often she thought that he was delirious. As he lay in his 
 wife's pretty blue chamber, he said many things, which were 
 enigmas for Constance, at the sight of the hangings, the 
 furniture, and the costly magnificence of the room. 
 
 "He is light-headed," she said to Cesarine, when Cesar sat 
 upright in bed and began solemnly to repeat scraps of the 
 Code. "If the personal or household expenses are considered 
 excessive. . . . Take away those curtains !" he cried. 
 
 After three dreadful days of anxiety for Cesar's reason, 
 the Tourangeau's strong peasant constitution triumphed, 
 the pressure on the brain ceased. M. Haudry ordered cordials 
 and a strengthening diet, and after a cup of coffee seasonably 
 administered, Cesar was on his feet again. Constance, worn 
 out, took her husband's place.
 
 184 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Poor thing !" said Cesar, when he saw her sleeping. 
 
 "Come, papa, take courage ! You have so much talent, that 
 you will triumph over this. Never mind. M. Anselme will 
 help you," and Cesarine murmured the sweet, vague words, 
 made still sweeter by tenderness, which put courage into the 
 most sorely defeated, as a mother's crooning songs soothe the 
 pain of a teething infant. 
 
 "Yes, child, I will struggle. But not a word of this to 
 any one whatever; not to Popinot, who loves us, nor to your 
 uncle. In the first place, I will write to my brother; he is 
 a canon, I believe, a priest attached to a cathedral. He spends 
 .nothing, so he must have saved something. Five thousand 
 francs put by every year for twenty years he ought to have a 
 hundred thousand francs. Priests have credit in country 
 places." 
 
 Cesarine, in her hurry to set a little table and the neces- 
 saries for writing a letter before her father, brought the re- 
 mainder of the rose-colored cards for the ball. 
 
 "Burn them all!" cried the merchant. "The devil alone 
 could have put the notion of that ball into my head. If I 
 fail, it will look as if I were a rogue. Come, let us go straight 
 to the point." 
 
 Cesar's letter to Francois Birotteau. 
 
 "My DEAR BROTHER, My business is passing through a 
 crisis so difficult that I implore you to send me all the money 
 at your disposal, even if you arc obliged to borrow. Yours 
 truly, CESAR. 
 
 "Your niece Cesarine, who is with me as I write this letter, 
 while my poor wife is asleep, desires to be remembered to you, 
 and sends her love." 
 
 This postscript was added at Cesarine's instance. She gave 
 the letter to Raguet. 
 
 "Father," said she, when she came up again, "here is M. 
 Lebas, who wants to speak to you."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU ia r 
 
 "M. Lebas!" cried Cesar, starting as though misfortune 
 had made a criminal of him, "a judge !" 
 
 "Dear M. Birotteau," said the stout merchant-draper as 
 he came in, "I take too deep an interest in you knowing each 
 other so long as we have, and being elected judges together, 
 as we were, for the first time not to let you know that one 
 Bidault, otherwise Gigonnet, has bills of yours made payable 
 to his order, without guarantee, by the firm of Claparon. 
 Those two words are not merely an insult; they give a fatal 
 shake to your credit." 
 
 "M. Claparon would like to speak to you," said Celestin, 
 putting in his head; "am I to show him up?" 
 
 "We shall soon hear the why and wherefore of this affront," 
 remarked Lebas. 
 
 "This is M. Lebas, sir," said Cesar, as Claparon came in; 
 "he is a judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and my 
 friend " 
 
 "Oh ! the gentleman is M. Lebas, is he ?" said Claparon, 
 interrupting Cesar, "delighted to make his acquaintance; M. 
 Lebas of the tribunal, there are so many Lebas, to say noth- 
 ing of the liauts and the has " 
 
 "He has seen the bills which I gave to you, and which 
 (so you told me) should not be negotiated," Birotteau went 
 on, interrupting the rattle in his turn; "he has seen them 
 with the words 'without guarantee' written upon them." 
 
 "Well," said Claparon, "and as a matter of fact they will 
 not be negotiated ; they are in the hands of a man with whom 
 I do a great deal of business old Bidault. That is why I 
 put 'without guarantee' on them. If the bills had been meant 
 to be put in circulation, you would have made them to his 
 order in the first place. M. Lebas, as a judge, will under- 
 stand my position. What do the bills represent? The price 
 of some landed property. To be paid by whom ? By Birot- 
 teau. Why would you have me guarantee Birotteau by my 
 signature ? We must, each of us, pay our share of the afore- 
 said price. Now, isn't it enough to be jointly and severally 
 responsible to the vendors? I have made an inflexible rule
 
 186 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 in business: I no more give my signature for nothing than 
 I give a receipt for money that is still to be paid. 1 assume 
 the worst. Who signs, pays. I don't want to be laid open to 
 pay three times over." 
 
 "Three times/' said Cesar. 
 
 "Yes, sir/' said Claparon. "I have already guaranteed 
 Birotteau to the vendors; why should I guarantee him again 
 to the bill-discounter? Our case is a hard one; Eoguin goes 
 off with a hundred thousand francs of mine; so, even now, 
 my half of the land is costing me five hundred thousand in- 
 stead of. four. Eoguin has taken two hundred and forty 
 thousand francs belonging to Birotteau. What would you do 
 in my place, M. Lebas? Put yourself in my shoes. I have 
 not the honor of being known to you, any more than I know 
 M. Birotteau. Do you take me ? We go halves in a business 
 speculation. You pay down all your share of the money in 
 cash; and as for me, I give bills for my share. I offer you 
 the bills, and out of excessive benevolence you take them and 
 give money for them. You learn that Claparon the rich 
 banker, looked up to by everyone I accept all the virtues in 
 the world that the virtuous Claparon is in difficulties for a 
 matter of six millions; would you select that moment to give 
 your name as a guarantee for mine ? You would be mad ! 
 Well, now, M. Lebas, Birotteau is in the position in which I 
 imagined Claparon to be. Don't you see that in that case, 
 being jointly and severally responsible, I may be made to pay 
 the purchasers ; that I can be called upon to pay a second time 
 for Birotteau's share to the extent of his bills, that is, if I 
 back them, without having " 
 
 "Pay whom ?" interrupted the perfumer. 
 
 "Without having his half of the land," pursued Claparon, 
 heedless of the interruption, "for I should have no hold on 
 him ; so I should have to buy it over again. So I might pay 
 three times over." 
 
 "Repay whom?" insisted Birotteau. 
 
 "Why, the holder of the bills; if I endorsed them, and you 
 came to grief."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 187 
 
 "I shall not fail, sir," said Birotteau. 
 
 "All right," said Claparon. "You have been a judge, you 
 are a clever man of business, you know that we ought to pro- 
 vide for all contingencies, so do not be astonished is I act 
 in a business-like way." 
 
 "M. Claparon is right," said Joseph Lebas. 
 
 "I am right," continued Claparon, "right from a business 
 point of view. But this is a question of landed property. 
 Now, what ought I myself to receive? Money, for the 
 vendors must be paid in coin. Let us set aside the two hun- 
 dred and forty thousand francs, which M. Birotteau will find, 
 I am sure," said Claparon, looking at Lebas. "I came to ask 
 you for the trifling sum of twenty-five thousand francs," he 
 added, looking at Birotteau. 
 
 "Twenty-five thousand francs !" cried Cesar, and it seemed 
 to him that the blood turned to ice in his veins. "But, sir, 
 what for?" 
 
 "Eh ! my dear sir, we are bound to sign, seal, and deliver 
 the deeds in the presence of a notary. Now, as to paying for 
 the land, we may arrange that among ourselves, but when 
 the Treasury comes in your humble servant ! The Treasury 
 does not amuse itself with idle words; it allows you credit 
 from your hand to your pocket, and we shall have to come 
 down with the money forty-four thousand francs this week 
 in law expenses. I was far from expecting reproaches when I 
 came here; for, thinking that you might find it inconvenient 
 to pay twenty-five thousand francs, I was going to tell you 
 that by the merest chance I had saved for you " 
 
 "What?" asked Birotteau, giving in that word that cry of 
 distress which no man can mistake. 
 
 "A trifle ! Twenty-five thousand francs in bills given to 
 you by one and another, which Eoguin gave me to discount. 
 I have credited you with the amount as against the registra- 
 tion and other expenses; I will send you the account; there 
 is a little matter to deduct for discounting them, and six or 
 seven thousand francs will still be owing to me." 
 
 "This all seems to me to be perfectly fair," said Lebas. "In
 
 188 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 the place of this gentleman, who appears to me to understand 
 business very well, I should act the same towards a stranger." 
 
 "This will not be the death of M. Birotteau," said 
 Claparon; "it takes more than one blow to kill an old wolf; 
 I have seen wolves with bullets in their heads running about 
 like Lord, yes, like wolves." 
 
 "Who could have foreseen such rascality on Roguin's part ?" 
 asked Lebas, as much alarmed by Cesar's dumbness as by so 
 vast a speculation outside the perfumery trade. 
 
 "A little more, and I should have given this gentleman a re- 
 ceipt for four hundred thousand francs," said Claparon, "and 
 I was in a stew. I had paid over a hundred thousand francs 
 to Roguin the night before. Our mutual confidence saved 
 me. It would have seemed to us all a matter of indifference 
 whether the money should be lying at his office or in my pos- 
 session till the day when the contracts were completed." 
 
 "It would have been much better if each had deposited his 
 money with the Bank of France till the time came for pay- 
 ing it over," said Lebas. 
 
 "Eoguin was as good as the Bank, I thought," said Cesar. 
 "But he too is in this business," he added, looking at Clapa- 
 ron. 
 
 "Yes, for a fourth, and in name only," answered Claparon. 
 "After the imbecility of allowing him to go off with my 
 money, there is but one thing more out-and-out idiotic. and 
 that would be to make him a present of some more. If he 
 sends me back my hundred thousand francs, and two hundred 
 thousand more on his own account, then we will see! But 
 he will take good care not to put the money into an affair 
 that must simmer for four years before you have a spoonful 
 of soup. If he has only gone off with three hundred thou- 
 sand francs, as they say, he will want quite fifty thousand 
 livres a year to live decently abroad." 
 
 "The bandit !" 
 
 "Eh ! goodness ! An infatuation for a woman brought 
 Roguin to that pass," said Claparon. "What man at his age 
 can answer for it that he will not be mastered and carried
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BlROTTEAU 189 
 
 away by a last fancy? Not one of us, sober as we are, can 
 tell where it will end. A last love is the most violent. Look 
 at Cardot, and Camusot, and Matifat every one of them 
 has a mistress ! And if all of us are gulled, is it not our 
 own fault? How was it that we did not suspect a notary 
 who speculated on his own account? Any notary, any bill- 
 broker, or stockbroker who does business on his own account, 
 is not to be trusted. Failure for them is fraudulent bank- 
 ruptcy ; they are sent up to the Court of Assize for trial ; so, 
 of course, they prefer a foreign court. I shall not make that 
 blunder again. Well, well, we are all too weak to pass judg- 
 ment by default on a man with whom we have dined, who has 
 given grand balls, a man in society, in fact! Nobody com- 
 plains; it is wrong." 
 
 "Very wrong," said Birotteau. "The provisions of the law 
 with regard to liquidations and insolvency ought to be re- 
 vised throughout." 
 
 "If you should happen to need me," said Lebas, address- 
 ing Birotteau, "I am quite at your service." 
 
 "M. Birotteau has need of no one," said the indefatigable 
 prattler (du Tillet had opened the sluices after pouring in 
 the water, and Claparon was repeating a lesson which du 
 Tillet had very skilfully taught him). "His position is clear. 
 Eoguin's estate will pay a dividend of fifty per cent, from what 
 young Crottat tells me. Besides the dividend, M. Cesar will 
 come by the forty thousand francs which the lender on the 
 mortgage did not pay over; he can raise more money on his 
 property ; and we have four months in which to pay two hun- 
 dred thousand francs to the vendors. Between now and then 
 M. Birotteau will meet his bills (for he ought not to reckon on 
 meeting them with the money which Eoguin made off with). 
 But if M. Birotteau should find himself a little pinched 
 . . . well, with one or two accommodation bills, he will 
 pull through." 
 
 The perfumer took heart as he listened. Claparon an- 
 alyzed the business, summed it up, and traced out a plan of 
 action, as it were, for him. Gradually his expression grew de-
 
 190 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 cided and resolute, and he conceived a great respect for the 
 ex-commercial traveler's business capacity. Du Tillet had 
 thought it expedient to make Claparon believe that he was one 
 of Roguin's victims. He had given Claparon a hundred thou- 
 sand francs to give to Roguin, who returned them to du 
 Tillet. Claparon, being uneasy, played his part to the life; 
 he told anybody who cared to listen to him that Roguin had 
 mulcted him of a hundred thousand francs. Du Tillet 
 doubted Claparon's strength of mind; he fancied that prin- 
 ciples of honesty and conscientious scruples still lingered in 
 his puppet, and would not confide the whole of his plans to 
 him; he knew, moreover, that his instrument was incapable 
 of guessing at them. 
 
 A day came when his commercial go-between reproached 
 him. "If our first friend is not our first dupe, we should 
 never find a second," said du Tillet, and he broke in pieces the 
 tool which was no longer useful. 
 
 M. Lebas and Claparon went out together, and Birotteau 
 was left alone. 
 
 "I can pull through," he said to himself. "My liabilities, 
 in the shape of bills to be met, amount to two hundred and 
 thirty-five thousand francs. That is to say seventy-five thou- 
 sand francs for the house, and a hundred and seventy-five 
 thousand francs for the building-land. Now, to cover this, I 
 have Roguin's dividend, which will amount may be to a hun- 
 dred thousand francs; and I can cancel the loan on my land, 
 that is a hundred and forty thousand francs in all. The thing 
 to be done is to make a hundred thousand francs by the 
 Cephalic Oil ; and a few accommodation bills, or a loan from a 
 banker, will tide me over until I can make good the loss, and 
 the building-land reaches its enhanced value." 
 
 When a man in misfortune once can weave a romance of 
 hope out of the more or less solid reasonings with which 
 he fills the pillow on which he lays his head, he is often saved. 
 Many a one has taken the confidence given by an illusion for 
 energy. Perhaps the half of courage is really hope, and the 
 Catholic religion reckons hope among the virtues. Has not
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTBAU 191 
 
 hope buoyed up many a weakling, giving him time to await the 
 chances which life brings ? 
 
 Birotteau made up his mind to apply, in the first place, 
 to his wife's uncle, and to disclose his position to his rela- 
 tive before going elsewhere. He went down the Rue Saint- 
 Honore and reached the Rue Bourdoimais, not without ex- 
 periencing inward pangs, which caused such violent internal 
 disturbance that he thought his health was deranged. There 
 was a fire in his vitals. As a matter of fact, those whose sen- 
 tience is keenest in the diaphragm suffer in that region; just 
 as those whose faculty of perception resides in the brain 
 suffer in the head. In the grave crises, the system is at- 
 tacked at the point where the temperament locates the seat 
 of life in the individual; weaklings have the colic, a Na- 
 poleon grows drowsy. 
 
 Before a man of honor can storm a confidence and over- 
 leap the barriers of pride, he must have felt the prick of the 
 spur of Necessity, that hard rider, more than once. So for 
 two days Birotteau had borne that spurring before he went to 
 see Pillerault, and then family reasons decided him how- 
 ever things might go, he must explain the position to the 
 stern ironmonger. Yet, for all that, when he reached the 
 door, he felt in his inmost soul as a child feels on a visit to 
 the dentist, that his courage was sinking away; and Birot- 
 teau was not about to face a momentary pang, he quailed 
 before a whole lifetime to come. Slowly he went up the stairs, 
 and found the old man reading the Constitutionnel by the 
 fireside; on a little round table his frugal breakfast was set 
 a roll, butter, Brie cheese, and a cup of coffee. 
 
 "There is real wisdom," said Birotteau to himself, and he 
 envied his uncle's life. 
 
 "Well," said Pillerault, laying down his spectacles, "I 
 heard about Roguin's affair yesterday at the Cafe David; 
 so his mistress, La belle Hollandaise, is murdered ! I hope 
 that, warned by us who want to be actual proprietors, you 
 have been to Claparon and taken a receipt ?" 
 
 "Alas! uncle, that is just it; vou have laid your finger on 
 the spot. No."
 
 192 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Oh, bother! you are ruined," said Pillerault, dropping 
 his paper; and Birotteau picked it up, although it was the 
 Constitutionnel. 
 
 This thought was such a shock, that Pillerault's stern 
 features, always like a profile on a coin, grew hard as if they 
 had been struck in bronze. He stared with steady eyes that 
 saw nothing, through the windows, at the opposite wall, and 
 listened while Birotteau poured out a long discourse. Evi- 
 dently while he heard he deliberated; he was pondering the 
 case with the inflexibility of a Minos who crossed the Styx 
 of commerce, when he left the Quai des Morfondus for his 
 little third-floor dwelling. 
 
 "Well, uncle," asked Birotteau at last, expecting some 
 answer to a final entreaty to sell rentes worth six thousand 
 francs a year. 
 
 "Well, my poor nephew, I cannot do it. Things have gone 
 too far. We, the Eagons and I, shall both lose fifty thousand 
 francs. It was by my advice that the good folk sold their 
 shares in the Wortschin Mines. I feel myself bound, if they 
 lose the money, not to replace their capital, but to give them a 
 helping hand, and to help my niece and Cesarine. You 
 might perhaps all of you want bread, and you must come to 
 me " 
 
 "Bread, uncle?" 
 
 "Well, yes, bread. Just look the facts in the face : you will 
 not pull through! Out of five thousand six hundred francs 
 a year, I will set aside four thousand to divide between you 
 and the Eagons. When your disaster comes, I know Con- 
 stance, she will slave and deny herself everything and so 
 will you, Cesar !" 
 
 "There is hope yet, uncle." 
 
 "I do not see it as you do." 
 
 "I will prove the contrary." 
 
 "Nothing would please me better." 
 
 Birotteau went without an answer for Pillerault. He had 
 come to find comfort and encouragement, he had received a 
 second blow; a blow less heavy than the first one, it is true;
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 193 
 
 but whereas the first had been dealt at his head, this thrust 
 had gone to his heart, and the poor man's life lay in his af- 
 fections. He had gone down part of the way, and then he 
 turned and went up again. 
 
 "Sir," he said, in a constrained voice, "Constance knows 
 nothing of this, keep the secret for me at least; and beg the 
 Eagons not to disturb the peace that I need if I am to fight 
 against misfortune." 
 
 Pillerault made a sign of assent. 
 
 "Take courage, Cesar," he said. "I see that you are angry 
 with me, but some day yon will acknowledge that I am 
 right, when you think of your wife and daughter." 
 
 Discouraged by this opinion given by his uncle, whose 
 clear-headedness he acknowledged, Cesar suddenly dropped 
 from the heights of hope into the miry slough of uncertainty. 
 When a man's affairs take an ugly turn like this, he is apt 
 to become the plaything of circumstances, unless he is of 
 Pillerault's temper; he follows other people's ideas, or his 
 own, much as a wayfarer pursues a will-o'-the-wisp. He 
 allows himself to be swept away by the whirlwind when he 
 should either lie prostrate with his eyes shut, and let it pass 
 over him, or rise and watch the direction that it takes, to 
 escape the blast. In the midst of his anguish, Birotteau 
 bethought himself of the necessary steps to be taken with re- 
 gard to his loan. He went to see Derville, a consulting bar- 
 rister in the Rue Vivienne, so as to set about it the sooner, 
 if Derville should see any chance of cancelling the contract. 
 Him he found sitting, wrapped in his white flannel dressing- 
 gown, by the fireside, staid and self-possessed, as is the wont 
 of men of law, accustomed as they are to the most harrowing 
 disclosures. Birotteau felt, as a new thing in his experience, 
 this necessary coolness; it was like ice to an excited man 
 like Birotteau, telling the story of his misfortunes, smarting 
 from the wounds that he had received, stricken with the 
 fever induced by the risks his fortunes were running, and 
 cruelly beset, since honor and life and wife and child 'were 
 all imperiled.
 
 194 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "If it is proved/' said Derville, when he had heard him out, 
 "that the lender no longer had in Roguin's keeping the sum 
 of money which Roguin induced you to borrow of him, as 
 there has been no transfer of the actual money, the con- 
 tract might be annulled, and the lender will have his rem- 
 edy (as you also will have for your hundred thousand 
 francs) in Roguin's caution-money. In that case, I will 
 answer for your lawsuit, so far as it is possible to answer 
 for any action at law, for no action is a foregone conclu- 
 sion." 
 
 The opinion of so learned an expert put a little heart into 
 Birotteau. He begged Derville to obtain a judgment within 
 a fortnight. The advocate answered to the effect that Bi- 
 rotteau might be obliged to wait three months before the con- 
 tract would be annulled. 
 
 "Three months!" cried Birotteau, who thought that he 
 had found an expedient for raising money at once. 
 
 "Well, if you yourself succeed in gaining a prompt hear- 
 ing for your case., we cannot hurry your opponent to suit your 
 pace; he will take advantage of the delays of procedure; advo- 
 cates are not always at the Palais; who knows but that the 
 other party will let judgment go against him by default? 
 And he will appeal. You can't set your own pace, my dear 
 sir !" said Derville, smiling. 
 
 "But at the Tribunal of Commerce " 
 
 "Oh !" said the advocate, "the Consular Tribunal is one 
 thing, and the Tribunal of First Instance is another. You do 
 things in a slashing way over yonder. Now, at the Palais de 
 Justice there are formalities to be gone through. These for- 
 malities are the bulwarks of Justice. How would you like it if 
 a demand for forty thousand francs was suddenly fired off at 
 you? Well, your opponent, who will see that amount com- 
 promised, will dispute it. Delays are the chevaux-de-frise of 
 the law." 
 
 '"You are right," said Birotteau, and he took leave of Der- 
 ville with a deadly chill at his heart. "They are all right. 
 Money ! Money !" cried the perfumer, out in the street, talking
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 195 
 
 to himself, as is the wont of busy men in this turbulent seeth- 
 ing Paris, which a modern poet calls "a vat." 
 
 As he came into his shop, one of the assistants, who had 
 been out delivering invoices to the customers, told him that 
 as the New Year was at hand, every one had torn off the re- 
 ceipt-form at the foot and kept the invoices. 
 
 "Then there is no money anywhere !" Birotteau exclaimed 
 aloud in the shop. All the assistants looked up at this, and he 
 bit his lips. 
 
 In this way five days went by; and during those five days 
 Braschon, Lourdois, Thorien, Grindot, Chaffaroux, and all 
 the creditors whose bills remained unpaid, passed through 
 the chameleon's intermediate transitions of tone, from the 
 serene hues of confidence to the wrathful red of the com- 
 mercial Bellona. In Paris, in such crises, suspicion is as quick 
 to reach the panic stage as confidence is slow to show expan- 
 sive symptoms; and when a creditor once adopts the restrin- 
 gent system of doubts and precautions in business relations, he 
 is apt to descend to underhand villainies that put him below 
 his debtor's level. From cringing civility, the creditors passed 
 successively through the inflammatory phase, the red of im- 
 patience, the lurid coruscations of importunity, to outbursts 
 of disappointment, and from the cold-blue stage of making 
 up their minds to the black insolence of threatening to serve 
 a writ. 
 
 Braschon, the rich furniture-dealer of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Antoine, who had not been included in the invitations to the 
 ball, sounded to arms in his quality of the creditor whose self- 
 love has been wounded. Paid he meant to be, and within 
 twenty-four hours; he required security, not deposits of fur- 
 niture, but a second mortgage, the mortgage for forty thou- 
 sand francs on the property in the Faubourg du Temple. In 
 spite of their furious recriminations, these gentry still left 
 Cesar occasional intervals of peace, when he might breathe; 
 but instead of bringing a resolute will to carry these outworks 
 cf r.n awkward position, and so putting an end to them, Birot- 
 teau was taxing all his wits to keep the state of things from
 
 196 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 the knowledge of his wife, and the one person who could give 
 him counsel knew nothing of his difficulties. He stood sen- 
 tinel on the threshold of his shop. He confided his momen- 
 tary inconvenience to Celestin, who watched his employer 
 with curious and astonished eyes; already Cesar had fallen 
 somewhat in his esteem, as men accustomed to prosperity are 
 apt to dwindle when evil days discover that all their power 
 consists in the increased facility of dealing with matters of 
 every-day experience, acquired by an ordinary intelligence. 
 
 But if Cesar lacked the mental energy required for defend- 
 ing himself when attacked at so many points at once, he had 
 sufficient courage to face his position. Before the 15th of 
 January he required the sum of sixty thousand francs, and 
 thirty thousand of these were due on the 31st of December. 
 Part of this sum was owing for the house, part for rent and 
 accounts to be paid in ready money, part of it in bills to be 
 met ; with all his efforts he could only collect twenty thousand 
 francs, so that there was a deficit of ten thousand, to be made 
 up by the end of the month. Nothing seemed hopeless to him, 
 for he had already ceased to look beyond the present moment, 
 and, like an adventurer, had begun to live from day to day. 
 At length he resolved to make what for him was a bold stroke. 
 Before it was known that he was in difficulties, he would apply 
 to Frangois Keller, banker, orator, and philanthropist, widely 
 known for his beneficence, and for his desire to stand well 
 with the mercantile world of Paris, always with a view to 
 representing their interests one day as a deputy in the Cham- 
 ber. In politics the banker was a Liberal, and Cesar was a 
 Royalist; but the perfumer decided that the capitalist was a 
 man after his own heart, and that a difference of opinion in 
 politics was but one reason the more for opening an account. 
 If paper should be necessary, he did not doubt Popinot's de- 
 votion, and counted upon obtaining from him some thirty bills 
 of a thousand francs each ; with these he might hold out until 
 he gained his lawsuit, the forty thousand francs involved in 
 it being offered as security to the most urgent creditors. 
 
 The effusive soul, who was wont to confide to the pillow of
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 197 
 
 his dear Constance the least emotions of his existence, who 
 drew his courage from her, and was wont to seek of her the 
 light thrown by contradiction on all topics, was cut off from 
 all exchange of ideas with his first assistant, his uncle, and 
 his wife, and found that the weight of his cares was thereby 
 doubled. Yet this self-sacrificing martyr preferred suffering 
 alone to the alternative of casting his wife's soul into the fiery 
 furnace ; he would tell her about the danger when it was past. 
 Perhaps, too, he shrank from telling her the hideous secret; 
 he stood in some fear of his wife, and this fear lent him 
 courage. He went every morning to low mass at Saint-Koch, 
 and told his troubles to God. 
 
 "If I do not meet a soldier on my way back from Saint- 
 Koch, I will take it as a sign that my prayer is heard. It shall 
 be God's answer to me," he said to himself, after he had 
 prayed for deliverance. 
 
 And, for his happiness, he did not meet a soldier. Yet, 
 nevertheless, his heart was over-full, and he needed another 
 human heart to whom he could make moan. Cesarine, to 
 whom he had already told the fatal news, learned the whole 
 truth, and stolen glances were exchanged between them, 
 glances fraught with despair or repressed hope, passionate 
 invocations, appeals, and sympathetic responses, answering 
 gleams of intelligence between soul and soul. For his wife 
 Cesar put on high spirits and mirth. If Constance asked 
 any question "Pshaw, everything was all right. Popinot" 
 (to whom Cesar gave not a thought) "was doing well ! The 
 Oil was selling! Claparon's bills would be met; there was 
 nothing to fear." The hollow merriment was ghastly. When 
 his wife lay sleeping amid the splendors, Birotteau would rise, 
 and fall to thinking over his misfortune; and more than once 
 Cesarine came in, in her night-shift, barefooted, with a shawl 
 about her white shoulders. 
 
 "Papa, you are crying ; I can hear you/' she would say, and 
 she would cry herself as she spoke. 
 
 When Cesar had written to ask the great Francois Keller 
 to make an appointment with him, he fell into such a state of 
 14
 
 198 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BLROTTEAU 
 
 torpor chat Cesarine persuaded him to walk out with her. In 
 the streets of Paris he saw nothing but huge red placards, and 
 the words CEPHALIC OIL in staring letters everywhere met 
 his eyes. 
 
 While the glory of the Queen of Roses was thus waning in 
 disastrous gloom, the firm of A. Popinot was dawning radiant 
 with the sunrise splendors of success. Anselme had taken 
 counsel of Gaudissart and Finot, and had launched his oil 
 boldly. During the past three days two thousand placards 
 had been posted in the most conspicuous situations in Paris. 
 Every one in the streets was confronted with the Cephalic 
 Oil, and willy-nilly must read the pithy remarks from Finot's 
 pen as to the impossibility of stimulating the growth of the 
 hair, and the perils attendant on dyeing it, together with an 
 extract from a paper read before the Academic des Sciences by 
 Vauquelin. It was as good as a certificate of existence for 
 dead hair, thus held out to those who should use the Cephalic 
 Oil. The shop-doors of every perfumer, hair-dresser, and wig- 
 maker in Paris were made glorious with gilded frames, con- 
 taining a beautiful design, printed on vellum paper, with a 
 reduced facsimile of the picture of Hero and Leander at the 
 top, and beneath it ran the motto, The ancient peoples of an- 
 tiquity preserved their hair by the use of CEPHALIC OIL. 
 
 "He has thought of permanent frames; he has found an 
 advertisement that will last for ever!" said Birotteau to him- 
 self, as he stood staring in dull amazement at the shop-front 
 of the Silver Bell. 
 
 "Then you did not see a frame on your own door?" asked 
 his daughter. "M. Anselme brought it himself, and left three 
 hundred bottles of the oil with Celestin." 
 
 "No, I did not see it," he answered. 
 
 "And Celestin has already sold fifty to chance comers, and 
 sixty to our own customers." 
 
 "Oh!" said Cesar. 
 
 The sound of myriad bells that misery sets ringing in the 
 ears of her victims had made the perfumer dizzy; his head 
 seemed to spin round and round in those days. Popinot had
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 199 
 
 waited a whole hour to speak with him on the day before, and 
 had gone away after chatting with Constance and Cesarine; 
 the women told him that Cesar was very busy over his great 
 scheme. 
 
 "Oh yes, the building-land!" Popinot had said. 
 
 Luckily, Popinot had not left the Rue des Cinq-Diamants 
 for a month ; he had worked day and night at his business, and 
 had seen neither Eagon, nor Pillerault, nor his uncle. .The 
 poor lad was never in bed before two o'clock in the morning; 
 he had only two assistants, and at the rate at which things 
 were going he would soon have work enough for four. Op- 
 portunity is everything in business; success is a horse which, 
 if caught by the mane and ridden by a bold rider, will carry 
 him on to fortune. Popinot told himself that he should re- 
 ceive a welcome when, at the end of six months, he could 
 carry the news to his aunt and uncle "I am saved ; my for- 
 tune is made !" a welcome, too, from Birotteau when, at the 
 end of the first half year, he should bring him his share of the 
 profits thirty or forty thousand francs ! He had not heard 
 of Roguin's disappearance, nor of Cesar's consequent disasters 
 and difficulties ; so that he could not let fall any indiscreet re- 
 marks in Madame Birotteau's presence. 
 
 Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for each 
 of the leading newspapers (ten in all), and three hundred 
 francs for each second-rate paper (and of these, too, there 
 were ten), if the Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times a 
 month in each. Of those eight thousand francs, Finot beheld 
 three thousand as his own, his first stake to lay on the vast 
 green table of speculation. So he had sprung like a lion upon 
 his friends and acquaintances ; he haunted newspaper offices ; 
 writers of newspaper articles awoke from slumber to find him 
 sitting by their pillows; and the evening found him pacing 
 the lobbies of all the theatres. "Remember my oil, my dear 
 fellow ; it is nothing to me ; a matter of good fellowship, you 
 know; Gaudissart, a jolly dog." With this formula, his ha- 
 rangues always began and ended. He filled up spaces at the 
 foot of the last columns in the papers, and left the money to
 
 200 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 those upon the staff. He was as cunning as any super who 
 is minded to transform himself into an actor, and as active 
 as an errand boy on sixty francs a month ; he wrote insinuat- 
 ing letters, he worked on the vanity of all and sundry, he did 
 dirty work for editors, to the end that his paragraphs might 
 be inserted in their papers. His enthusiastic energy left no 
 means untried money, dinners, platitudes. By means of 
 tickets for the play he corrupted the men who finish off the 
 columns towards midnight with short paragraphs of small 
 news items already set up; hanging about the printing-office 
 for that purpose, as if he had proofs to revise. 
 
 So by dint of making every one his friend, Finot secured 
 the triumph of the Cephalic Oil over the Pate de Regnault 
 and the Mixture Bresilienne, over all the inventions, in fact, 
 whose promoters had the wit to comprehend the influence of 
 journalism and the effect produced upon the public mind by 
 the piston stroke of the reiterated paragraph. In that age of 
 innocence, journalists, like draught-oxen, were unaware of 
 their strength ; their heads ran on actresses Mesdemoiselles 
 Florine, Tullia, Mariette they lorded it over all creation, 
 and made no practical use of their powers. In Andoche's 
 propositions there was no actress to be applauded, no drama 
 to be put upon the stage; he did not ask them to make a suc- 
 cess of his vaudevilles, nor to pay him for his paragraphs ; on 
 the contrary, he offered money in season and opportune break- 
 fasts ; so there was not a newspaper that did not mention the 
 Cephalic Oil, and how that it was in accordance with Vauque- 
 lin's investigations; not a journal that did not scoff at the 
 superstition that the hair could be induced to grow, and pro- 
 claim the danger of dyeing it. 
 
 These paragraphs rejoiced Gaudissart's heart. He laid in 
 a supply of papers wherewith to demolish prejudice in the 
 provinces, and accomplished the manoeuvre known amon.er 
 speculators since his time as "taking the public by storm." 
 In those days newspapers from Paris exercised a great influ- 
 ence in the departments, the hapless country districts being 
 still "without organs." The Paris newspaper, therefore, was
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 201 
 
 taken up as a serious study, and read through from the head- 
 ing to the printer's name on the last line of the last page, 
 where the irony of persecuted opinion might be supposed to 
 lurk. 
 
 Gaudissart, thus supported by the press, had a brilliant suc- 
 cess from the very first in every town where his tongue had 
 play. Every provincial shopkeeper was anxious for a frame 
 and copies of Hero and Leander. Finot devised that charm- 
 ing joke against Macassar Oil, which drew such laughter at 
 the Funambules, when Pierrot takes up an old house-brush, 
 visibly worn down to the holes, and rubs it with Macassar 
 Oil, and lo the stump becomes a mop, a piece of irony which 
 brought down the house. In later days Finot would gaily 
 relate how that but for those three thousand francs he must 
 have died of want and misery. For him three thousand francs 
 was a fortune. In this campaign he discovered the power of 
 advertising, which he was to wield so wisely and so much 
 to his own profit. Three months later this pioneer was the 
 editor of a small paper, of which after a time he became the 
 proprietor, and so laid the foundation of his fortune. Even 
 as the Illustrious Gaudissart, that Murat among commercial 
 travelers, "took the public by storm," and gained brilliant 
 victories along the frontiers and in the provinces for the house 
 of Popinot, so did the cause gain ground in public opinion 
 in Paris, thanks to the desperate assault upon the newspapers, 
 which gave it the prompt publicity likewise secured by the 
 Mixture Bresilienne and the Pate de Regnault. Three for- 
 tunes were made by this means, and then began the descent 
 of the thousands of ambitious tradesmen who have since gone 
 down by battalions into the arena of journalism, and there 
 called advertising into being. A mighty revolution was 
 wrought. 
 
 At that moment the words "Popinot & Company" were 
 flaunting on every wall and shop door; and "Birottoau. unable 
 to measure the enormous area over which these announce- 
 ments were displayed, contented himself with saying to 
 Cesarine, "Little Popinot is following in my footsteps," with-
 
 202 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 out comprehending the difference of the timea, without appre- 
 ciation of the new methods and improved means of communi- 
 cation which spread intelligence much more rapidly than 
 heretofore. 
 
 Birotteau had not set foot in his factory since the ball; he 
 did not know how busy and energetic Popinot had been. 
 Anselme had set all Birotteau's operatives on the work, and 
 slept in the place. He saw Cesarine sitting on every packing- 
 case and reclining on every package; her face looked at him 
 from each new. invoice. "She will be my wife!" he said to 
 himself, as with coat thrown off, and shirt-sleeves rolled above 
 the elbows, he hammered in the nails with all his might, while 
 his assistants were sent out on business. 
 
 The next day, after spending the whole night in pondering 
 what to say and what not to say to the great banker, Cesar 
 reached the Rue du Houssaye, and entered, with a heart that 
 beat painfully fast, the mansion of the Liberal financier, the 
 adherent of a political party accused, and not unjustly, of 
 desiring the downfall of the Bourbons. To Birotteau, as to 
 most small merchants in Paris, the manners and customs and 
 the personality of those who move in high financial circles 
 were quite unknown; for the smaller traders usually deal 
 with lesser houses, which form a sort of intermediate term, a 
 highly satisfactory arrangement for the great capitalists, who 
 find in them one guarantee the more. 
 
 Constance and Birotteau, who had never overdrawn their 
 balance, who had never known what it was to have no money 
 in the safe, and no bills in the portfolio, had not had recourse 
 to these banks of the second order; and, for the best of rea- 
 sons, were entirely unknown in the higher financial world. 
 Perhaps it is a mistaken policy sedulously to abstain from 
 borrowing even though you may not require the money ; opin- 
 ions differ on this head; but be that as it may, Birotteau 
 at that moment deeply regretted that he had never put his 
 signature to a piece of paper. Yet, as he was known as a 
 deputy-mayor and a shrewd man of business, he imagined 
 that he would only have to mention his name, and he should
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAH BIROTTEAU 203 
 
 see the banker at once; he did not know that men flocked to 
 the Kellers' audiences as to the court of a king. In the ante- 
 chamber of the study occupied by the man with so many 
 claims to greatness, Birotteau found himself among a crowd 
 composed of deputies, writers, journalists, stockbrokers, great 
 merchants, men of business, engineers, and, above all, of fa- 
 miliars, who made their way through the groups of speakers 
 and knocked in a particular manner at the door of the study, 
 where they had the privilege of entry. 
 
 "What am I in the middle of this machinery?" Birotteau 
 asked himself, quite bewildered by the stir and bustle in this 
 factory, where so much brain-power was at work furnishing 
 daily bread for the camp of the Opposition ; this theatre where 
 rehearsals of the grand tragi-comedy played by the Left were 
 wont to take place. 
 
 On one hand he heard a discussion relative to a loan that 
 was being negotiated to complete the construction of the 
 principal lines of canal recommended by the Department of 
 Eoads and Bridges; a question of millions! On the other, 
 journalists, the bankers' jackals, were talking of yesterday's 
 sitting and of their patron's extempore speech. During the 
 two hours while he waited, he saw the banker-politician thrice 
 emerge from his cabinet, accompanying some visitor of im- 
 portance for a few paces through the ante-chamber. Keller 
 went as far as the door with the last General Foy. 
 
 "It is all over with me!" Birotteau said to himself, and 
 something clutched at his heart. 
 
 As the great banker returned to his cabinet, the whole troop 
 of courtiers, friends, and followers crowded after him, like 
 the canine race about some attractive female of the species. 
 One or two bolder curs slipped in spite of him into the audi- 
 ence chamber. The conferences lasted for five minutes, ten 
 minutes, a quarter of an hour. Some went away visibly chop- 
 fallen ; some with a satisfied look ; some assumed important 
 airs. Time went by, and Birotteau looked anxiously at the 
 clock. No one paid the slightest attention to the man with a 
 secret care, sighing restlessly in the gilded chair by the
 
 204 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR B1ROTTEAU 
 
 hearth, at the very door of the closet that contained that 
 panacea for all troubles credit. 
 
 Dolefully Cesar thought how that he too in his own house, 
 and for a little while, had been a king, as this man was, morn- 
 ing after morning; and he fathomed the depths of the abyss 
 into which he was falling. He had bitter thoughts! How 
 many unshed tears were crowded into those two hours ! How 
 many petitions he put up that this man might incline a favor- 
 able ear; for beneath the husk of popularity-seeking good- 
 nature, Birotteau instinctively felt that there lurked in Keller 
 an insolent, tyrannous, and violent temper, a brutal craving 
 to domineer, which alarmed his meek nature. At length, 
 when but ten or a dozen people were left, Birotteau deter- 
 mined to start up when the outer door of the audience cham- 
 ber creaked on its hinges, and to put himself on a level with 
 the great public speaker with the remark, "I am Birotteau !" 
 The first grenadier who flung himself into the redoubt at 
 Borodino did not display more courage than the perfumer 
 when he made up his mind to carry out this manoeuvre. 
 
 "After all," said he to himself, "I am his deputy-mayor," 
 and he rose to give his name. 
 
 Frangois Keller's countenance took on an amiable expres- 
 sion ; clearly he meant to be civil ; he glanced at Birotteau's 
 red ribbon, turned, opened the door of his cabinet, and indi- 
 cated the way; but stayed behind himself for a while to speak 
 with two newcomers who sprang up the staircase with tem- 
 pestuous speed. 
 
 "Decazes would like to speak with you," said one of these 
 two. 
 
 "It is a question of making an end of the Pavilion Marsan ! 
 The King sees clearly. He is coming over to us !" cried the 
 other. 
 
 "We will all go to the Chambers," returned the banker, 
 and he entered his cabinet with the air of the frog that would 
 fain be an ox. 
 
 "How can he think of his own affairs?" thought Ce"sar, 
 overwhelmed
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 205 
 
 The radiance of the sun of superiority dazzled the per- 
 fumer, as the light blinds those insects which can only exist 
 in the shade or in the dusk of a summer night. 
 
 Birotteau saw a copy of the Budget lying on a vast table, 
 among piles of pamphlets and volumes of the Moniieur, which 
 Jay open, displaying marked passages, past utterances of a 
 Minister, which were shortly to be hurled at his head ; he was 
 to be made to eat his words amid the plaudits of a crowd of 
 dunces, incapable of comprehending that events modify every- 
 thing. On another table stood a collection of boxes full of 
 papers, a heap of memorials and projects, the thousand and 
 one reports confided to a man in whose exchequer every 
 nascent industry endeavors to dip. 
 
 The regal splendor of the cabinet, filled with pictures and 
 statues and works of art ; the litter on the chimney-piece ; the 
 accumulations of documents relating to business concerns at 
 home and abroad, heaped up like bales of goods, all these 
 things impressed Birotteau ; he dwindled in his own eyes, his 
 nervousness increased, the blood ran cold in his veins. 
 
 On Frangois Keller's desk there lay some bundles of bills, 
 letters of exchange, and circular-letters. To these the great 
 man addressed himself; and as he swiftly put his signature 
 to those that required no examination, "To what do I owe the 
 honor of your visit, sir?" asked he. 
 
 At these words addressed to him alone, by the voice that 
 spoke to all Europe, while the restless hand never ceased to 
 traverse the paper, the poor perfumer felt as if a red-hot iron 
 had been thrust through his vitals. His face forthwith as- 
 sumed that ingratiating expression with which the banker 
 had grown familiar during ten years of experience; the ex- 
 pression always meant that the wearers desired to involve the 
 house of Keller in some affair of great importance to the 
 would-be borrowers and to no one else, an expression which 
 shuts the banker's doors upon them at once. So Francois 
 Keller shot a glance at Cesar, a Napoleonic glance, which 
 seemed to go through the perfumer's head. This imitation of 
 their Emperor was a slight piece of affectation which certain
 
 206 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 parvenus permitted themselves, though the false coin was 
 scarcely a passable copy of the true. For Cesar, of the ex- 
 treme Right in politics, the fanatical partisan of the Govern- 
 ment, the factor in the monarchical election, that glance was 
 like the stamp which a custom-house officer sets on a bale of 
 goods. 
 
 "I do not want to take up your minutes unduly, sir ; I will 
 be brief. I have come on a simple matter of private business, 
 to know if you will open a loan account with me. As an ex- 
 judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and a man well known 
 at the Bank of France, you can understand that if I had 
 bills to discount I should only have to apply to the Bank 
 where you are a Governor. I have had the honor of being 
 associated in my functions at the Tribunal with M. le Baron 
 Thibon, the head of the bill-discounting department, and he 
 certainly would not refuse me. But as I have never tried 
 to borrow money nor accepted a bill, my signature is unknown, 
 and you know how many difficulties lie in the way of nego- 
 tiating a loan in such a case " 
 
 Keller moved his head ; and Birotteau, construing this as a 
 sign of impatience, continued: 
 
 "The fact is, sir, that I have engaged in a speculation in 
 land, outside my own line of business 
 
 Frangois Keller, still signing and reading, and, to all ap- 
 pearance, paying no attention to Cesar's remarks, turned at 
 this, with a sign that he was following what was said. Birot- 
 teau took heart; his affair was in a promising way, he 
 thought; he breathed more freely. 
 
 "Go on; I understand," said Keller good-humoredly. 
 
 "I am the purchaser of one-half of the building-land near 
 the Madeleine." 
 
 "Yes. I heard from Nucingen of the big affair that the 
 firm of Claparon is negotiating." 
 
 "Well," the perfumer went on, "a loan of a hundred thou- 
 sand francs, secured on my share of the land, or on my busi- 
 ness, would suffice to tide me over until I can touch the profits 
 which must shortly accrue from a venture in my own way of
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 207 
 
 business. If necessary, I would cover the amount by bills 
 drawn on a new firm Popinot & Company,' a young house 
 which " 
 
 Keller seemed to be very little interested in this descrip- 
 tion of the firm of Popinot, and Birotteau gathered that he 
 had somehow taken a wrong turn; he stopped; then, in dis- 
 may at the pause, he went on again. 
 
 "As for the interest, we " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said the banker; "the thing may be arranged, 
 and do not doubt my desire to meet you in the matter. Oc- 
 cupied as I am, I have all the finances of Europe on my hands, 
 and the Chamber absorbs every moment of my time, so you 
 will not be surprised to hear that I leave the investigation of a 
 vast amount of regular business to my managers. Go down- 
 stairs, and see my brother Adolphe ; explain the nature of your 
 guarantees to him; and if he assents, return here with him 
 to-morrow or the day after, at the time when I look into af- 
 fairs of this kind, at five o'clock in the morning. We shall 
 be proud and happy to receive your confidence; you are one 
 of the consistent Eoyalists; and your esteem is the more flat- 
 tering, since that politically we may find ourselves at enmity." 
 
 "Sir," said the perfumer, elated by this oratorical flourish, 
 "I am as deserving of the honor you do me as of the signal 
 mark of Eoyal favor . . . not unmerited by the dis- 
 charge of my functions at the Consular Tribunal, and by 
 fighting for 
 
 "Yes," continued the banker, "the reputation which you 
 enjoy is a passport, M. Birotteau. You are sure to propose 
 nothing that is not feasible, and you can reckon upon our co- 
 operation." 
 
 A door, which Birotteau had not noticed, was opened, and 
 a woman entered ; it was Mme. Keller, one of the two daugh- 
 ters of the Comte de Gondreville, a peer of France. 
 
 "I hope I shall see you, dear, before you go to the Cham- 
 ber," said she. 
 
 "It is two o'clock," exclaimed the banker; "the battle has 
 begun. Excuse me, sir, the question is one of upsetting a
 
 208 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 ministry " he went as far as the door of the salon with 
 
 the perfumer, and bade a man in livery, "Take this gen- 
 tleman to M. Adolphe." 
 
 Birotteau traversed a labyrinth of staircases on the way to 
 a private office, less sumptuous than the cabinet of the head of 
 the firm, but more business-like in appearance; he was borne 
 along by an if, that easiest pacing mount that hope can fur- 
 nish; he stroked his chin, and thought that the great man's 
 compliments augured excellently well for his plans. It was 
 regrettable that a man so amiable, so capable, so great an 
 orator, should be inimical to the Bourbons. 
 
 Still full of these illusions, he entered M. Adolphe Keller's 
 sanctum, a bare, chilly-looking room. Dingy curtains hung 
 in the windows, the floor was covered with a much-worn car- 
 pet, and the furniture consisted of a couple of cylinder desks 
 and one or two office chairs. This cabinet was to the first as 
 the kitchen to the dining-room, as the factory to the shop. 
 Here matters of business were penetrated to the core, here 
 enterprises were analyzed, and preliminary charges levied by 
 the bank on all promising undertakings. Here originated all 
 those bold strokes for which the Kellers were so well known 
 in the highest commercial regions, when they would secure 
 and rapidly exploit a monopoly in a few days. Here, too, 
 omissions on the part of the legislature received careful at- 
 tention, and unblushing demands were made for "sops in the 
 pan" (in the language of the Stock Exchange), that is to say, 
 for money paid in consideration for small indefinable ser- 
 vices, for standing godfather to an infant enterprise, and so 
 accrediting it. Here were woven those tissues of fraud after 
 a legal pattern, which consist in investing money as a sleep- 
 ing-partner in some concern in temporary difficulties, with a 
 view to slaughtering the affair as soon as it succeeds; the 
 brothers would lie in wait, call in their capital at a critical 
 moment, an ugly manoeuvre that put the whole thing in their 
 own hands, and involved the hapless active partner in their 
 toils. 
 
 The two brothers adopted separate roles. On high stood
 
 RISE AND B^ALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 209 
 
 Frangois, the politician, the man of brilliant parts; he bore 
 himself like a king, he distributed favors and promises, he 
 made himself agreeable to every one. Everything was easy 
 when you spoke with him ; he did business royally ; he poured 
 out the heady wine of fair words, which intoxicated inexperi- 
 enced speculators and promoters of new schemes; he devel- 
 oped their own ideas for them. But Adolphe below absolved 
 his brother on the score of political preoccupations, and 
 cleverly raked in the winnings ; he was the responsible brother, 
 the one who- was hard to persuade; so that there were two 
 words to every bargain concluded with that treacherous house, 
 and not seldom the gracious Yes of the sumptuous cabinet 
 was transmuted into a dry No in Adolphe's office. 
 
 This mancEuvre of delay gained time for reflection, and 
 often served to amuse less skilful competitors. 
 
 Adolpjie Keller was chatting with the famous Palma, the 
 trusted counselor of the house, who withdrew as Birotteau 
 came in. The perfumer explained his errand ; and Adolphe, 
 the more cunning of the two brothers, lynx-natured, keen- 
 eyed, thin-lipped, hard-favored, listened to him with lowered 
 head, watching the app^jant over his spectacles, eyeing him 
 the while with what must be called the banker's gaze, in which 
 there is something of the vulture, something of the attorney ; 
 a gaze at once covetous and cold, clear and inscrutable, sombre 
 and ablaze with light. 
 
 "Will you be so good as to send me the documents rela- 
 tive to this Madeleine affair," said he, "since therein lies the 
 guarantee of the account; they must be examined into before 
 we begin to discuss the case on its merits. If the affair is 
 satisfactory, we might possibly, to avoid encumbering you, be 
 content to take part of the profits instead of discount." 
 
 "Come," said Birotteau to himself, as he went home again, 
 "I see his drift. Like the hunted beaver, I must part with 
 some of my skin. It is better to loose your fleece than to lose 
 your life." 
 
 He went upstairs in high spirits, and his mirth had a genu- 
 ine ring.
 
 210 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "I am saved," he told Cesarine; "Keller will open a loan 
 account with me." 
 
 But not until the 29th of December could Birotteau gain 
 admittance a second time to Adolphe Keller's office. On the 
 occasion of his first call, Adolphe was six leagues away from 
 Paris, looking at some property which the great orator had a 
 mind to buy. The next time both the Kellers were closeted 
 together, and could see no one that morning; it was a ques- 
 tion of a tender for a loan proposed by the Chambers, and 
 they begged M. Birotteau to return on the following Friday. 
 These delays were heartbreaking to the perfumer; but Fri- 
 day came at last, and Birotteau sat by the fire in the office, 
 with the daylight falling full on his face, and Adolphe Kel- 
 ler, sitting opposite, was saying, as he held up the notarial 
 deeds, "These are all right, sir; but what proportion of the 
 purchase-money have you paid ?" 
 
 "A hundred and forty thousand francs." 
 
 "In money?" 
 
 "In bills. 
 
 "Have they been met?'* 
 
 "They have not fallen due." 
 
 "But suppose that you have given more for the land than 
 it is actually worth (taking it at its present value), where is 
 our guarantee? We should have no security but the good 
 opinion which you inspire and the esteem in which you are 
 held. Business is not based on sentiment. If you had paid 
 two hundred thousand francs, supposing that you have given 
 too much by a hundred thousand francs to get possession of 
 the land, we should in that case have at any rate a guarantee 
 of a hundred thousand francs for the hundred thousand you 
 want to borrow. The result for us would be that we should be 
 owners of the land in your place, by paying your share; in 
 that case we must know if it is a good piece of business. For 
 if we are to wait five years to double our capital, it would be 
 better to put the money out to interest through the bank. So 
 many things may happen. You want to draw an accommo- 
 dation bill to meet your bills when they fall due? It is a
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 211 
 
 risky thing to do ! You go back to take a leap better. This 
 is not in our way of business." 
 
 For Birotteau, it was as if the executioner had touched his 
 shoulder with the branding-iron. He lost his head. 
 
 "Let us see," said Adolphe, "my brother takes a warm in- 
 terest in you ; he spoke of you to me. Let us look into your 
 affairs," he added, and he glanced at the perfumer with the 
 expression of a courtesan pressed for a quarter's rent. 
 
 Birotteau became a Molineux, and acted the part of the 
 man at whom he had laughed so loftily. Kept in play by the 
 banker, who took a pleasure in unwinding the skein of the 
 poor man's thoughts, and showed himself as expert in the art 
 of examining a merchant as the elder Popinot was skilled in 
 unloosing a criminal's tongue, Cesar told the story o? his bus- 
 iness career ; he brought the Pate des Sultanes and the Toilet 
 Lotion upon the scene; he gave a complete account of his 
 dealings with Roguin, and, finally, of the lawsuit with re- 
 gard to that mortgage from which he had reaped no benefit. 
 He saw Keller's musing smile and jerk of the head from 
 time to time, and said to himself, "He is giving an ear to 
 me ! He is interested ; I shall have my loan !" and Adolphe 
 Keller was laughing at Birotteau, as Birotteau himself had 
 laughed at Molineux. Carried away by the impulse of lo- 
 quacity peculiar to those people on whom misfortune has an 
 intoxicating effect, Cesar showed himself as he really was; 
 he helped the banker to take his measure when he suggested 
 as his final expedient the Cephalic Oil and the firm of Popi- 
 not by way of a guarantee. Led away by a delusive hope, he 
 allowed Adolphe Keller to fathom him and examine into his 
 affairs, until Adolphe Keller saw in the man before him a 
 Royalist blockhead on the brink of bankruptcy. Then, de- 
 lighted at the prospect of this failure of the deputy-mayor 
 of his arrondissement, of a man whose party was in power, 
 who had been but lately decorated, Adolphe told Birotteau 
 plainly that he could neither open a loan account with him, 
 nor speak on his behalf to the orator brother, the great Frar- 
 gois. If Frangois were inclined to extend an imbecile gener-
 
 212 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 osity to a political adversary, and to come to the aid of a man 
 who held opinions diametrically opposed to his own, he, 
 Adolphe, had no mind that his brother should be a dupe ; he 
 would do all that in him lay to prevent his brother from hold- 
 ing out a helping hand to one of Napoleon's old antagonists, 
 to a man who was wounded at Saint-Roch. Birotteau, exas- 
 perated at this, tried to say something about covetousness in 
 the high places of the financial world, of hard-heartedness and 
 sham philanthropy; but he was overcome with such terrible 
 distress, that he could scarcely stammer out a few words about 
 the institution of the Bank of France, to which the Kellers 
 had recourse. 
 
 "But the Bank of France will never make an advance which 
 a private bank declines," said Adolphe Keller. 
 
 "It has always seemed to me," said Birotteau, "that the 
 Bank was not fulfilling the purpose for which it was estab- 
 lished, when the governors congratulate themselves on a 
 oalance-sheet in which they have only lost one or two hundred 
 thousand francs in transactions with the mercantile world 
 of Paris; it is the province of the Bank to watch over and 
 foster trade." 
 
 Adolphe began to smile, and rose to his feet like a man 
 who is bored. 
 
 "If the Bank began to finance all the men in difficulties 
 on 'Change, where rascality congregates in the slipperiest 
 places of the financial world, the Bank would file her schedule 
 before a year was out. The Bank is hard put to it as it is 
 to guard against accommodation bills and fraudulent letters 
 of exchange, and how would it be possible to examine into the 
 affairs of every one who should be minded to apply for assist- 
 ance?" 
 
 "I want ten thousand francs for to-morrow, Saturday the 
 30th; and where are they to come from?" Birotteau asked 
 himself, as he crossed the court. 
 
 When the 31st is a holiday, payment is due on the 30th, ac- 
 cording to custom. Cesar's eyes were so full of tears that, 
 a he reached the great gateway, he scarcely saw a handsome
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 213 
 
 English horse, covered with foam, that pulled up sharply 
 at the gate, and one of the neatest cabriolets to be seen in the 
 streets of Paris. He would fain have been run over by the 
 cabriolet; it would be an accidental death, and the confusion 
 in his affairs would have been set down to the suddenness of 
 the catastrophe. He did not recognize du Tillet's slender fig- 
 ure in faultless morning dress, or see him fling the reins to 
 his servant and put a rug over the back of the thoroughbred. 
 
 "What brings you here?" asked du Tillet, addressing his 
 />ld master. 
 
 Du Tillet knew quite well why Birotteau had come. The 
 Kellers had made inquiries of Claparon, and Claparon, taking 
 his cue from du Tillet, had blighted the perfumer's old-estab- 
 lished business reputation. The tears in the unlucky mer- 
 chant's eyes told the tale sufficiently plainly, in spite of his 
 sudden effort to keep them back. 
 
 "Perhaps you have been asking these Turks to oblige you 
 in some way," said du Tillet, "cut-throats of commerce that 
 they are, who have played many a mean trick ; they will make 
 a corner in indigo, for instance ; they lower rice, forcing hold- 
 ers to sell cheap, so that they can get the game into their own 
 hands and control the market ; they are inhuman pirates, who 
 know neither law, nor faith, nor conscience. You cannot 
 know what things they are capable of doing. They will open 
 a loan account with you if you have some promising bit of 
 business ; and as soon as you have gone too far to draw back, 
 they will pull you up and put pressure upon 1 you till you make 
 the whole affair over to them for next to nothing. Pretty 
 stories they could tell you at Havre and Bordeaux and Mar- 
 seilles about the Kellers ! Politics are a cloak that cover a lot 
 of dirty doings, I can tell you ! So T make them useful with- 
 out scruple. Let us take a turn or two, my dear Birotteau. 
 Joseph, walk the horse up and down, he is overheated, and 
 a thousand crowns is a big investment in horse-flesh." 
 
 He turned towards the Boulevard. 
 
 "Now. my dear master (for you used to be my master), is 
 it money that you need ? And they have asked you for secur- 
 15
 
 214 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 ity, the wretches ! Well, for my own part, I know you ; and I 
 can offer to give you cash against your bills. I have made my 
 money honorably, and with unheard-of toil. I went in quest 
 of fortune to Germany ! At this time of day, I may tell you 
 this that I bought up the King's debts there for forty per 
 cent of their value; your guarantee was very useful to me 
 then, and I am grateful. If you want ten thousand francs, 
 they are at your service." 
 
 "What ! du Tillet," cried Cesar, "do you really mean it ? 
 Are you not making game of me ? Yes, I am a little pressed 
 for money, just for the moment " 
 
 "I know; Roguin's affair," returned du Tillet. "Eh! yes. 
 I myself have been let in there for ten thousand francs, which 
 the old rogue borrowed of me to run away with; but Mme. 
 Roguin will repay the money out of her claims on his estate. 
 I advised her, poor thing, not to be so foolish as to give up her 
 fortune to pay debts contracted for a mistress; it would be 
 very well if she could pay them all, but how is she to make 
 distinctions in favor of this or that creditor, to the prejudice 
 of others ? You are no Roguin ; I know you," continued du 
 Tillet; "you would rather blow your brains out than cause 
 me to lose a sou. Here we are in the Rue de la Chaussee- 
 d'Antin; come up and see me." 
 
 It pleased the young upstart to take his old employer, not 
 through the offices, but by way of the private entry, and to 
 walk deliberately, so as to give him a full view of a handsome 
 and luxuriously furnished dining-room, adorned with pict- 
 ures bought in Germany; through two drawing-rooms, more 
 splendid and elegant than any rooms that Birotteau had yet 
 seen save in the Due de Lenoncourt's house. The good citi- 
 zen was dazzled by the gilding, the works of art, the costly 
 kuickknacks, precious vases, and countless little details. All 
 the glories of Constance's rooms paled before this display, 
 and knowing, as he did, the cost of his own extravagance 
 "Whore can he have found all these millions?" said he to 
 himself. 
 
 Then they entered a bedroom, which as much surpassed his
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 215 
 
 wife's as the mansion of a great singer at the Opera sur- 
 passes the third-floor dwelling of some supernumerary. The 
 ceiling was covered with violet satin relieved with silken folds 
 of white, and the white fur of an ermine rug heside the bed 
 brought out in contrast all the violet tints of a carpet from 
 the Levant. The furniture and the accessories were novel in 
 form, and exhibited the very refinement of extravagance. 
 Birotteau stopped in front of an exquisite timepiece, with a 
 Cupid and Psyche upon it, a replica of one which had just 
 been made for a celebrated banker. At length master and 
 assistant reached a cabinet, the dainty sanctum of a fashion- 
 able dandy, redolent rather of love than of finance. It was 
 Mme. Roguin, doubtless, who, in her gratitude for the care 
 and thought given to her fortune, had bestowed, by way of a 
 thank-offering, the paper-cutter of wrought gold, the carved 
 malachite paper-weights, and all the costly gewgaws of un- 
 bridled luxury. The carpet, one of the richest products of 
 the Belgian loom, was as great a surprise to the eyes as its 
 soft, thick pile to the tread. Du Tillet drew a chair to the 
 fire for the poor dazzled and bewildered perfumer. 
 
 "Will you breakfast with me?" He rang the bell; it was 
 answered by a servant, who was better dressed than the vis- 
 itor. 
 
 "Ask M. Legras to come up, and then tell Joseph to re- 
 turn, you will find him at the door of Keller's bank; and you 
 can go to Adolphe Keller's house, and say that instead of 
 seeing him now, I shall wait till he goes on 'Change. Send 
 up breakfast, and be quick about it." 
 
 This talk dazed the perfumer. 
 
 "So he, clu Tillet, makes that formidable Adolphe Keller 
 come to him at his whistle, as if he were a dog !" 
 
 A hop-o'-my-thumb of a page came in and spread a table 
 so slender, that it had escaped Birotteau's notice, setting 
 thereon a Strasbourg pie, a bottle of Bordeaux wine, and 
 various luxuries which did not appear on Birotteau's table 
 twice in a quarter, on high days and holidays. Du Tillet was 
 enjoying himself. His feeling of hatred for the one man who
 
 216 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 had a right to despise him diffused itself like a warm glow 
 through his veins, till the sight of Birotteau stirred in the 
 depths of his nature the same sensations that the spectacle of 
 a sheep struggling for its life against a tiger might give. A 
 generous thought flashed across him; he asked himself 
 whether he had not carried his vengeance far enough; he 
 hesitated between the counsels of a newly-awakened pity and 
 those of a hate grown drowsy. 
 
 "Commercially speaking, I can annihilate the man," he 
 thought; "I have power of life and death over him, over his 
 wife, who kept me on the rack, and his daughter, whose hand 
 once seemed to me to grasp a whole fortune. I have his 
 money as it is, so let us be content to let the poor simpleton 
 swim to the end of his tether, which I shall hold." 
 
 But honest folk are wanting in tact; they do what seems 
 good to them without calculating its effect on others, because 
 they themselves are straightforward, and have no after- 
 thoughts. So Birotteau filled up the measure of his own mis- 
 fortune; he irritated the tiger; all unwittingly he sent a shaft 
 home, and made an implacable enemy of him at a word, by his 
 praise, by giving expression to his honest thoughts, by the 
 sheer light-heartedness which is the gift of a blameless con- 
 science. The cashier came in; and du Tillet said, looking 
 towards Cesar, "M. Legras, bring me ten thousand francs in 
 cash, and a bill for the amount payable to my order in ninety 
 days by this gentleman, who is M. Birotteau, as you know." 
 
 Du Tillet waited on his guest, and poured out a glass of 
 Bordeaux wine for him; and Birotteau, who thought himself 
 saved, laughed convulsively, fingered his watch-chain, and did 
 not touch the food until his ex-assistant said, "You do not 
 eat." In this way he laid bare the depths of the gulf into 
 which du Tillet's hand had plunged him, while the hand 
 which had drawn him out was still stretched over him, and 
 might yet plunge him back again. When the cashier returned, 
 and the bill had been accepted, and Cesar felt the ten bank- 
 notes in his pocket, he could no longer contain his joy. But a 
 moment ago the news that he could not meet his engagements
 
 BISE AND FALL OF CESAR RIROTTEAU 217 
 
 seemed to be about to be published abroad through his Quar- 
 ter, the Bank must know it, he must confess that he was 
 ruined to his wife; now everything was safe ! The joy of his 
 deliverance was as keen as the torture of impending bank- 
 ruptcy had been. Tears filled the poor man's eyes in spite of 
 himself. 
 
 "What can be the matter, my dear master?" asked du Til- 
 let. "Would you not do to-morrow for me what I am doing 
 to-day for you? Isn't is as simple as saying good-day?" 
 
 "Du Tillet," said the worthy man, with solemn emphasis, 
 as he rose and took his ex-assistant by the hand, "I restore you 
 to your old place in my esteem." 
 
 "What! had I forfeited it?" asked du Tillet; and, for all 
 his prosperity, he felt this rude home-thrust, and his color 
 rose. 
 
 "Forfeited . . . not exactly that," said Birotteau, 
 thunderstruck by his folly; "people talked about you and 
 Mme. Roguin. The devil ! another man's wife . . ." 
 
 "You are beating about the bush, old boy," thought du Til- 
 let, in an old phrase learned in his earlier days. 
 
 And even as that thought crossed his mind, he returned 
 to his old design. He would lay this virtue low, he would 
 trample it under foot; all Paris should point the finger of 
 scorn at the honest and honorable man who had caught him, 
 du Tillet, with his hand in the till. Every hatred of every 
 kind, political or private, between woman and woman, or 
 between man and man, dates from some similar detection. 
 There is no cause for hate in compromised interests, in a 
 wound, nor even in a box on the ear; such injuries as these 
 are not irreparable. But to be found out in some base piece 
 of iniquity, to be caught in the act ! . . . The duel that 
 ensues between the criminal and the discoverer of the crime 
 cannot but be to the death. 
 
 "Oh ! Mme. Roguin," said du Tillet laughingly, "but isn't 
 that rather a feather in a young man's cap? I understand 
 you, my dear master, they must have told you that she lent me 
 money. Well, on the contrary, it is I who have re-established
 
 218 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR RIROTTEATJ 
 
 her finances, which were curiously involved in her husband's 
 affairs. My fortune has been honestly made, as I have just 
 told you. I had nothing, as you know. Young men some- 
 times find themselves in terrible straits, and in dire need one 
 may strain a point ; but if, like the Eepublic, one has made a 
 forced loan now and again, why, one returns it afterwards, 
 and is as honest as France herself." 
 
 "Just so," said Cesar. "My boy God Isn't it Voltaire 
 who says: 
 
 " He made of repentance the virtue of mortals?" 
 
 "So long as 'one does not take his neighbor's money in a 
 base and cowardly way," du Tillet continued, smarting once 
 more under this application of verse ; "as if you, for instance, 
 were to fail before the three months are out, and it would be 
 all up with my ten thousand francs " 
 
 "I fail?" cried Birotteau (he had taken three glasses of 
 wine, and happiness had gone to his head). "My opinions of 
 bankruptcy are well known. A failure is commercial death. 
 I should die." 
 
 "Long life to you!" said du Tillet. 
 
 "To your prosperity !" returned the perfumer. "Why do 
 you not come to me for your perfumery ?" 
 
 "Upon my word," said du Tillet, "I confess that I am 
 afraid to meet Mme. Cesar, she always made an impression 
 upon me ; and if you were not my master, faith, I " 
 
 "Oh ! you are not the first who has thought her handsome, 
 and wanted her, but she loves me ! Well, du Tillet, my friend, 
 do not do things by halves." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 Birotteau explained the affair of the building-land, and 
 du Tillet opened his eyes, complimented Cesar upon his acu- 
 men and foresight, and spoke highly of the prospects. 
 
 "Oh, well, I am much pleased to have your approbation; 
 you are supposed to have one of the longest heads in the bank- 
 ing line, du Tillet ! You can negotiate a loan from the Bank 
 of France for me until the Cephalic Oil has made its way."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 219 
 
 "I can send you to the firm of Nucingen," answered du 
 Tillet, inwardly vowing that his victim should dance the whole 
 mazy round of bankruptcy. He sat down to his desk to write 
 the following letter to the Baron de Nucingen: 
 
 "My DEAR BARON, The hearer of this letter is M. Cesar 
 Birotteau, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement, and 
 one of the best known manufacturing perfumers in Paris. He 
 desires to be put in communication with you; you need not 
 hesitate to do anything that he asks of you, and by obliging 
 him you oblige your friend, 
 
 "F. DU TILLET." 
 
 Du Tillet put no dot over the i in his name. Among his 
 business associates this clerical error was a sign which they all 
 understood, and it was always made of set purpose ; it annulled 
 the heartiest recommendations, the warmest praise and in- 
 stance in the body of the letter. On receiving such a note as 
 this, where the very exclamation-marks breathed entreaty, in 
 which du Tillet, figuratively speaking, went down on his 
 knees, his associates knew that the writer had been unable to 
 refuse the letter which was to be regarded as null and void. 
 At sight of that undotted i, the receiver of the letter forthwith 
 dismissed the applicant with empty compliments and vain 
 promises. Not a few men of considerable reputation in the 
 world are put off like children by this trick; for men of bus- 
 iness, bankers, bill-discounters, and advocates have one and 
 all two methods of signing their names; one is a dead letter, 
 the other living. The shrewdest are deceived by it. You 
 must have felt the double effect of a cold communication and 
 a warm one to discover the stratagem. 
 
 "You are saving me, du Tillet," said Cesar, as he read the 
 present specimen. 
 
 "Oh dear me," said du Tillet, "just ask Nucingen for the 
 monej. and when he has read my letter he will let you have 
 all that you want. Unluckily, my own capital is locked up 
 at present, or I would not send you to the prince of bankers,
 
 220 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 for the Kellers are dwarfs compared with Nucingen. He is a 
 second Law. With my bill of exchange, you will he ready for 
 the loth, and after that we will see. Nucingen and I are the 
 best friends in the world; he would not disoblige me for a 
 million." 
 
 "It is as good as a guarantee," said Birotteau to himself, 
 and as he went away his heart thrilled with gratitude for du 
 Tillet. "Ah, well," he thought, "a good deed never loses its 
 reward," and he fell incontinently to moralizing. Yet there 
 was one bitter drop in his cup of happiness. He had, it is 
 true, prevented his wife from looking into the ledgers for sev- 
 eral days. Celestin must undertake the bookkeeping in addi- 
 tion to his work, with some help from his master; he could 
 have wished his wife and daughter to remain upstairs in pos- 
 session of the beautiful rooms which he had arranged and 
 furnished for them; but when the first little glow of enjoy- 
 ment was over, Mme. Cesar would have died sooner than re- 
 nounce the personal supervision of the details of the busi- 
 ness, "the handle of the frying-pan," to use her own expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Birotteau was at his wits' end; he had done everything that 
 he could think of to conceal the symptoms of his embarrass- 
 ment from her eyes. Constance had strongly disapproved of 
 sending in the accounts; she had scolded the assistants, and 
 asked Celestin if he meant to ruin the house, believing that 
 the idea was Celestin's own. And Celestin meekly bore the 
 blame by Birotteau's orders. In the assistant's opinion, Mme. 
 Cesar governed the perfumer; and though it is possible to 
 deceive the public, those of the household always know who is 
 the real power in it. The confession was bound to come, and 
 that soon, for du Tillet's loan would appear in the books, and 
 must be accounted for. 
 
 As Birotteau came in at the door he saw, not without a 
 shudder, that Constance was at her post, going through the 
 amounts due to be paid, and doubtless balancing the hooks. 
 
 "How will you pay these to-morrow?" she asked in his 
 ear, when he took his place beside her.
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 221 
 
 "With money," he replied, drawing the banknotes from 
 his pocket, with a sign to Celestin to take them. 
 
 "But where do those notes come from?" 
 
 "I will tell you the whole story to-night. Celestin, enter 
 in the bill-book a bill for ten thousand francs due at the end 
 of March, to order of du Tillet." 
 
 "Du Tillet !" echoed Constance, terror-stricken. 
 
 "I am just going to Popinot," said Cesar. "It is too bad 
 of me ; I have not been round to see him yet. Is his oil sell- 
 ing?" 
 
 "The three hundred bottles which he brought are all sold 
 out." 
 
 "Birotteau, do not go out again ; I have something to say 
 to you," said Constance. She caught her husband's arm, and 
 drew him to her room in a hurry, which, under any other 
 circumstances, would have been ludicrous. "Du Tillet !" she 
 exclaimed, when the husband and wife were together, and 
 she had made sure that there was no one but Cesarine pres- 
 ent ; "Du Tillet robbed us of three thousand francs ! And 
 you are doing business with du Tillet ! A monster who 
 who tried to seduce me," she said in his ear. 
 
 "A bit of boyish folly," said Birotteau, suddenly trans- 
 formed into a free thinker. 
 
 "Listen to me, Birotteau; you are falling out of your old 
 ways ; you never go to the factory now. There is something, I 
 can feel it. Tell me about it ; I want to know everything." 
 
 "Well, then," said Birotteau, "we have nearly been ruined ; 
 we were ruined, in fact, this very morning, but everything 
 is set straight again," and he told the dreadful story of the 
 past two weeks. 
 
 "So that was the cause of your illness !" exclaimed Con- 
 stance. 
 
 "Yes, mamma," cried Cesarine. "Father has been very 
 brave, I am sure. If I were loved as he loves- you, I would 
 not wish more. He thought of nothing but your trouble." 
 
 "My dream has come true," said the poor wife, and pale, 
 haggard, and terror-stricken, she sank down upon the sofa
 
 222 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 by the fireside. "I foresaw all this. I told you so that fatal 
 night, in the old room which you have pulled down ; we shall 
 have nothing left but our eyes to cry over our losses. Poor 
 Cesarine, I " 
 
 "Come, now; so that is what you say !" cried Birotteau. "I 
 stand in need of courage, and are you damping it !" 
 
 "Forgive me, dear," said Constance, grasping Cesar's hand 
 in hers, with a tender pressure that went to the poor man's 
 heart. "I was wrong; the misfortune has befallen us, I will 
 be dumb, resigned, and strong to bear it. No, Cesar, you shall 
 never hear a complaint from me." 
 
 She sprang into Cesar's arms, and said, while her tears fell 
 fast, "Take courage, dear. I should have courage enough for 
 two, if it were needed." 
 
 "There is the Oil, dear wife ; the Oil will save us." 
 
 "May God protect us !" cried Constance. 
 
 "Will not Anselme come to father's assistance?" asked 
 Cesarine. 
 
 "I will go to him now," exclaimed Cesar, his wife's heart- 
 breaking tone had been too much for his feelings; it seemed 
 that he did not know her yet, after nineteen years of married 
 life. "Do not be afraid, Constance; there is no fear now. 
 Here, read M. du Tillet's letter to M. de Nucingen ; he is sure 
 to lend us the money. Between then and now I shall have 
 gained my lawsuit. Besides," he added (a lying hope to fit 
 the circumstances), "there is your uncle Pillerault. Courage 
 is all that is wanted." 
 
 "If that were all !" said Constance, smiling. 
 
 Birotteau, with the great weight taken off his mind, walked 
 like a man set free from prison; but within himself he felt 
 the indefinable exhaustion consequent on mental exertion 
 which has made heavy demands upon the nervous system, 
 and required more than the daily allowance of will-power; 
 he was conscious of the deficit when a man has drawn, as it 
 were, on the capital of his vitality. Birotteau was growing 
 old already. 
 
 Popinot's shop in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants had under-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 223 
 
 gone great changes in the last two months. It had been re- 
 painted. The rows of bottles ensconced in the pigeon-hole 
 shelves, touched up with paint, rejoiced the eyes of every 
 merchant who knows the signs of prosperity. The floor of the 
 shop was covered with packing-paper. The warehouse con- 
 tained certain casks of oil, for which the devoted Gaudissart 
 had procured an agency for Popinot. The books were kept 
 upstairs in the counting-house. An old servant had been in- 
 stalled as housekeeper to Popinot and his three assistants. 
 
 Popinot himself, penned in a cash-desk in the- corner of 
 the shop screened off by a glass partition, was usually arrayed 
 in a green baize apron and a pair of green-cloth over-sleeves, 
 when he was not buried, as at this moment, in a pile of pa- 
 pers. The post had just come in, and Popinot, with a pen 
 behind his ear, was taking in handfuls of business letters and 
 orders, when at the words, "Well, my boy?" he raised his 
 head, saw his late employer, locked his cash-desk, and came 
 forward joyously. The tip of the young man's nose was red, 
 for there was no fire in the shop, and the door stood open. 
 
 "I began to fear that you were never coining to see me," 
 he answered respectfully. 
 
 The assistants hurried in, eager to see the great man of 
 the perfumery trade, their own master's partner, the deputy- 
 mayor who wore the red ribbon. Cesar was flattered by this 
 mute homage, and he who had felt so small in the Kellers' 
 bank must needs imitate the Kellers. He stroked his chin, 
 raised himself on tiptoe once or twice with an air, and poured 
 forth his commonplaces. 
 
 "Well, my dear fellow, are you up early in the mornings ?" 
 asked he. 
 
 "No, we don't always go to bed," said Popinot ; "one must 
 succeed by hook or by crook." 
 
 "Well, what did I tell you? My Oil is a fortune." 
 
 "Yes, sir; but the method of selling it counts for some- 
 thing; I have given your diamond a worthy setting." 
 
 "As a matter of fact," said the perfumer, "how are we get- 
 ting on ? Have any profits been made ?"
 
 224 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "At the end of a month !" cried Popinot. "Did you expect 
 it? My friend Gaudissart has not been gone much more than 
 three weeks. He took a post-chaise without telling me about 
 it. Oh ! he has thrown himself into this. We shall owe a good 
 deal to my uncle ! The newspapers will cost us twelve thou- 
 sand francs," he added in Birotteau's ear. 
 
 "The newspapers . . . !" cried the deputy-mayor. 
 
 "Have you not seen them?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then you know nothing of this," said Popinot. "Twenty 
 thousand francs in placards, frames, and prints ! . . . A 
 hundred thousand bottles paid for ! . . . Oh ! it is 
 nothing but sacrifice at this moment. We are bringing out 
 the Oil on a large scale. If you had stepped over to the Fau- 
 bourg, where I have often been at work all night, you would 
 have seen a little contrivance of mine for cracking the nuts, 
 which is not to be sneezed at. For my own part, during the 
 last five days I have made three thousand francs in commis- 
 sion on the druggists' oils." 
 
 "What a good head !" said Birotteau, laying his hand on 
 little Popinot's hair, and stroking it as if the young man had 
 been a little child, "I foresaw how it would be." 
 
 Several people came into the shop. 
 
 "Good-bye till Sunday ; we are going to dine then with your 
 aunt, Mme. Ragon," said Birotteau, and he left Popinot to 
 his own affairs. Evidently the roast which he had scented 
 was not yet ready to carve. "How extraordinary it is ! An 
 assistant becomes a merchant in twenty-four hours," he 
 thought, and Birotteau was as much taken aback by Popinot's 
 prosperity and self-possession as by du Tillet's luxurious 
 rooms. "Here is Anselme drawing himself up a bit when I 
 put my hand on his head, as if he were a Francois Keller 
 already." 
 
 It did not occur to Birotteau that the assistants were look- 
 ing on, and that the head of an establishment must preserve 
 his dignity ; n his own house. Here, as in du Tillet's case 
 the good man had made a blunder in the kindness of his
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAO 225 
 
 heart, and the real feeling expressed in that homely familiar 
 way would have mortified any one but Anselme. 
 
 The Sunday dinner-party at the Ragons' house was destined 
 to be the last festivity in the nineteen years of Cesar's mar- 
 ried life, the life which had been so completely happy. The 
 Ragons lived on the second floor of a quaint and rather 
 stately old house in the Rue du Petit-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice. 
 Over the paneled walls of their rooms danced eighteenth cen- 
 tury shepherdesses in hooped petticoats, amid browsing 
 eighteenth century sheep; and the old people themselves be- 
 longed to the bourgeoisie of that bygone eighteenth century, 
 with its solemn gravity, its quaint habits and customs, its 
 respectful attitude to the noblesse, its loyal devotion to 
 Church and King. 
 
 The timepieces, the linen, the plates and dishes, all the fur- 
 niture in fact had such an old-world air, that by very reason 
 of its antiquity it seemed new. The sitting-room, hung with 
 brocatelle damask curtains, contained a collection of "duch- 
 esse" chairs and what-nots; and from the wall a superb 
 Popinot, Mine. Ragon's father, the alderman of Sancerre, 
 painted by Latour, smiled down upon the room like a parvenu 
 in all his glory. Mme. Ragon at home was incomplete with- 
 out her tiny King Charles, who reposed with marvelous effect 
 on her hard little rococo sofa, a piece of furniture which cer- 
 tainly had never played the part of Crebillon's sofa. 
 
 Among the Ragons' many virtues, the possession of old 
 wines arrived at perfect maturity was by no means the least 
 endearing; to say nothing of certain liqueurs of Mme. An- 
 foux's, brought from the West Indies by the lovely Mme. Ra- 
 gon's admirers, sufficiently dogged to love on without hope (so 
 it was said). Wherefore the Ragons' little dinners were highly 
 appreciated. Jeannette, the old cook, served the two old folk 
 with a blind devotion ; for them she would have stolen fruit 
 to make preserves; and so far from investing her money in 
 the savings-bank, she prudently put it in the lottery, hoping 
 one day to carry home the great prize to her master and mis- 
 tress. In spite of her sixty years, Jeannette, on Sundays
 
 226 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 when they had company, superintended the dishes in the 
 kitchen, and waited at table with a deft quickness which 
 would have given hints to Mile. Contat as Suzanne in the 
 Marriage of Figaro. 
 
 This time the guests were ten in number the elder Po- 
 pinot, Uncle Pillerault, Anselme, Cesar and his wife and 
 daughter, the three Matifats, and the Abbe Loraux. Mine. 
 Matifat, first introduced arrayed for the dance in her turban, 
 DOW wore a gown of blue velvet, thick cotton stockings, kid 
 slippers, green-fringed chamois leather gloves, and a hat 
 lined with pink, and adorned with blossoming auriculas. 
 
 Every one had arrived by five* o'clock. The Ragons used to 
 beg their guests to be punctual; and when the good folk 
 themselves were asked out to dinner, their friends were care- 
 ful to dine at the same hour, for at the age of seventy the 
 digestion does not take kindly to the new-fangled times and 
 seasons ordained by fashionable society. 
 
 Cesarine knew that Mme. Eagon would seat Anselme beside 
 her; all women, even devotees, or the feeblest feminine intel- 
 lects, understand each other in the matter of a love affair. 
 The toilette of the perfumer's daughter was designed to turn 
 young Popinot's head. Constance, who had given up, not 
 without a pang, the idea of the notary, who for her was an 
 heir-presumptive to a throne, had helped Cesarine to dress, 
 certain bitter reflections mingling with her thoughts the 
 while. Foreseeing the future, she lowered the modest gauze 
 kerchief somewhat on Cesarine's shoulders, so as to display 
 rather more of their outline, as well as the throat on which 
 the young girl's head was set with striking grace. The bodice 
 a la Grecque, four or five folds, crossing from left to right, 
 gave short glimpses of delicately rounded contours beneath ; 
 and the leaden-gray merino gown, with its flounces trimmed* 
 with green ornaments, clearly defined a shape which had 
 never seemed so slender and so lissome. Gold filagree ear- 
 rings hung from her ears. Her hair, dressed high a la Chi- 
 noise, was drawn back from her face, so that the delicate fresh- 
 ness of its surface and the dim tracery of the veins which
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR RIROTTEAU 227 
 
 suffused the white velvet with the purest glow of life, was ap- 
 parent at a glance. Indeed, Cesarine was so coquettishly 
 lovely, that Mme. Matifat could not help saying so, without 
 perceiving that the mother and daughter had felt the neces- 
 sity of bewitching young Popinot. 
 
 Neither Birotteau, nor his wife, nor Mme. Matifat, nor any 
 one else, broke in upon the delicious talk between the two 
 young people; love glowed within them as they spoke with 
 lowered voices in the draughty window-seat, where the cold 
 made a miniature northeaster. Moreover, the conversation 
 of their seniors grew animated when the elder Popinot let 
 something drop concerning Eoguin's flight, saying that this 
 was the second notary-defaulter, and that hitherto such a 
 thing had been unknown. Mme. Ragon had touched her 
 brother's foot at the mention of Roguin, Pillerault had spoken 
 aloud to cover the judge's remark, and both looked signifi- 
 cantly from him to Mme. Birotteau. 
 
 "I know all," Constance said, and in her gentle voice there 
 was a note of pain. 
 
 "Oh, well then," said Mme. Matifat, addressing herself 
 to Birotteau, who humbly bent his head, "how much of your 
 money did he run away with? To listen to the gossip, you 
 might be ruined." 
 
 "He had two hundred thousand francs of mine. As for the 
 forty thousand which he pretended to borrow for me from 
 one of his clients whose money he had squandered, we are 
 going to law about it." 
 
 "You will see that settled this coming week," said the elder 
 Popinot. "I thought that you would not mind my explaining 
 your position to M. le President; he has ordered Eoguin's 
 papers to be brought into the Cliambre de Conseil; on exami- 
 nation it will be discovered when the lender's capital was em- 
 bezzled, and Derville's allegations can be proved or disproved. 
 Derville is pleading in person, to save expense to you." 
 
 "Shall we gain the day?" asked Mine. Birotteau. 
 
 "I do not know," Popinot answered. "Although I belong 
 to the Chamber before which the case will come, I shall re-
 
 228 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 frain from deliberating upon it, even if I should be called 
 upon to do so." 
 
 "But can there be any doubt about such a straightforward 
 case?" asked Pilleranlt. "Ought not the deed to state that 
 the money was actually paid down, and must not the notaries 
 declare that they have seen it handed over? Roguin would go 
 to the galleys if he fell into the hands of justice." 
 
 "In my opinion," the judge answered, "the lender should 
 look to Roguin's caution-money and the amount paid for 
 the practice for his remedy; but sometimes, in still simpler 
 cases than this, the Councillors at the Court-Royal have been 
 divided six against six." 
 
 "What is this, mademoiselle; has M. Roguin run away?" 
 asked Popinot, overhearing at last what was being said. "M. 
 Cesar said nothing about it to me to me who would give my 
 life for him . . ." 
 
 Cesarine felt that the whole family was included in that 
 "for him"; for if the girl's inexperience had not understood 
 the tone, she could not mistake the look that wrapped her 
 in a rosy flame. 
 
 "I was sure of it; I told him so, but he hid it all from 
 mother, and told his secret to no one but me." 
 
 "You spoke to him of me in this matter," said Popinot; 
 "you read my heart, but do you read all that is there?" 
 
 "Perhaps." 
 
 "Oh ! I am very happy," said Popinot. "If you will re- 
 move all my fears, in a year's time I shall be so rich that your 
 father will not receive me so badly when I shall speak to him 
 then of our marriage. Five hours of sleep shall be enough 
 for me now of a night . . ." 
 
 "Do not make yourself ill," said Cesarine, and no words 
 can reproduce the tones of her voice as she gave Popinot a 
 glance wherein all her thoughts might be read. 
 
 "Wife," said Cesar, as they rose from table, "I think those 
 young people are in love." 
 
 "Oh, well, so much the better," said Constance gravely : "my 
 daughter will be the wife of a man who has a head on his
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 229 
 
 shoulders and plenty of energy. Brains are the best endow- 
 ment in a marriage." 
 
 She hurried away into Mme. Ragon's room. During din- 
 ner, Cesar had let fall several remarks which had drawn a 
 smile from Pillerault and the judge, so plainly did they ex- 
 hibit the speaker's ignorance; and it was borne in upon the 
 unfortunate woman how little fitted her husband was to strug- 
 gle with misfortune. Constance's heart was heavy with un- 
 shed tears. Instinctively she mistrusted du Tillet, for all 
 mothers understand timeo Danaos et dona ferentes without 
 learning Latin. She wept, and her daughter and Mme. 
 Eagon, with their arms about her, could not learn the cause 
 of her trouble. 
 
 "It is the nerves," said she. 
 
 The rest of the evening was spent over the card-table by the 
 old people, and the younger ones pla^^ed the blithe childish 
 games styled "innocent amusements," because they cover the 
 innocent mischief of bourgeois lovers. The Matifats joined 
 the young people. 
 
 "Cesar," said Constance, as they went home again, "go to 
 M. le Baron de Nucingen some time about the 8th, so as to 
 be sure some days beforehand that you can meet your engage- 
 ments on the 15th. If there should be any hitch in your ar- 
 rangements, would you raise a loan one day to pay your debts 
 between one day and the next ?" 
 
 "I will go, wife," Cesar answered, and he grasped her hand 
 and Cesarine's in his as he added, "My darlings, I have given 
 you bitter New Year's gifts !" And in the darkness inside the 
 cab the two women, who could not see the poor perfumer, felt 
 hot tears falling on their hands. 
 
 "Hope, dear," said Constance. 
 
 "Everything will go well, papa ; M. Popinot told me that 
 he would give his life for you." 
 
 "For me and for my family; that is it, is it not?" an- 
 swered Cesar, trying to speak gaily. 
 
 Cesarine pressed her father's hand in a way which told 
 
 him that Anselme was her betrothed. 
 16
 
 230 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Two hundred cards arrived for Birotteau on New Year's 
 Day, and the two following days. This influx of tokens of 
 favor and of false friendship is a painful thing for people who 
 are being swept away by the current of misfortune. Three 
 times Cesar presented himself at the Baron de Nucingen's 
 hotel, and each time in vain. The New Year's festivities suffi- 
 ciently excused the banker's absence. But on the last visit 
 Birotteau went as far as the banker's private office, and 
 learned from a German, the head clerk, that M. de Nucingen 
 had only returned from a ball given by the Kellers at five 
 o'clock that morning, and that he would not be visible until 
 half-past nine. Birotteau chatted with this man for nearly 
 half an hour, and contrived to interest the German in his af- 
 fairs. So, during the da}', this cabinet minister of the house 
 of Nucingen wrote to tell Cesar that the Baron would see him 
 at twelve o'clock the following morning, January the 3d. 
 Although every hour brought its drop of bitterness, that day 
 went by with dreadful swiftness. The perfumer took a cab 
 and drove to the hotel ; the courtyard was already blocked with 
 carriages, and the poor honest man's heart was oppressed by 
 the splendors of that celebrated house. 
 
 "Yet he has failed twice," he said to himself, as he went 
 up the handsome staircase, with flowers on either side, and 
 through the luxuriously furnished rooms by which the Baron- 
 ess, Delphine de Nucingen, had made a name for herself. 
 The Baroneps strove to rival the most splendid houses in the 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain the houses of a circle into which 
 as yet she had no right of entry. 
 
 The Baron and his wife were at breakfast. In spite of the 
 number of those who were waiting in his offices for him, he 
 said that he would see du Tillet's friend? at any hour. Birot- 
 teau trembled with hope at the change which the Baron's mes- 
 sage produced on the lackey's insolent face. 
 
 "Bardon me, my tear," said the Baron, addressing his wife, 
 as he rose to his feet and bowed slightly to Birotteau, "dees 
 shentleman ees ein goot Royaleest, and de indimate frient of 
 du Dillet. Meinnesir Pirodot is teputy-mayor of de Second
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 231 
 
 Arrontussement, and gifs palls of Asiatic magnificence; you 
 vill make, no doubt, his agquaintance mit Measure." 
 
 "I should be delighted to take lessons of Mme. Birotteau, 
 
 for Ferdinand " ("Come," thought the perfumer, "she 
 
 calls him Ferdinand, plump and plain") "Ferdinand spoke 
 of the ball to us with an admiration which says the more, be- 
 cause Ferdinand is very critical ; everything must have been 
 perfect. Shall you soon give another ?" asked Mme. de Nucin- 
 gen, with a most amiable expression. 
 
 "Madame, poor folk like us seldom amuse ourselves," 
 answered the perfumer, doubtful whether the Baroness was 
 laughing at him, or if her words were simply an empty com- 
 pliment. 
 
 "Meinnesir Crintod suberindended de alderations in your 
 house," said the Baron. 
 
 "Oh ! Grindot ! is he that nice young architect who has just 
 come back from Borne ?" asked Delphine de Nucingen. "I am 
 quite wild about him ; he is making lovely sketches for my 
 album." 
 
 No conspirator in the hands of the executioner in the tor- 
 ture chamber of the Venetian Kepublic could have felt less 
 at his ease in the boots than Birotteau in his ordinary clothes 
 at that moment. Every word had for him an ironical sound. 
 
 "Ve too gif liddle palls here," the Baron continued, giving 
 the visitor a searching glance. "Eferypody does it, you see !" 
 
 "Will M. Birotteau join us at breakfast ?" asked Delphine, 
 and indicated the luxuriously-furnished table. 
 
 "I am here on business, Mme. la Baronne, and " 
 
 "Yes !" said the Baron, "matame, vill you bermit us to 
 talk pizness?" 
 
 Delphine made a little gesture of assent. "Are you about 
 to buy some perfumery?" she asked of the Baron, who 
 shrugged his shoulders, and turned in despair to Cesar. 
 
 "Du Dillet take de greatest inderest in you," said he. 
 
 "At last we are coming to the point," thought the hapless 
 merchant. 
 
 "Mit his ledder, your gretid mit my house is only limited 
 py de pounds of my own fortune . . ."
 
 232 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 The life-giving draught which the angel bore to Hagar in 
 the wilderness must surely have been like the dew which these 
 outlandish words effused through Birotteau's veins. The 
 cunning Baron clung of set purpose to the horrible accent 
 of the German Jew, who flatters himself that he has mastered 
 an alien tongue; for this system led to misapprehensions 
 highly useful to him in the way of business. 
 
 "And you shall have ein gurrent aggount, dat is how we 
 vill do it/' remarked the good, the great, and venerable finan- 
 cier, with Alsatian geniality. 
 
 Birotteau's doubts were all laid to rest ; he had had experi- 
 ence of business, and he knew that a man never goes into de- 
 tails unless he is disposed to oblige you and to carry out a 
 plan. 
 
 "I neet not say to you that the Pank demands dree zigna- 
 tures off eferypody, gif de amount is large or small. So you 
 shall make all your pills to de order off our friend du Dillet, 
 who vill send dem de same day to de Pank mit my zignature, 
 and py four o'glock you shall have de amount of de pills dat 
 you haf accept in de morning, and at Pank rate. I do not 
 vant gommission nor discount nor nossing; for I shall haf 
 de Measure of peing agreeable to you. . . . But I make 
 one gondition !" he added, touching his nose with the fore- 
 finger of his left hand, and putting an indescribable cunning 
 into the gesture. 
 
 "It is granted before you ask it, M. le Baron," said Birot- 
 teau, imagining that the banker meant to stipulate for a share 
 in the profits. 
 
 "Ein gondition to vich I addach de greatest price, because I 
 should like Montame de Nichinguenne to take, as she has said, 
 some lessons of Montame Pirodot." 
 
 "M. le Baron, do not laugh at me, I beg." 
 
 "Meinnesir Pirodot," said the financier seriously, "it is an 
 agreement ; you are to infite us to your next pall. My wife is 
 chealous ; she would like to see your house, of vich eferypody 
 says such great dings." 
 
 "M. le Baron!"
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTBAU 233 
 
 "Oh ! if you refuse me, no loan aggount ! You are in great 
 favor. Yes ! I know dat de Brefect of de Seine was go to 
 you." 
 
 "M. le Baron!" 
 
 "You had La Pillartiere, ein shentleman-in-ordinary to de 
 King; and de goot Fenteheine, for you were wounded at 
 Sainte " 
 
 "On the 13th of Vendemiaire, M. le Baron." 
 
 "You had Meinnesir de Lassebette, Meinnesir Fauqueleine 
 of de Agademie " 
 
 "M. le Baron!" 
 
 "Eh ! der teufel, do not be so modest, Meester Teputy- 
 Mayor ; I haf heard dat de King said dat your pall " 
 
 "The King ?" asked Birotteau, destined to learn no more, 
 for at this moment a young man came into the room; the 
 sound of his footsteps, heard at a distance, had brought a 
 bright color into Delphine de Nucingen's fair face. 
 
 "Goot-tay, my tear de Marsay," said the Baron. "Take 
 my blace ; dere are a lot of beoples in my office, dey say. Who 
 knows why ? De Mines off Wortschinne are baying two hun- 
 derd ber cent ! Yes. I have receifed de aggounts. You haf a 
 hunderd tousand francs more of ingom dis year, Montame de 
 Nichinguenne ; you could buy girdles and kew-kaws to make 
 yourself pretty, as if you neeted dem !" 
 
 "Good heavens !" exclaimed Birotteau. "The Eagons have 
 sold their shares !" 
 
 "Who may these gentlemen be?" asked the young dandy 
 with a smile. 
 
 "Dere!" said Kucingen, who had gone as far as the 
 door already, "it looks to me as if dose bersons. . . . 
 Te Marsay, dis is Meinnesir Pirodot, your berfumer, who 
 gifs palls mit Asiatic magnificence, and has been degoraded 
 py de King " 
 
 De Marsay, taking up his eyeglass, remarked, "Ah ! to be 
 sure. I thought that the face was familiar. Then are you 
 about to perfume your affairs with some efficacious oil, to 
 Make them run smoothly?"
 
 234 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Ach! veil, dose Rakkons had an aggount mit me," the 
 Baron went on. "I put dem in de vay of ein fortune, and 
 dey could not vait one more day for it." 
 
 "M. le Baron !" cried Birotteau. 
 
 The worthy perfumer found himself very much in the dark 
 about his affairs, and fled after the banker without taking 
 leave of the Baroness or of de Marsay. M. de Nucingen was 
 on the lowest step of the stairs, but even as he reached the 
 door of his office, Birotteau was beside him. As he turned the 
 handle, he saw the despairing gesture of the poor creature, 
 for whom the gulf was yawning, and said : 
 
 "Eh! it is understood, is it not? See du Billet, and ar- 
 ranche it all mit him." 
 
 It occurred to Birotteau that de Marsay might have gome 
 influence with the Baron; he darted upstairs with the speed 
 of a swallow, and slipped into the dining-room where, by 
 rights, the Baroness and de Marsay should have been, for 
 he had left Delphinc waiting for her coffee and cream. The 
 coffee indeed was now waiting, but the Baroness and the 
 young dandy had vanished; the servant looked amused at 
 Birotteau's astonishment, and there was nothing for it but to 
 go more leisurely downstairs again. From the Xucingens' 
 hotel he went at once to du Tillet, only to hear that he was at 
 Mme. Eoguin's house in the country. He took a cab, and 
 paid an extra fare to be driven to Nogent-sur-Marne as 
 quickly as if he had traveled post. But at Xogcnt-sur- 
 Marne the porter toid him that Monsieur and Madame had set 
 out for Paris, and Birotteau returned quite tired out. 
 
 When he told his wife and daughter the story of his ex- 
 cursion, he was amazed to receive the sweetest consolation 
 and assurances that all would go well from Constance, who 
 had always taken all the little ups and downs of business as 
 occasions on which to utter her boding cries. 
 
 At seven o'clock the next morning, Birotteau took up his 
 position before du Tillet's door in the dim light. He begged 
 the porter to put him into communication with du Tillet's 
 man, and, by dint of slipping ten francs into the porter's
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 285 
 
 hands, obtained the favor of an interview with du Tillet's 
 man ; of him he asked to give him an interview with du Tillet 
 as soon as du Tillet should be visible, and to that end a couple 
 of gold pieces found their way into the possession of du, 
 Tillet' s man. By way of these little sacrifices and great hu- 
 miliations, common to courtiers and petitioners, he attained 
 his end. At half-past eight, when his ex-assistant had slipped 
 ,on a dressing-gown and shaken off the confused ideas of a mnn 
 awakened from sleep, had yawned, stretched himself, and 
 asked pardon of his old master, Birotteau found himself face 
 to face with the tiger thirsting for revenge, the man whom 
 he was fain to consider as his one friend in the world. 
 
 "Do not mind me," said Birotteau, replying to the apology. 
 
 "What do you want, my good Cesar ?" asked du Tillet ; and 
 Cesar, not without terrible palpitations, gave the Baron de 
 Nucingen's answer and demands to an inattentive listener, 
 who looked about for the bellows, and scolded his man- 
 servant for taking so long over lighting the fire. 
 
 Cesar did not notice at first that if the master was not 
 heedful, the man was interested; but seeing this at last, he 
 grew confused and broke off, to begin again, spurred on by 
 a "Go on, go on ; I am listening," from the abstracted banker. 
 
 The good man's shirt was soaked with perspiration, which 
 turned icy cold when du Tillet looked full and steadily at 
 him, and he could see those eyes of silver streaked with a few 
 gold threads; there was a diabolical light in them which 
 pierced him to the heart. 
 
 "My dear master, the Bank refused your paper, passed on 
 to Gigonnet without guarantee by the firm of Claparon; is 
 that my fault ? What ! you have been a judge at the Consular 
 Tribunal, how could you make such blunders? I am, before 
 all things, a banker. I will give you my money, but I could 
 (not expose my signature to a refusal from the Bank. I live 
 by credit. So do we all. Do you want money ?" 
 
 "Can you let me have all that I need in cash?" 
 
 "That depends upon the amount to V*> paid. How much 
 do you want ?"
 
 236 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Thirty thousand francs." 
 
 "Plenty of chimney-pots tumbling about my ears!" ex- 
 claimed du Tillet, and he burst into a laugh. 
 
 The perfumer, misled by the splendor of du Tillet's sur- 
 roundings, chose to regard that laugh as a sign that the sum 
 was a mere trifle. He breathed again. Du Tillet rang the 
 bell. 
 
 "Tell the cashier to come up." 
 
 "He is not here yet, sir," the servant answered. 
 
 "Those rogues are laughing at me ! It is half-past eight ; 
 they ought to have done a million francs' worth of business 
 by now." 
 
 Five minutes later, M. Legras came upstairs. 
 
 "How much have we in the safe?" 
 
 "Only twenty thousand francs. Your orders were to buy 
 thirty thousand livres per annum in rentes, at present price, 
 payable on the 15th." 
 
 "That is right; I am still asleep." 
 
 The cashier gave Birotteau a sly glance, and went. 
 
 "If truth were banished from the earth, she would leave 
 her last word with a cashier," said du Tillet. "But have you 
 not an interest in little Popinot's business, now that he has 
 just set up for himself?" he added, after a horrible pause, 
 in which the sweat gathered in drops on Birotteau's fore- 
 head. 
 
 "Yes," said Cesar innocently. "Do you think you could 
 discount his signature for a fair amount ?" 
 
 "Bring me fifty thousand francs' worth of his acceptances, 
 and I will get them negotiated for you at a reasonable rate 
 by one Gobseck; very easy to do business with when he has 
 plenty of capital on his hands, and he has a good deal just 
 now." 
 
 Birotteau went home again heartbroken. He did not see 
 that bankers and bill-discounters were sending him backwards 
 and forwards in a game of battledore and shuttlecock; but 
 Constance guessed even then that it would be impossible to 
 obtain a loan of any sort. If three bankers had already re-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 237 
 
 fused credit to a man as well known as the deputy-mayor, 
 every one would hear of it, and the Bank of France was no 
 longer to be thought of. 
 
 "Try to renew" (this was Constance's advice). "Go to 
 your co-associate, M. Claparon, to every one, in fact, whose 
 bills fall due on the 15th, and ask them to renew. There will 
 be time enough then to go to bill-discounters with Popinot's 
 bills." 
 
 "To-morrow will be the 13th !" exclaimed Birotteau, worn 
 out with anxiety. 
 
 He was "endowed with a sanguine temperament," to quote 
 his own prospectus ; a temperament upon which the wear and 
 tear of emotion and of thought tells so enormously, that sleep 
 is imperatively needed to repair the waste. Cesarine brought 
 her father into the drawing-room, and played Rousseau's 
 Dream, that -charming composition of Herold's, while Con- 
 stance was sewing by her husband's side. The poor man lay 
 back on the ottoman couch. Every time his eyes rested on 
 his wife he saw a sweet smile on her lips, and so he fell 
 asleep. 
 
 "Poor man," said Constance. "What torture is in store 
 for him ! . . . If only he can endure it !" 
 
 "Oh, mamma, what is it?" asked Cesarine, seeing her 
 mother in tears. 
 
 "I see bankruptcy ahead, darling. If your father is obliged 
 to file his schedule, there must be no asking for pity of any 
 one. You must be prepared to be an ordinary shop-girl, my 
 dear. If I see you doing your part bravely, I shall have 
 strength to begin life again. I know your father; he will 
 not keep back one farthing; I shall give up my claims, all 
 that we have will be sold. Take your clothes and trinkets to- 
 morrow to Uncle Pillerault; you are not bound to lose any- 
 thing, my child." 
 
 At these words, spoken with such devout sincerity, Cesar- 
 ine's terror knew no bounds. She thought of going to An- 
 selme, but a feeling of delicacy withheld her. 
 
 The next morning found Birotteau in the Rue de Provence
 
 238 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 at nine o'clock. He had fallen a victim to fresh anxieties? 
 of a totally different kind. To borrow money is not neces- 
 sarily a* complicated process in business; it is a matter of 
 daily occurrence, for capital must always be found wher- 
 ever a new enterprise is started; but to ask a man to renew 
 a bill is in commercial circles what the Police 1 Court 
 is to the Court of Assize; it is a first step to bankruptcy, 
 even as a misdemeanor is half-way to a crime. The secret 
 of your weakness and your embarrassment passes out of your 
 own keeping. A merchant delivers himself up, bound hand 
 and foot, to another merchant, and charity is not a virtue 
 much practised on the Stock Exchange. 
 
 The perfumer, who hitherto had walked the streets of 
 Paris with bright confident eyes, now cast down by doubts, 
 hesitated to go to Clapafon ; he was beginning to understand 
 that with bankers the heart is merely a portion of the in- 
 ternal economy. Claparon had seemed to him so brutal in his 
 coarse hilarity, and he had felt so much vulgarity in the man, 
 that he shrank from approaching this creditor. 
 . "He is nearer the people, perhaps he will have more soul !" 
 This was the first word of accusation which the anguish of 
 his position wrung from him. 
 
 Cesar glanced up at the windows, and at the green cur- 
 tains yellowed by the sun; then he drew the last of his stock 
 of courage up from the depths of his soul, and climbed the 
 stairs that led to a shabby mezzanine floor. He read the word 
 Office, engraven in black letters on an oval brass-plate upon 
 the door, and knocked. No one answered, so he went in. 
 
 The whole place was something more than humble; it 
 savored of dire poverty, avarice, or neglect. No clerk showed 
 his face behind a barrier of unpainted deal, surmounted at 
 elbow height by a brass wire lattice, an arrangement which 
 screened off an inner space occupied by tables and desics 
 of blackened wood. Scattered about the deserted offices lay 
 inkstands, in which mold was growing, quill-pens touzled 
 like a street urchin's head, twisted up into suns with rays; 
 the rooms were littered with cardboard cases, papers, and
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 239 
 
 circulars, useless no doubt. The floor of the lobby was as 
 worn, as damp, and gritty as the floor of a lodging-house 
 parlor. Through a door on which the word Counting-house 
 was inscribed, the visitor entered a second room, where every- 
 thing was in keeping with the sinister waggery displayed in 
 the first. In one corner stood a large cage of oak with a grill 
 of copper-wire, and a cashier's sliding window. An enormous 
 iron letter-box had doubtless been abandoned to the rats for 
 a playground. The open door of this cage gave a view of 
 yet another of these whimsical offices, and of a shabby and 
 worm-eaten green chair, a mass of horsehair escaping through 
 a hole underneath this piece of furniture in countless cork- 
 screw curls that called its owner's wig to mind. Evidently 
 this room had been the drawing-room of the house before it 
 had been converted into offices, but the only attempt at or- 
 namental furniture was a round table covered with a green 
 cloth, and some old chairs covered with black leather and 
 adorned with gilt nail-heads which stood about it. The 
 chimney-piece had some pretensions to elegance, the hearth- 
 stone was unblackened, and there were no visible signs that 
 a fire had been lighted there. The pier-glass above it, tar- 
 nished' with fly-spots, had a mean look, so had a mahogany 
 clock-case bought at the sale of some departed notary's of- 
 fice furniture, a dreary object which enhanced the depressing 
 effect of the pair of empty candle-sticks and the all-pervading 
 sticky grime. The dinginess of the paper on the walls, drab 
 with a rose-colored border, spoke plainly of the habitual 
 presence of smokers and absence of ventilation. The whole 
 stale-looking room resembled nothing so much as a news- 
 paper editor's office. Birotteau, afraid of intruding on 
 the banker's privacy, gave three sharp taps on the door op- 
 posite the one by which he had entered. 
 
 "Come in !" cried Claparon, and the sound of his voice 
 evidently came from a room beyond. The perfumer could 
 hear a good fire crackling on the hearth, but the banker was 
 not there. This apartment did duty, as a matter of fact, 
 for a private office. Frangois Keller's elegantly furnished
 
 240 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 sanctum differed from the grotesque neglect of this sham 
 capitalist's surroundings as widely as Versailles differs from 
 the wigwam of a Huron chief; and Birotteau, who had beheld 
 the glories of the banking world, was about to be introduced 
 to its blackguardism. 
 
 In a sort of oblong den, contrived behind the private of- 
 fice, where the whole of the furniture, scarcely elegant in its 
 prime, had been battered, broken, covered with grease, slit to 
 rags, soiled and spoiled by the slovenly habits of the occupier, 
 reclined Claparon, who, at sight of Birotteau, flung on a 
 filthy dressing-gown, laid down his pipe, and drew the bed- 
 curtains with a haste that seemed suspicious even to the in- 
 nocent perfumer. 
 
 "Take a seat, sir/' said du Tillet's banker puppet. 
 
 Claparon without his wig, his head tied up in a bandana 
 handkerchief all awry, was to Birotteau's thinking the more 
 repulsive in that his loose dressing-gown gave glimpses of a 
 nondescript knitted woolen garment, once white, but now a 
 dingy bfown, from indefinitely prolonged wear. 
 
 "Will you breakfast with me?" asked Claparon, bethinking 
 himself of the ball, and prompted partly by a wish to turn 
 the tables on his host, partly by anxiety to put Birotteau off 
 the scent. And, in point of fact, a round table, hastily 
 cleared of papers, was suspiciously suggestive ; for it displayed 
 a pate, oysters, white wine, and a dish of vulgar kidneys, 
 sautes au vin de Champagne, cooling in their gravy, while an 
 omelette with truffles was browning before the sea-coal fire. 
 The table was set for two persons; two table-napkins, soiled 
 at supper on the previous evening, would have enlightened 
 the purest innocence. Claparon, in the character of a man 
 who has a belief in his own adroitness, insisted in spite of 
 Birotteau's refusals. 
 
 "I should by rights have had somebody to breakfast, but 
 that somebody has not kept the appointment," cried the cun- 
 ning commercial traveler, speaking loud, so that the words 
 might reach the ears of an auditor hiding under the blankets. 
 
 "I have come on business pure and simple, sir," said Birot- 
 teau, " and I shall not detain you long."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 241 
 
 "I am overwhelmed with business," returned Claparon, 
 pointing to a cylinder desk and to the tables, which were 
 heaped up with papers, "not a poor little minute may I have 
 to myself. I never see people except on Saturdays; but for 
 you, my dear sir, I am always at home. I have no time left 
 nowadays for love-affairs or lounging about; I am losing 
 the business instinct, which takes intervals of carefully-timed 
 idleness, if it is to keep its freshness. Nobody sees me busy 
 doing nothing in the boulevards. Pshaw ! business bores me, 
 I don't care to hear any more about business at present; I 
 have money enough, and I shall never have pleasure enough. 
 My word, I have a mind to turn tourist and see Italy. Ah ! 
 beloved Italy ! fair even amid her adversity, adorable land, 
 where, doubtless, I shall find some magnificent, indolent 
 Italian beauty; I have always admired Italian women ! Have 
 you ever had an Italian mistress? No? Oh, well, come to 
 Italy with me. We will see Venice, the city of the Doges, 
 fallen, more's the pity, into the hands of those philistines 
 the Austrians, who know nothing of art. Pooh ! let us leave 
 business, and canals, and loans, and governments in peace. 
 I am a prince when my pockets are well lined. Let us travel, 
 by Jove!" 
 
 "Just one word, sir, and I will go," said Birotteau. "You 
 passed my bills on to M. Bidault." 
 
 "Gigonnet, you mean; nice little fellow, Gigonnet; a man 
 as easy-going as a as a slip-knot." 
 
 "Yes," said Cesar. "I should be glad and in this matter 
 I am relying on your integrity and honor (Claparon bowed) 
 I should be glad if I could renew " 
 
 "Impossible," said the banker roundly "impossible. I 
 am not the only man in the affair. We are all in council, 
 'tis a regular Chamber; but that we are all on good terms 
 among ourselves, like rashers in a pan. Oh, we deliberate, 
 that we do ! The building land by the Madeleine is nothing; 
 we are doing other things elsewhere. Eh ! my good sir, if we 
 were not busy in the Champs-filysees, near the new Ex- 
 change which has just been finished, in the Quartier Saint-
 
 242 RISE AIs 7 D FALL OF CESAR RIROTTEAU 
 
 Lazare and about the Tivoli, we should not be vinancicrs, as 
 old Nucingen says. So what is the Madeleine ? A little speck 
 of a business. Prrr ! we do not dabble, my good sir," he said, 
 tapping Birotteau's chest, and giving him a hug. "There, 
 come and have your breakfast, and we will have a talk," 
 Claparon continued, by way of softening his refusal. 
 
 "By all means," said Birotteau. "So much the worse for 
 the other," thought he. He would wait till the wine went to 
 Claparon's head, and find out then who his partners really 
 were in this affair, which began to have a very shady look. 
 ."That is right! Victoire!" shouted the banker, and at 
 the call appeared a genuine Leonarda, tricked out like a fish- 
 wife. 
 
 "Tell the clerks that I cannot see anybody, not even Nu- 
 cingen, Keller, Gigonnet, and the rest of them !" 
 
 "There is no one here but M. Lempereur." 
 
 "He can receive the fashionables," said Claparon,' "and 
 the small fry need not go beyond the public office. They 
 can be told that I am meditating how to get a pull a1 a 
 bottle of champagne." 
 
 To make an old commercial traveler tipsy is to achieve 
 the impossible. Cesar had mistaken his boon companion's 
 symptoms, and thought his boisterous vulgarity was due to 
 intoxication, when he tried to shrive him. 
 
 "There is that rascal Roguin still in it with you," said Birot- 
 teau; "ought you not to write and tell him to help out a 
 friend whom he has left in the lurch, a friend with whom he 
 dined every Sunday, and whom he has known for twenty 
 years?" 
 
 "Roguin? A fool; we have his share. Don't be down- 
 hearted, my good friend, it will be all right. Pay on the 15th. 
 and that done, we shall see ! I say, Ve shall see' (a glass of 
 wine !) but the capital is no concern of mine whatever. Oh ! 
 if you should not pay at all, I should not give you black looks; 
 my share in the affair is limited to a percentage on the pur- 
 chase-money, and something down on the completion of 
 the contract, in consideration of which * brought round the
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 243 
 
 vendors. . . . Do you understand? Your associates are 
 good men, so I am not afraid, my dear sir. Business is so 
 divided up nowadays. Every business requires the co-opera- 
 tion of so many specialists ! Do you join the rest of us ? 
 Then do not dabble in combs and pomade pots a paltry way 
 of doing business.; fleece the public, and go in for the specu- 
 lation." 
 
 "A speculation?" asked the perfumer; "what sort of busi- 
 ness is it ?" 
 
 "It is commerce in the abstract," replied Claparon, "an 
 affair which will only come to light in ten years' time at the 
 bidding of the great Nucingen, the Napoleon of finance, a 
 scheme by which a man embraces sum-totals, and skims the 
 cream of profits yet to be made; a gigantic conception, a 
 method of marking expectations like timber for annual fell- 
 ing; it is a new cabal, in short. There are but ten or twelve of 
 us as yet, long-headed men, all initiated into the cabalistic se- 
 crets of these magnificent combinations." 
 
 Cesar opened his eyes and ears, trying to comprehend these 
 mixed metaphors. 
 
 "Listen to me," Claparon continued, after a pause; "such 
 strokes as these need capable men. Now, there is the man 
 who has ideas, but has not a penny, like all men with ideas. 
 That sort of man spends and is spent, and cares for noth- 
 ing. Imagine a pig roaming about a wood for truffles, and 
 a knowing fellow on his tracks; that is the man with the 
 money, who waits till he hears a grunt over a find. When 
 the man with the ideas has hit upon a good notion, the man 
 with the money taps him on the shoulder with a 'What is 
 this? You are putting yourself in the furnace-mouth, my 
 good friend; your back is not strong enough to carry this; 
 here are a thousand francs for you, and let me put this affair 
 in working order.' Good ! Then the banker summons the 
 manufacturers 'Set to work, my friends ! Out with your 
 prospectuses! Blarney to the death!' Out come the hunt- 
 ing-horns, and they pipe up with 'A hundred thousand francs 
 for five sous!' or five sous for a hundred thousand francs,
 
 244 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 gold-mines, coal-mines; all the flourishes and alarums of 
 commerce, in short. Art and science are paid to give their 
 opinion, the affair is paraded about, the public rushes into it, 
 and receives paper for its money, and our takings are in our 
 hands. The pig is safe in his sty with his potatoes, and 
 the rest of them are wallowing in bills of exchange. That is 
 how it is done, my dear sir. Go in for speculation. What do 
 you want to be? A pig or a gull, a clown or a millionaire? 
 Think it over. I have summed up the modern theory of 
 loans for you. Come to see me; you will find a good fellow, 
 always jolly. French joviality, at once grave and gay, does 
 no harm in business, quite the contrary ! Men who can drink 
 are made to understand each other. Come ! another glass of 
 champagne ? It is choice wine, eh ? It was sent me by a man 
 at fSpernay, for whom I have sold a good deal of it, and at 
 good prices too (I used to be in the wine trade). He shows 
 his gratitude, and remembers me in my prosperity. A rare 
 trait." 
 
 Birotteau, bewildered by this flippancy and careless tone 
 in a man whom everybody credited with such astonishing 
 profundity and breadth, did not dare to question him any 
 further. But in spite of the confusion and excitement in- 
 duced by unwonted potations of champagne, a name let fall 
 by du Tillet came up in his mind, and he asked for the ad- 
 dress of a bill-discounter named Gobseck. 
 
 "Is that what you are after, my dear sir?" asked Claparon. 
 "Gobseck is a bill-discounter in the same sense that the hang- 
 man is a doctor. The first thing that he says to you is 'Fifty 
 per cent.' He belongs to the school of Harpagon ; he will 
 supply you with canary birds, and stuffed boa-constrictors, 
 with furs in summer and nankin in winter. And whose bills 
 are you going to offer him? He will want you to deposit 
 your wife, your daughter, your umbrella, and everything 
 that is yours, down to your hat-box, your clogs (do you wear 
 hinged clogs?), poker and tongs, and the firewood in your 
 cellar, before he will take your bills with your bare name
 
 RISE AND PALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 245 
 
 to them ! . . . Gobseck ! Gobseck ! In the name of mis- 
 fortune, who sent you to the guillotine of commerce?" 
 
 "M. du Tillet." " 
 
 "Oh! the rogue; just like him. We used to be friends 
 once upon a time; and if the quarrel has gone so far that 
 we do not speak to each other now, I have good reason for 
 disliking him, believe me ! He let me see the bottom of his 
 soul of mud, and he made me uncomfortable at that fine ball 
 you gave. I cannot bear him, with the coxcomb airs he gives 
 himself, because he has the good graces of a notaresse! I 
 could have marquises myself if I had a mind; he will never 
 have my esteem, I know. Ah ! my esteem is a princess who will 
 never take up too much room on his pillow. I say though, old 
 man, you are a funny one to give us a ball, and then come 
 and ask us to renew two months afterwards ! You are likely 
 to go far. Let us go into speculation together. You have a 
 character ; it would be useful to me. Oh ! du Tillet was born 
 to understand Gobseck. Du Tillet will come to a bad end 
 in the Place de Greve. If, as they say, he is one of Gobseck's 
 lambs, he will soon come to the length of his tether. Gob- 
 seck squats in a corner of his web like an old spider who has 
 seen the world. Sooner or later, zut! and the money-lender 
 sucks in his man like a glass of wine. So much the better! 
 Du Tillet played me a trick oh ! a scurvy trick !" 
 
 After an hour and a half spent in listening to meaning- 
 less prate, Birotteau determined to go, for the commercial 
 traveler was preparing to relate the adventure of a repre- 
 sentative of the people at Marseilles, who had fallen in love 
 with an actress who played the part of La Belle Arsene. The 
 Royalist pit hissed the lady. 
 
 "Up he gets," said Claparon, "and stands bolt upright in 
 his box. 'Arte qui I'a sibUe?' says he; f eu! . . . Si 
 c'est oune femme, je I'amprise; si c'est oune homme, nous 
 se verrons; si c'est ni I'un ni I'autte, que le troun di Diou le 
 cure !' . . . How do you think the adventure ended ?" 
 
 "Good-day, sir," said Birotteau. 
 
 "You will have to come and see me," said Claparon at this. 
 17
 
 246 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Cayron's first bill has come back protested, and I am the in- 
 dorser; I have reimbursed the money, and I shall send it 
 on to you, for business is business." 
 
 Birotteau felt this cool affectation of a readiness to oblige, 
 as he had already felt Keller's hardness and JSTucingen's Teu- 
 tonic banter, in his very heart. The man's familiarity, his 
 grotesque confidences made in the generous glow of cham- 
 pagne, had been like a blight to the perfumer ; he felt as if he 
 were leaving some evil haunt in the world financial. 
 
 He walked downstairs; he found himself in the streets and 
 went, not knowing whither he went. He followed the boule- 
 vard till he reached the Rue Saint-Denis, then he bethought 
 himself of Molineux, and turned to go towards the Cour 
 Batave. He mounted the same dirty tortuous staircase which 
 he had ascended but lately in the pride of his glory. He re- 
 membered Molineux's peevish meanness, and winced at the 
 thought of asking a favor of him. As on the occasion of his 
 previous visit, he found the owner of house property by the 
 fireside, but this time he had eaten his breakfast. Birotteau 
 formulated his demand. 
 
 "Renew a bill for twelve hundred francs ?" said Molineux, 
 with an incredulous smile. "You do not mean it, sir. If you 
 have not twelve hundred francs on the 15th to meet my bill, 
 will you please to send me back my receipt for rent that has 
 not been paid ? Ah ! I should be angry ; I do not use the 
 slightest ceremony in money matters; my rents are my in- 
 come. If I acted otherwise, how should I pay my way? A 
 man in business will not disapprove of that wholesome rule. 
 Money knows nobody; money has no ears; money has no 
 heart. It is a cold winter, and here is firewood dearer again. 
 If you do not pay on the 15th, you will receive a little sum- 
 mons by noon on the 16th. Pshaw! old Mitral, who serve? 
 your processes, acts for me too; he will send you your sum- 
 mons in an envelope, with due regard for your high posi- 
 tion." 
 
 "A writ has never been served on me, sir," said Birot- 
 teau.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF QESAR BIROTTEAU 247 
 
 "Everything must have a beginning/ 7 retorted Molineux. 
 
 The perfumer was taken aback by the little old man's frank 
 ferocity ; the knell of credit rang in his ears : and every fresh 
 stroke awoke memories of his own sayings as to bankruptcies, 
 prompted by his remorseless jurisprudence. Those opinions 
 of his seemed to be traced in letters of fire on the soft sub- 
 stance of his brain. 
 
 "By the by," Molineux was saying, "you forget to write 
 'For value received in rent' across your bills ; that might give 
 me a preferential claim/' 
 
 "My position forbids me to do anything to the prejudice 
 of my creditors," said Birotteau, dazed by that glimpse into 
 the gulf before him. 
 
 "Good, sir, very good. I thought that I had nothing left to 
 learn in my dealings with messieurs my tenants. You have 
 taught me never to take bills in payment. Oh! I will take 
 the thing into Court, for your answer as good as tells me 
 that you will not meet your engagements. The case touches 
 every landlord in Paris." 
 
 Birotteau went out, sick of life. Feeble and tender natures 
 lose heart at the first rebuff, just as a first success puts cour- 
 age into them. Cesar's only hope now lay in little Popinot's 
 devotion; his thoughts naturally turned to him as he passed 
 the Marche des Innocents. 
 
 "Poor boy ! who would have told me this when I started 
 him six weeks ago at the Tuileries." 
 
 It was nearly four o'clock, the time when the magistrates 
 leave the Palais. As it fell out, the elder Popinot had gone 
 to see his nephew. The examining magistrate, who in moral 
 questions had a kind of second-sight which laid bare the 
 secret motives of others, who discerned the underlying 
 significance of the most commonplace actions of daily life, 
 the germs of crime, the roots of a misdemeanor, was watch- 
 ing Birotteau, though Birotteau did not suspect it. Birot- 
 teau seemed to be put out by finding the uncle with the 
 nephew ; the perfumer's manner was constrained, he was pre- 
 occupied and thoughtful. Little Popinot, busy as usual with
 
 248 RISE AND PALL QF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 his pen behind his ear, always fell flat, figuratively speaking, 
 before Cesarine's father. Cesar's meaningless remarks to his 
 partner, to the judge's thinking, were merely screens, some 
 important demand was about to be made. Instead of leaving 
 the shop, therefore, the shrewd man of law stayed with his 
 nephew, for he thought that Cesar would try to get rid of 
 him by making a move himself. And so it was. When Birot- 
 teau had gone, the judge followed, but he noticed Cesar 
 lounging along the Rue des Cinq-Diamants in the direction 
 of the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher. This infinitely small matter 
 bred suspicion in the mind of Popinot -the elder; he mis- 
 trusted Cesar's intentions, went along the Rue des Lombards, 
 watched the perfumer go back to Anselme's shop, and 
 promptly repaired thither. 
 
 "My dear Popinot," Cesar had begun, "I have come to aek 
 you to do me a service/' 
 
 "What is there to be done?" asked Popinot, with generous 
 eagerness. 
 
 "Ah ! you give me life !" cried the good man, rejoicing 
 in this warmth from the heart that sent a glow through him 
 after those twenty-five days of glacial cold. "It is this, to 
 allow me to draw a bill on you on account of my share of 
 the profits; we will settle between ourselves." 
 
 Popinot looked steadily at Cesar; Cesar lowered his eyes. 
 Just at that moment the magistrate reappeared. 
 
 "My boy Oh ! I beg your pardon, M. Birotteau my boy, 
 I forgot to say . . ." and with the imperative gesture 
 learned in the exercise of his profession, the elder Popinot 
 drew his nephew out into the street, and marched him, bare- 
 headed and in shirt-sleeves as he was, in the direction of the 
 Rue des Lombards. 
 
 "Your old master will very likely find himself in such 
 straits, that he may be forced to file his schedule, nephew. 
 Before a man comes to that, a man who, may be, has a record 
 of forty years of upright dealing, nay the very best of men, 
 in his anxiety to save his honor, will behave 'like the most 
 frantic gambler. Men in that predicament will do anything.
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 249 
 
 They will sell their wives and traffic in their daughters ; they 
 will bring their best friends into the scrape, and pawn prop- 
 erty which is not theirs; they will go to the gaming-table, 
 turn actors nay, liars; they will shed tears at need. In 
 short, I have known them do the most extraordinary things. 
 You yourself know how good-natured Eoguin was, a man 
 who looked as though butter would not melt in his mouth. 
 I do not press these conclusions home in M. Birotteau's case; 
 I believe that he is honest; but if he should ask you to do 
 anything at all irregular, no matter what it is; if he should 
 want you, for instance, to accept accommodation bills, and 
 so start you in a system which, to my way of thinking, is the 
 beginning of all sorts of rascality (for it is counterfeit paper- 
 money), promise me that you will sign nothing without first 
 consulting me. You must remember that if you love his 
 daughter, even for your own sake and hers, you must not 
 spoil your future. If M. Birotteau must come to grief, what 
 is the use of going with him ? What is it but cutting your- 
 selves off from all chance of escape through your business, 
 which will be his refuge?" 
 
 "Thank you, uncle; a word to the wise is sufficient," said 
 Anselme; his uncle's words explained that heartrending cry 
 from his master. 
 
 The merchant who dealt in druggists' oils and sundries 
 looked thoughtful as he entered his dark shop. Birotteau 
 saw the change. 
 
 "Will you honor me by coming up to my room? we can 
 talk more at our ease there than here. The assistants, busy 
 as they are, might overhear us/' 
 
 Birotteau followed Popinot, a victim to such cruel suspense 
 as the condemned man knows, while he waits for a reprieve 
 or the rejection of his appeal. 
 
 "My dear benefactor," Anselme began, "you do not doubt 
 my devotion; it is blind. Permit me to ask but one thing, 
 will this sum of money save you once and for all ? Or will 
 it merely put off some catastrophe? in which case, what is 
 the use of carrying me with you? You want bills at ninety
 
 250 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 days. Very well, but I am sure that I myself shall not be able 
 to meet them in three months' time." 
 
 Birotteau, white and grave, rose to his feet, and looked into 
 Popinot's face. 
 
 Popinot, in alarm, cried, "I will do it if you wish it." 
 
 "Ungrateful boy!" cried the perfumer, gathering all his 
 strength to hurl at Anselme the words which should brand 
 him as infamous. 
 
 Birotteau walked to the door and went. Popinot, recover- 
 ing from the sensation which the terrible words had produced 
 in him, darted downstairs and rushed into the street, but saw 
 no sign of the perfumer. The dreadful words of doom rang 
 in the ears of Cesarine's lover, poor Cesar's face of anguish 
 was always before his eyes; he lived, indeed, like Hamlet, 
 haunted by a ghastly spectre. 
 
 Birotteau staggered along the streets like a drunken man. 
 He found himself at last on the Q.uai, and followed its course 
 to Sevres, where he spent the night in an inn, stupefied with 
 sorrow ; and his frightened wife dared not make any inquiries 
 for him. Under such circumstances, it is fatal to give the 
 alarm rashly. Constance wisely immolated her anxiety to her 
 husband's business reputation; she sat up all night for him, 
 mingling prayers with her fears. Was Cesar dead ? Had he 
 left Paris in the pursuit of some last hope? When morning 
 came, she behaved as though she knew the cause of his ab- 
 sence; but when at five o'clock Cesar had not returned, she 
 sent word to her uncle and begged him to go to the Morgue. 
 All through that day the brave woman sat at her desk, her 
 daughter doing her embroidery by her side, and, neither sad 
 nor smiling, both confronted the public with quiet faces. 
 
 When Pillerault came, he brought Cesar with him ; he had 
 met his niece's husband after 'Change in the Palais Eoyal, 
 hesitating to enter a gaming-house. That day was the 14th. 
 
 Cesar could eat nothing at dinner. His stomach, too vio- 
 lently contracted, rejected food; it was a miserable meal; 
 but it was not so bad as the evening that came after it. For 
 the hundredth time, the merchant experienced one of the
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 251 
 
 hideous alternations of despair and hope which wear out weak 
 natures, when the soul passes through the whole scale of sensa- 
 tions, from the highest pitch of joy to the lowest depths of 
 despair. Derville, the consulting barrister, rushed into the 
 splendid drawing-room. Mme. Cesar had done everything 
 in her power to keep her poor husband there; he had wanted 
 to sleep in the attic, "so as not to see the monuments of my 
 folly," he said. 
 
 "We have gained the day," cried Derville. 
 
 At these words the lines in Cesar's face were smoothed out, 
 but his joy alarmed Pillerault and Derville. The two fright- 
 ened women went away to cry in Cesarine's room. 
 
 "Now I can borrow on the property !" exclaimed the per- 
 fumer. 
 
 "It would not be wise to do so," said Derville ; "they have 
 given notice of appeal, the Court-Eoyal may reverse the de- 
 cision, but we shall know in a month's time." 
 
 "A month !" 
 
 Cesar sank into a lethargy, from which no one attempted 
 to rouse him. This species of intermittent catalepsy, during 
 which the body lives and suffers while the action of the mind 
 is suspended, this fortuitous respite from mental anguish, 
 was regarded as a godsend by Constance, Cesarine, Pillerault, 
 and Derville and they were right. In this way Birotteau 
 was able to recover from the wear and tear of the night's 
 emotions. He lay in a low chair by the fireside ; over against 
 him sat his wife, who watched him closely, with a sweet smile 
 on her lips one of those smiles which prove that women are 
 nearer to the angels than men, in that they can blend in- 
 finite tenderness with the most sincere compassion, a secret 
 known only to the angels whose presence is revealed to us in 
 the dreams providentially scattered at long intervals in the 
 course of human life. Cesarine, sitting on a footstool at her 
 mother's feet, now and again bent her head over her father's 
 hands and brushed them lightly with her hair, as if by this 
 caress she would fain communicate through the sense of 
 touch the thoughts which at such a time are importunate 
 when rendered by articulate speech.
 
 252 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Pillerault, that philosopher prepared for every emergency, 
 sat in his armchair, like the statue of the Chancellor of the 
 Hopital in the peristyle of the Chamber of Deputies, wear- 
 ing the same look of intelligence which is stamped on the 
 features of an Egyptian sphinx, and talked in a low voice with 
 Derville. Constance had recommended that the lawyer, whose 
 discretion was above suspicion, should be consulted. With 
 the schedule already drafted in her mind, she laid the situa- 
 tion before Derville; and after an hour's consultation or 
 thereabouts, held in the presence of the dozing performer, 
 Derville looked at Pillerault and shook his head. 
 
 "Madame," said he, with the pitiless coolness of a man 
 of business, "you must file your petition. Suppose that by 
 some means or other you should contrive to meet your bills 
 to-morrow, you must eventually pay at least three thousand 
 francs before you can borrow on the whole of your landed 
 property. To your liabilities, amounting to five hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs, you oppose assets consisting of a very 
 valuable and very promising piece of property which cannot 
 be realized you must give up in a given time, and it is bet- 
 ter, in my opinion, to jump from the window than to roll 
 down the stairs." 
 
 "I am of that opinion, too, my child," said Pillerault. 
 
 Mme. Cesar and Pillerault both went to the door with Der- 
 ville. 
 
 "Poor father !" said Cesarine, rising softly to put a kiss on 
 Cesar's forehead. "Then could Anselme do nothing?" she 
 asked, when her mother and uncle came in again. 
 
 "The ungrateful boy !" cried Cesar. The name had 
 touched the one sensitive spot in his memory, like the string 
 of a piano resonant to the stroke of the hammer. 
 
 Little Popinot, meanwhile, since those words had been 
 hurled at him like an anathema, had not had a moment's 
 peace or a wink of sleep. The hapless youth called down 
 maledictions on his uncle, and went in search of him. To 
 induce experience and legal acumen to capitulate, young 
 Popinot poured forth all a lover's eloquence, hoping to work
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 253 
 
 on the feelings of a judge, but his words slid over the man of 
 law like water over oilcloth. 
 
 "Commercial usage," pleaded Anselme, "permits a sleeping 
 partner to draw to a certain extent upon his co-associate on 
 account of profits ; and in our partnership we ought to put it 
 in practice. After looking into my business all round, I feel 
 sure that I am good to pay forty thousand francs in three 
 months' time. M. Cesar's honesty permits me to feel confi- 
 dent that he will use the forty thousand francs to meet his 
 bills. So, if he fails, the creditors will have no reason to 
 complain of this action on our part. And besides, uncle, I 
 would rather lose forty thousand francs than give up Cesar- 
 ine. At this moment, while I am speaking, she will have 
 heard of my refusal, and I shall be lowered in her eyes. I 
 said that I would give my life for my benefactor ! I am in the 
 case of the young sailor who must go to the bottom with his 
 captain, or the soldier who is bound to perish with his gen- 
 eral." 
 
 "A good heart and a bad man of business ; you will not be 
 lowered in my eyes," said the judge, grasping his nephew's 
 hand. "I have thought a good deal about this," he continued; 
 "I know that you love Cesarine to distraction; I think that 
 you can obey the laws of your heart without breaking the 
 laws of commerce.", 
 
 "Oh ! uncle, if you have found out a way, you will save my 
 honor." 
 
 "Lend Birotteau fifty thousand francs on his proprietary 
 interest in your Oil; it has become, as it were, a piece of 
 property ; I will draw up the document for you." 
 
 Anselme embraced his uncle, went home, made out bills 
 for fifty thousand francs, and ran all the way from the Rue 
 des Cinq-Diamants to the Place Vendome; so that at the 
 very moment when Cesarine, her mother, and Pillerault were 
 gazing at the perfumer, amazed by the sepulchral tone in 
 which the words "Ungrateful boy !" were uttered in answer to 
 the girl's question, the drawing-room door opened, and Popi- 
 not appeared.
 
 254 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "My dearly beloved master," he said, wiping the perspira- 
 tion from his forehead, "here is the thing for which you asked 
 me." 
 
 He held out the bills. 
 
 "Yes. I have thought carefully over my position; I shall 
 meet them, never fear ! Save your honor !" 
 
 "I was quite sure of him," cried Cesarine, grasping Popi- 
 not's hand convulsively. 
 
 Mme. Cesar embraced Popinot. The perfumer rose out 
 of his chair, like the righteous at the sound of the last trump ; 
 he too was issuing from a tomb. Then with frenzied eager- 
 ness he clutched the fifty stamped papers. 
 
 "One moment!" cried the stern Uncle Pillerault, snatch- 
 ing up Popinot's bills. "One moment !" 
 
 The four persons composing this family group Cesar and 
 his wife, Cesarine and Popinot bewildered by their uncle's 
 interposition, and by the tone in which he spoke, looked on in 
 terror while he tore the bills to pieces and flung them into the 
 fire, where they blazed up before any one of them could stop 
 him. 
 
 "Uncle I" 
 
 "Uncle!" 
 
 "Uncle!" 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 There were four voices, and four hearts in one, a formi- 
 dable unanimity. Uncle Pillerault put an arm round little 
 Popinot, held him tightly to his heart, and put a kiss on his 
 forehead. 
 
 "You deserve to be adored by any one who has a heart at 
 all," said he. "If you loved my daughter, and she had a 
 million, and you had nothing but that" (he pointed to the 
 blackened scraps of paper), "you should marry her in a fort- 
 night if she loved you. Your master," indicating Cesar, "is 
 mad. Now, nephew," Pillerault began gravely, addressing 
 the perfumer, "no more illusions ! Business must be car- 
 ried on with hard coin, and not with sentiments. This is 
 sublime, but it is useless. I ha.ve been on 'Change for a cou-
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 255 
 
 pie of hours. No one will give you credit for two farthings ; 
 everybody is talking about your disaster; everybody knows 
 that you could not get renewals, that you went to more than 
 one banker, and that they would have nothing to say to you, 
 and all your other follies; it is known that you climbed six 
 pair of stairs to ask the landlord who chatters like a jackdaw 
 to renew a bill for twelve hundred francs; everybody says 
 that you gave a ball to hide your embarrassment. . . . 
 They will say directly that you had no money deposited with 
 Eoguin. Roguin is a blind, according to your enemies. One 
 of my friends, commissioned to report everything, has brought 
 confirmation of my suspicions. Every one expects that*you 
 will try to put Popinot's bills on the market; in fact, you 
 set him up on purpose to tide you over your difficulties. In 
 short, all the gossip and slander usually set in motion by any 
 man who tries to mount a step in the social scale is going 
 the round of business circles at this moment. You would 
 spend a week in hawking Popinot's bills from place to place, 
 you would meet with humiliating refusals, and nobody would 
 have anything to do with them. There is nothing to show 
 how many of them you are issuing, and people look to see 
 you sacrificing this poor boy to save yourself. You would 
 ruin Popinot's credit in pure waste. Do you know how much 
 the most sanguine bill-discounter would give you for your 
 fifty thousand francs? Twenty thousand; twenty thousand, 
 do you understand ? There are times in business when you 
 must contrive to hold out for three days without food, as if 
 you had the indigestion, and the fourth brings admission to 
 the pantry of credit. You cannot hold out for the three days, 
 and therein lies the whole position. Take heart, my poor 
 nephew, you must file your schedule. Here is Popinot, and 
 here am I ; as soon as your assistants have gone to bed we will 
 set to work to spare you the misery of it." 
 ."Uncle! . . ." cried the perfumer, clasping his hands. 
 "Cesar, do you really mean to arrive at a fraudulent bank- 
 ruptcy with assets nil? Your interest in Popinot's business 
 saves your honor."
 
 256 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 This last fatal light thrown on his position made it clear 
 to Cesar ; he saw the full extent of the hideous truth ; he sank 
 down into his low chair, and then on to his knees; his mind 
 wandered, he became a child again. His wife thought the 
 shock had killed him, and knelt to raise him, but she clung 
 close to him when she saw him clasp his hands and raise his 
 eyes; and in spite of the presence of his uncle, his daiigh- 
 ter, and Popinot, he began with remorseful resignation to re- 
 peat the sublime prayer of the Church on earth: 
 
 "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 
 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in 
 Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
 our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. 
 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 
 Amen." 
 
 Tears filled Pillerault's stoical eyes, and Cesarine stood, 
 white and rigid as marble, with her tear-stained face hid- 
 den on Anselme's shoulder. Then the old merchant took the 
 young man's arm, "Let us go downstairs," he said. 
 
 At half-past eleven they left Cesar in the care of his wife 
 and daughter. Just at that moment Celestin, who had looked 
 after the business during this storm, came upstairs and opened 
 the drawing-room door. Cesarine heard his footsteps, and 
 hurried forward to place herself so as to screen the prostrate 
 master of the house. 
 
 "Among this evening's letters," he said, "there was one 
 from Tours, the direction was not clear, it has been delayed. 
 I thought it might be from the master's brother, so I did 
 not open it." 
 
 "Father," cried Cesarine, "there is a letter from uncle at 
 Tours." 
 
 . "Ah ! I am saved !" exclaimed Cesar. "My brother ! my 
 brother !" and he kissed the letter, which ran thus :
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 257 
 
 Francois Birotteau to Cesar Birotteau. 
 
 TOURS, nth. 
 
 "My BELOVED BROTHER, Your letter has given me the 
 keenest distress; and so when I had read it, I offered up to 
 God on your behalf the holy sacrifice of the mass, praying 
 Him, by the blood shed for us by our Divine Redeemer, to 
 look mercifully upon you in your affliction. And now that I 
 have put up my prayer pro meo fratre Ccesare, my eyes are 
 filled with tears to think that by misfortune I am separated 
 from you at a time when you must need the support of a 
 brother's affection. But then I bethought me that the worthy 
 and venerated M. Pillerault will doubtless fill my place. My 
 dear Cesar, in the midst of your troubles, do not forget that 
 this life of ours is a life of trial and a transition state; that 
 one day we shall be rewarded if we have suffered for the holy 
 name of God, for His holy Church, for putting in practice 
 the doctrines of the Gospel, or for leading a virtuous life; 
 if it were not so, the things of this present world would be 
 unintelligible. I repeat these words, though I know how good 
 and pious you are, because it may happen to those who, like 
 you, are tossed by the tempests of this world, and launched 
 upon the perilous seas of human concerns, to be led to blas- 
 pheme in their distresses, distracted as they are by pain. Do 
 not curse the men who will wound you, nor God, who mingles 
 bitterness with your life at His will. Look not on the earth, 
 but rather keep your eyes lifted to Heaven; thence comes 
 comfort for the weak, the riches of the poor are there, and 
 the fears of the rich . . ." 
 
 "Oh, Birotteau," interrupted his wife, "just miss that out, 
 and see if he is sending us anything." 
 
 "We will often read it over," said her husband, drying 
 his eyes. He opened the letter, and a draft on the Treasury 
 fell out. "I was quite sure of him, poor brother," said Bi- 
 rotteau, picking up the draft. 
 
 "... I went to see Mme. de Listomere," he continued, 
 reading in a voice choked with tears, "and without giving a
 
 258 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 reason for my request, I begged her to lend me all that she 
 could spare, so as to swell the amount of my savings. Her 
 generosity enables me to make up the sum of a thousand 
 francs, which I send you in the form of a draft by the Re- 
 ceiver-General of Tours upon the Treasury." 
 
 "A handsome advance !" said Constance, looking at Ce- 
 sarine. 
 
 "By retrenching some superfluities in my way of living, 
 I shall be able to repay Mme. de Listomere the money I have 
 borrowedof her in three years' time ; so do not trouble about 
 it, my dear Cesar. I am sending you all that I have in the 
 world, with the wish that the sum may assist you to bring 
 your difficulties to a happy termination; doubtless they are 
 but momentary. I know your delicacy, and wish to antici- 
 pate your scruples. Do not dream of paying any interest on 
 the amount, nor of returning it in the day of prosperity, 
 which will dawn for you before Jong, if God deigns to grant 
 the petitions which I make daily for you. After your last 
 letter, received two years ago, I thought that you were rich, 
 and that I might give my savings to the poor; but now all 
 that I have belongs to you. When you have weathered this 
 passing squall, keep the money for my niece Cesarine, so 
 that when she is established in life she may spend it on some 
 trifle which will remind her of an old uncle, whose hands 
 are always raised to Heaven to implore God's blessing upon 
 her, and for all those who shall be dear to her. Bear in mind, 
 in fact, dear Cesar, that J am a poor priest, living by the 
 grace <f God, as the wild-birds live in the fields, walking 
 quietly in my own path, striving to keep the commandments 
 of oui divine Saviour, and consequently needing but little. 
 So do not have the least hesitation in your difficult position, 
 and think of me as one who loves you tenderly. Our excel- 
 lent Abbe Chapeloud (to whom I have not said a word about 
 your strait) knows that I am writing to you, and wishes me 
 to send the most kindly messages to all your family, with
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 259 
 
 wishes for your continued prosperity. May God vouchsafe 
 to preserve you and your wife and daughter in good health ; 
 and I pray for patience to you all, and courage in the day of 
 adversity. "FRANCOIS BIROTTEAU. 
 
 "Priest of the Cathedral Church of Tours, and Vicar of the 
 Parish Church of Saint-Gatien." 
 
 "A thousand francs !" cried Mme. Birotteau, in vehement 
 anger. 
 
 "Lock it up," Cesar said gravely; "it is all he has. Be- 
 sides, it belongs to our Cesarine, and should enable us to live 
 without asking anything of our creditors." 
 
 "And then they will believe that you have taken away large 
 sums." 
 
 "I shall show them his letter." 
 
 "They will say that it is a fraud." 
 
 "Oil! mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" cried Cesar, appalled at this; 
 "I have often thought that very thing of poor folk who, no 
 doubt, were just in my position." 
 
 Mother and daughter were both too anxious about Cesar 
 to leave him, and they sewed on by his side. There was a 
 deep silence. At two o'clock in the morning the drawing- 
 room door was softly opened, and Popinot beckoned to Mme. 
 Cesar to come downstairs. At the sight of his niece, Uncle 
 Pillerault took off his spectacles. 
 
 "There is hope yet, my child," he said ; "all is not over ; but 
 your husband could not stand the strain of the ups and downs 
 of this business, so Popinot and I will try to arrange it. Do 
 not leave the shop to-morrow, and take down the names of all 
 the holders of the bills ; we have all the day till four o'clock. 
 This is my idea. There is nothing to fear from M. Ragon 
 or from me. Suppose now that Roguin had paid over to the 
 vendors the hundred thousand francs you deposited with him 
 in that case, you would no more have them than you have 
 them to-day. You have to meet bills to the amount of a hun- 
 dred and forty thousand francs, payable to Claparon's order;
 
 260 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 you must pay them anyhow, so it is not Roguin's bankruptcy 
 which is ruining you. Now, to meet your liabilities, I see 
 forty thousand francs to be borrowed sooner or later on your 
 factory, and sixty thousand francs in Popinot's bills. So 
 you may struggle through; for once through, you can raise 
 money on that building-land by the Madeleine. If your prin- 
 cipal creditor agrees to help you, I shall not consider my for- 
 tune ; I will sell my rentes; I shall be without bread ; Popinot 
 will be between life and death ; and, as for you, you will be at 
 the mercy of the smallest events. But the Oil will give a 
 good return, no doubt. Popinot and I have been consulting 
 together; we will support you in this struggle. Oh, I will 
 eat my dry bread gaily, if success dawns on the horizon. But 
 everything depends on Gigonnet and on Claparon and his 
 associates. We are going to see Gigonnet between seven and 
 eight, Popinot and I, and then we shall know what to make of 
 their intentions." 
 
 Constance, carried away by her feelings, put her arms about 
 her uncle, and could not speak for tears and sobs. Neither 
 Popinot nor Pillerault could know that Bidault, alias Gigon- 
 net, and Claparon were but two of du Tillefs doubles, and 
 that du Tillet had set his heart upon reading this terrible 
 paragraph in the Gazette: 
 
 "Decree of the Tribunal of Commerce. M. Cesar Birot- 
 teau, wholesale perfumer, of 397 Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 
 declared a bankrupt, date provisionally fixed, 16th of Jan- 
 uary 1819. Registrar: M. Gobenheim-Keller. Agent: M. 
 Molineux." 
 
 Anselme and Pillerault studied Cesar's affairs till day- 
 light came, and at eight o'clock that morning the two heroic 
 comrades, the old veteran and the subaltern of yesterday, 
 neither of whom was destined to experience on his own ac- 
 count, the dreadful agony of mind endured by those who go up 
 and down the stairs of Bidault, otherwise Gigonnet, betook 
 themselves without a word to the Rue Grenetat. It was a
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 201 
 
 painful time for both of them. More than once Pillerault 
 passed his hand over his forehead. 
 
 In the Hue Grenetat multifarious small trades are carried 
 on in every overcrowded house. Every building has a repul- 
 sive aspect. The hideousness of these houses has a distinct 
 quality of its own, in which the mean squalor of a poor in- 
 dustrial neighborhood predominates. 
 
 Old Gigonnet inhabited the third floor in one of these 
 houses. All the windows, with their dirty square panes of 
 glass, were secured to the frames by pivots, and tilted to ad- 
 mit the air; you walked straight up the staircase from the 
 street, and the porter lived in the box on the mezzanine floor 
 lighted from the staircase. Every one in the house, except 
 Gigonnet, plied some handicraft; workmen came and went 
 all day long. Every step on the stairs, where filth was allowed 
 to accumulate, was plastered over with a coating of mud, 
 hard or soft, according to the state of the weather. Each 
 landing on this fetid stair displayed the name of some crafts- 
 man painted in gilt letters on a sheet of iron, which, was 
 painted red and varnished, and some sample of the man's 
 achievements in his trade. The doors, for the most part, stood 
 ajar, affording glimpses of grotesque combinations of indus- 
 try and domestic life ; the sounds which issued thence, 
 snatches of song, yells, whistlings, and uncouth growls re- 
 called the noises heard at the Jardin des Plantes towards 
 four o'clock. The smartest braces for the trade in the article 
 Paris were being made in a loathsome den on the first floor; on 
 the second, among heaps of the most unsavory litter, the 
 manufacture of the daintiest cardboard boxes, displayed at 
 the New Year in shop windows, was carried on. Gigonnet, 
 who was worth eighteen hundred thousand francs, lived and 
 died on the third floor in this house. Nothing would induce 
 him to leave it, although his niece, Mme. Saillard, offered him 
 rooms in a mansion in the Place Royale. 
 
 "Courage!" said Pillerault, as he jerked the cord of the 
 lever bell-pull that hung by Gigonnet's neat gray-painted 
 
 door. 
 
 18
 
 262 
 
 Gigonnet himself opened it, and the perfumer's two cham- 
 pions in the lists of bankruptcy went through a formal, chilly- 
 looking room, with curtainless windows, and entered a second, 
 where all three seated themselves. 
 
 The bill-discounter took up his position before a grate full 
 of ashes, in which the wood maintained a stubborn resistance 
 to' the flames. The sight of his green cardboard cases, and 
 the monastic austerity of the office, windy as a cave, sent a 
 cold chill through Popinot. His dazed eyes wandered over 
 the pattern of the cheap wall-paper tricolor flowers on a 
 bluish background which had been hung some five-and- 
 twenty years back ; and turned from that depressing sight to 
 the ornaments on the chimney-piece, a lyre-shaped clock and 
 oval vases, blue Sevres ware, handsomely mounted in gilt 
 copper. This bit of flotsam, recovered by Gigonnet from the 
 wreck of Versailles, when the palace was sacked by the popu- 
 lace, came from a queen's boudoir, but the magnificent-look- 
 ing ornaments were flanked by a couple of wrought-iron 
 candlesticks of the commonest description, a harsh contrast 
 which continually reminded the beholder of the manner in 
 which their owner had come by those royal splendors. 
 
 "I know that you cannot come on your own account," said 
 Gigonnet, "but for the great Birotteau. Well, what is it, 
 my friends ?" 
 
 "I know that you have nothing to learn, so we will be 
 brief," said Pillerault. "Have you his bills payable to Cla- 
 paron ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Will you exchange the first fifty thousand francs that will 
 fall due for bills accepted by M. Popinot here, less the dis- 
 count, of course?" 
 
 Gigonnet lifted the terrible green cap, which seemed to 
 have been born with him, and displayed a bald butter-colored 
 pate, then with a Voltairean grin : 
 
 "You want to pay me in oil for hair," he remarked, "and 
 what should I do with it ?" 
 
 "When you joke it is time for us to take ourselves off," 
 said Pillerault.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 263 
 
 "You speak like the sensible man that you are/' said Qi- 
 gonnet, with a flattering smile. 
 
 "Very well, and how if I back M. Popinot's bills?" asked 
 Pillerault, making a final effort. 
 
 "You are as good as gold ingots, M. Pillerault; but I have 
 no use for gold ingots, all that I want is current coin." 
 
 Pillerault and Popinot took their leave and went. Even 
 at the foot of the staircase Popinot's knees still shook under 
 him. 
 
 "Is he a man?" he asked of Pillerault. 
 
 "People say so," answered the older man. "Keep this little 
 interview always in mind, Anselme ! You have seen what 
 money-lending is, stripped of its masquerade and palaver. 
 Some unforeseen event turns the screw upon us, and we are 
 the grapes, and bill-discounters the barrels. This specula- 
 tion in building-land is a good piece of business no doubt; 
 Gigonnet, or somebody behind him, has a mind to cut Ce- 
 sar's throat and to step into his shoes. That is all ; there is no 
 help for it now. And this is what comes of borrowing money ; 
 never resort to it." 
 
 It had been a dreadful morning for Mme. Birotteau. For 
 the first time she had taken the addresses of those who came 
 for money, and had sent away the Bank collector without 
 paying him ; yet the brave woman was glad to spare her hus- 
 band these humiliations. Towards eleven o'clock she saw 
 Pillerault and Anselme returning; she had been expecting 
 them with ever-increasing anxiety, and now she read her doom 
 in their faces. There was no help for it, the schedule must be 
 filed. 
 
 "He will die of grief," said the poor wife. 
 
 "I could wish that he might," said Pillerault gravely ; "but 
 he is so devout, that as things stand his director the Abbe 
 Loraux alone can save him." 
 
 Pillerault, Popinot, and Constance remained below, while 
 one of the assistants went for the Abbe Loraux. The Abbe 
 should prepare Birotteau for the schedule which Celestin was 
 copying out fair for his master's signature. The assistants
 
 264 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 were in despair; they loved their employer. At four o'clock 
 the good priest came. Constance told him all the details of 
 the calamity which had befallen them, and the Abbe went up- 
 stairs like a soldier mounting to the breach. 
 
 "I know why you have come," Cesar exclaimed. 
 
 "My son," said the priest, "your sentiments of submission 
 to the Divine will have long been known to me, now you are 
 called upon to put them in practice. Keep your eyes fixed 
 ever upon the Cross, contemplate the Cross without ceasing, 
 and think of the cup of humiliation of which the Saviour 
 of men was compelled to drink, think of the anguish of His 
 Passion, and thus you may endure the mortifications sent to 
 you by God " 
 
 "My brother the Abbe has already prepared me," said Cesar, 
 holding out the letter, which he read over again, to his con- 
 fessor. 
 
 "You have a good brother," said M. Loraux, "a virtuous 
 and sweet-natured wife, and a loving daughter, two real 
 friends in your uncle and dear Anselme, two indulgent cred- 
 itors in the Ragons. All these kind hearts will pour balm into 
 your wounds continually, and will help you to carry your 
 cross. Promise me to bear yourself with a martyr's cour- 
 age, and to take the blow without wincing." 
 
 The Abbe coughed, a signal to Pillerault in the next room. 
 
 "My submission is unlimited," said Cesar calmly. "Dis- 
 grace has come upon me; I ought only to think of making 
 reparation." 
 
 Cesarine and the priest were both surprised by poor Birot- 
 teau's tone and look. And yet nothing was more natural. 
 Every man bears a definitely known misfortune better than 
 suspense and constant alternations of excessive joy at one mo- 
 ment, followed on the next by the last extremity of anguish. 
 
 "I have been dreaming for twenty-two years," he said, "and 
 to-day I wake to find myself staff in hand again." Cesar had 
 once more become the Tourangeau peasant. 
 
 At these words Pillerault held his nephew tightly in his 
 arms. Cesar looked up and saw his wife and Celestin, the
 
 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 265 
 
 latter with significant documents in his hands; then he 
 glanced calmly round the group; all the eyes that met his 
 were sad but friendly. 
 
 "One moment !" he said, and unfastening his Cross of the 
 Legion of Honor, which he gave to the Abbe Loraux, "you 
 will give that back to me when I can wear it without a blush. 
 Celestin," he continued, turning to his assistant, "send in 
 my resignation; I am no longer deputy-mayor. M. 1'Abbe 
 will dictate the letter to you, date it January 14th, and send 
 Eaguet with it to M. de la Billardiere." 
 
 Celestin and the Abbe Loraux went downstairs. For nearly 
 a quarter of an hour perfect silence prevailed in Cesar's study. 
 Such firmness took the family by surprise. Celestin and the 
 Abbe came back again, and Cesar signed the letter of resigna- 
 tion; but when Pillerault laid the schedule before him, poor 
 Birotteau could not repress a dreadful nervous tremor. 
 
 "Oh, God ! have mercy upon us I" he said, as he signed the 
 terrible instrument and handed it to Celestin. 
 
 Then Anselme Popinot spoke, and a gleam of light crossed 
 his clouded brow. "Monsieur and madame," he said, "will 
 you grant me the honor of mademoiselle's hand ?" 
 
 This speech brought tears into the eyes of all who heard it ; 
 Cesar alone rose to his feet, took Anselme's hand, and said in 
 a hollow voice, but with dry eyes, "My boy, you shall never 
 marry a bankrupt's daughter." 
 
 Anselme looked Birotteau steadily in the face. 
 
 "Will you promise, sir, in the presence of your whole fam- 
 ily, to consent to our marriage, if mademoiselle will take me 
 for her husband, on the day when you shall have paid all your 
 creditors in full?" 
 
 There was a moment's pause. Every one felt the influence 
 of the emotion recorded in the perfumer's weary face. 
 
 "Yes," he said at last. 
 
 Anselme stretched out his hand to Cesarine with an in- 
 describable gesture; she gave him hers, and he kissed it. 
 
 "Do you also consent?" he asked her. 
 
 "Yes," she said.
 
 266 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "So I am really one of the family. I have a right to inter- 
 est myself in your affairs," was his comment, with an enig- 
 matical look. 
 
 Anselme hurried away lest he should betray a joy in too 
 great contrast with his master's trouble. Anselme was not 
 exactly delighted with the bankruptcy; but so absolute, so 
 egoistical is love, that Cesarine herself in her inmost heart 
 felt a glow of happiness strangely at variance with her bitter 
 distress of mind. 
 
 "While we are about it, let us strike every blow at once," 
 said Pillerault, and in Constance's ear. 
 
 An involuntary gesture, a sign not of assent, but of sor- 
 row, was Mme. Birotteau's answer. 
 
 "What do you mean to do, nephew ?" said Pillerault, turn- 
 ing to Cesar. 
 
 "To continue the business." 
 
 "I am not of that opinion,'" said. Pillerault. "Go into 
 liquidation, let your assets go to your creditors in the shape 
 of dividend, and go out of business altogether. I have often 
 thought what I should do if I were placed in a similar posi- 
 tion. (Oh ! you must be prepared for everything! The mer- 
 chant who does not contemplate possible insolvency is like 
 a general who does not lay his account with a defeat; he is 
 only half a merchant.) I myself should never have gone on 
 again. What ! Be compelled to blush before men whom I 
 should have wronged, to endure their suspicious looks and un- 
 spoken reproaches? I can think of the guillotine in one 
 instant all is over; but to carry a head on your shoulders to 
 have it cut off daily, is a kind of torture from which I should 
 escape. Plenty of men begin again as though nothing had 
 happened ; so much the better for them ! they are braver 
 than Claude- Joseph Pillerault. If you pay your way (and 
 pay ready-money you must), people will say that you man- 
 aged to save something for yourself; and if you have not 
 a half-penny, you will never recover. 'Tis good-evening to 
 you. Surrender your assets, let them sell you up, and do 
 something else."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 267 
 
 "But what?" asked Cesar. 
 
 "Eh! try for a place under the Government," said Pille- 
 rault; "you have influence, have you not? There are the 
 Due and Duchesse de Lenoncourt, Mme. de Mortsauf, M. de 
 Vandenesse! Write to them, go to see them, they will 
 find you some post in the Household, with a thousand crowns 
 or so hanging to it ; your wife will earn as much again ; your 
 daughter, .perhaps, may do the same. The case is not des- 
 perate. You three among you will earn something like ten 
 thousand francs a year. In ten years' time, you will be in a 
 position to pay a hundred thousand francs, for you will have 
 no expenses meanwhile; your womankind shall have fifteen 
 hundred francs from me ; and, as for you, we shall see." 
 
 It was Constance, and not Cesar, who pondered these wise 
 words, and Pillerault went on 'Change. At that time stock- 
 brokers used to congregate in a provisional structure of planks 
 and scaffolding, a large circular room, with an entrance 
 in the Eue Feydeau. The perfumer's failure was already 
 known, and had created a sensation in high commercial 
 circles, for their prevailing politics were Constitutional at 
 that time. Birotteau was a conspicuous personage, and envied 
 by many. Merchants, on the other hand, who leaned towards 
 Liberalism, regarded Birotteau's too celebrated ball as an au- 
 dacious attempt to trade on their sentiments, for the Opposi- 
 tion were fain to monopolize patriotism. Royalists were al- 
 lowed to love the King, but the love of their country was 
 the exclusive privilege of the Left, the Left was for the peo- 
 ple; and those in power had no right to rejoice thus vi- 
 cariously through the administration, in a national event 
 which the Liberals meant to exploit for their own benefit. 
 For which reasons the fall of a Ministerialist in favor at 
 Court, of an incorrigible Royalist who had insulted Liberty 
 by fighting against the glorious French Revolution on Ven- 
 demiaire 13th, set all tongues wagging on 'Change, and was 
 received with applause. 
 
 Pillerault wanted to know what was being said, and to 
 study public opinion. He went up to one of the most eager
 
 268 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 groups; du Tillet, Gobenheim-Keller, Nucingen, old Guil- 
 laume and his son-in-law Joseph Lebas, Claparon, Gigonnec, 
 Mongenod, Camusot, Gobseck, Adolphe Keller, Palma, 
 Chiffreville, Matifat, Grindot, and Lourdois were discussing 
 the news. 
 
 "Well, well, how careful one had need to be !" said Goben- 
 heim, addressing du Tillet; "my brothers-in-law all but 
 opened an account with Birotteau, it was a near thing." 
 
 "I am let in for ten thousand francs myself," said du 
 Tillet; "he came to me a fortnight ago, and I let him have 
 the money on his bare signature. But he obliged me once, 
 and I shall lose it without regret." 
 
 "Your nephew is like the rest," said Lourdois, addressing 
 Pillerault. "Gave entertainments. I can imagine that a 
 rogue might try to throw dust in your eyes to induce confi- 
 dence; but how could a man who passed for the cream of 
 honest folk descend to the stale mountebank's trickery that 
 never fails to catch us?" 
 
 "Like leeches," commented Gobseck. 
 
 "Only trust a man if he lives in a den like Claparon," said 
 Gigonnet. 
 
 "Veil," said the stout Baron Nucingen, for du Tillet's 
 benefit, "you haf dried to blay me a nice drick, sending 
 Pirodot to me. I do not know," he went on, turning to 
 Gobenheim the manufacturer, "why he did not send roundt 
 to me for vifty tousend vrancs; I should haf led him haf 
 dem." 
 
 "Oh ! not you, M. le Baron," said Joseph Lebas. "You 
 must have known quite well that the Bank had refused his 
 paper; you were on the Discount Committee which declined 
 it. This poor man, for whom I still feel a very great respect, 
 fails under singular circumstances " 
 
 Pillerault grasped Joseph Lebas' hand. 
 
 "It is, in fact, impossible to explain how the thing has 
 happened," said Mongenod, "except by the theory that there 
 is some one behind Gigonnet, some banker whose intention 
 it is to spoil the Madeleine speculation."
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 269 
 
 "The thing which has happened to him always happens to 
 people who go out of their own line," said Claparon, inter- 
 rupting Mongenod. "If he had brought out his Cephalic 
 Oil himself, instead of sending up the price of building lots in 
 Paris by rushing into land speculation, he would have lost his 
 hundred thousand francs through Eoguin, but he would not 
 have gone bankrupt. He will start afresh under the name of 
 Popinot." 
 
 "Keep an eye on Popinot," said Gigonnet. 
 
 According to this crowd of merchants. Roguin was "poor 
 Eoguin"; the perfumer was "that unlucky Birotteau." A 
 great passion seemed to excuse the one, the other appeared 
 the more to blame on account of his pretensions. Gigonnet 
 left the Exchange, and took the Rue Perrin-Gasselin on his 
 way home to the Rue Grenetat. He looked in on Mme. 
 Madou, the dry fruit saleswoman. 
 
 "Well, old lady," said he, with his cruel good-humor, '"and 
 how are we getting on in our way of business ?" 
 
 "Middling," said Mme. Madou respectfully, and she of- 
 fered the money-lender her only armchair with a friendly 
 officiousness which she had never shown to any one else but 
 the dear departed. 
 
 Mother Madou, who would fell a carman with a blow if 
 he were refractory or carried a joke too far, who had not 
 feared to assist at the storming of the Tuileries on the 10th 
 of October, who railed at her best customers (for that 
 matter, she was capable of heading a deputation of the Dames 
 de la Halle, and speaking to the King himself without a 
 tremor) Angelique Madou received Gigonnet with the ut- 
 most respect. She was helpless in his presence; she winced 
 under his hard eyes. It will be a long while yet before the 
 executioner ceases to be a terror to the people, and Gigonnet 
 was the executioner of the small traders. The man who sets 
 money in circulation is more looked up to in the Great Mar- 
 ket than any other power; all other human institutions are as 
 nought compared with him. For them the C<mmissaire is 
 Justice personified, and with the Commissaire they of the
 
 270 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Market become familiar. But the sight of the money-lender 
 entrenched behind his green cardboard cases, of the usurer 
 whom they implore with fear in their hearts, dries up the 
 sources of wit, parches the throat, and abashes the bold eyes; 
 the people grew. respectful in his presence. 
 
 "Have you come to ask something of me ?" said she. 
 
 "A mere trifle; be prepared to refund the amount of Bi- 
 rotteau's bills, the old man has gone bankrupt, so all outstand- 
 ing claims must be sent in; I shall send you in a statement 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The pupils of Mme. Madou's eyes first contracted like the 
 eyes of a cat, then flames leapt forth from them. 
 
 "0 the beggar ! the scamp ! and he came here himself 
 to tell me that he was deputy-mayor, piling on his lies ! The 
 Lord ha' mercy! That's just the way with business; there 
 is no trusting mayors nowadays ; the Government cheats us ! 
 You wait, I will have the money out of them, I will " 
 
 "Eh ! everyone comes out of this sort of thing the best way 
 he can, my little dear!" said Gigonnet, lifting one leg with 
 the precise little gesture of a cat picking its way among pud- 
 dles, a trick to which he owed his nickname.* "Some swells 
 have been let in who mean to get themselves out of the 
 scrape " 
 
 "Good ! good ! I will get my hazel-nuts out. Marie 
 Jeanne! my clogs and my lamb's-wool shawl. Quick! or I 
 will lend you a clout that will warm your cheeks." 
 
 "That will make it hot for them yonder up the street," 
 said Gigonnet to himself, as he rubbed his hands. "Du Tillet 
 will be satisfied; there will be a scandal in the Quarter. 
 What that poor devil of a perfumer can have done to him, I 
 don't know ; for my own part, I am as sorry for the man as 
 for a dog with a broken paw. He isn't a man ; he has no fight 
 in him." 
 
 Mme. Madou broke out like an insurrection in the Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Antoine towards seven o'clock that evening, ana 
 swept to the luckless Birotteau's door, which she opened with 
 unnecessary violence, for her walk had had an exciting effect. 
 
 Gigonuet, from Gigotter, to kick the legs about
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 271 
 
 "Brood of vermin, I must have my money, I want my 
 money ! You give me my money 1 or I will have sachets and 
 satin gimcracks and fans till I have the worth of my two thou- 
 sand francs! A mayor rohbing the people! Did any one 
 ever see the like ! If you don't pay me, I will send him to 
 jail; I will go for the public prosecutor; I will put the whole 
 posse of them on his tracks ! I do not stir from here without 
 my money, in fact." 
 
 She looked as if she would open the glass door of a cup- 
 board in which expensive goods were kept. 
 
 "The Madou is helping herself," said Celestin, speaking 
 in a low voice to his neighbor. The lady overheard the re- 
 mark, for during a paroxysm of rage the senses are either 
 deadened, or preternaturally alert, according to the tem- 
 perament. She bestowed on Celestin the most vigorous box 
 on the ear ever given and received in a perfumer's shop. 
 
 "Learn to respect women, my cherub," quoth she, "and not 
 to bedraggle the names of the people you rob." 
 
 Mme. Birotteau came forward from the back shop. Her 
 husband by chance was also there; in spite of Pillerault, he 
 chose to remain, carrying his humility and obedience to the 
 law so far as to be ready to submit to be put in prison. "Ma- 
 dame," said Constance, "for Heaven's sako, do not bring a 
 crowd together in the street." 
 
 "Eh ! let them come in," cried the saleswoman ; "I will tell 
 them about it ; it will make them laugh ! Yes, my goods 
 and the francs I made by the sweat of my brow go for you to 
 give balls. You go dressed like a Queen of France, forsooth, 
 and fleece poor lambs like me for the wool! Jesus! stolen 
 goods would burn my shoulders, I know ! I have nothing but 
 shoddy on my carcase, but it is my own ! Bandits and 
 thieves ! my money, or 
 
 She pounced upon a pretty inlaid case full of costly per- 
 fumery. 
 
 "Leave it alone, madame," said Cesar, appearing on the 
 scene; "nothing here belongs to me, it is all the property of 
 my creditors; I have nothing left but myself; and if you
 
 272 KISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 have a mind to seize me and put me in jail, I give you my 
 word of honor" (a tear overflowed his yes at this) "that I 
 will wait here for your process-server, police-officer, and 
 bailiff's men." 
 
 From his tone and gesture, he evidently meant to do as he 
 said ; Mme. Madou's anger died down. 
 
 "A notary has absconded with my money, and the disasters 
 which I cause come through no fault of mine," Cesar went 
 on ; "but in time you shall be paid, if I have to work myself 
 to death and earn the money by my hands as a market 
 porter." 
 
 "Come, you are a good man," said the market woman. "Ex^ 
 cuse my speaking, madame; but I shall have to fling myself 
 into the river, for Gigonnet will be down upon me, and I have 
 nothing but bills at ten months to give for your cursed 
 paper." 
 
 "Come round and see me to-morrow morning/' said Pille- 
 rault, coming forward; "I will arrange the business for you 
 at five per cent with a friend of mine." 
 
 "Quien! that is good Father Pillerault ! Why, yes, he is 
 your uncle," she went on, turning to Constance. "Come, 
 now, you are honest folk ; I shall not lose anything, shall I ? 
 Good-bye till to-morrow, old Brutus," she added, for the 
 benefit of the retired ironmonger. 
 
 Cesar insisted on remaining amid the ruins of his glory, 
 and would hear of no other course ; he said that by so doing 
 he could explain his position to all his creditors. In this 
 determination, Uncle Pillerault upheld Cesar in spite of the 
 entreaties of his niece. Cesar was persuaded to go upstairs, 
 and then the wily old man hurried to M. Haudry, put Cesar's 
 case before him, obtained a prescription for a sleeping- 
 draught, had it made up, and went back to spend the even- 
 ing in his nephew's house. With Cesarine's assistance, he 
 constrained Cesar to drink as they did; the narcotic did its 
 work: and fourteen hours later Birotteau awoke to find him- 
 self in Pillerault's own bedroom in the Kue des Bourdonnais, 
 a prisoner in the house of his uncle, who slept on a camp 
 bedstead put up in the sitting-room.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 273 
 
 When Pillerault had put Cesar into the cab, and Constance 
 had heard it roll away, then her courage failed her. Our 
 strength is often called forth by the necessity of sustaining 
 some one weaker than ourselves ; and the poor woman, now 
 that she was left alone with her daughter, wept as she would 
 have wept for Cesar if he had been lying dead. 
 
 "Mamma," said Cesarine, seating herself on her mother's 
 knee, with the gracious kitten-like ways that women only dis-/ 
 play for each other, "you said that if I bore my part bravely, 
 you would be able to face adversity. So do not cry, mother 
 dear. I am ready to work in a shop; I will forget what we 
 have been ; I will be a forewoman, as you were when you were 
 a girl ; you shall never hear a regret or a complaint from me. 
 And I have a hope. Did you not hear M. Popinot ?" 
 
 "Dear boy ! he shall not be my son-in-law." 
 
 "Oh ! mamma " 
 
 "He will be my own son." 
 
 "There is this one good thing about trouble, it teaches us to 
 know our real friends," said Cesarine ; and, changing places 
 with her mother, she at last comforted her, and soothed the 
 poor woman's grief. 
 
 The next morning Constance left a note for the Due de 
 Lenoncourt, one of the first Gentlemen of the Bedchamber. 
 She asked for an interview at a certain hour. Meanwhile, 
 she went to M. de la Billardiere, told him of the predicament 
 in which Cesar found himself in consequence of Roguin's 
 flight from the country, and begged the mayor to give her his 
 support with the Duke, and to speak for her, for she feared 
 that she might express herself ill. She wanted some post for 
 Birotteau. Birotteau would be the most honest of cashiers, 
 if there are degrees in the quality of honesty. 
 
 "The King has just appointed the Comte de Fontaine as 
 Comptroller-General of the Royal Household ; there is no time 
 to be lost." 
 
 At two o'clock La Billardiere and Mme. Cesar ascended 
 the great staircase of the Hotel de Lenoncourt in the Rue 
 Saint-Dominique, and were brought into the presence of
 
 274 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 one of the nobles highest in the King's favor, in so far as 
 Louis XVIII. could be said to have preferences. The gracious 
 reception accorded to her by a great noble, one of the little 
 group who formed a connecting link between the eighteenth- 
 century noblesse and those of the nineteenth, put hope into 
 Mme. Cesar. The perfumer's wife was great and simple in 
 her sorrow; sorrow ennobles the most commonplace natures, 
 for it has a grandeur of its own, but only those who are true 
 and sincere can take its polish. Constance was essentially 
 sincere. It was a question of prompt application to the King. 
 , In the midst of the discussion, M. de Vandenesse was an- 
 nounced. 
 
 "Here is your deliverer," exclaimed the Duke. 
 
 Mme. Birotteau was not unknown to the young man, who 
 had been once or twice to the perfumer's shop for those trifles 
 which are often of as much importance as great things. The 
 Duke explained La Billardiere's views; and when Vandenesse 
 learned the disasters, he went immediately with La Billardiere 
 to see the Comte de Fontaine on behalf of the Marquise 
 d'Uxelles' godson. Mme. Birotteau was asked to await the 
 result. 
 
 M. le Comte de Fontaine, like La Billardiere, was one of 
 the provincial noblesse, the almost unknown heroes of La 
 Vendee. Birotteau was no stranger to him, for he had seen 
 the perfumer at the Queen of Roses in former days. At that 
 time, those who had shed their blood for the Royalist cause 
 enjoyed privileges, which the King kept secret for fear of 
 hurting Liberal susceptibilities, and M. de Fontaine, one of 
 the King's favorites, was supposed to be in the confidence 
 of Louis XVIII. Not only did this influential person 
 definitely promise to obtain a post for the perfumer, but he 
 went to the Due de Lenoncourt, then in attendance, to ask 
 him for a moment's speech with the King that evening, and 
 to entreat for La Billardiere an audience with Monsieur 
 the King's brother, who had a particular regard for the old 
 Vendean. 
 
 That very evening M. le Comte de Fontaine came from
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 275 
 
 the Tuileries to inform Mme. Birotteau that as soon as her 
 husband had received his discharge, he would be appointed 
 to a post worth two thousand five hundred francs per annum 
 in the Sinking Fund Department, all places in the Household 
 being at that time filled with noble supernumeraries to whom 
 the Boyalist family were bound. 
 
 This success was but a part of the task undertaken by Mme. 
 Birotteau. The poor woman went to Joseph Lebas at the 
 sign of the Cat and Racket in the Hue Saint-Denis. On the 
 way thither she met Mme. Koguin in her showy carriage, 
 doubtless on a shopping expedition. Their eyes met, and the 
 visible confusion on the beautiful face of the notary's wife, 
 at this meeting with the woman who had been brought to 
 ruin, gave Constance courage. 
 
 "Never will I drive in a carriage paid for with other peo- 
 ple's money," said she to herself. 
 
 Welcomed by Joseph Lebas, she asked him to look for a 
 situation for her daughter in some respectable house of busi- 
 ness. Lebas made no promises, but a week later it was ar- 
 ranged that Cesarine should be placed in a branch of one of 
 the largest drapery establishments in Paris, which had just 
 been opened in the Quartier des Italiens. She was to live in 
 the house, and to take charge of the shop and counting-house, 
 with a salary of three thousand francs. She would represent 
 the master and mistress, and the forewoman was to act under 
 her orders. 
 
 As for Mme. Cesar herself, she went on the same day to 
 ask Popinot to allow her to take charge of the books, the 
 correspondence, and the household. Popinot knew well that 
 this was the one commercial house in which the perfumer's 
 wife might take a subordinate position and still receive the 
 respect due to her. The noble-hearted boy installed her in 
 his house, gave her a salary of three thousand francs, ar- 
 ranged to give his own room to her, and went up into the 
 attic. And so it came to pass that the beautiful woman, after 
 one short month spent amid novel splendors, was compelled 
 to take up her abode in the poor room where Gaudissart, An- 
 selme, and Finot had inaugurated the Cephalic Oil.
 
 276 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 The Tribunal of Commerce had appointed Molineux as 
 agent, and he came to take formal possession of Cesar's prop- 
 erty. Constance, with Celestin's help, went through the in- 
 ventory with him ; and then mother and daughter went to stay 
 with Pillerault. They went out on foot, and simply dressed, 
 and without turning their heads, and this was their leave- 
 taking of the house in which they had spent the third part 
 of a lifetime. Silently they walked to the Eue des Bourdon- 
 nais, and dined with Cesar, for the first time since their sepa- 
 ration. It was a melancholy dinner. They had each had time 
 to think over the position, to weigh the burden laid upon them, 
 to estimate their courage. All three were like sailors, pre- 
 pared to face the coming tempest without blinking the dan- 
 ger. Birotteau took heart again when he heard that great 
 personages had interested themselves for him and provided 
 for his future ; but he broke down when he heard of the ar- 
 rangement which had been made for his daughter. Then 
 hearing how bravely his wife had begun to work again, he 
 held out his hand to her. 
 
 Tears filled Pillerault's eyes for the last time in his life at 
 the sight of this pathetic picture of the father, mother, and 
 daughter united in one embrace; while Birotteau, the most 
 helpless and downcast of the three, held up his hand and 
 cried, "We must hope !" 
 
 "To save expense, you must live here with me; you shall 
 have my room, and share my bread. For a long time past I 
 have been tired of living alone ; you will take the place of that 
 poor boy I lost. And it will only be a step from here to your 
 office in the Rue d'Oratoire." 
 
 "Merciful God !" cried Birotteau. "There is a star to guide 
 me when the storm is at its height." 
 
 By resignation to his fate, the victim of a misfortune con- 
 sumes his misfortune. Birotteau could fall no further; he 
 had accepted the position; he became strong again. 
 
 In France when a merchant has filed his petition, the only 
 thing he need trouble himself to do is to retreat to some oasis 
 at home or abroad where he may passively exist like the child
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 277 
 
 that he is in the eye of the law; theoretically he is a minor, 
 and incapable of acting in any capacity as a citizen.* Prac- 
 tically, however, he is by no means a nullity. He does not, 
 indeed, show his face until he receives a "certificate of im- 
 munity from arrest" (which no registrar nor creditor has 
 been known to refuse), for if he is found at large without 
 it he is liable to be put in prison; but once provided with his 
 safe conduct, his flag of truce, he can take a stroll through 
 the enemy's camp, not from idle curiosity, but to counteract 
 and thwart the evil intentions of the law with regard to bank- 
 rupts. 
 
 A prodigious development of perverse ingenuity is the 
 direct result of any law which touches private interests. The 
 one thought of a bankrupt, as of everybody else who finds his 
 purposes crossed in any way by the law of the land, is how to 
 evade it. The period of civil death, during which time a 
 bankrupt must be considered as a kind of commercial chrysa- 
 lis, lasts for three months or thereabouts, the interval re- 
 quired for the formalities which must be gone through be- 
 fore creditors and debtor sign a treaty of peace, otherwise 
 known as a concordat, a word which indicates sufficiently 
 clearly that concord reigns after the storm raised by the clash- 
 ing of various interests which run counter to one another. 
 
 Directly the schedule is deposited, the Tribunal of Com- 
 merce appoints a registrar to watch over the interests of the 
 throng of unascertained creditors on the one hand, and on the 
 other to protect the bankrupt from the vexatious importuni- 
 ties and inroads of infuriated creditors, a double part which 
 presents magnificent possibilities if registrars had but time 
 to develop them. The registrar authorizes an agent by pro- 
 curation, to take formal possession of the bankrupt's prop- 
 erty, bills, and effects, and the agent checks the statement of 
 assets in the schedule ; lastly, the clerk of the court convenes 
 a meeting of creditors, by tuck of drum, that is to say, by ad- 
 
 *In France a bankrupt loses his civil and political status ; he recovers the right of 
 administering his own affairs after his discharge; but the disabilities are only re- 
 moved by Rehabilitation. This is an order granted by the Court when it is proved 
 that tae bankruot has paid debts and costs in full. 
 19
 
 278 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 vertisements in the newspapers. The creditors, genuine or 
 otherwise, are called upon to assemble and agree among them- 
 selves to appoint provisional trustees, who shall replace the 
 agent, step into the bankrupt's shoes, and, by a legal fiction, 
 become indeed the bankrupt himself. These have power to 
 realize everything, to make compromises, or to sell outright ; 
 in short, to wind up the whole business for the benefit of the 
 creditors, provided that the bankrupt makes no opposition. 
 As a rule, in Paris the bankruptcy is not carried beyond the 
 stage of the provisional trustees, and for the following rea- 
 sons: 
 
 The nomination of trustees is a proceeding calculated to 
 stir up more angry feeling than any other resolution which 
 can be passed by an assembly of men, deluded, baffled, be- 
 fooled, ensnared, bamboozled, robbed, cheated, and thirsting 
 for vengeance; and albeit, as a general thing, the creditor 
 is cheated, robbed, bamboozled, ensnared, befooled, baffled, 
 and deluded, in Paris no commercial crisis, no feeling, however 
 high, can last for three mortal months. Nothing in commerce 
 but a bill of exchange is capable of starting up clamorous 
 for payment at the expiration of ninety days. Before the 
 three months are out, all the creditors, exhausted by the wear 
 and tear, and worn out by the marches and counter-marches 
 of the liquidation, sleep soundly by the side of their excel- 
 lent little wives. These facts may enable those who are not 
 Frenchmen to understand how it comes to pass that the ap- 
 pointment of provisional trustees is usually final; out of a 
 thousand provisional trustees, there are not five who are ap- 
 pointed to carry the thing further. The reasons of the swift 
 abjuration of commercial enmity which has its source in a 
 failure may be imagined ; but for those who have not the good 
 fortune to be merchants, some explanation of the drama 
 known as a bankruptcy is necessary if they are to comprehend 
 how it constitutes the most monstrous legal farce in Paris, and 
 understand the ordinary rule to which Cesar's case was to be 
 so marked an exception. 
 
 A failure in business is a thrilling drama in three distinct
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 279 
 
 acts. Act the first may be called The Agent ; act the second, 
 The Trustees; and act the third, The Concordat, or payment 
 of composition. The spectacle is twofold, as is the case with 
 plays performed on the stage; for there is the spectacular 
 effect intended for the public, and the more or less invisible 
 mechanism by which the effects are produced, and the same 
 play if seen before and behind the scenes looks quite different 
 from different points of view. In the wings stand the bank- 
 rupt and his attorney (one of the advocates who practise at 
 the Tribunal of Commerce), and the trustees and agent and 
 the registrar complete the list. 
 
 Nobody outside Paris knows what no Parisian can fail to 
 know, that a registrar is the most extraordinary kind of 
 magistrate which the freaks of civilization have devised. In 
 the first place, he is a judge who, at every moment of his of- 
 ficial life, may go in fear that his own measure may be dealt 
 to him again. Paris has even seen the President of her 
 Tribunal of Commerce compelled to file his petition ; and the 
 ordinary judge, who is called upon to act as a registrar, is no 
 venerable merchant retired from business, whose magistracy 
 is a tribute to a stainless career ; but the active senior partner 
 of some great house, a man burdened with the responsibility 
 of vast enterprises. It is a sine qua non that a judge who is 
 bound to give decisions on the torrents of commercial dis- 
 putes which pour incessantly upon the capital shall have as 
 much, or more, business of his own than he can manage. 
 
 Thus the Tribunal of Commerce, which might have been 
 a useful transition stage and half-way house between the trad- 
 ing community and the regions of the noblesse, is composed 
 of busy merchants, who may one day be made to suffer for 
 unpopular awards, and a Birotteau among them may find a 
 du Tillet. 
 
 The judge or registrar, therefore, is of necessity a person- 
 age in whose presence a great deal is said to which perforce 
 he lends an ear, thinking the while .of his private concerns. 
 He is very apt to leave public business in the hands of the 
 trustees and the attorneys who practise at the Tribunal of
 
 280 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Commerce, unless some odd and unusual case turns up ; 
 instance of theft under curious circumstances, to draw 
 from him the remark that either the creditor or the debtor 
 must be a clever fellow. This personage, set on high above 
 the scene, like the portrait of a king in an audience-chamber, 
 is to be seen of a morning from five to seven o'clock in his 
 yard, if he is a timber merchant; in his shop, if, like Birot- 
 teau, he is a perfumer; and again, in the evening at dessert 
 after dinner, but always and in any case terribly busy. For 
 these reasons this functionary is usually dumb. 
 
 Let us do justice to the law ; the registrar's hands are tied 
 by the hasty legislation which provided for these matters; 
 and many a time he sanctions frauds which he is powerless 
 to hinder, as will shortly be seen. 
 
 The agent, instead of being the creditors' man, may play 
 into the debtor's hands. Each creditor hopes to swell his 
 share, and in some way to make better terms for himself 
 with the bankrupt, whom every one suspects of a secret hoard. 
 The agent can make something out of both sides, by dealing 
 leniently with the bankrupt on the one hand, or on the other 
 by securing something for the more influential creditors, and 
 in this way can hold with the hare and run with the hounds. 
 Not unfrequently a crafty agent has annulled a judgment by 
 buying out the creditors and releasing the merchant, who 
 springs up again at a rebound like an india-rubber ball. 
 
 The agent turns to the best furnished crib ; he will, if neces- 
 sary, cover the largest creditors and let the debtor go bare, 
 or he will sacrifice the creditors to the merchant's future, as 
 suits him best. So the whole drama turns on the first act; 
 and the agent, like the attorney of the Tribunal, is the utility- 
 man in a piece in which neither will play unless he is sure 
 of his fees beforehand. In nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 cases out of a thousand, the agent is for the debtor. 
 
 At the time when this story took place, it was the practice 
 of attorneys at the Tribunal of Commerce to go to the judge 
 who was to act as registrar and nominate a man of their own, 
 some one who knew something of the debtor's affairs and
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 281 
 
 conld manage to reconcile the interests of the many and of the 
 one the honorable trader who had fallen into misfortune. 
 Of late years it has been the practice of shrewd judges to 
 wait till this has been done so as to avoid the nominee, and 
 to make an effort to appoint a man of passable integrity. 
 
 During this first act the creditors, genuine or presumed, 
 present themselves to select the provisional trustees, an ap- 
 pointment which, as has been said, is practically final. In 
 this electoral assembly every creditor has a voice, whether his 
 claim is for fifty sous or fifty thousand francs, and the votes 
 are reckoned by count and not by weight. The names of the 
 trustees are proposed at the meeting, packed by the debtor 
 with sham creditors (the only ones who never fail to put in 
 an appearance) ; and from the names thus sent in, the regis- 
 trar, the powerless president, is bound to choose those who 
 shall act. Naturally, therefore, the registrar takes the 
 trustees from the debtor's hands, another abuse which turns 
 this catastrophe into one of the most burlesque dramas sanc- 
 tioned by a court of justice. The "honorable trader fallen 
 into misfortune" is master of the situation, and proceeds to 
 carry out a premeditated robbery with the law at his back. 
 In Paris, as a rule, the petty tradesmen are blameless. Before 
 a shopkeeper files his schedule, the poor honest fellow has left 
 no stone unturned ; he has sold his wife's shawl, and pawned 
 his spoons and forks ; and when he gives in at last, it is with 
 empty hands, he is utterly ruined, and has not even money to 
 pay the attorney, who troubles himself very little about his 
 client. 
 
 The law demands that the concordat, which remits a part 
 of the debt and restores the debtor to the management of his 
 affairs, should be put to the vote and carried by a sufficient 
 majority, with due regard to the amounts claimed by the 
 voters. To secure the majority is a great feat which demands 
 the most skilful diplomacy on the part of the debtor, his at- 
 torney, and the trustees amid the clash of conflicting inter- 
 ests. The ordinary commonplace stratagem consists in offer- 
 ing to such a body of the creditors as will represent the ma-
 
 282 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 jority required by the law, a premium to be paid over and 
 above the dividend which the meeting of creditors is to 
 consent to accept. For this gigantic swindle there is no 
 remedy. Successive Tribunals of Commerce, familiar with 
 it by dint of practice in non-official capacity, and grown wise 
 by experience, have decided of late that all claims are made 
 void where there is a suspicion of fraud ; thus it is to the 
 debtor's interest to complain of the "extortion," and the 
 judges of the Tribunal hope in this way to raise the moral 
 tone of proceedings in liquidation. But they will only suc- 
 ceed in making matters worse; creditors will exercise their 
 ingenuity to invent still more rascally devices which the 
 judges will brand as registrars, and profit by as merchants. 
 Another extremely popular expedient, which gave rise to 
 the expression "serious and legitimate creditor," consists in 
 creating creditors, much as du Tillet created a firm of 
 bankers. By introducing a sufficient number of Claparons 
 into the meeting, the debtor, in these diverse manifestations, 
 receives a share of the spoils, and sensibly diminishes the 
 dividends of the real creditors. This plan has a double ad- 
 vantage. The debtor obtains resources for the future, and at 
 the same time secures the proper number of votes represent- 
 ing (to all appearance) a sufficient proportion of the claims 
 upon the estate, the majority necessary for his discharge. 
 These "gay bogus creditors" are like sham electors in the 
 electoral college. What help has the "serious bond-fide cred- 
 itor" against his "gay, bogus" compeer ? He can rid himself 
 of him by attacking him ! Very good. But if the "serious 
 and bond-fide" creditor means to oust the intruder, he must 
 leave his own business to take care of itself, and he must em- , 
 ploy an attorney; and as the said attorney makes little or 
 nothing out of the case, he prefers to "conduct" bankruptcies, 
 and does not take a bit of pettifogging business too seriously. 
 Then, at the outset, before the "gay and bogus" one can be 
 unearthed, a labyrinth of procedure must be entered upon, 
 the bankrupt's books must be gone through to some remote 
 epoch, and application must be made to the Court to require
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 283 
 
 that the books of the pretended creditor shall be likewise 
 produced; the improbability of the fiction must be set forth 
 and clearly proved to the satisfaction of the judges of the 
 Tribunal, and the serious creditor must come and go and 
 plead and arouse interest in the indifferent. This Quixotic 
 performance, moreover, must be gone through afresh in each 
 separate case; and each gay and bogus creditor, if fairly con- 
 victed of "gaiety," makes his bow to the court with an "Ex- 
 cuse me, there is some mistake; I am very serious indeed.", 
 All this is done without prejudice to the rights of the debtor, 
 who may appeal and bring Don Quixote into the Court-Royal. 
 And in the meantime Don Quixote's own affairs go askew, 
 and he too may be compelled to file his schedule. 
 
 Moral : Let the debtor choose his trustees, verify the claims, 
 and arrange the amount of composition himself. 
 
 Given these conditions, who cannot imagine the underhand 
 schemes, the tricks worthy of Sganarelle, stratagems that a 
 Frontin might have devised, the lies that would do credit to 
 a Mascarille, the empty wallets of a Scapin, and all the re- 
 sults of these two systems ? Any bankruptcy since insolvency 
 came into fashion would supply a writer with material suffi- 
 cient to fill the fourteen volumes of Clarissa Harlowe. A 
 single example shall suffice. 
 
 The illustrious Gobseck, the master at whose feet the 
 Palmas, Gigonnets, Werbrusts, Kellers, and Nucingens of 
 Paris have sat, once found himself among the creditors of 
 a bankrupt who had managed to swindle him, and whom, on 
 that account, he proposed to handle roughly. Of this per- 
 son he received bills to fall due after the discharge for a sum 
 which (taken together with the dividends received at the 
 time) should pay the amount owing to him (Gobseck) in full. 
 Gobseck, in consequence, recommended that a final dividend 
 of twenty-five per cent be paid. Behold the creditors swindled 
 for Gobseck's benefit ! But the merchant had signed the il- 
 legal bills in the name of the insolvent firm; and when the 
 time came, a dividend of twenty-five per cent was all that he 
 could be made to pay upon them, and Gobseck, the great Gob-
 
 284 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 seek, received a bare fifty per cent. He always took off his 
 hat with ironical respect when he met that debtor. 
 
 As all transactions which take place within ten days before 
 the time when a man files his schedule are open to question, 
 certain prudent prospective bankrupts are careful to break 
 ground early, and to approach some of their creditors, whose 
 interest it is, not less than their own, to arrive at a prompt 
 settlement. Then the more astute creditors will go in search 
 of the simple or of the very busy, paint the failure in the 
 darkest colors, and finally buy up their claims for half their 
 value. When the estate is liquidated, these shrewd folk come 
 by the dividend on their own share, and make fifty, thirty, 
 or twenty-five per cent on the liabilities which they have pur- 
 chased, and in this way contrive to lose nothing. 
 
 After the failure is declared, the house in which a few bags 
 of money yet remain from the pillage is more or less her- 
 metically sealed. Happy the merchant who can effect an en- 
 trance by the window, the roof, the cellar, or a hole in the 
 wall, and secure a bag to swell his share ! When things have 
 come to this pass, this Beresina, where the cry of "Each for 
 himself" has been raised, it is hard to say what is illegal or 
 legal, false or true, honest or dishonest. A creditor is thought 
 a clever fellow if he "covers himself"; that is to say, if he 
 secures himself at the expense of the rest. All France once 
 rang with discussion of a prodigious failure, which took place 
 in a certain city where there was a Court-Koyal ; the magis- 
 trates therein being all personally interested in the case, ar- 
 rayed their shoulders in waterproof cloaks so heavy, that the 
 mantle of justice was worn into holes, on which grounds it 
 was necessary to transfer the affair into another court. There 
 was no registrar, no agent, no final judgment possible in the 
 bankrupt's own district. 
 
 In Paris these commercial quicksands are so thoroughly 
 well appreciated, that every merchant, however much time 
 he may have on his hands, accepts the loss as ;ni uninsured 
 accident; and, unless he is involved for some very large sum. 
 passes the matter to the wrong side of his profit and loss ac-
 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 285 
 
 count. He is not so foolish as to waste time over wasted 
 money; he prefers to keep his own pot boiling. As for the 
 little trader, hard put to it to pay his monthly accounts, and 
 tied to the narrow round of his own business, tedious law pro- 
 ceedings, involving a heavy initial outlay, scare him ; he gives 
 up the attempt to see through the matter, follows the example 
 of the great merchant, and makes up his mind to his loss. 
 Wholesale merchants do not file their schedule in these days ; 
 they liquidate by private arrangement; their creditors take 
 what is offered them, and give a receipt in full ; a plan which 
 saves publicity, and the delays of the law, and solicitors' fees, 
 and depreciation of stock consequent on a sudden realization. 
 It is a common belief that it pays better to have a private 
 arrangement than to force the estate into bankruptcy, so pri- 
 vate arrangements are more frequent than failures in Paris. 
 The second act of the drama is intended to prove that a 
 trustee is incorruptible; that there is not the slightest attempt 
 at collusion between them and the debtor. The audience, 
 who have most of them been at some time cast for the part of 
 trustees themselves, know that a trustee is another name for 
 a creditor whose claims are "covered." He listens, and be- 
 lieves as much as he pleases, till, after three months spent in 
 investigating liabilities and assets, the day comes when com- 
 position is offered and accepted. Then the provisional trus- 
 tees read a little report for the assembled creditors. The fol- 
 lowing is a general formula : 
 
 "GENTLEMEN, The total amount owing to us was one 
 million. We have dismantled our man like a stranded frigate. 
 The sale of old iron, timber, and copper has brought in three 
 hundred thousand francs, the assets therefore amount to 
 thirty per cent of the liabilities. In our joy at finding this 
 sum, when our debtor might have left us a bare hundred thou- 
 sand francs, we proclaim him to be an Aristides. We vote 
 him crowns and a premium by way of encouragement! We 
 propose to leave him his assets, and to give him ten or a dozen 
 years in which to pay us the dividend of fifty per cent, which
 
 280 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 he condescends to promise us. Here is the concordat, walk 
 up to the desk, and put your names to it !" 
 
 At these words the happy creditors fall on each other's 
 necks and congratulate one another. When the concordat 
 has been ratified by the Tribunal, the merchant's assets are 
 put at his disposition, and he begins business again as if 
 nothing had happened. He is at liberty to fail once more over 
 the payment of the promised dividends a sort of great- 
 grandchild of a failure, which not seldom appears like an in- 
 fant borne by a mother nine months after she has married her 
 daughter. 
 
 If the concordat is not accepted, the creditors forthwith 
 make a final appointment of trustees. They resort to extreme 
 measures, and band themselves together to exploit the debtor's 
 property and business; they lay their hands on everything 
 he has or may have, his reversionary rights in the property 
 of father and mother, uncles and aunts, and the like. This 
 is a desperate remedy found by a "union of the creditors." 
 
 If a man fails in business, therefore, there are two ways 
 open to him; by the first method, he takes things into his 
 own hands, and means to recover himself; in the second, 
 having fallen into the water, he is content to go to the bottom. 
 Pillerault knew the difference well. He was of Kagon's opin- 
 ion, that it was as hard to issue from the first experience with 
 clean hands as to emerge from the second a wealthy man. 
 He counseled surrender at discretion, and betook himself to 
 the most upright attorney on 'Change, asking him to conduct 
 the liquidation, and to put the proceeds at the disposition of 
 the creditors. The law requires that the creditors should 
 make an allowance for the support of the debtor and his fam- 
 ily while the drama is in progress. Pillerault gave notice to 
 the registrar that he himself would maintain his niece and 
 nephew. 
 
 Du Tillet had planned everything with a view to prolong- 
 ing the agony of his old master's failure, and in the follow- 
 ing manner. Time is so valuable in Paris, that, though there
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 287 
 
 are usually two trustees appointed, one only acts in the case ; 
 the other is nominated for form's sake ; he approves the pro- 
 ceedings, like the second notary in a notarial deed; and the 
 active trustee as often as not leaves the work to the attorney 
 employed by the bankrupt. By these means a failure of the 
 first kind is conducted so vigorously that everything is 
 patched up, fixed, settled, and arranged during the minimum 
 time required by the legal procedure. In a hundred days the 
 registrar might repeat the cold-blooded epigram of the Min- 
 ister who announced that "Order reigns in Warsaw." 
 
 Du Tillet meant to make an end of Cesar, commercially 
 speaking. So the names of the trustees appointed through 
 his influence had an ominous sound for Pillerault. M. Bi- 
 dault, otherwise Gigonnet, the principal creditor, was to do 
 nothing. Molineux, the fidgety little old person who had lost 
 nothing, was to do everything. Du Tillet had thrown this 
 noble corpse of a business to the little jackal to worry before 
 he devoured it. 
 
 Little Molineux went home after the meeting of creditors 
 at which the trustees were appointed, "honored" (so he put 
 it) "by the suffrages of his fellow-citizens," and as happy 
 in the prospect of domineering over Birotteau as an urchin 
 who has an insect to torment. The owner of house-property, 
 being a stickler for the law, bought a copy of the Code of 
 Commerce, and asked du Tillet to give him the benefit of his 
 lights. Luckily, Joseph Lebas, forewarned by Pillerault, had, 
 at the outset, obtained a sagacious and benevolent registrar, 
 and Gobenheim-Keller (on whom du Tillet had fixed his 
 choice) was replaced by M. Camusot, an assistant judge, and 
 Pillerault's landlord, a Liberal, and a rich silk merchant, 
 spoken of as an honorable man. 
 
 One of the most dreadful scenes in Cesar's life was his en- 
 forced conference with little Molineux ; the creature whom he 
 had looked upon as such a nullity was now, by legal fiction, 
 become Cesar Birotteau. There was no help for it; so, ac- 
 companied by his uncle, he climbed the six pair x>f stairs in 
 the Cour Batave, reached the old man's dismal room, and con-
 
 288 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 fronted his guardian, his quasi judge, the man who repre- 
 sented the body of his creditors. 
 
 "What is the matter ?" Pillerault asked on the stairs, hear- 
 ing a groan from Cesar. 
 
 "Oh! uncle, you do not know what kind of a man this 
 Molineux is." 
 
 "I have seen him at the Cafe David these fifteen years ; he 
 plays a game of dominoes there of an evening now and then. 
 That is why I came with you." 
 
 Molineux was prodigiously civil to Pillerault, and his man- 
 ner towards the bankrupt was contemptuously patronizing. 
 The little old man had thought out his course, studied his 
 behavior down to the minutest details, and his ideas were 
 ready prepared. 
 
 "What information do you want?" asked Pillerault. 
 "None of the claims are disputed." 
 
 "Oh! the claims are all in order," said little Molineux; 
 "they are all verified. The creditors are serious and bona- 
 fide! But there's the law, sir; there's the law! The bank- 
 'rupt's expenditure is out of proportion to his means. It ap- 
 pears that the ball " 
 
 "At which you were an invited guest," put in Pillerault. 
 
 "Cost nearly sixty thousand francs! At any rate, that 
 amount was spent on the occasion, and the debtor's capital 
 at that time only amounted to a hundred and some odd thou- 
 sand francs ! There is warrant sufficient for bringing the 
 matter before a registrar-extraordinary, as a case of bank- 
 ruptcy caused by serious mismanagement." 
 
 "Is that your opinion?" asked Pillerault, who noticed Bi- 
 rotteau's despondency at those words. 
 
 "Sir, the said Birotteau was a municipal officer, that makes 
 a difference " 
 
 "You did not send for us, I suppose, to tell us that the 
 case was to be transferred to a criminal court," said Pille- 
 rault. "The whole Cafe David would laugh this evening 
 at your conduct." 
 
 The little old man seemed to stand in some awe of the
 
 HIS AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 288 
 
 opinion of the Cafe David ; he gave Pillerault a scared look. 
 He had reckoned upon dealing with Birotteau alone, and 
 had promised himself that he would pose as sovereign lord 
 and Jupiter. He had meant to strike terror into Birotteav/s 
 soul by the thunderbolts of a formal indictment, to brandish 
 the axe above his head, to enjoy the spectacle of his anguish 
 and alarm, and then to relent at the prayer of his victim, and 
 send him away with eternal gratitude in his soul. But in- 
 stead of the insect, he was confronted with this business-like 
 old sphinx. 
 
 "There is nothing whatever to laugh at, sir !" said he. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," returned Pillerault. "You are con- 
 sulting M. Claparon prett} r freely; you are neglecting the 
 interests of the other creditors to obtain a decision that you 
 have preferential claims. Now I, as a creditor, can inter- 
 vene. The registrar is there." 
 
 "Sir," said Molineux, "I am incorruptible." 
 
 "I know you are," said Pillerault; "you are only getting 
 yourself out of the scrape, as the saying is. You are shrewd ; 
 you have done as you did in the case of that tenant of 
 yours " 
 
 "Oh ! sir, my lawsuit in the matter of the Rue Montorgueil 
 is not decided yet !" cried the trustee, slipping back into the 
 landlord at the word, just as the cat who became a woman 
 pounced upon the mouse. "A new issue, as they say, has 
 been raised. It is not a sub-tenancy ; he holds direct, and the 
 scamp says now that as he paid his rent a year in advance, 
 and there is only a year to run" (at this point Pillerault gave 
 Cesar a glance which recommended the closest attention to 
 what should follow), "and the year's rent being prepaid, he 
 might clear his furniture out of the premises. So there is a 
 new lawsuit. As a matter of fact, I ought to look after my 
 guarantees until I am paid in full ; there may be repairs which 
 the tenant ought to pay for." 
 
 "But you cannot distrain except for rent," remarked Pille- 
 rault. 
 
 "And accessories !" cried Molineux,, attacked in the centre.
 
 290 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "The article in the Code is interpreted by the light of deci- 
 sions; there are precedents. The law, however, certainly 
 wants mending in this respect. At this moment I am draft- 
 ing a petition to his lordship the Keeper of the Seals concern- 
 ing the hiatus. It would become the Government to con- 
 sider the interests of owners of property. The State depends 
 upon us, for we bear the brunt of the taxes." 
 
 "You are well qualified to enlighten the Government,'" said 
 Pillerault; "but on what point in this business of ours can 
 we throw any light for you ?" 
 
 "I want to know/' said Molineux with imperious emphasis, 
 "whether M. Birotteau has received any money from M. 
 Popinot." 
 
 "No, sir," answered Birotteau. A discussion followed as 
 to Birotteau's interest in the firm of Popinot, in the course 
 of which it was decided that Popinot had a right to demand 
 the repayment of his advances in full without putting in his 
 claim under the bankruptcy as one of Birotteau's creditors 
 for the half of the expenses of starting his business, which 
 Birotteau ought to have paid. Gradually, under Pillerault's 
 handling, Molineux became more and more civil, a symptom 
 which proved that he set no little store on the opinion of the 
 frequenters of the Cafe David. Before the interview ended 
 he was condoling with Birotteau, and asked him no less than 
 Pillerault to share his humble dinner. If the ex-perfumer 
 had gone by himself, he would perhaps have exasperated 
 Molineux, and brought rancor into the business; and now, 
 as at some other times, old Pillerault played the part of 
 guardian angel. 
 
 One horrible form of torture the law inflicts upon bank- 
 rupts ; they are bound to appear in person with the provisional 
 trustees and the registrar at the meeting of creditors which 
 decides their fate. For a man who can rise above it, as for 
 the merchant who is seeking his revanche, the dismal cere- 
 mony is not very formidable; but for any one like Cesar the 
 whole thing is an agony only paralleled by the last day in the 
 condemned cell. Pillerault did all in his power to make that 
 day endurable to his nephew.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 291 
 
 Molineux's proceedings, sanctioned by the bankrupt, had 
 been on this wise. The lawsuit concerning the mortgage on 
 the property in the Faubourg du Temple had been gained 
 in the Court of Appeal. The trustees decided to sell the land, 
 and Cesar made no objections. Du Tillet, knowing that the 
 Government meant to construct a canal to open communica- 
 tion between Saint-Denis and the Upper Seine, and that the 
 canal would pass through the Faubourg du Temple, bought 
 Cesar's property for seventy thousand francs. Cesar's 
 rights in the Madeleine building-land were abandoned to M. 
 Claparon, on condition that he on his side should make no 
 demand for half the registration fees, which Cesar should 
 have paid on the completion of the contract ; it was arranged 
 that Claparon should take over the land and pay for it, and 
 receive the dividend in the bankruptcy which was due to the 
 vendors. 
 
 The perfumer's interest in the firm of Popinot & Com- 
 pany was sold to the said Popinot for forty-eight thousand 
 francs. Celestin Crevel bought the business as a going con- 
 cern for fifty-seven thousand francs, together with the lease 
 of the premises, the stock, the fittings, the proprietary rights 
 in the Pate des Sultanes and Carminative Toilet Lotion, a 
 twelve years' lease of the factory and the plant being included 
 in the sale. 
 
 The liquid assets reached a total of one hundred and 
 ninety-five thousand francs, to which the trustees added sev- 
 enty thousand francs from the liquidation of "that unlucky 
 fellow Roguin." Two hundred and sixty-five thousand francs 
 in all. The liabilities amounted to about four hundred and 
 forty thousand francs, so that there would be a dividend of 
 more than fifty per cent. 
 
 A liquidation is something like a chemical process, from 
 which the clever insolvent merchant endeavors to emerge as 
 a saturated solution. Birotteau, distilled entirely in this 
 retort, yielded a result which infuriated du Tillet. Du Til- 
 let thought that there would be a dishonoring bankruptcy, 
 and behold a liquidation highly creditable to his man. He
 
 292 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 cared very little about the pecuniary gain, for he would have 
 the building-land by the Madeleine without opening his 
 purse ; he wished to see the poor merchant disgraced, ruined, 
 and humbled in the dust. The meeting of creditors would 
 doubtless carry out the perfumer in triumph on their shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 As Birotteau's courage returned, his uncle, like a wise 
 physician, gradually told him the details of the proceedings 
 in bankruptcy. These rigorous measures were so many heavy 
 blows. A merchant cannot but feel depressed when the 
 things on which he has spent so much money and so much 
 thought are sold for so little. He was petrified with as- 
 tonishment at the tidings which Pillerault brought. 
 
 "Fifty-seven thousand francs for the Queen of Roses! 
 Why, the stock is worth ten thousand francs! We spent 
 forty thousand francs on the rooms, and the fittings, the 
 plant, the moulds and boilers over at the factory cost thirty 
 thousand francs! Why, if the things are sold for half their 
 value, there is the worth of ten thousand francs in the shop, 
 and the Pate des Sultanes and the Lotion are as good as a 
 farm !" 
 
 Poor ruined Cesar's jeremiads did not alarm Pillerault 
 very much. The old merchant took them much as a horse 
 takes a shower of rain ; but when he came to talk of the meet- 
 ing of creditors, Cesar's gloomy silence frightened him. 
 Those who understand the weakness and vanity of human 
 nature in every social sphere, will understand that for an 
 ex-judge a return as a bankrupt to the Palais where he had 
 sat was a ghastly form of torture. He must receive his en- 
 emies in the very place whe.re he had been so often thanked 
 for his services; he, Birotteau, whose views as to bankruptcy 
 were so well known in Paris, he who had said, "A man who 
 files his schedule is an honest man still, but by the time he 
 comes out of a meeting of creditors he is a rogue." His uncle 
 watched for favorable opportunities, and tried to accustom 
 him to the idea of appearing before his creditors assembled, 
 as the law requires. This condition was killing Birotteau.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 293 
 
 His dumb resignation made a deep impression on Pillerault, 
 who, through the thin partition wall, used to hear him cry at 
 night. "Never ! never ! I will die sooner." 
 
 Pillerault, so strong himself by reason of his simple life, 
 understood weakness. He made up his mind to spare Bi- 
 rotteau the anguish to which his nephew might succumb, 
 the dreadful and inevitable meeting with his creditors ! The 
 law is precise, positive, and unflinching in this respect; the 
 debtor who refuses to appear is liable on these grounds alone 
 to have his case transferred out of the commercial into the 
 criminal court. But if the law compels the appearance of 
 the debtor, it exercises no such constraint upon the creditors. 
 
 A meeting of creditors is a mere formality except in cer- 
 tain cases ; when, for example, a rogue is to be ousted, or the 
 creditors unite to refuse the dividend offered, or cannot 
 agree among themselves because some of their number are 
 privileged to the prejudice of the rest, or the dividend 
 offered is outrageously small, and the bankrupt is doubtful 
 of obtaining a majority to carry the resolution. But when 
 the estate has been honestly liquidated, ' or when a rascally 
 debtor has squared everybody, the meeting is only a matter 
 of form. So Pillerault went round to the creditors one after 
 another, and asked each to empower his attorney to represent 
 him on that occasion. Every creditor, du Tillet excepted, was 
 sorry for Birotteau now that he had been brought low. All 
 of them knew how he had behaved, how well his books had 
 been kept, and how straightforward he had been in the mat- 
 ter. They were well pleased to find not one "gay" creditor 
 among their number. Molineux, as agent in the first place, 
 and afterwards as trustee, had found all that the poor man 
 possessed, down to the print of Hero and Leander which Po- 
 pinot had given him. Birotteau had not taken away such 
 small matters as his gold-buckles, his pin, and the two 
 watches, which even an honest man might not have scrupled 
 to keep. This touching obedience to the law made a great 
 sensation in commercial circles. Birotteau's enemies repre- 
 sented these things as conclusive signs of the man's stupidity; 
 20
 
 294 RISE AND FALL OP" CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 but sensible people saw them in their true light, as a magnifi- 
 cent excess of honesty. In two months a change had been 
 brought about in opinion on 'Change. The most indifferent 
 admitted that this failure was one of the greatest curiosities 
 of commerce ever heard of. So when the creditors knew 
 that they were to receive sixty per cent, they agreed to do 
 all that Pillerault asked of them. There are but few attor- 
 neys practising at the Tribunal ; so several of the creditors de- 
 puted the same man to represent them, and the whole formi- 
 dable assemblage was reduced to three attorneys, Ragon, the 
 two trustees, and the registrar. 
 
 "Cesar, you. can go without fear to your meeting to-day; 
 you will find nobody there/' Pillerault said on the morning 
 of that memorable day. 
 
 M. Ragon wished to go with his debtor. At the sound 
 of the thin elderly voice of the previous owner of the Queen 
 of Roses, all the color left his successor's face ; but the kind 
 little old man held out his arms, and Birotteau went to him 
 like a child to his father, and both shed tears. This indul- 
 gent goodness put fresh heart into Cesar, and he followed his 
 uncle to the cab. 
 
 Punctually at half-past three they arrived in the Cloitre 
 Saint-Merri, where the Tribunal of Commerce then held its 
 sessions. The Salle des Faillites was deserted. The day and 
 the hour had been fixed to that end with the approbation of 
 the trustees and the registrar. The attorne} r s were there on 
 behalf of their clients; there was nothing to fill Cesar's soul 
 with dread ; and yet the poor man could not enter M. Camu- 
 sot's room (which had once been his) without deep emotion, 
 and he shuddered as he went through the Salle des Faillites. 
 
 "It is cold," said M. Camusot, turning to Birotteau ; "these 
 gentlemen will not be sorry to stay here instead of being 
 frozen in the Salle." (He would not say the Salle des Fail- 
 lites.) "Seat yourselves, gentlemen." 
 
 Every one sat down ; the registrar put Cesar, still confused, 
 into his own armchair. Then trustees and attorneys signed 
 their names.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 295 
 
 "In consideration of the abandonment of your estate," said 
 Camusot, again addressing Birotteau, "your creditors unani- 
 mously agree to forego the remainder of their claims; your 
 concordat is couched in language which may soften your re- 
 grets ; your attorney will have it confirmed by the Tribunal at 
 once. So you are discharged. All the judges of the Tribunal 
 have felt sorry that you should be placed in such a position, 
 dear M. Birotteau^ without being surprised by your cour- 
 age," Camusot went on, taking Birotteau's hands, "and there 
 is no one but appreciates your integrity. Through your dis- 
 asters you have shown yourself worthy of the position which 
 you held here. I have been in business these twenty years, 
 and this is the second time that I have seen a merchant rise 
 in public esteem 'after his failure/ '' 
 
 Birotteau grasped the registrar's hand and squeezed it. 
 There were tears in his eyes. Camusot asked him what he 
 meant to do, and Birotteau answered that he was going to 
 work, and that he intended to pay his creditors in full. 
 
 "If you should be in want of a few thousand francs to carry 
 out your noble design you will always find them if you come 
 to me," said Camusot ; "I would give them with great pleas- 
 ure to see a thing not often seen in Paris." 
 
 Pillerault, Ragon, and Birotteau left the Tribunal. 
 
 "Well, was it so bad after all ?" said Pillerault, when they 
 stood outside. 
 
 "I can see your hand in it, uncle," said Cesar, deeply 
 touched. 
 
 "And now that you are on your feet again, come and see 
 my nephew," said Ragon; "it is only a step to the Rue des 
 Cinq-Diamants." 
 
 It was with a cruel pang that Cesar looked up and saw 
 Constance sitting at her desk in a room on the low dark floor 
 above the shop ; dark, for a signboard outside, on which the 
 name "A. Popinot" was painted, cut off one-third of the light 
 from the window. 
 
 "Here is one of Alexander's lieutenants," said Birotteau, 
 pointing to the sign with the forced mirth of misfortune.
 
 290 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 This constrained gaiety, the naive expression of Birotteau's 
 old belief in his superior talents, made Kagon shudder, de- 
 spite his seventy years. But Cesar's cheerfulness broke down 
 when his wife brought down letters for Popinot to sign, and 
 his face turned white in spite' of himself. 
 
 "Good-evening, dear," she said, smiling at him. 
 
 "I need not ask whether you are comfortable here," Cesar 
 said, and he looked at Popinot. 
 
 "I might be in my own son's house," she said, and her hus- 
 band was struck by the tender expression which crossed her 
 face. 
 
 Birotteau embraced Popinot, saying, "I have just lost for 
 ever the right to call you my son." 
 
 "Let us hope," said Popinot. "Your Oil is going well, 
 thanks to our efforts in the newspapers, and thanks to Gau- 
 dissart, who has been all over, and flooded France with pla- 
 cards and prospectuses. He is having prospectuses in German 
 printed at Strasbourg, and is just about to descend on Ger- 
 many like an invasion. We have orders for three thousand 
 gross." 
 
 "Three thousand gross !" echoed Cesar. 
 
 "And I have bought some land in the Faubourg Saint- 
 Marceau, not badly; a factory is to be built there. I shall 
 keep on at the other place in the Faubourg clu Temple." 
 
 "With a little help, wife," Birotteau said in Constance's 
 ear, "we shall pull through." 
 
 From that memorable day Cesar and his wife and daugh- 
 ter understood one another. Poor clerk, as he was, he had 
 set himself a task which, if not impossible, was gigantic ; he 
 would pay his creditors in full ! The three, united by a com- 
 mon bond of fierce independence, grew miserly, and denied 
 themselves everything ; every farthing was consecrated to this 
 end. Cesarine, with one object in her mind, threw herself 
 into her work with a young girl's devotion. She spent her 
 nights in devising schemes for increasing the prosperity of 
 the house ; she invented designs for materials, and brought 
 her inborn business faculties into play. Her employers were
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTBAU 297 
 
 obliged to check her ardor for work, and rewarded her with 
 presents, hut she declined the ornaments and trinkets which 
 they offered ; it was money that she preferred. Every month 
 she took her salary, her little earnings, to her Uncle Pille- 
 rault, and Cesar and Mme. Birotteau did the same. All three 
 of them recognized their lack of ability, and shrank from 
 assuming the responsible task of investing their savings. So 
 the uncle went into business again, and studied the money 
 market. At a later time it was known that Jules Desmarets 
 and Joseph Lebas had helped him with their counsel; both 
 had zealously looked for safe investments. 
 
 Birotteau, living in his uncle's house, did not even dare 
 to ask any questions about the uses to which the family sav- 
 ings were put. He went through the streets with a bent head, 
 shrinking from all eyes, downcast, nervous, blind to all that 
 passed. It vexed him that he must wear fine cloth. 
 
 "At any rate, I am not eating my creditors' bread," he said, 
 with an angelic glance at the kind old man. "Your bread is 
 sweet" (he went on), "although you give it me out of pity, 
 when I think that, thanks to this sacred charity, I am not 
 robbing my creditors of my earnings." 
 
 The merchants who met the Birotteau of those days could 
 not see a trace of the Birotteau whom they used to know. Vast 
 thoughts were awakened in indifferent beholders at sight of 
 that face so dark with the blackest misery, of the man who 
 had never been thoughtful so bowed down beneath the weight 
 of a thought; it was a revelation of the depths, in that this 
 being, dwelling on so ordinary a human level, could have had 
 so far to fall. To the man who would fain be wiped out comes 
 no extinction. Shallow natures who lack a conscience, and 
 are incapable of much feeling, can never furnish forth the 
 tragedy of man and fate. Religion alone sets its peculiar 
 seal on those who have sounded these depths; they believe 
 in a future and in a Providence; a certain light shines in 
 them, a look of holy resignation, blended with hope, which 
 touches those who behold it; they know all that they have 
 lost, like the exiled angel weeping at the gates of Heaven.
 
 298 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEATT 
 
 A bankrupt cannot show his face on 'Change; and Cesar, 
 thrust out from the society of honest men, was like the angel 
 sighing for pardon. 
 
 For fourteen months Cesar refused all amusements; his 
 mind was full of religious thoughts, inspired by his fall. Sure 
 though he was of the Ragons' friendship, it was impossible 
 to induce him to dine with them; nor would he visit the 
 Lebas, nor the Matifats, the Protez and Chiffrevilles, nor 
 even M. Vauquelin, though all were anxious to show their ad- 
 miration for Cesar's behavior. He would rather be alone in 
 his own room, where he could not meet the eyes of any one to 
 whom he owed money; and the most cordial kindness on the 
 part of his friends recalled him to a sense of the bitterness 
 of his position. 
 
 Constance and Cesarine went nowhere. On Sundays and 
 holidays, the only times when they were free, the two women 
 went first to Mass, and then home with Cesar after the ser- 
 vice. Pillerault used to ask the Abbe Loraux to come the 
 Abbe Loraux who had sustained Cesar in his .trouble and 
 they made a family party. The old ironmonger could not but 
 approve his nephew's scruples, his own sense of commercial 
 honor was too keen; and therefore his mind was bent upon 
 increasing the number of people whom the bankrupt might 
 look in the face with a clear brow. 
 
 In May 1821 the efforts of the family thus struggling with 
 adversity were rewarded by a holiday, contrived by the ar- 
 biter of their destinies. The first Sunday in that month was 
 the anniversary of the betrothal of Cesar and Constance. 
 Pillerault and the Ragons had taken a little house in the 
 country at Sceaux, and the old ironmonger wanted to make a 
 festival of the house-warming. 
 
 On the Saturday evening he spoke to his nephew. "We are 
 going into the country to-morrow, Cesar," he said, "and you 
 must come too." 
 
 Cesar, who wrote a beautiful hand, copied documents for 
 Derville and several other lawyers in the evenings, and on 
 Sundays (with a dispensation from the cure) he worked like 
 a negro.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 299 
 
 "No," he answered ; "M. Derville is waiting for an account 
 of a guardianship." 
 
 "Your wife and daughter deserve a holiday, and there will 
 be no one but our friends the Abbe Loraux, the Ragons, 
 and Popinot and his uncle. Besides, I want you to come." 
 
 Cesar and his wife, carried away by the daily round of 
 their busy lives, had never gone back to Sceaux, though from 
 time to time they both had wished to see the garden again, 
 and the lime-tree beneath which Cesar had almost swooned 
 with joy, in the days when he was still an assistant at the 
 Queen of Roses. To-day, when Popinot drove them, and 
 Birotteau sat with Constance and their daughter, his wife's 
 eyes turned to his from time to time, but the look of intelli- 
 gence in them drew no answering smile from his lips. She 
 whispered a few words in his ear, but a shake of the head 
 was the only response. The sweet expressions of tenderness, 
 unalterable, but now forced somewhat, brought no light into 
 Cesar's eyes; his face grew gloomier, the tears which he had 
 kept back began to fill his eyes. Twenty years ago he had 
 been along this very road, when he was young and prosper- 
 ous and full of hope, the lover of a girl as lovely as Cesarine, 
 who was with them now. Then he had dreamed of happiness 
 to come ; to-day he saw his noble child's face, pale with long 
 hours of work, and his brave wife, of whose great beauty there 
 remained such traces as are left to a beautiful city after the 
 lava flood has poured over it. Of all that had been, love alone 
 was left. Cesar's attitude repressed the joy in the girl's 
 heart and in Anselme, the two who now represented the 
 lovers of that bygone day. 
 
 "Be happy, children; you deserve to be happy," said the 
 poor father, in heartrending tones. "You can love each other 
 with no after-thoughts," added he ; and as he spoke, he took 
 both his wife's hands in his and kissed them with a reverent, 
 admiring affection which touched her more than the bright- 
 est cheerfulness. Pillerault, the Ragons, the Abbe Loraux, 
 and Popinot the elder were all waiting for them at the house ; 
 there was an understanding among those five kindly souls,
 
 300 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 and their manner, and looks, and words put Cesar at his ease, 
 for it went to their hearts to see him always as if on the mor- 
 row of his failure. 
 
 "Take a walk in the Bois d'Aulnay," said Pillerault, put- 
 ting Cesar's hand into his wife's hand. "Go and take An- 
 selme and Cesarine with you, and come back again at four 
 o'clock." 
 
 "Poor things, we are in the way," said Mme. Ragon, 
 touched by her debtor's unfeigned misery; "he will be very 
 happy before long." 
 
 "It is a repentance without the sin," said the Abbe Loraux. 
 
 "He could only have grown great through misfortune," 
 said the judge. 
 
 The power of forgetting is the great secret of strong and 
 creative natures ; they forget after the manner of nature, who 
 knows nothing of a past ; with every hour she begins afresh the 
 constant mysterious workings of fertility. But weak natures, 
 like Birotteau, take their sorrows into their lives instead of 
 transmuting them into the axioms of experience; and, steep- 
 ing themselves in their troubles, wear themselves out by re- 
 verting daily to the old unhappiness. 
 
 When the two couples had found the footpath which leads 
 to the Bois d'Aulnay, set like a crown on one of the loveliest 
 of the low hills about Paris ; when the Vallee-aux-Loups lay 
 below them in its enchanting beauty, the bright day, the 
 charm of the view, the fresh green leaves about them, and de- 
 licious memories of that fairest day of their youth, relaxed 
 the chords which grief had strung to resonance in Cesar's 
 soul; he held his wife's arm tightly against his beating heart; 
 his eyes were glazed no longer, a glad light shone in them. 
 
 "At last I see you again, my dear Cesar," Constance said. 
 "It seems to me that we are behaving well enough to allow 
 ourselves a little pleasure from time to time." 
 
 "How can I ?" poor Birotteau answered. "Oh ! Constance, 
 your love is the one good left to me. I have lost everything, 
 even the confidence that I used to have in myself. I have 
 no heart left in me; I want to live long enough to pay mj
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 301 
 
 dues on earth before I die, and that is all. You, dear, who 
 have been wisdom and prudence for me, who saw things 
 clearly, you who are not to blame, may be glad. Among us 
 three, I am the only guilty one. Eighteen months ago, at that 
 unlucky ball, I saw this Constance of mine, the only woman 
 whom I have loved, more beautiful perhaps than the young 
 girl with whom I wandered along this path twenty years ago, 
 as our children are wandering together now. ... In less 
 than two years I have blighted that beauty, my pride, and I 
 had a right to be proud of it. I love you more as I know you 
 better. . . . Oh ! dearest !" and his tone gave the word 
 an eloquence that went to his wife's heart, "if only I might 
 hear you scold me, instead of soothing my distress." 
 
 "I did not think it possible," she said, "that a woman 
 could love her husband more after twenty years of life to- 
 gether." 
 
 For a moment Cesar forgot all his troubles at the words 
 that brought such a wealth of happiness to a heart like his. 
 It was with something like joy in his soul that he went to- 
 wards their tree, which by some chance had not been cut 
 down. Husband and wife sat down beneath it and watched 
 Anselme and Cesarine, who walked to and fro, on the same 
 plot of grass, unconscious of their movements, fancying per- 
 haps that they were still walking on and on. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," Anselme was saying, "do you think me 
 so base and so greedy as to take advantage of the fact that I 
 own your father's interest in the Cephalic Oil ? I have care- 
 fully set aside his share of the profits; I am keeping them 
 for him. I am adding interest to the money; if there are any 
 doubtful debts, I pass them to my own account. We can only 
 belong to each other when your father has been rehabilitated : 
 I am trying with all the strength that love gives me to bring 
 that day soon." 
 
 He had carefully kept his secret from Cesarine's mother; 
 but the simplest lover is always anxious to be great in his 
 love's eyes. 
 
 "And will it come soon ?" she asked.
 
 302 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 ''Very soon," said Popinot. 
 
 The tone in which the answer was given was so penetrat- 
 ing, that the innocent and pure-hearted girl held up her fore- 
 head for her lover's kiss, fervent and respectful, for Cesarine's 
 noble nature had spoken so plainly in the impulse. 
 
 "Everything is going well, papa," she said, with the air of 
 one who knows a great deal. "Be nice, and talk, and don't 
 look so sad any longer." 
 
 When these four people, so closely bound together, returned 
 to Pillerault's new house, Cesar, unobservant though he was, 
 felt from the Eagons' altered manner that something was im- 
 pending. Mme. Ragon was peculiarly gracious; her look 
 and tone said plainly to Cesar, "We are paid." 
 
 After dinner the notary of Sceaux appeared. Pillerault 
 asked him to be seated, and glanced at Birotteau, who began 
 to suspect some surprise, though he did not imagine how- 
 great it would be. Pillerault began : 
 
 "Your savings for eighteen months, nephew, and those of 
 your wife and daughter amount to twenty thousand francs. 
 I received thirty thousand francs in the shape of dividend, 
 so we have fifty thousand francs to divide among your cred- 
 itors. M. Ragon has received thirty thousand francs as divi- 
 dend ; so this gentleman, who is the notary of Sceaux, is about 
 to hand you a receipt in full for principal and interest, paid 
 to your friends. The rest of the money is with Crottat for 
 Lourdois, old Mme. Madou, the builder, and the carpenter, 
 and the more pressing of your creditors. Next year we shall 
 see. One can go a long way with time and patience." 
 
 Birotteau's joy cannot be described ; he embraced his uncle, 
 and shed tears. 
 
 "Let him wear his Cross to-day/' said Ragon, addressing 
 the Abbe Loraux, and the confessor fastened the red ribbrn 
 to Cesar's buttonhole. A score of times that evening he looked 
 at himself in the mirrors on the walls of the sitting-room with 
 a delight which people who believe themselves to be superior 
 would laugh at; but these good-hearted citizens saw nothing
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 303 
 
 unnatural in it. The next day Birotteau went to see Mme. 
 Madou. 
 
 "Oh ! is that you !" she cried ; "I did not know you, old man, 
 you have grown so gray. Still, the like of you don't come 
 to grief ; there are places under Government for you. I my- 
 self am working as hard as a poodle that turns a spit, and de- 
 serves to be christened." 
 
 "But, madame 
 
 "Oh, I'm not blaming you," she said ; "you had your dis- 
 charge." 
 
 "I have come to tell you that I will pay you the balance 
 to-day, at Maitre Crottat's office, and interest also " 
 
 "Eeally?" 
 
 "You must be there at half-past eleven." 
 
 "There's honesty for you ! good measure, and thirteen to 
 the dozen," cried she, in outspoken admiration. "Stop, sir, I 
 do a good trade with that red-haired youngster of yours ; he is 
 a nice young fellow ; he lets me make my profit without hag- 
 gling over the price, so as to make up to me for the loss. Well, 
 then, I will give you the receipt; keep your money, poor old 
 soul ! La Madou fires up like tinder, she hollers out, but she 
 has something here," and she tapped the most ample cushion 
 of live flesh ever known in the Great Market. 
 
 "Never !" said Birotteau, "the law is explicit ; I mean to 
 pay you in full." 
 
 "Then there is no need to keep on begging and praying 
 of me. And to-morrow at the Market I will sound your 
 praises ; they shall all know about you. Oh ! it is a rare joke I" 
 
 The worthy man went through the same scene again with 
 the house-painter, Crottat's father-in-law, but with some va- 
 riations. It was raining. Cesar left his umbrella in a corner 
 by the door, and the well-to-do house painter, sitting at break- 
 fast with his wife in a handsomely furnished room, saw the 
 stream of water trickle across the floor, and was not too con- 
 siderate. 
 
 "Hallo, poor old Birotteau, what do you want?" he asked, 
 in the hard tone which people use to a tiresome beggar.
 
 304 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Has not your son-in-law asked you, sir " 
 
 "What?" Lourdois broke in impatiently. Some request 
 was to follow, he thought. 
 
 "To go to his office this morning at half-past eleven, to 
 give me a receipt in full for the balance of your claim." 
 
 "Oh ! that is another thing ! Just sit you down, M. Birot- 
 teau, and take a bite with us " 
 
 "Do us the honor of breakfasting with us," said Mme. Lour- 
 dois. 
 
 "Doing pretty well?" asked her burly spouse. 
 
 "No, sir. I have had to lunch off a roll in my office to get 
 some money together, but I hope in time to repair the wrong 
 done to my neighbors." 
 
 "Really, you are a man of honor," remarked the house- 
 painter, as he swallowed a mouthful of bread and butter and 
 Strasbourg pie. 
 
 "And what is Mme. Birotteau doing?" asked Mme. Lour- 
 dois. 
 
 "She is keeping the books in M. Anselme Popinot's count- 
 ing-house." 
 
 "Poor things !" said Mme. Lourdois, in a low voice. 
 
 "If you should want me, come and see me, my dear M. Bi- 
 rotteau," began Lourdois; "I might be of use 
 
 "I want you at eleven o'clock, sir," said Birotteau, and 
 with that he went. 
 
 This first result gave Birotteau fresh courage, but it did not 
 give him peace of mind. The desire to redeem his character 
 perturbed him beyond all measure. He completely lost the 
 bloom which used to appear in his face, his eyes grew dull, his 
 cheeks hollow. Old acquaintances who met him at eight 
 o'clock in the morning, or after four in the afternoon on his 
 way to and from the Rue de 1'Oratoire, saw a pale-faced, 
 nervous, white-haired man, wearing the same overcoat which 
 he had had at the time of the bankruptcy (for he was as care- 
 ful of it as a poor sub-lieutenant who economizes his uni- 
 form). Sometimes they would stop him in spite of himself, 
 for he was quick-sighted, slinking home, keeping close to the 
 wall like a thief.
 
 RISE AND FALL OP CESAR BIROTTEAU 305 
 
 "People know how you have behaved, my friend/' they 
 would say. "Everybody is sorry to see how hardly you live, 
 you and your wife and daughter." 
 
 "Take a little more time about it," others would suggest. 
 "A wound in the purse is not mortal." 
 
 "No, but a wound in the soul is deadly indeed," the poor 
 feeble Cesar said one day in answer to Matifat. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1823 the Canal Saint-Martin' 
 was decided upon, and land in the Faubourg du Temple 
 fetched fabulous prices. The canal would actually pass 
 through the property once Cesar's, now du Tillet's. The com- 
 pany who had purchased the concession were prepared to pay 
 du Tillet an exorbitant sum for the land if he would put them 
 in possession within a given time, and Popinot's lease was 
 the one obstacle in the way. So du Tillet went to see the 
 druggist in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants. 
 
 If Popinot himself regarded du Tillet with indifference, 
 as Cesarine's lover he felt an instinctive hatred of the man. 
 He knew nothing of the theft, nor of the disgraceful machina- 
 tions of the lucky banker, but a voice within him said, "This 
 is a thief who goes unpunished." Popinot had not had the 
 slightest transaction with du Tillet, whose presence was hate- 
 ful to him, and particularly hateful at that moment when 
 he beheld du Tillet enriched with the spoils of his employer's 
 property, for the building-land at the Madeleine was begin- 
 ning to command prices which presaged the exorbitant sums 
 which were asked for them in 1827. So when the banker 
 explained the reason of his visit, Popinot looked at him with 
 concentrated indignation. 
 
 "I do not mean to refuse outright to surrender my lease, 
 but I must have sixty thousand francs for it, and I will not 
 bate a farthing." 
 
 "Sixty thousand francs !" cried du Tillet, making as though 
 he would go. 
 
 "The lease has fifteen years to run, and it will take an- 
 other three thousand francs per annum to replace the factory.
 
 306 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 So, sixty thousand francs, or we will say no more about it," 
 said Popinot, turning into the shop, whither du Tillet fol- 
 lowed him. 
 
 The discussion waxed warm, when Mme. Birotteau, hear- 
 ing her husband's name pronounced, came downstairs, and 
 saw du Tillet for the first time since the famous ball. He, 
 on his side, could not avoid making a startled gesture at the 
 sight of the change wrought in her face; he was frightened 
 at his work, and lowered his eyes. 
 
 "This gentleman is receiving three hundred thousand 
 francs for your land," said Popinot, addressing Mme. Cesar, 
 "and he declines to pay us sixty thousand francs by way of in- 
 demnity for our lease " 
 
 "Three thousand francs per annum," said du Tillet, lay- 
 ing stress on the words. 
 
 "Three thousand francs!" Madame Cesar repeated the 
 words quietly and significantly. 
 
 Du Tillet turned pale; Popinot looked at Mme. Birotteau. 
 There was a pause and a deep silence, which made the scene 
 still more inexplicable to Anselme. 
 
 "Sign your surrender," said du Tillet; "I have had the 
 document drafted by Crottat," and he drew a stamped agree- 
 ment from a side-pocket. "I will give you a draft on the 
 Bank for sixty thousand francs." 
 
 Popinot stared at Mme. Cesar with great and unfeigned 
 astonishment; he thought that he was dreaming. While du 
 Tillet was making out his draft at a desk, Mme. Cesar van- 
 ished upstairs again. The druggist and the banker ex- 
 changed papers, and du Tillet went out with a frigid bow to 
 Popinot. 
 
 "At last !" cried Popinot. "Only a few months now, and 
 I shall have my Cesarine, thanks to this queer business," and 
 he watched du Tillet turn into the Rue des Lombards, where 
 his cab was waiting for him. "My dear little wife shall not 
 wear herself to death at her work. What ! was a look from 
 Mme. Cesar enough? What is there between her and that 
 brigand ? It is a very extraordinary thing."
 
 Great was his astonishment to find his mother-in-law reading a 
 letter from Du Tillet
 
 RISE AND FAtiiL OP CESAR B1ROTTEAU 307 
 
 Popinot sent the draft to be cashed at the Bank, and went 
 up to speak to Mine. Birotteau ; but she was not in the count- 
 ing-house, doubtless she had gone to her room. Anselme and 
 Constance lived like a mother-in-law and son-in-law when 
 these are on good terms with each other, so he went to Con- 
 stance's room in all the haste natural in a lover who sees 
 happiness within his grasp. 
 
 Great was his astonishment to find his mother-in-law 
 (whom he surprised by springing into the room) reading a 
 letter from du Tillet, for Anselme recognized the handwriting 
 at once. The sight of a lighted candle and black phantom 
 scraps of burnt paper on the floor sent a shudder through 
 Popinot, whose long-sighted eyes had involuntarily read the 
 words with which the letter began, "I adore you ! You know 
 it, angel of my life, and why " 
 
 "What hold have you on du Tillet to make him conclude 
 such a bargain as this?" he asked, with the jerky laugh of 
 repressed suspicion. 
 
 "Let us not talk of it," she said, and he saw that she was 
 painfully agitated. 
 
 "Yes," answered Popinot, quite taken aback, "we must 
 talk of the end of your troubles." Anselme swung round on 
 his heels and drummed on the window-pane, staring out into 
 the yard. "Very well," said he to himself, "and suppose 
 that she loved du Tillet, is that any reason why I should not 
 behave like a man of honor?" 
 
 "What is it, my boy ?" the poor woman asked. 
 
 "The net profits on the Cephalic Oil amount to two hun- 
 dred and forty-two thousand francs, and the half of two hun- 
 dred and forty-two is one hundred and twenty-one," said 
 Popinot abruptly. "If I deduct from that sum the forty-eight 
 thousand francs already paid to M. Birotteau, there still re- 
 main seventy-three thousand; add to it the sixty thousand 
 just paid for the surrender of the lease, and you will have 
 one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs." 
 
 Mme. Cesar listened in such glad excitement, that Popinot 
 could hear the beating of her heart.
 
 308 RISE AND PALL OP CESA& BIROTTEAU 
 
 "Well, I have always looked on M. Birotteau as my part- 
 ner," he continued; "we can employ the mone} r in repaying 
 his creditors. Your savings, twenty-eight thousand francs, 
 in Uncle Pillerault's keeping, will raise the sum to a hun- 
 dred and sixty-one thousand francs. Uncle will not refuse to 
 give us a receipt for his twenty-five thousand francs. ~No 
 power on earth can prevent my lending to my father-in-law, 
 on account of next year's profits, enough to pay off the re- 
 mainder of his creditors. . . . And he will he re- 
 habilitated 
 
 "^Rehabilitated !" cried Mme. Cesar, kneeling before her 
 chair, and, clasping her hands, she repeated a prayer. The 
 letter had slipped from her fingers. She. crossed herself. 
 "Dear Anselme !" she said, "dear boy !" She took his face in 
 her hands, kissed him on the forehead, and held him tightl^ 
 in her arms. "Cesarine is yours indeed," she cried. "My 
 daughter will be very happy. She will leave the house where 
 she is working herself to death." 
 
 "Through love," said Anselme. 
 
 "Yes," smiled the mother. 
 
 "Listen to a little secret," said Anselme, looking out of 
 the corner of his eye at the unlucky letter. "I obliged Celestin 
 when he wanted capital to buy your business, but it was on 
 one condition. Your rooms are just as you left them. I 
 had my own idea, but I did not think then that fortune would 
 favor us so greatly. Celestin has undertaken to sublet your 
 old rooms to you; he has not set foot in them, and all the 
 furniture there is yours. I am reserving the second story, 
 so that Cesarine and I may live there ; she shall never leave 
 you. After we are married, I will spend the day here from 
 eight o'clock in the morning till six in the evening. Then 
 I will buy out M. Cesar's interest in the business for a hun- 
 dred thousand francs, so that, with his post, you will have 
 ten thousand livres a year. Will you not be happy?" 
 
 "Do not say any more, Anselme, or I shall go mad with 
 
 ioy." 
 
 Mme. Cesar's angelic bearing, her pure eyes, the innocence
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAtJ 309 
 
 on her fair brow, gave the lie so magnificently to the count- 
 less thoughts which surged up in the young lover's brain, 
 that he made up his mind to slay the chimeras of his fancy. 
 The sin was irreconcilable with the life and the sentiments 
 of Pillerault's niece. 
 
 "My dear adored mother," he began, "a horrible doubt has 
 just crossed my mind. If you would see me happy, you will 
 set it at rest." 
 
 Popinot held out his hand as he spoke, and took possession 
 of the letter. 
 
 "Unintentionally I read the first words in du Tillet's hand- 
 writing," he said, alarmed at the consternation in her face. * 
 "The words coincide so oddly with the effect you just produced 
 upon the man, who complied at once with my extravagant 
 demands, that anybody would find the explanation which the 
 devil suggests to me in spite of myself. A glance from you, 
 and three words were enough " 
 
 "Stop," said Mme. Cesar, and taking back the letter, she 
 burned it under Anselme's eyes. "I am cruelly punished 
 for a trifling fault, my child. And now you must know all, 
 Anselme. The suspicion attaching to the mother must not 
 do her daughter an injury, and besides, I may speak without 
 a blush; I could tell my husband this that I am about to tell 
 you. Du Tillet tried to seduce me, my husband was warned 
 at once, and Du Tillet was to be dismissed. The very day 
 that my husband was to discharge him du Tillet took three 
 thousand francs." 
 
 "I suspected it," said Popinot, with all his hatred of the 
 man in his tone. 
 
 "Anselme, your future and your happiness required this 
 confidence, but it must die in your own breast, as it had died 
 in Cesar's and mine. You surely remember the fuss my hus- 
 band made about the mistake in the books. M. Birotteau, no 
 doubt, put three thousand francs into the safe (the price of 
 the shawl, which was not given to me for three years), so 
 as to avoid ruining the young man by bringing him into a 
 police court. So there you have the explanation of my cry 
 of surprise. Alas, my dear boy, I will confess my childish.
 
 310 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR B1ROTTEAU 
 
 conduct. Du Tillet had written three love letters to me, 
 letters which showed his nature so plainly that I kept them 
 as a curiosity. I only read them once; but, after all, it was 
 not wise to keep them. When I saw du Tillet, I thought of 
 them, and went up to my room to burn them. When you 
 came in, I was looking at the last one. That is all, my 
 ,dear." 
 
 Anselme knelt and kissed Mme. Cesar's hand. The ex- 
 pression in his eyes .drew tears of admiring affection from 
 hers. Constance raised her son-in-law, and clasped him to 
 her heart. 
 
 That day was destined to be a day of joy for Cesar. The 
 King's private secretary, M. de Vandenesse, came to the of- 
 fice to speak with him. They went out together into the 
 little courtyard of the Sinking-Fund Department. 
 
 "M. Birotteau," said the Vicomte, "the story of your 
 struggle to pay your creditors came by chance to the King's 
 knowledge. His Majesty was touched by such unusual con- 
 duct ; and learning that, from motives of humility, you were 
 not wearing the Order of the Legion of Honor, has sent me 
 to command you to resume it. His Majesty also wishes 
 to assist you to discharge your obligations, and has ordered 
 me to pay this amount to you out of his own privy purse, with 
 regrets that he can do no more for you. Let the matter re- 
 main a profound secret, for His Majesty thinks it little 
 becomes a King to make official proclamation of his good 
 actions," and the private secretary paid over six thousand 
 francs to the employe, who heard these words with inde- 
 scribable emotions. 
 
 Birotteau could only stammer inarticulate thanks. Van- 
 denesse smiled, and waved his hand. Cesar's principles are 
 'so rarely seen in practice in Paris, that by degrees his life 
 had won admiration. Joseph Lebas, Popinot the elder, 
 Camusot, Ragon, the Abbe Loraux, the head partner of the 
 firm which employed Cesarine, Lourdois, and M. de la Bil- 
 lardiere had spoken of it. The scale of opinion had already 
 turned in his favor, and people praised him to the skies.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 311 
 
 "There goes a man of honor!" The words had reached 
 Cesar's ears several times in the street; he heard them with 
 the sensations of an author who hears his name pronounced. 
 This fair renown disgusted du Tillet. Cesar's first thought 
 on receiving the King's banknotes was of repayment to his 
 ex-assistant. The good man betook himself to the Rue de la 
 Chaussee-d'Antin, arid it so fell out that the banker, return- 
 ing home from business, met him upon the staircase. 
 
 "Well, my poor Birotteau," said he, in a caressing tone. 
 
 "Poor ?" the other cried proudly. "I am very rich. I shall 
 lay my head on the pillow to-night with the satisfaction of 
 knowing that I have paid you/' 
 
 The words, so full of honesty, put du Tillet for a moment 
 on the rack. Every one respected him, but he had lost his 
 self-respect; a voice which could not be stifled cried within 
 him, "This man is heroic !" But he spoke : 
 
 "Pay me ! What business can you be in ?" 
 
 Birotteau felt quite sure that du Tillet would not repeat 
 the story. 
 
 "I shall never start in business again, sir. No human power 
 could foresee the thing that befell me. Who knows but that I 
 might be the victim of another Eoguin? But my conduct 
 has been put before the King, his heart has deigned to com- 
 passionate my struggles, and he has encouraged them by 
 sending me at once a fairly large sum, which " 
 
 "Do you want a receipt in full ?". du Tillet cut him short, 
 "Are you paying " 
 
 "In full, and interest besides. So I must beg you to come 
 to' M. Crottat's office, a step or two away." 
 
 "In the presence of a notary !" 
 
 "Why, sir, there is nothing to prevent me from thinking 
 of my rehabilitation, and a document so authenticated is legal 
 evidence " 
 
 "Come, let us go/' said du Tillet, and he went out with 
 Birotteau ; "it is only a step. But who will find you so much 
 money?" he went on. 
 
 "No one finds it for me," said Cesar. "I am earning it 
 by the sweat of my brow/'
 
 312 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "You owe an enormous amount to Claparon." 
 
 "Alas! yes, that is the heaviest of my debts; I am afraid 
 the effort will be too much for me." 
 
 "Oh ! you will never be able to pay it all," said du Tillet 
 harshly. 
 
 "He is right," thought Birotteau. 
 
 He went home again by way of the Eue Saint-Honore, a 
 piece of inadvertence, for he always went round some other 
 way, that he might not see his shop, nor the windows of his 
 old home. For the first time since his fall, he saw the house 
 where he had spent eighteen happy years, and three months 
 of anguish that effaced those memories. 
 
 "I used to count on ending my days there," he said to 
 himself; and he quickened nis pace at the sight of a new 
 name on the shop front : 
 
 CREVEL 
 Late Cesar Birotteau. 
 
 "My eyes dazzle. ... Is that Cesarine?" he cried, 
 thinking that he had seen a golden head at the window. 
 
 It was really Cesarine whom he saw, and his wife was there, 
 and so was Popinot. The two lovers knew that Birotteau 
 never went past his old home; and it was impossible that 
 they should imagine the great event in the Rue de 1'Oratoire, 
 so they had gone to make arrangements for the fete they were 
 planning to give in Birotteau's honor. The strange appari- 
 tion astonished Cesar so much that he stood stockstill. 
 
 "There is M. Birotteau looking at his old house," said M. 
 Molineux to a shopkeeper who lived over against the Queen 
 of Roses. 
 
 "Poor man !" returned Birotteau's old neighbor, "he gave 
 one of the grandest balls there there were two hundred car- 
 riages in the street." 
 
 "I went to it ; he went bankrupt three months afterwards, 
 and I was trustee," said Molineux.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 313 
 
 Birotteau fled, his legs trembling beneath him, and reached 
 Pillerault's house. 
 
 Pillerault knew what was passing in the Rue des Cinq- 
 Diamants, and it seemed to him that his nephew was scarcely 
 fit to bear the shock of a joy so great as his rehabilita- 
 tion. He had been a daily witness of Cesar's mental suffer- 
 ings, knew that Birotteau's own stern doctrine as to bank- 
 rupts was always in his thoughts, and that he was living up 
 to the very limit of his strength. Dead honor might have its 
 Easter Day for him ; and it was this hope that gave him no 
 respite from pain. Pillerault undertook to prepare Cesar 
 for the good news; so when he came in, his uncle was think- 
 ing how to attain his end. Cesar began to tefll the news of 
 the interest that the King had taken in him, his joy seemed 
 to Pillerault to be auspicious, and his amazement that Cesar- 
 ine should be at the window at the sign of the Queen of 
 Roses afforded an excellent opening. 
 
 "Well, Cesar," Pillerault began, "do you know what 
 brought it about? Popinot is impatient to marry Cesarine. 
 He will not and ought not to be bound any longer by your ex- 
 travagant ideas of honor, to spend his youth in eating dry 
 bread and smelling a good dinner. Popinot is determined 
 to pay off your creditors in full." 
 
 "He is going to buy his wife." 
 
 "Isn't it to his credit that he wants to rehabilitate his 
 father-in-law ?" 
 
 "But questions might be raised, and besides " 
 
 "And besides," cried Uncle Pillerault in feigned anger, 
 "you may sacrifice yourself if you like, but you have no right 
 to sacrifice your daughter." 
 
 A lively discussion began, and Pillerault worked himself 
 up. 
 
 "Eh ! If Popinot lent you nothing," cried he ; "if he had 
 looked upon you as his partner; if he chose to consider the 
 money that he paid over to your creditors for your interest in 
 the Oil as an advance on account of the profits, so that you 
 should not be robbed "
 
 314 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 "It would look as though I had arranged with him to cheat 
 my creditors." 
 
 Pillerault pretended to be defeated by this logic. He knew 
 enough of human nature to guess that during the night the 
 good man would argue out the case with himself; and those 
 private reflections of his would accustom him to the idea of 
 rehabilitation. 
 
 "But how came my wife and daughter to be in our old 
 house ?'' he asked at dinner. 
 
 "Anselme means to take one of the floors, and he and 
 Cesarine will set up housekeeping there. Your wife is on 
 his side. They have had the banns put up without telling 
 you, so as to compel you to give your consent. Popinot says 
 that there will be less merit in marrying Cesarine after you 
 are rehabilitated. You accept the King's six thousand francs, 
 and yet you will take nothing from your relatives ! Now, for 
 my own part, I am quite justified in giving you a receipt 
 in full ; would you refuse it ?" 
 
 "No," said Cesar. "But it would not hinder me from sav- 
 ing the money to pay you, receipt or no." 
 
 "All this is splitting hairs," said Pillerault, "and when 
 honesty is in question, I ought to be allowed to know what is 
 right. What folly were you talking just now? When your 
 creditors are all paid in full, will you still persist that you 
 have cheated them?" 
 
 Cesar looked full at Pillerault as he spoke, and it touched 
 the older man to see a bright smile on his nephew's face after 
 three years of dejection. 
 
 "You are right/' he said, "they would be paid. But it is 
 like selling my daughter !" 
 
 "And I wish to be bought," cried Cesarine, who came in 
 with Popinot. 
 
 The lovers stealing on tiptoe through the lobby had over- 
 heard the words. Mme. Birotteau was just behind them. The 
 three had made a round in a cab, asking all the creditors; 
 to meet in Crottat's office that evening; Popinot's lover's logic 
 bore down Cesar's scruples; but he still persisted in calling
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 315 
 
 himself a debtor, and would have it that he was outflanking 
 the law by a substitution. Conscience yielded to an outburst 
 from Popinot: 
 
 "So you mean to kill your daughter, do you?" 
 
 "Kill my daughter!" echoed Cesar, bewildered. 
 
 "Well, now," said Popinot, "what is there to prevent me 
 from making a deed of gift in your favor of a sum which on 
 my conscience I believe to be yours ? Can you refuse ?" 
 
 "No," said Cesar. 
 
 "Good. Then let us go to Alexandre Crottat this evening," 
 so that there shall be no going back upon it, and our mar- 
 riage contract can be decided at the same time." 
 
 An application for reinstatement and all the necessary cer- 
 tificates were duly deposited by Derville at the office of the 
 Procureur-General of the Court of Appeal. 
 
 During the month which elapsed between the putting up of 
 the banns and the marriage, and during the progress of the 
 formalities, Cesar lived in a state of constant nervous ex- 
 citement. He was ill at ease. He feared that he might not 
 live to see the great day when his disabilities should be for- 
 mally removed. His pulse throbbed unaccountably, he said, 
 and he complained of a dull pain about his heart. He had 
 been exhausted by painful emotion, and this supreme joy was 
 wearing him out. Decrees of rehabilitation are rare in Paris ; 
 there is scarcely one in ten years. 
 
 There is something indescribably solemn and imposing in 
 the ceremony of justice for those who take society seriously. 
 An institution is to men as they consider it, and is invested 
 with dignity and grandeur by their thoughts. When a nation 
 has ceased, not to feel the religious instinct, but to believe; 
 when primary education relaxes the bonds of union by teach- 
 ing children a habit of merciless analysis, a nation is dis- 
 solved; for the only ties that are left to bind men together 
 and make of them one body are the ignoble ties of material 
 interest, and the dictates of the selfish cult created by egoism 
 well carried out. Birotteau, sustained by religion, saw Justice 
 as Justice ought to be regarded among men, as the expression
 
 816 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 of society itself ; beneath the forms he saw the sovereign will, 
 the laws by which men have agreed to live. If the magistrate 
 is old, feeble, and white-haired, so much the more solemn does 
 his priestly office appear, an office which demands so pro- 
 found a study of human nature and of things, an office to 
 wh/ich the heart is immolated, for of necessity it becomes 
 callous in a guardian of so many palpitating interests. 
 
 In these days the men who cannot ascend the staircase of 
 the Court of Appeal in the old Palais de Justice in Paris, 
 without feeling deeply stirred, are growing rare; but Birot- 
 teau was one of these men. There are not many who notice 
 the majestic grandeur of that staircase, so magnificently 
 planned to produce an effect. It rises at the further end 
 of the peristyle which adorns the Cour du Palais. The door- 
 way opens on the centre of the gallery which leads from 
 the vast Salle des Pas Perdus at its one end to the Sainte- 
 Chapelle at the other, two monuments which may well dwarf 
 everything about them into insignificance. The Church of 
 St. Louis is in itself one of the grandest buildings in Paris, 
 and there is an indescribable dim atmosphere of romance 
 about it when approached by way of this gallery; while the 
 vast Salle des Pas Perdus is flooded with daylight, and it 
 is hard to forget the memories of the history of France that 
 cling about its walls. So the staircase must have a grandeur 
 of its own if it is not utterly overshadowed by the glories of 
 those two famous buildings. Perhaps there is something 
 to stir the soul at the sight of the place where decrees are 
 executed, beheld through the rich scroll-work of the screen 
 of the Palais. The staircase gives entrance to a vast room, 
 the Salle des Pas Perdus of this court, beyond which lies the 
 Hall of Audience. Imagine the feeling with which Birotteau 
 (always so much impressed by the circumstance of justice) 
 mounted the staircase among a little crowd of his friends 
 Lebas, at that time President of the Tribunal of Commerce ; 
 Camusot, who had acted as registrar; Ragon, his old master; 
 and the Abb6 Loraux, his confessor. The presence of the 
 good priest enhanced those earthly honors by a reflection from 
 heaven, which gave them yet more value in Cesar's eyes.
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 317 
 
 Pillerault, that practical philosopher, had bethought him 
 of the expedient of dwelling upon and exaggerating the joy 
 'of the release, so that the actual experience might not over- 
 whelm Cesar. Just as he finished dressing, he found himself 
 surrounded by faithful friends, all anxious for the honor of 
 accompanying him to the bar of the Court. The delight 
 which suffused the good man's soul at the sight of this group 
 raised him to a pitch of happiness necessary for him if he 
 was to endure the alarming ordeal. He found others of his 
 friends standing in the Great Hall of Audience, where a 
 dozen Councillors were sitting. 
 
 After the cases had been called, Birotteau's attorney made 
 application in a brief formula. At a sign from the President, 
 the Attorney-General rose to give his opinion. In the name 
 of the Court, the Attorney-General, the public accuser, was 
 about to make demand that the merchant's honor, which had 
 been pledged, should be vindicated; a proceeding unique in 
 law, for a condemned man can only be pardoned. Those who 
 have hearts that feel can imagine Birotteau's feelings when 
 M. de Granville spoke somewhat as follows: 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the great lawyer, "on the 16th of Jan- 
 uary 1820, Birotteau was declared a bankrupt by the Tribunal 
 of Commerce of the Seine. The insolvency was not occa- 
 sioned by imprudence on the part of the merchant, nor by 
 dishonest speculation, nor any other cause which could stain 
 his honor. We feel that it is necessary to state it publicly 
 the calamity was brought about by one of those disasters which 
 occur from time to time, to the great affliction of Justice 
 and of the city of Paris. It was reserved for this present 
 century, in which the evil leaven of subverted morals and 
 revolutionary ideas will long ferment, to behold the Parisian 
 notariat depart from the honorable traditions of its past; 
 there have been more cases of insolvency in that body during 
 the last few years than in two preceding centuries under the 
 ancient monarchy. The greed of gold rapidly acquired has 
 seized upon officials, those guardians of the public welfare 
 and intermediary authorities."
 
 318 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 Then followed a tirade based on this text, in the course of 
 which M. le Comte de Granville (speaking in character) took 
 occasion to incriminate Liberals, Bonapartists, and all and 
 sundry who were disaffected, as in duty bound. Events have 
 shown that there was good ground for the Councillor's ap- 
 prehensions. 
 
 "The immediate cause of the plaintiff's ruin was the action 
 of a Paris notary, who absconded with the money which Bi- 
 rotteau deposited with him. The sentence passed by the 
 Court in Roguin's case shows how shamefully he had betrayed 
 his client's trust. A concordat followed. We will observe, 
 for the honor of the applicant, that the proceedings were 
 characterized by honesty not to be met with in the scandalous 
 failures which daily occur in Paris. Birotteau's creditors, 
 gentlemen, found every trifle that he possessed, down to 
 trinkets and articles of wearing apparel belonging not only 
 to him, but to his wife, who, to swell the assets, gave up all 
 that she had. Birotteau at this juncture showed himself 
 worthy of the respect which he had won by the discharge 
 of his municipal functions; for he was at that time deputy- 
 mayor of the second arrondissement, and had just received 
 the Cross of the Legion of Honor accorded to the devoted 
 Eoyalist, who shed his blood for the cause on the steps of 
 Saint-Koch in Vendemiaire; and, no less, to the Consular 
 judge, who had won respect by his ability, and popularity by 
 his conciliatory spirit; to the modest municipal officer, who 
 declined the honors of the mayoralty for himself, and put 
 forward the name of another as more worthy the honor- 
 able Baron de la Billardiere, one of the noble Vendeans 
 whom he had learned to esteem in evil days." 
 
 "He put that better than I did," said Cesar in his uncle's 
 ear. 
 
 "The creditors, therefore, receiving sixty per cent of their 
 claims, thanks to the upright merchant and his wife and 
 daughter, who surrendered everything that they possessed, 
 gave expression to their respect in the concordat, by which 
 they forewent the remainder of their claims in consideration
 
 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 319 
 
 of the dividend. The attention of the Court is called to the 
 manner in which this record is worded." Here the Attorney- 
 Gieneral read the concordat "After such expressions of good- 
 will, gentlemen, many a trader would have considered him- 
 self free, and would have walked with head erect in pub- 
 lic; but so far from considering his liabilities to be dis- 
 charged, Birotteau would not give way to despair, but made 
 an inward resolution to hasten the coming of a glorious day 
 which here and now dawns for him. Nothing turned him 
 aside from his purpose. Our beloved sovereign gave a post to 
 the man who was wounded at Saint-Koch, and the bankrupt 
 merchant set by the whole of his salary for the benefit of his 
 creditors, for the devotion of his family did not fail him " 
 
 Tears came into Birotteau's eyes as he squeezed his uncle's 
 hand. 
 
 "His wife and daughter poured their earnings into the 
 common treasury; they too had embraced Birotteau's loyal 
 purpose. They descended from their position to take a 
 subordinate place. Such sacrifices as these, gentlemen, de- 
 serve all honor, for they are the hardest of all. This was the 
 task which Birotteau laid upon himself." 
 
 The Attorney read an abbreviated version of the schedule, 
 giving the names of the creditors and the balances due to 
 them. 
 
 "Every one of these amounts, gentlemen, has been paid (in- 
 terest included). The receipts have not been given by notes 
 of hand which demand investigation, but by certificates of 
 payment made in the presence of a notary, documents which 
 do not abuse the good faith of the Court, though, nevertheless, 
 the inquiries required by the law have been duly made. You, 
 therefore, restore to Birotteau not his honor, but the civil and 
 political privileges of which he has been deprived, and in so 
 doing you do justice. Such cases come so seldom before you, 
 that we cannot refrain from giving expression to our ad- 
 miration of the conduct of the applicant, who has already 
 received the encouragement of august patronage." 
 
 With that, he read the formal application. The Court de-
 
 320 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 liberated without retiring, and the President rose to pro- 
 nounce the decree, 
 
 "The Court charges me to inform M. Birotteau of the 
 satisfaction with which the decree, granted under such cir- 
 cumstances, is passed. Call the next case." 
 
 Birotteau, already invested with a caftan of honor by the 
 Attorney-General's speech, was struck dumb with joy when 
 he heard these solemn words from the President of the High- 
 est Court of Appeal in France, words which made those who 
 heard them feel that the impassive Themis had a heart. He 
 could not move from his place, he seemed to be glued to the 
 floor, and gazed with bewildered eyes at the Councillors, who 
 seemed to him like angels who had opened the gates which 
 admitted him to life among his fellows. His uncle took him 
 by the arm and drew him away. Then Cesar, who had not 
 obeyed the desire of Louis XVIII., fastened the red ribbon 
 at his buttonhole, like a man in a dream, and went down in 
 triumph with his friends about him to the hackney cab. 
 
 '"Where are you taking me?" he asked of Joseph Lebas, 
 Pillerault, and Ragon. 
 
 "Home." 
 
 "No. It is three o'clock; I want to go on 'Change again, 
 now that I have the right." 
 
 "To the Exchange," Pillerault gave the order, and looked 
 significantly at Lebas, for there were symptoms which made 
 him uneasy; he feared for Birotteau's reason. 
 
 So Birotteau went back on 'Change between his uncle and 
 Joseph Lebas; the two merchants whom every one respected 
 linked their arms in his. The news of his rehabilitation was 
 abroad. Du Tillet was the first to see the three and old 
 Eagon, who followed behind. 
 
 "Ah ! my dear master ! Delighted to hear that you have 
 pulled through your difficulties. Perhaps I contributed to 
 bring about this happy termination by allowing little Popinot 
 to pluck me so easily. I am as glad of your happiness as 
 if it were my own." 
 
 "It is the only way open to you," said Pillerault, "for you 
 will never experience it yourself."
 
 RISE A>s 7 D FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 321 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" asked du Tillet. 
 
 "A good dig in the ribs, by George," said Lebas, smiling 
 at Pillerault's malicious revenge. He knew nothing of the 
 part that du Tillet had played, but he looked on him as a 
 scoundrel. 
 
 Matifat saw Cesar, and immediately all the most respected 
 merchants crowded about the perfumer; he received an ova- 
 tion on 'Change, the most nattering congratulations and 
 handshakes, which caused here and there some heart-burn- 
 ings, and here and there a pang of remorse, for fifty out of 
 every hundred present had been insolvent at some time or 
 other. 
 
 Gigonnet and Gobseck, chatting in a corner, stared at 
 Ce"sar as the learned must have stared when the first electric 
 eel was brought for their inspection, and they beheld that 
 strange curiosity, a living Leyden jar. 
 
 Then, still breathing the incense of triumph, Cesar went 
 out to the cab, and drove home to his house, where the mar- 
 riage-contract between his dear child Cesarine and the de- 
 voted Popinot was to be signed that evening. He laughed 
 nervously, in a way that alarmed his three old friends. 
 
 It is one of the mistakes of youth to imagine that every one 
 has the vitality of youth, a defect nearly akin to its best en- 
 dowment; for youth does not behold life through a pair of 
 spectacles, but through the radiant hues of a reflected glow, 
 and age itself is credited with its own exuberant life. Popi- 
 not, like Cesar and Constance, cherished memories of the 
 pomp and splendor of the ball, the strains of Coll i net's or- 
 chestra had often rung in his ears; he had seen the gay throng 
 of dancers, and tasted the joy so cruelly punished, as Adam 
 and Eve might have thought of the forbidden fruit which 
 banished them from the Garden, and brought Death and 
 Birth into the world, for it seems that the multiplication of 
 the angels is one of the mysteries of the Paradise above. 
 
 Popinot, however, could think of that night's festivity 
 not only without remorse, but with joy in his heart, for then 
 it was that Cesarine in all her glory had given her promise
 
 .".1 RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 
 
 to him in his poverty. That evening he had known beyond all 
 doubt that he was loved for himself alone. So when he paid 
 Celestin for the rooms which Grindot had restored, and 
 stipulated that everything should be left untouched ; when he 
 had carefully seen that the merest trifles belonging to Cesar 
 and Constance were in their place, he had dreamed of giving 
 a ball there on the day of his wedding. The preparations 
 for the fete had been a work of love. It should be exactly 
 like the previous one, except in the extravagances. Extrava- 
 gance was over and done with. Still, the dinner was to be 
 served by Che vet, and the guests were almost the same. The 
 Abbe Loraux took the place of the Grand-Chancellor; and 
 Lebas, the President of the Tribunal of Commerce, was to 
 be there. Popinot added M. Camusot's name to the list, as 
 an acknowledgment of the kindness he had shown to Birot- 
 teau in so many ways. M. de Vandenesse and M. de Fon- 
 taine took the place of M. and Mme. Roguin. 
 
 Cesarine and Popinot had exercised their discretion in the 
 matter of invitations to the ball. They both shrank from 
 making a festival of their wedding, and had avoided the pub- 
 licity which jars on pure and tender hearts by giving the 
 dance on the occasion of the signing of the contract. Con- 
 stance had found the cherry-colored velvet dre.ss in which she 
 had shone for the brief space of a single day; and Cesarine 
 had pleased herself by surprising Popinot in the ball-dress 
 of which he had talked times out of mind. So the house 
 was to wear the same air of an enchanted festival, and neither 
 Constance, nor Cesarine, nor Anselme thought that there was 
 any danger for Cesar in this joyful surprise. They waited 
 till four o'clock, and grew almost childish in their happiness. 
 
 After the hero of the hour had passed through the inde- 
 scribable emotions of returning to the Exchange, a fresh shock 
 awaited him in the Eue Saint-Honore. As he came up the 
 stairs, which still looked new, he saw his wife in the cherry- 
 colored velvet dress ; he saw Cesarine, the Comte de Fontaine, 
 the Vicomte de Vandenesse, the Baron de la Billardiere, and 
 the great Vauquelin; a light film spread over his eyes, and
 
 RISK AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU 323 
 
 Uncle Pillcrault, on whose arm he leaned, felt the shudder 
 that ran through his nephew. 
 
 "It is too much for him," the old philosopher said to the 
 enamored Anselme; "he will not stand all the wine which 
 you have poured out for him." 
 
 But all hearts beat so high with joy, that Cesar's emotion 
 and tottering steps were ascribed to an intoxication, very 
 natural, as they thought but not seldom fatal. When he 
 looked round the drawing-room, and saw it filled with guests 
 and women in ball toilets, the sublime rhythm of the finale 
 of Beethoven's great symphony beat in his pulses and flooded 
 his brain. That imaginary music streamed in on him like 
 rays of light, sparkling from modulation to modulation; it 
 was to be indeed the finale that rang clear and high through 
 the recesses of the tired brain. Overcome by the harmony 
 that swept through him, he laid his hand on his wife's arm, 
 and in tones, rendered almost inaudible by the effort to keep 
 back the flowing blood which filled his mouth : 
 
 "I am not well," he said. 
 
 Constance, in alarm, led her husband to her room ; he was 
 barely able to reach the armchair, into which he sank, ex- 
 claiming, "M. Haudry ! M. Loraux !" 
 
 The Abbe came in, followed by the guests and women in 
 evening dress, who stood in consternation. Cesar in the midst 
 of this brightly-colored throng grasped his confessor's hand, 
 and laid his head on the breast of the wife who knelt beside 
 him. A blood-vessel had been ruptured in the lungs, and the 
 resulting aneurism was stopping his last breath. 
 
 "Behold the death of the righteous !" the Abbe Loraux 
 said solemnly, as he stretched his hand towards Cesar with 
 one of those Divine gestures which Rembrandt's inspiration 
 beheld and recorded in his picture of Christ raising Lazarus 
 from the dead. 
 
 Christ bade Earth surrender her prey ; the good priest sped 
 a soul to heaven, where the martyr to commercial integrity 
 should receive an unfading palm.
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 To Theophile Gautier. 
 
 AFTER the disasters of the Eevolution of July 1830 had 
 wrecked the fortunes of many a noble family dependent upon 
 the Court, Mme. la Princesse de Cadignan had the address 
 to blame political events for the total ruin due in reality to 
 her own extravagance. The Prince had left France with the 
 Eoyal Family, but the Princess stayed on in Paris, the very 
 fact of her husband's absence securing her from arrest. He, 
 and he alone, was responsible for a burden of debt which 
 could not be discharged by the sale of all his available prop- 
 erty. The creditors had taken over the revenues of the en- 
 tail, and the affairs of the great family were, in short, in as 
 bad a way as the fortunes of the elder branch of the Bour- 
 bons. Things being thus, the Princesse de Cadignan (the 
 lady so celebrated in her day as the Duchesse de Maufri- 
 gneuse) made up her mind to live in complete retirement, and 
 tried to make the world forget her. And in the dizzy cur- 
 rent of events which swept Paris away, Mme. de Maufrigneuse 
 was soon lost to sight in the Princesse de Cadignan, and be- 
 came almost a stranger to society; the new actors brought 
 upon the stage by the Revolution of July knew nothing of 
 the metamorphosis. 
 
 In France the title of duke takes precedence over all others, 
 even over the title of prince; albeit it is laid down unequivo- 
 cally in heraldry that titles signify absolutely nothing, and 
 that all the nobly born are perfectly equal. This admirable 
 theory was conscientiously put in practice in former times 
 by the royal house of France: indeed, it is still carried out 
 in the letter at any rate, for kings of France are careful to 
 give their sons the simple title of count. By virtue of the 
 
 22 < 325 >
 
 326 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 same system Francis I. signed himself "Francis, Lord of 
 Vanvcs," thereby eclipsing the splendid array of titles as- 
 sumed by that pompous monarch, Charles V. Louis XI. had 
 even gone further when he gave his daughter to Pierre de 
 Beaujeu, a simple gentleman. The feudal system was so 
 thoroughly broken up by Louis XIV. that the title of duke 
 in his reign became the supreme and most coveted honor. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are two or three families in France, 
 in which the principality consists of great territorial posses- 
 sions, handed down from former times, and in these it ranks 
 above the duchy. The House of Cadignan is one of these 
 exceptions, the eldest son is the Due de Maufrigneuse, and 
 the younger brothers are simply Chevaliers de Cadignan. 
 
 The Cadignans, like two princes of the House of Rohan 
 in other times, have a right to a chair of state in their own 
 house, and may keep a retinue of pages, gentlemen, in their 
 service. This is a necessary piece of explanation, given partly 
 to anticipate absurd criticisms from persons who know noth- 
 ing of the matter, partly too as a record of an old stately 
 order of things in a world which is said to be passing away, 
 an order of things which some, who understand it but little, 
 are very eager to abolish. 
 
 The Cadignans bear or five fusils sable conjoined in fesse, 
 with the motto MEMINI, and a close crown, without sup- 
 porters or lambrequins. What with the prevalent ignorance 
 of heraldry in these days, and a mighty influx of foreigners 
 to Paris, the title of prince is beginning to enjoy a certain 
 vogue; but it is usually only a courtesy title. There are no 
 real princes in France save those who inherit domains with 
 their name, and are entitled to be addressed as "Your High- 
 ness." The disdain felt for the title by the old noblesse, and 
 the reasons which led Louis XIV. to give supremacy to the 
 rank of duke, prevented France from claiming the style of 
 Highness for the few princes in existence (those of Na- 
 poleon's creation excepted). This is how the Princes de 
 Cadignan came to rank nominally below other princes on the 
 continent of Europe.
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 327 
 
 The persons known collectively as the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain protected the Princess; treating her with a respect- 
 ful discretion due to a name that will always be honored, to 
 misfortunes which no longer gave rise to talk, and to Mme. de 
 Cadignan's beauty, which was all that remained of her faded 
 glory. The world that she had adorned gave her credit for 
 thus taking the veil, as it were, and entering the cloister in 
 her own house. For her, of all women, such a piece of good 
 taste involved an immense sacrifice; and in France anything 
 great is always so keenly appreciated, that the Princess' re- 
 treat gained for her all the ground that she had lost in public 
 opinion while her splendor was at its height. Of her old 
 friends among women, she only saw the Marquise d'Espard; 
 and as yet she was never seen in public on great occasions, 
 or at evening parties. The Princess and the Marquise called 
 upon one another, very early in the morning, and, as it were, 
 in secret; and when the Princess dined with her friend, the 
 Marquise closed her doors to every one else. 
 
 Mme. d'Espard's behavior was admirable. She changed 
 her box at the Italiens, coming down from the first tier to 
 a baignoire on the ground floor, so that Mme. de Cadignan 
 could come and depart without being seen. Not every woman 
 would have been capable of such a piece of delicacy which de- 
 prived her of the pleasure of dragging a former and fallen 
 rival in her train, and posing as her benefactress. Thus 
 enabled to dispense with ruinous toilettes, the Princess went 
 privately in the Marquise's carriage, which in public she 
 would have refused to take. Nobody ever knew why Mme. 
 d'Espard behaved in this way; but her conduct was sublime, 
 involving a whole host of the little sacrifices which seem mere 
 trifles in themselves, but taken as a whole reach giant pro- 
 portions. In 1832 the snows of three years had covered the 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse's adventures, whitening them so ef- 
 fectually that nothing short of a prodigious effort of memory 
 could recall the heavy indictments formerly laid to her 
 charge. Of the queen adored by so many courtiers, of the 
 duchess whose levities might furnish a novelist with several
 
 323 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 volumes, there now remained an exquisitely fair woman of 
 thirty-six, who might have passed for thirty in spite of her 
 nineteen-year-old son. 
 
 Georges, Due de Maufrigneuse, beautiful as Antinous, and 
 poor as Job, was certain of a great career: and his mother's 
 first wish was to see him married to a great fortune. Per- 
 haps she meant to choose an heiress for him some day out 
 of Mme. d'Espard's salon, which was supposed to be the first 
 in Paris; perhaps this was the real reason of her intimacy 
 with the" Marquise. The Princess, looking forward, saw an- 
 other five 3 r ears of retirement before her; five desolate lonely 
 years; but if Georges was to marry well, her conduct must 
 receive the hall-mark of virtue. 
 
 The Princess lived in a modest ground-floor flat in a man- 
 sion in the Rue de Miromesnil, where relics of bygone splen- 
 dor had been turned to account. A great lady's elegance still 
 pervaded everything. She had surrounded herself with 
 beautiful things, which told their own story of a life in high 
 spheres. The magnificent miniature of Charles X. above 
 her chimney-piece was painted by Mme. de Mirbel, and bore 
 the legend, "Given by the King," engraved on the frame. 
 The companion picture was a portrait of Madame, who had 
 been so peculiarly gracious to her. The album that shone 
 conspicuous on one of the tables was an almost priceless treas- 
 ure, which none of the bourgeoises that rule our modern 
 money-making and censorious society would dare to exhibit 
 in public. It was a piece of audacity that paints the Prin- 
 cess' character to admiration. The album was full of por- 
 traits, some thirty among them belonging to intimate friends 
 lovers, the world said. As to numbers, this was a slander ; 
 but with regard to some ten of them perhaps, as the Mar- 
 quise d'Espard said, there was a good, broad foundation for 
 the calumny. However that might be, Maxime de Trailles, de 
 Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis d'Esgrignon, General de 
 Montriveau, the Marquises de Ronquerolles and d'Ajuda- 
 Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young Due de Grandlieu, the 
 young Due de Rhetore, the young Vicomte de Serizy, and
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 329 
 
 Luoien de Rubempre's beautiful face, had all received most 
 flattering treatment from the brushes of the famous portrait- 
 painters of the day. At this time the Princess had only re- 
 ceived two or three of the originals of the portraits, and pleas- 
 antly called the book "My Collection of Errors." 
 
 Adversity had made a good mother of Mme. la Princesse. 
 Her amusements during the first fifteen years of the Restora- 
 tion had left her little time to think of her son; but now, 
 when she took refuge in obscurity, this illustrious egoist be- 
 thought herself that maternal sentiment pushed to an extreme 
 would win absolution for her. Her past life would be con- 
 doned by sentimental people, who will pardon anything to a 
 fond mother, and she loved her son so much the better because 
 she had nothing else left to love. Georges de Maufrigneuse 
 was, for that matter, a son of whom any mother might have 
 been proud. And the Princess had made all kinds of sacri- 
 fices for him. Georges had a stable and coach-house, and in- 
 habited three daintily-furnished rooms in the entresol above, 
 which gave upon the street. 
 
 His mother stinted herself to keep a horse for him to ride, 
 a cab-horse, and a diminutive servant. The Duke's tiger had 
 a hard time of it ! "Toby," once in the service of "the late 
 Beaudenord" for in this jocular manner young men of 
 fashion were wont to allude to that ruined dandy Toby, to re- 
 peat, now turned twenty-five years of age, and still supposed to 
 be fourteen, must groom the horses, clean the cab or the tilbury, 
 go out with his master, keep his rooms in order, and be on. 
 hand in the Princess' antechamber to admit visitors, if by any 
 chance a visitor called on her. 
 
 When you considered the part that the beautiful Duchesse 
 de Maufrigneuse had played under the Restoration ; how she 
 had been one of the queens of Paris, a radiant queen, leading 
 a life so luxurious that even the wealthiest women of fashion 
 in London might have taken lessons of her ; it was something 
 indescribably touching to see her in that mere nutshell of a 
 place in the Rue de Miromesnil, only a few doors away from 
 the huge hotel de Cadignan, which nobody was rich enough
 
 330 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 to live in, so that the speculative builder's hammer brought 
 it down. The woman for whom thirty servants were scarce 
 sufficient, the mistress of the finest salons and the prettiest 
 petits appartements in which she entertained so splendidly, 
 was now living in a suite of five rooms an antechamber, a 
 dining-room, a drawing-room, a bedroom, and dressing-room 
 with a couple of women servants for her whole establish- 
 ment. 
 
 "Ah ! she is an admirable mother," that shrewd woman 
 the Marquise d'Espard would remark, "and admirable with- 
 out overdoing it. She is happy. Nobody would have believed 
 that such a frivolous woman would be capable of taking 
 a resolution and following it up so persistently as she 
 does. And our good Archbishop has encouraged her, he is 
 goodness itself to her, he has just persuaded the dowager 
 Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne to call upon her." 
 
 In any case, let us own that no one but a queen can abdi- 
 cate, and descend nobly from the lofty elevation which is 
 never utterly lost to her. It is only those who are conscious 
 that they are nothing in themselves that will waste regrets 
 on their decline, and pity themselves, and turn to a past that 
 will never return for them. They know instinctively that 
 success will not come twice. The Princess was forced to do 
 without the rare flowers with which she had been wont to sur- 
 round herself, a setting that enhanced her beauty, for no one 
 could fail to compare her to a flower. Wherefore she had 
 chosen her ground-floor flat with care, so as to enjoy a pretty 
 little garden with flowering trees and a green grass-plot to 
 brighten her quiet rooms all through the year. 
 
 Her annual income possibly amounted to twelve thousand 
 francs or thereabouts, but even that modest sum was made up 
 partly by an allowance from the old Duchesse de Navarreins 
 (the young Duke's paternal aunt), partly by contributions 
 from the Duchesse d'Uxelles, who was living on her estate in 
 the country, and saving as none but dowager-duchesses can 
 save; Harpagon was a mere tyro in comparison. 
 
 The Prince de Cadignan lived abroad, always at the orders
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 331 
 
 of his exiled masters. He shared their adversity, serving 
 them with a devotion as disinterested, and perhaps rather more 
 intelligent than that of most other adherents of fallen royalty. 
 His position was even now a protection to his wife in Paris. 
 In such obscurity did the Princess live, and so little did her 
 destitution arouse the suspicions of the Government, that a 
 certain Marshal, to whom France owes an African province, 
 used to meet Legitimist leaders at her house and hold coun- 
 sel with them while Madame was making the attempt in La 
 Vendee. 
 
 Foreseeing the approaching bankruptcy of love, and the 
 drawing nigh of that fortieth year beyond which there lies so 
 little for a woman, the Princess launched forth into the 
 realms of politics and philosophy. She took to reading! 
 she who for the last sixteen years had shown the utmost ab- 
 horrence of anything serious ! Literature and politics to-day 
 take the place of devoutness as the last refuge of feminine 
 affectation. It was said in fashionable circles that Diane 
 meant to write a book. During this transition period, when 
 the beautiful woman of other days was preparing to fade into 
 a woman of intellect, until such time as she should fade away 
 for good, Diane made of the reception at her house a privi- 
 lege in the highest degree flattering for the persons thus fa- 
 vored. Under cover of these occupations she contrived to 
 hoodwink de Marsay, one of her early lovers, and now the 
 most influential member of the Government of the Citizen 
 King. Several times she received visits from the Prime Min- 
 ister in the evening while the Legitimist leaders and the Mar- 
 shal were actually assembled in her bedroom, discussing plans 
 for winning back the kingdom, and forgetting in their delib- 
 erations that the kingdom was not to be won without the help 
 of ideas the one means of success overlooked by them. It 
 was a pretty woman's revenge thus to inveigle a prime minis- 
 ter and use him as a screen for a conspiracy against his own 
 government; the Princess wrote Madame the sprightliest ac- 
 count of an adventure worthy of the best days of the Fronde. 
 
 The young Due de Maufrigneuse went to La Vendee, and
 
 332 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 
 
 contrived to come back again quietly and without committing 
 himself, but not until he had shared Madame's perils. When 
 all seemed lost, Madame sent him back, unfortunately per- 
 haps, for a young man's impassioned vigilance might possibly 
 have foiled treachery. 
 
 Great as Mme. de Maufrigneuse's transgressions might 
 have been in the eyes of the middle-class matron, her son's 
 behavior blotted them all out for the aristocratic world. It 
 was something great and noble surely to risk the life of an 
 only son and the heir to an historic name in this way. There 
 are persons, reputed clever, who redeem the faults of private 
 life by political services, and vice versa. But the Princesse 
 de Cadignan had acted without calculation of any kind. Per- 
 haps there is never calculation on the part of those who so 
 conduct their lives ; and circumstances account for a good half 
 of many seeming inconsistencies. 
 
 On one of the first fine days in May 1833, the Marquise 
 d'Espard and the Princess were taking a turn, they could 
 scarcely be said to be taking a walk, along the one garden 
 path beside the grass plot. It was about two o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the sun was taking leave of the garden for the 
 day, but the air was warm with heat reflected from the walls, 
 and the air was full of the scent of flowers brought by the 
 Marquise. 
 
 "We shall lose de Marsay soon," Mme. d'Espard was say- 
 ing, "and with him goes your last hope of fortune for the 
 Due de Mauf rigneuse ; since you played such a successful trick 
 on that great politician, his affection for yr u has sensibly in- 
 creased." 
 
 "My son shall never come to terms with the younger branch, 
 even if he must starve first and I should have to work for 
 him," returned the Princess. "But Berthe de Cinq-Cygne has 
 no aversion for him." 
 
 "The younger generation is not bound in the same way 
 as the older " 
 
 "Let us say nothing about that. If I fail to tame the Mar-
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 333 
 
 quise de Cinq-Cygne, it will be quite bad enough to be forced 
 to marry my son to some blacksmith's daughter, as young 
 d'Esgrignon did." 
 
 "Did you love him?" asked the Marquise. 
 
 "No," the Princess answered gravely, "d'Esgrignon's na- 
 ivet6 was only a kind of provincial's callowness, as I found out 
 a little too late, or too soon, if you prefer it." 
 
 "And de Marsay?" 
 
 "De Marsay played with me as if I were a doll. I was 
 almost a girl. We never love the men who take the office of 
 tutor upon themselves ; they grate overmuch on our little sus- 
 ceptibilities." 
 
 "And that wretched boy who hanged himself?" 
 
 "Lucien? An Antinous and a great poet. I worshiped 
 him in all conscience, and I might have been happy. But he 
 was in love with a girl of the town; and I gave him up to 
 Mme. de Serizy. . . . If he had cared to love me, should 
 I have given him up?" 
 
 "What an odd thing, that you should come into collision 
 with an Esther !" 
 
 "She was handsomer than I," said the Princess. "Very 
 soon I shall have spent three years in complete solitude," she 
 went on after a pause. "Well, there has been nothing painful 
 in the quiet. To you, and you only, I will venture to say 
 that I have been happy. Adoration palled upon me; I was 
 jaded without enjoyment; the surface impressions never went 
 deeper into my heart. All the men that I had known were 
 petty, mean, and superficial, I thought; not one of them did 
 anything in the least unexpected ; they had neither innocence, 
 nor greatness, nor delicacy. I should have liked to find some 
 one of whom I could stand in awe." 
 
 "Then, is it with you as it is with me, my dear? Have 
 you tried to love and never found love ?" 
 
 "Never," broke in the Princess, laying a hand on her 
 friend's arm. The two women went across to a rustic bench 
 under a mass of jessamine now flowering for the second time. 
 Both had spoken words full of solemn import for women at 
 their age.
 
 334 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "Like you/' resumed the Princess, "I have been more loved, 
 perhaps, than other women; but through so many adven- 
 tures, I feel that I have never known happiness. I have done 
 many reckless things, but always with an end in view, and 
 that end receded as I advanced. My heart has grown old 
 with an innocence unfathomed in it. Yes, a credulous first 
 love lies unawakened beneath all the experience, and I feel too 
 that I am young and fair, in spite of so much weariness, so 
 many blighting influences. We may love, yet not be happy; 
 we may be happy when we do not love ; but to love and to be 
 happy both, to know the two boundless joys of human experi- 
 ence this is a miracle, and the miracle has not been worked 
 for me." 
 
 "Nor for me," said Mme. d'Espard. 
 
 . "A dreadful regret haunts me in my retreat ; I have found 
 pastimes, but I have not loved." 
 
 "What an incredible secret!" 
 
 "Ah ! my dear, these are secrets that we can only confide 
 to each other; nobody in Paris would believe us." 
 
 "And if we had not both passed our thirty-sixth year, per- 
 haps we might not make these admissions." 
 
 "N"o. While we are young,, we are stupidly fatuous on 
 some points," assented the Princess. "Sometimes we behave 
 like the poverty-stricken youths that play with a toothpick to 
 make others believe that they have dined well." 
 
 "After all, here we are," Mme. d'Espard said, with bewitch- 
 ing grace, and a charming gesture as of innocence grown wise; 
 "here we are, and there is still enough life in us, it seems to 
 me, for a return game." 
 
 "When you told me the other day that Beatrix had gone off 
 with Conti, I thought about it all night long," said the Prin- 
 cess, after a pause. "A woman must be very happy indeed to 
 sacrifice her position and her future, and to give up the woi Id 
 for ever like that." 
 
 "She is a little fool," Mme. d'Espard returned gravely. 
 "Mile, des Touches was only too delighted to be rid of Conti. 
 Beatrix could not see that it was a strong proof that there was
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 335 
 
 nothing in Conti when a clever woman gave him up without 
 making a defence of her so-called happiness for a single mo- 
 ment." 
 
 "Then is she going to be unhappy ?" 
 
 "She is unhappy now. What was the good of leaving her 
 husband? What is it but an admission of weakness in a 
 wife?" 
 
 "Then, do you think that Mme. de Rochefide's motive was 
 not a desire to experience a complete love, that bliss of loving 
 and being loved which for us both is still a dream ?" 
 
 "No. She aped Mme. de Beauseant and Mme. de Lange- 
 ais, who, between ourselves, would have been as great fig- 
 ures as La Valliere, or the Montespan, or Diane de Poitiers, 
 or the Duchesses d'fitampes or de Chateauroux, in any age 
 less commonplace than ours." 
 
 "Oh, with the king omitted, yes, my dear. Ah ! if I could 
 only call up those women, and ask them if " 
 
 "But there is no necessity to call up the dead," broke in 
 the Marquise; "we know living women who are happy. A 
 score of times I have begun intimate talk about this kind of 
 thing with the Comtesse de Montcornet. For fifteen years 
 she has been the happiest woman under the sun with that lit- 
 tle fimile Blondet. Not an infidelity, not a thought from an- 
 other ; they are still as they were at the first. But somebody 
 always comes to disturb us at the most interesting point. 
 Then there is Rastignac and Mme. de Nucingen, and your 
 cousin Mme. de Camps and that Octave of hers; there is a 
 secret in these long attachments; they know something, dear, 
 that we neither of us know. The world does us the exceeding 
 honor to take us for rouees worthy of the Court of the Re- 
 gency, and we are as innocent as two little boarding-school 
 misses." 
 
 "I should be glad to have even that innocence," the Princess 
 exclaimed mockingly; "ours is worse, there js something hu- 
 miliating in it. There is no help for it ! We will offer up 
 the mortification to ^ou in expiation of our fruitless quest of 
 love; for it is scarcely likely, dear, that in our Marti Q'S sum-
 
 336 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 mer we shall find the glorious flower that did not bloom for us 
 in May and June." 
 
 "That is not the question," rejoined the Marquise after a 
 pause, filled by meditative retrospect. "We are still handsome 
 enough to inspire love, but we shall never convince any one 
 of our innocence and virtue." 
 
 "If it were a falsehood, it should soon be garnished with 
 commentaries, served up with the pretty art that makes a lie 
 credible, and swallowed down like delicious fruit. But to 
 make a truth credible ! Ah ! the greatest men have perished 
 in that attempt," added the Princess, with a subtle smile that 
 Leonardo's brush alone could render. 
 
 "Fools can sometimes love," said the Marquise. 
 
 "Yes ; but not even fools are simple enough to believe this," 
 pointed out the Princess. 
 
 "You are right," the Marquise said, laughing. "We ought 
 not to look to a fool or a man of talent for the solution of the 
 problem. There is nothing for it but genius. In genius alone 
 do you find a child's trustfulness, the religion of love, and a 
 willingness to be blindfolded. Look at Canalis and the 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu. If you and I ever came across men 
 of genius, they were too remote from our lives, and too busy; 
 we were too frivolous, too much carried away and taken up 
 with other things." 
 
 "Ah ! and yet I should not like to leave this world without 
 knowing the joy of love to the full," exclaimed the Princess. 
 
 "It is nothing to inspire love," said Mme. d'Espard ; "it is 
 a question of feeling it. I see many women that are only pegs 
 on which to hang a passion, and not at once its cause and ef- 
 fect." 
 
 "The last passion that I inspired was something sacred 
 and noble," said the Princess; "a future lay before it. Chance, 
 for this once, sent me the man of genius, our due; the due 
 so difficult to come by, for there are more pretty women than 
 men of genius. But the devil was in it." 
 
 "Do tell me about it, dear; this is quite new to me." 
 
 "I only discovered his romantic passion in the winter of
 
 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 337 
 
 1829. Every Friday at the Opera I used to see a man of thirty 
 or thereabouts sitting in the same place in the orchestra; he 
 used to look at me with eyes of fire, saddened at times by the 
 thought of the distance between us and the impossibility of 
 success." 
 
 "Poor fellow, we grow very stupid when we are in love," 
 said the Marquise. The Princess smiled at the friendly epi- 
 gram. 
 
 "He used to slip out into the corridor between the acts," 
 she went on. "Once or twice, to see me or to be seen, he pressed 
 his face against the pane of glass in the next box. If people 
 came to my box, I used to see him glued in the doorway to 
 steal a glance. He knew every one in my set by sight at last. 
 He used to follow them to my box, for the sake of having the 
 door left ajar. Poor fellow, he must have found out who I 
 was very soon, for he knew M. de Maufrigneuse and my 
 father-in-law by sight. Afterwards I used to see my mysteri- 
 ous stranger at the Italiens, sitting in a stall just opposite, 
 so that he eould look up at me in unfeigned ecstasy. It was 
 pretty to see it. After the Opera or the Bouffons, I used to 
 see him planted on his two feet in the crush. People elbowed 
 him, he stood firm. The light died out of his eyes when he 
 saw me leaning on the arm of some one in favor. As for an)'- 
 thing else, not a word, not a letter, not a sign. This was in 
 good taste, you must admit. Sometimes in the morning, when 
 I came back to my house, I would find him again, sitting on a 
 stone by the gateway. This love-stricken man had very fine 
 eyes, a long, thick fan-shaped beard, a royale, and a mous- 
 tache and whiskers; you could see nothing of his face but the 
 pale skin over the cheek bones and a noble forehead. It was 
 a truly antique head. 
 
 "The Prince, as you know," she continued, "defended the 
 Tuileries on the side of the Quais in July. He came to Saint- 
 Cloud the evening that all was lost. 'I was all but killed, dear, 
 at four o'clock,' he said. 'One of the insurgents had leveled 
 his gun at me, when the leader of the attack, a young man 
 with a long beard whom I have seen at the Italiens, I think,
 
 333 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 struck down the barrel.' The shot hit somebody else, a quar- 
 ter-master, I believe, two paces away from my husband. So it 
 was plain that the young fellow was a Kepublican. 
 
 "In 1831 when I came to live here I saw him leaning 
 against the house wall. He seemed to rejoice over my calami- 
 ties; perhaps he thought that they brought us nearer to- 
 gether. But I never saw him again after the Saint-Merri 
 affair; he was killed that day. The day before General La- 
 marque's funeral I walked out with my son, and our Eepub- 
 lican went with us, sometimes behind, sometimes in front, 
 from the Madeleine to the Passage des Panoramas where I 
 was going." 
 
 "Is that all ?" asked the Marquise. 
 
 "All," returned the Princess. "Oh yes; the morning after 
 Saint-Merri was taken a boy out of the street came and must 
 speak to me ; he gave me a letter written on cheap paper, and 
 signed with the stranger's name." 
 
 "Let me see it," said the Marquise. 
 
 "No, dear. The love in that man's heart was- something 
 so great and sacred that I cannot betray his confidence. It 
 stirs my heart to think of that short terrible letter, and the 
 dead writer moves me more than any of the living men that I 
 have singled out. He haunts me." 
 
 "Tell me his name ?" 
 
 "Oh, quite a common one Michel Chrestien." 
 
 "You did well to tell me of it," Mme. d'Espard answered 
 quickly; "I have often heard of him. Michel Chrestien was 
 a friend of a well-known writer whom you have already wished 
 to see that Daniel d'Arthez who comes to my house once or 
 twice in a winter. This Chrestien, who died, as a matter of 
 fact, at Saint-Merri, did not lack friends. I have heard it 
 said that he was one of those great politicians who, like de 
 Marsay, need nothing but a turn of the wheel of chance to be 
 on a sudden all that they ought to be." 
 
 "Then it is better that he should be dead," said the Princess, 
 hiding her thoughts beneath a melancholy expression. 
 
 "Do you care to meet d'Arthez some evening at my house ?"
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 339 
 
 asked the Marquise. "You could talk with him of your 
 ghost." 
 
 "Very willingly, dear." 
 
 Some days after this conversation, Blondet and Rastignac, 
 knowing d'Arthez, promised Mme. d'Espard that he should 
 dine with her. The promise would scarcely have been pru- 
 dent if the Princess' name had not been mentioned, but the 
 great man of letters could not be indifferent to the opportu- 
 nity of an introduction to her. 
 
 Daniel d'Arthez is one of the very few men of our day who 
 combine great gifts with a great nature. He had at this time 
 won, not all the popularity that his work deserved, but a re- 
 spectful esteem to which the chosen few could add nothing. 
 His reputation certainly would increase, but in the eyes of 
 connoisseurs he had practically reached his full development. 
 Some writers find their true level soon or late, and once for 
 all, and d'Arthez was one of them. Poor, and of good fam- 
 ily, he had rightly guessed the spirit of the age, and trusted 
 not to his ancestor's name, but the name won by himself. For 
 many years he fought his battle in the arena of Paris, to the 
 annoyance of a rich uncle, who left the obscure writer to lan- 
 guish in the direst poverty. Afterwards, when his nephew be- 
 came famous, he left him all his money, a piece of incon- 
 sistency to be laid to the score of vanity. The sudden transi- 
 tion from poverty to wealth made no change whatever in 
 Daniel d'Arthez's way of life. He continued his work with 
 simplicity worthy of ancient times, and laid new burdens upon 
 himself by accepting a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, on 
 the benches to the Right. 
 
 Since his name became known in the world he had occa- 
 Isionally gone into society. An old friend of his, the great 
 doctor Horace Bianchon, had introduced him to the Baron 
 de Rastignac, an under-secretary of state, and a friend of de 
 Marsay's. These were the two politicians who nobly enough 
 gave Michel Chrestien's friends permission to look for his 
 dead body in the cloisters of Saint-Merri, and to bury the Re-
 
 340 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 
 
 publican with due honors. Gratitude for a service which con- 
 trasted strongly with the rigor used by the administration 
 at a time when party spirit ran so high, formed a bond, as it 
 were, between d'Arthez and Rastignac, a bond which the un- 
 der-secretary of state and the illustrious minister were too 
 adroit not to turn to account. Several of Michel Chrestien's 
 friends held opposite opinions in politics ; these had been won 
 over and attached to the new government. One of them, Leon 
 Giraud, first received the appointment of Master of Requests, 
 and afterwards became a Councillor of State. 
 
 Daniel d'Arthez's life was entirely devoted to his work. He 
 saw society by glimpses only ; it was a sort of dream for him. 
 His house was a convent. He led the life of a Benedictine, 
 with a Benedictine's sober rule, a Benedictine's regularity of 
 occupation. His friends knew that he had always dreaded 
 the accident of a woman's entry into his life, he had studied 
 woman too well not to fear her ; and by dint of much study 
 he knew less of his subject, much as your profound tactician 
 is always beaten under unforeseen conditions when scientific 
 axioms will not apply. He turned the face of an experienced 
 observer upon the world while he was still at heart a com- 
 pletely unsophisticated boy. The seeming paradox is quite in- 
 telligible to any one who can appreciate the immense distance 
 set between faculties and sentiments for the former proceed 
 from the brain, the latter from the heart. A man may be 
 great, and yet be a villain, and a fool may rise to sublime 
 heights of love. D'Arthez was one of the richly endowed be- 
 ings in whom a keen brain and a wide range of intellectual 
 gifts have not excluded a capacity for deep and noble feeling. 
 By a rare privilege he was both a doer and a thinker. His 
 private life was noble and pure. Carefully as he had shunned 
 love hitherto, he was learned in love; he knew beforehand 
 how great an ascendency passion would gain over him. But 
 poverty and cold, and the heavy strain of the preparation of 
 the solid groundwork of his brilliant after-achievements, had 
 acted marvelously as a preservative. Then his circumstances 
 grew easier, and he formed a commonplace and utterly in-
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 341 
 
 comprehensible connection; the woman certainly was good- 
 looking enough, but without manners or education, and so- 
 cially his inferior. She was kept carefully out of sight. 
 
 Michel Chrestien maintained that men of genius possess 
 the power of transforming the most massive women into 
 sylphs; for them the silliest of the sex have sense and wit, 
 and the peasant-girl is a marquise ; the more accomplished the 
 woman, the more (according to Chrestien) she loses in their 
 eyes, because she leaves less to the imagination. He also 
 held that love (a purely physical craving for lower natures) 
 becomes for the higher, the greatest achievement of the soul 
 of man; the closest and strongest of all ties that bind two 
 human creatures to each other. By way of justifying d'Ar- 
 thez, he instanced Eaphael and the Fornarina. (He might 
 have taken himself as a model in that kind, since he saw an 
 angel in the Duchesse de Mauf rigneuse. ) But d'Arthez's 
 strange fancy was explicable in many Avays. Perhaps at the 
 outset he lost all hope of finding a woman to correspond to the 
 exquisite visionary ideal, the fond dream of every intelligent 
 man ; perhaps his heart was too fastidiously sensitive, too deli- 
 cate to surrender to a woman of the world; perhaps he pre- 
 ferred to do as nature bade while keeping his illusions and cul- 
 tivating his ideal ; or had he put love, far from him as some- 
 thing incompatible with work, with the regularity of a clois- 
 tered life, in which passion might have worked confusion ? 
 
 For some months past Blondet and Eastignac had rallied 
 him on this score, reproaching him with knowing nothing of 
 the world nor of women. To hear them talk, his works were 
 numerous enough and advanced enough to permit of some di- 
 version; he had a fine fortune, yet he lived like a student; 
 he had had no pleasure from his fame or his wealth; he knew 
 nothing of the exquisite delights of the noble and delicate 
 passion that a high-born, high-bred woman can inspire and 
 feel. Was it not unworthy in him to know love only in its 
 gross material aspects? Love reduced to the thing that na- 
 ture made it was, in their eyes, the most besotted folly. It 
 was the glory of civilization that it had created Woman, when
 
 342 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 
 
 nature stopped short at the female; nature cared for nothing 
 but the perpetuation of the species, whereas civilization in- 
 vented the perpetuation of desire; and, in short, discovered 
 love, the fairest of man's religions. D'Arthez knew nothing 
 of charming subtleties of language; nothing of proofs of af- 
 fection continually given by the brain and soul; nothing of 
 desire ennobled by expression ; nothing of the divine form that 
 a high-bred woman lends to the grossest materialism. D'Ar- 
 thez might know women, but he knew nothing of the divinity. 
 A prodigious deal of art, a fair presentment of body and soul, 
 was indispensable in a woman, if love was worthy to be called 
 love. In short, the tempters vaunted that delicious corrup- 
 tion of the imagination which constitutes a Parisienne's co- 
 quetry;- they pitied d'Arthez because he lived on plain and 
 wholesome fare, and had not tasted luxuries prepared with 
 the Parisienne's skill in these high culinary arts, and whetted 
 his curiosity. At length Dr. Bianchon, recipient of d'Arthez's 
 confidences, knew that this curiosity was aroused. The con- 
 nection formed by the great man of letters with a common- 
 place woman, far from growing more agreeable with use and 
 wont, had become intolerable to him; but the excessive shy- 
 ness that seizes upon solitary men was holding him back. 
 
 "What ?" said Eastignac, "when a man bears per bend gules 
 and or, a besant and a torteau counterchanged, why does he 
 not allow the old Picard scutcheon to shine on his carriage? 
 You have thirty thousand livres a year and all that you make 
 by your pen ; you have made good your motto ARS TTiEsawr- 
 usque virtus, an old punning device such as our ancestors 
 loved yet you will not air it in the Bois de Boulogne ! Good 
 qualities ought not to hide themselves in this age." 
 
 "If you read your work over to that fat Laforet-like crea- 
 ture who solaces your existence, I would forgive you for keep- 
 ing her," put in Blondet. "But, my dear fellow, if you live 
 on dry bread materially speaking, mentally you have not so 
 much as a crust." 
 
 These friendly skirmishes between Daniel and his friends
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 343 
 
 had been going on for ^some months before Mine. d'Espard 
 asked Eastignac and Blondet to induce d'Arthez to dine with 
 her, saying as she did so that the Princesse de Cadignan was 
 extremely anxious to make the famous writer's acquaintance. 
 There are women for whom curiosities of this kind have all 
 the attraction that magic-lantern pictures possess for chil- 
 dren ; but the pleasure for the eyes is poor enough at the best, 
 and fraught with disenchantment. The more interesting a 
 clever man seems at a distance, the less he answers expecta- 
 tions on a nearer view; the more brilliant he was imagined to 
 be, the duller the figure that he subsequently cuts. And it 
 may be added, parenthetically, that disappointed curiosity is 
 apt to be unjust. D'Arthez was not to be deluded by Ras- 
 tignac or Blondet, but they told him laughingly that here was 
 a most alluring opportunity of rubbing the rust off his heart, 
 of discovering something of the supreme felicity to be gained 
 through the love of a Parisian great lady. The Princess was 
 positively smitten with him; there was nothing to fear; he had 
 everything to gain from the interview; he could not possibly 
 descend from the pedestal on which Mme. de Cadignan had 
 placed him. Neither Blondet nor Rastignac saw any harm 
 in crediting the Princess with this love-affair; her past had 
 furnished so many anecdotes that she could surely bear the 
 weight of the slander. For d'Arthez's benefit, they proceeded 
 to relate the adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. 
 Beginning with Her Grace's first flirtations with de Mar- 
 say, they told of her subsequent escapades with d'Ajuda-Pinto 
 (whom she took from his wife, and so avenged Mme. de Beau- 
 seant) ; and of her third liaison with young d'Esgrignon, who 
 went with her to Italy, and got himself into an ugly scrape 
 on her account. Then they told how wretched a certain well- 
 known ambassador had made her; how happy she had been 
 with a Russian general; how she had acted since then as 
 Egeria to two Ministers of Foreigii Affairs, and so forth and 
 so forth. D'Arthez told them that he had heard more about 
 her than they could tell him; their poor friend Michel Chres- 
 tien had worshiped her in his secret heart for four years, and 
 all but lost his wits for her.
 
 341 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "I often used to go with him to the. Italiens or the Opera," 
 Daniel said. "He and I used to rush along the streets to 
 keep up with her horses, while he gazed at the Princess 
 through the windows of her brougham. The Prince de Cadi- 
 gnan owed his life to that love affair; a street-boy was going 
 to fire at him when Michel stopped him." 
 
 "Well, well, you will find a subject ready made," smiled 
 Blondet. "Just the woman you want; she will only be cruel 
 through delicacy; she will initiate you into the mysteries of 
 refined luxury in the most gracious way ; but take care ! She 
 has run through many a fortune. The fair Diane is a spend- 
 thrift of the order that costs not a centime, but for whom 
 men spend millions. Give yourself body and soul if you will, 
 but keep a hold of your purse, like the old man in Girodet's 
 picture of the Deluge." 
 
 This conversation invested the Princess with the grace of a 
 queen, the corruption of a diplomatist, the mystery of an ini- 
 tiation, the depth of an abyss, and the danger of a siren. D'Ar- 
 thez's ingenious friends, being quite unable to foresee the re- 
 sults of their hoax, ended by making Diane d'Uxelles the 
 most portentous Parisienne, the cleverest coquette, the most 
 bewildering courtesan in the world. They were right ; and yet 
 the woman so lightly spoken of was sacred and divine for 
 d'Arthez. There was no need to work upon his curiosity. He 
 agreed to meet her at the first asking, and that was all his 
 friends wanted of him. 
 
 Mme. d'Espard went to the Princess as soon as the invita- 
 tion was accepted. 
 
 "Do you feel that you are in good looks and good form for 
 coquetry, dear?" she asked. "Come and dine with me in a few 
 days' time, and I will serve you up d'Arthez. Our man of 
 genius is the shyest of the shy ; he is afraid of women ; he has 
 never been in love. Here is a subject for you. He is ex-, 
 tremely clever, and so simple that he disarms suspicion and' 
 puts you at a disadvantage. His perspicacity is altogether of 
 the retrospective kind ; it acts after the event, and throws out 
 all your calculations. You may take him in to-day; to-morrow 
 he is not to be duped by anything."
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 345 
 
 "Ah! if I were only thirty years old, I would have some 
 fun," said the Princess. "The one thing wanting in my life 
 hitherto has been a man of genius to outwit. I have always 
 had partners, never an adversary. Love was a game, not a 
 contest." 
 
 "Admit that I am very generous, dear Princess; for, after 
 all, well-regulated charity " 
 
 The women looked laughingly into each other's faces, and 
 their hands met with a friendly pressure. Surely both of 
 them must have been in possession of important secrets ! They 
 certainly did not take account of a man or a service to render ; 
 and any sincere and lasting friendship between two women is 
 sure to be cemented by petty crimes. You may see two of 
 these dear friends, each of them quite able to kill the other 
 with the poisoned dagger in her hand ; and a touching picture 
 of harmony they present till the moment comes when one of 
 them chances to let her weapon drop. 
 
 In a week's time, therefore, the Marquise gave one of her 
 small evening parties, her petits jours, when a few intimate 
 friends were invited by word of mouth, and the hostess shut 
 her door to other visitors. Five people were asked to dinner : 
 Smile Blondet and Mme. de Montcornet, Daniel d'Arthez, 
 Rastignac and the Princesse de Cadignan three men and, 
 including the mistress of the house, three women. Never did 
 chance permit of more skilful prearrangement than on this oc- 
 casion of d'Arthez's introduction to Mme. de Cadignan. 
 
 Even at this day the Princess is supposed to be one of the 
 best-dressed women in Paris, and for women dress is the first 
 of arts. She wore a blue velvet gown with large white hang- 
 ing sleeves. The corselet bodice was cut low at the throat; 
 but a sort of chemisette of slightly drawn tulle with a blue 
 border such as you may see in some of Raphael's portraits 
 (covered her shoulders, leaving only about four fingers' breadth 
 of her neck quite bare. A few sprays of white heather, cleverly 
 arranged by her maid, adorned the. fair, rippling hair for 
 which Diane had been famous. In truth, at this moment she 
 looked scarcely five-and-twenty. Four years of solitude and
 
 34G THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 repose had restored brilliancy to her complexion; and there 
 are moments, surely, when a woman looks more beautiful for 
 the desire to please; the will counts for something in the 
 changes that pass over a face. If persons of sanguine or mel- 
 ancholic temperament turn sallow, and the lymphatic grow 
 livid under the influence of violent emotion, surely it must 
 be conceded that desire and hope and joy are great beautifiers 
 of the complexion ; they glow in brilliant light from the eyes, 
 kindling beauty in a face with a fresh brightness like that of 
 a sunny morning. The white fairness for which the Princess 
 was so famous had taken on the rich coloring of mature and 
 majestic womanhood. At this period of her life, reflection and 
 serious thought had left their impression upon her; the 
 dreamy, very noble forehead seemed wonderfully in harmony 
 with the slow queenly gaze of her blue eyes. No physiogno- 
 mist, however skilled, could have imagined that calculation 
 and decision lay beneath those preternaturally delicate fea- 
 tures. Some women's faces baffle science by their repose and 
 fineness, and leave observation at fault ; the opportunity of 
 studying them while the passions speak is hard to come by; 
 when the passions have spoken it is too late; by that time a 
 woman is old, she does not care to dissimulate. 
 
 The Princess was just such an inscrutable feminine mys- 
 tery. Whatever she chose to be she could be. She was play- 
 ful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or subtle, serious, and 
 disquietingly profound. When she came to the Marquise's, 
 she meant to be a simple, sweet woman, who had known life 
 only by its deceptions; a soulful, much-slandered, but resigned 
 victim, a cruelly-used angel, in short. 
 
 She came early, so as to take her place beside Mme. d'Es- 
 pard on the settee by the fireside. She would be seen as she 
 meant to be seen ; she would arrange her attitude with an art 
 concealed by an exquisite ease ; her pose should be of the elab- 
 orated and studied kind which brings out all the beauty of 
 the curving line that begins at the foot, rises gracefully to the 
 hips, and continues through Avonderful sinuous contours to the 
 shoulder, outlining the whole length of the body. Nudity
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 347 
 
 would be less dangerous than draperies so artfully arranged to 
 cover and reveal every line. With a subtlety beyond the reach 
 of many women, Diane had brought her son with her. For a 
 moment Mme. d'Espard beheld the Due de Maufrigneuse with 
 blank amazement, then her eyes showed that she compre- 
 hended the situation. She grasped the Princess' hand with, 
 "I understand ! D'Arthez is to be made to accept all the dif- 
 ficulties at the outset, so that you will have nothing to over- 
 come afterwards." 
 
 The Comtesse de Montcornet came with Blondet, Kastignac 
 brought d'Arthez. The Princess paid the great man none of 
 the compliments with which ordinary people are lavish on 
 such occasions; but in her advances there was a certain gra- 
 ciousness and deference which could scarcely have been ex- 
 ceeded for any one. Just so, no doubt, she had been with the 
 King of France and the Princes. She seemed pleased to see 
 the great man of letters, and glad to have sought him out. 
 People of taste (and the Princess' taste was excellent) are 
 known by their manner as listeners; by an unfeigned inter- 
 est and urbanity, which is to politeness what practice is to 
 good doctrine. Her attentive way of listening when d'Arthez 
 spoke was a thousand times more flattering than the most 
 highly-seasoned compliments. The introduction was made by 
 the Marquise quite simply, and with regard to the dues of 
 either. 
 
 At dinner, so far from adopting the affectations which 
 some women permit themselves with regard to food, the 
 Princess ate with a very good appetite; she made a point of 
 allowing the natural woman to appear without airs of any 
 kind. D'Arthez sat next to her, and between the courses she 
 entered upon a tete-a-tete with him under cover of the gen- 
 eral conversation. 
 
 "My reason for procuring myself the pleasure of a meet- 
 ing with you, monsieur," she said, "was a wish to hear some- 
 thing of an unfortunate friend of yours who died for a cause 
 other than ours. I lay under great obligations to him, but 
 it was out of my power to acknowledge or to requite his ser-
 
 348 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 vices. The Prince de Cadignan shares my regrets. I have 
 heard that you were one of the poor fellow's most intimate 
 friends, and that disinterested staunch friendship between 
 you gives me a certain claim to your acquaintance; so you 
 will not think it strange that I should wish to hear all that 
 you could tell me of one so dear to you. I am attached to the 
 exiled family, and of course hold monarchical opinions; but 
 1 am not of the number of those who think that it is impos- 
 sible for a Republican to be noble at heart. A monarchy and 
 a republic are the only forms of government which do not 
 stifle nobility of sentiment." 
 
 "Michel Chrestien was sublime, madame," Daniel an- 
 swered with an unsteady voice. "I do not know of a greater 
 man among the heroes of old times. You must not think that 
 he was one of the narrow Republicans who want the Conven- 
 tion and the Committee of Public Safety re-established with 
 its pretty ways. No, Michel used to dream of European Fed- 
 eration on the Swiss model. Set aside the magnificent mon- 
 archical system which, in my opinion, is peculiarly suited to 
 our country; and let us admit that Michel's project would 
 mean the abolition of war in the old world, and a Europe 
 constituted afresh on a very different basis from that of an- 
 cient conquest, modified subsequently by the feudal system. 
 On this showing the Republicans most nearly approached his 
 theories; and for that reason he fought with them in July 
 and at Saint-Merri. In politics we were diametrically op- 
 posed, but none the less we were the closest friends." 
 
 "It is the finest possible testimony to both your characters," 
 Mme. de Cadignan said timidly. 
 
 "During the last four years of his life he told me of his love 
 for you. No one else knew about it," continued d'Arthez. 
 "We had been like brothers; but that confidence bound us to 
 each other even more closely than before. He alone, madame, 
 would have loved you as you deserve to be loved. Many a 
 wetting I have had, as he and I accompanied your carriage 
 home, running to keep up with the horses, so as not to miss 
 a glimpse of your face to admire you "
 
 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 349 
 
 "Why, monsieur, I shall soon be bound to make compensa- 
 tion " 
 
 "Why is not Michel here?" returned Daniel in a melan- 
 choly voice. 
 
 "Perhaps he might not have loved me for long," began 
 the Princess with a sorrowful shake of the head. "Republi- 
 cans are even more absolute in their ideas than we Absolutists 
 who sin through indulgence. He would dream of me as a 
 perfect woman no doubt; he would have been cruelly unde- 
 ceived. We women are persecuted with slander; and, unlike 
 you literary men, we cannot meet calumny and fight it down 
 by our fame and our achievements. People take us, not for 
 the women we are, but simply as others make us out to be. 
 Others would very soon hide the real unknown self that there 
 is in me by holding up a sham portrait of an imaginary wo- 
 man, the true Mme. de Maufrigneuse in the eyes of the world. 
 He would think me unworthy of the noble love he bore me, 
 he would think I could not understand." Again the Princess 
 shook her head with its coronet of heather among the bright 
 gold curls. There was something sublime in the movement; 
 it expressed sorrowful misgivings and hidden griefs that could 
 not be uttered. Daniel understood all that it meant. He 
 looked at her with quick sympathy in his eyes. 
 
 "Still," she said, "when I saw him again one day, a long 
 while after the Revolution of July, I almost gave way to a 
 wish that came over me to grasp him by the hand, then and 
 there before every one, in the peristyle of the Theatre Italieii, 
 and to give him my bouquet. And then I thought that such 
 a demonstration of gratitude would be sure to be miscon- 
 strued, like so many generous acts that people call 'Mme. de 
 Maufrigneuse's follies'; it will never be in my power to ex- 
 plain them ; nobody save God and my son will ever know me 
 as I really am." 
 
 Her murmured words, spoken with an accent worthy of a 
 great actress, in tones so low that no one else could overhear 
 them, must have thrilled any listener. They went to d'Ar- 
 thez's heart. The famous man of letters was quite out of
 
 350 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 sight; this was a woman striving to rehabilitate herself for 
 the sake of the dead. Perhaps people had slandered her to 
 him ; she wanted to know if anything had tarnished her name 
 for this man who had loved her once. Had he died with all 
 his illusions? 
 
 "Michel was one of those men who love wholly and com- 
 pletely," returned d'Arthez ; "such as he, if they choose amiss, 
 can suffer, but they can never give up her whom they have 
 chosen." 
 
 "Then was I loved like that?" she cried, with a look of 
 high beatitude. 
 
 "Yes, madame." 
 
 "And he was happy through me?" 
 
 "For four years." 
 
 "No woman ever hears of such a thing without a feeling of 
 proud satisfaction," she said, and there was a modest con- 
 fusion in the noble sweet face that turned to his. 
 
 One of the cleverest manoeuvres known to such actresses 
 is a trick of veiling their manner if words have said too much, 
 or of talking with their eyes when other language falls short. 
 There is an irresistible fascination in these ingenious disso- 
 nances that creep into the music of love, or true or feigned. 
 
 "To have made a great man happy," she went on (and 
 her voice dropped lower and lower when she had assured her- 
 self of the effect that she had produced). "To have made a 
 great man happy, and that without committing a crime this 
 is the fulfilment of one's destiny, is it not ?" 
 
 "Did he not write to you?" 
 
 "Yes, but I wanted to be quite sure; for, believe me, mon- 
 sieur, when he set me so high, he was not mistaken in me." 
 
 Women have an art of investing their utterances with a cer- 
 tain peculiar sacramental virtue ; they can impart an inde- 
 scribable something to their words, a thrill that gives them a 
 wider significance, a greater depth; and, unless the charmed 
 auditor subsequently takes it into his head to ask himself what 
 those words really meant, the effect is attained which is the 
 peculiar aim and object of eloquence. If the Princess had
 
 THE SECRETS OF 1 A PRINCESS 351 
 
 worn the crown of France at that moment, instead of the 
 high plaited coronet of bright hair and wreath of delicate 
 heather, her brows could not have looked more queenly. She 
 seemed to d'Arthez to be walking over the tide of slander as 
 our Saviour walked over the Sea of Galilee ; the shroud of her 
 dead love wrapped her round as an aureole clings about an 
 angel. There was not the remotest suggestion that she felt 
 that this was the one position left to her to take up; not a 
 hint of a desire to seem great or loving; it was done simply 
 and quietly. No living man could have done the Princess the 
 service rendered by the dead. 
 
 D'Arthez, worker and recluse, had had no experience of 
 the world; study had folded him beneath its sheltering wings. 
 Her words, her tones, found a credulous listener. He had 
 fallen under the spell of her exquisite ways; he was filled 
 with admiration of her flawless beauty, matured by evil for- 
 tune, freshened by retirement; he bowed down before that 
 rarest combination a vivid intellect and a noble soul. He 
 longed, in short, to be Michel Chrestien's heir and successor. 
 
 The first beginnings of his love may be traced to an idea 
 a common case with your profound thinker. While he looked 
 at his neighbor, while his eyes grew familiar with the outlines 
 of her head, the disposition of her delicate features, her shape, 
 her foot, her finely modeled hands; while he saw her now on 
 a closer view than in the days when he accompanied his 
 friend on his wild pursuit of her carriage, he was thinking 
 to himself that here was an instance of that wonderful thing 
 the power of second-sight developed in a man under the in- 
 fluence of love's exaltation. How clearly Michel Chrestien had 
 read this woman's heart and soul by the light of the fire of 
 love ! And she too on her side had divined the Federalist ; he 
 might, no doubt, have been happy ! In this way the Princess 
 was invested with a great charm for d'Arthez; a halo as of 
 poetry shone about her. 
 
 In the course of the dinner, d'Arthez remembered MichePs 
 confidences, Michel's despair, Michel's hopes when he fancied 
 that he was loved in return, and his passionate, lyrical out-
 
 352 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 pourings to the one friend to whom he spoke of his love. And 
 Daniel the while was all unconscious that he was to reap 
 the benefit of the preparations due to chance. It very seldom 
 happens that a confidant can pass without remorse to the 
 estate of rival; d'Arthez could do this, and wrong no one 
 now. In one brief moment he realized the immense distance 
 that separates the high-bred lady, the flower of the great 
 world, from the ordinary woman, whom, however, he only knew 
 by a single specimen. He had been approached on his weakest 
 side, touched on the tenderest spots in his soul and genius. 
 His simplicity, his impetuous imagination urged him to 
 possess this woman ; but he felt that the world held him back, 
 and the Princess' bearing, her majesty, be it said, raised a 
 barrier between him and her. It was something new to 
 him to respect the woman he loved; and this unwonted feel- 
 ing acted in a manner as an irritant ; the physical attraction 
 grew all the more potent because he had swallowed the bait, 
 and must keep his uneasiness to himself. 
 
 They talked of Michel Chrestien till dessert was served. 
 It was an excuse for lowering their voices on either side. 
 Love, sympathy, intuition here was her opportunity of pos- 
 ing as a slandered, unappreciated woman ! here was his chance 
 of stepping into the dead Republican's shoes ! Possibly a man 
 of such candid mind may have detected within himself a cer- 
 tain diminution of regret for the loss of his friend. 
 
 But when the dessert shone resplendent on the table; when 
 the light of the candles in the sconces fell upon the rich 
 colors of fruit and sugar-plums among the bouquets of 
 flowers; then, under shelter of the brilliant screen of blossoms 
 that separated the guests, it pleased the Princess to put an 
 end to the confidences. With a word, a delicious word, ac- 
 companied by one of the glances that seem to turn a fair- 
 haired woman into a brunette, she found some subtle way of 
 expressing the idea that Daniel and Michel were twin souls. ' 
 After this d'Arthez threw himself into the general conversa- 
 tion with boyish spirits, and a slightly fatuous air not un- 
 worthy of a youth at school. 
 
 The Princess took d'Arthez's arm in the simplest way
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 353 
 
 when they returned to the Marquise's little drawing-room. 
 She lingered a little in the great salon, till the Marquise, on 
 Blondet's arm, was at some little distance from them. Then 
 she stopped d'Arthez. 
 
 "It is my wish to be not inaccessible to that poor Repub- 
 lican's friend," she said. "I have made it a rule to receive 
 no visitors, but you shall be the one exception. Do not think 
 of this as a favor. Favors are only possible between strangers, 
 and it seems to me that we are old friends. I wish to look 
 on you as Michel's brother." 
 
 D'Arthez could only reply by a pressure of the arm ; he 
 found nothing to say. 
 
 Coffee was served. Diane de Cadignan wrapped herself in 
 a large shawl with coquettish grace, and rose to go. Blondet 
 and Rastignac knew too much of the world and of courtiers' 
 tact to try to detain her or to make any ill-bred outcry; 
 but Mme. d'Espard, taking the Princess by the hand, in- 
 duced her to sit down again. 
 
 "Wait till the servants have dined," she whispered; "the 
 carriage is not ready." 
 
 She made a sign to the footman who carried out the coffee 
 tray. Mme. de Montcornet, guessing that Mme. d'Espard 
 wished to speak with the Princess, drew off d'Arthez, Ras- 
 tignac, and Blondet by one of those wild paradoxical tirades 
 which Parisiennes understand to admiration. 
 
 "Well?" asked the Marquise. "What do you think of 
 him ?" 
 
 "He is simply an adorable child ; he is scarcely out of 
 swaddling clothes. Really, even this time there will be a 
 victory without a struggle, as usual." 
 
 "It is disheartening," said Mme, d'Espard, "but there is 
 one thing left," 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "Let me be your rival." 
 
 "That is as you shall decide. I have made up my mind 
 what to do. Genius is a kind of cerebral existence; I do not 
 know how to reach its heart. We will talk of this later on."
 
 354 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 After that last enigmatic remark, Mme. d'Espard made 
 a plunge into the conversation. Apparently she was neither 
 hurt by the words, "That is as you shall decide," nor curious 
 to know what might come of this interview. The Princess 
 stayed nearly an hour longer on the settee by the fireside. 
 She sat in a listless, careless attitude, like Dido in Guerin's 
 picture; and while she seemed to be absorbed in listening, 
 she glanced now and again at Daniel with undisguised yet 
 well-controlled admiration. The carriage was announced. 
 She grasped the Marquise d'Espard's hand, bowed to Mme. 
 de Montcornet, and vanished. 
 
 The Princess' name was not mentioned in the course of the 
 evening. The rest of the party, however, reaped the benefit 
 of d'Arthez's uplifted mood; he talked his best; and, indeed, 
 in Rastignac and Blondet he had two supporters of the first 
 rank as regards quickness of intellect and mental grasp, while 
 the two women had long since been counted among the 
 wittiest great ladies in Paris. To them that evening was 
 like a halt at an oasis; it was a rare enjoyment keenly ap- 
 preciated by the quartette, who lived in constant dread of the 
 danger signals of society, politics, or drawing-room cliques. 
 Some people are privileged to shine like beneficent stars upon 
 others, giving light to their minds and warmth to their hearts. 
 D'Arthez was one of these finer natures. A man of letters, 
 if he rises to the height of his position, is accustomed to think 
 without restraint, and apt, in society, to forget that everything 
 must not be said; still, as there is almost always a certain 
 originality about his divagations, no one complains of them. 
 It was this savor of originality, so rare in mere cleverness, 
 this simple-minded freshness, that made d'Arthez's character 
 something nobly apart; and in this lay the secret of that 
 delightful evening. D'Arthez came away with the Baron de 
 Rastignac. As they drove home, the latter naturally spoke of 
 the Princess, and asked him what he thought of her. y 
 
 "No wonder Michel loved her," returned d'Arthez; "she is 
 no ordinary woman." 
 
 U A. very extraordinary woman," Rastignac returned drily.
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 355 
 
 "I can tell by the sound of your voice that you are in love with 
 her already. You will call before three days are out; 
 and I am too old a hand in Paris not to know what will pass 
 between you. So, my dear Daniel, I beg you not to fall into 
 any 'confusion of interests.' Love the Princess by all means 
 if you feel that you can love her, but bear your interests 
 in mind. She has never asked or taken two farthings of any 
 man whatsoever; she is far too much a Cadignan or 
 d'Uxelles for that; but to my certain knowledge she has not 
 only squandered a very considerable fortune of her own, she 
 has made others run through millions of francs. How? why? 
 and wherefore? Nobody- can tell. She does not know herself. 
 Thirteen years ago I saw her swallow down a charming young 
 fellow's property and an old notary's savings to boot in 
 twenty months." 
 
 "Thirteen years ago !" exclaimed d' Arthez ; "then how old 
 is she?" 
 
 "Why, did you not see her son ?" Eastignac retorted, laugh- 
 ing. "That was her son at table the Due de Maufrigneuse, 
 a young fellow of nineteen. And nineteen and seventeen 
 make " 
 
 "Thirty-six !" exclaimed the man of letters in amazement ; 
 "I took her for twenty." 
 
 "She will be quite willing; but you need have no uneasiness 
 on that score, she will never be more than twenty for you. 
 You are setting foot in the most fantastic of worlds. Good- 
 night. Here you are at home," added Rastignac, as the car- 
 riage turned into the Rue de Bellefond, where d'Arthez lived 
 in a neat house of his own. "We shall met at Mile, des 
 Touches' in the course of the week." 
 
 D'Arthez allowed love to invade his heart after the fashion 
 of my Uncle Toby, videlicet, without the least attempt at re- 
 sistance. He proceeded at once to uncritical adoration, ad- 
 miring the one woman and excluding all others. The Prin- 
 cess, one of the most remarkable portents in Paris, where 
 everything good or evil is possible the Princess, fair creature, 
 became for him the "angel of his dreams," hackneyed though
 
 356 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 the expression may be, now that it has fallen on evil days. 
 A full comprehension of the sudden transformation wrought 
 in the illustrious man of letters is impossible, unless you re- 
 member how solitude and continual work leave the heart dor- 
 mant, and how painful a connection with a vulgar woman 
 may become, when physical cravings give place to love, and 
 love develops new desires and fancies and regrets, and calls 
 forth the diviner impulses of the highest regions of a man's 
 nature. D'Arthez was, indeed, the child, the schoolboy that 
 the Princess at once discerned him to be. 
 
 And the beautiful Diane herself received an almost similar 
 illumination. At last she had found, a man above other men, 
 the man whom all women desire to find, even if they only 
 mean to play with him; the power that they consent to obey 
 for the 'sake of gaining control of it. At last she had dis- 
 covered a great intellect, combined with a boy's heart, and 
 this in the first dawn of passion ; and she saw, with happiness 
 undreamed of, that all this wealth was contained in a form 
 that pleased her. 
 
 D'Arthez was handsome, she thought. Perhaps he was. 
 He had reached the sober age of maturity; he had led a 
 quiet, regular life that had preserved a certain bloom of 
 youth through his thirty-eight years; and, like statesmen 
 and men of sedentary life generally, had attained a reason- 
 able degree of stoutness. As a very young man he bore a 
 vague resemblance to the portraits of the young Bonaparte; 
 and the likeness was still as strong as it might be between 
 a dark-eyed man with thick brown hair and the Emperor with 
 his blue eyes and chestnut locks. But all the high and burn- 
 ing ambition that once shone in d'Arthez's eyes had been 
 softened, as it were, by success; the thoughts that lay dormant 
 beneath the lad's forehead had blossomed ; the hollows in his 
 face had filled up. Prosperity had mellowed the sallow 
 tints that once told of a penurious life and faculties braced 
 to bear the strain of incessant and exhausting toil. 
 
 If you look carefully at the finest faces among ancient 
 philosophers, you can alwavs find that those deviations from
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 357 
 
 the perfect type which give to each face a character of its 
 own are rectified by the habit of meditation, and the con- 
 tinual repose demanded by the intellectual life. The most 
 crabbed visage among them that of Socrates, for instance 
 acquires a well-nigh divine serenity at last. In the noble 
 simplicity that became d'Arthez's imperial face very well, 
 there was something guileless, something of a child's uncon- 
 sciousness of itself, and a kindliness that went to the hearts 
 of others. He had none of that politeness in which there 
 is always a tinge of insincerity, none of the art by which the 
 best-bred and most amiable people can assume those qualities 
 which they have not, much to the discomfiture of their late- 
 enlightened dupes. Some sins of omission he might make as 
 a consequence of his isolation; but he never jarred upon 
 others, and a perfume of the wilderness only enhances the 
 gracious urbanity of the great man who lays aside his great- 
 ness to descend to the social level, and, like Henri IV., will 
 either lend a hand in children's games or lend his wit to 
 fools. 
 
 If d'Arthez made no attempt at a defence, the Princess, 
 on her return home, did not open the question again with 
 herself. There was no more to be said, so far as she was 
 concerned; with all her knowledge, and all her ignorance, 
 she loved. She only asked herself if she deserved such great 
 happiness what had she done that heaven should send 
 such an angel to her? She would be worthy of his love; it 
 should last ; it should be hers for ever ; the last years of youth 
 and waning beauty should be sweet in the paradise that she 
 saw by glimpses. As for resisting it, as for haggling over 
 herself, or coquetting with her lover, she did not even think of 
 it. Her thoughts were of something quite different. She un- 
 derstood the greatness of genius; she felt instinctively that 
 genius is not apt to apply the ordinary rules to a woman of 
 a thousand. So after a rapid forecast, such as none but great 
 feminine natures can make, she vowed to herself to surrender 
 at the first summons. Her estimate of d'Arthez's character, 
 
 based on a single interview, led her to suspect that there would 
 24
 
 358 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 
 
 be time to make what she wished of herself, to be what she 
 meant to be in the eyes of this sublime lover, before that 
 summons would be made. 
 
 And herewith begins an obscure comedy, played on the 
 stage of the inner consciousness of a man and woman, each 
 to be duped by the other. Tartuffe is the merest trifle com- 
 pared with such inscrutable comedies as this; the}' enlarge 
 the borders of the depravity of human nature; they lie be- 
 yond the domain of dramatic art. Extraordinary as they are i 
 throughout, they are natural, conceivable, justified by neces- 
 sity. Such a comedy is a horrible kind of drama, which should 
 be entitled the seamy side of vice. 
 
 The Princess began by sending for d'Arthez's books. She 
 had not read a single word of them, but nevertheless she had 
 kept up a flattering conversation on the subject for twenty 
 minutes without making a single slip. She proceeded to 
 read them through, and then tried to compare his work with 
 that of the best contemporary writers. The result was a fit 
 of mental indigestion on the day of d'Arthez's visit. Every 
 day that week she had dressed with unusual care; her 
 toilette expressed an idea for the eyes to accept, without 
 knowing how or wherefore. So she appeared in a com- 
 bination of soft shades of gray; a listless, graceful half- 
 mourning, an appropriate costume for a woman who felt 
 weary of life, and had nothing left to bind her to life save 
 a few natural ties (her son perhaps). Hers, apparently, 
 was an elegant disgust that stopped short, however, of sui- 
 cide; she was finishing her allotted time in the earthly 
 prison-house. 
 
 She received d'Arthez as though she expected his visit, 
 and had seen him at her house a hundred times, doing him 
 the honor of treating him as an old acquaintance. The con- 
 versation began in the most commonplace way. They talked 
 of the weather, of the Cabinet, of de Marsay's bad health, 
 of the hopes of the Legitimist party. D'Arthez was an Ab- 
 solutist. The Princess could not but know the opinions of a 
 man who sat among the fifteen or twenty Legitimist members
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 359 
 
 of the Chamber of Deputies ; so she took, occasion to tell the 
 story of the trick she had played de Marsay; she touched 
 on the Prince's devotion to the Royal family and to Madame; 
 and thence, by an easy transition, brought d'Arthez's atten- 
 tion to the Prince de Cadignan. 
 
 "There is this at least to be said for him, he is an attached 
 and devoted servant of His Majesty," said she. "His public 
 character consoles me for all that I have suffered from his 
 private life. But," she continued, adroitly leaving the Prince 
 on one side, "have you not noticed (for nothing escapes you) 
 that men have two sides to their characters? One side they 
 show at home, to their wives; it is their true character that 
 appears in private life; the mask is taken off, dissimulation is 
 at an end; they do not trouble to seem other than they are; 
 they are themselves often they are horrible. They are 
 great, noble, and generous for the rest of the world, for the 
 King, and the Court, and the salons; they wear a costume 
 embroidered with virtues and bedizened with fine language; 
 they possess exquisite qualities in abundance. What a shock- 
 ing farce it is ! And yet there are people that wonder at the 
 smile some women wear, at their air of superiority over their 
 husbands, their indifference " 
 
 She broke off, but allowed her hand to drop till it rested 
 on the arm of her chair, a gesture that rounded off her dis- 
 course to admiration. D'Arthez's eyes were intent upon her 
 lissome figure, upon the lines so gracefully carved against the 
 silken depths of her easy-chair; upon the movements of her 
 dress; upon a certain fascinating little wrinkle that played 
 up and down over her bust, a daring device which only suits 
 a waist so slender that it has nothing to lose by it. The 
 Princess, watching him, took up the order of her thoughts, 
 as though she were speaking to herself. 
 
 "I will say no more," she said. "For as for women that 
 give themselves out for 'misunderstood/ and victims of ill- 
 assorted unions who take themselves dramatically and pose 
 as interesting persons that kind of thing seems to me hope- 
 lessly vulgar, and you authors have ended by making such
 
 360 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 women very ridiculous. One must either submit, and there 
 is no more to be said, or one resists and finds amusement. In 
 either case a woman should keep silence. It is true that I 
 could not make up my mind to do either, but that is so much 
 the more reason, perhaps, for keeping silence now. How silly 
 it is to complain ! If a woman is not equal to the circum- 
 stances, if she fails in tact, or sense, or subtlety, she de- 
 serves her fate. Are not women queens in France? They 
 play with you when they choose, as they choose, and for as 
 long as they choose." 
 
 She swung her scent-bottle, with a marvelous blending of 
 feminine insolence and mocking gaiety in her gesture. 
 
 "I have often heard contemptible little creatures regret 
 that they were women," she continued ; "ami I always felt 
 sorry for them. If I had the choice, I would be a woman 
 over again. Ah ! the pleasure and pride of owing your tri- 
 umphs to strength, to all the power put in your hands by laws 
 of your own framing! And when we see you at our feet, 
 doing and saying foolish things for our sakes, is it not in- 
 toxicating joy to feel that the woman's weakness triumphs? 
 So, when we succeed, we are bound to keep silence under 
 penalty of losing our ascendency. And after a defeat, a wo- 
 man's pride bids her be silent. The slave's silence dismays 
 the master." 
 
 While this prattle was piped forth in those winning tones 
 of gentle derision, with an accompaniment of little dainty 
 turns of the head, d'Arthez was spellbound, just as a partridge 
 is fascinated by the sportsman's dog. This kind of woman 
 was something quite new in his experience. 
 
 "Tell me, madame, I beg of you, how any man could have 
 made you suffer; be sure that where other women would be 
 vulgar, you would be distinguished, even if you had not a 
 manner of saying things that would make a cookery-book in- 
 teresting." 
 
 "You are going far in friendship," she said, so gravely, 
 that d'Arthez grew serious and uneasy. 
 
 She changed the subject. It grew late. The man of
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 361 
 
 genius, poor fellow, went away in a contrite frame of mind; 
 he had seemed inquisitive; he had hurt her feelings; and he 
 was convinced that she had suffered as few women suffer. 
 Diane had spent her life in amusing herself; she was neither 
 more nor less than a feminine Don Juan, with this difference 
 if she had tempted the stone statue it would not have been 
 with an invitation to supper, and she certainly would not 
 have had the worst of the encounter. 
 
 It is impossible to continue this history without a word 
 as to the Prince de Cadignan (better known as the Due de 
 Maufrigneuse), or the whole salt and savor of the Princess' 
 miraculous inventions will be lost upon the reader. An out- 
 sider could never understand the atrocity of the comedy 
 which the lady has been playing for the benefit of a man 
 of letters. In person M. le Due de Maufrigneuse, like his 
 father the Prince de Cadignan, was tall and spare; he was a 
 complete fine gentleman, his urbanity never deserted him; 
 he made charming speeches ; he became a colonel by the grace 
 of God, and a good soldier by accident. In other respects 
 the Prince was as brave as a Pole, showed his valor on all 
 occasions without discrimination, and used the jargon of 
 Court circles to hide his mental vacuit}'. Ever since he at- 
 tained the age of thirty-six he had been perforce as indifferent 
 to the sex as his royal master King Charles X. ; for, like his 
 master, he had found too much favor with the fair in his 
 youth, and now was paying the penalty. He had been the 
 idol of the Faubourg Saint-Germain for eighteen years, dur- 
 ing which time he led the dissipated, pleasure-filled life of an 
 eldest son. 
 
 The Eevolution had ruined his father; and though after 
 the Restoration the late Prince had recovered his post, the 
 governorship of a royal castle, with a salary and divers pen- 
 sions, he had kept up the state of a grand seigneur of old 
 days, and squandered his fortune during the brief gleam of 
 prosperity to such purpose, that all the sums repaid him by 
 the law of indemnity went in a display of luxury in his im- 
 mense old mansion. It was the only piece of property left
 
 362 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 to him, and the greater part of it was occupied by his 
 daughter-in-law. The old Prince de Cadignan died at the 
 ripe age of eighty-seven, some years before the Eevolution of 
 July. He had ruined his wife, and for a long time there 
 had been something like a coolness between him and his son- 
 in-law, the Due de Navarreins; the Duke's first wife had 
 been a Cadignan, and the accounts of the trust of her fortune 
 had never been satisfactorily settled. 
 
 The present Prince (then the Due de Maufrigneuse) had 
 had a liaison with the Duchesse d'Uxelles. Towards 1814, 
 when the Duke reached his thirty-sixth year, the Duchess, 
 seeing that he was poor but stood very well at Court, gave 
 him her daughter with a rent-roll of fifty or sixty thousand 
 livres, to say nothing of expectations. In this way Mile. 
 d'Uxelles became a duchess, her mother knowing that in all 
 probability the newly married wife would be allowed great 
 liberty. An heir was born, after which unexpected piece of 
 good fortune the Duke left his wife complete freedom of 
 action, amused himself by going from garrison to garrison, 
 spent the winters in Paris, contracted debts which his father 
 paid, and professed the most complete indifference for his 
 wife. He always gave the Duchess a week's warning before 
 returning to Paris. Adored by his regiment, in high favor 
 with the Dauphin, an adroit courtier, and something of a 
 gambler, there was no sort of affectation about the Due de 
 Maufrigneuse; the Duchess never could persuade him to 
 take up an Opera girl, out of regard for appearances and con- 
 sideration for her, as she pleasantly said. The Duke suc- 
 ceeded to his father's post at Court, and contrived to please 
 both Louis XVIII. and Charles X., which shows that he 
 understood how to turn a colorless character to a tolerable 
 good account; and besides, his life and behavior were covered 
 over by the most elegant veneer. In language and fine man- 
 ners he was a perfect model ; he was popular even among 
 Liberals. The Cadignans, according to the Prince his father, 
 were famous for ruining their wives; in this respect, how- 
 ever, he found it impossible to keep up the family tradi-
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 3G3 
 
 tion, the Duchess was running through her fortune too 
 quickly for him. 
 
 These little details of the family history were public prop- 
 erty at Court and in the Faubourg Saint-Germain ; so much 
 so, in fact, that if any one had begun to discuss them, he 
 would have been met with a smile. A man might as well 
 have announced the capture of Holland by the Dutch. No 
 iwomaii ever mentioned the "charming Duke" without a word 
 of praise. His conduct towards his wife had been perfect; 
 it was not a small thing for a man to behave himself as well 
 as Maufrigneuse had done, he had left the Duchess' fortune 
 entirely at her disposal; he had given her his support and 
 countenance on every occasion. And indeed, from pri'de, 
 or good nature, or from some chivalrous feeling, M. de Mau- 
 frigneuse had many a time come to the Duchess' rescue; any 
 other woman would have gone under, in spite of her connec- 
 tions, in spite of the combined credit of the old Duchesse 
 d'Uxelles, the Due de Navarreins, the old Prince de Cadignan, 
 and her husband's aunt. The present Prince is allowed to be 
 one of the true nobles among the noblesse. And perhaps, if 
 a courtier is faithful at need, he has won the finest of all 
 victories over himself. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Uxelles was a woman of five-and-forty 
 when she married her daughter to the Due de Maufrigneuse, 
 and therefore she saw her old friend's success not merely 
 without jealousy, but with interest. At the time of the mar- 
 riage she had showed herself a great lady and saved the situa- 
 tion; though she could not prevent scoffing on the part of 
 spiteful persons at Court, who said that the Duchess' noble 
 conduct cost her no great effort, albeit she had given the past 
 five years to repentance and devotion, after the manner of j 
 women who stand in great need of forgiveness. 
 
 To return to Diane de Cadignan. The extent of the! 
 knowledge of literature which she displayed grew more and 
 more remarkable clay by day. She could venture with the 
 utmost boldness upon the most abstruse questions, thanks to
 
 3G4 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 studies daily and nightly pursued with an intrepidity worthy 
 of all praise. D'Arthez was bewildered. He was incapable 
 of suspecting that Diane, like a good many writers, repeated 
 at night what she read of a morning. He took her for a 
 woman of no ordinary power. In the course of these con- 
 versations they wandered further and further from the end 
 that Diane had in view; she tried to return to the ground of 
 confidential talk, but it was not very easy to bring a man of 
 d'Arthez's temper back to a subject after he had once been 
 warned from it. However, after a month of excursions into 
 literature and beautiful Platonic discourses, d'Arthez grew 
 bolder, and came every day at three o'clock. At six he took 
 leave, only to return three hours later to stay till midnight 
 or one o'clock in the morning. This with the regularity of 
 an impatient lover; and the Princess, on her side, was always 
 more or less carefully dressed at his hours. The tryst thus 
 kept daily, the pains that they both took with themselves, 
 their whole proceedings, in fact, expressed the feelings to 
 which neither of them dared to confess; and the Princess 
 divined in some marvelous way that the grown child dreaded 
 the coming contest as much as she herself longed for it. And 
 yet d'Arthez's manner was a constant declaration of love 
 a declaration made with a respect which was inexpressibly 
 pleasant to the Princess. Every day they felt so much the 
 more closely drawn together, because there was no convention, 
 no sharp line of difference to arrest the progress of their 
 ideas; no barrier was raised, as frequently happens between 
 lovers, by formal demands on the "one side, and coquettish 
 or sincere demurs upon the other. Like most men whose 
 youth Insts on until middle age, d'Arthez was consumed by a 
 poignant irresolution caused by vehement desires on the one 
 hand, and the dread of incurring his mistress' displeasure 
 on the other. A young woman understands nothing of all 
 this while s'he shares the emotion, but the Princess was too 
 experienced not to linger over its delights. So Diane enjoyed 
 to the full the delicious child's-play of love, finding all the 
 more charm in it because she knew so well how to put an
 
 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 365 
 
 end to it. She was like a great artist, dwelling complacently 
 on the vague outlines of a sketch, sure of the coming hour of 
 inspiration that shall shape a masterpiece out of an idea that 
 floats as yet in the limbo of things unborn. How many 
 a time, as she saw that d'Arthez was ready to advance, she 
 amused herself by checking him with her queenly air. She 
 could control the tempest in the man's boyish heart, she could 
 raise the storm and still it again, by a glance, by giving him 
 her hand to kiss, by some commonplace word uttered in a 
 soft, tremulous voice. 
 
 This policy of hers had been coolly resolved upon, and 
 she acted it out divinely, gradually deepening the lines of 
 the image engraven upon the heart of a clever man of letters 
 of whom it pleased her to make a child. With her he was 
 trustful, open, almost simple; and yet at times something 
 like a reaction would set in, and she could not but admire the 
 man's greatness, blended with such innocence. The arch-co- 
 quette's play was binding her at unawares to her bond-slave. 
 At length Diane grew impatient with her love-sick Epictetus ; 
 and as soon as she felt that he was disposed to put a blind 
 faith in her, she set herself to tie a thick bandage over his 
 eyes. 
 
 One evening Daniel found the Princess in a pensive mood. 
 She was sitting with one elbow on the table, her bright golden 
 head bathed in the lamplight, while she played with a letter, 
 absently tapping it upon the tablecloth. When d'Arthez had 
 been allowed a full view of the letter, she folded it and thrust 
 it into her belt. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked d'Arthez. "You look 
 troubled." 
 
 "I have heard from M. de Cadignan," she replied. 
 "Deeply as he has wronged me, I have been thinking, since 
 I read this letter, that he is an exile, and alone; he is fond 
 of his son, and his son is away from him." 
 
 Her soul seemed to vibrate through her voice; to d'Arthez 
 it was a revelation of a divine sensitiveness to another's pain. 
 It touched him to the quick. His lover's eagerness to read
 
 366 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 her became, as it were, a piece of curious literary and 
 scientific inquiry. If he could only know the height of her 
 woman's greatness; the full extent of the injuries forgiven; 
 and learn how near the angels a woman of the world may 
 rise while others accuse her of frivolity and selfishness and 
 hardness of heart ! Then he remembered that once before 
 he had sought to know this angel's heart, and how he had been 
 repulsed. He took the slender transparent hand with its taper 
 fingers in his, and said, with something like a tremor in his 
 voice, "Are we friends enough now for you to tell me what 
 you have suffered? Old troubles must count for something 
 in your musings." 
 
 "Yes," said the fair Diane, prolonging the one syllable; 
 Tulou's flute never sighed forth a sweeter sound. Then she 
 drifted again into musings, her eyes clouded over; and as 
 Daniel waited in anxious suspense, the solemnity of the mo- 
 ment penetrated his being. His poet's imagination beheld 
 the cloud veiling the sanctuary; slowly the obscurity would 
 clear away, and he should behold the wounded lamb lying at 
 the feet of God. 
 
 "Well?" he said softly and quietly. 
 
 Diane looked into his face with its look of tender entreaty, 
 then her eyes fell slowly, and the lashes drooped; the move- 
 ment was a revelation of the noblest delicacy. A man must 
 have been a monster to imagine that there could be a taint 
 of hypocrisy in the graceful curve of the throat, as Diane 
 raised her little dainty head to send a glance into the very 
 depths of those hungry eyes. 
 
 "Can I? and ought I?" she began, with a certain hesita- 
 tion, and her face wore a sublime expression of dreamy ten- 
 derness as' she gazed at d'Arthez. "Men keep faith so little 
 in such things. They feel so little bound to secrecy." 
 
 "Ah ! but if you cannot trust me, why am I here ?" he 
 cried. 
 
 "Ah ! my friend, does a woman calculate when she binds 
 herself to a friendship for life?" answered Diane, and there 
 was all the charm of an involuntary confession about her
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 367 
 
 words. "It is not a question of refusing you (what can I 
 refuse to you?) ; but what would you think of me if I should 
 speak ? Willingly I would tell you of my position, a strange 
 one at my age; but what would you think of a wife who 
 should lay bare the wounds dealt to her by her own husband, 
 and betray the secrets of another? Turenne kept his word 
 with thieves; ought I not to show the honor of a Turenne 
 towards those who tortured me?" 
 
 "Have you given your word to any one?" 
 
 "M. de Cadignan thought it unnecessary to ask for secrecy. 
 So you would have more of me than myself ? Ah ! tyrant, 
 am I to bury my honesty in you?" and her glance made the 
 pretended confidence seem something greater than the gift 
 of her person. 
 
 "You rate me rather too low if you can fear any wrong 
 whatsoever from me," he said with ill-disguised bitterness. 
 
 "Forgive me, my friend," she said. She took his hand in 
 hers, caressing it with a most loving soft touch of her fingers. 
 "I know all your worth. You have told me the story of your 
 life; it is a noble, a beautiful story; it is sublime, it is worthy 
 of your name ; perhaps you think I owe you mine in return ? 
 But at this very moment I am afraid of lowering myself in 
 your eyes by telling secrets that are not mine only. And, 
 poet and lonely thinker as you are, perhaps you may not be- 
 lieve in the horrors of worldly life. Oh ! when you invent 
 your tragedies, you little know what tragedies are going on 
 in many an apparently closely united family ! You do not 
 imagine the extent of the wretchedness beneath the gilding." 
 
 "I know all," he cried.. 
 
 "No, nothing," she answered. "Ought a daughter to be- 
 tray her mother?" 
 
 At these words of hers, d'Arthez felt as if he had lost his / 
 way in darkness among the Alps, and found, with the first. 1 
 glimpse of dawn, that he stood on the very edge of a bottom-* 
 less precipice. He looked with dazed eyes at the Princess, 
 and a cold chill crept over him. For a moment Diane thought 
 that the man of ge.iius was a weakling; but a flash in his 
 eyes reassured her
 
 368 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "And now, you are almost like a judge for me," she said 
 despairingly. "And I may speak, for every slandered 
 creature has a right to prove its innocence. I have been, 
 nay if any one remembers a poor recluse, a woman forced 
 by the world to renounce the world I am still accused of 
 such light conduct, of so many sins, that I may be forgiven 
 for putting myself in the true light for the heart in which 
 I find a refuge from which I shall not be driven forth. It 
 has always seemed to me that self-justification tells heavily 
 against innocence; for that reason I have always scorned to 
 defend myself; to whom, indeed, could I speak? Painful 
 things like these can only be confided to God, or to some one 
 very near Him, to a priest or to a second self. Ah, well, 
 if my secrets are not there," she added, laying a hand on 
 d'Arthez's breast, "as they are here" (bending the busk of 
 her corset with her fingers), "} r ou cannot be the great 
 d'Arthez, and I have been mistaken in you." 
 
 D'Arthez's eyes filled, and Diane drank in those tears ; she 
 gave him a sidelong glance with steady eyes and unquivering 
 eyelids. It was as deft and neat as a cat's spring on a mouse. 
 Then, for the first time, after sixty days of protocols, d'Arthez 
 took the warm, moist hand, carried it to his lips, and set a 
 kiss upon it a slow, long kiss, drawn from the wrist to the 
 finger-tips, taken with such delicate rapture that the Princess, 
 bending her head, augured very well of literature. In her 
 opinion, men of genius ought to love more perfectly than 
 men of the world, coxcombs, diplomates, or even military men, 
 though these certainly have nothing else to do. Diane had 
 had experience. She knew that a man's character as a lover is 
 revealed by very small signs and tokens. If a woman is 
 learned in this lore, she can tell from a mere gesture what she 
 has to expect; much as Cuvier could examine a fragment of 
 a fossil foot, and say, "This belonged to an animal that lived 
 so many thousand years ago; its habit was amphibious, car- 
 nivorous, herbivorous, or what not ; it had or had not horns, 
 and so forth." She felt sure that the imagination which 
 d'Arthez put into his literary style would show itself in his
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 3G9 
 
 love; so she held it expedient to bring him to the highest 
 degree of passion and belief in her. She drew her hand back 
 at once, with a magnificent gesture fraught with emotion. 
 If she had said in words, "No more of that, you will kill me !" 
 she could not have spoken more forcibly. For a moment her 
 eyes rested upon his; joy and fear and prudery and confi- 
 dence and languor; a vague longing and something of a 
 maiden's shyness were mingled in their expression. For that 
 moment she was a girl of twenty. She had prepared, you 
 may be sure, for that hour's comedy; never had woman 
 dressed herself with such art; and now, as she sat in her 
 great chair, she looked like a flower ready to open out at 
 the first kiss of the sun. Eeal or artificial, whichever she 
 was, she intoxicated Daniel. 
 
 And here, if it is permissible to hazard a personal opinion, 
 let us confess that it would be delightful to be thus deceived 
 for as long as possible. Talma on the stage certainly rose 
 far above nature many a time ; but is not the Princesse de 
 Cadignan the greatest actress of our day? Nothing was 
 wanting to her save an attentive audience. But, unfor- 
 tunately, women disappear in stormy epochs; they are like 
 water-lilies, they must have a cloudless sky and the softest of 
 warm breezes if they are to blossom and spread themselves 
 before our enchanted eyes. 
 
 The hour had come. Diane was about to entangle a great 
 man in the inextricable toils of a romance that had long 
 been growing; and he was to listen to it as a catechumen 
 might have listened to an epistle from one of the apostles 
 in the palmy days of the Christian Church. 
 
 "My mother, who is still living at Uxelles, married me in 
 1814 to M. de Maufrigneuse when I was seventeen years old 
 (you see, rny friend, how old I am). She made the match, 
 not out of love for me, but from love of him. He was the only 
 man she had ever cared for; so she repaid him in this way for 
 all the happiness that he had given her. Oh! do not be 
 shocked by the ugly combination ; it is a thing that often 
 happens. Some womeia put their lover before their children
 
 370 THE SECRETS OF A TRINU'ESS 
 
 just as most women are mothers rather than wives. The two 
 instincts of wifely love and motherhood, developed as they 
 are by social conditions, often come into conflict in a woman's 
 heart. One of them must necessarily supplant the other 
 unless both kinds of love are equally strong, as sometimes 
 happens with an extraordinary woman, the glory of our sex. 
 A man of your genius surely will understand these things; 
 fools wonder at them, yet they are none the less founded in 
 nature. I will go further, they are justifiable by differences 
 in character, temperament, situation, and the nature of the 
 attachment. If I myself, for instance, at this moment, 
 after twenty years of misfortune, and disappointment, and 
 heavy trials, and hollow pleasures, and slander which I could 
 not refute if I were offered a true and lasting love, might 
 I not feel ready to fling myself at the feet of the man who 
 offered it ? If I did, would not the world condemn me ? And 
 yet, surely twenty years of wretchedness ought to buy absolu- 
 tion for twelve years given to a pure and hallowed love the 
 twelve years of life that remain before I fade? But it will 
 not be ; I am not foolish enough to diminish my merits in the 
 eyes of God. I have borne the burden and heat of the day 
 until evening; I will finish my day; I shall have earned my 
 reward " 
 
 "What an angel!" thought d'Arthez. 
 
 "In short, though the Duchesse d'Uxelles cared more for 
 M. de Maufrigneuse than for the poor Diane whom you see 
 before you, I have never borne her a grudge. My mother 
 had scarcely seen me ; she had forgotten me ; but her behavior 
 to me, as between woman and woman, was bad ; and what is 
 bad between woman and woman becomes hateful between 
 mother and daughter. Mothers that lead such a life as the 
 Duchesse d'Uxelles led keep their daughters at a distance. 
 I only 'came out' a fortnight before my marriage. Judge of 
 my innocence! I knew nothing; I wa<= incapable of guessing 
 the motives that brought the match about. I had a fine for- 
 tune sixty thousand livres a year from forests, which they 
 either could not sell or had forgotten to sell during the Revo-
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 571 
 
 lution, and the chateau d'Anzy in the Nivernais to which the 
 forest belonged. M. de Maufrigneuse was burdened with 
 debts. If I afterwards came to understand what debts meant, 
 at the time of my marriage I was too completely ignorant 
 of life to suspect the significance of the word. The accumu- 
 lated interest of my fortune went to pacify my husband's 
 creditors. 
 
 "M. de Maufrigneuse was thirty-eight years old when I was 
 married to him; but those years were like a soldier's cam- 
 paigns; they should count double. Oh, he was far more than 
 seventy-six years old. My mother at the age of forty had still 
 some pretensions to beauty; and I found that I was be- 
 tween jealousy on either side. What a life I led for the next 
 ten years ! . . . Ah ! if people but knew how the poor, 
 much-suspected young wife suffered ! To be watched by a 
 mother who was jealous of her own daughter! Ah, God! 
 . . . You writers of tragedies will never invent a drama 
 so dark and so cruel ! I think, from the little I know of 
 literature, that a play as a rule is a series of events, con- 
 versations, and actions which lead to the catastrophe; but 
 this thing of which I am speaking to you is a most dreadful 
 catastrophe without end. It is as if the avalanche that fell 
 this morning should fall again at night and yet again next 
 morning. A cold shudder runs through me while I speak 
 of it, while I light up the cavern from which there was no 
 escape, the cold, gloomy place where I used to live. If you 
 must know all, the birth of my child altogether mine, in- 
 deed, for you must surely have been struck by his likeness 
 to me? he has my hair, my eyes, the outline of my face, 
 my mouth, my smile, my chin, my teeth well, my child's 
 birth was due either to chance or to some agreement between 
 my mother and my husband. For long after my marriage 
 I was still a girl ; I was abandoned, so to speak, directly 
 afterwards; I was a mother, but a girl still. The Duchess 
 was pleased to prolong the period of ignorance, and to 
 attain this end a mother has horrible advantages. As for 
 me, a poor, little creature brought up like a mystic rose
 
 372 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 in a convent, I knew nothing of married life, I developed 
 late, and felt very happy; I rejoiced over the good un- 
 derstanding and the harmony that prevailed in the family. 
 I did not care much for my husband, and he took no pains 
 to please me; and at length my thoughts were altogether 
 diverted from me by the first joys of motherhood, joys 
 the more keenly felt because I had no suspicion that there 
 could be any others. So much had been dinned into my 
 ?ars about the respect that a mother owed herself ! And 
 besides, a girl always loves to 'play at mamma.' At that age 
 a child is as good as a doll. I was so proud too to have that 
 lovely flower, for Georges was a lovely child a wonder ! 
 How could one think of society while one had the pleasure 
 of nursing and tending a little angel ? I adore little children 
 while they are quite little and pink and white. So I saw no 
 one but my baby; I lived with him; I would not allow his 
 nurse to dress or undress him or to change his clothes. The 
 little cares that grow so wearisome to the mother of a regi- 
 ment of babes were all pure pleasure to me. But after three 
 or four years, as I am not altogether a fool, the light broke in 
 upon me in spite of all the pains they took to bandage my 
 eyes. Can you imagine me when the awakening came, four 
 years afterwards, in 1819. Deux Freres ennemis is a rose- 
 water tragedy compared with the dramatic situation in which 
 the Duchess and I, mother and daughter, were placed with 
 regard to each other. Then I defied both her and my hus- 
 band, by flirting publicly in a way that made people talk. 
 Heaven knows what they did not say. You can understand, 
 my friend, that the men with whom I was accused of light 
 conduct were simply daggers that I used to defend myself 
 against the enemy. My thoughts were so full of revenge 
 that T did not feel the wounds that I dealt myself. I was 
 innocent as a child; people looked upon me as a depraved 
 woman, one of the worst of women. I knew nothing of this. 
 "The world is very stupid, very ignorant, very blind. Peo- 
 ple only penetrate into the secrets that interest them and serve 
 their spite; but when the greatest and nobles things are to
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 373 
 
 be seen, they put their hands before their eyes. And yet, it 
 seems to me that the pride that thrilled through me and shook 
 me in those days, the indignant innocence in my expression 
 and attitudes, would have been a godsend to a great painter. 
 The tempest of anger in me must have flashed like lightning 
 through a ballroom; my disdain must have poured out like 
 a flood. It was wasted passion. Nothing save the indignation 
 of twenty years can rise to such sublime tragic heights. As 
 we grow older we cannot feel indignant, we are tired ; evil is 
 not a surprise ; we grow cowardly, we are afraid. As for me, I 
 made fine progress. I acted like the veriest fool; I bore the 
 blame of wrongdoing, and had none of the pleasure. I en- 
 joyed compromising myself. I played child's tricks. 
 
 "I went to Italy with a hare-brained boy; he made love 
 to me, and I threw him over; but when I found out that he 
 had got himself into a scrape on my account (he had forged a 
 bill), I hurried to the rescue. My mother and my husband, 
 who knew the secret of it all, kept a tight hand over me 
 as an extravagant wife. Oh ! that time I went to the King. 
 Louis XVIII., though he had no heart, was touched. He 
 gave me a hundred thousand francs out of the privy purse. 
 The Marquis d'Esgrignon (you may perhaps have met him 
 in society, he married a very rich heiress afterwards), the 
 Marquis d'Esgrignon was rescued from the depths into which 
 he plunged for me. This adventure, brought about by my 
 heedlessness, made me reflect. I saw then that I was the first 
 to suffer from my revenge. My mother and husband and 
 father-in-law had every one on their side; they stood to all 
 appearance between me and the consequences of my reckless- 
 ness. My mother knew that I was far too proud, too great, 
 too truly a d'Uxelles, to do anything commonplace; about 
 this time she grew frightened by the mischief she had done. 
 She was fifty-two years old. She left Paris and went to live 
 at d'Uxelles. Now she repents of her sins towards me, and 
 expiates them by the most extravagant devotion and bound- 
 less love. But in 1823 she left me alone, face to face with 
 M. de Maufrieneuse.
 
 374 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "Oh, my friend, you men cannot know what an elderly 
 man of pleasure is; nor what a house is like when a man is 
 accustomed to have women of the world burning incense 
 before him, and finds neither censer nor perfumes at home; 
 when he is dead to everything, and jealous for that very rea- 
 son. When M. de Maufrigneuse was mine alone, I tried, I 
 tried to be a good wife; but I came into conflict with the as- 
 perities of a morose temper, with all the fancies of an effete 
 voluptuary; the driveling puerilities, the vain self-sufficiency 
 of a man who was, to tell truth, the most tedious, maun- 
 dering grumbler in the world. He treated me like a little 
 girl ; it gave him pleasure to humiliate me on every occasion, 
 to crush me with the bludgeon of his experience, and to show 
 me how completely ignorant I was. He mortified me at every 
 moment. He did everything, in fact, to make himself de- 
 testable and to give me a right to deceive him ; but for three 
 or four years I was the dupe of my own heart and my desire 
 to do right. Do you know what a shameful speech it was that 
 urged me to fresh recklessness? Could you imagine the su- 
 preme lengths to which slander is carried in society? "The 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has gone back to her husband,' 
 people said. 'Pooh! out of sheer depravity; it is a triumph 
 to quicken the dead, nothing else remains for hei- to do,' re- 
 plied my best friend, a relative at whose house I had the 
 pleasure of meeting you." 
 
 "Mme. d'Espard !" exclaimed Daniel, aghast. 
 
 "Oh, I have forgiven her, my friend. The speech was ex- 
 tremely clever, to go no further, and I may perhaps have 
 said more cruel things of other unhappy women who were 
 quite as pure as I was." 
 
 Again d'Arthez kissed her hands. The sainted woman had 
 I chopped her mother to pieces and served her up to him; the 
 (Prince de Cadignan, whose acquaintance we have previously 
 made, had been put forward as an Othello of the blackest 
 dye; and nor she was acknowledging her faults and scourg- 
 ing herself vigorously all to assume, for the e t yes of this 
 guileless man of letters, that virgin estate which the simplest 
 woman tries at all costs to offer to her lover.
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 375 
 
 "You can understand, my friend, that when I went back 
 into the world, it was to make a sensation, and I intended 
 to make a sensation. There were fresh struggles to be gone 
 through; I had to gain independence and to counteract M. 
 de Maufrigneuse. So I began a life of dissipation for new 
 reasons. I tried to forget myself, I tried to forget real life 
 in a life of dreams; I shone in society, I entertained; I was 
 a Princess, and I got into debt. At home I found forgetful- 
 ness in sleep. Beautiful, high-spirited, and reckless, I began 
 a new life in the world; but in the weary struggle between 
 dreams and reality, I ran through my fortune. 
 
 "The revolt of J830 came just as this chapter out of the 
 Arabian Nights drew to an end; and just at that time I found 
 the pure and sacred love which I longed to know. (I am 
 frank with you!) It was not unnatural (admit) that when 
 a woman's heart had been repressed again and again by fate, 
 it should awaken at last at the age when a woman sees that 
 she has been cheated of her due ? I saw that so many women 
 about me were happy through love. Oh ! why was Michel 
 Chrestien so much in awe of me? There again is another 
 irony in my life. There was no help for it. When the crash 
 came I had lost everything; I had not a single illusion loft : 
 I had pressed out the last drops of all experience, but of one 
 fruit I had not tasted, and I had neither taste nor teeth loft 
 for it. In short, by the time I was obliged to leave the world 
 I was disenchanted. There was something providential in 
 this, as in the insensibility that prepares us for death," she 
 added, with a gesture full of religious unction. 
 
 "Everything that happened just then helped me," she con- 
 tinued; "the downfall and ruin of the Monarchy buried me 
 out of sight. My son makes up to me for a great deal. 
 Motherhood compensates us for all our thwarted powers of 
 loving. People are astonished by my retreat, but I have found 
 happiness. Oh ! if you but knew how happy the poor 
 creature before you has grown. The joys which I have not 
 known, and shall never know, are all forgotten in the joy of 
 sacrificing myself for my son's sake. Who could think that
 
 376 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 life, for the Princesse de Cadignan, would be summed up by 
 a wretched marriage-night, the adventures with which she is 
 credited, and a childish defiance of two dark passions? No- 
 body could believe it. At this day I am afraid of everything. 
 I remember so many delusions and misfortunes that I should 
 be sure to repulse genuine feeling, and pure love for love's 
 sake; just as rich men repulse the deserving poor because 
 some hypocritical knave has disgusted them with charity. 
 All this is horrible, is it not? But, believe me, this that I 
 have told you is the history of many another woman." 
 
 The last words were spoken in light jesting tones, which 
 recalled the flippant woman of fashion. D'Arthez was dazed. 
 The convict sent to the hulks for robbery and murder with 
 aggravating circumstances, or for forging a signature on a 
 bill, was in his eyes a saintly innocent compared with men 
 and women of the world. The atrocious jeremiad had been 
 forged in the arsenal of falsehood, and dipped in the waters 
 of the Parisian Styx; there was an unmistakable ring of 
 truth in the Duchess' tones. D'Arthez gazed at her for a 
 while; and she (adorable woman) lay in the depths of her 
 great chair, her white hands resting on the arms like drops 
 of dew at the edge of a flower-petal. She was overcome by 
 her own revelations; she seemed to have lived again through 
 all her past sorrows as she spoke of them, and now sank ex- 
 hausted. She was an angel of melancholy in fact. 
 
 Suddenly she sat upright, and raised her hand, while 
 lightnings blazed in the eyes that were supposed to be purified 
 by twenty years of chastity. "Judge of the impression that 
 your friend's love must have made on me !" she cried, "but by 
 the savage irony of fate or was it God's irony? he died; 
 he died when (I confess it) I was so thirsty for love that if 
 a man had been worthy of me, he would have found me weak ; 
 he died to save the life of another, and that other was who 
 but M. de Cadignan? Are you surprised to find me pen- 
 sive?" ' ' 
 
 It was the last stroke. Poor d'Arthez could bear no more. 
 He fell on his knees before her, he hid his face in her hands,
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 377 
 
 and his tears fell fast happy tears, such as angels might 
 shed, if angels weep. And since Daniel's face was hidden, 
 Mme. de Cadignan could allow a mischievous smile of tri- 
 umph to steal across her mouth, a smile such as monkeys 
 might summon up over a piece of superlative mischief, if 
 monkeys laugh. 
 
 "Aha ! I have him fast !" thought she. 
 
 And true enough, she had him fast. 
 
 "Then you are '' he began, raising that fine head of 
 his to gaze lovingly into her eyes. 
 
 "Virgin and martyr," she finished his sentence for him, 
 smiling at the commonplace phrase, but her cruel smile lent 
 an enchanting significance to the words. "I laugh," she said, 
 "because I am thinking of the Princess as the world knows 
 her, of that Duchesse de Maufrigneuse to whom the world 
 assigns de Marsay as a lover; and the villainous political 
 bravo, de Trailles ; and empty-headed little d'Esgrignon, and 
 Rastignac, and Rubempre, and ambassadors and Cabinet 
 ministers and Russian generals, and all Europe, for any- 
 thing I know. There has been much gossip about this album 
 that I have made; people believe that all my admirers were 
 my lovers. Oh ! it is shocking ! I cannot think how I can 
 suffer a man at my feet; I ought to despise them all; that 
 should be my creed." 
 
 She rose and stood in the window; her manner of going 
 was full of magnificent suggestion. 
 
 D'Arthez stayed on the hearth-stool where he had been 
 sitting. He did not dare to follow the Princess, but he 
 gazed at her, he heard her use her handkerchief. It was a 
 pure matter of form ; what is a princess that blows her nose ? 
 Diane tried to do the impossible to confirm d'Arthez's belief 
 in her sensibility. His angel was in tears ! He flew to her, 
 put his arm about her waist, and held her tightly to him. 
 
 "No, no, leave me," she murmured faintly. "I have toft 
 many doubts to be good for anything. The task of recon- 
 ciling me with life is beyond a man's strength." 
 
 "Diane ! I will give you love for all the life that you have 
 lost!"
 
 878 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "No, do not talk to me like that/' she answered. "I feel 
 guilty; I am trembling at this moment as if I had committed 
 the worst of sins." 
 
 Diane had recovered a little maid's innocence, yet never- 
 theless she stood before him august and great and noble as 
 a queen. It was a clever manoeuvre, so clever that she had 
 wheeled round from seeming, and reached the actual truth ; 
 and as for d'Arthez, no words will describe the effect produced 
 by it upon his inexperience and open nature. Great man of 
 letters as he was, he stood dumb with admiration, a passive 
 spectator waiting for a word, while the Princess waited for 
 a kiss. But she had grown too sacred to him for that. Diane 
 felt cold in the window ; her feet were freezing ; she went back 
 to her old position in the chair. 
 
 "He will be a long while about it," thought she, looking 
 at Daniel with a proud forehead and face sublime with virtue. 
 
 "Is she a woman?" the profound observer of human na- 
 ture was asking of himself. "How should one act with her?" 
 
 They spent, their time till two o'clock in the morning in 
 the fond, foolish talk that such women as the Princess can 
 turn into adorable discourse. She was too old, she said, too 
 faded, too much of a wreck; d'Arthez proved to her that she 
 had the most delicate, soft, and fragrant skin; delicious to 
 touch, and white and fair to see, of which things she was 
 fully convinced in her own mind. She was young; she was in 
 her flower. Her beauty was disputed, charm by charm, detail 
 by detail, with "Do you think so? You are raving! This 
 is desire. In a fortnight you will see me as I am. In truth. 
 I am verging on forty; how should any one love a woman of 
 my age?" 
 
 D'Arthez was impetuous as a schoolboy, his eloquence was 
 sown thickly with the most extravagant words. And the Prin- 
 cess, listening, laughed within herself, while she heard the 
 ingenious writer talking like a love-sick sub-lieutenant, and 
 seemed to drink in the nonsense, and to be quite touched by 
 it. 
 
 Out in the street d'Arthez asked himself whether he ought
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 379 
 
 not to have been less in awe of her. As he went through the 
 strange confidences that had been made to him naturally, 
 they have been much abridged and condensed here, for the 
 mellifluous utterances given in full, with their appropriate 
 commentary of expression and gesture, would fill a volume 
 as he looked through his memory, the plausibility of the 
 romance, the depths below the surface, and the Princess' 
 tones, all combined to foil the retrospective sagacity of an 
 acute but straightforward man. 
 
 "It is true," he told himself as he lay wide awake, "it is 
 true that there are tragedies in society. Society hides such 
 horrors as this beneath the flowers of delicate luxury, the em- 
 bellishments of scandal, and the sparkle of anecdotes. We 
 cannot imagine anything that has not happened. Poor 
 Diane ! Michel caught a glimpse of the enigma when he 
 told us that there were volcanic fires under the ice! And 
 Bianchon and Rastignac are right too. When a man can find 
 his high ideals and the intoxication of desire both blended in 
 the love of a woman a woman of quick intelligence and re- 
 finement and dainty ways it must surely be unspeakable 
 bliss." 
 
 He tried to fathom the love in his heart, and found no 
 limits. 
 
 Towards two o'clock next day, Mme. d'Espard called on 
 the Princess. An intense curiosity brought her. For more 
 than a month she had neither seen her friend nor received a 
 single tell-tale word. Nothing could be more amusing than 
 the first half-hour of the conversation between two daughters 
 of Eve endowed with the wisdom of the serpent. Diane de 
 Cadignan shunned the subject of d'Arthez as she would avoid 
 a yellow dress. And the Marquise wheeled about the question 
 as a Bedouin Arab might hover about a rich caravan. Diane 
 enjoyed the situation; the Marquise grew furious. Diane 
 was watching her opportunity; she meant to turn her dear 
 friend to account as a sporting dog. And one of the two 
 celebrated women was more than a match for the other. The 
 Princess rose a head above the Marquise ; and Mme. d'Espard
 
 380 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 in her own mind admitted her inferiority. Herein, possibly, 
 lay the secret of the bond between them. The weaker spirit 
 of the two lay low, feigning an attachment, watching for the 
 moment so long looked for by the weak, the chance of spring- 
 ing at the throat of the strong, and leaving the impress of one 
 joyous bite. Diane saw this perfectly well. The rest of the 
 world was completely deceived by the amenities that passed 
 between the two dear friends. 
 
 The Princess waited; and as soon as she saw the question 
 rise to her friend's lips, she said, "Well, dear ; I owe a great, 
 complete, and boundless happiness to you." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Do you remember our ruminations three months ago, 
 as we sat out in the garden on the bench under the jessamine 
 in the sun? Ah! well; no one can love like a man of genius. 
 I would willingly say of my great Daniel d'Arthez as 
 Catherine de' Medici said of the Duke. of Alva, 'One salmon's 
 head is worth all the frogs' heads in the world.' * 
 
 "I am not at all surprised that you do not come to me," 
 said Mme. d'Espard. 
 
 "Promise me, my angel, if he goes to see you, not to say 
 a word of me," continued the Princess, as she took the Mar- 
 quise's hand. "I am happy oh! happy beyond words and 
 you know how far an epigram or a jest may go in society. 
 A word can be fatal ; some people can put so much poison in a 
 word. If you only knew how I have wished during the past 
 week that you too might find such a passionate love ! And, 
 indeed, it is sweet; it is a glorious triumph for us women if 
 we may finish our lives as women thus, with an ardent, pure, 
 complete, whole-hearted, and devoted love to soothe us at last 
 after so long a quest." 
 
 "Why ask me to be true to my best friend?" said Mme, 
 d'Espard. "Can you think me capable of playing you a vile 
 trick?" 
 
 "When a woman possesses such a treasure, it is so natural 
 to fear to lose it, that the thought of fear occurs to her at 
 once. I am absurd. Forgive me, dear."
 
 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 381 
 
 A few moments later, the Marquise took leave. 
 
 "What a character she will give me!" thought the Prin- 
 cess as she watched her departure. "But I will save her the 
 trouble of tearing Daniel away; I will send him to her at 
 once." 
 
 Daniel came in a few minutes afterwards. In the middle 
 of an interesting conversation the Princess suddenly inter- 
 rupted him, laying her beautiful hand on his arm. 
 
 "Forgive me, my friend, but I might forget to mention 
 something; it seems a silly trifle, yet it is a matter of the 
 utmost importance. You have not set foot in Mme. d'Espard's 
 house since that day a thousand times blessed ! when I 
 met you for the first time. Go to her; not out of politeness, 
 but for my sake. Perhaps she may be offended with me ; she 
 may possibly have chanced to hear that you have scarcely 
 left my house, so to speak, since her dinner-party. And be- 
 sides, my friend, I should not like you to give up your con- 
 nections and society, nor your work and occupations. I should 
 be more outrageously slandered than ever. What would they 
 not say of me? 'That I am holding you in a leash, that I 
 am monopolizing you, that I am afraid of comparisons, 
 that I want to be talked about even now, and I am taking 
 good care to keep my conquest, for I know that it will 
 be the last' and so on and so on. Who could guess that you 
 are my one and only friend? If you love me as you tell me 
 you do, you will make people believe that we are to each 
 other as a brother and sister and nothing more. Go on." 
 
 There was an ineffable sweetness in the way in which this 
 charming woman arranged her robes so as to fall gracefully; 
 it always schooled d'Arthez into obedience. A vague, subtle 
 refinement in her discourse touched him even to tears. Other 
 women might haggle and dispute the way inch by inch, in 
 sofa-converse ; the Princess rose at once above all ignoble and 
 vulgar bargainings to a height of greatness unknown before. 
 She had no need to utter a word, they understood their union 
 nobly. It should be wben they willed it upon either side; 
 there was no yesterday, to-day, or to-morrow for them : there
 
 382 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 should be none of the interminable hoisting of the pennon 
 styled "sacrifice" by ordinary women, doubtless because they 
 know how much they are certain to lose, while a woman who 
 has everything to gain knows that the festival will be her 
 day of triumph. 
 
 Diane's words had been vague as a promise, sweet as hope, 
 and binding, nevertheless, as a pledge. Let it be admitted 
 at once, the only women who can rise thus high are illustrious 
 and supreme deceivers like Diane; they are queens still when 
 other women find a lord and master. By this time d'Arthez 
 had learned to measure the distance that separates these few 
 from the many. The Princess was always beautiful, never 
 wanting to herself. Perhaps the secret lies in the art wit'li 
 which a great lady can lay veil after veil aside, till in this 
 position she stands like an antique statue. To retain a single 
 shred would be indecent. The bourgeoise always tries to 
 clothe herself. 
 
 Broken to the yoke by tenderness, and sustained by the 
 noblest virtues, d'Arthez obediently went to Mme d'Espard's. 
 On him she exerted her most charming coquetry. She was 
 very careful not to mention the Princess' name; she merely 
 asked him to dine with her at an early date. 
 
 On that day d'Arthez found a large party invited to meet 
 him. The Marquise had asked Rastignac, Blondet, the Mar- 
 quis d'Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de Trailles, the Marquis 
 d'Esgrignon, the two Vandenesses, du Tillet (one of the 
 richest bankers in Paris), the Baron de jSTucingen, Nathan, 
 Lady Dudley, one or two of the wiliest attaches from the em- 
 bassy, and the Chevalier d'Espard. The Chevalier, be it 
 Baid, was one of the most astute personages in the room, and 
 counted for a good half in the schemes of his sister-in-law. 
 
 Maxime de Trailles turned to d'Arthez. 
 
 "You see a good deal of the Princesse de Cadignan, don't 
 you?" he asked, with a laugh. 
 
 D'Arthez replied with a stiff inclination of the head. 
 Maxime de Trailles was a bravo of a superior order; he feared 
 neither God nor man ; he shrank from nothing. Women had
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 383 
 
 loved him, he had ruined them, and made them pledge their 
 diamonds to pay his debts ; but his shortcomings were covered 
 by a brilliant veneer, by charming manners, and a diabolical 
 cleverness. Everybody feared him, everybody despised him; 
 but nobody was bold enough to treat him with anything short 
 of extreme civility. He could see nothing of all this, or pos- 
 sibly he lent himself to the general dissimulation. De Mar- 
 say had helped him to reach the highest elevation that he 
 could attain. De Marsay, having known Maxime from of 
 old, judged him capable of fulfilling certain diplomatic 
 functions in the secret service of which Maxime had, in fact, 
 acquitted himself to admiration. D'Arthez had been mixed 
 up in political affairs for some time past ; he knew enough 
 of the man to fathom his character; and he alone, it may 
 be, was sufficiently high minded to say aloud what others 
 .thought. 
 
 "It is for her, no tout, dat you neklect de Chaimper," put 
 in the Baron de Nucingen. 
 
 "Ah! a man could not set foot in the house of a more 
 dangerous woman," the Marquis d'Esgrignon exclaimed, 
 lowering his voice. "My disgraceful marriage is entirely 
 owing to her." 
 
 "Dangerous?" repeated Mme. d'Espard. "You must not 
 say such things of my best friend. Anything that I have 
 ever heard or seen of the Princess seemed to me to be 
 prompted by the highest motives." 
 
 "Pray, let the Marquis say his say," said Rastignac. 
 "When a man has been thrown by a mettled horse, he will 
 pick faults in the animal and sell it." 
 
 The Marquis d'Esgrignon was nettled by the speech. He 
 looked across at Daniel d'Arthez. 
 
 "Monsieur is not on such terms with the Princess that we 
 may not speak of her, I hope?" 
 
 D'Arthez was silent; and d'Esgrignon, who did not lack 
 wit, retorted to Eastignac with an apologetic portrait of 
 Mme. de Cadignan. His sketch set the table in good-humor; 
 but as d'Arthez was absolutely in the dark, he bent over to 
 Mme. de Montcornet and asked her to explain the joke.
 
 384 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 "Well, judging by the good opinion that you have of the 
 Princess, you are an exception; but all the other guests, it 
 would seem, have been in her good graces." 
 
 "I can assure you that that view is totally false," returned 
 Daniel. 
 
 "Yet here is M. d'Esgrignon, of a noble Perche family, 
 who was utterly ruined for her twelve years ago, and all but 
 went to the scaffold besides." 
 
 "I know about it," said d'Arthez. "Mme. de Cadignan 
 rescued M. d'Esgrignon from the Assize Court, and this ia 
 how he shows his gratitude to-day." 
 
 Mme. de Montcornet stared at d'Arthez ; she looked almost 
 dazed with astonishment and curiosity. Then she glanced at 
 Mme. d'Espard, as who should say, "He is bewitched!" 
 
 During this short conversation Mme. d'Espard had de- 
 fended her friend; but her defence, after the manner of a 
 lightning conductor, had drawn down the tempest. When 
 d'Arthez gave his attention to the general conversation, Max- 
 ime de Trailles brought out his epigram. 
 
 "In Diane's case, depravity is not the effect but the cause ; 
 perhaps her exquisite naturalness is due to this; she does not 
 try after studied effects; she invents nothing. She brings 
 you out the most subtle refinements as the sudden inspira- 
 tion of the most artless love; and you cannot help believing 
 her too." 
 
 The phrase might have been prepared for a man of d'Ar- 
 thez's calibre; it came out with such effect that it was like a 
 conclusion. Nobody said any more of the Princess; she 
 seemed to be disposed of. But d'Arthez looked first at de 
 Trailles and then at d'Esgrignon, with a sarcastic expres- 
 sion. 
 
 "She took a leaf out of a man's book, that has been her 
 greatest mistake," he said. "Like a man, she squanders mar- 
 riage jewels, she sends her lovers to the money-lenders, she 
 ruins orphans, she devours dowries, she melts down old cha"- 
 teaux, she inspires crimes and perhaps commits them her- 
 selfbut "
 
 THE SECRETS OP A PRINCESS 385 
 
 Never in their lives had either of the two personages ad- 
 dressed heard language so much to the purpose. When d'Ar- 
 thez came to a pause on that but, the whole table was dum- 
 founded; the spectators sat, fork in hand, looking from the 
 intrepid man of letters to the Princess' treacherous enemies. 
 There was an awful pause; they waited to see what would 
 come next. 
 
 "But" pursued d'Arthez, with satirical flippancy, "Mme. 
 de Cadignan has this one advantage over men. If any one 
 risks himself for her, she comes to the rescue, and says no 
 ill of any man afterwards. Why should not one woman, 
 among so many, amuse herself with men, as men play with 
 women? Why should not the fair sex take a turn at that 
 game from time to time? " 
 
 "Genius is more than a match for cleverness," said Blondet, 
 addressing Nathan. 
 
 And, indeed, d'Arthez's avalanche of epigrams was like a 
 reply from a battery to a discharge of musketry. They 
 hastened to change the subject. Neither the Comte de Trailles 
 nor the Marquis d'Esgrignon felt disposed to try conclusions 
 with d'Arthez. When coffee was served, Blondet and Nathan 
 went over to him with an alacrity which no one cared to imi- 
 tate, so difficult was it to reconcile admiration of his behavior 
 with the fear of making two powerful enemies. 
 
 "We knew before to-day that your character is as great as 
 your talent," said Blondet. "You bore yourself just now 
 not like a man, but rather as a god. Not to be carried away 
 by one's feelings or imagination, not to blunder into taking 
 up arms in the defence of the woman one loves (as people 
 expected you to do), a blunder which would have meant a tri- 
 umph for these people, for they are consumed with jealousy 
 of celebrated men of letters ah ! permit me to say that this is 
 the supreme height of statecraft in private life." 
 
 "You are a statesman/' added Nathan. "It is as clever 
 as it is difficult to avenge a woman without defending her." 
 
 "The Princess is one of the heroines of the Legitimist 
 party," d'Arthez returned coolly; "surely it is the duty of
 
 386 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 
 
 every gentleman to champion her on those grounds? Her 
 -services to the cause would excuse the most reckless life." 
 
 "He will not show his hand," said Nathan to Blondet. 
 
 "Just as if the Princess were worth the trouble," added 
 Rastignac, as he joined the group. 
 
 " D'Arthez went to the Princess. She was waiting for him 
 in an agony of anxiety. She had authorized an experiment 
 which might prove fatal. For the first time in her life she 
 suffered at heart, and a perspiration broke out over her. 
 Others would tell d'Arthez the truth, she had told him lies; 
 if he should believe the truth, she did not know what she 
 should do ; for a character so noble, a man so complete, a soul 
 so pure, a conscience so ingenuous, had never passed through 
 her hands before. It was because she longed to know a pure 
 love that she had woven such a tissue of cruel lies. She felt 
 that poignant love in her heart, she loved d'Arthez, and she 
 was condemned to deceive him, for him she must always be 
 the sublime actress who had played this comedy for his benefit. 
 She heard d'Arthez's step in the dining-room with a great 
 agitation; a shock quivered through the very springs of ex- 
 istence. Then she knew that her happiness was at stake ; she 
 had never felt such emotion before, yet hers had been a most 
 adventurous life for a woman of her rank. With eyes gazing 
 into space, she saw d'Arthez in one complete vision, saw 
 through the outward form into his inmost soul. Suspicion 
 had not so much as brushed him with her bat's wing! The 
 reaction set in after the terrible throes of fear, and joy almost 
 overcame Diane ; for every creature is stronger to bear pain 
 than to stand the extreme of happiness. 
 
 "Daniel !" she cried, rising to her feet and holding out her 
 arms, "I have been slandered, and you have avenged me." 
 
 Daniel was utterly astounded by the words, for the roots of 
 them lay far down out of his sight. He felt two beautiful ( 
 hands clasp his face, and the Princess kissed him reverently 
 on the forehead. 
 
 "How did you know? "
 
 THE SECRETS OF A PRINCESS 387 
 
 "Oh, illustrious simpleton ! do you not see that I love you 
 madly?" 
 
 From that day there was no more question of the Princesse 
 de Cadignan or of d'Arthez. The Princess has since inherited 
 some property from her mother ; she spends her summers with 
 the great man of letters in a villa at Geneva, returning to 
 Paris for a few months during the winter. D'Arthez only 
 shows himself at the Chamber. What is still more signifi- 
 cant, he very rarely publishes anything. , 
 
 Is this the catastrophe of the story,? Yes, for those that 
 can understand, but not for people who must have everything 
 told. 
 
 LES JARDIES, June,-1839.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898, 
 &Y 3. M. DENT & COMPANY
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A MAIN I should myself be disposed to say the main in- 
 terest of Les Petits Bourgeois arises from the fact that it was 
 not only the last published, except scraps, of Balzac's works, 
 but was actually never included in the various editions of the 
 Comedie Humaine till the appearance of the so-called edition 
 definitive a few years ago. In the famous collection of five- 
 and-fifty squat volumes in which most people have made ac- 
 quaintance with him it does not appear, and M. de Lovenjoul 
 himself speaks of it as "too little known." It is supposed to 
 have been, as Le Depute d'Arcis certainly was, finished by 
 Charles Eabou; but the extent of his contribution does not 
 appear to be known. The critic just referred to thinks that 
 it cannot have been great, because Balzac, some years before 
 his death, speaks of the book as "nearly finished." It is al- 
 ways wise to differ with M. de Lovenjoul extremely cautiously 
 and diffidently, for his knowledge of Balzac is as boundless as 
 his absence of pretension or dictatorship on the subject is re- 
 markable. But I venture to observe that there are several 
 other books of which Balzac at different times speaks as hav- 
 ing been far advanced, if not actually ready for publication, 
 yet of which no trace seems to exist even in M. de Lovenjoul's 
 own extensive collection of unprinted "Remains." Still, there 
 can be little doubt that the later parts of Les Petits Bourgeois 
 exhibit far less mark of an alien hand than the later parts of 
 the Depute d'Arcis. And though, if the book was actually fin- 
 ished, or nearly so, by the author himself, it seems strange 
 that he should not have issued it, anxious as he always was 
 to make money ; yet his absence from France, his illnesses, his 
 unlucky devotion to the theatre, and other things during 
 
 (ix)
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 the last three or four years of his life, supply not altogether 
 insufficient explanations of the failure. 
 
 If we suppose that he actually finished it, or that he left 
 with it and with the Depute distinct instructions to Rabou 
 for its completion, we may observe some things of interest 
 about the pair. One is their very great length as compared 
 with most of their fellows. Only three other numbers of the 
 Comedie Illusions Perdues, Les Celibataires, and Splendeurs 
 et Miser es des Courtisanes equal them in general length, and 
 all these three are practically collections of separate tales, with 
 a certain community of subject. But it must also be remem- 
 bered that La Cousine Bette, their greatest and most im- 
 mediate forerunner, is much longer than any other undivided 
 single book. And from this, I think, it is not improper to 
 infer that Balzac was experiencing a leaning towards longer 
 stories, which might have had distinct results if he had gone 
 on. 
 
 Secondly, in both stories, and here particularly in parts 
 where there is no reason to question the appearance of his 
 own work, we note not merely an apparent desire to wind up 
 the clue of the histories of divers important personages, but 
 also a tendency to refer and cross-refer to the earlier numbers 
 of the Comedie in a way which may be found slightly irritat- 
 ing, but which is significant. For we know that in the 
 magnificent dreams, the "lordly keeps of Spain," which Bal- 
 zac cherished and dwelt in, the present Comedie, huge as it is, 
 was, to keep the Dantean phrase, not an entire Commedia but 
 only a Cantica of one that there were to be other collections 
 standing to it as the whole of the present mass stands to the 
 divisions or Scenes. It was therefore natural that this task 
 of winding up the clues should seem desirable to him. As in 
 the Depute d'Arcis we see the last of Vautrin, so here we part 
 with an old it is impossible to say, friend, but acquaintance, 
 in Corentin. And it may be a slight bribe to the belief that
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 the thing is really Balzac's if we note that thus we leave off 
 as we began; that as in Les Chouans, the revelation of the 
 author, we heard of the spy's first exploits, so here we leave 
 him breaking his wand, or rather transferring it to la Peyrade, 
 with the exulting but ominous declaration that "all things pass 
 except the police and the necessity for it," a sort of transla- 
 tion, in Balzac's key, of Joseph de Maistre's famous theory 
 that society rests on the executioner. One may sigh for a 
 little poetical justice, and wish that the manes of Montauran 
 and Mile, de Verneuil, of Michu and others, had not remained 
 unavenged; but that would have counter-worked Balzac's 
 principles, sound enough if not pushed too far, that the solus 
 reipublicae has precedence of all private rights and wrongs. 
 
 Not a very great deal need be said of the book itself. It 
 has a certain resemblance to its great predecessor or con- 
 temporary or follower (for the dates are not certain), La 
 Cousine Bette; but is almost entirely destitute of tragedy, 
 except in the painful but happily-ending episode of Lydie 
 de la Peyrade. In the minuteness of its attention to mu- 
 nicipal matters, it shows almost as strongly as Le Depute 
 d'Arcis how Balzac's mind, under the conditions of the later 
 July Monarchy, had been drawn to the subject of public life. 
 I do not know whether it would be going too far to assume 
 that it also shows, taken with La Cousine Bette, a certain 
 tendency to exchange the technically "high" life in which the 
 author had earlier delighted for the financial andbourgeois ele- 
 ment which (as, to do him justice, he had long ago foreseen) 
 was overtaking it hand over hand in point of political and 
 social importance, and was, as he anticipated, to supersede it 
 mainly under the Second Empire, and almost wholly under 
 the Third Republic. The details, scenes, and characters, if 
 not for Balzac extraordinarily brilliant, show at least no fall- 
 ing off. The Thuillier and Colleville households are ignoble, 
 but not absolutely disgusting, and the intrigues of Cerizet
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and others about the "succession Thuillier," though something 
 of a double on Le Cousin Pons, are sufficiently different. But 
 the author no doubt meant the main interest to centre on 
 Theodose de la Peyrade and his amateur performance of some- 
 thing like the same honorable offices to which his uncle's 
 Mephistophelian friend destined and devoted him. La Pey- 
 rade is of that class of persons who, as the Scotch judge re- 
 marked, "are clever chiels, but would be nane the waur of a 
 hanging." But he repents and makes such amends as are 
 possible for his chief overt crime, and he too is not disgust- 
 ing. 
 
 The book, when in his letters Balzac spoke of it as first 
 nearly finished and then actually "set up," bore the title of 
 Les Petits Bourgeois de Paris, but nobody seems to have seen 
 the MS. or the proofs. It actually appeared in the Pays dur- 
 ing the autumn of 1854, and was afterwards issued as a book 
 by the publisher de Potter in eight volumes four bearing the 
 present title in 1856, and the other four as Les Parvenus in 
 1857. The first part had twenty-seven, and the second twen- 
 ty-five chapter divisions with headings. M. de Lovenjoul 
 does not mention whether there was any special authority for 
 the suppression of these when the book was at last, a few years 
 ago, made part of the Comedie, or whether it was done in ac- 
 cordance with Balzac's usual practice. 
 
 G. S.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 To Constance Victoire. 
 
 This, Madame, is one of the works which drop in on the author's 
 mind, we know not whence, and please him before he can foresee 
 what welcome they may receive from the public the supreme 
 judge in our day. Feeling almost sure that you will look kindly on 
 my infatuation, I dedicate this book to you: is it not yours by 
 right, as of old a tithe was due to the Church, in memory of God 
 who makes all things grow and ripen in the fields and in the mind? 
 
 Some lumps of clay left by Moliere at the foot of his colossal 
 statue of Tartuffe have here been moulded by a hand less skilful 
 than bold ; still, however far I must remain beneath the greatest of 
 comic writers, I shall be satisfied to have utilized these fragments, 
 picked up from before the curtain of his stage, to show the modern 
 hypocrite at work. 
 
 What has been most disheartening in this difficult task was find- 
 ing it incompatible with any religious question, since for you, who 
 are so pious, I had to avoid them, apart from what a great writer 
 calls the ' ' general indifference to matters of religion. ' ' 
 
 May the meaning of your two names be prophetic of the fortunes 
 of the book! And regard this, I entreat you, as an expression of 
 respectful gratitude from one who ventures to sign himself your most 
 devoted servant, 
 
 DJJ BALZAC.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE Tourniquet (or Turnstile) Saint-Jean, of which a 
 description seemed at the time so superfluous in the tale en- 
 titled A Second Family, was a primitive relic of old Paris 
 which has ceased to exist but in that record. The building of 
 the Hotel de Ville in its modern form has cleared a whole 
 quarter of the city. 
 
 In 1830 the passers-by could still see the Turnstile repre- 
 sented as the sign of a wine-shop, but that house, its last ref- 
 uge, has since been demolished. Old Paris, alas ! is vanishing 
 with terrible rapidity. Here and there, in these books of 
 mine, something will survive; a typical house of mediaeval 
 times like that described in the beginning of The Cat and 
 Racket a few such specimens may still be seen ; or the house 
 in the Rue du Fouarre inhabited by Judge Popinot, an ex- 
 ample of old citizen dwellings. Here, the remains of the Ful- 
 bert's house; there, the Port of the Seine in the time of 
 Charles IX. Why should not the chronicles of French social 
 life, like another Old Mortality, rescue these remarkable rec- 
 ords of the past, as Walter Scott's old man restored the tomb- 
 stones ? 
 
 The protests of literature during these ten years past were 
 certainly not superfluous ; art is again beginning to cover with 
 its flowers the squalid fronts of the houses built for trade pur- 
 poses, which one of our writers has compared to cupboards. 
 
 It may here be incidentally remarked that the creation of a 
 municipal board del Ornamento such as, in Milan, regulates 
 the architecture of streets, every proprietor having to submit 
 his plans to its arbitration, dates from the twelfth century. 
 And who can have failed to recognize in that charming capital 
 the effects of patriotism in the nobles and citizen class alike, 
 and to admire the character and originality of the private 
 buildings? 
 
 The hideous and delirious spirit which, year after year,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 3 
 
 lowers the stories of our houses, squeezes a whole set of rooms 
 into the space of a single drawing-room, and wages war to 
 the death against town gardens, must inevitably react on 
 Paris habits. We shall soon be obliged to live out of our 
 houses much more than in them. The sacredness of private 
 life, the liberty of home where are they? They are not to 
 be had for less than fifty thousand francs a year. And, in- 
 deed, few millionaires even allow themselves the luxury of a 
 whole small house protected by a courtyard from the street, 
 and sheltered from the curiosity of the neighbors by a shady 
 garden-plot. 
 
 The Code, which regulates the distribution of inherited for- 
 tunes by equalizing incomes, has led to this building of brick 
 and mortar phalansteries to lodge thirty families, and yield a 
 hundred thousand francs a year. 
 
 And so, fifty years hence, we may easily count the houses 
 that will be left of the class inhabited by the Thuillier family 
 at the time when this story opens; a really curious house de- 
 serving the honor of a detailed description, if it were only 
 for the sake of comparing the citizen class of the past with 
 its representatives to-day. And the situation and appearance 
 of this residence, the setting of this picture of daily life, had 
 a stamp, an aroma of middle-class existence, which may prove 
 attractive or repulsive, as the reader may take it. 
 
 To begin with, the house did not belong to Monsieur or to 
 Madame Thuillier, but to Mademoiselle Thuillier, Monsieur 
 Thuillier's elder sister. This house, purchased by Made- 
 moiselle Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte Thuillier in the course of the 
 six months immediately following the revolution of 1830, 
 stands about half-way down the Hue Saint-Dominique d'En- 
 fer, on the right-hand side coming from the Eue d'Enfer, so 
 that the house in which Monsieur Thuillier lived faces the 
 south. 
 
 The steady migration of the Paris population towards the 
 higher ground on the right bank of the Seine, deserting the 
 left bank, had for some time damaged the sale of property in 
 the so-called quartier Latin, where certain reasons, which
 
 4 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 will appear from the character and habits of Monsieur 
 Thuillier, made his sister decide on the purchase of a free- 
 hold. She was able to buy this one for the merely nominal 
 price of forty-six thousand francs; additional items mounted 
 up to six thousand francs; fifty-two thousand francs in all. 
 A detailed description of the property in the style of an ad- 
 vertisement, and of the improvements effected by Monsieur 
 Thuillier, will explain the way in which some fortunes were 
 made in July 1830, while others were undermined. 
 
 Towards the street the house showed a front of stucco 
 masonry, eaten by the weather, furrowed by the rain, and 
 grooved by the plasterer's tool to imitate stone. This sort of 
 fagade is so common in Paris, and so ugly, that the munici- 
 pality ought to offer prizes to owners who would build new 
 fronts in carved stone. This drab wall, pierced by seven win- 
 dows, was three stories high, and crowned by attics and a tiled 
 roof. The carriage gateway, wide and strong, showed by its 
 etyle and structure that the side towards the street had been 
 first built at the time of the Empire, to utilize part of the 
 courtyard of an extensive older house, surviving from the 
 time when this quarter was in some favor as a residence. 
 
 On one side of the gateway was the porter's lodge; on the 
 other the stairs went up of this front half of the house. Two 
 wings adjoining the neighboring houses on each side had for- 
 merly been the coach-houses, stabling, kitchens, and servants' 
 quarters for the house at the back of the courtyard ; but these, 
 since 1830, had been rented as warehouses. The right-hand 
 side was occupied by a wholesale stationer, Monsieur Metivier 
 nephew; the left side by a bookseller named Barbet. Their 
 offices were over the storerooms and shops, the bookseller oc- 
 cupying the first floor, and the stationer the second floor, of 
 the house on the street. Metivier, a paper broker rather than 
 a merchant, and Barbet, more busied in discounting bills 
 than in selling books, used these extensive premises for stor- 
 ing job lots of stationery purchased from manufacturers in 
 difficulties in Metivier's half, and in Barbet's, the editions *of 
 books he had taken in security for loans. The shark of the
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 5 
 
 bookselling trade and the pike of the paper business lived on 
 very friendly terms, and their transactions, having none of 
 the bustle of a retail trade, brought but few carriages into that 
 quiet courtyard, where there was so little traffic that the 
 porter had to weed the grass out now and again from between 
 the stones. Messieurs Barbet and Metivier, who hardly figure 
 even as supernumeraries in this tale, paid rare visits to their 
 landlord, and their punctuality in paying their rent placed 
 them in the category of excellent tenants:. the Thuillier cir- 
 cle regarded them as very honest folks. 
 
 The third floor facing the street was divided into two sets 
 of rooms, one occupied by Monsieur Dutocq, clerk to a justice 
 of the peace, a retired official who frequented the Thuilliers' 
 drawing-room; the other was tenanted by the hero of this 
 tale. For the present, however, we must be satisfied to know 
 the amount of his rent seven hundred francs and the posi- 
 tion he had taken up in the heart of the citadel three years 
 before the curtain rises on this domestic drama. 
 
 Of these two sets of rooms the clerk, a bachelor of fifty, oc- 
 cupied the larger; he kept a cook and paid a rent of a thou- 
 sand francs. 
 
 Two years after buying the house and ground, Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier was getting seven thousand two hundred francs a 
 year in rents ; the former owner had left it fitted with outside 
 shutters, had redecorated the interior, and finished it with 
 mirrors, without ever succeeding in selling or letting it ; and 
 the Thuilliers themselves, very handsomely housed as will be 
 seen, had one of the best gardens in that part of Paris, the 
 trees shading the deserted little street called the Eue Neuve- 
 Sainte-Catherine. 
 
 That part of the house which they inhabited, between the 
 forecourt and garden, seemed to have been built to gratify 
 the whim of some wealthy citizen in the time of Louis XIV., 
 or that perhaps of a president of the Parlement, or of some 
 peace-loving and learned student. There was a certain im- 
 posing Louis-quatorzian air in the handsome masonry, though 
 the stone was weather-worn; the courses were marked out by
 
 6 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 grooves; the paneling in red brick was a reminder of the 
 stables at Versailles; the windows, arched above, had masks 
 on the keystone and to support the sill. The door, the upper 
 half of glass in small panes, showing the garden beyond, was 
 of the unpretending, sound style frequently seen in the 
 lodges of royal residences. 
 
 This dwelling, with five windows across, had but two stories 
 above the ground floor, and was handsomely capped with a 
 four-sided roof ending in weathercocks, and broken by well- 
 designed chimneys and oval garret windows. The building, 
 as it stood, may perhaps have been the surviving portion of 
 some larger aristocratic hotel ; still, after consulting the plans 
 of Paris, no data seem to confirm this conjecture; moreover, 
 the title-deeds in Mademoiselle Thuillier's possession mention 
 Petitot, the famous enamel painter, as the owner in Louis 
 XIV.'s time, and he had it from the President Lecamus. It 
 is probable that the President lived in this house while his 
 famous hotel in the Eue de Thorigny was in course of 
 building. 
 
 Thus Law and Art alike had left their traces there. And 
 how liberal a view of necessity and pleasure had presided over 
 the arrangements of the dwelling ! To the right, on entering 
 the hall, a spacious square room, was a stone staircase, with 
 two windows to the garden; under the stairs was a door to 
 the cellars. From the hall opened the dining-room with 
 windows to the courtyard, and a door beyond to the kitchens 
 adjoining Barbet's stores. Behind the stairs on the garden 
 side was a splendid study, also with two windows. The first 
 and second floors each formed a separate set of apartments; 
 the servants' rooms were shown by the dormer windows at 
 each side of the roof. 
 
 The fine square hall contained a magnificent stove, and it 
 was amply lighted by the two glass doors, front and back. It 
 was paved with black and white marble, and had a decorative 
 coffered ceiling of which the carved beams and bosses had once 
 6een painted and gilt, but, under the Empire no doubt, had
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 7 
 
 since been whitewashed; opposite the stove was a red marble 
 cistern with a marble basin. 
 
 Over the three doors of the drawing-room, study, and din- 
 ing-room were oval panels with pictures that cried out for 
 much-needed restoration; the mouldings were heavy, but the 
 decoration was not devoid of merit. 
 
 The drawing-room, wainscoted throughout, was remi- 
 niscent of the age of magnificence in its Languedoc marble 
 chimney-place, in its ceiling with ornaments in the corners, i 
 and in the shape of the windows with their small panes. The 
 dining-room, parallel with the drawing-room with double 
 doors between, was floored with marble; the paneling en- 
 tirely of oak and unpainted; but the tapestry had been re- 
 placed by villainous modern paper. The colored ceiling of 
 chestnut wood remained unspoiled. The study, modernized 
 by Thuillier, was wholly discordant. The white and gold 
 ornament of the drawing-room was so completely faded that 
 only red lines were to be seen in the place of the gold, and 
 the white paint had turned yellow and streaky, and was flak- 
 ing off. 
 
 The Latin idea Otium cum dignitate has never, to a poet's 
 eyes, been more admirably suggested than in this fine old 
 house. The ironwork of the balustrade to the stairs was 
 worthy in style of the Judge and of the Artist ; but to discern 
 their traces in these relics of a dignified antiquity the observ- 
 ing eye of an artist was needed. 
 
 The Thuilliers and their immediate predecessors had done 
 much dishonor to this gem of wealthy citizenship by their 
 middle-class habits and tastes. Imagine walnut-wood chairs 
 with horsehair seats; a mahogany table with an oil-cloth cover; 
 lamps in stamped metal; a cheap paper with a red border; 
 atrocious black and white prints on the walls, and cotton cur- 
 tains with a red binding in this dining-room where Petitot's 
 friends had feasted. Conceive of the effect in the drawing- 
 room of the portraits of Monsieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier, by Pierre Grassou, the painter of their class; of 
 card-tables that had done twenty years' service; consoles of
 
 8 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the time of the Empire, and a tea-table supported on a huge 
 lyre; a set of furniture in coarse mahogany covered with 
 printed velvet on a chocolate ground ! On the chimney-piece 
 stood a clock with a figure representing Bellona, and candel- 
 abra with fluted columns; the curtains of worsted damask 
 and the worked muslin curtains were looped back with 
 stamped brass chains. A second-hand carpet covered the pol- 
 ished floor. 
 
 The handsome hall was furnished with benches covered 
 with plush, and the carved paneling was hidden behind cup- 
 boards and wardrobes of various dates, removed from all the 
 places where the Thuilliers had ever lived. The cistern was 
 covered by a shelf to carry a smoky lamp dating from 1815. 
 And to crown all, fear, that hideous bogie, had led to the ad- 
 dition of double doors both to the garden and the forecourt, 
 strongly sheathed in iron, opened back against the wall by 
 day, but shut by night. 
 
 It is easy to trace the deplorable desecration of this monu- 
 ment of domestic life in the seventeenth century by the do- 
 mestic life of the nineteenth. When Napoleon first was Con- 
 sul perhaps some master builder, having purchased this little 
 freehold, thought he would make some use of the part of the 
 forecourt next the street ; he probably destroyed a noble gate- 
 way flanked by lodges which gave importance to this elegant 
 residence, to use an old-fashioned word, and the thrift of a 
 Parisian builder stamped its blight on the very front of its 
 elegance; just as the newspapers and their printing-presses, 
 the manufactory and its warehouses, trade and its counting- 
 houses, have ousted the aristocracy, the old citizen-class, 
 finance and law, wherever they had displayed their magnifi- 
 cence. 
 
 A very curious study is that of the history of title-deeds in 
 Paris! In the Rue des Batailles a madhouse stands where 
 once was the house of the Chevalier Pierre Bayard du TPT- 
 rail; the "third estate" has built a whole street on the land 
 occupied by the Hotel Necker. Old Paris is going follow- 
 ing the kings who are gone. For one gem of architecture'
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 9 
 
 saved by a Polish princess,* how many smaller palaces have 
 fallen, like Petitot's house, into the hands of such as the 
 Thuilliers. 
 
 The incidents which led to Mademoiselle Thuillier's pur- 
 chasing this property were as follows. 
 
 At the fall of the Villele administration Monsieur Louis 
 Jerome Thuillier, who had been for six-and-twenty years a 
 clerk in the civil service, found himself a second clerk, but 
 hardly had he tasted the joys of such deputy authority 
 formerly the smallest of his hopes when the events of July 
 1830 compelled him to resign. He very ingeniously calcu- 
 lated that the new men, only too glad to have another place at 
 their command, would deal promptly and handsomely with 
 the question of his pension; and he was right, for it was at 
 once fixed at seventeen hundred francs. 
 
 When the cautious second clerk first mooted the idea of re- 
 tiring, his sister, who was far more his life's partner than his 
 wife had ever been, trembled for his future prospects. 
 
 "What would Thuillier do with himself?" was the ques- 
 tion the two women asked each other with equal fears; they 
 were at that time living in a small apartment on the third 
 floor in the Rue d'Argenteuil. 
 
 "Settling the matter of his pension will keep him busy for 
 some time," said Mademoiselle Thuillier. "But I am think- 
 ing of investing my money in a way that will keep his hands 
 full. It will be almost as good as being in an office' to have 
 an estate to manage." 
 
 "Oh, my dear sister, we will save his life !" cried Madame 
 Thuillier. 
 
 "Well, I have always foreseen this critical moment in 
 Jerome's life," said the old maid with a patronizing air. 
 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier had too often heard her brother 
 say : "Such an one is dead ; he only lived two years after retir- 
 ing !" she had too often heard Collcville, Thuillier's intimate 
 
 *The Hotel Lambert, He Saint-Louis, in i:l-h the Princess Czartoriska took up 
 her abode.
 
 10 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 friend and, like him, a government clerk, jesting about the 
 grand climacteric of office life, saying: "We shall come to it 
 too, all in good time!" not to appreciate the risk for her 
 brother. 
 
 The transition from routine to idleness is in fact the crit- 
 ical time for the civil servant. The men who are incapable 
 of substituting some occupation for the business they have 
 left change very much; some die, a great many take to fish- 
 ing a vacuous employment not unlike their office work; 
 others, of more active habits, buy shares in a business, lose 
 their savings, and are glad at last to take a place in the work- 
 ing of the concern which, after the first failure and bank- 
 ruptcy, succeeds in the hands of cleverer men on the lookout 
 for it; then the clerk can rub his now empty hands and say, 
 "I always knew there was a future before us." 
 
 But most of them struggle against their old habits. 
 
 "Some," said Colleville, "are victims to depression of a kind 
 peculiar to government clerks. They die of suppressed cir- 
 culars; they suffer from red-tape-worm. Little old Poiret 
 could ne.ver see a white letter folio edged with blue without 
 changing color at the beloved sight ; he turned yellow instead 
 of green/' 
 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier was regarded as the genius of her 
 brother's household; she had plenty of force and decision, as 
 her persgnal history will show. This superiority, which was 
 but relative, enabled her to gauge her brother, though she 
 worshiped him. After seeing the wreck of the hopes she 
 had founded on her idol, there was too much of the mother 
 in her feeling to allow her to overestimate the social calibre 
 of the retired clerk. 
 
 Thuillier and his sister were the children of the head porter 
 at the Exchequer office. Jerome, being very short-sighted, 
 had escaped every form of requisition and conscription. The 
 father's ambition was to see his son a clerk. At the beginning 
 of the century there were so many places to fill in the army 
 that the vacancies in the offices were many, and the death o*
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 11 
 
 Tinder-clerks enabled burly old Thuillier to see his son mount 
 the lowest steps of the official ladder. 
 
 The old man died in 1814, when Jerome was about to be 
 made second clerk; but this hope was all the fortune he had 
 to leave him. Old Thuillier and his wife who died in 1810, 
 had retired in 1806, their life pension all their wealth, hav- 
 ing spent their income in giving Jerome his education and in 
 keeping him and his sister. 
 
 The effect of the Eestoration on government offices is well 
 known. A mass of clerks were turned out of employment by 
 the suppression of forty-one government departments, honest 
 men ready to take places below those they had been deprived 
 of. The ranks of these men, who had earned their claims, 
 were swelled by the members of exiled families ruined by the 
 Revolution. Jerome, squeezed between these two bodies of 
 recruits, thought himself lucky not to be dismissed on some 
 frivolous pretext. He quaked till the day when by good 
 chance he was made second clerk and saw himself sure" of a 
 decent pension. 
 
 This brief sketch accounts for Monsieur Thuillier's limited 
 purview and lack of general knowledge. He had learned 
 such Latin, arithmetic, history, and geography as boys are 
 taught at school, but he had not risen above what was called 
 the second class because his father seized the opportunity of 
 getting him into the office, boasting of his son's "splendid 
 hand." So, though little Thuillier wrote the first list of 
 names in the State ledger, he missed his course of rhetoric 
 and philosophy. 
 
 Once made a wheel of the official machinery he troubled 
 himself little about letters, and still less about art; he im- 
 bibed an empirical knowledge of his own line of business ; and 
 when, under the Empire, he rose to mix with the superior 
 class of clerks, he caught the superficial manners that hid the 
 porter's son, but he failed to catch even the semblance of ready 
 wit. His ignorance warned him to be silent, and his t;ici- 
 turnity did him good service. Under the Imperial system he 
 trained himself to the passive obedience which superiors ap-
 
 12 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 predate, and it was to this qualification that he subsequently 
 owed his advancement to be second clerk. The fruit of rou- 
 tine was great experience; his manner and his silent habits 
 concealed his want of education. 
 
 These negative merits constituted a recommendation when 
 a cipher was needed. There was the risk of offending one of 
 two parties in the Chamber, each anxious to place a man, and 
 the authorities got out of the difficulty by falling back on the 
 rule of seniority. That was how Thuillier became a second 
 clerk. 
 
 Mademoi&elle Thuillier, knowing that her brother abhorred 
 reading, and could not go into any business as a substitute 
 for the task-work of the office, had wisely determined to give 
 him the cares of property, the management of a garden, the 
 minute trivialities of middle-class life, and the trifling in- 
 trigues of neighborly gossip. 
 
 So the removal of the household from the Rue d'Argen- 
 teuil to the Rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer, the business in- 
 volved in the purchase, the selection of a porter, the search for 
 tenants, all kept Thuillier busy through 1831-1832. When 
 this great transplantation was achieved, when the sister saw 
 that Jerome had survived the uprooting, she gave him fur- 
 ther employment, as we shall presently see, for which she 
 found a basis in her brother's nature; this may at once be de- 
 scribed. 
 
 Though only a superior porter's son, Jerome was what is 
 called a fine man; above the medium height, slightly built, 
 not bad looking with his spectacles on, but, like many short- 
 sighted persons, hideous as soon as he took them off, for the 
 habit of seeing through glasses had induced a sort of mist 
 over his eyes. Between the age of eighteen and thirty young 
 Thuillier was a favorite with women in the social sphere that 
 rests on the middle class and ends below the head clerks of 
 Departments; but, as is well known, under the Empire the 
 wars left Paris society somewhat bereft by taking every man 
 of any energy out to the battlefield; and to this, perhaps, as a 
 groat physician ha? surmised, the decadence of the generation 
 living in the middle of the nineteenth century may be due.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 13 
 
 Thuillier, compelled to attract attention by some accom- 
 plishments other than intellectual, learned to dance and waltz 
 BO well as to be noted; he was called "handsome Thuillier"; 
 he played billiards to perfection; he cut out paper very in- 
 geniously; his friend Colleville taught him so well that he 
 could sing some fashionable ballads. These little accomplish- 
 ments procured him the spurious success which deceives the 
 young, and deludes them as to the future. Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier, from 1806 till 1814, believed in her brother as 
 Mademoiselle d'Orleans believed in Louis-Philippe; she was 
 proud of Jerome ; she pictured him the head of an office, 
 thanks to the popularity which at that time gave him access to 
 a few drawing-rooms where he certainly never would have 
 been sent but for the circumstances which made society under 
 the Empire a perfect hotchpotch. 
 
 However, handsome Thuillier's triumphs were not usually 
 of long duration ; women no more cared to keep him than he 
 cared to be perpetually faithful; he might have served as the 
 hero of a comedy called "Don Juan in spite of himself." This 
 business of being handsome bored Thuillier till it made him 
 look old ; and his face, covered with wrinkles like that of an 
 antiquated beauty, credited him with twelve years more than 
 the baptismal register. He had retained a habit of glancing 
 at himself in the glass, putting his hands on his hips to set 
 off his figure, and assuming the attitudes of a dancing mas- 
 ter, all of which prolonged the lease of the nickname "hand- 
 some Thuillier" beyond the advantages which had bestowed it 
 on him. 
 
 What was true in 1806 was sarcastic in 1826. He still pre- 
 served some vestiges of the dress of the dandy of the Empire, 
 nor were they unbecoming to the dignity of a retired second 
 clerk. He wore the full plaited neckcloth burying his chin, 
 with ends that imperiled the passers-by projecting from a 
 neatly smart knot, tied of yore by fairer hands. Following 
 the fashions at a respectful distance he adapted them to his 
 own style, wore his hat very far back, shoes in summer and 
 fine stockings. His long overcoat was a reminiscence of the
 
 14 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Uvite of the Empire ; he would not give up pleated shirt-frills 
 and white waistcoats, he was always playing with his switch, 
 a fashion of 1810, and held himself very upright. No one, 
 seeing Tlmillier walking on the boulevards, would have taken 
 him for the son of a man who served the clerks' breakfasts 
 at the office of the Exchequer; he looked like a diplomate of 
 the Empire, or a sous-prefet. 
 
 Now not only did Mademoiselle Thuillier very innocently 
 encourage her brother's vanity by inciting him to the utmost 
 care of his person, which was but the outcome of her wor- 
 ship, but she gave him all the joys of family life by trans- 
 planting close to him a household whose existence had run 
 almost parallel with theirs. 
 
 Its head was Monsieur Colleville, Thuillier's intimate 
 friend ; but before describing Pylades it is all the more neces- 
 sary to have done with Orestes, since it must be explained why 
 Thuillier, handsome Thuillier, found himself without a fam- 
 ily, for without children the family is not, and here must be 
 revealed one of those deep mysteries which lie buried among 
 the arcana of private life, a few symptoms only rising to the 
 surface when the anguish of a hidden sorrow becomes too 
 acute; the life, namely, of Madame and Mademoiselle Thuil- 
 lier; for so far we have seen only the public life, so to speak, 
 of Jerome Thuillier. 
 
 Marie-Jeanne-Brigitte Thuillier, four years older that her 
 brother, was immolated for his benefit; it was easier to give 
 him a profession than to give her a marriage portion. To 
 some natures ill-fortune is a pharos lighting up the dark and 
 squalid places in social life. Superior to her brother both in 
 energy and intelligence, Brigitte had a character which the 
 sledge-hammer of persecution makes dense, compact, and 
 highly resistant, not to say inflexible. Eager for independ- 
 ence, she determined to escape from her life in the porter's 
 lodge and be mistress of her own fate. At the age of fourteen 
 she established herself in an attic not far from the Treas- 
 ury, which was then in the Hue Vivienne, and near the Rue 
 de la Vrilliere where the Bank still stands. There she coura-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 15 
 
 geously set up in a little unfamiliar business under the privi- 
 lege and patronage of her father's masters: the manufacture 
 of money-bags for the Bank, the Treasury, and certain great 
 banking-houses. By the end of three years she employed two 
 workwomen. 
 
 Investing her savings in consols, by 1814 she found herself 
 possessed of three thousand six hundred francs a year, the 
 results of fifteen years' earnings. She spent but little, she 
 dined with her father every day as long as he lived, and, as 
 is known, French consols during the dying struggles of the 
 Empire went down to forty odd francs, so this sum, appar- 
 ently exaggerated, is easily accounted for. 
 
 At the old man's death, Brigitte and Jerome, aged respec- 
 tively twenty-seven and twenty-three, set up house together. 
 The brother and sister were most affectionately attached. 
 When, in the days of his splendor, Jerome was at any time in 
 need of money, his sister, dressed in coarse stuff and her fingers 
 skinned by the thread she sewed with, always had some louis 
 to offer him. In Brigitte's eyes Jerome was the handsomest 
 and most charming man in all the French Empire. To keep 
 house for this adored brother, to be admitted to the secrets of 
 this Lindoro and Don Juan, was Brigitte's day-dream ; she 
 sacrificed herself almost passionately to an idol whose egoism 
 she could magnify and hold sacred. She sold her business 
 to her forewoman for fifteen thousand francs, and went to 
 settle with Jerome in the Eue d'Argenteuil, making herself 
 the mother, protector, and slave of this pet of the ladies. 
 
 Brigitte, with the instinctive prudence of a woman who 
 owed all she had to her own prudence and toil, hid the amount 
 of her property from her brother; she was afraid, no doubt, 
 of the prodigalities of a man so much in favor, and only 
 brought six hundred francs a year to the common stock ; this, 
 added to Jerome's eighteen hundred, enabled her to make 
 both ends meet at the close of the year. 
 
 From the very first day of their partnership Thuillier lis- 
 tened to his sister as to an oracle, consulted her on even the 
 most trifling matters, had no secrets from her, thus giving
 
 16 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 her a taste of the fruit of despotism which became her be- 
 setting sin. And, indeed, the sister had sacrificed everything 
 to the brother, she had staked her all on his affection, she 
 lived in and for him. 
 
 Her ascendency over Jerome was singularly confirmed by 
 the marriage she contrived for him in 1814. 
 
 Witnessing the nipping squeeze in government offices that 
 resulted from the newcomers under the Restoration, and more 
 especially from the return of the old society which trampled 
 down the citizen class, Brigitte understood, and indeed her 
 brother explained to her, the bearing of the crisis that was ex- 
 tinguishing all their hopes. There could be no further suc- 
 cesses for handsome Thuillier among the nobility who were 
 succeeding to the plebeians of the Empire. 
 
 Thuillier was not capable of taking up a political opinion ; 
 he felt, as did his sister, that he must make the best of his re- 
 maining youth to end with credit. In these circumstances an 
 old maid as ambitious as Brigitte wished and. determined to 
 see her brother marry, as much for her own sake as for his, 
 since she alone would make him happy, and Madame Thuil- 
 lier would be but an accessory indispensable for the produc- 
 tion of a child or two. 
 
 Though Brigitte's mind was hardly adequate to her will, at 
 any rate she had the instinct that served her despotic tem- 
 per; she had no education, she simply went straight onward, 
 with the persistency of a character accustomed to succeed. 
 She had a genius for home management, the spirit of thrift, 
 the talents of a housekeeper, and tha love of work. She fully 
 understood that she could never succeed in finding a wife for 
 Jerome in a class above their own', a family who would make 
 inquiries as to their mode of life and perhaps be scared at 
 finding a mistress already established in the home; so she 
 looked in a rank below for the people she might dazzle, and 
 she found a suitable match under her hand. 
 
 The senior messenger of the Bank of France, named Lem- 
 prun, had a daughter, an only child, Celeste. Mademoiselle 
 Celeste Lemprun would inherit her mother's fortune, she also
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 17 
 
 being the only child of a market-gardener whose property 
 consisted of some acres of land near Paris which the old man 
 still cultivated. Then there would be the savings left by the 
 worthy Lemprun, a man who, after being employed in the 
 houses of Thellusson and of Keller, had entered service at the 
 Bank when it was first started. Lemprun, now a head ser- 
 vant, enjoyed the respect and esteem of the government offi- 
 cials and inspectors. Hence the Board of Directors, on hear- 
 ing that Celeste was to be married to a respectable clerk in 
 the civil service, promised a donation of six thousand francs; 
 and this sum, added to twelve thousand given by her father 
 and twelve thousand from old Galard, the market-gardener at 
 Auteuil, raised the marriage portion to thirty thousand francs. 
 Old Galard and Monsieur and Madame Lemprun were de- 
 lighted by this alliance; the head messenger knew Mademoi- 
 selle Thuillier to be one of the most upright and respectable 
 women in Paris. Brigitte gave lustre .to her investments 
 in the funds by assuring Lemprun that she would never 
 marry, and neither he nor his wife, figures from the Golden 
 Age, would have made so bold as to criticise Brigitte. They 
 were especially struck by the handsome Thuillier's brilliant 
 position, and the marriage was concluded to the satisfaction 
 of all parties. 
 
 The governor and secretary of the Bank signed the docu- 
 ments as witnesses for the bride; Monsieur de la Billardiere, 
 head of his department, and Monsieur Eabourdin, a head 
 clerk, did the same for Thuillier. 
 
 Six days after the wedding old Lemprun was the victim of a 
 very daring robbery, mentioned in the papers of the time, but 
 quickly forgotten in the exciting events of 1815. The thieves 
 having entirely evaded pursuit, Lemprun wished to pay for 
 the loss ; and though the Bank in fact charged the sum to the 
 account of bad debts, the poor old man died of grief caused 
 by this disaster. He regarded it as a blow to his honesty of 
 seventy years' standing. 
 
 Madame Lemprun gave the whole of her husband's money 
 to her daughter, Madame Thuillier, and went to live with her
 
 18 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 father at Auteuil, where the old man died of an accident in 
 1817. 
 
 Alarmed at the thought of managing or letting her father's 
 fields and gardens, Madame Lemprun, amazed at Brigitte's 
 capabilities and honesty, begged her to realize the property, 
 and so arrange matters that her daughter should take every- 
 thing into her own hands, allowing her fifteen hundred francs 
 a year and leaving her the house at Auteuil. The old man's 
 land, sold in lots, realized thirty thousand francs. Lemprun 
 had left as much, and the two fortunes, added to Celeste's 
 marriage portion, amounted in 1818 to ninety thousand 
 francs. 
 
 Celeste's money had been invested in Bank shares at a time 
 when they stood at nine hundred francs. With the sixty 
 thousand francs Brigitte secured five thousand francs a year, 
 for five per cents were at sixty, and she charged this, with fif- 
 teen hundred francs a year of life interest, to the Widow Lem- 
 prun. Thus, at the beginning of 1818, with Thuillier's salary 
 of three thousand four hundred francs, Celeste's income of 
 three thousand five hundred, and the dividends on thirty- 
 four shares in the Bank of France, the annual sum passing 
 through Brigitte's uncontrolled hands amounted to eleven 
 thousand francs. 
 
 It was necessary to set forth this financial position from 
 the beginning, not only to anticipate difficulties, but to clear 
 the s stage for the drama. 
 
 Brigitte in the first place allowed her brother five hundred 
 francs a month, and so managed the house that five thousand 
 a year paid all expenses; she allowed her sister-in-law fifty 
 francs a month, demonstrating that she for her part was sat- 
 isfied with forty. To secure her dominion by the power of 
 money Brigitte hoarded the surplus of her private dividends ; 
 she was a money lender, it was said in the offices, her brother 
 acting as her agent and discounting bills. Still, though Bri- 
 gitte accumulated a capital of sixty thousand francs between 
 1813 and 1840, the existence of such a sum can be accounted 
 for by transactions on 'change, the funds varying as much aa
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 19 
 
 forty per cent, without 'having recourse to accusations more 
 or less veracious, of which the truth would add nothing to the 
 interest of this story. 
 
 From the very first Brigitte broke in the hapless Madame 
 Thuillier by a free use of the spurs and the sawing of the bit 
 which she made her feel. But this luxury of tyranny was 
 wasted; the victim yielded at once. Celeste, justly gauged 
 by Brigitte, devoid of spirit and education, accustomed to a 
 sedentary life and tranquil atmosphere, was excessively placid 
 by nature, pious in the widest sense of the word, and ready 
 to expiate by the hardest penance the most involuntary fault 
 that could inflict pain on another. She was absolutely igno- 
 rant of life, accustomed to be waited on by her mother, who 
 did all the work herself, and compelled to keep very quiet by a 
 lymphatic constitution, which made the least exertion a fa- 
 tigue. She was a typical child of the Paris middle class, 
 where such children are constantly seen, rarely gifted with 
 beauty, the product of poverty, of overwork, of airless 
 dwellings, bereft of freedom and of all the conveniences of 
 life. 
 
 At the time of her marriage Celeste was a little woman, 
 nauseatingly fair and colorless, fat, slow, and very stupid- 
 looking. Her forehead, too high and prominent, suggested 
 water on the brain, and under that dome a face evidently too 
 small and ending in a point like a mouse's snout, led some of 
 the guests to hint that she might sooner or later go out of her 
 mind. Her pale blue eyes, and lips set in a perpetual smile, 
 did not contradict the idea. On her wedding-day, a solemn 
 occasion, she had the look, the manner, and the attitude of a 
 person condemned to death, and only hoping it will be soon 
 over. 
 
 "She is a little soft !" said Colleville to Thuillier. 
 
 Brigitte was the knife that would stab this nature, the ut- 
 most contrast to her own. She had a stamp of beauty in her 
 regular and classic features, but destroyed by the toil which 
 from her infancy had kept her bent over coarse and unbeau- 
 tiful work, and by the privations she voluntarily endured to
 
 20 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 amass her little hoard. Her complexion, washed to a polish 
 at a very early age, had the hue of steel. Her dark eyes were 
 set in black, or rather in bruised circles; her upper lip was 
 marked with dark down, a sort of sootiness; her lips were 
 thin, and her imperious forehead was crowned by hair that 
 had been black, but was fast turning to chinchilla. She was 
 as upright as any handsome woman could be, and everything 
 about her betrayed a hard life, suppressed fires, and the cost 
 of her gains. 
 
 To this woman Celeste was simply a fortune to absorb, a 
 mother to mate, one more subject in her empire. She soon 
 found fault with her for being so flabby, a word constantly 
 on her tongue, and the acrid old maid, who would have been 
 heartbroken if she had had a managing sister-in-law, found 
 a savage pleasure in stinging this helpless creature to activity. 
 Celeste, ashamed of seeing her sister-in-law display her 
 housewifely energy and do the housework, tried to help her; 
 then she fell ill; at once Brigitte was devoted in caring for 
 her; she nursed her like a sister, and would say before 
 Jerome : 
 
 "You are not strong enough; well, then, do nothing, poor 
 child !" emphasizing Celeste's incapacity with the display of 
 pity by which the strong, affecting gentle compassion for the 
 weak, contrive to insinuate their own praises. 
 
 But as all such despotic natures love to use their strength 
 and show great tenderness for physical suffering, she nursed 
 her sister-in-law so well that Celeste's mother was quite satis- 
 fied when she came to see her. 
 
 When Madame Thuillier was well again Brigitte would 
 say, in such a way as to be heard : "Limp rag ! of no use what- 
 ever !" and the like. Celeste retired to her room to weep, and 
 when Thuillier found her in tears he would make excuses 
 for his sister. 
 
 "She is as good as gold, but she is hot-tempered. She loves 
 you after her own fashion ; she is just the same to me." 
 
 And Celeste, remembering her sister-in-law's motherly care, 
 forgave her.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 21 
 
 Brigitte regarded her brother as king of the household ; she 
 praised him up to Celeste and treated him as an autocrat, a 
 Ladislas, an infallible Pope. Madame Thuillier, bereft of 
 her father and her grandfather, and almost deserted by her 
 mother who came to see her on Thursdays, while they went to 
 her on Sundays in the summer, had no one to love but her 
 ihusband; in the first place because he was her husband, and 
 also because to her he was always "handsome Thuillier." Be- 
 sides, he sometimes behaved to her as if she were his wife, and 
 for all these reasons combined she worshiped him. He seemed 
 to her all the more perfect when he often took her part, and 
 scolded his sister, not out of regard for Celeste but from sheer 
 selfishness, to secure peace in the house during the few min- 
 utes he spent there. In fact Thuillier dined at home, and 
 came in to bed very late; he went to balls in his own circle, 
 alone and exactly as though he were still a bachelor. 
 
 Thus the two women were always together. Celeste un- 
 consciously adopted a passive attitude, and became, as Brigitte 
 wished, a perfect slave. The Queen' Elizabeth of the house- 
 hold went through a change from domineering to a sort of 
 pity for this perpetually crushed victim. She finally set aside 
 her haughty airs, her cutting words, her tone of contempt, 
 feeling sure that she had bent her sister-in-law to the yoke. 
 
 As soon as she realized that her slave's neck was bruised by 
 the collar, she took care of her as of a piece of personal prop- 
 erty, and Celeste knew better days. Then, comparing the end 
 with the beginning, she felt a sort of affection for her tor- 
 mentor. 
 
 The poor soul had but one chance that might have given 
 her spirit to defend herself, to become something some- 
 body in the household that lived on her money, though she 
 did not know it, while she got nothing but the crumbs from 
 the table; but that chance never favored her. 
 
 At the end of six years Celeste had no child. 
 
 This misfortune, over which, month after month, she shed 
 torrents of tears, did much to add fuel to Brigitte's scorn; 
 ghe pronounced her of no use at all, not even to bear children.
 
 22 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The old maid, who had dreamed of loving her brother's chil- 
 dren as if they were her own, was slow in getting used to the 
 idea of this irremediable misfortune. 
 
 At the time when this story opens, in 1840, at the age of 
 forty-six, Celeste had ceased to weep, for she was mournfully 
 certain that she would never be a mother. Strange to say, 
 after twenty-five years of a life in which victory had finally 
 blunted and broken the knife, Brigitte was as fond of Celeste 
 as Celeste was of her. Time, ample means, the incessant 
 friction of daily life which had no doubt rubbed off the cor- 
 ners and smoothed down asperities, with Celeste's lamblike 
 resignation and sweetness, had led to a serene autumn. And 
 the two women were united by the one feeling they had ever 
 known : their adoration for the fortunate and selfish Thuillier. 
 
 And then these two women, both childless, had each, like 
 every woman who has longed in vain to be a mother, devoted 
 herself to a child. This spurious motherhood, quite as ab- 
 sorbing as real motherhood, needs an explanation which 
 brings us to the main action of the drama, and will account 
 for the abundant occupation found by Mademoiselle Thuil- 
 lier for her brother. 
 
 Thuillier had entered the office as supernumerary clerk at 
 the same time as Colleville, who has already been mentioned 
 as his intimate friend. Compared to the dull and methodical 
 rule of Thuillier's house, social nature had created Colleville's 
 as a complete contrast, and while it is impossible not to re- 
 mark that this fortuitous contrast is far from moral, it must 
 be added that before jumping to a conclusion it will be well 
 to read the story to the end a story for which, being but too 
 true, the author cannot be held responsible. 
 
 This Colleville was the son of a clever musician, formerly 
 first violin at the opera in the days of Francreur and Rebel. 
 At least six times a month, as long as he lived, he would re- 
 late anecdotes about the performances of Le Devin du Vil- 
 lage, imitating Jean-Jacques Rousseau with wonderful exact- 
 itude. Colleville and Thuillier were inseparable ; they had no
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 23 
 
 secrets from each other, and their friendship, begun at the 
 age of fifteen, had known no cloud in 1839. . . 
 
 Colleville was one of the clerks called "pluralists" in gov- 
 ernment offices. Such men are always distinguished by their 
 industry. Colleville, who was a good musician, held by favor 
 of his father's name and influence the place of first clarinet 
 player at the Opera Comique, and as long as he was a bache- 
 lor, Colleville, being a little better off than Thuillier, often 
 shared with his friend. But Colleville, unlike Thuillier, 
 married to please himself: Mademoiselle Flavie, the illegiti- 
 mate child of a famous opera-dancer who called the girl du 
 Bourguier, asserting that she was the daughter of a rich con- 
 tractor of that name who was ruined in 1800, and who for- 
 got the child all the more completely because he had doubts 
 as to the celebrated lady's fidelity. 
 
 Flavie's birth and appearance had destined her to a sorry 
 fate when Colleville, having frequent occasion to visit her 
 mother, who lived in luxury, fell in love with the girl and 
 married her. Prince Galathionne, the dancer's "protector" 
 in September 1815, when her brilliant career was drawing to 
 a close, gave Flavie twenty thousand francs as a wedding por- 
 tion, and her mother furnished her with a magnificent trous- 
 seau. The visitors to her house made her presents of jewelry 
 and plate, so the Collevilles started in housekeeping richer 
 in superfluities than in capital. 
 
 Flavie, brought up in luxury, had at first a pretty apart- 
 ment furnished by her mother's decorator, and here the young 
 wife held court, airing her taste for art and artists, amid a 
 certain display of elegance. 
 
 Madame Colleville was pretty and piquante, bright, gay, 
 and gracious, and a thorough "good fellow." The dancer, 
 who was now four-and-forty, retired from the stage and went 
 to live in the country, thus depriving her daughter of the ben- 
 efit she derived from her mother's wealth and extravagance. 
 Madame Colleville's house was pleasant enough but desper- 
 ately expensive. 
 
 Between 1816 and 1826 she had five children. Colleville,
 
 24 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 a musician at night, kept a merchant's books from seven till 
 nine every morning. By ten he was at the office. And so, by 
 blowing into a wooden pipe in the evening, and writing out 
 accounts by double entry in the morning, he made seven or 
 eight thousand francs a year. 
 
 Madame Colleville played the real lady ; she was "at home" 
 on Wednesdays, she gave a music party once a week, and a 
 dinner once a fortnight. She only saw her husband at din- 
 ner; in the evening, when he came in towards midnight, she 
 often had not returned. She was at the play, for she some- 
 times had a box given her, or she left word for Colleville to 
 fetch her from some house where she was at a dance or a sup- 
 per. 
 
 Madame Colleville's dinners were excellent, and the com- 
 pany, if mixed, was very amusing ; she received distinguished 
 actresses, painters, men of letters, and some men of wealth. 
 Madame Colleville could vie in elegance with Tullia, the 
 famous opera-singer, of whom she saw a great deal; still, 
 though the Colleville's drew on their capital, and often found 
 it difficult to make both ends meet at the end of the month, 
 Flavie was never in debt. 
 
 Colleville was very happy; he still loved his wife and was 
 still her great friend. Always welcomed with the same affec- 
 tionate smile and infectious good spirits, he yielded to her ir- 
 resistible fascinations and ways. 
 
 The exhausting toil he went through in his three separate 
 avocations suited his character and temperament. He was a 
 good-natured, burly fellow, florid, jolly, and lavish, and full 
 of whims. In ten years there was never a squabble in the 
 household. In the office he was regarded as a scatterbrain, 
 like all artists, as they said; but they were superficial judge? 
 who mistook the constant haste of a busy man for the hurry 
 of a muddler. 
 
 He had sense enough to affect a certain stupidity ; he would 
 boast of his domestic happiness, and pretend to be interested 
 in concocting anagrams, as if he were absorbed by 'a passion 
 for them. The clerks of his division, the heads of divisions,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 2& 
 
 and even heads of offices came to his concerts; from time 
 to time, at fitting moments, he would offer tickets for a play, 
 for he needed much indulgence for his frequent absence from 
 work. Rehearsals took up half the time he ought to have 
 spent at the office, but the musical gifts he had inherited from 
 his father were genuine, and his knowledge great enough 
 to exempt him from any but the general rehearsals. Thanks 
 to Madame Colleville's influence, the theatre and the authori- 
 ties respectively yielded to the necessities of this worthy plu- 
 ralist, who, besides all this, was training a young fellow 
 earnestly recommended by his wife, a great musician of the 
 future, who sometimes took his place in the orchestra with 
 every hope of succeeding him. 
 
 In point of fact, in 1827, when Colleville retired, the said 
 young man became the first clarinet: 
 
 As to Flavie, she was summed up in the sentence : "She is 
 a bit of a flirt !" 
 
 The eldest Colleville child, born in 1816, was the very 
 image of its good father. In 1818 Madame Colleville thought 
 everything of the cavalry, ranking it even above the arts; 
 she smiled on a lieutenant of the Saint-Chamans dragoons, 
 Charles de Gondreville, who was young and rich, and who 
 died afterwards in the Spanish war; her second son, then a 
 baby, was destined to a soldier's life. In 1820 she considered 
 the Bank as the foster-mother of industry and the mainstay 
 of the State, and the great Keller, the famous orator, was 
 her idol. Her third son was born, Francois, who was to go 
 into business and would never lack the advantage of Keller's 
 protection. By the end of 1820 Thuillier, Monsieur and 
 Madame Colleville's intimate friend and Flavie's great ad- 
 mirer, felt the need of pouring out his sorrows in that ex- 
 cellent woman's heart, and expatiated on his matrimonial 
 troubles. For six years he had hoped for a child, but God 
 had not blessed his efforts; in vain did Madame Thuillier have 
 masses said; she had even been to Notre Dame de Liesse! 
 He described Celeste under every aspect, and the words "Poor 
 Thuillier" fell from Madame Colleville's lips. She, for her
 
 26 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 part, was just then rather depressed; she had no predomi- 
 nant opinion. She confided her sorrows to Thuillier. The 
 great Keller, the hero of the Left, was in fact horribly mean ; 
 she had seen the sunny side of glory, the follies of finance, 
 the shallowness of an orator. He never would say a word ex- 
 cepting in the Chamber, and he had behaved very badly to 
 her. Thuillier was indignant. 
 
 "Only simpletons know how to love," said he ; "take me !" 
 
 And handsome Thuillier was said to be making up to Ma- 
 dame Colleville, paying her attentions, as the phrase was 
 under the Empire. 
 
 "So you are sweet on my wife," said Colleville, laughing. 
 "You had better beware ; she will leave you in the lurch like 
 all the rest !" 
 
 A cunning speech by which Colleville guarded his mari- 
 tal dignity in the office. 
 
 In 1820-1821 Thuillier availed himself of his position as a 
 friend of the family to help Colleville, who had so often 
 helped him of old; and in the course of eighteen months he 
 had lent the Collevilles nearly ten thousand francs, never in- 
 tending to mention it. In the spring of 1821 Madame Colle- 
 ville gave birth to a charming little girl to whom Monsieur 
 and Madame Thuillier stood sponsors ; she was named Celeste 
 Louise Caroline Brigitte; Mademoiselle Thuillier wished 
 that this angel should bear one of her names. The name 
 Caroline was given in compliment to Colleville. 
 
 Old Madame Lemprun undertook to put the child out to 
 nurse under her own eye at Auteuil, where Celeste and her 
 sister went to see her twice a week. 
 
 As soon as Madame Colleville was strong again she said to 
 Thuillier quite frankly and seriously : 
 
 "My dear friend, if we are to continue good friends, we 
 must be nothing more. Colleville is greatly attached to you ; 
 well, one in the family is enough." 
 
 "Pray tell me," said Thuillier to Tullia, the dancer, who 
 was calling on Madame Colleville, "why women are so little 
 attached to me. I am not the Belvedere Apollo, but on the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 27 
 
 other hand I am not a Vulcan; I am fairly good-looking, I 
 can talk, I am constant " 
 
 "Do you want to know the truth?" asked Tullia. 
 
 "Yes," said handsome Thuillier. 
 
 "Well, then, though we sometimes love an .idiot, we never 
 can love a fool." 
 
 This speech crushed Thuillier; he could not get over it. 
 He had a fit of melancholy and accused womankind of 
 caprice. 
 
 "Did not I warn you?" said Colleville; "I am not a Na- 
 poleon, my dear fellow ; I should even be very sorry if I were, 
 but I have my Josephine a jewel !" 
 
 The chief Secretary in her husband's office, des Lupeaulx, 
 whom Madame Colleville supposed to have more influence 
 than he had she used to say later : "He was one of my mis- 
 takes" was for a time the great man of the Colleville 
 drawing-room; but as he had not power enough to get Colle- 
 ville promoted to the division of Bois-Levant, Flavie had 
 wit enough to take umbrage at the attentions he paid Ma- 
 dame Eabourdin, the wife of a head-clerk, a minx, as she 
 said, to whose house she had never been invited, and who 
 had twice been so impertinent as not to come to her music 
 parties. 
 
 Flavie was dreadfully shocked by young Gondreville's 
 death ; she was quite inconsolable ; she saw in it, she said, the 
 hand of God. In 1824 she mended her ways, talked about 
 economizing, received no more company, devoted herself to 
 her children, and set up for being a virtuous wife and mother ; 
 her friends did not know of any favorite in attendance. But 
 she went much to church, she corrected her dress, wearing 
 sober grays; she talked of religion and the proprieties; and 
 this mysticism resulted in the birth, in 1825, of a pretty little 
 boy, named Theodore, the gift of God. 
 
 In 1826, when the Congregation was all-powerful, Colle- 
 ville was made second clerk in Clergeot's division, and in 
 1828 promoted to be revenue collector in a Paris district., 
 
 Colleville also obtained the Cross of the Legion of Honor, 
 VOL. 1428
 
 28 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 to entitle him, by and by, to have his daughter educated at 
 Saint-Denis. The half-scholarship which Keller had suc- 
 ceeded in getting in 1823 for Charles, the eldest of Colle- 
 ville's boys, was given to the second; Charles secured a 
 whole scholarship at the College Saint-Denis, and the third, 
 to whom Madame the Dauphiness extended her protection, 
 had three-quarters of a scholarship at the College Henri IV. 
 
 In 1830 Colleville's attachment to the Legitimate branch 
 compelled him to retire ; all his children were happily living. 
 He was so fortunate as to be able to get something for his 
 place, a pension of two thousand four hundred francs as the 
 reward of long service and an indemnity of ten thousand 
 francs from his successor; he was also promoted to be an 
 officer of the Legion of Honor. He nevertheless found him- 
 self in straitened circumstances, and in 1832 Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier advised him to settle near them, hinting that he 
 might obtain a clerkship at the Mairie, as, in fact, he did 
 within a fortnight, with a salary of a thousand crowns. 
 
 Charles Colleville had just entered the Naval School. The 
 schools to which the other boys went were in the neighbor- 
 hood. The seminary of Saint-Sulpice, where the youngest 
 was one day to be educated, was close to the Luxembourg. 
 Finally, Thuillier and Colleville really ought to end their 
 days together. 
 
 In 1833 Madame Colleville, now five-and-thirty, settled 
 in the Eue d'Enfer at the corner of the Rue des Deux- 
 Eglises with Celeste and little Theodore; thus Colleville 
 was about equally far from his Mairie and the Rue Saint- 
 Dominique. The family, after leading a life at first of 
 show and dissipation and constant festivities, and then of 
 quiet retirement, was now reduced to middle-class obscurity 
 with a total income of five thousand four hundred francs. 
 
 Celeste was now twelve years old; she promised to be 
 pretty; she required masters; she would cost at least two 
 thousand francs a year. Her mother felt 'that she must be 
 placed under the eye of her godfather and godmother. So 
 she acted on Mademoiselle Thuillier's suggestion, in every
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 29 
 
 way a wise one; and Brigitte, without in any way pledging 
 herself, made Madame Colleville understand pretty clearly 
 that her fortune, with her brother's and Madame Thuillier's, 
 was to be settled on Celeste. The little girl had lived at 
 Auteuil till the age of seven, worshiped by kind old Madame 
 Lemprun, who died in 1829, leaving twenty thousand francs 
 in savings, and her house, which sold for the enormous sum 
 of twenty-eight thousand. 
 
 The little girl had seen but little of her mother and a 
 great deal of Madame and Mademoiselle Thuillier since 
 going home to her father's house in 1829. In 1833 she 
 fell more exclusively under Flavie's management, and the 
 mother then tried conscientiously to do her duty, overdoing 
 it indeed, as women do who are tortured by remorse. Fla- 
 vie, without being hard, was very strict with the little girl; 
 she looked back on her own early training and vowed to 
 herself that she would make an honest woman, and not a 
 light woman, of Celeste. She took her to church and made 
 her take her first communion under the direction of a Paris 
 cure who has since been made a bishop. Celeste was all 
 the more genuinely pious because Madame Thuillier, her 
 godmother, whom she adored, was a perfect saint. Celeste 
 felt that she was better loved by this poor, lonely woman 
 than by her own mother. 
 
 Between 1833 and 1840 she had the most brilliant edu- 
 cation, according to the ideas of her world. The best 
 music-masters made her a very tolerable performer ; she could 
 wash in a water-color drawing very neatly; she danced to 
 perfection; she had learned her own language and history, 
 geography, English, Italian in short, everything that con- 
 stitutes a lady-like education. Of medium height and rather 
 flat, she was unfortunately short-sighted; neither pretty nor 
 plain, she had a fair, bright complexion, but she had not 
 a notion of fine manners. She had a good deal of restrained 
 feeling, and her godfather, godmother, Mademoiselle Thuil- 
 lier, and Colleville himself were unanimous on this point 
 a mother's anchor of hope that Celeste could feel a strong
 
 80 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 attachment. One of her chief beauties was magnificent light- 
 brown hair; but her hands and feet showed common blood. 
 
 The girl was engaging for her admirable virtues; she 
 was genuinely kind, simple, and sweet; she loved her father 
 and mother, and would have sacrificed herself for them. 
 Brought up in the deepest admiration for her godparents, 
 alike by Brigitte, who made her call her Aunt Brigitte, 
 by Madame Thuillier, and by her mother, who was on 
 constantly intimate terms with the old "buck" of the Em- 
 pire, Celeste had the loftiest ideas of the retired second clerk. 
 The house in the Rue Saint-Dominique impressed her as much 
 as the Chateau of the Tuileries impresses a courtier of the 
 new dynasty. 
 
 Thuillier had not withstood the rolling-mill action of 
 administrative routine which wears, the brains thin in pro- 
 portion as they are beaten out. Exhausted by monotonous 
 work as well as by his successes as a "lady's man," he had 
 lost his best faculties by the time he settled in the Rue 
 Saint-Dominique; but his drawn features, bearing a slightly 
 arrogant expression mixed with the self-satisfaction that 
 might have been the fatuity of a superior clerk, made the 
 deepest impression on Celeste. She alone adored that color- 
 less face. She knew that she was the delight of the Thuillier 
 household. 
 
 The Collevilles and their children very naturally formed 
 the nucleus of the society- which Mademoiselle Thuillier's 
 ambition aimed at collecting about her brother. A retired 
 clerk of la Billardiere's division, who had for thirty years 
 been living in the Saint-Jacques quarter of the city, Mon- 
 sieur Phellion, now a major of the National Guard, was 
 recognized at the first review by the retired collector and 
 second clerk. Phellion was one of the most highly re- 
 spected men in the district. He had one daughter, for- 
 merly a teacher in the Lagrave school for girls, and now 
 married to Monsieur Barniol, a professor in the Rue Saint- 
 Hyacinthe.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 31 
 
 Phellion's eldest son was mathematical master in a public 
 school. He gave lessons, coached pupils, and devoted himself, 
 as his father expressed it, to pure mathematics. The second 
 son was studying in the Civil Engineering College. 
 
 Phellion had a pension of nine hundred francs, and a few 
 hundred francs of interest on his savings and his wife's 
 during thirty years of hard work and privations. He was 
 also the owner of the little house, with a garden attached, 
 in which he lived in the Impasse des Feuillantines. In 
 thirty years he had never once spoken of this alley, which 
 was no thoroughfare, by the old-fashioned term, cul-de-sac. 
 
 Dutocq, clerk to a justice of the peace, had been an 
 employe in the Exchequer office. He had been the victim 
 on one of those occasions which now and then are a necessity 
 under a representative government, and had consented to be 
 the scapegoat in a scandalous case discovered by the commis- 
 sioners of the budget, for which he was secretly paid a fairly 
 round sum; this had enabled him to purchase his place as 
 a clerk of the Court. This man, whose credit was low as an 
 office spy, was not received as he thought was his due by 
 the Thuilliers; but the coldness of his landlord was just 
 what made him persist in his visits. 
 
 .He was unmarried, and indulged his vices; he carefully 
 concealed his mode of life and knew how to flatter his 
 superiors. The magistrate, his master, had a high opinion 
 of Dutocq. This shameless individual made himself tol- 
 erated by the Thuilliers by mean and gross adulation, 
 which never fails of its effect. He knew every detail of 
 Thuillier's life, of his intimacy with Colleville, and yet 
 more with Madame Colleville. They were afraid of that 
 formidable tongue, and the Thuilliers endured him without 
 admitting him to familiarity. 
 
 The family that presently became the flower of the 
 Thuillier's drawing-room was that of a poor clerk who had 
 been the object of pity in the office, and who, driven by 
 penury, had thrown up his place in 1827 to go into trade 
 with an idea.
 
 92 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Minard foresaw a fortune in one of those atrocious de- 
 vices which disgrace French trade, but which in 1827 had 
 not yet been blown on by publicity. Minard bought tea 
 and mixed it with dried tea leaves that had already been 
 used ; then he adulterated chocolate to an extent that al- 
 lowed of his selling it cheap. This retail business in colonial 
 produce, first started in the Saint-Marcel quarter, set Minard 
 up in trade; he established a factory, and through his con- 
 nections was now able to procure the unmanufactured article 
 from the producer; thus he could carry on honestly and on 
 an extensive scale the business he had begun in such a shady 
 way. 
 
 He set up ,a distillery; vast quantities of imported raw 
 material passed through his hands, and in 1835 he was 
 considered to be one of the richest traders in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Place Maubert. He had bought one of the hand- 
 some residences in the Rue des Magons Sorbonne; he had 
 already been the deputy mayor, and in 1 839 was elected mayor 
 of that district and assessor of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 He kept a carriage and had a country house near Lagny ; his 
 wife wore diamonds at the Court balls, and he flaunted the 
 rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor in his button- 
 hole. 
 
 Minard and his wife were moreover exceedingly liberal to 
 the poor; perhaps they wished to restore to them retail all 
 they extracted wholesale from the public. 
 
 Phellion, Colleville, and Thuillier came across Minard at 
 election time, and the result was an acquaintance which 
 soon became intimate because Madame Zelie Minard seemed 
 enchanted to introduce her "young lady" to Celeste Colle- 
 ville. 
 
 Ce'leste made her entry into society at the age of sixteen 
 and a half, at a fine ball given by the Minards, dressed as 
 beseemed her name, which seemed of good augury for her 
 life. Delighted to be the friend of Mademoiselle Minard, 
 who was four years her senior, she persuaded her godfather 
 and her father to cultivate the Minards, in whose gilded
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 33 
 
 and gorgeous rooms many political celebrities of the "Juste 
 Milieu" (the Happy Medium) were wont to meet: Mon- 
 sieur Popinot, afterwards Minister of Commerce; Cochu, 
 now Baron Cochu, previously a clerk in the Clergeot division 
 of the Exchequer office, and a large shareholder in a grocery 
 business, was as much the oracle of the Lombards and the 
 Bourdonnais quarters as his ally, Monsieur Anselme Popinot. 
 
 Minard's eldest son was a pleader, whose ambition it was 
 to step into the shoes of those advocates whose political 
 opinions should have weaned them from appearing in Court' 
 since 1830; he was the genius of the family, and his mother, 
 no less than his father, hoped to see him well married. Zelie 
 Minard, once an artificial-flower maker, was filled with an 
 ardent yearning towards higher social spheres, and hoped 
 to enter there by the marriage of her son and daughter ; while 
 Minard, more prudent than his wife, and imbued with a 
 sense of the power of the middle classes in the state which 
 had resulted from the revolution of July, looked only for 
 fortune. He haunted the Thuilliers' house to pick up in- 
 formation as to Celeste's prospects as an heiress. 
 
 He, like Dutocq and Phellion, had heard the scandal that 
 had been rumored as to the Thulliers' intimacy with Flavie, 
 and he had not failed to note their devotion to their god- 
 daughter. 
 
 Dutocq, eager to be received by the Minards, toadied them, 
 grossly. When Minard, the Rothschild of his arrondisse- 
 ment, came first to the Thuilliers', he compared him, almost 
 wittily, to Napoleon, seeing him now burly,. fat, and flourish- 
 ing, when he had last known him, in the office, lean, pale, 
 and sickly. 
 
 "When you were in la Billardiere's division/' said he, "you 
 were like Napoleon before the 18th Brumaire; now I see a 
 Napoleon of the Empire." 
 
 Minard, however, met him coldly and did not ask him to 
 his house; thus he made a mortal enemy of the malignant 
 law clerk. 
 
 Monsieur and Madame Phellion, worthy couple as they
 
 34 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 were, could not help indulging in calculations and hopes. 
 It struck them that Celeste was the very thing for their son, 
 the professor; so to make a little faction in the Thuil- 
 lier drawing-room, they introduced their son-in-law, Mon- 
 sieur Barniol;, a man well thought of in the Faubourg Saint- 
 Jacques, an official of long standing in the Mairie, and their 
 intimate ally, whom Colleville had in a way ousted from hi? 
 place, when Monsieur Laudigeois, for twenty years a clerk in 
 the Mairie, was hoping, as the reward of his long services, 
 for the secretaryship obtained by Colleville. 
 
 Thus the Phellions formed a phalanx of seven, all fairly 
 faithful to each other; the Colleville faction was not less 
 numerous, so that sometimes, on a Sunday, there would be 
 not less than thirty persons in the Thuilliers' drawing-room. 
 Thuillier renewed his acquaintance with the Saillards, the 
 Baudoyers, and the Falleix, all people of importance in the 
 Place Royale quarter, and frequently invited them to dinner. 
 
 Among the women Madame Colleville was the most im- 
 portant personage of this circle, as the younger Minard and 
 Phellion, the professor, were its superior men; for all the 
 rest, men devoid of ideas or culture and risen from the 
 lower ranks, were typical of the absurdities of the inferior 
 middle classes. Although a fortune made in the past seems 
 to imply some form of merit, Minard was but an inflated 
 balloon. He overflowed in long-drawn sentences, took obse- 
 quiousness for politeness and ready-made phrases for wit, 
 and would utter commonplaces with such airs and mouthing 
 as got them accepted as eloquence. A certain set of words 
 which mean nothing and answer every purpose progress, 
 steam, asphalt, the National Guard, order, democratic in- 
 fluences, cooperative spirit, legality, motion and resistance, 
 intimidation seemed at every political crisis to have been in- 
 vented for Minard, who then paraphrased the text of his news- 
 paper. 
 
 Julien Minard, the lawyer, suffered under his father as 
 much as his father suffered under his wife. Zelie, in fact, 
 with improved fortunes, had assumed pretensions, though
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 35 
 
 <5he could never learn to speak her own language; she had 
 grown fat, and in her handsome attire she looked like a cook 
 married to her master. 
 
 Phellion, the very ideal of a middle-class citizen, had an 
 equal share of virtues and absurdities. As a subordinate, 
 during his official career, he held social superiority in high, 
 respect. He kept silence in the presence of Minard. He 
 had weathered the crisis of superannuation very success- 
 fully, and this was how. The worthy man had never had a 
 chance of indulging his tastes. His love was for the city 
 of Paris; he took the utmost interest in the new streets and 
 improvements; he was the man to stand for two hours on 
 end in front of a house that was being pulled down. He 
 might be seen planted squarely on his feet, his nose in the 
 air, watching for the fall of a stone that a mason was dis- 
 lodging with a crowbar from the top of a wall, never budg- 
 ing till the block came down; and when all was over he 
 would go off as pleased as an academician at the damning 
 of a romantic play. Such men Phellion, Laudigeois, and 
 the like, the true supernumeraries of the world's stage 
 fill the place of the antique chorus. They weep when 
 others weep, laugh when they are expected to laugh, and 
 sing in chorus over public disasters and public rejoicings, 
 exulting where they stand apart at the victories of Algiers, 
 Constantine, Lisbon, and Saint Juan de Ulloa; grieving 
 impartially over the death of Napoleon and the fatal dis- 
 asters of Saint-Merri and the Eue Transnonnain ; mourn- 
 ing for the famous men of whom they know least. 
 
 Phellion, however, showed two faces; he was conscien- 
 tiously divided between the reasoning of the opposition and 
 that of the government. But if there was any street fight- 
 ing, Phellion was brave enough to declare himself in the 
 face of the neighbors; he went forth to the Place Saint- 
 Michel, the parade-ground of his regiment; he pitied the 
 government, but he did his duty. Before and during a riot 
 he would support the reigning dynasty, the outcome of the 
 revolution of July; but when the political trials came on he 
 was on the side of the culprits.
 
 SG THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 These weather-cock opinions, harmless enough, also per- 
 vaded his political views: the "Colossus of the North" was 
 answerable for everything; England, like the old Const it n- 
 tionnel newspaper, was in his arguments a stalking-horse 
 on both sides, and by turn "Machiavellian Albion" and a 
 model country, Machiavellian with regard to the insulted 
 interests of France and Napoleon; a model country when 
 the French government was to be criticised. Agreeing 
 with the newspaper, he recognized the democratic element, 
 but in conversation he would come to no terms with the 
 Republican spirit the "Republican Spirit" meaning 1793, 
 the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the agrarian law; the 
 Democratic Element being the development of the middle 
 classes the reign of Phellion. 
 
 This excellent old man was always dignified; dignity 
 was the keyword of his life. He brought up his children 
 with dignity; he was always the father in their eyes; he 
 insisted on being respected at home, as he honored power and 
 the authorities. He never had a debt. On a jury his con- 
 science made him sweat blood and water while following the 
 debates on a trial, and he never laughed, not even when the 
 Court laughed, and the bench, and the public authorities. 
 Always ready to oblige, he would give care, time, everything 
 but money. 
 
 Felix Phellion, his son, the professor, was his idol; he 
 believed him capable of winning a seat in the Academy of 
 Sciences. 
 
 Thuillier, between the impudent stupidity of Minard and 
 the blunt imbecility of Phellion, was like a neutral ele- 
 ment, but there was something of both in him from his 
 melancholy experience. He hid the vacuity of his brain under 
 the commonplace, just as he covered the parchment skin of 
 his head under the thin wisps of gray hair that were artfully 
 brought over from the back by the hairdresser's comb. 
 
 "In any other walk of life/' he would say, speaking of 
 official work, "I should have made infinitely more money." 
 
 He had seen what was right and possible in theory and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 37 
 
 
 
 impossible in practice; he had seen results contradict the 
 premises; he would relate all the injustice and intrigues of 
 the Rabourdin affair. 
 
 "After that/' he would say, "what is one to believe ? every- 
 thing or nothing? A very queer thing is government, and 
 I am happy in not having a son, so that I cannot see him 
 going through the rush for place." 
 
 Colleville, always cheerful, jovial, good-fellow-well-met, 
 always joking and inventing anagrams, always in a bustle, 
 the typical citizen meddler and mocker, represented ability 
 that cannot succeed, and perristent hard work without any 
 result, but also a sort of rollicking resignation, narrow views, 
 art wasted for he was a capital musician, and now no longer 
 played but to please his daughter. 
 
 So the Thuilliers' drawing-room was a sort of provincial 
 Salon, lighted up by reflections from the perpetual Paris 
 glare; its mediocrity and platitude kept pace behind the 
 torrent of the age. The word and the thing in fashion 
 for in Paris the word and the thing are like the horse and 
 its rider were never felt there but by a ricochet. Monsieur 
 Minard was impatiently awaited as a man who, on great oc- 
 casions, would certainly know the truth. 
 
 The women of the Thuillier circle were all for the Jesuits ; 
 the men defended the University; generally the women were 
 content to listen. A man of any wit, if he could have endured 
 the tedium of these evenings, would have laughed as heartily 
 as at a comedy by Moliere to hear a long discussion ending 
 in some such speech as this: 
 
 "Could the Revolution of 1789 have been averted? Louis 
 XIV.'s loans had prepared the way for it. Louis XV., an 
 egoist, a man devoted to ceremonial (it was he who said, 
 'If I were at the head of the Police I would prohibit 
 cabriolets'), a dissolute king (you know all about his Pare 
 aux Cerfs), contributed largely to open the yawning gulf of 
 revolution. Monsieur de Necker, a malignant Genevese, 
 gave the last shock. Foreigners have always owed France 
 a grudge. The Maximum did infinite mischief. In equity
 
 38 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 
 
 Louis XVI. ought not to have been condemned; a jury 
 would have acquitted him. Why was Charles X. Overthrown? 
 Napoleon was a great man and the details that prove his 
 genius belong to the domain of anecdote: he would take 
 five pinches of snuff per minute, and kept it loose in his 
 waistcoat pockets, which were lined with leather. He looked 
 over all the bills; he used to go to the Eue Saint-Denis to 
 learn the price of things. Talma was his friend; Talma 
 taught him all his gestures, and yet he always refused to 
 give Talma the Legion of Honor. The Emperor once stood 
 sentry for a soldier who had fallen asleep, and so saved him 
 from being shot. Such things as that made his men adore 
 him. Louis XVIII., though he was a clever man, showed 
 a great want of justice towards him when he called him 
 Monsieur de Bonaparte. The fault of the present government 
 is that, instead of leading, it submits to be led. It has taken 
 its stand too low ; it is afraid of men of energy ; it ought to 
 have torn the treaties of 1815 across and demanded the Rhine 
 of Europe. They shift the same men too often in the min- 
 istry." 
 
 "There, you have been clever enough for one time," Made- 
 moiselle Thuillier would say at the end of these brilliant re- 
 flections. "The altar is prepared; come and play your little 
 game." 
 
 And the old maid always closed these discussions, which 
 bored the women, by making this suggestion. 
 
 If all these facts and generalizations had not been given 
 by way of "argument" to afford an idea of the setting of 
 this drama and the spirit of this little world, the drama 
 itself would perhaps have suffered. The sketch is histori- 
 cally accurate, and depicts a social stratum of no small im- 
 portance in the chronicle of manners, especially when we 
 remember that the youngest branch of the dynasty took it for 
 its fulcrum. 
 
 The winter of 1839 was, in some ways, the culminating 
 hour of glory for the Thuilliers' salon. The Minards ap-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 39 
 
 peared there almost every Sunday; they began by spend- 
 ing an hour there when they were obliged to go on to other 
 friends, and then Minard commonly left his wife there, tak- 
 ing his daughter with him and his eldest son, the lawyer. 
 This constant civility on the Miuards' part was the direct 
 outcome of a meeting, long postponed, between Metivier, 
 Barbet, and Minard, one evening when these two important 
 tenants had remained later than usual to chat with Made- 
 moiselle Thuillier. Minard then heard from Barbet that 
 the old maid took from him about thirty thousand francs in 
 bills at six months, at seven and a half per cent per an- 
 num ; and that she took as much paper from Metivier, so that 
 she must have at least a hundred and eighty thousand francs 
 in her hands. 
 
 "I lend on books at twelve per cent and take none but the 
 best names; nothing can suit me better," said Barbet in 
 conclusion. "I say she must have a hundred and eighty 
 thousand francs, for she can only give bills at ninety days 
 at the Bank." 
 
 "Then she has an account at the Bank ?" 
 
 "I think so," said Barbet. 
 
 Minard, who had a friend on the Board, learned that 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier had an account there to the extent 
 of about two hundred thousand francs, guaranteed by a 
 deposit of forty shares. This security, it was added, was in 
 fact unnecessary; the Bank would be willing to oblige a 
 person so well known there, and the responsible manager 
 for Celeste Lemprun, the daughter of a clerk who had seen 
 as many years' service as the Bank had existed. In twenty 
 years Mademoiselle Brigitte had never overdrawn her ac- 
 count. She always paid in sixty thousand francs a month 
 in bills at three months, which came to about a hundred 
 and sixty thousand. The securities in shares deposited 
 represented a hundred and twenty thousand francs; there 
 was therefore no risk, for the bills were always worth sixty 
 thousand francs. "Indeed," the bank director said, "if she 
 should, in the third month, send us in a hundred thousand
 
 40 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 francs' worth of bills we would not refuse one. She has a 
 house of her own which is not mortgaged and is worth more 
 than a hundred thousand francs. And all the bills come 
 through Barbet or Metivier, and have four names on the 
 back including hers." 
 
 "Why does Mademoiselle Thuillier work so hard?" Mi- 
 nard asked Metivier. "Why, she is the very wife for you/* 
 he added. 
 
 "Oh, I can do better by marrying one of my cousins," said 
 Metivier. "My Uncle Metivier has promised me the good- 
 will of his concern; he has a hundred thousand francs a year 
 in the funds, and only two daughters.'' 
 
 However secret Mademoiselle Thuillier might be, saying 
 nothing to anybody of her investments; and although she 
 absorbed into one lump sum all she saved out of Madame 
 Thuillier's fortune as well as her own, it was hardly pos- 
 sible but that a ray of light should at last pierce through the 
 bushel under which she hid her treasure. 
 
 Dutocq, who was always with Barbet and there was more 
 than one point of resemblance in their characters and 
 physiognomy, had estimated the Thuilliers' savings more 
 accurately than Minard, at a hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs in 1838, and he could secretly keep a keen eye on their 
 increase by calculating the profits by the help of Barbet, a 
 practised discounter. 
 
 "Celeste will have two hundred thousand francs from us, 
 money down," said the old maid in confidence to Barbet, 
 "and Madame Thuillier will settle on her at her marriage 
 the reversion of all her property. My will is made. My 
 brother will have a life-interest in everything, but Celeste 
 will have the reversion. Monsieur Cardot, my lawyer, is my 
 executor." 
 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier had then persuaded her brother 
 to renew his old acquaintanceship with the Saillards, the 
 Baudoyers, and the Falleix, who held a position analogous 
 to that of the Thuilliers and the Minards, in the Saint-An- 
 toine quarter, where Monsieur Saillard was mayor of the 
 district.
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 41 
 
 Cardot, the notary, had introduced a suitor for the hand 
 of Celeste in the person of Maitre Godeschal, attorney-at- 
 law, and Derville's successor, a man of six-and-thirty, a 
 very clever fellow, who had paid a hundred thousand francs 
 on account for his connection, a debt which two hundred 
 thousand francs with his wife would clear off. But Minard 
 got rid of Godeschal by telling Mademoiselle Thuillier that 
 Celeste's sister-in-law would be the famous opera-dancer, 
 Mariette. 
 
 "She came out of that," said Colleville, speaking of his 
 wife, "and has no idea of going back again." 
 
 "Besides, Monsieur Godeschal is too old for Celeste," said 
 Brigitte. 
 
 "And then," Madame Thuillier suggested timidly, "ought 
 we not to allow her to marry a man of her own choice and to 
 be happy ?" 
 
 The good woman had discerned in Felix Phellion a true 
 affection for Celeste love such as a woman might have 
 dreamed of, who had been crushed by Brigitte and hurt by 
 Thuillier's indifference, for he cared no more for his wife 
 than for one of the servant-girls; love, bold at heart but 
 shy on the surface, strong in itself but timid, concentrated 
 before men and expanding in the skies. At three-and- 
 twenty Felix Phellion was a gentle, simple-minded man, as 
 learned men are who cultivate knowledge for its own sake. 
 He had been wholesomely brought up by his father, who, 
 taking everything very seriously, had set him a good ex- 
 ample in all respects, supporting it by trivial axioms. He 
 was a youth of medium height, with light, chestnut-brown 
 hair, gray eyes, and a much-freckled complexion; his voice 
 was charming, his demeanor quiet, his manner rather 
 dreamy; he gesticulated very little, never talked nonsense, 
 contradicted nobody, and was incapable of a sordid thought 
 or a selfish speculation. 
 
 "That is the sort of man I should have liked my husband to 
 be !" Madame Thuillier had often said to herself. 
 
 One evening in the month of February 1840 the various
 
 42 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 persons whose figures have just been sketched were assembled 
 in the Thuilliers' drawing-room. It was near the end of 
 the month. Metivier and Barbet, who each wanted to bor- 
 row thirty thousand francs from Mademoiselle Timelier, 
 were playing whist with Phellion and Monsieur Minard. 
 At another table sat Julien "Julien the Advocate/' as 
 Colleville called the younger Minard Madame Colleville,- 
 Monsieur Barniol, and Madame Phellion. A game of 
 "bouttlotte, at five sous points, engaged the attention of Ma- 
 dame Minard, who knew no other game, of Colleville, old 
 Saillard, and his son-in-law, Baudoyer. Laudigeois and Du- 
 tocq looked on to cut in in the place of the losers ; Mesdames 
 Falleix, Baudoyer, and Barniol were playing boston with 
 Mademoiselle Minard; Celeste and Prudence Minard were 
 sitting together. Young Phellion, while listening to Ma- 
 dame Thuillier, could gaze at Celeste. 
 
 At the other side of the fireplace the Queen Elizabeth of 
 the family sat enthroned, as plainly dressed as when she 
 was thirty, for prosperity could not make her alter any of 
 her habits. On her chinchilla-gray hair she wore a black 
 gauze cap with a spray of Charles X. geranium flowers; her 
 gown of plum-red stuff had cost perhaps fifteen francs; an 
 embroidered collar worth six francs scarcely covered the deep 
 hollow left between the muscles that attach the head to the 
 spine. Monvel, when he acted the part of Augustus in his 
 later days, had not a sterner profile than this autocrat who 
 eat knitting socks for her brother. 
 
 In front of the fire stood Thuillier, ready to receive all 
 newcomers, and by his side stood a young man who had 
 produced a great effect when the porter, arrayed on Sundays 
 in his best coat to play the man-servant, announced "Mon- 
 sieur Olivier Vinet." 
 
 A confidential hint from Cardot to the famous public 
 prosecutor, the young lawyer's father, had led to this visit. 
 Olivier Vinet had just been promoted from the assize court 
 of Arcis-sur-Aube to a place in Paris as the attorney-gen- 
 eral's deputy. Cardot, the notary, had invited Thuillier to
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 43 
 
 dinner to meet the public prosecutor, who seemed likely to 
 be made Minister of Justice, and his son. Cardot estimated 
 the present value of the money to be left to Celeste at seven 
 hundred thousand francs at least. Vinet junior had seemed 
 delighted at the prospect of being admitted as a Sunday 
 guest at the Thuilliers'. Large fortunes lead to great and 
 unblushing follies nowadays. 
 
 Ten minutes later, another young man who was talking 
 to Thuillier before Vinci's arrival raised his voice in the 
 heat of a vehement political discussion, compelling the law- 
 yer to do the same in the eagerness of the debate. The sub- 
 ject in question was the vote which had led to the overthrow 
 by the lower Chamber of the Ministry of the 12th May, by 
 their refusal to grant the sum of money asked for the Due 
 de Nemours. 
 
 "I am most decidedly very far from being an adherent 
 of the dynastic view," said this young man, "and I am far 
 from approving the advent to power of the citizen class. 
 The middle classes have no more right now to exclusive 
 pre-eminence in the state than the aristocracy had of old. 
 However, the French middle classes took upon themselves 
 to create a new dynasty, a royal family of their own, and 
 this is how they treat it ! When the nation allowed Na- 
 poleon to raise himself, he created, with himself, a magnifi- 
 cent and monumental edifice; he was proud of its greatness, 
 and generously spent his blood and the sweat of his brow to 
 constitute the Empire. 'The citizen classes, between the 
 splendors of aristocratic sovereignty and of the Imperial pur- 
 ple, are squalid; they drag down the powers that be to their 
 own level instead of rising to them. They practise the ' 
 same economy of candle-ends on their princes as they do 
 in their back-shops; but what is a virtue there is a blunder 
 and a crime in high places. There are many things I could 
 desire for the people, but I would not have cut ten millions 
 off the new civil list. The citizen class, now that it is 
 almost all-powerful in France, ought to secure the happiness 
 of the people, splendor without lavishness and grandeur 
 without privilege."
 
 44 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Olivier Vinet's father was at that time out of conceit with 
 the government : the robes of a Keeper of the Seals, his great 
 ambition, had not yet fallen on his shoulders. So the young 
 deputy judge did not know what to answer, and he thought 
 it would be wise to take up one side of the question. 
 
 "You are right, monsieur," said he. "But before it thinks 
 of display the citizen class has a duty to the country. The 
 luxury of which you speak comes after duty. The decision 
 you think so wrong was a necessity at the moment. The 
 Chamber is far from having its fair share of influence; the 
 Ministers work less for France than for the Crown, and Par- 
 liament wished to see a Ministry which, as in England, had 
 a power of its own, not a mere borrowed weight. As soon 
 as the Ministry acts independently, and represents the Cham- 
 ber of Commons in the executive power of the country, as 
 the Chamber represents the people, Parliament will be very 
 liberal to the Crown. That is the marrow of the matter, and 
 I merely state it without any expression of personal opinion, 
 since my duty in my office requires a sort of fealty to the 
 Sovereign in political questions." 
 
 "Apart from the political question," replied the other, 
 whose accent betrayed him as a son of Provence, "it cannot be 
 disputed that the middle classes have misunderstood their 
 task. We see public prosecutors, presidents of the law courts, 
 peers of the upper Chamber riding in omnibuses, judges liv- 
 ing on their salaries, prefets without any private means, 
 Ministers in debt. Now the citizen class, having taken pos- 
 session of all these places, ought to do honor to them, as the 
 aristocracy did; and instead of holding them as a means to 
 making a fortune, as many scandalous trials have proved, 
 they should fill them with dignity and due expenditure " 
 
 "Who can this young fellow be?" Olivier Vinet wondered 
 as he listened. "Is he a relation? Cardot really ought to 
 have come with me the first time." 
 
 "Who is that little man?" Minard asked Barbet. "I have 
 seen him here several times." 
 
 "A tenant," replied Metivier, dealing the cards.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 45 
 
 "An advocate," said Barbet, in an undertone. "He has 
 small rooms on the third floor, to the front. Oh ! he is no 
 great things, and he has no money." 
 
 "What is that young maoi's name?" Vinet inquired of 
 Thuillier. 
 
 "Theodose de la Peyrade, an advocate," whispered Thuil- 
 lier in reply. 
 
 At this moment, every one, men and women alike, were 
 looking at the two young men, and Mme. Minard could not 
 help saying to Colleville: 
 
 "He is a very good-looking young fellow." 
 
 "I have made an anagram of his name," said Celeste's 
 papa, "and the letters of Charles Marie Theodose de la Pey- 
 rade spell his prophecy : Eh, Monsieur pay era de la dot, des 
 oies et le char. Take care, my dear Madame Minard, not to 
 give him your daughter !" 
 
 "People think that young fellow better looking than my 
 son," said Madame Phellion to Madame Colleville. "What 
 do you think ?" 
 
 "Oh, so far as looks go," replied Madame Colleville, "a 
 woman might hesitate before making a choice." 
 
 At this stage Olivier Vinet, looking round at this room- 
 ful of middle-class citizens, thought it would be clever to 
 cry up the class, and he threw himself into agreement with 
 the young Provencal, saying that the men who enjoyed the 
 confidence of the Government ought certainly to imitate 
 the King, whose splendor far surpassed that of the old 
 Court; and that to try to save out of the emoluments of 
 an appointment was monstrous. Besides, how was it pos- 
 sible in Paris, where everything cost three times as much, as 
 of old, where, for instance, rooms fit for a judge to live in 
 cost three thousand francs in rent ? 
 
 "My father," said he in conclusion, "allows me a thou- 
 sand crowns a year, and with my salary I can scarcely make 
 both ends meet decently." As the young lawyer cantered 
 off on this treacherous ground, the Provengal, who had so 
 ingeniously led him up to it, gave Dutocq an undetected
 
 46 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 wink just as he was about to take his turn at the game of 
 bouillotte. 
 
 "And there is such a demand for places," said Dutoeq, 
 "that there is some talk of appointing two magistrates to 
 each arrondissement, so as to have twelve more courts. As 
 if they could tamper with our dues, with our offices so ex- 
 orbitantly paid for !" 
 
 "I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing you speak in 
 Court," said Vinet to Monsieur de la Peyrade. 
 
 "I am the advocate of the poor. I only plead in the lower 
 courts," replied the Provengal. 
 
 On hearing the young lawyer's views as to the necessity 
 for spending one's income, Mademoiselle Thuillier had as- 
 sumed a primly ceremonious look, of which the Provengal 
 and Dutocq well knew the meaning. Vinet presently left, 
 with Minard and Julien, so that the field of battle in front 
 of the hearth was left to la Peyrade and Dutocq. 
 
 "The upper citizen class," said Dutocq to Thuillier, "will 
 act as the aristocracy were wont to act. The nobility looked 
 for rich girls to improve their lands ; the parvenus of to-day 
 want handsome settlements to feather their nest." 
 
 "Just what Monsieur Thuillier was saying this morning," 
 said the Provengal with bold mendacity. 
 
 "Vinet's father," said Dutocq, "married a Demoiselle 
 de Chargeboeuf and has assumed aristocratic opinions; he 
 must have money at any cost; his wife keeps up a princely 
 style." 
 
 "Oh !" said Thuillier, roused to the envy of his class of 
 each other, "turn such folks out of their places, and down 
 they go to the mud they rose from !" 
 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier was knitting at such a pace that she 
 might have been a machine driven by steam. 
 
 "Now you come in, Monsieur Dutocq," said Madame 
 Minard, rising. "My feet are cold," she added, coming to 
 the fire, the gold tinsel in her turban twinkling like fire- 
 works in the light of the hanging lamp that vainly strove 
 to illuminate the spacious room.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 4T 
 
 "He is but an innocent that sucking judge," said Ma- 
 dame Minard, glancing at Mademoiselle Thuillier. 
 
 "An innocent ! did you say ?" observed la Peyrade. "That, 
 madame, is very witty " 
 
 "But we are used to hearing witty things from Madame 
 Minard," said "handsome Thuillier." 
 
 Madame Colleville was studying the ProvengaL, and com- 
 paring him with young Phellion, who was talking to 
 Celeste, neither of them noticing what was going on around 
 them. And this is certainly a good opportunity for describ- 
 ing the singular man who was destined to play an important 
 part in the Thuilliers' circle, and who certainly deserves to 
 be called a great actor. 
 
 There is in Provence, and especially in the river-port of 
 Avignon, a race of men with fair or chestnut-brown hair, 
 delicate complexion, and almost weak eyes, their expression 
 being soft, calm, and languishing, rather than fiery, eager, 
 and deep, as the eyes of Southerners so commonly are. It 
 may be observed incidentally that among the Corsicans, a 
 race peculiarly subject to fits of fury and dangerous rages, 
 fair men are often to be seen, of apparently passive charac- 
 ter. These fair-complexioned men, apt to be stout, with a 
 somewhat watery eye, greenish or blue, are the worst kind 
 of Provencal, and Charles Marie Theodose de la Peyrade 
 was a good specimen of the type whose constitution would 
 repay careful study from the point of view of medical sci- 
 ence and philosophical physiology. There is in them a sort 
 of bile, a bitter gall, easily stirred, which mounts to their 
 brain and makes them capable of the fiercest deeds, done ap- 
 parently in cold blood. This obscure violence, the result 
 of a sort of spontaneous intoxication, is irreconcilable with 
 their almost lymphatic exterior and the tranquillity of their 
 benign expression. 
 
 Young la Peyrade, born near Avignon, was of medium 
 height and well proportioned if rather stout; his complex- 
 ion was dull not livid, not pale, not florid, but' gelatinous
 
 48 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 for that is the only word that can give a clear idea of the 
 soft colorless material that covered sinews not indeed vig- 
 orous but capable of immense endurance under certain con- 
 ditions; his eyes, coldly blue, commonly wore a deceptive 
 expression of melancholy which had, no doubt, a great 
 charm for women. His well-shaped forehead did not lack 
 nobleness, and was agreeably finished by fine, light chest- 
 nut hair, thin, and with a very slight natural curl at the 
 ends. His nose, exactly like that of a sporting dog, broad, 
 cleft at the tip, inquisitive, intelligent, prying, always on 
 the alert, had no touch of good-nature, but was ironical and 
 sarcastic; but this side of his nature was rarely seen; it was 
 only when he was off his guard and flew into a rage that the 
 young man found it in him to vent the wit and satire that 
 envenomed his diabolical jesting. 
 
 His lips, cut in a pleasing curve and as red as a pome- 
 granate flower, were the marvelous instrument of a voice 
 of which the medium tones were almost musical, and The- 
 odose generally spoke in that register; the higher notes rang 
 out like a gong. That falsetto was indeed the voice of his 
 nerves, of his anger. His face, resolutely expressionless, was 
 oval in shape; and his manner, in harmony with the priestly 
 calm of his features, was stamped with reserve and propriety. 
 At the same time there was a smooth gentleness in his de- 
 meanor; and without being servile or wheedling, it had a 
 certain attraction which it was difficult to account for in his 
 absence. Charm, when it has its source in feeling, leaves 
 a deep impression ; but when it is the outcome of artifice, like 
 spurious eloquence, it enjoys but a temporary triumph; it 
 strives for effect at any cost. But how many philosophers 
 are there in the world who can compare and judge ? By the 
 time ordinary people have discovered the way it is done, the 
 trick is played to use a vulgar phrase. 
 
 Everything in this youth of seven-and-twenty was in 
 harmony with the part and character he had assumed; he 
 carried out his natural bent by cultivating philanthropy, 
 the only expression that can account for philanthropists.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 49 
 
 Theodose loved the populace; for he particularized his love 
 of humanity. Just as the horticulturists devote themselves 
 to roses, dahlias, pinks, or geraniums, caring nothing for 
 any species which is not their special hobby, this young la 
 Rochefoucauld-Lianeourt was the slave of the workmen, 
 the poorest classes, the paupers of the Saint- Jacques and 
 Saint-Ma rceau quarters. The capable men, genius at bay, 
 the decent poor of the middle class, he would not admit into 
 Charity's fold. 
 
 In all maniacs the heart is -very like the boxes with di- 
 visions in which sugar-plums are packed in sorted colors. 
 Suum cuique tribuere is their motto. They dole out duty by 
 measure. There are philanthropists who have pity only on 
 the sins of condemned criminals. Vanity, of course, is at 
 the root of philanthropy, but in our Provengal it was delib- 
 erate calculation, a part to be played, a form of hypocrisy, 
 liberal and democratic, and affected with such perfection as 
 no actor could achieve. He did not attack the rich; he 
 was content simply not to understand them, to suffer them 
 to exist; every man, according to him, must enjoy the fruit 
 of his labors. He had been, he would own, a fervent disciple 
 of Saint-Simon, but this was an error to be ascribed to his 
 extreme youth; modern society could only be based on 
 heredity. 
 
 Like all the natives of his province he was a devout church- 
 man; he attended early Mass, and concealed his piety. He 
 was sordidly parsimonious, as almost all philanthropists are, 
 and gave nothing to the poor but his time, his advice, his 
 eloquence, and such money as be could wring for them from 
 the wealthy. 
 
 He wore boots, and dressed in black, which he wore till 
 the seams were white. 
 
 Nature had greatly favored Theodose by not bestowing on 
 him that refined and manly beauty of the South, which leads 
 the world to imaginary demands, such as it is more than 
 difficult for any man to fulfil. He found it so easy to please,
 
 50 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 that, as the mood prompted him, he could be delightfully at- 
 tractive or quite commonplace. 
 
 Xever before, since his introduction to the Thuilliers, 
 had he ventured to raise his voice and assume such a magis- 
 terial air as he had done this evening to Olivier Vinet; but 
 perhaps Theodose de la Peyrade had not been sorry to try 
 to get out of the shade he had hitherto sat in ; besides, it was 
 necessary to shake off this young deputy judge, just as the 
 Minards had previously got rid of Godeschal, the attorney. 
 Like all superior men for he did not lack intellect Vinet 
 had not stooped low enough to discern the threads of these 
 vulgar spider's webs, and had rushed like a fly, head foremost, 
 into the almost invisible snare into which Theodose had 
 drawn him by such wiliness as a cleverer man than Olivier 
 might not have suspected. 
 
 To finish this portrait of the "advocate of the poor" it 
 will be well to relate the beginnings of his intimacy with 
 the Thuilliers. 
 
 Theodose had come to Paris towards the end of 1837; he 
 had been practising as an attorney for five years, and he now 
 went through his terms to become a pleader; but some im- 
 revealed circumstances, as to which he was silent, had hin- 
 dered him from getting his name duly registered in Paris, 
 and he still ranked as a licentiate. However, having estab- 
 lished himself in his little rooms on the third floor, with the 
 furniture indispensable to the practice of his noble profes- 
 sion for the order of advocates will not recognize a new 
 Brother if he has not a suitable office, a library, and all 
 things seemly and ostensible Theodose de la Peyrade became 
 a pleader at the Court of Assize in Paris. 
 
 The whole of the year 1838 was devoted to effecting this 
 change of position, and he led a perfectly regular life. In 
 the morning he studied at home till dinner-time, occasion- 
 ally going into Court to listen to important cases. Having 
 made friends with Dutocq with great difficulty as Dutocq 
 declared, he helped certain poor folks in the Faubourg 
 Saint- Jacques, whom Dutocq recommended to his charity,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 51 
 
 by arguing their cases; he secured them the interest of so- 
 licitors, who, in accordance with the statutes of their associa- 
 tion, take it in turns to defend the cause of the impecunious; 
 and by never taking any but perfectly secure cases he won 
 them all. Thus making a connection with a few solicitors he 
 became known to his fellow-pleaders by these praiseworthy 
 efforts, so that a certain degree of notoriety attended his ad- 
 mission first to the debating society of his fellow-pleaders, 
 and then as a registered member of the Paris bar. After that 
 he was the regular advocate of the poor in the lower courts, 
 and always the protector of the common people. 
 
 His humble clients expressed their gratitude and admira- 
 tion in the porter's lodges in spite of the young lawyer's in- 
 junctions, and a good many facts were carried up to the mas- 
 ters. The Thuilliers, delighted to have so excellent and char- 
 itable a man as a tenant, were eager to attract him as a vis- 
 itor, and questioned Dutocq about him. Dutocq spoke in the 
 tone of the envious, and, while doing the young man justice, 
 he added that he was singularly parsimonious, though that 
 indeed might be the effect of his poverty. 
 
 "I have, however, made inquiries about him. He belongs 
 to the de la Peyrades, an old family of the County of Avi- 
 gnon; he carne to Paris at the end of 1829 to find an uncle 
 who was supposed to have a large fortune; he finally discov- 
 ered this relative's residence three days after the old man's 
 death, and the sale of the furniture just sufficed to pay the 
 funeral expenses and debts. Some friend of this very ineffi- 
 cient uncle presented the fortune-seeking youth with a hun- 
 dred louis, advising him to study for the bar and to aim at 
 the higher walks of the law. On those hundred louis he lived 
 for more than three years in Paris, faring like an anchorite; 
 but as he could never see nor trace his unknown benefactor, 
 by 1833 he -was in the greatest distress. 
 
 "Then, like all licentiates of law, he dabbled in polities and 
 literature, and supported himself for some time just above 
 utter misery ; for lie had nothing to look for from his family, 
 as his father, the youngest brother of the uncle who died in
 
 52 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the Rue des Moineaux, has eleven children, all living on a 
 small property called Canquoelles. 
 
 "He finally got on the staff of a ministerial journal edited 
 by the famous Cerizet, so well known for the persecution he 
 endured at the time of the Restoration for his liberal views, 
 while the men of the Left cannot now forgive him for hav- 
 ing gone over to the ministerialists. Since in these days the 
 authorities do little enough to protect even their most devoted 
 adherents, as was seen in the case of Gisquet, the republicans 
 succeeded at last in ruining Cerizet. This is merely to ac- 
 count for Cerizet's now being a copying clerk in my office. 
 
 "Well, at the time when he was still flourishing, as the 
 editor of a newspaper controlled by the Perier Ministry in 
 antagonism to such incendiary papers as the Tribune and 
 others, Cerizet who is really a very good fellow, only too 
 fond of women, good living, and dissipation was very helpful 
 to Theodose, who did the political articles ; and but for Casi- 
 mir-Perier's death the young lawyer would have been ap- 
 pointed deputy judge in Paris. In 1834-1835 he was again 
 in very low water, in spite of his talents, for his employment 
 on a ministerial paper told against him. 'But for my reli- 
 gious principles/ he said to me at that time, 'I should have 
 thrown myself into the river.' 
 
 "At last it would seem that his uncle's friend heard that he 
 was in want ; money enough was sent to him to enable him to 
 pass as a pleader; but even now he knows neither the name 
 of his mysterious patron nor his place of residence. After 
 all, in such circumstances thrift is excusable, and a man must 
 have a great deal of character to refuse the payment offered 
 by the poor devils whose causes he gains by his assistance. 
 It is disgraceful to see men speculating on the impossibility 
 for the poor of standing the costs of an action unjustly 
 brought. Yes, he will get on ! I should not be surprised to 
 see that young fellow rise to a brilliant position. He is tena- 
 cious, honest, and courageous. He studies studies hard." 
 
 In spite of the favor with which he was welcomed, Mattre 
 la Peyrade did not go too often to the Thuilliers, at first
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 53 
 
 Taxed with reserve, he went more frequently, and at last was 
 a regular Sunday visitor, invited to all their dinners, and so 
 intimate in their house that if he happened to call on Thuil- 
 lier at about four o'clock he was always kept to share pot-luck, 
 without ceremony, and Mademoiselle Thuillier would say to 
 herself : 
 
 "Then we are sure of his having a good meal, poor young 
 man !" 
 
 A social phenomenon, which must certainly have been ob- 
 served, but which has not yet been formulated and published, 
 though it deserves to be recorded, is a return to the habits, 
 jokes, and manners of their original state in life in certain 
 folks, who from youth to age have raised themselves above it. 
 Thus, in mind and manners, Thuillier had relapsed into the 
 porter's son; he would repeat his father's jests, and at last, 
 in his declining years, allowed some of the mud of his early 
 youth to come to the surface. 
 
 About five or six times a year, when the soup was good, he 
 would say, as if it were quite a new remark, as he placed his 
 spoon in the empty plate : 
 
 "That is better than a dig in the eye with a burned stick !" 
 
 The first time Theodose heard this speech, which was new 
 to him, it upset his gravity, and he laughed so heartily ^that 
 Thuillier, handsome Thuillier, felt his vanity more tickled 
 than it had ever been. After that, Theodose always responded 
 to the pleasantry with a knowing smile. 
 
 This little detail will explain how it was that on the very 
 morning of the day when he had his sparring match with 
 Olivier Vinet, he had happened to say to Thuillier, as they 
 walked round the garden to look at the effects of the frost : 
 
 "You are far wittier than you fancy." 
 
 And had received this answer: 
 
 "In any other career, my dear Theodose, I should have 
 come to the front; but the Emperor's overthrow broke my 
 neck." 
 
 "Time is yet before you," said the young lawyer. "Why, 
 what has that mountebank Colleville done to deserve the 
 Cross?"
 
 54 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 And here Maitre de la Peyrade had laid his finger on the 
 sore that Thuillier hid from every eye, so effectually indeed 
 that even his sister knew it not; but this young fellow, whose 
 interest it was to study all the citizen class, had guessed the 
 secret envy eating into the ex-clerk's heart. 
 
 "If you, with all your experience, will do me the honor of 
 being guided by my advice," the philanthropist went on, "and 
 above all will never breathe a word of our compact without 
 my consent, not even to your admirable sister, I will under- 
 take to get you the Legion of Honor with the acclamations of 
 all the district." 
 
 "Oh ! if only we could do that," Thuillier had exclaimed, 
 "you cannot think what I would not do for you !" 
 
 And this explains why Thuillier had drawn himself up 
 pompously when Theodose had been so audacious as to lend 
 him an opinion. 
 
 In the arts and Moliere, perhaps, ranked hypocrisy with 
 the arts, by placing Tartuffe for ever among the actor-tribe 
 there is a pitch of perfection, above talent, which only genius 
 can attain to. There is so faint a line between a work of 
 genius and a work of talent that only a man of genius can 
 appreciate the distance that divides Raphael from Correggio, 
 Titian from Rubens. Nay, more: the vulgar are deceived; 
 the stamp of genius is a certain appearance of facility. The 
 work of genius, in fact, must, at first sight, look quite ordi- 
 nary, so natural is it, above all things, even in the loftiest 
 subjects. A great many peasant-women carry a baby as the 
 famous Madonna of Dresden carries hers. Well, and the 
 crowning triumph of art, in a man of such ability as Theo- 
 dose, is to have it said of him later : "He would have taken any 
 one in !" 
 
 Now, in Thuillier's room, he scented the dawn of contra- 
 diction ; he discerned in Colleville the clear and critical insight 
 of an unsuccessful artist. 
 
 The young lawyer knew that Colleville did not like him; 
 Colleville, as a result of various coincidences, useless to relate,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 55 
 
 had really been led to believe in the augury of anagrams. 
 None of his anagrams had failed. He had been well laughed 
 at in the office, when on being asked what the letters of Au- 
 guste Jean Frangois Minard might spell, he transposed them 
 into J'amassai une si grande fortune (I amassed such a great 
 fortune). Minard was very poor, but ten years later the ana- 
 gram was justified. 
 
 Now that of Theodose was luckless. His wife's made him 
 quake, and he had never told it to anybody, for Flavie Minard 
 Colleville made La vielle C., nom fletri, vole (Old Madame 
 C., a blighted name, steals) . 
 
 On various occasions Theodose had made advances to the 
 genial official of the Mairie, and had felt repelled by a cold- 
 ness hardly natural in so communicative a man. 
 
 When the game of bouillotte was ended, Colleville drew 
 Thuillier for a moment into a window-recess and said : 
 
 "You are giving that young lawyer his head too much ; he 
 quite took the lead in the conversation this evening." 
 
 "Thank you, my friend ; forewarned is forearmed !" replied 
 Thuillier, laughing in his sleeve at Colleville's caution. 
 
 Theodose, who happened to be talking to Madame Colle- 
 ville, kept an eye on the two friends; and by the same instinct 
 which women use to know when and to what effect they are 
 being talked about, all across a drawing-room, he guessed that 
 Colleville was trying to injure him in the opinion of that weak 
 and simple Thuillier. 
 
 "Madame," said he in the pious lady's ear, "believe me, if 
 there is anybody here capable of appreciating you, it is I. 
 Any one on seeing you would say : here is a pearl fallen in the 
 mire; you are not forty-two, for a woman's age is only what 
 it seems, and many a woman of thirty, not to compare with 
 you, would be glad indeed to have your figure and the beauti- 
 ful face on which love has set his stamp without ever having 
 filled your heart. You have dedicated yourself to God, I 
 know, and I am too religious to wish to be anything more 
 than your friend; but you have given yourself to Him be- 
 cause you have never found a man worthy of you. You have
 
 56 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 indeed been loved, but I can see that you have never felt your- 
 self worshiped. And here comes your husband, who has 
 never been able to make a position for you suitable to your 
 merits, he hates me as though he could suspect 'that I love 
 you, and just prevents my telling you now what I think I have 
 hit upon to place you in the sphere for which nature intended 
 you. No, madame," he went on in a louder tone, "it is not 
 the Abbe Gondrin who is the Lent preacher this year in our 
 humble church of Saint- Jacques du Haut-Pas ; it is Monsieur 
 d'Estival, a fellow-countryman of mine, who devotes him- 
 eelf to preaching for the benefit of the poorest class, and you 
 will hear one of the most cogent preachers I know; a priest 
 jof an unattractive appearance, but such a soul ! " 
 
 "Then my desires will be fulfilled," said poor Madame 
 ffhuillier. "I never could understand our famous preachers." 
 
 A faint smile was seen on Mademoiselle Thuillier's lips and 
 on those of other persons. 
 
 "They discourse too much of theological demonstrations ; I 
 have long been of that opinion," said Theodose. "But I never 
 discuss religion, and but for Madame Colleville " 
 
 "Are there demonstrations then in theology?" asked the 
 mathematical professor guilelessly and point blank. 
 
 "I cannot suppose, monsieur," said Theodose, looking up at 
 Felix Phellion, "that you ask the question seriously." 
 
 "Felix divides religion into two categories," said old Phel- 
 lion, coming ponderously to his son's support, as he saw a 
 pained expression on Madame Thuillier's pale face. "He 
 regards it from the human and from the divine point of view 
 tradition and reason." 
 
 "What a heresy, monsieur !" said Theodose. ''Religion is 
 indivisible; it insists on faith above all else." 
 
 Old Phellion, pinioned by this speech, looked at his wife. 
 
 "It is time, my dear " and he glanced at the clock. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur Felix," said Celeste, in an undertone, to the 
 frank mathematician, "cannot you, like Pascal and Bossuet, 
 be at once learned and pious?" 
 
 The Phellions departing, the Collevilles followed; soon no 
 one was left but Dutocq, Theodose, and the Thuilliers.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 67 
 
 The flattery lavished on Flavie by Theodose was of the 
 most commonplace type; but to understand this narrative 
 it must be noted that the advocate kept himself in tune with 
 these ordinary minds; he sailed their waters and spoke their 
 language. Pierre Grassou was his painter, not Joseph Bri- 
 dau; Paul et Virginie was his romance. The greatest living 
 poet to him was Casimir Delavigne; in his eyes utility was 
 the aim and end of art. Parmentin, the inventor of the po- 
 tato, was, said he, better than thirty Raphaels ; the man in the 
 blue cloak was to him "A Sister of Charity." These phrases, 
 which were Thuillier's, he would occasionally echo. 
 
 "That young Felix Phellion," said he now, "is just the col- 
 lege man of our day, the outcome of science which has pen- 
 sioned off God. Bless me! What are we coming to? 
 Nothing but religion can save France, for the fear of hell 
 alone will preserve us from the domestic thieving that is per- 
 petually going on in the heart of every household, eating into 
 the soundest fortunes. You all have an internecine struggle 
 in your very midst." 
 
 With this brilliant harangue he went away, after bidding 
 the Thuilliers good-night, leaving Brigitte greatly impressed. 
 Dutocq accompanied him. 
 
 "That is a young fellow of great talent !" said Thuillier sen- 
 tentiously. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, on my word !" replied Brigitte, as she put the 
 lamps out. 
 
 "He is religious," said Madame Thuillier, leading the way. 
 
 "Mosieur," said Phellion to Colleville, as they reached the 
 School of Mines, looking round to make sure that they were 
 alone in the street, "I am in the habit of surrendering to the 
 superior knowledge of others, but I cannot help seeing that 
 this young lawyer lords it too grandly over our friends, the 
 Thuilliers." 
 
 "It is my private opinion," replied Colleville, walking with 
 Phellion behind his wife. Celeste, and Madame Phellion, who 
 hung closely together, "he is a Jesuit, and I do not like those
 
 58 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 people the best of them are good for nothing. To me. 
 Jesuit means trickery, and trickery with intent ; they deceive 
 for the pleasure of deceiving, and to keep their hand in, as 
 the saying goes. That is my opinion, and I make no bones 
 over saying so." 
 
 "I understand you, mosieur," replied Phellion, who had 
 Colleville's arm. 
 
 "No, Monsieur Phellion," said Flavie, in a high little voice, 
 "you do not understand Colleville ; but I know what he means, 
 and he had better say no more. Such matters are not for dis- 
 cussion in the street at eleven o'clock at night, and before a 
 young girl." 
 
 "You are right, my dear," said Colleville. 
 
 At the corner of the Eue des Deux Eglises, which was the 
 Phellions' road, they said good-night. Felix said to Colle- 
 ville : 
 
 "Monsieur, your son Frangois, if he were pushed, might get 
 into the Ecole Polytechnique. I undertake to qualify him 
 for passing the examinations this year." 
 
 "That is too good an offer to refuse; thank you, my good 
 friend," said Colleville. "It shall be seen to." 
 
 "Well done," said Phellion to his son. 
 
 "A very clever idea," said his mother. 
 
 "Why, what have you discovered in it ?" asked Felix. 
 
 "Why, it is a very ingenious way of doing the polite to 06- 
 leste's parents." 
 
 "May I never solve another problem if I thought of it!" 
 cried the young professor. "I found out by talking to the 
 boys that Frangois has a turn for mathematics, and I thought 
 it right to inform his father " 
 
 "Quite right, my son!" repeated Phellion. "I would not 
 have you different. All my wishes are fulfilled, and I find my 
 son honest, honorable, possessed of all the public and private 
 virtues I could wish." 
 
 As soon as Celeste had gone to her room Madame Colleville 
 said to her husband:
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 59 
 
 "Colleville, do not pronounce judgment on people so crudely 
 without knowing them thoroughly. When you speak of 
 Jesuits I know you are thinking of priests, and you will oblige 
 me by keeping your opinions on religion to yourself when 
 your daughter is present: We may sacrifice our own souls if 
 we please, but not our children's. Do you want your daugh- 
 ter to be a creature devoid of religion ? And besides, dear old 
 boy, we are at the world's mercy; we have four children to 
 provide for, and can you say that sooner or later you may 
 not need the help of this one or that one? So do not make 
 enemies; you have none; you are the best of good souls, and 
 thanks to that, which in you is quite a charm, we have got 
 on pretty well so far !" 
 
 "That will do !" said Colleville, who had flung his coat into 
 a chair and was taking off his neck-cloth. "I was wrong ; you 
 are right, my beauty." 
 
 "At the first opportunity, my dear old fellow," said the 
 cunning little woman, patting her husband's cheeks, "you try 
 to do the civil to that little lawyer; he is a sharp customer; 
 we must have him on our side. He can play a part? Well, 
 play up to him. Pretend to be his dupe, and if he is clever, if 
 he has a future before him, make him your friend. Do you 
 suppose that I want you to stick as a mayor of a district ?" 
 
 "Come here, femme Colleville," said the ex-clarinet player, 
 patting his knee to show his wife the place where she was to 
 perch, "let us toast out tootsems and talk. When I look at 
 you I am each time more certain that the youth of a woman 
 is in her figure " 
 
 "And in her heart! " 
 
 "In both," replied Colleville, "a light figure and a heavy 
 heart " 
 
 "No, silly a deep heart." 
 
 "What is so nice in you is that you have kept your com- 
 plexion without having to grow fat; but then you have small 
 bones. I tell you, Flavie, if I had to begin life again I would 
 not choose another wife." 
 
 "And you know I always liked you better than the others. 
 VOL. 1430
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 What a pity it is that monseigneur is dead! Do you know 
 what I should like?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "A post in the municipality at about twelve thousand 
 francs, as a cashier, say either in Paris, or at Poissy or as an 
 agent." 
 
 "Either would meet my views." 
 
 "Well, then, supposing that monster of a lawyer could do 
 anything; he can intrigue, you may depend on it. We will 
 be civil to him ; I will feel my way -just leave it to me ; and 
 above all do not spoil his game at the Thuilliers'." 
 
 Theodose had touched the aching spot in Flavie Colleville's 
 heart, and this needs an explanation which may perhaps afford 
 a synthetical survey of women's lives. 
 
 At the age of forty a woman, especially if she has tasted the 
 poisoned apple of passion, is aware of a solemn dread ; she per- 
 ceives that two deaths await her that of the body and that 
 of the heart. If we divide women into the two great classes 
 which answer to the commonest view of them : the virtuous 
 and the guilty, it is safe to say that all alike, after that ter- 
 rible date in life, are aware of an acute pain. 
 
 If virtuous and cheated of the craving of their nature, 
 whether they have been brave enough for resignation, or have 
 buried their rebelliousness in their souls or at the foot of the 
 altar, they feel some horror as they say to themselves, "All is 
 over !" The thought has such strange and infernal depths 
 that we find in it the cause of some of the apostasies that now 
 and then startle and appall the world. 
 
 If guilty, they find themselves at a dizzy height in one of 
 those positions which sometimes, alas, find expression in mad- 
 ness or end in death or in some passion as tremendous as the 
 situation. 
 
 This is the fallacy that lies at the bottom of the crisis: 
 Either a woman has been happy, has made a virtue of happi- 
 ness and can breathe no other than this atmosphere of in- 
 cense, can move only in the blossom-laden air where flattery is
 
 61 
 
 a perpetual caress and so how can she give it up ? Or else 
 which is even more strange than rare in her pursuit of the 
 happiness that eluded her she has found none but fatiguing 
 pleasures, while sustained in the ardor of her pursuit by the 
 incitements of satiated vanity, spurred to the chase like a 
 gambler doubling his stakes, for, to her, the last days of her 
 beauty are the last thing she risks on the cards of despair. 
 
 "You have been loved but never worshiped." This speech 
 of la Peyrade's, emphasized by a look which read, not her 
 heart, but her life, was the solution of an enigma, and Flavie 
 felt herself explained. 
 
 The lawyer had repeated certain sentiments which books 
 have made commonplace; but it matters not of what make 
 or material the whip is that stings the sore of a thoroughbred 
 horse. The poetry was in Flavie, not in the verse, just as the 
 noise is not in the avalanche though it brings it down. 
 
 A young officer, two coxcombs, a banker, a clumsy lad, and 
 poor Colleville were a melancholy set of experiences. Once in 
 her life, indeed, Madame Colleville had dreamed of happiness, 
 but she had not felt it, and death had hastily cut short the 
 only passion in which Flavie had found any real charm. For 
 two years now she had been obedient to the voice of religion, 
 which had taught her that neither the Church nor the world 
 speaks of happiness and love, but only of duty and submis- 
 sion; that in the eyes of those two great powers happiness 
 dwells in the satisfaction obtained from painful or costly 
 sacrifice for which there is no reward in this life. But she 
 still heard a shriller voice; and as her religion was but a 
 necessary mask she wore and not a conversion, as she could 
 not take it off because she regarded it as a resource in the fu- 
 ture, since devotion, true or feigned, was a way of living not 
 unfitted to her future years, she clung to the Church, seated as 
 it were on a bench in a forest-glade, reading the guide-posts 
 to the ways, and awaiting what might happen as she felt night 
 closing in. 
 
 Then her curiosity was greatly excited when she heard 
 Theodose plainly state her secret position, without any as-
 
 62 
 
 sumption of taking advantage of it, but attacking the inner 
 side only of her nature by holding out a hope of the realiza- 
 tion of an airy vision already seven or eight times destroyed. 
 
 Ever since the beginning of the winter she had understood 
 that Theodose was surreptitiously watching her and studying 
 her through and through. More than once she had put on 
 her gray watered-silk gown, her black lace, and her little head- 
 dress of flowers twisted in with Mechlin, to make the best 
 of herself; and a man always knows when a woman has 
 dressed for him. The dreadful dandy of the Empire smoth- 
 ered her with vulgar flattery ; she was the queen of the even- 
 ing but the Provengal said much more by a subtle glance. 
 
 Sunday after Sunday Flavie had expected him to make love 
 to her ; she said to herself : "He knows I am a pauper and he 
 has not a penny ! Or perhaps he is really pious !" 
 
 Theodose was determined to hurry nothing; like a skilful 
 musician, he had marked the place in the symphony where 
 he meant to hit the drum. As soon as he saw that Colleville 
 was trying to raise suspicions in Thuillier, he had fired the 
 broadside he had so carefully prepared during the months he 
 had spent in studying Flavie, and with success, as in the 
 morning he had succeeded with Thuillier. 
 
 As he went to bed he reflected : 
 
 "The wife is on my side; the husband cannot endure me. 
 At this moment they are squabbling and I shall win the day, 
 for she does what she likes with her husband." 
 
 But the Provengal was mistaken, so far as that there had 
 not been the smallest disagreement, and that Colleville was 
 sleeping by his dear little Flavie's side, while she was saying 
 to herself: 
 
 "Theodose is a very superior man." 
 
 A great many men like la Peyrade derive superiority from 
 the boldness or difficulty of an undertaking; the energy they 
 must display gives solidity to their muscles; they throw all 
 their strength into it, and then, whether they achieve success 
 or meet with an overthrow, the world is surprised to see that 
 they are small or mean, or worn out.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 63 
 
 After having aroused a curiosity that was sure to become 
 feverish, in the minds of the persons on whom Celeste's fate 
 depended, Theodose affected to be extremely busy ; for five or 
 six days he was out from morning till night, so as not to see 
 Flavie again till her desire had reached the point where she 
 would overstep any limits of propriety, and so as to compel 
 Thuillier to call on him. 
 
 He was almost certain to meet Madame Colleville at 
 church on the following Sunday ; in fact, they came out at the 
 same moment, and met in the Rue des Deux Eglises. Theo- 
 dose offered his arm to Flavie, who accepted it, sending her 
 daughter on in front with Anatole. This youngest of her 
 children, now twelve years old, was a day-boarder at Barniol's 
 school, where he was being prepared in the elements; Phel- 
 lion's son-in-law had naturally reduced the price for his day- 
 board in anticipation of the hoped-for alliance between the 
 Phellions and Celeste. 
 
 "Have you done me the honor and favor of thinking over 
 what I said to you so blunderingly the other day ?" asked the 
 lawyer in an insinuating tone, as he pressed the fair one's 
 arm to his heart with a gesture at once gentle and firm, for 
 he affected to suppress his feelings and seem respectful 
 against his impulse. "Do not misunderstand me," he went 
 on, as he met such a glance from Madame Colleville's eyes 
 as women, practised in the arts of passion, can find to express 
 either severe reproof or a secret community of feelings. "I 
 love you as a man loves a noble nature struggling against mis- 
 fortune. Christian charity embraces the strong as well as the 
 weak, and its treasures are for all. Refined, graceful, and ele- 
 gant as you are, made to be the ornament of the highest 
 sphere, what man can see you, without the deepest compas- 
 sion, dragging out your life among these odious middle-class 
 people who do not understand you not even the aristocratic 
 perfection of one of your attitudes, of one of your looks, or 
 of one of your bewitching tones of voice. Oh ! if I were but 
 rich, if it were only in my power, your husband, who is really 
 a good soul, should be made a collector general, and you could
 
 64 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 get him elected deputy. But I, poor and ambitious, whose 
 first duty is to crush my ambition since I am left at the bot- 
 tom of the bag like the last number of a lottery, I can only 
 offer you my arm instead of my heart. All my hopes are 
 centered in a good marriage, and believe me, not only will I 
 make my wife happy, but I will raise her to a high position in 
 the State if she brings me the means of advancement. It is 
 a very fine day; come for a little walk in the Luxembourg," 
 he added, as they reached the Rue d'Enfer and the corner of 
 Madame Colleville's house, opposite to which was a passage 
 into the gardens down the steps of a little structure, the last 
 remnant of the famous Carthusian Convent. 
 
 The unresisting arm linked into his own gave Flavie's tacit 
 consent, and as she deserved the honor of some show of vio- 
 lence, he dragged her away quickly, adding: 
 
 "Come along; we shall not alwa} r s have such a good oppor- 
 tunity. Oh I" he exclaimed, "your husband sees us ; he is at 
 the window; walk slowly " 
 
 "You need have no fear of Monsieur Colleville," said Fla- 
 vie, smiling. "He leaves me absolutely my own mistress." 
 
 "Oh ! such, indeed, -is the woman of my dreams \" ex- 
 claimed the Provengal with the ecstatic accent that only fires 
 a southern soul and comes from southern lips. 
 
 "Forgive me, madame," he said, checking himself, and 
 coming down from the upper regions to the exiled angel at 
 whom he piously gazed. "Forgive me ! To return to what I 
 was saying oh ! how can I be insensible to the sufferings I 
 myself experience when I see them no less the lot of a being 
 to whom life ought to bring nothing but joy and happiness ! 
 Your sorrows are mine; I am no more in my right place 
 than you are in yours; the same ill fortune has made us 
 brother and sister. 
 
 "Ah ! dear Flavie ! The first time I was so happy as to see 
 you was on the last Sunday in September, 1838. You were 
 lovely ! I shall often recall you in that little mousseline de 
 laine frock, a tartan of some Scottish clan. I said to myself 
 that evening: 'Why is that woman at the Thuilliers'? above 
 all, why had she ever any connection with this Thuillier?"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 66 
 
 "Monsieur!" cried Flavie, terrified at the ominously swift 
 flow that the Provengal had given to the conversation. 
 
 "Oh ! I know all," he exclaimed, with a twitch of his shoul- 
 der, "and I understand everything and I do not esteem you 
 the less. There, there ! These are not the sins of an ugly 
 woman or a hunchback. You have to gather the fruit of your 
 error, and I will help you : Celeste will be very rich, and that 
 is where all your future prospects lie; you can have but one 
 son-in-law ; be clever enough to choose him well. An ambi- 
 tious man may rise to office, but he will humiliate you, annoy 
 you, and make your daughter miserable ; if he loses her for- 
 tune he will certainly never remake it. Yes, indeed, I love 
 you," he added, "with unbounded devotion ; you are superior 
 to a thousand petty considerations that enmesh fools. Let 
 us understand each other " 
 
 Flavie was astounded; at the same time this excessive 
 frankness appealed to her. "This man is plain-spoken 
 enough !" said she to herself. Still, she acknowledged that 
 she had never been so deeply moved and agitated as by this 
 young man. 
 
 "Monsieur," said she, "I do not know .who can have mis- 
 led you so completely as to my past life or by what right " 
 
 "Pray forgive me, madame," the Provencal put in with a 
 coldness bordering on scorn. "I dreamt it all ! I said to my- 
 self : 'She is all that !' but I was deceived by appearances. I 
 know now why you will live on for ever in fourth-floor rooms 
 in the Eue d'Enfer." 
 
 And he emphasized the retort with a vehement wave of his 
 arm in the direction of the window where Colleville could be 
 seen from the avenue in the gardens whore they were walk- 
 ing alone, a vast field tilled and turned by so many young 
 ambitions. 
 
 "I have been perfectly frank; I expected reciprocity. I 
 have gone many a day without bread, madame ; I managed to 
 live, to study law, to qualify as a licentiate of law in Paris, on 
 a capital of two thousand francs. I came in by the barriere 
 d'ltalie with five hundred francs in my pocket, vowing, like
 
 66 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 a countryman of mine, that I would some day be one of the 
 leading men of my country. And a man who has often picked 
 his breakfast out of the baskets into which cook-shops throw 
 their leavings, and which they empty in the street at six in 
 the morning when the second-hand eating-houses can find 
 nothing worth taking such a man will shrink from no means 
 that he may own to. Do you believe that I am the People's 
 Friend?" said he, smiling. "Fame must have her trumpet: 
 she cannot be heard if she speaks in a whisper; and without 
 fame of what use is talent ? The Advocate of the Poor will 
 become the advocate of the rich. Now, have I not opened 
 ! my inmost soul? Open your heart to me. Say, Ve will be 
 friends/ and some day we will all be happy." 
 
 "Oh, dear! why did I come with you? Why did I take 
 your arm?" exclaimed Flavie. 
 
 "Because it was your destiny !" replied he. "My dear and 
 beloved Flavie," he went on, pressing her arm to his heart, 
 "did you expect to hear me make commonplace speeches ? We 
 are sister and brother that is the whole story." 
 
 And he turned back toward the steps to return to the Rue 
 d'Enfer. 
 
 At the back of the satisfaction which a woman finds in vio- 
 lent excitement, Flavie was conscious of a great dread, and 
 she mistook this terror for the sort of alarm that comes of a 
 new passion ; but she was spellbound, and walked on in utter 
 silence. 
 
 "What are you thinking about ?" asked Theodose, half-way 
 along the passage. 
 
 "Of all you have been saying," she replied. 
 
 "But at our age," said he, "we skip the preliminaries; we 
 are not children, and we both live in a sphere in which we 
 ought to understand each other. In short," he added, as they 
 turned into the Rue d'Enfer, "believe me, I am wholly 
 yours." And he bowed solemnly. 
 
 "The irons are in thefire," said he to himself as he watched 
 the retreat of his dazzled prey.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 67 
 
 On going home Theodose found on his landing a man who 
 figures in this tale as a submarine agent, or like a huried 
 church on which the front of a palace is built up. The sight 
 of this man, who, having rung in vain at la Peyrade's door, 
 was now pulling Dutocq's bell, startled the Provengal; but 
 the shock was internal ; nothing on the surface betrayed this 
 hidden agitation. 
 
 This was Cerizet, the man of whom Dutocq had spoken to 
 Thuillier as his copying-clerk. 
 
 Ce"rizet, who was but eight and thirty, looked fifty, so 
 wrecked was he by all that ages a man. His bald head showed 
 a yellow skull, meagrely covered by a wig rusty with wear; 
 his pale, flaccid features, curiously rough-hewn, were all the 
 more unpleasant by reason of his nose being much disfigured ; 
 not indeed so badly as to make it necessary that he should 
 wear a false nose ; from the bridge at the forehead to the nos- 
 trils it was as nature made it, but disease had destroyed the 
 nostrils towards the lip, leaving two holes of uncertain out- 
 line, thickening his pronunciation and hindering his speech. 
 His eyes had been fine, but were weakened by every form of 
 work and wear and sitting late at night; they were rimmed 
 with red, and evidently damaged ; his look when animated by 
 an expression of mischief might have frightened judges and 
 criminals even those who are frightened at nothing. His 
 mouth, bereft of teeth, or retaining only a few blackened 
 wrecks, was sinister, and moistened with a foam of white sa- 
 liva which did not, however, wet his thin, colorless lips. 
 
 Cerizet, a small man, not so much lean as shrunken, tried 
 to correct the disasters to his person by dress, and though 
 the costume was not magnificent, he kept it in a state of scru- 
 pulous cleanliness that perhaps enhanced its wretchedness. 
 Everything about him was doubtful, like his age, his nose, 
 and his expression. It was impossible to guess whether he 
 were eight-and-thirty or sixty, whether his blue trousers, 
 faded but neatly strapped, would be in the fashion ere long, 
 or dated from the year 1835. A pair of boots, gone limp,
 
 68 THE MIDDLI CLASSES 
 
 but carefully blacked, and resoled for the third time, had 
 once been good, and had perhaps trodden the carpets of official 
 residences. His overcoat with braided frogs, drenched in 
 many a shower, and oval buttons that indiscreetly betrayed 
 the moulds, showed by its cut that it had once been elegant. 
 His satin stock and tie hid the lack of linen with some suc- 
 cess, but at the back the teeth of the buckle had frayed the 
 stuff, which was shining with the oleaginous friction of his 
 wig. In the days of its youth his waistcoat had been smart, | 
 but it was one of those waistcoats which are sold for four 
 francs out of the depths of a ready-made-clothes shop. Every 
 article was carefully brushed, including the bruised and shin- 
 ing silk hat. Everything was in harmony and matched the 
 black gloves of this subaltern Mephistopheles, of whom the 
 history may be told in a few words. 
 
 He was an artist in wickedness, with whom at first wicked- 
 ness had succeeded, and who, deluded by his early triumphs, 
 persisted in plotting infamy always well within the letter of 
 the law. By treachery to his master he had become owner of a 
 printing business; then he had been fined as the publisher of 
 a liberal newspaper, and in the country, after the Restoration, 
 he became one of the pet victims of the royalist Ministry, 
 and was called the "unfortunate" Cerizet, like the unfortunate 
 Chauvet, or the heroic Mercier. In 1830 this reputation for 
 patriotism earned him a place as sous-prefet, which he 
 lost six months later; but he declared that he had been con- 
 demned unheard, and made so much noise about it, that dur- 
 ing Casimir Perier's administration he was made the editor 
 of an anti-republican paper in the pay of the Government. 
 After that he went into business, and among the concerns he 
 was mixed up with was one of the most disastrous joint-stock 
 companies that ever gave rise to criminal proceedings; he 
 took the severe sentence he incurred quite unabashed, assert- 
 \ ing that it was a piece of revenge got up by the republican 
 party, who could not forgive him for the severe handling it 
 had met with from his newspaper, and was paying him back
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 69 
 
 tenfold. He spent his term of imprisonment in a lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 The authorities were at last ashamed of a man who had 
 risen from the foundling hospital, and whose almost crapulous 
 habits and disgraceful swindling, in combination with a re- 
 tired banker named Claparon, had brought him down to well- 
 deserved reprobation. Thus Cerizet, fallen inch by inch to 
 the lowest step of the social ladder, only obtained the place of 
 copying clerk in Dutocq's office by appealing to a remnant of 
 pity. 
 
 In the lowest pit of misery this man dreamed of retaliation ; 
 and as he had nothing left to lose, he was ready for any means 
 of achieving it. Dutocq and he were bound together by their 
 equal depravity. Cerizet was to Dutocq, in that neighborhood, 
 what a dog is to the sportsman. Cerizet, experienced in all 
 the needs of poverty, lent small sums on short loans at enor- 
 mous interest ; he began as Dutocq's partner, and this ancient 
 gutter-boy, now become the costermongers' banker, the truck 
 merchants' bill-discounter, was the gnawing worm of the dis- 
 trict. 
 
 "I say," said Cerizet, when Dutocq opened his door, "Theo- 
 dose is come in; let us go to his rooms." 
 
 The advocate of the poor let the two men in before him. 
 They all three crossed a small room, with a tiled end waxed 
 floor, the red, encaustic tiles reflecting the daylight that came 
 in between cotton curtains, showing a plain, round, walnut- 
 wood table, and a walnut-wood sideboard on which a lamp 
 stood. Through it they went into a small sitting-room with 
 red curtains and mahogany furniture, covered with red 
 Utrecht velvet; the wall opposite the windows was furnished 
 with a bookcase filled with law books. Vulgar ornaments 
 graced the chimney-shelf, a clock with four mahogany col- 
 umns, and candlesticks under shades. The study where the 
 three friends seated themselves in front of a coal fire 'was the 
 study of a budding pleader, the furniture consisting of a 
 writing-table, an armchair, short, green silk blinds to the 
 windows, a green carpet, a set of pigeon holes for boxes, and a
 
 70 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 sofa, over which hung an ivory crucifix, mounted on velvet. 
 The bedroom, kitchen, and other rooms looked out on the 
 courtyard. 
 
 "Well," said Cerizet, "is it all right ? Arc things moving ?" 
 
 "Yes/' replied Theodose. 
 
 "Confess, now, that I had a bright idea," cried Dutocq, 
 "when I thought of a way of getting round that gaby Thuil- 
 lier." 
 
 "Yes, but I am not behindhand," exclaimed Cerizet, "I 
 have come this morning to show you the way to fit the thumb- 
 screws on to the old maid and make her spin like a teetotum. 
 Make no mistake; Mademoiselle Thuillier is everything in 
 this affair; if you win her over, you take the citadel. Say 
 little, but to the purpose, as befits those who know what they 
 are about. My old partner, Claparon, is, as you know, an 
 idiot, and he will be all his life what he has been, a stalking 
 horse. At this moment his name is put forward by a Paris 
 notary, mixed up with some builders, who are all going to 
 the dogs together, notary, masons, and all! Claparon is 
 the scapegoat; he has never been bankrupt, and everything 
 must have a beginning ; at this moment he is stowed away in 
 my den in the Eue des Poules, where no one will ever find him. 
 Now Claparon is furious; he has not a sou; and among the 
 five or six houses which have to be sold, there is one, a per- 
 fect gem, all of squared stone, close to the Madeleine, a 
 frontage all patterned over like a melon, and with lovely 
 sculpture, and not being finished, it will be sold for a hun- 
 dred thousand francs at most; by spending twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs on it, it will be worth ten thousand francs a year 
 in a couple of years' time. Now, by helping Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier to secure this property, you can win her heart, for 
 you can give her to understand that such bargains may be 
 met with every year. Vain people can be managed either by 
 working on their conceit or by threats; money-grabbers by 
 attacking or by filling their purse. And as, after all, working 
 for the Thuilliers is working for ourselves, we must enable 
 her to benefit by this stroke of business."
 
 n 
 
 "But the notary?" said Dutocq, "why does he let it slip 
 through his fingers ?" 
 
 "The notary, my dear boy! It is he who is the making 
 of us. Being obliged to sell his business, and ruined, in fact, 
 he has kept this portion of the crumbs of the cake. Believ- 
 ing in that idiot Claparon's honesty, he has instructed him to 
 find a nominal purchaser, for he looks for equal confidence 
 and prudence. We will leave him to suppose that Made- 
 moiselle Thuillier is an honest woman, allowing poor Clapa- 
 ron to make use of her name; and the notary and Claparon 
 will both be caught. I owe my friend Claparon this little 
 turn, for he let me in for the brunt of the battle in his joint- 
 stock concern, which was bowled over by Couture in whose 
 skin you would be sorry to find yourselves !" he added, with a 
 flash of devilish hatred in his dulled eyes. "Gentlemen, I 
 have spoken !" he said, in a big voice which trumpeted through 
 his nose, as he assumed a theatrical attitude, for once, in an 
 hour of abject poverty, he had tried the stage. 
 
 As he ended his harangue there was a ring at the bell, and 
 la Peyrade went to open the door. 
 
 "Do you still feel sure of him ?" said Cerizet to Dutocq. "I 
 fancy there is something about him in short, I have had 
 experience of betrayals/' 
 
 "He is so completely in our power," said Dutocq, "that I 
 did not take the trouble to watch him. Still, between our- 
 selves, I had not thought him so spry all round as he certainly 
 is. We thought we were mounting a man who could not ride 
 a thoroughbred, and the rascal is a jockey !" 
 
 "He had better mind what he is about," said Cerizet mys- 
 teriously. "I can blow him over like a house of cards. As to 
 you, Daddy Dutocq, you can see him at work and keep an eye 
 on him ; watch him closely. And I can feel his pulse, too, by 
 getting Claparon to propose to him to get rid of us; then we 
 shall know where we are." 
 
 "That is not a bad idea," said Dutocq. "You can see as far 
 as most people."
 
 72 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "We are tarred with the same brush, that's all," replied 
 Cerizet. 
 
 These remarks were spoken in an undertone while Theodose 
 went to the door and returned. When the lawyer came back, 
 Cerizet was examining everything in the study. 
 
 "It is Thuillier," said Theodose, "I expected him to call. 
 He is in the drawing-room. He must not see Cerizet's great- 
 ,coat," he added smiling; "those trimmings would alarm 
 'him." 
 
 "Pooh ! you are the friend of the poor ; it is all part of the 
 performance. Do you want some money ?" asked Cerizet, tak- 
 ' ing a hundred francs out of his trousers' pocket. "There, that 
 looks well," and he placed the pile of silver on the chimney- 
 shelf. 
 
 "And we can get away through the bedroom," said Dutocq. 
 
 "Very well, good-bye then," said the Provengal, opening a 
 papered door leading from the study to the bedroom. "Come 
 in here, my dear Monsieur Thuillier," he called out to the 
 erstwhile "buck." 
 
 Then as soon as he saw him come to the study door, he 
 went to let out his two confederates through the bedroom, 
 dressing-room, and kitchen, which opened on to the landing. 
 
 "In six months you must be Celeste's husband and looking 
 up in the world. You are a lucky dog; you have not found 
 yourself in the dock of a police court twice, as I have: the 
 first time in 1825, for constructive treason, as they called it, 
 a series of newspaper articles that I never wrote; and the 
 second time for appropriating the profits of a joint-stock 
 company that never came to anything. Come, get the pot 
 boiling, by the piper ! for Dutocq and I want our twenty-five 
 thousand francs apiece deuced badly ; and be brave, my good 
 fellow!" he added, holding out his hand to Theodose to test 
 him by his grip of it. 
 
 The Provencal gave Cerizet his right hand and wrung his 
 with much warmth. 
 
 "My dear boy, you may be very sure that whatever posi- 
 tion I may attain I shall not forget the plight from which
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 73 
 
 you rescued me to set me on horseback here. I am your bait ; 
 but you are giving me the lion's share, and I should be worse 
 than a convict turned spy if I did not play a square game." 
 
 As soon as the door was shut Cerizet peeped through the 
 keyhole to see la Peyrade's face; but the lawyer had turned 
 his back, going to join Thuillier, and his suspicious ally could 
 not see what expression his features assumed. 
 
 It was neither disgust nor dismay, but joy, which the re- 
 leased features expressed. Theodose saw his means of suc- 
 ceeding multiplying, and he flattered himself he could get rid 
 of his sordid comrades, though indeed he owed everything to 
 them. Poverty has unfathomable depths, especially in Paris, 
 miry bogs, from which, when a drowned man comes to the 
 surface again, he brings foul matter clinging to his body or 
 his clothes. Cerizet, once the wealthy friend and patron of 
 Theodose, was now the filthy stain that still stuck to the 
 Provencal, and the promoter of the joint-stock company 
 could guess that he was only too anxious to brush him off, 
 now that he moved in a sphere where decent attire was indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 "My dear Theodose," said Thuillier, "we have been hoping 
 to see you every day of the week, and each evening has 
 brought us disappointment. As next Sunday is our dinner- 
 party day, my sister and my wife desired me to beg you to 
 come " 
 
 "I have been so very busy," said Theodose, "that I have 
 not had two minutes to give to anybody, not even to you, 
 whom I count as one of my friends, and to whom I particu- 
 larly wanted to speak ' 
 
 "Then you have really thought seriously of what you told 
 me?" cried Thuillier, interrupting Theodose. 
 
 "If you had not come to clinch the matter, I should esteem 
 you less than I do," replied la Peyrade, smiling. "You have 
 been a second-class clerk ; you must therefore have some rem- 
 nants of ambition, and in you it is legitimate, or the deuce is 
 in it ! Why, really, between you and me, when we see a man 
 like Minard, a gilded crock, going to make his bow to the
 
 74 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 King and swagger about the Tuileries ; or Popinot, again, on 
 the highway to office, and you, a man inured to the routine 
 of administration, a man with thirty years' experi- 
 ence, left to prick out seedlings! What can I say? I 
 will be frank with you, my dear Thuillier. I want to get you 
 on because you will pull me after you. 
 
 "Well, and this is my plan. We shall have to elect a mem- 
 ber of the Municipal Council for this district, and you must 
 be the man . . . and you shall be the man," he added, 
 emphasizing the word. "Some day, at the next general elec- 
 tion, you will be representative of the district in the lower 
 Chamber and the time is not far off. The votes which will 
 elect you to the Municipal Council will not fail you when it 
 is a question of getting into Parliament; you may depend 
 upon me for that/' 
 
 "But what means have you ?" asked Thuillier, dazzled. 
 
 "You shall know. But leave this long and delicate business 
 to me to manage ; if you make any foolish talk as to what is 
 said or planned or agreed upon between us, I leave you to 
 yourself and wish you a very good morning." 
 
 "Oh, you may trust an old second clerk to hold his tongue ; 
 I have known secrets " 
 
 "Very well ! But you must keep these secrets from your 
 wife, your sister, Monsieur and Madame Colleville." 
 
 "Not a muscle of my face shall move," said Thuillier, set- 
 ting his features. 
 
 "Very good," said la Peyrade. "I will test you. To be 
 eligible you must pay the full amount of taxes, and that you 
 do not do." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, I pay enough to sit on the Municipal 
 Council; two francs and eighty-six centimes." 
 
 "Yes, but to sit in the Chamber five hundred francs is the 
 qualification, and you have no time to lose, for you must prove 
 possession for a year." 
 
 "The Devil !" said Thuillier, "how am I to rise to a rating 
 of five hundred francs within the next twelvemonth?" 
 
 "You may be paying it by the end of July. My devotion
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 75 
 
 to you leads me to confide to you the secret of a stroke of bus- 
 iness which will enable you to make thirty or forty thousand 
 francs a year on a capital of a hundred and fifty thousand 
 at most. But in your household, you see, your sister has long 
 been at the head of all business arrangements, and I have no 
 fault to find with that. She has the soundest judgment pos- 
 sible; it will be necessary, therefore, to begin with, that I 
 should have the opportunity of winning Mademoiselle Bri- 
 gitte's regard and friendship by proposing this investment to 
 her and for this reason : If Mademoiselle Thuillier did not 
 believe in me, we should get into trouble; but how can you 
 suggest to your sister that she should buy the property in your 
 name ? It would be far better that the idea should come from 
 me. However, you shall both be enabled to judge of the op- 
 portunity. 
 
 "As to the means at my command for promoting your elec- 
 tion to the Municipal Council of the Seine, they are these: 
 Phellion can command one-fourth of the votes in the district 
 he and Laudigeois have lived in for thirty years ; they are re- 
 garded as oracles. I have a friend who can dispose of an- 
 other fourth, and the Cure of Saint-Jacques, who is not with- 
 out influence, may secure a few votes. Dutocq, who is as 
 well known to the residents as the justice of the peace, will 
 do his best for me, especially if I am not working for myself ; 
 and then Colleville, as secretary to the Mayor, represents 
 one-fourth of the votes." 
 
 "To be sure !" cried Thuillier. "I am as good as elected." 
 
 "Do you think so ?" said la Peyrade, in a tone of alarming 
 irony. "Well then, only go to your friend Colleville, and ask 
 him to help you; you will see what he says. Success in an 
 election is never secured by the candidate, but by his friends. 
 You must never ask for anything for yourself; you must 
 wait to be urged to accept it, and seem to have no ambition." 
 
 "La Peyrade !" cried Thuillier, rising and taking the young 
 lawyer's hand, "you are a monstrous clever fellow." 
 
 "No match for you, but fairly wide-awake," replied the 
 Provengal, smiling. 
 VOL. 1431
 
 76 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "And if we succeed, how am I to repay you?" asked Thuil- 
 lier guilelessly. 
 
 "Ah, that is the point ! You will think me audacious ; but 
 you must remember that there is in me a feeling which must 
 plead my excuses, for it has given me courage to try every 
 resource. I am in love, and to you I confide my secret." 
 
 "But with whom?" said Thuillier. 
 
 "With your sweet little Celeste," replied la Peyrade, "and 
 my love is surety for my devotion to you; what would I not 
 do for a father-in-law? It is but selfishness; it is working 
 for my own ends." 
 
 "Hush !" cried Thuillier. 
 
 "Why, my friend, if Flavie were not on my side," said la 
 Peyrade, putting his hands on Thuillier's hips, "and if I did 
 not know all, should I speak of it to you ? 0?ily on this point 
 say nothing to her; wait till she speaks. 
 
 "Listen to me; I am of the stuff that ministers are made 
 of, and I do not want to wear Celeste without having won 
 her; you shall not plight her to me till the <?iy when your 
 name is drawn out of the ballot-box often enough to make 
 you a deputy of Paris. To be a member for Paris you must 
 get the whip-hand of Minard. Mkiard must b<* wiped out, 
 and you must keep your influence in hand; so to achieve 
 this result, let them still hope to win Celeste \*<* will trick 
 them all. 
 
 "Madame Colleville, you, and I will cut a figure some day. 
 Do not, however, think me grasping; I want Celeste without 
 any fortune, with nothing but her prospects. To live as a 
 member of your family and leave my wife among you all is 
 what I dream of. You see, I have no underhand (schemes. 
 You, within six months of taking your seat on the Tow a Coun- 
 cil, will have the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and will be 
 made Officer of the Order as soon as you are elected. As to 
 your speeches in the Chamber why, we will write tlwin be- 
 tween us. Perhaps you would do well to write some, solid 
 book on half-moral, half-political questions; for instance. 
 on Charitable Institutions, considered from a lofty stand'
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 77 
 
 point, such as the reform of the Monts-de-Piete, where the 
 abuses are a scandal. Let us do something to make your name 
 known; it would work well, especially in the immediate dis- 
 trict. I tell you, you may get the Cross and become member 
 of the Municipal Council for the Department of the Seine. 
 Well, put your trust in me; do not think of making me one 
 of your family till you have the ribbon in your button-hole 
 and take your seat in the Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 "Still, I will do better than that. I will get you forty thou- 
 sand francs a year." 
 
 "For only one of these things you should have our Celeste !" 
 
 "What a jewel !" said la Peyrade, raising his eyes to 
 heaven. "I am foolish enough to pray for her every day. She 
 is enchanting and very like you. Well, well ! you need not 
 impress secrecy on me; and it was from Dutocq that I heard 
 it all. Till this evening! I am off to Phellion's to see what 
 I can do for you. By the way, you understand that you never 
 for a moment thought of me as a husband for Celeste you 
 would cut me in pieces sooner. On that matter not a word, 
 not even to Flavie. Wait till she mentions it to you. Phel- 
 lion will rush at you this evening to secure your adherence 
 to his plans and nominate you as candidate." 
 
 "This evening?" said Thuillier. 
 
 "This evening," replied Theodose, "unless I should not 
 find him at home." 
 
 Thuillier went away, saying to himself: 
 
 "That is a remarkably clever fellow ! We shall get on to- 
 gether. And on my word, it would be hard to do better for 
 Celeste. They would live with us, a family party, and that is 
 a great thing; he is a good fellow, a genial soul." 
 
 To men of Thuillier's character, this, a secondary matter 
 really, carries all the weight of a sound reason. Theodose had 
 been delightfully genial. 
 
 The house to which la Peyrade presently directed his steps 
 had, for twenty years, been to Phellion his hoc erat in votis; 
 but it was as essentially the house of Phellion as the braiding
 
 78 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 of Cerizet's great-coat was the indispensable ornament of that 
 garment. 
 
 This dwelling, only one room deep, some twenty feet or 
 so, was built up against a much larger house, and had a sort 
 of little wing with one window, projecting at each end. Its 
 principal merit lay in a garden about thirty fathoms wide, 
 and longer than the frontage by the width of a forecourt to- 
 wards the street and an arbor of lime trees. Beyond the 
 further wing, the courtyard was shut off from the street by 
 iron railings with a double gate in the middle. 
 
 This edifice, built of rough stone stuccoed over, was two 
 stories high, lime-washed yellow, with Venetian shutters 
 above and boarded shutters below, all painted green. The 
 kitchen was on the ground floor at the end by the courtyard, 
 and the cook, a stout, strong wench, also did duty as gate- 
 keeper, under the guardianship of two enormous dogs. 
 
 The facade, consisting of five windows, besides the two 
 wings which projected about six feet, was in the Style P hel- 
 lion. Above the door the owner had inserted a marble panel, 
 on which was inscribed in gilt letters: Aurea Mediocritas. 
 Above a sun-dial in another panel he had placed this wise 
 maxim: Umbra mea vita, sic! 
 
 The window-sills had been lately restored with blocks of 
 red Languedoc marble that he had found in a stone-mason's 
 yard. At the further end of the garden was a painted stone 
 figure looking to the passers-by like a nurse suckling a baby. 
 Phellion was his own gardener. 
 
 The ground floor consisted of the dining-room and draw- 
 ing-room, divided by the staircase and a little hall or ante- 
 room. Beyond the drawing-room was a small room for 
 Phellion's little study. 
 
 On the first floor were the bedrooms for the master and 
 mistress and for the young professor; above these, the chil- 
 dren's and servants' rooms; for Phellion, out of respect for 
 his own age and his wife's, had allowed himself to set up a 
 man-servant of about fifteen especially now that his son was 
 a qualified instructor. To the Left on, entering the forecourt
 
 79 
 
 was a small out-building where the firewood was stored, and 
 where in the last owner's time a porter had lodged. The 
 Phellions were no doubt waiting till the professor should be 
 married to allow themselves this crowning luxury. 
 
 This little freehold, long coveted by the Phellions, had cost 
 eighteen thousand francs in 1831. The house was separated 
 from the forecourt by a balustrade on a low wall of hewn 
 stone, formed of hollow tiles laid above each other alternately, 
 and finished at the top with flat stones. This parapet, breast- 
 high, had within it a hedge of China roses, and in the mid- 
 dle was a gate of wooden palings opposite the gates to the 
 street. 
 
 Any one who knows the Impasse des Feuillantines- will 
 understand that Phellion's house, standing at a right angle to 
 the street, faced south, being sheltered on the north by the 
 high party-wall against which it was built. 
 
 The domes of the Pantheon and of the Val-de-Grace stand 
 close by, like two giants, and so effectually block the sky that 
 as you walk in the garden you feel quite shut in. Nor can 
 any spot be more silent than the Impasse des Feuillantines. 
 Such was the retreat chosen by this great but unrecognized 
 citizen, who was now tasting the pleasures of repose, after 
 paying his debt to his country by working in the office of the 
 Exchequer, from which he had retired as first-class clerk 
 after thirty-six years of service. 
 
 In 1832 he had led his battalion of the National Guard to 
 the front at Saint-Merri, but those who were near him saw his 
 eyes were full of tears at the thought of being obliged to fire 
 on his misguided fellow-countrymen. The fight was over by 
 the time the legion had marched at the double across the 
 bridge of Notre-Dame, coming out at the Quai aux Fleurs. 
 His virtuous hesitancy won him the affection of all the neigh- 
 borhood, but it lost him the decoration of the Legion of 
 Honor. The Colonel expressed his opinion loudly that a 
 man under arms must never deliberate: the speech made by 
 Louis-Philippe to the National Guard at Metz. But in spite 
 of this, Phellion's civic virtues and the immense respect he
 
 80 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 enjoyed in the whole neighborhood had kept him in his rank 
 as Major of the National Guard for eight years. He was now 
 nearly sixty, and as he saw the hour approaching when he 
 would be compelled to lay down the sword and unbuckle the 
 military stock he could only hope that the .King would vouch- 
 safe to reward his services by granting him the Legion of 
 Honor. 
 
 Truth compels me to say though such paltriness casts a 
 slur on so noble a character that Major Phellion stood on 
 tiptoe at the levees at the Tuileries; that he put himself in 
 the foreground and made sheeps' eyes at the Citizen-King 
 when he dined at his table; in short, intrigued as best he 
 might, but had never yet met the eye of the king of his choice. 
 The worthy man had already thought of asking Minard to 
 support his secret ambition, but had not yet brought himself 
 to the point. 
 
 Phellion, the advocate of passive obedience, was a stoic in 
 all that concerned his duties, iron as to every matter of con- 
 science. To complete the portrait by a sketch of his appear- 
 ance: at fifty, Phellion was stout, to use the accepted word; 
 his face, uniform in color and marked with the small-pox, 
 was a perfect full moon, so that his lips, which had once 
 been thick, were now nothing remarkable. His eyes were weak 
 and protected by blue spectacles; the innocence of their light 
 blue was no longer visible to invite a smile; but his white 
 hair had at last given gravity to a face which, twelve years 
 since, had verged on idiocy and given cause for ridicule. 
 Time, which so cruelly disfigures faces with fine and delicate 
 features, improves those which in youth have been thick and 
 clumsy, and this was the case with Phellion. He occupied 
 the leisure of old age in compiling an abridged history of 
 France; for Phellion was the author of several books sanc- 
 tioned by the University. 
 
 When la Peyrade came in, the whole of the family was as- 
 sembled; Madame Barniol had called to report to her parents 
 on the health of one of her children who was ailing; the stu- 
 dent from the School of Mines was spending the day at home.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 81 
 
 All in their Sunday best, and seated in front of the fire in 
 the drawing-room, a paneled room painted in two shades 
 of gray, on second-hand easy-chairs, they all started on hear- 
 ing Genevieve, the cook, announce the very man whom they 
 were discussing apropos to Celeste, Felix Phellion's adoration 
 carrying him so far as to make him go to Mass in order to 
 see her. The mathematician had made this effort that very 
 morning, and was being good-naturedly bantered by the fam- 
 ily, who at the same time only hoped that Celeste and her 
 parents might appreciate the treasure at their feet. 
 
 "Alas ! The Thuilliers seem to me very much set on an 
 exceedingly dangerous, man," said Madame Phellion. "He 
 made Madame Colleville take his arm this morning, and they 
 went off together to the Luxembourg." 
 
 "There is something peculiarly sinister in that lawyer," 
 exclaimed Felix. "If I were told he had committed some 
 crime, I should not be surprised." 
 
 "That is going too far," said his father. "He is first cousin 
 to Tartuffe, the immortal figure cast in bronze by our honest 
 poet, Moliere, for Moliere' s genius, my children, was founded 
 on honesty and patriotism." 
 
 As he pronounced this verdict, Genevieve came in, saying : 
 
 "Monsieur de la Peyrade is here, waiting to speak to mas- 
 ter." 
 
 "To me?" cried Monsieur Phellion. "Show him in," said 
 he, with the solemnity in small things that made him rather 
 ridiculous, though it always impressed his family, who re- 
 garded him as their king. 
 
 Phellion, his two sons, his wife, and his daughter, all rose 
 to return the lawyer's inclusive bow. 
 
 "To what do we owe the honor of this visit, monsieur?" 
 said Phellion, with severity. 
 
 "To your importance in this part of the town, my dear 
 Monsieur Phellion, and to public business," replied Theodose. 
 
 "Then we will go into my study," said Phellion. 
 
 "No, no, my dear," said Madame Phellion, a lean little 
 person, as flat as a flounder, and whose face still wore the
 
 82 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 set severity of a teacher of music in schools for young ladies ; 
 "we will leave you here." 
 
 An upright Erard piano between the windows and opposite 
 the fireplace proclaimed her pretentious still to be considered 
 a virtuoso. 
 
 "Oh, am I so unlucky as to put you to flight ?" said Theo- 
 dose, with a genial smile at the mother and daughter. "You 
 have here a delightful retreat," he went on, "and you need 
 only a pretty daughter-in-law to enable you to spend your 
 days in the A.urea Mediocritas that was the Latin poet's 
 dream, and in the midst of family joys. Your past labors 
 well deserve such a recompense, for, from what I have heard 
 of you, my dear Monsieur Phellion, you are a good citizen and 
 a patriarch." 
 
 "Mosieur," said Phellion bashfully. "I have done my duty, 
 and that is all !" 
 
 On hearing the word "daughter-in-law" spoken by Theo- 
 dose, Madame Barniol, who was as like her mother as two 
 drops of water are alike, looked at Madame Phellion and Fe- 
 lix as much as to say : "Can we be mistaken ?" 
 
 A need for talking this matter over led these four to go out 
 into the garden, for in March 1840 the weather was almost 
 fine, at any rate in Paris. 
 
 "Major," said Theodose, when he was alone with the 
 worthy citizen, who was always flattered by being thus ad- 
 dressed, "I have come to speak to you of election matters." 
 
 "To be sure, we have to appoint a member of the Municipal 
 Council," said Phellion, interrupting him. 
 
 "And it is to discuss a candidate that I have ventured to 
 intrude on your Sunday enjoyments, though even so we may 
 not go beyond family interests." 
 
 Phellion himself could not be more completely Phellion 
 than Theodose was at this moment. 
 
 "I will not allow you to say another word," replied the 
 Major, cutting in on a pause, made by Theodose to not2 the 
 effect of his speech. "My choice is fixed." 
 
 "Then we have hit on the same idea!" cried Thtodose.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 83 
 
 "Well-meaning men are as likely to jump together as great 
 wits." 
 
 "I do not think that has happened this time," said Phellion. 
 "This district has hitherto been represented on the Town 
 Council by the very best of men, who was also the most- ad- 
 mirable of lawyers the late Monsieur Popinot, who died 
 Councillor of State. When he was to be replaced, his nephew, 
 who inherits his beneficence, was not at the time a resident 
 in this quarter, but since then he has purchased and moved 
 into the house that was his uncle's in the Rue de la Montagne- 
 Sainte-Genevieve; he is physician to the Ecole Polytechnique 
 and to one of our hospitals. He is an ornament to the dis- 
 trict; and for these reasons, and to honor the uncle's mem- 
 ory in the person of his nephew, I and some other residents 
 have resolved to work for the election of Dr. Horace Bian- 
 chon, member of the Academy of Sciences, as you know, and 
 one of the rising glories of the great Paris School of Medi- 
 cine. We do not think a man great solely because he is fa- 
 mous ; the late Councillor Popinot was, in my opinion, almost 
 the equal of Saint Vincent de Paul." 
 
 "A physician is not an administrator," replied Theodose. 
 "Besides, I have come to claim your vote for a man for whose 
 sake your nearest interests demand the sacrifice of a selection 
 which, after all, has nothing to do with the public welfare." 
 
 "Oh, mosieur !" cried Phellion, rising and striking an atti- 
 tude like Lafon in Le Glorieux, "have you such a contempt 
 for me as to suppose that personal interest could ever influence 
 my political conscience ? When the commonwealth is in ques- 
 tion, I am neither more nor less than a citizen." 
 
 La Peyrade smiled as he thought of the conflict about to 
 take place between the "citizen" and the father. 
 
 "Do not pledge yourself too sternly to your convictions, I 
 beg," said he, "for your beloved Felix's happiness is in the 
 balance." 
 
 "What do you mean to convey by those words?" asked 
 Phellion, pausing in the middle of the drawing-room, his right 
 hand slipped within his waistcoat over his heart a favorite 
 position with the famous Odilon Barrot.
 
 84 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I have come on behalf of our common friend, our worthy 
 and admirable friend, Monsieur Thuillier, whose influence 
 over the destinies of charming Celeste Colleville is well 
 known to you. And if, as I believe, your son, a young man 
 whose indisputable merit might make any family proud, 
 if he is courting Celeste with a view to a marriage in every 
 respect suitable, you cannot do better, to secure the eternal 
 gratitude of the Thuilliers, than commend our worthy friend 
 to the suffrages of your fellow-citizens. I, for my part, 
 though but lately settled in the neighborhood, might take it 
 on myself to do this, for some little' benefits done to the poorer 
 class have secured me a certain amount of influence; but 
 services to the poor do not count for much in the estimation 
 of those who are more highly taxed; besides, the obscurity 
 of my life is not in harmony with any such demonstration. I 
 have devoted myself, monsieur, to the service of the humblest, 
 like the late Judge Popinot, a truly sublime man, as you say ; 
 and if my vocation were not, as it is, in a certain sense reli- 
 gious, and so far antagonistic to the demands of married life, 
 my taste, my ultimate destiny, would be the service of God 
 and the Church. 
 
 "I make no fuss, like the sham philanthropists; I do not 
 write I work, for I have simply devoted my life to the exer- 
 cise of Christian charity. I fancy I have guessed what is the 
 ambition of our friend Thuillier, and I wished to promote the 
 happiness of two beings made for each other by suggesting to 
 you the means of finding your way to his heart a somewhat 
 cold one." 
 
 Phellion was quite overpowered by this harangue, which 
 was very cleverly spoken ; he was dazzled, startled, but he was 
 the same Pheliion still ; he advanced to the lawyer and held 
 out his hand. La Peyrade took it. They shook hands witli 
 effusion such a grasp as was often exchanged in August 
 1830 between a citizen and a man on his promotion. 
 
 "Monsieur/' said the Major, with feeling, "I had mis- 
 judged you. What you have done me the honor to confide to 
 me will die here," and he laid his hand on his heart. "You
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 85 
 
 are one of those men and they are few who console us for 
 many woes inherent in our social scheme. Keal worth is so 
 rarely met with that our weak judgment distrusts appear- 
 ances. In me you have a friend, if you will allow me to do 
 myself the honor of assuming the title. 
 
 "But you must learn to know me,, monsieur ; I should sacri- 
 fice my self-respect by proposing Thuillier. No, my son must 
 never owe his happiness to an evil deed of his father's. I will 
 not transfer my vote to another candidate because it is to my 
 son's interest. That, monsieur, is true virtue !" 
 
 La Peyrade took out his handkerchief, rubbed it into his 
 eye, and extracted a tear. Then, holding out his hand to 
 Phellion, while he turned his face aside : 
 
 "That, monsieur, is the sublime aspect of political life in 
 the conflict with private feeling!" said he. "If I had come 
 only to witness this spectacle, my visit would not be time 
 wasted. What can I say? In your place I would do the 
 same. You are the noblest work of God an honest man ! A 
 citizen on Rousseau's model ! With more citizens of this 
 stamp, France, my native land ! what might you not be- 
 come ! It is I, monsieur, who crave to be allowed to call my- 
 self your friend." 
 
 "What can be going on?" cried Madame Phellion, watch- 
 ing the scene from outside through the window. "Your father 
 and that monster of a man are in each other's arms." Phel- 
 lion and the lawyer now went out to join the family in the 
 garden. 
 
 "My dear Felix," said the father, pointing to la Peyrade, 
 who bowed low to Madame Phellion, "be grateful to this 
 worthy gentleman; he will be helpful rather than mischiev- 
 ous to your interests." 
 
 The lawyer walked for five minutes under the leafless lime- 
 trees with Madame Phellion and Madame Barniol, giving 
 them some advice, which, in the serious dilemma to which 
 Phellion's obstinacy had given rise, was to bear fruit that 
 evening, while its first happy result was to make both the 
 ladies admirers of his talents, candor, and inestimable high 
 qualities.
 
 86 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The whole .family in a body accompanied the young advo- 
 cate to the gate on the street, and every eye watched him till 
 he had turned the corner of the Rue Saint-Jacques. 
 
 Madame Phellion took her husband's arm as they went in- 
 doors, and said : 
 
 "What possesses you, my dear, you, such a good father, to 
 risk the very best match our Felix could make out of an ex- 
 travagant sense of delicacy?" 
 
 "My dear little woman," replied Phellion, "the great men 
 of antiquity, such as Brutus and others, were not fathers 
 when they were bound to be citizens first. The middle class, 
 even far more than the aristocracy, whose place it is called 
 upon to take, is expected to exercise the highest virtues. Mon- 
 sieur de Saint-IIilaire thought nothing of the loss of his arm 
 when he saw Turenne dead. 
 
 "We, too, have to show our quality ; we must do so in every 
 grade of the social hierarchy. Shall I inculcate these prin- 
 ciples in my family only to betray them at the moment for 
 proving them ? No. Weep, my dear, to-day, if you will ; you 
 will esteem me to-morrow I" he added, as he saw tears in the 
 eyes of his skinny little wife. 
 
 These grandiloquent words were spoken on the threshold 
 of the door over which was inscribed Aurea Mediocritas. 
 
 "I ought to have added : el digna," said Phellion, pointing 
 to the tablet, "but that the words would imply praise." 
 
 "But, father," said Marie-Theodore Phellion, the engineer 
 student, when they were all in the drawing-room again, "it 
 does not seem to me that a man fails in honor when he 
 changes his opinion in the matter of a choice which is in it- 
 self unimportant to the public good." 
 
 "Unimportant, my dear son!" cried Phellion. "Between 
 ourselves and Felix is of my opinion Monsieur Thuillier 
 is a man devoid of capacity of any kind. He knows nothing ! 
 Monsieur Horace Bianchon is a man of" great ability ; he will 
 get many things done for our district, and Thuillier never a 
 thing! But, above all, my son, remember that to give up a 
 good resolution for a bad one out of interested motives is an
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 87 
 
 infamous action, which may escape the criticism of men, but 
 which God will punish. I am, or I believe I am, clear of blame 
 before my own conscience, and I owe it to you all to leave you 
 an unblemished memory. Nothing can alter my decision." 
 
 "Oh, my dear good father !" cried little Madame Barniol, 
 throwing herself on her knees on a stool by her father's side. 
 "Do not mount your high horse. There are plenty of fools 
 and idiots in the Municipal Council, and France goes on all 
 the same. Worthy old Thuillier will vote with the majority. 
 Remember, Celeste will have five hundred thousand francs, 
 perhaps." 
 
 "She may have millions," said Phellion, "and I would let 
 them lie. I will not propose Thuillier when it is my duty to 
 the memory of the best man that ever lived to nominate Hor- 
 ace Bianchon. From his seat in heaven Popinot looks down 
 on me and approves !" cried Phellion, with enthusiasm. "It 
 is by such base considerations as these that France is de- 
 graded and the citizen class brought into contempt." 
 
 "My father is right," said Felix, rousing himself from a 
 brown study, "and he deserves our respect and affection, as he 
 always has done in the course of his unpretentious, busy, and 
 honored life. I could not bear to owe my happiness to any 
 remorse in his noble soul, nor to any intrigue. I love Celeste 
 as much as I love my family, but above all else I place my 
 father's honor; and the moment the affair is a question of 
 conscience to him, let no more be said." 
 
 Phellion, his eyes full of tears, went up to his eldest son, 
 and clasping him in his arms he exclaimed in a broken voice : 
 
 "My son, my son !" 
 
 "All this is stuff and nonsense," said Madame Phellion to 
 her daughter in an undertone. "Come and dress me ; we must 
 put an end to this. I know your father; he is pig-headed. 
 To carry out the plan suggested to us by that good and pious 
 young man I shall need your support, Theodore. Be ready, 
 my son." 
 
 Just then Genevieve came in and handed a note to Mon- 
 sieur Phellion senior.
 
 88 THE MIDDLE CLASSES ' 
 
 "An invitation to dinner at the Thuilliers' for my wife, 
 myself, and Felix," said he. 
 
 The magnificent and startling scheme evolved by the ad- 
 vocate of the poor had upset the Thuilliers as much as the 
 Phellions; and Jerome, without telling his sister anything, 
 for he already felt on his honor to his Mephistopheles, went to 
 her room in a great bustle to say : 
 
 "Good little woman/' he always appealed to her feelings 
 in these words, "we shall have some bigwigs to dinner this 
 evening. I am going to ask the Minards; so give us a good 
 dinner. I am writing to invite Monsieur and Madame Phel- 
 lion ; it is a little late, but we are on no ceremony with them. 
 As to the Minards, I must invent some civil excuse ; I happen 
 to want them." 
 
 "Four Minards, three Phellions, four Collevilles, and our- 
 selves thirteen." 
 
 "La Peyrade fourteen, and it will be as well to invite Du- 
 tocq ; he may be of service to us. I will go up to his rooms." 
 
 "What are you brewing?" cried his sister; "fifteen to din- 
 ner, a matter of forty francs at least, sent flying !" 
 
 "Do not regret the money, my good little woman; and 
 above all be as sweet as you can to our young .friend la Pey- 
 rade. He is something like a friend ! And he will prove it. 
 If you love me, cherish him as the apple of your eye." 
 
 And he left Brigitte bewildered. 
 
 "Yes, and I will wait till he proves it !" said she to herself. 
 "I am not to be caught by fine words ; not I ! He is a pleas- 
 ant youth enough, but I must have studied him a little closer 
 before wearing him next my heart." 
 
 After inviting Dutocq, Thuillier, who had beautified him- 
 self, went off to the Rue des Magons-Sorbonne, to the Mi- 
 nards' house, where he had to bamboozle Zelie and disguise 
 the fact that the invitation was an impromptu. 
 
 Minard had bought one of the vast and sumptuous dwell- 
 ings which the religious orders built in the vicinity of the 
 Sorbonne; and, as he mounted a broad stone staircase, with
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 89 
 
 a balustrade that showed how well the artistic crafts had 
 flourished in the days of Louis XIII., Thuillier coveted the 
 Mayor's residence and position. 
 
 This handsome house, with a garden behind and courtyard 
 in front of it, was striking from the stamp, at once elegant 
 and dignified, of that king's reign, the happy medium between 
 the bad taste of the decaying renaissance and the splendor 
 of the early days of Louis XVIII. This transition may be 
 seen in many public buildings; massive scrolls, as on the 
 fagade of the Sorbonne, and columns in strictly Greek pro- 
 portions, are characteristic of this style of architecture. 
 
 A retired grocer, a successful cheat, here occupied the place 
 of the ecclesiastical director of an institution formerly known 
 as the Economat, a foundation in connection with the gen- 
 eral administration of the French clerical body, and due to 
 Eichelieu's foresight and acumen. 
 
 Thuillier's name opened the doors of a drawing-room where, 
 amid red velvet and gilding and the most gorgeous products 
 of the East, a hapless woman sat enthroned, who, by sheer 
 weight, crushed the spirits of the princes and princesses at 
 every "popular" ball given at the Tuileries. 
 
 "Is she not a perfect caricature ?" said a pseudo-lady of the 
 bedchamber one evening to a duchess, who could not help 
 laughing as she saw Zelie, bedizened with diamonds, as red 
 as a poppy, squeezed into a spangled dress, and rolling like 
 one of the barrels out of her own forgotten shop. 
 
 "Can you forgive me, lady fair," said Thuillier, with a 
 wriggle ending in the second attitude of his 1807 series, "for 
 having left this invitation on my desk, believing that I had 
 sent it ? It is for to-day perhaps I am too late." 
 
 Zelie consulted her husband's face as he came forward to 
 shake hands with Thuillier, and said: 
 
 "We were going to look at a country house and dine hap- 
 hazard at an eating-house, but we can give it up ; for my part, 
 all the more readily because I think it deuced common to go 
 out of town of a Sunday." 
 
 "We will get up a little hop for the young folks, if there are 
 enough of us; and I quite expect it, for I have left a note for
 
 90 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Phellion, whose wife is on intimate terms with Madame Prou, 
 the successor " 
 
 "The succestress," Madame Minard put in. 
 
 "Nay," replied Thuillier, "it would be the successoress as 
 we say the Mayoress of Mademoiselle Lagrave. She was a 
 Barniol." 
 
 "Must I dress?" asked Madame Minard. 
 
 "I should think not, indeed !" cried Thuillier. "My sister 
 would give me a fine scolding. No, it is a family affair. 
 Under the Empire, madame, we made acquaintance by dacc- 
 ing together. In those glorious days a good dancer was as 
 much valued as a good soldier. Nowadays people are too un- 
 romantic." 
 
 "We will not tajk politics," said the Mayor, smiling. "The 
 King is a great man and very clever. I live in constant ad- 
 miration of our own times and -the institutions we have made 
 for ourselves. The King knows what he is about in develop- 
 ing our industries ; he is struggling hand to hand with Eng- 
 land, and this fruitful peace is giving him more to do than all 
 the wars of the Empire." 
 
 "What a member Minard would make !" exclaimed Zelie 
 artlessly. "He tries speaking when we are alone, and you 
 would help to get him returned, would not you, Thuillier?" 
 
 "We are not to talk politics," replied Thuillier. "We shall 
 see you then, at five ?" 
 
 "Is that little Vinet to be there?" asked Minard. "He is 
 looking out for Celeste, no doubt." 
 
 "Then he may wear the willow," replied Thuillier; "Bri- 
 gitte will not hear of him." 
 
 Zelie and Minard exchanged a glance of satisfaction. 
 
 "To think that we have to bemean ourselves with those 
 people for our boy's rake !" cried Zelie, when Thuillier was 
 going down the stairs to which the Mayor had seen him. 
 
 "Aha, so you want to be Deputy, do you?" said Thuillier, 
 as he departed. "Nothing will satisfy these grocers. Dear me, 
 dear me ! What would Napoleon say to seeing power in such 
 hands ! I, at any rate, know something of office. What a 
 rival ! What will la Peyrade say to that?"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 91 
 
 The ambitious ex-clerk went to invite the whole of the 
 Laudigeois family to join them in the evening, and then called 
 on the Collevilles to make sure of Celeste's being nicely 
 dressed. 
 
 He found Flavie somewhat pensive ; she hesitated about ac- 
 cepting, and Thuillier had to persuade her. 
 
 "My old and ever-young friend," said he, putting his arm 
 round her waist, for they were alone in her room, "I can have 
 no secrets from you. A matter very important to me is in the 
 wind. I must say no more, but I may ask you to be particu- 
 larly fascinating to a certain young man " 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "Young la Peyrade." 
 
 "But, Charles, why?" 
 
 "He holds my future prospects in his hands ; besides, he is 
 a man of genius. Oh, I know one when I see him. He has 
 that- " and Thuillier gave his hand a twist like a dentist 
 drawing a back tooth. "We must secure him, Flavie ! But 
 above all do not let us show our hand or allow him to detect 
 the secret of his strength. Between him and me it is to be 
 give and take." 
 
 "Well, then," Flavie asked, "am I to flirt with him?" 
 
 "Not too much, my angel," said Thuillier, fatuously. 
 
 And he went off quite unobservant of the sort of amazement 
 that had come over Flavie. 
 
 "This young man is a power !" said she to herself. "Well, 
 we shall see." 
 
 And so she had her hair dressed with marabout feathers; 
 she put on her pretty gray and pink gown, showed her fine 
 shoulders through a black mantilla, and took care that Celeste 
 should appear in a simple silk frock with a high tucker and 
 pleated collar, and with her hair dressed in plaited loops. 
 
 At half-past four Theodose was at his post. He had as- 
 sumed his most vacuous and almost servile manner, and his 
 softest tones ; he first went into the garden with Thuillier. 
 
 "My friend," said he, "I have not a doubt of your success, 
 VOL. 14 32
 
 92 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 but I feel that I must once more impress on you the need for 
 absolute secrecy. If you should be questioned on any point, 
 especially about Celeste, give such evasive replies as leave the 
 inquirer in doubt you must have learned the trick of old in 
 the office." 
 
 "All right," replied Thuillier. "But are yon really sure?" 
 
 "You will see the dessert I have ready for you. But above 
 all, be diffident. Here come the Minards leave me to hocus 
 them. Bring them here and vanish." 
 
 After the preliminary greetings la Peyrade took care to 
 keep at the Mayor's elbow, and at an opportune moment he 
 took him aside and said : 
 
 "Monsieur le Maire, a man in your position does not come 
 to kick his heels in this house without some end in view. I do 
 not wish to inquire into your motives ; I have not the smallest 
 right to do so, and it is no business of mine here below to 
 meddle with the concerns of the powers of this world; still, 
 forgive my being so bold, and condescend to listen to a piece 
 of advice I can give you. If I do you a service to-day you are 
 in a position to do me two to-morrow, so if you should find 
 that I have been of any use to you, I am really acting on the 
 promptings of self-interest Our friend Thuillier is in de- 
 spair at being a nobody, and is bent on being of some impor- 
 tance, a personage in the district " 
 
 "Aha !" said Minard. 
 
 "Oh, nothing great ! He wants to be elected a member of 
 the Municipal Council. I happen to know that Phellion, 
 foreseeing the ulterior advantage of doing him a good turn, 
 intends to propose our poor friend as a candidate. Well, you 
 might find it necessary to your own schemes to be beforehand 
 with him. It can only be beneficial, I should say agreeable, 
 to you to see Thuillier elected ; he will fill his place well at the 
 Town Council; there are worse men than he on the Board. 
 And besides, as indebted to you for such advancement, he will 
 see through your eyes; he regards you as one of the shining 
 lights of the Municipality " 
 
 "My dear sir, I am much obliged to you," said Minard.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 93 
 
 "You are doing me a service which I can never sufficiently 
 repay, and which proves " 
 
 "That I have no liking for those Phellions," replied la Pey- 
 rade, taking advantage of the Mayor's hesitancy, fearing lest 
 he should say something that the lawyer might construe as 
 disdain. "I hate men who trade on their own honesty and 
 coin money out of fine sentiments." 
 
 "You know the sort well," said Minard; "typical syco- 
 phants. That man's whole life for the last ten years is ac- 
 counted for by this scrap of red ribbon," added he, showing 
 his own button-hole. 
 
 "Be careful," said Theodose, "his son is in love with Celeste, 
 and holds the citadel." 
 
 "Aye, but my son has twelve thousand francs a year of his 
 own " 
 
 "Ah!" said the lawyer, with an emphatic shrug, "Made- 
 moiselle Brigitte said the other day that she wanted at least 
 as much as that for Celeste. And after all, within six months' 
 time, you will see that Thuillier will own a freehold worth 
 forty thousand francs a year." 
 
 "The deuce he will !" replied the Mayor. "I suspected as 
 much Well, he shall be member of the Town Council." 
 
 "Come what may, do not mention me," said the advocate of 
 the poor, hurrying forward to meet Madame Phellion "Well, 
 fair lady, and have you been successful ?" 
 
 "I waited till four o'clock, but that worthy and admirable 
 man would not allow me to speak to the end. He is too busy 
 to accept such a charge, and Monsieur Phellion has the letter 
 in which Monsieur Bianchon thanks him for his good inten- 
 tions, and says that so far as he is concerned, he means to vote 
 for Monsieur Thuillier. He is using all his influence in 
 Thuilliers behalf, and begs my husband to do the same." 
 
 "And what does your excellent husband say ?" 
 
 " 'I have done my duty/ he replied, 'I have been true to my 
 conscious, and now I am wholly for Thuillier.' ' ; 
 
 "Well, then, everything is settled," said la Peyrade. "For- 
 get my visit ; the whole credit of the idea is yours."
 
 94 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 He then turned to Madame Colleville, assuming an ex- 
 pression of deep respect. 
 
 "Madame," said he, "be so kind as to bring our good Papa 
 Colleville this way; we have a little surprise for Thuillier, 
 and he must be let into the secret." 
 
 While la Peyrade was playing a part for Colleville's benefit, 
 and indulging in very sparkling pleasantries while explaining 
 the position and persuading him that he ought to support 
 Thuillier's nomination, if only out of family feeling, Flavie, 
 in the drawing-room, was listening to the following remarks, 
 which quite mystified her; her ears tingled. 
 
 "I should like to know what Monsieur Colleville and Mon- 
 sieur de la Peyrade are saying that makes them laugh so 
 much," observed Madame Thuillier vapidty, as she looked 
 through the window. 
 
 "They are talking such nonsense as men do when they get 
 together," replied Mademoiselle Thuillier, who often abused 
 men out of a sort of instinct natural in old maids. 
 
 "He is incapable of such a thing," said Phellion gravely. 
 "Monsieur de la Peyrade is one of the most virtuous young 
 men I have ever met. Every one knows how highly I think 
 of Felix ; well, I put them on the same line ; nay, I could even 
 wish that my son had a little of the graceful piety that char- 
 acterizes Monsieur Theodose !" 
 
 "He is, indeed, a man of high merit, and sure to get on," 
 said Minard. "For my part, he has quite won my good opin- 
 ion I will not say my protection " 
 
 "He spends more on lamp-oil than on bread," said Dutocq ; 
 "that I know." 
 
 "His mother must be proud of him, if he is so happy as 
 Btill to have a mother," said Madame Phellion sententiously. 
 
 "To us he is a perfect treasure," added Thuillier, "and so 
 modest, too; he never puts himself forward." 
 
 "I can answer for one thing," said Dutocq, "and that is 
 that no young fellow ever maintained a more dignified atti- 
 tude in poverty and he has lived through it; but he has 
 suffered, that is very plain."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 85 
 
 "Poor young man!" cried Zelie; "oh, such things make 
 my heart ache !" 
 
 "You may trust him with your secrets and your fortune," 
 said Thuillier, "and that, in these days, is the utmost that 
 can be said of any man/' 
 
 "It is Colleville who is making him laugh," cried Dutocq. 
 
 Colleville and la Peyrade were just coming down the gar- 
 den, the best of friends. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Brigitte, "soup and the King must not 
 be kept waiting ; hand in the ladies." 
 
 Five minutes after this pleasant jest, an inheritance from 
 the porter's lodge, Brigitte had the satisfaction of seeing 
 round her table the principal personages of this drama, who 
 were all, in fact, presently to appear in her drawing-room, 
 with the exception of the dreadful Cerizet. 
 
 The portrait of the retired cash-bag maker would perhaps 
 be inadequate without a detailed account of one of her best 
 dinners. The characteristics of the middle-class cook of 1840 
 form one of the items necessary to a history of manners, and 
 clever housekeepers may find a lesson in the description. A 
 woman does not make empty bags for twenty years without 
 considering the means of filling one or two. Now there was 
 this peculiarity in Brigitte: she combined the thrift which 
 lays the foundation of wealth with an intelligent sense for 
 needful outlay. Her comparative extravagance, when her 
 brother or Celeste was concerned, was the very antipodes of 
 avarice. Indeed, she often pitied herself for not being mi- 
 serly. At the last dinner she had given she had told the guests 
 how, after holding out for ten minutes and going through per- 
 fect misery, she had ended by giving ten francs to a work- 
 woman in the neighborhood who had not, she knew, had any 
 food for two days. 
 
 "Nature," said she, artlessly, "was stronger than reason." 
 
 The soup was bouillon, stock of the palest hue; for even on 
 an occasion such as this the cook was enjoined to make plenty 
 of it, and besides, as the beef was to supply the family board 
 on the next day and the next, the less it yielded of its juices 
 to the stock, the more substantial it would be.
 
 96 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The boiled beef, not overdone, was always removed at these 
 words, pronounced by Brigitte, while Thuillier cut the meat : 
 
 "I am afraid it is a little hard; never mind, Thuillier, no 
 one will eat any of it ; we have other things to fall back on." 
 
 The dish was, in fact, flanked by four others standing on 
 hot-plates of copper, with the plating worn off. 
 
 At this dinner, which came to be called the candidate's 
 dinner, the first course consisted of a pair of ducks aux olives, 
 and opposite, a pasty of veal quenelles, with an eel a la tar- 
 tare, and a fricandeau on endive to correspond. 
 
 The principal dish of the second course was a magnifi- 
 cent roast goose, stuffed with chestnuts ; a dish of corn salad, 
 ornamented with discs of scarlet beet-root, a dish of custards 
 in glasses, and a timbale of macaroni. 
 
 This dinner worthy to be a porter's wedding banquet 
 cost twenty francs at most ; the remains would feed the family 
 for two days, and Brigitte would say : 
 
 "Dame ! When you have company the money flies ! It is 
 frightful !" 
 
 The table was lighted by two hideous plated candle-sticks 
 with four branches, in which twinkled the inexpensive com- 
 position candles known as Aurore. The linen was dazzlingly 
 white, and the old thread-pattern plate was part of the pater- 
 nal inheritance purchase made by old Thuillier at the time 
 of the Revolution for use in the sort of unlicensed eating- 
 house he had kept in his lodge, an institution suppressed in 
 all the offices in 1816. 
 
 Thus the fare was in keeping with the dining-room, with 
 the house, and with the Thuilliers, who were fated not to 
 rise superior to this standard. The Minards, the Collevilles, 
 and la Peyrade exchanged a smile or two, betraying a common 
 thought, satirical, but suppressed. They alone knew of any 
 superior class of luxury, and the Minards plainly showed 
 that they must have some ulterior motive in accepting such a 
 dinner. La Peyrade, who sat next to Flavie, said in her ear : 
 
 "You must confess that they want some one to give them 
 a lesson in living, and that you and Colleville are eating
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 97 
 
 what is called Cag-mag a familiar dish, with me ! But those 
 Minards ! What horrible greed of money ! Your daughter 
 would be lost to you forever ; such parvenus have all the vices 
 of the aristocrats of a past time without any of their elegance. 
 Their son, who has twelve thousand francs a year of his own, 
 may surely find a wife in the Potasse set without their draw- 
 ing their speculative rake over this field. What fun it is to 
 play upon such folks, as if they were a bass or a clarinet !" 
 
 Flavie listened with a smile, and did not withdraw her foot 
 when Theodose lightly pressed it with his boot. 
 
 "To understand what is going on," said he 'let us com- 
 municate by the pedal. You must know me thoroughly since 
 this morning; I am not the man to play any trumpery 
 tricks " 
 
 Flavie had not been spoilt in the matter of superiority; 
 the man's decisive and easy tone dazzled the woman to whom 
 he, with skilful sleight of hand, had presented such an option 
 as placed her between yes and no. She must take him or leave 
 him, and as his conduct was the outcome of deep calculation, 
 he watched with a softened glance, but keenly sagacious obser- 
 vation, the effects of his fascinations. 
 
 As the dishes of the second course were being removed, 
 Minard, fearing lest Phellion should be the first in the field, 
 said, very solemnly, to Thuillier: 
 
 "My dear Thuillier, when I accepted your invitation it was 
 because I have an important communication to make to you, 
 which does you so much honor that I feel that all your guests 
 must be my witnesses." 
 
 Thuillier turned pale. 
 
 "You have procured me the Cross of the Legion of Honor ?" 
 he exclaimed, eager to prove that he was not lacking in in- 
 tuition, as Theodose gave him a look. 
 
 "You will have that, too, some day/' replied the Mayor. 
 -But this is something better. The Cross is a favor de- 
 pendent on the good-will of a Minister, whereas at this mo- 
 ment what I have to propose to you depends on election by 
 the common consent of your fellow-citizens. In short, a con-
 
 98 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 siderable number of the electors of this district have cast their 
 eyes on you to honor you with their confidence as represent- 
 ing the district on the Municipal Council of Paris, that is to 
 say, as we all know, the head council of the Seine " 
 
 "Bravo !" said Dutocq. 
 
 Phellion rose. 
 
 "Monsieur, the Mayor has anticipated me," said he, with 
 emotion "But it is so flattering to our friend to find him- 
 self the object of such eager respect on the part of so many 
 good citizens, and to receive votes from all parts of the capi- 
 tal at once, that I cannot lament the fact of coming only 
 second in the field and besides, I yield to the authorities," 
 and he bowed respectfully to Minard. "Yes, Mosieur Thuil- 
 lier, several electors were thinking of electing you in that 
 part of the district where I have set up my bumble Penates, 
 and there is this especially in your favor : you were suggested 
 to them by a very distinguished man (sensation), by a 
 man through whom we had proposed to do honor to one of 
 the most admirable residents in this municipal district, who, 
 for twenty years, was the father of its people. I mean the 
 late Monsieur Popinot, in his lifetime Councillor of State, 
 and our representative on the Town Council of Paris. But 
 his nephew, Dr. Bianchon, one of our most distinguished 
 residents, has declined the responsibilities of such a post, in 
 view of his absorbing avocations; but, while thanking us for 
 the compliment, he himself note the point recommended 
 the Mayor's selection to our suffrages as being, from his ex- 
 perience in the post he formerly filled, peculiarly capable of 
 exercising the functions of an asdile !" 
 
 And Phellion sat down amid a murmur of acclamation. 
 
 "Thuillier, you may rely on me as an old friend," said 
 Colleville. 
 
 The guests were all touched by the spectacle presented by 
 old Brigitte and Madame Thuillier. Brigijtte, as pale as if 
 she were about to faint, let the slow tears trickle down her 
 cheeks tears of unutterable joy; and Madame Thuillier sat 
 with a fixed gaze as if thunderstruck. Suddenly Brigitte
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 9fi 
 
 sprang up and flew into the kitchen, crying out to Josephine : 
 
 "Come to the cellar, girl ; I must have out some of the wins 
 from behind the faggots." 
 
 "My friends," said Thuillier with emotion, "this is the 
 proudest day of my life happier than that of my election, 
 if I consent indeed to allow myself to be nominated for the 
 suffrages of my fellow-citizens" (cries of "Yes, yes!"), "for 
 I feel that thirty years of service have told upon me, and, as 
 you will understand, a man of honor must consider his 
 strength and capabilities before assuming the functions of an 
 ffidile " 
 
 "I expected no less from you, Monsieur Thuillier !" cried 
 Phellion. "Oh ! I beg your pardon ; I never in my life before 
 interrupted any one and a man who was my superior, too! 
 But there are circumstances " 
 
 "Accept, accept !" cried Zelic. "The deuce is in it ! But 
 we want just such men as you to govern us !" 
 
 "Resign yourself to your fate, my good sir," said Dutocq, 
 "and long live the Councillor elect ! But we have nothing to 
 drink " 
 
 "So that is settled," said Minard. "You are our nominee ?" 
 
 "You take my merits very largely for granted," replied 
 Thuillier 
 
 "What next !" said Colleville. "Why, a man who has 
 served in the galleys of the Exchequer office for thirty years 
 is invaluable on the Town Council !" 
 
 "You are far too modest," said young Minard. "Your 
 capabilities are well known to us ; they are remembered in the 
 office as a precedent." 
 
 "Well, on your own heads be it !" said Thuillier. 
 
 "The King will be delighted at the selection, that I can 
 promise you," said Minard, drawing himself up. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said la Peyrade, "will you allow a junior 
 resident of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques to make one remark 
 which is not unimportant ?" 
 
 The conviction they all shared of the young advocate's 
 merits secured complete silence.
 
 100 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "The influence exerted by Monsieur Minard as Mayor of 
 the adjoining district, immense as it is in ours also, where 
 his memory is held dear; that of Monsieur Phellion, the 
 oracle yes, it is the truth" said he at an apologetic gesture 
 from Phellion "the oracle of his battalion; that, no less 
 important, which Monsieur Colleville owes to the urbanity 
 and frankness of his manners ; that of Monsieur Dutocq, clerk 
 to the justice of the peace, which will be not less valuable; 
 and the humble efforts I may make in my narrow sphere of 
 labors are a guarantee of success. But success is not all ! To 
 insure a speedy triumph, we must all pledge ourselves to the 
 most absolute secrecy as to what has just taken place here. 
 Otherwise, without intending or knowing it, we should excite 
 envy and meaner passions which would presently give rise 
 to obstacles to be surmounted. The political feeling of our 
 new social organization, nay, its very basis, its symbol and 
 the condition of its existence, lies in a certain division of 
 power with the middle class, that being the true force of 
 modern social life, the focus of the moral sense, of wholesome 
 feeling, of intelligent industry ; and we cannot shut our eyes 
 to the fact that the principle of election, now applied to almost 
 every State function, has carried ambitious aspiration and the 
 mania for becoming 'Somebody' excuse the homely word 
 down to social depths which they ought never to have stirred. 
 
 "Some persons see good in this; some only evil; it would 
 ill become me to decide the question in the presence of those 
 to whose superior judgment I bow. It is enough to state it, 
 to show the danger to which our friend's flag may be exposed. 
 It is hardly a week since the decease of our representative 
 on the Municipal Council, and the district is Already efferves- 
 cent with petty ambitions. Every one pushes to the front at 
 whatever cost. The writ for election may not be issued for 
 another month, and between this and then what intrigues 
 we shall see ! Do not, I entreat you, let us expose our friend 
 Thuillier to the lash of his competitors. Do not abandon him 
 to public discussion, the modern Harpy, which is but the 
 mouthpiece of calumny and envy, the pretext snatched at by
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 101 
 
 inimical feeling to decry all that is great, to befoul all that is 
 respectable, to dishonor all that is sacred. No, let us do as the 
 third party does in the Chamber; let us say nothing, but 
 vote !" 
 
 "He speaks well," said Phellion to his neighbor, Dutocq. 
 
 "And sound sense, too !" 
 
 Minard junior was yellow and green with envy. 
 
 "Very true, and very well put !" exclaimed the elder Mi- 
 nard. 
 
 "Unanimously carried," said Colleville. "Gentlemen, we 
 are all men of honor ; it is enough that we are agreed on this 
 point." 
 
 "Those who mean to win must note which way the wind 
 blows," said Phellion sententiously. 
 
 At this juncture Mademoiselle Thuillier reappeared on the 
 scene, followed by the two maids. The cellar key was tucked 
 through her belt, and three bottles of champagne, three bot- 
 tles of old Hermitage, and a bottle of Malaga were placed 
 on the table. But she herself carried a little humpbacked 
 bottle, like an ancient fairy Carabosse, which, with almost 
 reverent care, she placed on the table before her. In the midst 
 of the hilarity caused by this lavish expenditure of choice 
 wines, the result of her gratitude, and a damning reflection 
 on her usual stinted hospitality, a number of dessert dishes 
 were brought in; piles of figs, raisins, prunes, and almonds, 
 pyramids of oranges, preserves, and candied fruits, brought 
 out of the depths of her store closet, which would never have 
 figured on the table but for this great occasion. 
 
 "Celeste," said she, to her sister-in-law, "they will bring 
 you a bottle of brandy, bought by my father in 1802; make 
 an orange salad ! Monsieur Phellion, open the champagne ; 
 that bottle is for you three. Monsieur Dutocq, take another. 
 Monsieur Colleville, you, who are so clever at making a cork 
 fly! " 
 
 The maids set champagne glasses, claret glasses, and small 
 glasses, and Josephine brought in three more bottles of 
 Bordeaux.
 
 102 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Of the comet-year!" exclaimed Tlmillier. "Gentlemen, 
 you have turned my sister's brain." 
 
 "Punch and cakes this evening," said she. "I have sent 
 out to buy some tea at the druggist's. Dear me ! If I had 
 known that there was an election in the wind," she added, 
 turning to her sister-in-law, "I would have had a turkey." 
 
 The speech was greeted with hearty laughter. 
 
 "Oh ! but we have had a goose," said Minard the younger, 
 laughing. 
 
 "It never rains but it pours !" said Madame Thuillier, as she 
 eaw meringues and marrons glaces handed round. 
 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier's face was on fire; she was a sub- 
 lime sight: a sister's affection never found a more frenzied 
 expression. 
 
 "To us who know her, it is really pathetic!" exclaimed 
 Madame Colleville. 
 
 The glasses were filled, the guests looked at each other, 
 they seemed to await a toast. La Peyrade spoke : 
 
 "Gentlemen, let us drink to a sublime creature!" Every 
 one sat amazed. "To Mademoiselle Brigitte !" 
 
 They rose, they clinked glasses, they cried "Health to Made- 
 moiselle Thuillier !" so certainly can the expression of genuine 
 feeling strike an enthusiastic response. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Phellion, consulting a penciled slip of 
 paper, "To Industry and its splendid reward, in the person 
 of our old friend, now one of the Mayors of Paris to Mon- 
 sieur Minard and his lady !" 
 
 Then, after five minutes of general conversation, Thuillier 
 rose, and said: 
 
 "Gentlemen The King and the Eoyal Family; 1 say no 
 more ; their names are all-sufficient." 
 
 "To my brother's election !" said Mademoiselle Thuillier. 
 
 "Now I will make you laugh," la Peyrade whispered to 
 Flavie, and he rose. "To the ladies ! To the bewitching sex 
 to whom we owe so much happiness, irrespective of our 
 mothers, sisters, and wives." 
 
 This toast provoked much merriment, and Colleville, al- 
 ready cheerful, remarked:
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 103 
 
 "You wretch, you have taken the words out of my mouth." 
 
 The Mayor rose ; perfect silence reigned. 
 
 "Gentlemen, To our Institutions ! In them lie the strength 
 and greatness of dynastic France !" 
 
 The bottles were emptied amid a chorus of admiration of 
 the astonishing excellence and fine quality of the wine. 
 
 Presently, Celeste Colleville said shyly: 
 
 "Mamma, will you allow me to propose a toast ?" 
 
 The poor child had observed hergodmother's puzzled face 
 the mistress of the house, utterly overlooked, wearing the ex- 
 pression almost of a dog not knowing which master to follow, 
 looking from her terrible sister-in-law to her husband, study- 
 ing their countenances, forgetting herself. Still the gladness 
 mingling with the crushed expression of the poor woman, 
 who was accustomed to count for nothing, to suppress every 
 idea and every emotion, had the effect of winter sunshine 
 through the mist, grudgingly shining through the flabby, 
 faded features. The gauze cap, with its dark-hued flowers, 
 the ill-dressed hair, the drab-gray gown, with no ornament 
 whatever but a thick gold chain ; everything, even her attitude, 
 appealed to the younger Celeste's feelings, for she alone in all 
 the world knew the true worth of this Avoman shut up in si- 
 lence, who saw all that was going forward, and, enduring all 
 things, found comfort only in her godchild and in God. 
 
 "Let the dear child propose her little toast," said la Pey- 
 rade to Flavie. 
 
 "Speak away, my child," cried Colleville; "we still have 
 the Hermitage to finish, and it is A 1, 1 can tell you." 
 
 "To my kind god-mamma !" said the child, holding out 
 her glass, with a pretty bow, to Madame Thuillier. 
 
 ( The poor woman, quite scared, looked through a gush of 
 tears alternately at her husband and her sister ; but her posi- 
 tion in the family was so well known, and this homage from 
 youth and beauty to weakness was so touching, that every one 
 felt its pathos ; the men all rose and bowed to Madame Thuil- 
 lier.
 
 104 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Oh ! Celeste, I wish I had a kingdom to lay at your feet !" 
 said Felix Phellion. 
 
 His good old father wiped away a tear, and Dutocq. even, 
 was touched. 
 
 "She is a dear child !" said Mademoiselle Thuillier, getting 
 up and going round to embrace her sister-in-law. 
 
 "Xow, it is my turn I" said Colleville, assuming a heroi'j 
 attitude. "Listen to me : To Friendship ! Empty your glasses. 
 Fill them again. Now : To the Fine Arts ! the flower of social 
 life ! Empty your glasses ! Fill them up again ! To our 
 meeting at just such another dinner the day after the elec- 
 tion !" 
 
 "What is that little bottle?" Dutocq asked Mademoiselle 
 Thuillier. 
 
 "That," said she, "is one of my three bottles of liqueur 
 from Madame Amphoux ; the second is for Celeste's wedding ; 
 the third for the christening of her first child." 
 
 "My sister's brain is almost turned," said Thuillier to 
 Colleville. 
 
 The dinner was brought to an end by a toast from Thuil- 
 lier at a hint from Theodose, at the moment when the Mal- 
 aga shone in the small glasses like so many rubies. 
 
 "Colleville, gentlemen," said he, "drank to Friendship. I, 
 in this noble liquor, drink to my Friends." 
 
 A cordial cheer responded to this sentimental speech; but, 
 as Dutocq said to Theodose, "It was murder to give such Mal- 
 aga to be poured down such vulgar throats." 
 
 "If we could but imitate this, my dear," cried Madame 
 Minard, making her glass ring by her way of sucking down 
 the Spanish wine, "what a fortune we might make !" 
 
 Zelie was at the climax of incandescence; she was really 
 alarming. 
 
 "Why," replied Minard, "ours is made already." 
 
 "Do you think with me," said Brigitte to Madame Thuil- 
 lier, "that we had better take coffee in the drawing-room 7* 
 
 Madame Thuillier, in obedience, or as feigning to be the 
 mistress of the house, rose at once.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 105 
 
 "You are a great magician," said Flavie to la Peyrade, as 
 she took his arm to return from the dining-room to the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 "I do not aim at witchcraft over any one but you," he re- 
 plied. "And on my word, it is only fair revenge ; you are more 
 bewitching than ever to-day." 
 
 "Thuillier !" she exclaimed, to avoid a contest, "Thuillier ! 
 , fancying himself a political figure !" 
 
 "But, dear heart, in this world half of the ridiculous fig- 
 ures we see are the product of some such plotting. Men 
 themselves are less guilty in this way than they are commonly 
 supposed to be. In how many houses do you find the husband, 
 the children, the intimates of the family, all agreeing to per- 
 suade an exceedingly silly mother that she is witty, or a 
 woman of fifty that she is young and lovely ? This leads to 
 infinite annoyance for the indifferent bystanders. One man's 
 revolting foppishness is due to the idolatry of a mistress; 
 another owes his belief that he can write verse to flatterers 
 who are paid to make him fancy himself a poet. Every house- 
 hold has its great man, and the result as in the Chamber 
 is general darkness, in spite of all those shining lights of 
 France. Men of real talent only laugh among themselves; 
 that is all. 
 
 "You are the wit and beauty of this little vulgar world; 
 that is what brought me to your feet. But my second thought 
 was to drag you out of it, for I love you truly and as a 
 friend rather than a lover, though a good deal of love has 
 stolen in," he added, pressing her to his heart under shelter 
 of the window recess into which he had led her. 
 
 "Madame Phellion will preside at the piano," said Colle- 
 ville. "Everybody must dance this evening : the bottles, Bri- 
 ,gitte's franc-pieces, and all the little girls! I will run home 
 and fetch my clarinet." And he handed his empty coffee- 
 cup to his wife, smiling to see that she and Theodose were 
 such good friends. 
 
 "What have you done to my husband ?" asked Flavie of the 
 seducer.
 
 106 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Am I to tell you all our secrets ?" 
 
 "Oh ! then you don't love me," said she with the coquettish 
 slyness of a woman on the verge of yielding; 
 
 "Well, since you tell me all yours," said he, giving the rein 
 to the spirit of the hour under cover of Provengal gaiety, 
 always charming and apparently so natural, "I cannot con- 
 ceal from you one pang of my heart." 
 
 He led her back to the window, and went on with a smile : 
 "Colleville, poor man, saw in me an artist crushed by all these 
 commonplace people, silent in their presence because I was 
 misunderstood, undervalued, and outcast; but he felt the 
 heat of the fire that is consuming me. Yes," he added, in a 
 tone of intense conviction, "for I am an artist in speech after 
 the pattern of Berryer; I could make a jury weep while I 
 wept myself, for I am as nervous as a woman. Then your 
 husband, who has a horror of all these people, made game of 
 them with me; at first we laughed, but then growing serious 
 he found me fully his match. I confided to him our plan for 
 making something of Thuillier, and I showed him all he would 
 gain by working a political puppet. 'If it were only,' said I, 
 'to be called de Colleville, and to place your charming wife in 
 the position in which I should like to see her, in some good 
 revenue office, and then you could get yourself elected to the 
 Chamber; for in order to achieve all you ought to become, 
 you would only have to spend a few years in one of the de- 
 partments high Alps or lower Alps in some hole of a town 
 where every one would adore you, and your wife would fasci- 
 nate every living soul. And such a place,' added I, 'will be 
 easy to get, especially if you marry your sweet Celeste to a 
 man who has any influence in Parliament.' Now common 
 sense disguised as a jest can make a far deeper impression on 
 some natures than it does unaided, so Colleville and I are 
 the best friends in the world. Did not he say at table, 
 'Wretch, you took the words out of my mouth !' ? By the end 
 of the evening, we shall say tu and toi. And then, a little 
 party such as always tempts artists who have been broken in 
 to domestic rule to kick over the traces, and to which I will
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 107 
 
 make him come with me, will crown the matter. We shall 
 be as good friends as he and Thuillier are or better for 
 I have told him that Thuillier will be bursting with envy 
 when he sees him with a rosette. 
 
 "This, my adored one, is what a serious attachment gives 
 a man courage enough to do. Colleville will be bound to ac- 
 cept me, since I can only go to your house by his permission. 
 But you could make me lick a leper, swallow live toads, seduce 
 Brigitte ; yes, I would impale my heart on that marlingspike, 
 if I wanted her for a crutch to drag myself to your feet !" 
 
 "This morning, you frightened me " she began. 
 
 "And this evening you are no longer afraid. Aye," added 
 he, "no harm can ever come to you through me !" 
 
 "You are, I must own, a most extraordinary man !" 
 
 "Not at all ; my smallest, as well as my greatest, efforts are 
 reflections from the flame you have lighted; and I mean to 
 be your son-in-law, that we may never have to part. My 
 wife, good heavens ! She will be no more than a child-bear- 
 ing machine. The supreme being, the divinity, will be you," 
 he whispered in her ear. 
 
 "You are Satan !" she said with a sort of terror. 
 
 "Nay ; but I am something of a poet, like all the natives of 
 my province. Come ! Be my Josephine. I will call on you 
 to-morrow at two o'clock; I have a burning desire to see 
 where you sleep, the furniture you use, the color of the hang- 
 ings, how things are arranged about you to admire the 
 pearl in its shell." 
 
 And with these words he left her, without waiting for an 
 answer. 
 
 Flavie, who never in her life had heard love expressed in 
 the impassioned language of romance, remained bewildered, 
 but happy, her heart throbbing, as she confessed to herself 
 that it was hard indeed to resist such an influence. 
 
 Theodose had come fo*r the first time in new trousers, gray 
 silk socks and pumps, a black silk waistcoat and black satin 
 cravat: a pin in good taste sparkled on the knot. He had a 
 
 new coat on of fashionable cut, and lemon kid gloves, set 
 VOL. 1433
 
 108 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 off by his white shirt-cuffs; in fact, he was the only man 
 with any style of manners or appearance in the room which 
 was gradually filling with guests. 
 
 Madame Pron, nee Barniol, had brought with her two 
 schoolgirls of seventeen, entrusted to her motherly care by 
 parents living in the islands of Bourbon and Martinique. 
 Monsieur Pron, a professor of rhetoric in a school managed 
 by priests, belonged to the Phellion type; but instead of ex- 
 panding on the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and 
 constantly posing as a model, he was curt and sententious. 
 Monsieur and Madame Pron, the cream of the Phellion circle, 
 were at home on Mondays; they were very intimate with the 
 Barniols and the Phellions. Little Monsieur Pron was a 
 dancer, though a professor. 
 
 The high reputation of the school kept by the Demoiselles 
 Lagrave, in which Monsieur and Madame Phellion had for 
 twenty years been teachers, had risen even higher under the 
 management of Mademoiselle Barniol the most able and the 
 earliest of their assistant mistresses. Monsieur Pron had 
 considerable influence in that part of the district which lay 
 between the Boulevard du Mont Parnasse, Luxembourg, and 
 the Rue de Sevres. So, soon as his friend appeared, Phellion, 
 without needing any instructions, took him by the arm and led 
 him into a corner, where he initiated him into the great 
 Thuillier conspiracy; ten minutes later they both came to 
 speak to Thuillier, and the window-bay, corresponding to 
 that in which Flavie still stood lost in thought, was, no doubt, 
 the scene of a trio worthy to be compared, in its way, with 
 that of the three Swiss conspirators in William Tell. 
 
 "Do you see the immaculate and honest Phellion turned in- 
 triguer?" said Theodose to Flavie. "Give an honest man 
 sufficient cause and he will wade through the dirtiest bargain ; 
 for, you see, he has hooked on Pron, and Pron has fallen into 
 step solely in behalf of Felix Phelllbn, who at this minute 
 is arm in arm with your little Celeste. Go and separate them ; 
 they have been together these ten minutes, and young Minard 
 is prowling round them like an irritated bull-dog."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 109 
 
 Felix, still impressed by the deep emotion he had felt at 
 Celeste's generous impulse and heartfelt speech, when every 
 one else had forgotten it, excepting Madame Thuillier, acted 
 on one of those ingenuously subtle impulses which form the 
 honest wiles of true love; but they were new to him; mathe- 
 matics occupied his mind. He went to stand near Madame 
 Thuillier, imagining that she would call Celeste to her side. 
 This crafty speculation, apart from any depth of passion, was 
 successful; more especially because Minard the younger, re- 
 garding Celeste merely as a fortune, hal not the same happy 
 inspiration, but sipped his coffee while talking politics to 
 Laudigeois, Barniol, and Dutocq, by order of his father, who 
 was looking forward to the elections of 1842. 
 
 "Who could help loving Celeste!" said Felix to Madame 
 Thuillier. 
 
 "Poor dear child; no one in the world loves me but she/* 
 replied the unhappy woman, restraining her tears. 
 
 "Nay, madame; there are two of us to love you," replied 
 this guileless Mathieu Laensberg with a smile. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" Celeste inquired, coming 
 up to her godmother. 
 
 "My child," said the pious victim, drawing the girl to her, 
 and kissing her forehead, "he says you are two of you to love 
 me." 
 
 "Do not scorn the bold assumption, mademoiselle," said the 
 future candidate for the Academy of Sciences ; "but allow me 
 to do all in my power to realize it. It is in my nature ; injus- 
 tice rouses me to revolt. Ah, the Saviour of mankind was 
 right indeed when He promised future bliss to the meek in 
 spirit, to the sacrificed lambs. A man who had but loved you 
 before, Celeste, would adore you after your sublime impulse 
 at dessert. But innocence alone can console the martyr. You 
 are a sweet, good girl, and you will be one of those women 
 who are the pride and joy of a family. Happy the man who 
 shall win you." 
 
 "My dear godmother, through what spectacles does Mon- 
 sieur Felix see me, I wonder ?"
 
 110 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "He appreciates you at your true value, my angel, and I 
 will pray Heaven for you." 
 
 "If you could but know," said Felix, "how happy I am to 
 be able to do Monsieur Thuillier some little service, and how 
 I wish I could be of use to your brother " 
 
 "In short," said Celeste, "you love the whole family ?" 
 
 "Well, yes," replied Felix. 
 
 True love always shrouds itself in the mystery of bashful- 
 ness, even in its mode of expressing itself, for it is its own 
 evidence; it does not feel, as spurious love feels, the need 
 for lighting a blaze ; and an observer, if he could have stolen 
 into the Thuilliers' drawing-room, could have written a book 
 on the two scenes he might have compared la Peyrade's 
 elaborate advances, and the perfect simplicity of Felix; this 
 was nature, that was society ; truth and falsehood face to face. 
 Indeed, Flavie, as she saw her daughter radiating rapture 
 from every pore of her happy face in the loveliness of a 
 young girl gathering the first roses of an unspoken declara- 
 tion, Flavie felt a pang of jealousy in her heart, and came to 
 whisper in Celeste's ear: 
 
 "You are not behaving nicely, my child ; everybody is look- 
 ing at you, and you are compromising yourself by talking so 
 long with Monsieur Felix without knowing whether we ap- 
 prove." 
 
 "But, mamma, my godmother is here." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, my dear friend," cried Madame Colle- 
 ville, "I did not see you." 
 
 "Like everybody else," said Saint John Chrysostom. 
 
 This reply nettled Flavie, who took it as a barbed shaft; 
 she glanced haughtily at Felix, and said to Celeste: "Sit 
 down there, my dear," and seating herself by Madame Thuil- 
 lier, she pointed to a chair at her side. 
 
 "I will work myself to death," said Felix to Madame Thuil- 
 lier, "or be made a member of the Academy of Sciences, and 
 I will achieve some great discovery to win her by the power 
 of fame." 
 
 "Ah !" thought the poor woman to herself, "a gentle, quiet
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 111 
 
 man of learning, like this, would have been the husband for 
 me ! I might have developed slowly in peaceful shade. But 
 thou, God, wouldst not have it so. Unite and protect these 
 two children ! They are made for each other." 
 
 She sat pensive, listening to the witches' clatter made by 
 her sister-in-law, a perfect horse at hard work, who was lend- 
 ing a hand to the two maids clearing the table, and remov- 
 ing all the furniture from the dining-room, to make way 
 for the dancers, shouting orders all the time, like the captain 
 on the poop of a frigate preparing for battle. "Is there any 
 currant syrup left? Go out and get some orgeat. There are 
 not enough glasses, and too little wine and water; take the 
 six bottles of ordinaire that I have just fetched up. Take 
 care that Coffinet, the porter, does not get at it ! Caroline, 
 you, child, must stand by the sideboard. You shall have a 
 slice of ham if they keep it up till one in the morning. Mind 
 that nothing is wasted ; keep an eye on everything. Give me 
 the broom, and go to fill up the lamps; be careful to have no 
 accidents. Arrange the remains of the dessert so as to dress 
 the sideboard. I wonder if my sister would ever think of 
 helping. I can't imagine what that dawdle finds to think 
 about good Heavens, how slow she is ! There, take away the 
 chairs and they will have more room." 
 
 The drawing-room was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Laudi- 
 geois, Phellions, and a dozen more, attracted by the rumor 
 that had taken wind in the Luxembourg between two and 
 four, when all the respectable inhabitants of the quarter were 
 out walking, that there was to be dancing that evening at 
 the Thuilliers'. 
 
 "Now, Brigitte, are you ready?" said Colleville, rushing 
 into the dining-room. "It is nine o'clock, and they are packed 
 into the drawing-room like herrings in a barrel. Cardot has 
 just come with his wife, his daughter, and his future son-in- 
 law accompanied by that young Vinet, and the whole of the 
 Faubourg Saint-Antoine is pouring in. We must bring the 
 piano in from the drawing-room, heh?" 
 
 He gave the signal by playing a few notes on his clarinet,
 
 112 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 and its inviting pipe was answered by a cheer from the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 It is unnecessary to describe a dance of this kind. The 
 dresses, faces, conversation, were all in harmony with one de- 
 tail which will give a sufficient clue to the least lively imagi- 
 tion, since this one fact will show the stamp of character and 
 color. Shabby trays, that had lost their varnish and paint, 
 were handed round with common glasses of wine, wine and 
 water, and eau sucree. Others with glasses of orgeat and 
 syrups appeared at much longer intervals. 
 
 There were five card-tables for twenty-five players, and 
 eighteen couples of dancers. At one in the morning, Madame 
 Thuillier, Mademoiselle Brigitte, and Madame Phellion and 
 her husband were dragged into the wild performance of a 
 country dance known as the Boulangere, in which Dutocq 
 figured with his face and head wrapped up like a Khabeel 
 Arab. The servants waiting for their masters and those be- 
 longing to the house looked on, and when this interminable 
 round had lasted an hour, and Brigitte announced supper, 
 they wanted to carry her in triumph ; she, however, perceived 
 the desirability of concealing a dozen bottles of Burgundy. 
 
 Everybody was so well amused, the mothers as well as the 
 girls, that Thuillier could say: 
 
 "Well, we little thought this morning that we should have 
 such fun to-night." 
 
 "Nothing is more enjoyable," said Cardot, "than this sort 
 of impromptu dance. Don't talk to me of parties to which 
 every one comes stiff and starch." 
 
 This view is an axiom among the middle classes. 
 
 "Pooh !" said Madame Minard, " 'I love Papa, I love 
 Mamma.' ' ; 
 
 "We were not saying this with reference to you, madame; 
 where you are pleasure dwells," said Dutocq. 
 
 The dance being ended Theodose dragged Dutocq away 
 from the sideboard, where he was helping himself to a slice of 
 tongue. 
 
 "Come away," said he, "we must be with Cerizet the first
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 113 
 
 thing in the morning to get all the information we can about 
 the business which we must both think over. It is not so easy 
 as Cerizet fancies." 
 
 "How is that?" said Dutocq, carrying his slice of tongue 
 to eat in the drawing-room. 
 
 "Why, you know the laws?" 
 
 "I know enough to be aware of any risk there may be in 
 the matter. If the notary wishes for the house and we are 
 beforehand with him, he has ways and means of getting it 
 from us ; he can take the name of some creditor on the sched- 
 ule. In the present state of the law of mortgage, when a 
 house is sold at the requisition of one creditor, if the price 
 offered for it by contract is not enough to pay all the credi- 
 tors, they have a right to demand that it shall be sold by 
 auction; and the notary, if he has been caught once, will be 
 on the alert." 
 
 "Well, then," said la Peyrade, "that must be seen to." 
 
 "Very good ; we will go to talk to Cerizet." 
 
 These words "talk to Cerizet," were overheard by young 
 Minard, who was immediately behind the other two; but they 
 conveyed no sense to his mind. These men were so far out 
 of his ken, his needs, and his plans that he heard without un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 "This has been one of the greatest days of our life," said 
 Brigitte when, at about half-past two in the morning, she 
 found herself alone with her brother in the deserted drawing- 
 room. "What an honor to be chosen by your fellow-citizens ?" 
 
 "But make no mistake, Brigitte, we owe all this, my girl, 
 to one man." 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "To our friend, la Peyrade." 
 
 It was not on the next day, Monday, but on Tuesday morn- 
 ing, that Dutocq and Theodose went to call on Cerizet, Du- 
 tocq having pointed out that Cerizet was always away on 
 Sunday and Monday, taking advantage of the complete stag-
 
 114 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 nation of business on these two days which the common people 
 alivays devote to dissipation. 
 
 The house to which they made their way is one of the most 
 conspicuous features of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, and it 
 is quite as important to give a description of it here as of 
 those inhabited by Thuillier and Phellion. It is not known 
 to be sure, no commission has yet been appointed to go into 
 the question for what reason, or by what process certain 
 quarters of Paris sink lower and lower, becoming more 
 squalid, both morally and physically ; why the former centres 
 of the Court and the Church-magnates, the Luxembourg, 
 and the "Latin" quarter sank to be what they now are, in 
 spite of owning one of the finest palaces in the world, in spite 
 of the soaring dome of Sainte-Genevieve, and that by Man- 
 sard of the Val-de-Grace, and the attractions of the Jardin 
 des Plantes. We wonder why the graces of life are disap- 
 pearing; how it is that the houses of Vauquer and Phellion 
 and Thuillier swarm here, and poor boarding-houses where 
 once stood so many noble and religious dwellings; and why 
 mud and dirty forms of industry and poverty have settled on 
 this hill instead of finding wider space outside the noble and 
 ancient city? 
 
 The angelic spirit, whose benevolence had once blessed the 
 neighborhood, being dead, the lowest form of money-lending 
 has become rife. After such a man as Popinot, Cerizet had 
 come in ; and the strange thing, noteworthy as a study of life, 
 is that the results, socially speaking, were hardly distinguish- 
 able. Popinot lent on no interest, and could bear to lose; 
 Cerizet lost nothing and compelled the poorest to work hard 
 and learn prudence. The poor had worshiped Popinot; but 
 they did not hate Cerizet. In this we see the lowest cog-wheel 
 of Parisian finance. At the top are the Nucingens' house, the 
 Kellers, the du Tillets, the Mongenods; a little lower come 
 Palma, Gigonnet, Gobseck; lower still Samanon, Chabois- 
 seau, Barbet; and beneath them all, beneath the Mont-de- 
 Piete, the omnipresent usury which spreads its snares at 
 every street corner to entrap every form of misery, and 
 misses none, the spider Cerizet.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES tt.5 
 
 The man's braided coat has been enough already to give 
 you a hint of the lair of this refuse of the joint-stock company 
 and criminal court. 
 
 It was a house leprous with nitrous salts; the walls, oozy 
 with dank sweat, were mottled all over with large patches 
 of mildew. It stood at the corner of two streets, Eue des 
 Postes and Eue des Poules. The ground floor was partly oc- 
 cupied by a wine-shop of the lowest class, painted bright red, 
 hung with red cotton curtains, furnished with a lead-covered 
 counter, and closed by formidable bars. 
 
 Above the door of a horrible entry hung a swing lamp on 
 which "Beds" were announced. The walls were patterned 
 with cross-clamps, showing how rickety the structure was; 
 the tavern keeper was the owner, and occupied the entresol 
 as well as the ground floor. The furnished rooms were let 
 by Madame Veuve Poiret (nee Michonneau), and these con- 
 sisted of the first, second, and third floors, arranged to meet 
 the purses of workmen and the very poorest students. 
 
 Cerizet had two rooms, one on the ground floor and one 
 on the entresol, up to which he had a private staircase; the 
 upper room had a window on a horrible paved courtyard 
 from which rose mephitic odors. Cerizet paid the widow 
 Poiret forty francs a month for his breakfast and dinner; 
 he had thus conciliated the landlady by being her boarder, 
 and the wine-shop keeper by bringing him an enormous busi- 
 ness in wine and spirits, money turned over before the sun 
 was up. For Master Cadenet's shop was open even before 
 Cerizet's office, and he began business on Tuesday mornings 
 at three in summer and at about five in winter. 
 
 The opening of the central market, the goal of many of his 
 clients, male and female, fixed the time when his dreadful, 
 transactions began. And Cadenet, of the wine-shop, in con- 
 sideration of the business he owed solely to Cerizet, let him* 
 the two rooms for twenty-four francs a year, and had signed 
 a lease for twelve years with the option on Cerizet's part 
 only of giving three months' notice at any time, without any 
 compensation. Cadenet brought up a bottle of capital wine
 
 116 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 every day for his invaluable lodger's dinner; and if, at any 
 time, Cerizet were short of cash, he had only to say : "Cadenet, 
 my good fellow, lend me a hundred crowns." And he always 
 honestly repaid him. 
 
 Cadenet, it was said, had positive proof that the widow 
 Poiret had entrusted two thousand francs to Cerizet, which 
 may account for the increase of his business since he first set- 
 tled in the quarter with his last thousand-franc note and 
 Dutocq's introduction. Cadenet, prompted by avarice en- 
 hanced by prosperity, had, since the beginning of the year, 
 offered his friend Cerizet the use of twenty thousand francs; 
 but Cerizet had refused the loan, saying that the risks he ran 
 were of a character to cause differences between partners. 
 
 "I could only give you six per cent," said he; "and you 
 can do better than that in your own line. We will form a 
 partnership by and by for some serious undertaking; but a 
 really good opening would cost us at least fifty thousand 
 francs; and when you have as much as that well, we will 
 talk about it." 
 
 Cerizet had given Theodose the chance of the job over the 
 house, after clearly perceiving that they three Madame 
 Poiret, Cadenet, and himself could never find a hundred 
 thousand francs. 
 
 The petty usurer was perfectly safe in this den, where at 
 need he could have strong assistance. On some mornings 
 there would be not less than from sixty to eighty persons, men 
 and women, either in the wine-shop, or lounging in the entry, 
 or sitting on the steps, or in the office, to which the cautious 
 money-lender never admitted more than six persons at once. 
 The first comers were the first served, and as each one was 
 only admitted in his turn, the tavern-keeper or his man 
 chalked the numbers on the men's hats and on the women's 
 backs. 
 
 Then there was a sale and exchange of early for back num- 
 bers, as among cabmen on a stand. On certain days, when 
 market business was pressing, a first number was worth a 
 glass of brandy and a sou. Those who came out called the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 117 
 
 next numbers to be admitted, and if any squabbles arose, 
 Cadenet had them to rights by observing : 
 
 "If you bring up the watch and the police, what good would 
 that do you ? He would have to shut up shop." 
 
 He was Cerizet. When, in the course of the day, a wretched 
 woman in despair, with no bread in the house and children 
 faint with hunger, came to borrow ten or twenty sous : "Is 
 he in?" she would ask the wine-seller or his assistant. 
 
 Cadenet, a short, fat man dressed in blue, with deep, black 
 linen cuffs and an apron, and a cap on his head, was as an 
 angel of mercy to these poor mothers when he replied: 
 
 "He told me you were an honest soul, and I might give 
 
 you forty sous. You know what you have to do " And, 
 
 strange to say, lie was blest, as Popinot had been before him. 
 
 On Sunday morning, when accounts were made up, Cerizet 
 was abused ; still more was he cursed on Saturday, when bor- 
 rowers had to work hard to find the sum lent and the interest 
 on it. Still, he was Providence, he was God, from Tuesday 
 to Friday every week. 
 
 The room he sat in, formerly the kitchen of the first floor 
 rooms, was bare; the beams overhead, now white-washed, 
 showed traces of smoke. The walls, along which he had 
 placed wooden benches,. and the stone quarries of the floor, 
 alternately absorbed and exhaled the damp. The hood of the 
 chimney had not been removed ; but instead of a hearth, there 
 was an iron stove in which Cerizet burnt sea-coal when the 
 weather was cold. Under the high chimney opening, the 
 hearth was covered with boards about six inches higher than 
 the floor and six feet square, on which stood a table worth 
 perhaps a franc, and a wooden chair with a circular cushion 
 covered with green leather. The wall behind him Cerizet had 
 faced with match-boarding ; he was also shut in by a screen of 
 unpainted deal on each side to shelter him from the draught 
 from the window and door; but this screen did not inter- 
 cept the warmth from the stove. The inside shutters of the 
 window were enormously thick and lined with sheet-iron,' 
 with a bar to fasten them, and the door commanded respect 
 by the same plate armor.
 
 118 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 In the further corner of the room was a spiral stair, out 
 of some shop that had been pulled down, purchased second 
 hand in the Rue Chapon by Cadenet, who had had it fitted 
 to the floor of the room above. To cut off all communication 
 between the room on the entresol and the first floor, Cerizet 
 had insisted on having the door of his upper room bricked 
 up. Thus the residence was a citadel. The man's bedroom 
 furniture consisted of a carpet bought for twenty francs, a 
 school-boy's bed, a chest of drawers, two chairs, and an arm- 
 chair, with an iron chest looking like a desk the work of a 
 capital maker, and bought second hand. He shaved in front 
 of the glass over the chimney. He possessed two pairs of 
 cotton sheets, six calico shirts, and the rest to match. Once 
 or twice Cadenet had seen Cerizet dressed as a man of 
 fashion; so that it was evident that he kept hidden away in 
 the bottom drawer a complete outfit, in which he could go to 
 the opera or even into society without being identified ; for on 
 these occasions Cadenet himself, but for the sound of his 
 lodger's voice, would have asked him : "What would you please 
 to want ?" 
 
 What most charmed his "customers" was his geniality, his 
 power of repartee ; he spoke their language. Cadenet, his two 
 shopmen, and Cerizet lived surrounded by the utmost misery, 
 but preserved the indifference of a mute among the heirs of 
 the deceased, of old sergeants of the Guard amid the killed ; 
 they no more groaned when they listened to cries of hunger 
 or despair than surgeons groan on hearing their patients in 
 the hospital; like soldiers and sick nurses, they were always 
 ready with the trivial advice : "Have patience ; a little spirit. 
 What is the use of breaking your heart over it? If you kill 
 yourself, what then? You can grow used to anything; a lit- 
 tle common sense. 3 ' 
 
 Though Cerizet always took the precaution of hiding the 
 
 cash necessary for his morning's transactions in the seat of 
 
 the chair he sat on, of taking out no more than a hundred 
 
 .francs at a time, which he kept in his trousers pockets, and of 
 
 never going to the reserve but between two batches of cus-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 119 
 
 tomers, behind locked doors, which he did not open till he 
 had pocketed the coin he took out; he really had nothing to 
 fear from the despairing soul-s who came from all parts to 
 this fountain-head of money. There are, no doubt, many 
 ways of being honest or virtuous, and the Monograph on 
 Virtue* is exclusively based on this social axiom. A man 
 first sins against .his conscience; then he conspicuously sins 
 against that delicate bloom of honor, the loss of which does 
 not mean general disrepute; finally he fails distinctly in 
 honesty; but though he falls into the hands of the police, 
 he still is not yet amenable to the assizes; and even after the 
 disgrace of being condemned by a jury, he may be respected 
 on the hulks if he maintains the sort of honor that exists 
 among villains, and which consists in telling o tales, in 
 always playing fair, in sharing every risk. 
 
 Well, this last rag of honesty, which is perhaps self-inter- 
 est and necessity, while the practice of it leaves a man some 
 chance of magnanimity and some return to better ways, ex- 
 isted in perfection between Cerizet and his clients. Cerizet 
 never made a mistake, nor did his poor debtors; they told each 
 other no lies, neither as to capital nor interest. On many 
 occasions, Cerizet, who was, after all, a man of the people, 
 had rectified one week the involuntary mistake of a previous 
 reckoning to the advantage of the wretched creatures who 
 had not discovered it. So he was regarded as a dog, but an 
 honest dog; in the midst of that city of woes his word was 
 sacred. 
 
 A woman died, thirty francs in his debt. 
 
 "These are my profits!" exclaimed he to his customers; 
 "and you howl at me ! But I shall not torment the brats. 
 And Cadenet has taken them bread and thin wine/' 
 
 After this a very skilful stroke of business his neigh- 
 bors would say : 
 
 "He is not a bad sort of man." 
 
 * Monographic de la Vertu: a work In the same vein > <.ne Physiologic du Mariage 
 at which the author baa been working since 1833, the ciate when it was first an- 
 nounced. Gutter's note.
 
 120 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Short loans at high interest, as practised by Cerizet, is not, 
 take it all round, so cruel a system as that of the Mont-de- 
 Piete. Cerizet lent ten francs on Tuesday on condition of 
 getting twelve back on the following Sunday. In five weeks 
 he had doubled his capital; but compositions were frequent. 
 His good nature was shown from time to time in accepting 
 only eleven francs, fifty centimes : the rest stood over. When 
 he lent fifty francs for sixty to a small green-grocer, or a 
 hundred for a hundred and twenty to a peat-seller, he ran 
 some risk. 
 
 Theodose and Dutocq, coming down the Rue des Postes 
 to the Rue des Poules, saw a mob of men and women, and by 
 the light from the lamps in the wine-shop they were alarmed 
 at perceiving this mass of red faces, seamed and distorted and 
 dejected by misery, withered or bloated or bald, thickened 
 by wine, emaciated by fiery spirits, some threatening and 
 some resigned, some jeering, some sarcastic, others stupefied, 
 and all clad in the ignominious rags which no caricaturist 
 can exaggerate, even in his most extravagant moods. 
 
 "Some one will recognize me," said la Peyrade, dragging 
 Dutocq away. "We are fools to have come to find him in the 
 midst of his business." 
 
 "Especially as we never thought that Claparon might be 
 sleeping in his den, which is unknown to us as far as the in- 
 terior is concerned. Look here ; though there are difficulties 
 in your way, there are none in mine. I may have something 
 to say to my copying clerk, and I will go and tell him to come 
 to dinner, for the Courts sit to-day, and we shall not have 
 time for breakfast. We will fix to meet at the Ckaumiere, in 
 one of the arbors in the garden." 
 
 "That is no good; we may be overheard without knowing 
 it. I prefer the Petit Rocher de Cancale; we can take a box 
 and talk low." 
 
 "And if you are seen with Cerizet ?" 
 
 "Well, then, let us go to the Cheval Rouge, on the Quai de 
 Tournelle." 
 
 "That is better; at seven o'clock there will be no one there."
 
 Theodore and Dutocq, coming down the Rue des Postes, saw a mob 
 of men and women
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 121 
 
 So Dutocq made his way alone among this congress of beg- 
 gars, and he heard his name on all sides; for he could not tail 
 to be recognized by some one who had been in the dock, just 
 as Theodose would have been by some clients. 
 
 In such a neighborhood the Justice of the peace (equivalent 
 to the County Court Magistrate in London) is the supreme 
 legal authority; every case ends in his court, especially now 
 that the law makes his decisions final in every case where the 
 sum in dispute is not more than a hundred and forty francs. 
 So the Justice's clerk was allowed to pass a person of no less 
 worship than the judge himself. On the steps women were 
 sitting, a horrible display, like flowers arranged in stages; 
 and among them were some young, some pale and suffering. 
 The variety of colors in handkerchiefs, caps, gowns, and 
 aprons made the comparison more exact, perhaps, than any 
 comparison ought to be. 
 
 When Dutocq opened the door of the room where sixty 
 people had already been interviewed, he was almost asphyxi- 
 ated. 
 
 "Your number ? What is your number ?" shouted a chorus 
 of voices. 
 
 "Hold your jaw !" cried a hoarse voice from the street. 
 "He is the Justice's quilUdriver." 
 
 Utter silence ensued. 
 
 Dutocq found his copying clerk di.osed in a buff leather 
 waistcoat, like the gloves worn by the gendarmes, and over 
 it a squalid vest of knitted worsted. The unwholesome 
 physiognomy may be imagined above this ungainly garb, 
 crowned by a shabby bandana wound about his head so as 
 to show the forehead and hairless nape, and giving the feat- 
 iires a look as repulsive as it was sinister, especially by the 
 light of a dip, twelve to the pound. 
 
 "It cannot be done on those terms, Daddy Lantimeche," 
 Cerizet was saying to a tall old man, who looked at least 
 seventy, and who stood before him, his red worsted cap in 
 his hand, showing a bald head, while a chest covered with 
 white hairs was visible under his shabby blouse. "Explain
 
 122 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 to me what you want it for. A hundred francs, even witii 
 a hundred and twenty to come in, cannot be turned loose like 
 a dog in a church." 
 
 The other five clients present, among whom were two nurs- 
 ing mothers, one knitting, the other suckling her baby, 
 shouted with laughter. 
 
 Cerizet, when he saw Dutocq, rose respectfully to meet 
 him, as he added : 
 
 "You can have time to think about" it ; for you see I am 
 not satisfied to find an old smith's laborer wanting so much 
 as a hundred francs/' 
 
 "But it is to start an invention I" cried the old workman. 
 
 "An invention and a hundred francs ! You do not 
 know what the law is; you will want two thousand/' said 
 Dutocq. "You must take out a patent; you must find pa- 
 trons/' 
 
 "It is quite true," said Cerizet, who often relied on chances 
 of this kind. "Here, Daddy Lantimeche, come again to- 
 morrow morning at six o'clock and we will talk about it. We 
 cannot discuss an invention before other people." 
 
 Cerizet listened to Dutocq, whose first words were : 
 
 "If it is any good, we will go halves." 
 
 "Why on earth did you get up 'so early to tell me that ?" 
 said the suspicious money-lender, much annoyed at this notion 
 of "halves." "You would have seen me at the office." 
 
 He looked askance at Dutocq, who, while telling him the 
 truth, and speaking of Claparon and the necessity for taking 
 up la Peyradc's business as promptly as possible, seemed to 
 obscure matters. 
 
 "Well, you could have seen me at the office in the course 
 of the morning," he repeated, as he saw. Dutocq to the door. 
 
 "There is a fellow," said he to himself, as he returned to 
 his seat, "who seems to me to have blown out the lantern for 
 fear I should see too much. Well, I can give up my place 
 as copying clerk. What ! you, mother," he went on aloud ; 
 "you invent children, don't you ? It is a funny game, though 
 rather played out."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 123 
 
 It is needless to report the interview between these three 
 schemers; all the more so because the decisions they arrived 
 at were the basis of la Peyrade's confidences afterwards to 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier; but it may be said that the Pro- 
 vengal's craftiness almost dismayed Cerizet and Dutocq. 
 When the conference was over, the idea had dawned in the 
 petty usurer's mind of throwing up his hand in the game, 
 as he found himself pledged to partnership with such strong 
 players. To win at any cost and beat the sharpest, even by 
 cheating if need be, is an inspiration of vanity peculiar to 
 the votaries of the green cloth. This led to the terrible blow 
 which la Peyrade was fated to receive. 
 
 However, he knew his two associates; and notwithstand- 
 ing the perpetual turmoil of intellectual effort in which he 
 lived, and the incessant watchfulness needed to keep up his 
 manifold impersonations, nothing fatigued him more than 
 the part he had to play with these two accomplices. Dutocq 
 was a thorough scoundrel, and Cerizet had been on the stage ; 
 they could see through any mask. An immovable face a la 
 Talleyrand would have led them to throw over the Provengal 
 who was now in their power, and he was forced to affect ease 
 and confidence, and play above board which is no doubt the 
 highest achievement of art. To deceive the pit is an every- 
 day success, but to take in Mademoiselle Mars, Frederick 
 Lemaitre, Potier, Talma, Monrose, is the triumph of acting. 
 
 The result of this interview was to produce in Theodose, 
 who was as sagacious as Cerizet, a secret fear which, towards 
 the end of this closely fought game, fevered his blood and 
 stirred his pulses to the pitch of putting him into the morbid 
 state of a player with his eye on the roulette board when he 
 has risked his last stake. His senses acquire a lucidity, his 
 intelligence attains a breadth of purview for which human 
 knowledge has no measure. 
 
 On the day after this meeting, la Peyrade dined with the 
 Thuilliers; and Thuillier, under the obvious pretext of hav- 
 ing to pay a call on Madame de Saint-Foudrille, the wife of 
 
 a man of science with whom he was anxious to become in- 
 VOL. 1434
 
 124 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 tiniate, went off after dinner with his wife, leaving Theo- 
 dose with Brigitte. Neither Thuillier, nor his sister, nor 
 Theodose. was the dupe of this manoeuvre, and the old buck 
 of the Empire dignified the farce by the name of diplomacy. 
 
 "Young man, do not take advantage of my sister's guile- 
 lessness, but respect it," said Thuillier, solemnly, before go- 
 ing out. 
 
 "Has it occurred to you, mademoiselle," said Theodose, 
 drawing his chair closer to Brigitte as she sat knitting, "to 
 secure the interest of the commercial class of the district for 
 Thuillier?" 
 
 "How?" said she. 
 
 "Well, you have business connections with Barbet and 
 Metivier." 
 
 "To be sure, you are right. By jingo ! but you are no fool," 
 she added after a pause. 
 
 "We are always ready to serve those we love," he replied 
 with sententious reserve. 
 
 To get the better of Brigitte in the long struggle begun 
 two years ago, would be to hold the key of the position, like 
 carrying the redoubt at the Moskowa. But the only way was 
 to get the mastery of her mind, as, in the middle ages, people 
 were believed to be possessed of the Devil, and so effectually 
 that no undeceiving should ever be possible. For three days 
 past, la Peyrade had been taking measure of the undertaking, 
 and had walked all round it, as it were, to reconnoitre the 
 position. Flattery, the infallible weapon in skilled hands, 
 could have no effect on an old maid who had long known that 
 she had no beauty. But to a determined man no place is im- 
 pregnable a Lamarque can always seize Caprea. So no de- 
 tail must be omitted of the eventful scene of that evening; 
 every point had its value pauses, downcast looks, glances, 
 tones of voice. 
 
 "You have already proved your affection for us/ 5 said 
 Brigitte. 
 
 "Your brother has told you?" 
 
 "No; he only said that you wished to speak to me."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 125 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle, for you are the man of the family. 
 But, on thinking matters over, I perceived no little danger for 
 myself in this affair, and a man does not compromise himself 
 unless for those near and dear to him. There is a perfect 
 fortune in the scales thirty to forty thousand francs a year 
 and not in the least speculative. A freehold. The neces- 
 sity for providing Thuillier with a fortune bewitched me from 
 the first. It was fascinating and, as I told him, for, short 
 of being an idiot, a man asks himself: 'Why on earth should 
 he be so eager to help me ?' well, as I told him, by working 
 for his advantage, I flattered myself I might be working for 
 my own. 
 
 "Now, if he wishes to be a member of the Chamber, two 
 things are requisite: he must pay the taxes on a sufficient 
 qualification, and get his name known by some sort of 
 celebrity. If I carry my devotion so far as to be ready to help 
 him to write a book on Public Credit, or on no matter what, 
 I might certainly also think of his fortune, and it would 
 be absurd in you to give him this house " 
 
 "To my brother? Why, I would place it in his name to- 
 morrow," cried Brigitte ; "you do not know me." 
 
 "I do not altogether know you," said Theodose; "but I 
 know things of you which have made me regret that I did not 
 tell you everything from the first moment when I formed the 
 plan to which Thuillier will owe his election. He will be the 
 object of envy at once, and he will certainly have an uphill 
 task; we must annihilate his rivals, deprive them of every 
 pretext." 
 
 "But this business," said Brigitte; "what are the ob- 
 stacles?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle, they exist in my conscience, and I cannot 
 serve you in the matter till I have consulted my confessor. 
 As far as the world is concerned, oh ! the transaction is per- 
 fectly legal, I am incapable I, as you understand, a duly 
 registered advocate, and the member of a somewhat rigid as- 
 sociation am incapable, I say, of suggesting an arrangement 
 which coulfl give rise to a scandal. My first excuse is, that 
 I will not take a farthing."
 
 126 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Brigitte was on hot irons; her face was flushed, she broke 
 her wool, and knotted it together, and did not know how to 
 contain herself. 
 
 "A freehold worth forty thousand a year," said she, "is not 
 to be bought nowadays for less than one million eight hundred 
 thousand francs." 
 
 "Well, I promise you that you shall see the property, and 
 calculate the probable returns, and that I will secure it to 
 Thuillier for fifty thousand." 
 
 "Well, if you will enable us to get that," cried Brigitte, 
 worked up to the highest point of excitement by the tempest 
 of her avarice, "go, my dear Monsieur Theodose " 
 
 She stopped short. 
 
 "Well, mademoiselle ?" 
 
 "You will, perhaps, have worked for your own advan- 
 tage." 
 
 "Oh, if Thuillier has told you my secret, I leave your 
 house." 
 
 Brigitte looked up. 
 
 "Did he tell you that I love Celeste ?" 
 
 "No, on my word of honor !" cried Brigitte. "But I was 
 going to speak of her." 
 
 "To offer her to me? Nay, God forgive me, but I would 
 not wish to owe her to any one but herself, her parents, her 
 own free choice. No, all I ask of you is your good-will, your 
 favor. Promise me, as Thuillier has promised, as the reward 
 of my service, your influence, your friendship ; tell me that 
 you will regard me as a son and then I will take your advice. 
 I will decide in obedience to your views without consulting 
 my confessor. Why, for two years, during which I have 
 studied the family with which I would gladly ally my name 
 and which I should be happy to enrich by my energy for I 
 am bound to get on I have not failed to discover that you 
 have an old world honesty, a spirit of inflexible rectitude, 
 and knowledge of business and those are the qualities a man 
 likes to have about him. With such a mother-in-law as you, I 
 should find domestic life swept clear of a thousand money de-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 127 
 
 tails which hamper a man's political advancement, when he 
 has to think of them. How I admired you on Sunday even- 
 ing ! You were magnificent ! How you made things fly ! 
 In ten minutes, I believe, the drawing-room was cleared ; and 
 without stirring out of the house you had everything at hand 
 for refreshments and supper. 'There/ said I to myself, 'that 
 is a capable woman !' ' 
 
 Brigitte's nostrils dilated, she inhaled the young lawyer's 
 adulation, and he gave her a side glance, enjoying her 
 triumph. He had touched a responsive chord. 
 
 "Oh," said she, "I am accustomed to housekeeping it 
 answers to my hand." 
 
 "Yes," said Theodose, "if I can consult a clear and pure 
 conscience I shall be satisfied." 
 
 He had risen, but he now sat down again and said: 
 
 "This is how the business stands, my dear aunt; for you 
 will be a sort of aunt." 
 
 "Hold your tongue, dear boy," said Brigitte, "and tell me 
 the facts." 
 
 "I will tell you exactly, and observe that I am risking my 
 reputation by divulging them; for I owe my knowledge of 
 such secrets to my position as a lawyer, so we are committing 
 between us a sort of legal high treason. A Paris notary and 
 an architect entered into partnership to buy some building 
 land, and built upon it; at this moment they have collapsed; 
 there was some error in their calculations, but we need not 
 trouble ourselves about all that. Among the houses erected 
 by this illicit firm for notaries are not supposed to go into 
 business partnerships there is one which, being unfinished, 
 is so under value that it is offered for sale for no more than 
 a hundred thousand francs, though the ground and structure 
 cost four hundred thousand. As nothing remains to be fin- 
 ished but the interior fittings, and nothing can be easier to 
 estimate; as, moreover, those fittings are all ready at the 
 builder's, and he will sell them cheap, the sum to be spent 
 will not exceed fifty thousand francs. Now the house, being 
 in a good position, it will let for forty thousand francs a
 
 128 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 year, taxes paid. It is built entirely of squared stone, and 
 the party walls of stone rubble; the front is decorated with 
 handsome sculpture that cost more than twenty thousand 
 francs; the windows are of plate-glass, with a new kind of 
 bolt called Cremone." 
 
 "Where is the difficulty?" 
 
 "Ah ! that is the point. The notary has reserved this plum 
 of the cake he has to surrender, and under the name of his 
 friends he is one of the creditors who demand the sale of the 
 property under the assignees' order. There was no action at 
 law, that is too costly; the sale is under a voluntary declara- 
 tion. Well, the notary happened to apply to a client of mine 
 for the use of his name as the purchaser ; my client is a poor 
 devil, and he came to me and said : 'There is a fortune in the 
 thing if you can get rid of the notary/ " 
 
 "It is often done in trade/' said Brigitte eagerly. 
 
 "If this were the only difficulty," replied Theodose, "it 
 would be plain sailing; as a friend of mine said to one of his 
 pupils, who was lamenting the immense difficulties in the 
 way of producing a masterpiece of art: 'My dear boy, if it 
 were not so the footman would do itP But, mademoiselle, 
 even if we caught this dreadful notary who, you may take my 
 word for it, richly deserves it, for he has taken toll of many 
 a private fortune as he is very sharp, though he is a notary, 
 it will probably be very hard to trip him up. twice. When you 
 purchase real estate, if the mortgagees think they are likely 
 to be losers by the low price, they have the right within a cer- 
 tain limit of time to put up the price, that is to say, to offer a 
 larger sum and keep the property. If the first bidder cannot 
 play this fish till the time has elapsed for his raising the price, 
 another kind of trick must be tried. But are such dealings 
 legal? Dare a man undertake them for the benefit of the 
 family he hopes to belong to? For three days I have been 
 asking myself these questions." 
 
 Brigitte, it must be confessed, hesitated, and Theodose 
 then put forward his last suggestion.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 129 
 
 "Take the night to think of it; to-morrow we will talk 
 it over." 
 
 "Listen, my boy," said Brigitte, looking at the lawyer al- 
 most amorously, "in the first place I must see the house. 
 Where is it ?" 
 
 "Not far from the Madeleine; in ten years it will be the 
 heart of Paris ! And if you did but know it, that land, has 
 been rising in value ever since 1819. Du Tillet the banker's 
 fortune was made there. The famous bankruptcy of Koguin 
 the notary, which spread terror in Paris and was such a blow 
 to the reputation of his cloth, the bankruptcy which ruined 
 Birotteau the famous perfumer, was caused by that alone. 
 They had speculated a little too wildly in that land." 
 
 "I remember," said Brigitte. 
 
 "The house could certainly be finished by the end of this 
 year, and tenants could come in by the middle of next year." 
 
 "Can we go there to-rnorrow ?" 
 
 "Aunt, I am at your orders." 
 
 "Mercy ! never call me aunt before other people. As to 
 business, I cannot decide till I have seen the house." 
 
 "It is six stories high, has nine windows across the front, 
 a spacious courtyard, and four shops, and it stands at a 
 corner. Oh, the notary knew what he was about, never fear ! 
 But if some political change occurs the funds and investments 
 generally will go down. In your place I would sell all 
 Madame Thuillier holds, and all you hold in the State funds, 
 to buy this fine property for Thuillier, and I would reinstate 
 that poor bigot's fortune out of future savings. Can consols 
 go higher than they are now a hundred and twenty-two? 
 It is fabulous; you must make haste." 
 
 Brigitte's mouth watered; she saw a way to save her own 
 capital and to enrich her brother at Madame Thuillier's ex- 
 pense. 
 
 "My brother is right," said she to Theodose; "you are a 
 very remarkable man and will go far." 
 
 "And he will walk before me," said la Peyrade in an art- 
 less way which captivated the old maid.
 
 130 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "You will be one of the family," said she. 
 
 "There will be obstacles!" said Theodose. "Madame 
 Thuillier is a little crazy and she does not like me." 
 
 "I would like to see her interfere," cried Brigitte. "Let 
 us do the job if it is feasible," she added, "and leave your 
 interests in my hands." 
 
 "Thuillier, a member of the Municipal Council, possessed 
 of a house that will let for at least forty thousand francs, a 
 member of the Legion of Honor, and the author of a solid, 
 serious book, will be returned as deputy at one of the com- 
 ing elections. But, between you and me, my little aunt, a 
 man only devotes himself so entirely to his real father-in- 
 law." 
 
 "You are right." 
 
 "Though I have no fortune, I shall have doubled yours; 
 and if this affair is not talked about, I will try to find others." 
 
 "Until I have seen the house," said Mademoiselle Thuil- 
 lier, "I can come to no decision." 
 
 "Well, then, take a hackney coach to-morrow and we will 
 go ; I will get a ticket to view the premises to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "Till to-morrow then at about twelve," replied Brigitte, 
 holding out her hand to Theodose; but instead of merely 
 taking it he pressed a kiss on it, at once more tender and 
 more respectful than Brigitte had ever received. 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear boy," said she as he went out at the 
 door. 
 
 She hastily rang the bell, and when one of the maids ap- 
 peared : 
 
 "Josephine," said she, "go at once to Madame Colleville, 
 and ask her to come to see me." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, Flavie came into the room, 
 where Brigitte was pacing to and fro in alarming excitement. 
 
 "My dear, I want you to do me a great service in a matter 
 that concerns our little Celeste. You know Tullia, the opera- 
 dancer ; time was when my brother dinned her into my ears." 
 
 "Yes, my dear, but she- is no longer an opera-dancer. She
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 131 
 
 is Madame la Comtesse du Bruel. Is not her husband a peer 
 of France!" 
 
 "Are you still friends?" 
 
 "We never see each other." 
 
 "Well, but I happen to know that Chaffaroux, the rich 
 builder, is her uncle," said the old maid. "He is old, he is 
 wealthy; go to see your old ally and get her to write a few 
 lines to her uncle, telling him that he will be doing her the 
 greatest personal service by giving his advice on a matter 
 about which you wish to consult him, and we will call at his 
 house to-morrow at about one o'clock. But she must enjoin 
 on the uncle the most profound secrecy. 
 
 "Go, my dear girl ! Our darling Celeste shall be a mill- 
 ionaire, and I will find her a husband, mark my words, who 
 will place her on a pinnacle." 
 
 "Shall I tell, you the first letters of his name ?" 
 
 "Well, speak." 
 
 "Theodose de la Peyrade ! You are in the right. He is 
 a man who, with the help of such a woman as you, may rise 
 to be a minister." 
 
 "God himself sent him to this house," cried the old maid. 
 
 At this moment Monsieur and Madame Thuillier came 
 home. 
 
 Five days later, in the month of April, the writ, calling 
 on the electors to appoint, on the thirtieth of that month, 
 a member of the Municipal Council, was inserted in the 
 Moniteur, and placarded about Paris. The Ministry, known 
 as the Administration of the First of March, had held office 
 for some weeks. 
 
 Brigitte was in high good humor; she had verified la 
 Peyrade's statements. The house, thoroughly inspected by 
 old Chaffaroux from cellar to garret, was pronounced by him 
 to be admirably well built; poor Grindot, the architect in- 
 volved in the business with Claparon and the notary, believed 
 that.he was working for the owner; Madame du Bruel's uncle 
 supposed that his niece's interests were at stake, and he said
 
 132 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 that he would finish the house for thirty thousand francs. 
 So, for the past week, Theodose had heen Brigitte's idol ; she 
 argued with the most artless dishonesty to prove to him that 
 fortune must be snatched at when it offers. 
 
 "And if there is any sin in this business," said she, as they 
 stood in the middle of the garden, "you will tell it in con- 
 fession." 
 
 "The deuce is in it," cried Thuillier; "a man's first duty 
 is to his relations." 
 
 "I will do it," said la Peyrade in a broken voice, "but on 
 certain conditions. I will not be taxed with greed and ava- 
 rice in marrying Celeste. If you load me with remorse, at 
 any rate let me maintain my character in the eyes of the 
 world. Only settle on Celeste you, my dear old boy, Thuil- 
 lier the reversion of the house I am about to secure for 
 you." 
 
 "That is wise." 
 
 "Do not rob yourselves/' Theodose went on ; "and my dear 
 little aunt must agree to this when the settlements are made. 
 Place all the rest of the capital at your command in the funds, 
 in Madame Thuillier's name, and let her do what she likes 
 with it. We shall then all live together, and I will undertake 
 to make my own fortune as soon as I am relieved of anxiety 
 as to my future maintenance." 
 
 "Done with you !" exclaimed Thuillier ; "that is the speech 
 of an honest man." 
 
 "Let me kiss your forehead, my boy," cried the old maid. 
 "Still, as a girl must have some money, we will give Celeste 
 sixty thousand francs." 
 
 "For her pin-money," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "We are all three people of honor," cried Thuillier. "It 
 is a settled thing; you 'will secure us the house, we will write 
 my political book together, and you will move the earth to 
 get me the Legion of Honor." 
 
 "Oh ! You will have it as surely as you will be elected 
 Town Councillor by the first of May. Only, my good friend, 
 and you, too, my little aunt, be secret, and pay no heed to
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 135 
 
 the calumnies that will be hurled at me when the men I must 
 deceive turn against me. I shall be a vagabond, a swindler, 
 a dangerous man, a Jesuit, an intriguer, a fortune-hunter. 
 Can you listen unmoved to all this ?" 
 
 "Be easy," said Brigitte. 
 
 From that day forth Thuillier was "my dear fellow"; this 
 was the name by which Theodose always addressed him, with 
 shades of tone and an expression of affection which surprised 
 Flavie. But "little aunt," the words that so delighted 
 Brigitte, were spoken only before the Thuilliers, or in a 
 whisper if anybody were present, or, now and then, before 
 Flavie. 
 
 The activity displayed by Theodose, Dutocq, and Cerizet, 
 by Barbet, Metivier, the Minards, the Phellions, the Laudi- 
 geois, by Colleville, Pron, Barniol, and their friends, was 
 prodigious. Great and small set their hands to the task. 
 Cadenet secured thirty votes in his division, and wrote the 
 names of seven electors who could only set their cross. 
 
 On the thirtieth of April, Thuillier was duly elected a 
 member of the Municipal Council for the Department of 
 the Seine, by an imposing majority, for only sixty votes 
 kept his election from being unanimous. On the first of 
 May Thuillier joined that municipal body in going to the 
 Tuileries to congratulate the king on his fete day, and he 
 came home beaming ; he had followed close on Minard's heels. 
 
 A yellow poster, ten days later, announced the sale of the 
 house by voluntary act of the owners, the reserved price being 
 seventy-five' thousand francs ; the sale to be concluded at the 
 end of July. On this point there was an agreement verbal, 
 of course between Claparon and Cerizet, by which Cerizet 
 promised Claparon a bonus of fifteen thousand francs if he 
 only succeeded in putting off the notary till beyond the time 
 allowed for a higher bid. Mademoiselle Thuillier, informed 
 of this by Theodose, gave full consent to this secret clause, 
 understanding that she would have to pay the abettors of this 
 amiable treachery. The money was to be paid through the 
 virtuous advocate.
 
 134 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Claparon held a meeting at midnight, in the Place dt 
 FObservatoire, with his other accomplice, the notary, whose 
 office and connection, though put up for sale by a decision 
 delivered in the court for regulating the business of Paris 
 notaries, was not yet sold. 
 
 This young man, the successor of Leopold Hannequin, had 
 tried to run to fortune instead of walking; he still saw 
 another future before him and was trying to work everything 
 at once. In this interview he had bid as high as ten thou- 
 sand francs to purchase safety in this dirty job; he was not 
 to pay the sum over to Claparon till after the attesting of a 
 declaration signed by the purchaser. The notary knew that 
 this sum was the only capital at Claparon's disposal to help 
 him to remake his fortune, and he thought himself sure of 
 him. 
 
 "Who else in all Paris would give me such a commission 
 for the job?" said Claparon, with an assumption of guile- 
 lessness. "You may sleep soundly of nights; I will get the 
 very man to be our stalking-horse as purchaser, one of your 
 honest men who are too stupid to have ideas like yours. He 
 is an old retired clerk; you have only to give him the money 
 to pay and he will sign the papers/' 
 
 When the notary had made it clear to Claparon that all 
 he could get out of him was ten thousand francs, Cerizet 
 offered his old partner twelve thousand and proceeded to 
 demand fifteen of Theodose, not meaning, of course, to give 
 more than twelve to Claparon. All the scenes between these 
 four men were garnished with fine words about sentiment and 
 honor, about what men owed to each other when they were 
 fated to work together, and to meet again in the course of 
 events. While these submarine transactions were carried out 
 for Thuillier's benefit, Theodose reporting them to him with 
 expressions of utter disgust at having to soil his fingers with 
 such dirty work, these two laid their heads together over the 
 great work which the "dear fellow" was to publish; and the 
 member of the Municipal Council came to the conclusion that 
 he could never achieve anvthing without this man of genius,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 135 
 
 whose talents amazed him and whose readiness constantly 
 astonished him, so that every day made it seem more necessary 
 that he should make la Peyrade his son-in-law. After the 
 month of May Theodose dined with the "dear fellow" four 
 days out of every seven. 
 
 At this time indeed Theodose was undisputed monarch 
 of the family, and was approved by all their friends. This 
 was the way of it. The Phellions, hearing Thuillier and 
 Brigitte singing la Peyrade's praises, feared to offend these 
 two potentates and joined in the chorus, even though this 
 perpetual laudation might annoy them or seem exaggerated. 
 It was the same with the Minards. And, indeed, la Pey- 
 rade's behavior as the friend of the family was always ad- 
 mirable; he disarmed hostility by effacing himself; he was 
 no more than an additional piece of furniture; he led the 
 Phellions and the Minards to believe that Brigitte and Thuil- 
 lier had summed him up, weighed him, and found him too 
 light ever to be anything more than the good young man to 
 whom they might be of use. 
 
 "Perhaps he thinks," said Thuillier to Minard one day, 
 "that my sister will feather his nest for him in her will. He 
 little knows her." 
 
 This speech, prompted by Theodose, soothed Minard's 
 suspicious curiosity. 
 
 "He is devoted to us," said the old maid to Phellion one 
 day, "but he owes us a debt of gratitude; we let him off his 
 rent and he almost lives with us." 
 
 This contemptuous tone, again inspired by Theodose and 
 echoed from one to another of all the families that haunted 
 Thuillier's drawing-room, dispelled every fear, and Theodose 
 gave effect to the remarks thus uttered by Thuillier and his 
 sister by all the servility of a hanger-on. At whist he 
 screened the "dear fellow's" blunders ; his smile, as rigid and 
 benign as Madame Thuillier's, was ready to encourage the 
 homely jests of the brother and the sister alike. 
 
 He thus secured what he most ardently aimed at, the con- 
 tempt of his real enemies, and wrapped himself in it as
 
 136 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 in a mantle to hide his power. For four months he pre- 
 served the stupid attitude of a snake swallowing and digest- 
 ing its prey. And he would go into the garden with Colle- 
 ville or Flavie to lay aside his mask and laugh, and rest and 
 refresh himself by abandoning himself to nervous outbursts 
 of passion which terrified or touched his future mother-in- 
 law. 
 
 "Have you no pity for me ?" he said to her the day before 
 the signing of the preliminary contract of sale, by which 
 Thuillier became provisionally the owner of the house for 
 twenty-five thousand francs. "Such a man as I ! sneaking 
 round like a cat, suppressing every retort, swallowing down 
 my gall ! And repelled by you !" 
 
 "My friend, my child I" said Flavie, who was still un- 
 decided. 
 
 These words may serve as a thermometer to show at what 
 temperature this clever actor maintained his intrigue with 
 Flavie. The poor woman wavered between her heart and 
 morality, between religion and the mystery of passion. 
 
 Meanwhile Felix Phellion gave young Colleville lessons 
 with praiseworthy regularity and devotion ; he bestowed end- 
 less hours on him, believing that he was working for the 
 family that would be his. In gratitude for his kindness, 
 and under la Peyrade's advice, the professor was invited to 
 dine on Thursdays with the Collevilles, and Theodose never 
 failed to be there. Flavie would make a purse, or work slip- 
 pers or a cigar case for the happy youth, who would ex- 
 claim : 
 
 "I am more than paid, niadame, by the happiness of being 
 of use to you." 
 
 "We are not rich, monsieur," Colleville would reply, "but, 
 hang it all, we are not ungrateful." 
 
 Old Phellion rubbed his hands as he listened to his son on 
 his return from these dinners he would see his dear, his 
 noble Felix married to Celeste. 
 
 Still, the more she loved him the more serious and re- 
 served was Celeste in her demeanor to Felix; all the more
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 137 
 
 since her mother had spoken to her very decidedly one even- 
 ing, and ended by saying: 
 
 "Give young Phellion no encouragement, my child. Nei- 
 ther your father nor I can settle whom you are to marry; 
 hopes are founded on your future prospects, and it is far 
 more important to secure the affection of Mademoiselle 
 Brigitte and your godfather than to win the good graces of a 
 penniless professor. If you do not wish to kill your mother, 
 my darling yes, to kill me, obey me blindly in this matter, 
 and get it firmly into your head that above all else we aim 
 at seeing you happy." 
 
 As the sale of the property was definitely fixed for the end 
 of July, towards the end of June Theodose advised Brigitte 
 to be prepared with the money; and on the eve of the sale, 
 she sold all her own and her sister-in-law's securities in 
 the public funds. The disastrous alliance of the four powers, 
 an insult to France, is a matter of history ; but it is necessary 
 to recall the fact that from July till the end of August 
 French stocks, scared by the prospect of war to which Mon- 
 sieur Thiers lent himself rather too readily, fell twenty 
 francs; three per cents stood at sixty. Nor was this all; 
 this financial rout reacted disastrously on real estate in Paris; 
 land that happened to be in the market was sold for a mere 
 song. These circumstances made Theodose figure as a 
 prophet, as a man of genius in the eyes of Brigitte and Thuil- 
 lier, to whom the house was assigned at the price of seventy- 
 five thousand francs. 
 
 The notary, involved in this political catastrophe, his 
 office being sold, found himself obliged to go into the country 
 for some days; but he took with him Claparon's thousand 
 francs. Thuillier, by la Peyrade's advice, made a contract 
 with Grindot, who believed he was finishing the house for the 
 notary; and as, during this period of financial disturbance, 
 works were to a great extent suspended, and workmen left 
 standing with folded arms, the architect was enabled to finish 
 the house, which he particularly fancied, in a really splendid 
 style.
 
 138 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 He decorated four drawing-rooms richly gilt for twenty- 
 fire thousand francs. Theodose insisted that the bargain 
 should be in writing, and that fifty thousand francs should 
 be put down instead of twenty-five. 
 
 This purchase magnified Thuillier's importance tenfold. 
 As to the notary, he had quite lost his head in the presence 
 of political events which had fallen like a waterspout on 
 a fine day. Theodose, secure of his influence, relying on his 
 many services, and having a hold over Thuillier so long as 
 they were working together, was admired by Brigitte especi- 
 ally for his decent reticence for he never made the smallest 
 allusion to his poverty, and never talked about money, and 
 he asumed a rather less slavish manner than he had hitherto 
 shown. Thuillier and Brigitte would say to him: 
 
 "Nothing can rob you of our esteem; you are at home 
 under our roof. The opinion of Minard and Phellion, of 
 whom you seem so much afraid, is not worth a verse by 
 Victor Hugo to us. Let them talk ; hold up your head !" 
 
 "We will need their help for Thuillier's election to par- 
 liament/' said Theodose. "Follow my advice. You find 
 it answers, do not you? When the house is really yours, 
 you will have got it practically for nothing; for you can 
 buy three per cents at sixty in Madame Thuillier's name 
 so as to restitute her whole fortune. You have only to wait 
 till the period allowed by law for a higher bid has elapsed, 
 and to have the fifteen thousand francs in readiness for our 
 rascals/' 
 
 Brigitte wasted no time; she realized all her own capital 
 excepting a sum of one hundred and twenty thousand francs, 
 and then taking discount off her sister-in-law's fortune, she 
 reinvested two hundred and forty-thousand francs in the three 
 per cents -in Madame Thuillier's name, bringing her in 
 twelve thousand francs a year; she also purchased enough 
 to give herself ten thousand francs a year, determining never 
 to worry herself over discounting bills again. She saw her 
 brother with forty thousand francs a year besides his pension; 
 Madame Thuillier with her twelve thousand, while she herself
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 139 
 
 had eighteen thousand, sixty thousand francs in all, and 
 rent free, which she estimated at eight thousand. 
 
 "We are a match for the Minards now !" cried she. 
 
 "We will not sing victory, just yet," said Theodose. 
 "There is yet a week to run before the time is out for raising 
 the bid. I have been attending to your affairs, and my own 
 are in a terrible mess." 
 
 "But, my dear boy, you have friends !" exclaimed Brigitte, 
 "and if you want twenty-five louis you can always find them 
 here." 
 
 At this speech Theodose and Thuillier smiled at each 
 other. 
 
 Thuillier took him into the garden and said: 
 
 "My poor sister must be excused; she sees the world 
 through the mouth of a bottle. But if you want twenty- 
 five thousand francs I will lend them to you out of my first 
 rents," he added. 
 
 "Thuillier, I have a rope round my neck," exclaimed 
 Theodose. "Since I became an advocate I have had to sign 
 bills. But mum's the word !" he added, frightened at having 
 betrayed the secret of his position. "I am. in the clutches 
 of scoundrels I should like to turn the tables !" 
 
 Theodose had a twofold motive in telling his secret. First 
 to sound Thuillier, and secondly to forefend a terrible blow 
 which might be dealt him in the course of the covert and 
 desperate struggle he had long foreseen. His terrible situ- 
 ation may be explained in a few words. 
 
 In the abject poverty he had lived through no one but 
 Cerizet had ever come to see him in the garret where, in the 
 bitterest weather, he was lying in bed for lack of clothes. He 
 had but one shirt belonging to him. For three days he had 
 lived on one loaf, cutting it carefully into portions, and he 
 was wondering : "What is to be done?" when his old ally made 
 his appearance, just released from prison and pardoned. 
 
 As to the various schemes plotted by these two men before 
 a fire of faggots, one wrapped in his landlady's counterpane, 
 the other in his infamy, it is useless to record them here,
 
 140 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 On the following day, Cerizet, who had come across Dutocq 
 in the course of the morning, brought la Peyrade trousers, 
 waistcoat, and coat, a hat and boots bought at an old-clothes 
 stall in the Temple, and then carried him off to give him a 
 dinner. The Provengal ate at Pinson's eating-house in the 
 Rue de I'Ancienne-Comedie, quite half of a dinner that cost 
 forty-seven francs. At dessert, between two glasses of win^, 
 Cerizet said to his friend: 
 
 "Will you sign fifty thousand francs worth of bills for me, 
 calling yourself an advocate ?" 
 
 "You won't get five thousand for them/' replied Theodose. 
 
 "That is no affair of yours, you will pay the whole sum. 
 That will be our share my friend's and mine of a business 
 in which you will risk nothing, but in which you will gain the 
 title of advocate, a good connection, and the hand of a little 
 girl no older than an old dog, and owning at least twenty to 
 thirty thousand francs a year. Neither Dutocq nor I can 
 marry her; we must rig you out, make you look like a respect- 
 able man, feed you, lodge you, give you decent furniture. So 
 we must have some guarantee. I do not speak for myself, 
 but for my friend here, who will use my name. We will fit 
 you out as a corsair to run after the yellow boys, you see! 
 If we do not capture this little fortune we will try some other 
 game. Between ourselves we certainly need not keep our 
 gloves on to save our fingers. 
 
 "We will give you your instructions, for the affair must 
 not be hurried ; there will be a hard tug, I can 'tell you ! 
 Here, I have some stamps." 
 
 "Waiter, a pen and ink I" said Theodose. 
 
 "That's the sort of man I like," said Dutocq. 
 
 "Sign : Theodose de la Peyrade, and add in your own hand, 
 Avocat, Rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, under the words Ac- 
 cepted payable for ten thousand. We will date it and come 
 upon you for it, all in secret, to have a right to imprison you. 
 The shipowners must hold some security when the captain 
 and the brig are at sea." 
 
 On the day following, the bailiffs of the Justice of the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 141 
 
 Peace (the County Court) obliged Cerizet by taking secret 
 proceedings; he came in the evening to call on the lawyer, 
 and everything was settled without any public fuss. The 
 Tribunal of Commerce deals with a hundred such cases at 
 every sitting. 
 
 The stringent rules of the Council of the Association of 
 Paris Advocates are well known. This body, and that of the 
 Attorneys, exercise strict discipline over their members. An 
 advocate in peril of imprisonment for debt at Clichy would 
 be erased from the register. Consequently, Cerizet, guided 
 by Dutocq, had taken the only course against their puppet 
 which could secure them each twenty-five thousand francs 
 out of Celeste's marriage portion. Theodose, when he en- 
 dorsed the bills, only thought that he was insuring his pros- 
 pects; but as by degrees the horizon grew clearer, as he rose 
 step by step, while playing his part, to a higher position in 
 the social scale, his dream was to rid himself of his two asso- 
 ciates. And now, when he asked Thuillier for twenty-five 
 thousand francs, it was in the hope of buying back his bills 
 from Cerizet at fifty per cent. 
 
 Nor is this a solitary instance, unfortunately, of such an 
 infamous speculation ; such transactions are common in Paris 
 under forms too thinly disguised for the historian to omit 
 them from an exact and complete picture of social manners. 
 Dutocq, a chartered libertine, still owed fifteen thousand 
 francs of the price of his office and connection, and in his 
 hopes of success he also hoped, in familiar language, to stretch 
 the tether till the end of the year 1840. 
 
 Till this hour, not one of these three men had shied or 
 called out. Each felt his own strength and fully gauged the 
 danger. Their distrust of each other was equal, their watch- 
 fulness and assumed confidence; and equally marked were 
 their gloomy silence and looks when reciprocal suspicion was 
 betrayed by their features or their words. For the last two 
 months especially, la Peyrade's position had been acquiring 
 all the strength of an independent stronghold. Dutocq 
 and Cerizet had a powder barrel under the ship, and the slow-
 
 142 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 match was always burning; but the wind might blow the 
 match out, and the devil might wet the powder magazine. 
 
 The instant when wild beasts are about to seize their prey 
 always seems the most critical, and this moment was now at 
 hand for these- hungry tigers. Cerizet said more than once 
 to Theodose by that revolutionary look which two sovereigns 
 have seen within this century : "I made you King and still I 
 am nobody. Not to be everything is to be nothing." 
 
 In Cerizet a reaction of envy was gathering impetus like 
 an avalanche. Dutocq saw himself at the mercy of his copy- 
 ing clerk, who had made money. Theodose only wished he 
 could burn his two partners and their papers in two confla- 
 grations. And they all three took too much pains to conceal 
 their own thoughts not to guess the mind of the others. 
 
 Theodose lived between three hells as he thought of the 
 chances of the cards, of how to play to his game, and of the 
 future before him. His speech to Thuillier had been the 
 utterance of despair; he had cast the lead into the depths of 
 the old citizen's waters, and had found only twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs at the bottom. 
 
 "And possibly nothing by the end of the month!" said 
 he to himself, as he went to his own rooms. 
 
 He felt intense hatred of the Thuilliers. But he held 
 Thuillier by a harpoon that had entered into his deepest 
 conceit, the scheme, namely, for a work called De I'Impot et 
 de I'Amortissement (on taxation and the redemption of the 
 debt), in which he was to co-ordinate the ideas published by 
 a Saint-Simonian paper, the Globe, lending them his own 
 Southern color, and giving them a systematic shape. Thuil- 
 lier's knowledge of raw materials would be of great service 
 to Theodose. On this rope he took his seat, determined to do 
 battle, from this slender basis, with a fool's vanity. This 
 may be of granite or of sand ; it depends on the man. But, 
 on reflection, he was glad he had spoken. 
 
 "When he sees me secure his fortune by paying over the 
 fifteen thousand francs at a moment when I am so much in 
 need of money, he will look upon me as the god of honesty."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 143 
 
 Now this was what Claparon and Cerizet had done with 
 the notary two days before that on which the time should ex- 
 pire allowed for raising the offer for the house. Cerizet, 
 to whom Claparon gave the password and the notary's secret 
 address, went to him and said: 
 
 "One of my friends Claparon, whom you know begged 
 me to call on you; he expects you the day after to-morrow, 
 in the evening, at the place you know of. He has the paper 
 you want of him, and you shall have it for the ten thousand 
 francs, but I must be present at the delivery of the money, 
 for five thousand francs of it are due to me and I warn you, 
 my dear sir, that the name on the secret agreement is left 
 blank." 
 
 "I will be there," said the notary. 
 
 The poor wretch spent the night in such torment as may 
 be imagined, for salvation or ruin hung in the scales for him. 
 But at sunrise, instead of Claparon he saw a policeman in the 
 uniform of the Chamber of Commerce, bearing a judgment 
 in due form and requiring him to come away to Clichy. 
 
 Cerizet had come to an understanding with one of the 
 hapless notary's creditors, and had promised to get him ar- 
 rested in consideration of half the sum owed. Thus the 
 victim of this piece of treachery was compelled to pay, on the 
 nail, six thousand francs out of the ten thousand promised 
 to Claparon, in order to avoid imprisonment; this was the 
 whole amount of the debt. 
 
 As he netted his share of this swindle: 
 
 "These thousand cro\vns," said Cerizet, "will enable me 
 to get rid of Claparon." 
 
 Cerizet went back to the notary and said to him : 
 
 "Claparon is a rogue, monsieur! He has taken fifteen 
 thousand francs from the purchaser, who will certainly remain 
 the owner. Threaten him with telling his creditors where he 
 is hidden and with an indictment for fraudulent bankruptcy ; 
 he will give you half readily enough." 
 
 The notary, in a fury, wrote a fulminating letter to Cla- 
 paron. Claparon; in his turn, dreaded an arrest, and Cerizet 
 undertook to get him a passport.
 
 144 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "You have played me many a trick, Claparon," said C6ri- 
 zet; "but listen: you shall pronounce judgment on me I 
 have a thousand crowns and not another penny in the world. 
 I will give them to you. Sail for America and there found 
 your fortune as I am making mine here." 
 
 That evening, Claparon, disguised by Cerizet as an old 
 woman, set out in the diligence for le Havre. Cerizet was 
 now master of the fifteeen thousand francs demanded by 
 Claparon, and he awaited la Peyrade calmly and without 
 haste. This man, of really remarkable intelligence, had a 
 bidder who, under the name of a creditor, for two thousand 
 francs, was to make a bid, but not soon enough to save the 
 sale. This was an idea of Dutocq's which he proceeded to 
 put into execution. Fifteen thousand francs more must be 
 insisted on to bribe this new bidder; consequently he would 
 get seven thousand five hundred more; and he needed it to 
 settle an affair absolutely similar to that of Thuillier, pointed 
 out to him by Claparon, who was stupefied by disaster. The 
 matter in question was a house in the Rue Geoffroy-Marie, 
 which was to be sold for sixty thousand francs. The Widow 
 Poiret offered him ten thousand francs, the wine-mer- 
 chant did the same, and bills for ten thousand more. 
 These thirty thousand francs and what he was to get, added to 
 six thousand that he had of his own, allowed him to tempt 
 fortune with all the more reason because the twenty-five thou- 
 sand due from la Peyrade seemed a certainty. 
 
 "The time is up," thought Theodose, as he went to ask 
 Dutocq to send Cerizet to see him, "suppose I try to shake off 
 my leech." 
 
 "You can only settle this business in Cerizet's office, since 
 Claparon is in it," said Dutocq. 
 
 So between seven and eight o'clock Theodose made his ap- 
 pearance in the usurer's den, Dutocq having announced in 
 the morning that the man of capital intended to call. 
 
 La Peyrade was ushered into the hideous kitchen where 
 misery was made into mince-meat, and where the tortures 
 were concocted of which we have had a glimpse. The two
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 145 
 
 men walked up and down the room exactly like beasts in a 
 cage while playing this scene. 
 
 "Have you brought the fifteen thousand francs?" 
 
 "No ? but I have them at home." 
 
 "Why not in your pocket?" said Cerizet with asperity. 
 
 "That I will tell you/' replied the lawyer, who between the 
 Hue Saint-Dominique and 1'Estrapade had decided on his 
 line of conduct. 
 
 The Provengal, while turning on the gridiron on which 
 his partners had stretched him, had a bright idea that 
 flashed from the heart of the hot coals. Danger has its mo- 
 ments of illumination. He would trust to the power of truth- 
 fulness, which can move any man, even a scoundrel. A duel- 
 ist is almost always favorably disposed towards an adversary 
 who strips to the waist. 
 
 "Hm !" said Cerizet. "Now the fun begins !" 
 
 The words were sinister, and spoken through his nose with 
 an ominous accent. 
 
 "You have placed me in a splendid position, and I will 
 never forget it, my good friend," said Theodose, with deep 
 feeling. 
 
 "Oh ! If that's all !" said Cerizet. 
 
 "Listen to me. You do not know what my intentions are/' 
 
 "Indeed I do !" replied the usurer. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You do not intend to pay up those fifteen thousand " 
 
 Theodose, with a shrug, looked hard at Cerizet, who, 
 startled by his expression, stopped short. 
 
 "Would you stand in my place, knowing that you were with- 
 in range of a gun loaded with grape-shot, without wanting 
 to put an end to the situation? Now, just listen to me. 
 Your business is very risky, and it would be a good thing for 
 you to have a trustworthy protector at the headquarters of 
 justice in Paris. I, by going steadily on my way, may, in 
 three years, be public prosecutor, or even advocate-general. 
 Now and here, I offer you an unfailing friendship which will
 
 146 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 certainly serve your turn if only to recover a respectable posi- 
 tion later. These are my conditions " 
 
 "Conditions!" exclaimed Cerizet. 
 
 "Within ten minutes I will bring you twenty-five thousand 
 francs, in exchange for all the claims you hold against me." 
 
 "And Dutocq, and Claparon?" cried Cerizet. 
 
 "Leave them in the lurch," whispered Theodose, in his 
 friend's ear. 
 
 "That is a neat trick !" retorted Cerizet. "And you have 
 invented this little thimble-rig since you had fifteen thou- 
 sand francs in your palm which don't belong to you !" 
 
 "I have added ten thousand. And, after all, we know each 
 other." 
 
 "If you can get ten thousand francs out of your old buf- 
 fers," exclaimed Cerizet eagerly, "you can extract fifteen. 
 Thirty thousand and I'm your man. If you are frank, so 
 am I." 
 
 "You ask for the impossible !" exclaimed Theodose. "At 
 this moment, if you had a Claparon to deal with, your fifteen 
 thousand francs would be gone, for the house belongs to 
 Thuillier/' 
 
 "I will go and tell him," replied Cerizet, pretending to go 
 and consult Claparon upstairs in the room whence Claparon 
 had departed, packed into a hackney cab, ten minutes before 
 Theodose came. 
 
 The antagonists had, as may be supposed, talked in under- 
 tones, and if Theodose raised his voice, Cerizet conveyed to 
 him by a gesture that Claparon might be listening. The five 
 minutes during which la Peyrade heard a hum of two voices, 
 as he believed, were agonizing, for his whole life was at stake. 
 
 Cerizet presently came down, a smile on his lips, his eyes 
 sparkling with infernal malice, tremulous with glee, terrific 
 in a cheerful mood. 
 
 "I know nothing myself," said he, shrugging his shoulders, 
 "but Claparon has friends; he has been working for bankers 
 of the upper class, and he went into fits of laughter, saying, 
 'Just what I expected !' You will have to bring me those
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 14? 
 
 twenty-five thousand francs you offered me, and to redeem 
 your bills all the same, my boy." 
 
 "And why?" asked Theodose, feeling his spinal marrow 
 turn fluid, as if melted by the discharge of some internal elec- 
 tric shock. 
 
 "The house is ours!" 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 "Claparon bid a higher price in the name of the first man 
 who proceeded against him, a little toad named Sauvaignou. 
 Desroches, the attorney, has the matter in hand, and you will 
 have formal notice to-morrow morning. It is such a capital 
 job that it is worth our while Claparon's, Dutocq's, and 
 mine to find the cash. Where should I be without Cla- 
 paron ? And I have forgiven him. I forgive him, and though 
 you may hardly believe me, my dear fellow, we have kissed 
 and made friends. You must modify your conditions." 
 
 The last words were appalling, especially as emphasized by 
 Cerizet's countenance; he was allowing himself the pleasure 
 of playing a scene out of Le Legataire, while studying the 
 Provengal character. 
 
 "Oh ! Cerizet," cried Theodose, "and I meant so well by 
 you !" 
 
 "You see, my dear boy," replied Cerizet, "between you and 
 me, this is what is wanted !" And he struck his heart. "You 
 have none. As soon as you fancy you have a hold over us you, 
 try to squeeze us flat. I rescued you from the horrors of ver- 
 min and starvation, but you will die like a fool. We brought 
 you face to face with fortune; we slipped you into the hand- 
 somest society-skin; we put you where you had only to help 
 yourself and after all that ! Now I know you. We march 
 under arms." 
 
 "This is war!" said Theodose. 
 
 "You fired first," said Cerizet. 
 
 "But if you do for me, good-bye to all your hopes; and 
 even if you let me alone, you make me your enemy." 
 
 "That is what I said yesterday to Dutocq," said C6rizet 
 coolly. "But what can I do? We will choose between the
 
 148 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 two alternatives, and act according to circumstances. I am a 
 good sort/' he went on, after a pause ; "bring me that twenty- 
 five thousand francs to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, and 
 Thuillier shall keep the house. We will still do our best for 
 you, at both ends, and you must pay. . . . Now, after 
 what has passed, my boy, is not that very handsome treat- 
 ment?" 
 
 And Cerizet slapped him on the shoulder with a sort of 
 cynicism that was a worse brand than that of the executioner's 
 iron. 
 
 "Well, give me till midday/' said the Provencal, "for there 
 will be a tough pull, as you say/' 
 
 "I will try to persuade Claparon, but he is a man in a 
 hurry." 
 
 "Well, then, till to-morrow," said Theodose, in a tone of 
 determination. 
 
 "Good-night, my friend/' said Cerizet, in a nasal tone, 
 which degraded the noblest word in the language. "There is 
 a fellow who has powers of suction !" said he to himself, as he 
 watched Theodose walking down the street with the uncer- 
 tain gait of a bewildered man. 
 
 When Theodose turned into the Eue des Postes, he went at 
 a swift pace to the Collevilles' house, working himself up by 
 talking aloud. And under the heat of his seething passions, 
 the sort of interior fire that is known to many Parisians 
 for such hideous situations are common enough in Paris he 
 rose to a pitch of frenzy and rhetoric which one word will de- 
 pict. At the corner of the Eue Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, 
 in the Eue des Deux Eglises, he cried aloud : 
 
 "I will kill him !" 
 
 "There is a man who is not best pleased !" observed a work- 
 man, whose ironical comment served to quench the incan- 
 descent madness that was coming upon Theodose. 
 
 As he left Cerizet, the idea had occurred to him of confid- 
 ing in Flavie, and confessing everything to her. This is the 
 way with Southern natures; strong up to the verge of certain 
 passions which overbalance them.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 149 
 
 He went in. Flavie was alone in her room ; when she saw 
 Theodose she thought he had come to possess her or to kill 
 her. 
 
 "What is the matter ?" she cried. 
 
 "The matter ! Do you love me, Flavie ?" 
 
 "Can you doubt it?" 
 
 "Wholly, positively even as a criminal." 
 
 "Has he murdered somebody ?" thought she. She answered 
 with a nod. 
 
 La Peyrade, thankful to clutch at that willow-bough, 
 crossed from his chair to the sofa, and two streams of tears 
 flowed from his eyes, with sobs that would have touched the 
 heart of an old judge. 
 
 "Not at home to anybody !" Flavie called out to the maid. 
 
 She shut the doors and came back to Theodose, feeling her- 
 self moved to the most maternal pity. She found the son of 
 the South stretched at full length, with his head thrown back, 
 and crying bitterly. He had taken out his handkerchief, and 
 when Flavie tried to take it from him it was soaked in tears. 
 
 "But what is it ? What is the matter ?" she asked. 
 
 Nature, keener far than art, served Theodose well ; he was 
 not playing a part now ; he was himself ; these tears, this hys- 
 terical weeping, were the signature to the farce he had been 
 acting. 
 
 "You are a baby!" said she in soft tones, as she stroked 
 Theodose's hair, and his eyes grew dry. 
 
 "You are to me the only creature in the world !" cried he, 
 kissing Flavie's hands with a sort of frenzy, "and if you are 
 true to me if you are to me as the body is to the soul nay, 
 as the soul is to the body," he added, correcting himself with 
 much grace, "then, then, I can have courage." 
 ' He rose and paced the room. 
 
 "Yes, then I can fight ; I can recover my strength, like An- 
 taeus, by embracing my mother. And I will throttle in my 
 grasp the serpents that entwine me, that give me serpents' 
 kisses, that slaver my cheeks, and thirst to suck my blood 
 my honor ! Oh ! What a thing is poverty ! How great are
 
 150 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the men who can stand and face it with a proud mien! I 
 should have done better to let myself die of hunger on my 
 camp-bed three years and a half ago. The grave is a couch 
 of ease as compared with the life I lead. For eighteen months 
 I have been crammed with respectable citizens, and just as I 
 had a chance of an honest and happy existence, of a splendid 
 future just as I was stepping forward to take a seat at the 
 table of the world's banquet, the executioner must tap me on 
 the shoulder. Yes ! the ruffian taps me on the shoulder and 
 says, Tay your tithe to the devil, or die !' And am I not to 
 trample on them, not to ram my fist down their throats to 
 their very bowels ! But I will, oh, yes, I will ! You see, 
 Flavie, my eyes are dry. Oh, I can laugh, now; I feel my 
 power, and I have recovered my strength. Tell me that you 
 love me; tell me again. The words at this moment are like 
 the word Tardon' to a criminal." 
 
 "You are terrible, my dear !" said Flavie, "oh, you are 
 crushing me !" 
 
 She could not understand, but she sank onto the sofa, half 
 dead and overset by this scene. Theodose fell on his knees 
 before her. 
 
 "Forgive me, forgive me," he cried. 
 
 "But what is it all about?" said she. 
 
 "They are bent on ruining me. Oh ! promise me that I shall 
 marry Celeste, and you will see what a happy life you shall 
 share. If you hesitate well, that will mean that you shall be 
 mine I will have you !" 
 
 And he started forward with such vehemence that Flavie 
 was terrified, and began to walk about. 
 
 "Ah, my angel ! At your feet there a miracle ! God is 
 certainly on my side ; I had, as it were, a lightning flash ! A 
 sudden idea came to me ! Thanks, thanks, my good angel, 
 great Theodosius ! Thou hast saved me !" 
 
 Flavie admired this chameleon creature; kneeling on one 
 knee, his hands crossed on his breast, and his eyes raised to 
 heaven in religious rapture, he repeated a prayer ; he was the 
 most fervent Catholic; he crossed himself. It was as glori- 
 ous as the ecstasy of Saint Jerome.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 151 
 
 "Good-bye," said he, with a tone of melancholy that was 
 fascinating. 
 
 "Oh !" cried Flavie, "leave me that handkerchief." 
 
 Theodose ran downstairs, like a lunatic, into the street, 
 and away to the Thuilliers' ; but he looked round, saw Flavie 
 at her window, and waved his hand in triumph. 
 
 "What a man !" said she to herself. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Theodose to Thuillier, in a calm, 
 soothing, almost coaxing voice, "we are in the power of atro- 
 cious villains, but I am going to give them a little lesson." 
 
 "What is wrong?" said Brigitte. 
 
 "Why, they want twenty-five thousand francs, and to get 
 the law on their side, the notary, or his accomplices, have 
 outbid us. Put five thousand francs in your pocket, Thuillier, 
 and come with me ; I will secure the house for you. I am mak- 
 ing myself mortal enemies !" he exclaimed. "They will be the 
 death of me, morally speaking. So long as you despise their 
 vile calumnies, and never change to me, that is all I ask. And 
 what is it, after all, but this? If I succeed, you will have 
 paid a hundred and twenty-five thousand francs for the house 
 instead of a hundred and twenty." 
 
 "And it will not begin again?" asked Brigitte, very un- 
 easily; her eyes were dilated with horrible suspicion. 
 
 "Only the creditors on the schedule have a right to raise 
 the price, and as this one only has exercised it, we are safe. 
 His claim is for no more than two thousand francs, but in a 
 business of this sort the attorneys have to be paid, and it is 
 as well to make the creditor a present of a thousand francs." 
 
 "Go, Thuillier, and get your hat and gloves," said Brigitte ; 
 "you will find the money, you know where." 
 
 "As I have let fifteen thousand francs slip through my 
 fingers for nothing, I will have no more money pass through 
 my hands. Thuillier himself shall pay it," said Theodose, 
 when he found himself alone with Brigitte. "You have 
 saved at least twenty thousand francs over the bargain I made 
 for you with Grindot. He thought he was working for the 
 notary, and you have got a freehold house which, in five years,
 
 152 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 will be worth near on a million francs. It is at the corner of 
 a boulevard." 
 
 Brigitte listened, but with uneasy attention, exactly like a 
 cat that smells mice under the floor. She looked into la Pey- 
 rade's eyes, and in spite of her acute penetration she had her 
 doubts. 
 
 "What is it, little aunt?" 
 
 "Oh ! I shall be on tenter hooks till the house is ours." 
 
 "You would give twenty thousand francs, now, wouldn't 
 you," said Theodose, "to see Thuillier in undisputed posses- 
 sion? Well, you must remember that I have made twice as 
 much for you." 
 
 "Where are we going?" asked Thuillier. 
 
 "To call on Godeschal, whom we must employ as our at- 
 torney." 
 
 "But we refused to let him marry Celeste," exclaimed the 
 old maid. 
 
 "That is the very reason I am going to him," replied Theo- 
 dose. "I have a high opinion of him ; he is a man of honor, 
 and he will feel it a fine thing to do you a service." 
 
 Godeschal, Derville's successor, had, for more than ten 
 years, been Desroches' managing clerk. Theodose, who knew 
 this) had heard the name spoken in his ear, as it were, by an 
 inner voice, in the midst of his despair, and he saw a chance 
 of placing the weapon, which Cerizet had aimed at him, in 
 Claparon's hands. But first and foremost the advocate 
 wanted to get into Desroches' office, and gain information as 
 to the position of the foe. Godeschal alone, in virtue of the 
 intimacy existing between a master and a head-clerk, could 
 help him in this. 
 
 The attorneys of Paris, when they are on such good terms as 
 Godeschal and Desroches were, live in real brotherhood, and 
 the result is a certain facility for arranging any matters that 
 can be arranged. They obtain from each other, turn and turn 
 about, such concessions as are admissible, applying the pro- 
 verb "One good turn deserves another," which is acted on, in
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 153 
 
 fact, in every profession, among ministers, officers, lawyers, 
 and merchants, everywhere, indeed,- where hostility has not 
 raised too strong a barrier between the parties concerned. 
 
 "I am getting fairly good pay on this transaction," is an 
 argument which need not be spoken; it is expressed in a ges- 
 ture, a tone, a look. And as attorneys can always meet on 
 this common ground, the matter is arranged. The counter- 
 poise to this good-fellowship lies in what may be called the 
 professional conscience. For instance, society is bound to 
 believe the physician, who, as a witness in medical law says, 
 "This substance contains arsenic;" no consideration can over- 
 come the professional pride of an actor, the sense of honor of 
 a lawyer, the incorruptibility of a minister. And a Paris at- 
 torney says, with no less blunt frankness, "You will never 
 get that done; my client is obstinate," and the adversary re- 
 plies, "Well, well, we will see." 
 
 Now, la Peyrade, a wide-awake person, had dragged his 
 gown about the courts long enough to know that legal ameni- 
 ties would serve his purpose. 
 
 "Wait in the carriage," said he to Thuillier, when they ar- 
 rived in the Rue Vivienne, where Godeschal was now master 
 of the office where he had served his apprenticeship. "You 
 need not come up unless he undertakes the job." 
 
 It was eleven o'clock at night, and la Peyrade was not dis- 
 appointed in his expectation of finding a newly fledged at- 
 torney busy in his office even so late as this. 
 
 "To what do I owe a visit from you, Monsieur 1'Avocat?" 
 said Godeschal rising to meet la Peyrade. 
 
 Foreigners and country folks, and even people of fashion, 
 may perhaps not know that advocates or barristers are to 
 attorneys what generals are to marshals; there is a line of 
 demarcation very strictly observed between the two classes 
 of lawyers in Paris. However old an attorney may be, how- 
 ever competent, he must wait on the advocate. The attorney 
 is the tactician who traces the plan of battle, collects the mu- 
 nitions of war, and sets everything in motion; the advocate 
 does the fighting. It is no more ascertainable why the law
 
 154 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 
 
 gives a client two men instead of one, than why an author 
 needs a printer and a bookseller. The Association of Advo- 
 cates forbids the members to do any legal act which is essen- 
 tially the right or duty of the attorney. Very rarely does any 
 great pleader set foot in an office; they meet in court. Still, 
 in society, these barriers do not exist, and occasionally an ad- 
 vocate, especially in la Peyrade's position, condescends so far 
 as to call on an attorney; but the cases are exceptional, and 
 generally justified by some special urgency. 
 
 "Well, to tell the truth, the matter is serious, and a very 
 delicate question must be settled by you and me. Thuillier is 
 down stairs in a coach, and I have come to you not as a 
 pleader, but as Thuillier's friend. You, and you alone, are 
 able to do him an immense service, and I told him you had 
 too noble a soul for you are the worthy successor of Der- 
 ville not to place all your abilities at his command. This 
 is the state of affairs." 
 
 After setting forth, altogether to his own advantage, the 
 trick he wished to balk by skill for attorneys meet with 
 more clients who tell lies than who tell the truth la Pey- 
 rade proceeded to his plan of campaign. 
 
 "You, my dear Maitre, must go this very evening to see 
 Desroches, explain to him the whole plot, persuade him to 
 see his client Sauvaignou to-morrow morning ; among us we 
 will extract the truth from him, and if he wants a thousand 
 francs over and above what is due to him, we will fork out, to 
 say nothing of five hundred to you and as much to Desroches, 
 if Thuillier has a letter renouncing his bid before ten o'clock 
 to-morrow morning. What can Sauvaignou want but his 
 money? Well, then, he is not likely to resist the bait of a 
 thousand-franc note, even if he is but the stalking-horse of 
 some avaricious speculator. The conflict between those who 
 are making use of him does not concern us. Come, get the 
 Thuilliers out of this scrape/' 
 
 "I will be off to Desroches this instant," said Godeschal. 
 
 "No; not before Thuillier has given you a power of attor- 
 ney, and paid you five thousand francs. In any case, cash in 
 hand is essential."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 155 
 
 After an interview at which Thuillier was present, la Pey- 
 rade took Godeschal in the carriage to Desroches' office in the 
 Rue de Bethisy, saying that they must go that way to the Hue 
 Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, and on Desroches' doorstep la Pey- 
 rade fixed for their next meeting at seven next morning. La 
 Peyrade's future life and fortune depended on the upshot of 
 this meeting; so we need not be astonished to find him over- 
 looking the customs of his brotherhood by coming to Des- 
 roches' office in order to study Sauvaignou, and to mingle in 
 the fray in spite of the danger he ran in venturing under the 
 eye of the most formidable of Paris attorneys. 
 
 As he went in and made his bow he examined Sauvaignou. 
 He was, as Theodose had supposed from his name, a Mar- 
 seillese, a superior workman, who filled the place of foreman 
 or clerk of the works, intermediary between the master car- 
 penter of the building and the workmen, and superintendent 
 of the execution of the work. The profit of the contractor 
 consists of the difference between the price fixed by the fore- 
 man and the price paid by the builder after deducting the 
 cost of materials, in regard only to the labor. 
 
 The master carpenter having been made bankrupt, Sauvai- 
 gnou had entered his name under a judgment of the Tribunal 
 of Commerce as a creditor with a claim on the unfinished 
 building, and had registered his claim. This little business 
 was the end of the general collapse. Sauvaignou, a small, 
 square man, wearing a gray drill blouse and a cap on his head, 
 was seated in an armchair. Three banknotes for a thousand 
 francs each, lying before him on Desroches' table showed la 
 Peyrade that the skirmish was over, and that the attorneys 
 had failed. Godeschal's eyes were indeed eloquent, and the 
 look flashed by Desroches on the advocate of the poor was 
 like the stroke of a pick in a grave. Stimulated by danger, 
 the Provencal rose to the occasion ; he was grand, he laid his 
 hand on the three notes and folded them up to put them into 
 his pocket. 
 
 "Thuillier does not want to deal," said he to Desroches. 
 
 "Then we are all agreed," said the terrible attorney. 
 VOL. 1436
 
 156 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Yes. Your client must repay fifty thousand francs spent 
 on the structure under the contract between Thuillier and 
 Grindot. I did not mention that to you yesterday," he added 
 to Godeschal. 
 
 "You hear that?" said Desroches to Sauvaignou. "That 
 will lead to a lawsuit that I cannot undertake without a guar- 
 antee." 
 
 "But, gentlemen," said Sauvaignou, "I cannot say any- 
 thing till I have seen the worthy man who gave me five hun- 
 dred francs on account for having signed a power of attorney 
 to him." 
 
 "Are you from Marseilles?" said Theodose to Sauvaignou 
 in the dialect of the district. 
 
 "Oh, if once he begins talking patois it's all up !" said Des- 
 roches to Godeschal in a whisper. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur." 
 
 "Well, my poor boy," Theodose went on, "they only want 
 to ruin you. Do you know what you had better do ? Pocket 
 these three thousand francs, and when the other man comes 
 take your foot-rule and give him a thrashing, and tell him he 
 is a rascal, that he was trying to make a cat's-paw of you, that 
 you revoke the power of attorney, and will return him his 
 money when two Sundays come in the middle of the week. 
 And then, with these three thousand francs and whatever 
 you have saved, get off to Marseilles. And if anything goes 
 wrong, come to this gentleman. He will always know where 
 to find me, and I will get you out of the scrape ; for not only 
 am I a good Provengal, but I am one of the leading advocates 
 in Paris, and the friend of the poor." 
 
 When the workman found support in a fellow-countryman, 
 sanctioning the reasons he had for playing the usurer false, 
 he capitulated, bargaining for three thousand five hundred 
 francs. 
 
 The fifteen hundred francs being granted, "Not a bad 
 haul !" said Sauvaignou, "and it's worth it, for he may have 
 me up for breach of contract." 
 
 "No. Do not strike the blow till he begins to talk big ; then 
 it will be self-defence."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 157 
 
 When Desroches had assured him that la Peyrade was an 
 advocate in practice, Sauvaignou signed the deed of renun- 
 ciation, including a receipt for the costs, interest, and prin- 
 cipal of his claims, in duplicate as between Thuillier and him- 
 self, each witnessed by their respective attorneys that the dis- 
 charge might be final. 
 
 "We leave you the fifteen hundred francs," said la Peyrade 
 confidentially to Desroches and Godeschal, "on condition of 
 your handing over the discharge to me. I will take Thuillier 
 to sign it before Cardot, his notary; the poor man never 
 closed an eye all night." 
 
 "Very well," said Desroches. "And you," said he, as he 
 made Sauvaignou write his name, "may congratulate yourself 
 on having earned fifteen hundred francs with great ease." 
 
 "But are they really mine, Master Scrivener?" asked the 
 Provengal uneasily. 
 
 "Oh, quite lawfully !" replied Desroches. "Only you must 
 now revoke the powers you placed in the hands of your rep- 
 resentative, dated yesterday. Go into my office there through 
 there." 
 
 Desroches explained to his head-clerk what was to be done, 
 and desired one of his pupils to take care that the messenger 
 was at Cerizet's before ten o'clock. 
 
 "I am infinitely obliged to you, Desroches," said la Pey- 
 rade, pressing the attorney's hand. "You think of everything ; 
 I shall not forget this service." 
 
 "Do not hand your bid in to Cardot till after twelve 
 o'clock." 
 
 "And you, old boy," cried Theodose to Sauvaignou, "take 
 your Poll to Belleville for the day; don't go home, whatever 
 you do." 
 
 "I understand," said Sauvaignou, "nabbed to-morrow !" 
 
 "I believe you," said la Peyrade, with a peculiar Provengal 
 cry. 
 
 "There is something beneath all this," said Desroches to 
 Godeschal, just as the advocate came back into the private 
 room from the office.
 
 158 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "The Thuilliers have secured a fine property for nothing, 
 that's all/' said Godeschal. 
 
 "La Peyrade and Cerizet are to me just like two divers 
 fighting under water. What am I to say to Cerizet, who sent 
 the job to me ?" asked Desroches of the lawyer, after making 
 this keen remark in an undertone. 
 
 "That Sauvaignou forced your hand," replied la Peyrade. 
 
 "And you are not afraid ?" said Desroches, point-blank. 
 
 "I !" said Theodose. "I can give him points !" 
 
 "I will know all about it to-morrow," said Desroches to 
 Godeschal. "A beaten man will always blab." 
 
 La Peyrade went off with his declaration. By eleven 
 o'clock he was in waiting on the magistrate, calm and resolute, 
 and as he saw Cerizet come in pale with rage, his eyes glis- 
 tening with venom, he said in his ear : 
 
 "My dear fellow, I am good-natured too! I still have the 
 twenty-five thousand francs at your service in exchange for 
 all the bills you hold in my name." Cerizet looked at him, 
 incapable of saying a word; he was green; his bile had risen. 
 
 "I am a landowner, in full possession !" exclaimed Thuil- 
 lier, as he came home from seeing Jacquinot, Cardot's son-in- 
 law and successor. "No human power can deprive me of my 
 house; they have told me so." 
 
 Middle-class men believe a notary far rather than an at- 
 torney ; the notary is closer to them than any other ministerial 
 official. A Paris citizen is not without some alarm when he 
 goes to see his attorney, whose pugnacious daring bewilders 
 him, while he always goes with fresh pleasure to call on the 
 notary, and admires his wisdom and good sense. 
 
 "Cardot, who is looking out for a handsome residence, is 
 ready to take a second floor apartment," said he, "and on Sun- 
 day, if I like, he will introduce me to a landlord who will 
 take the whole house to sublet, for a lease of eighteen years, 
 at forty thousand francs a year, he to pay the rates and taxes. 
 What do you think, Brigitte ?" 
 
 "We must wait," replied she. "Ah! our dear Theodose 
 gave me a terrible fright."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 159 
 
 "Hallo! My dear. But you do not know that Cardot 
 asked me who had put me in the way of this stroke of busi- 
 ness, and said I owed him a present of ten thousand francs, at 
 least. In fact, I owe him everything." 
 
 "But he is like pur own child," replied Brigitte. 
 
 "Poor boy, and to do him justice, he asks for nothing." 
 
 "Well, my dear fellow," said la Peyrade, coming in from, 
 court at about three o'clock, "so here you are, immensely 
 rich !" 
 
 "And by your act, my dear Theodose." 
 
 "And you, little aunt ; are you alive again ? You were not 
 half so frightened as I was. I take more care for your inter- 
 ests than for my own. I did not breathe freely till eleven 
 o'clock this morning ; and now I am certain I have two mortal 
 foes at my heels in the two men I have thrown over for you. 
 As I came home I could not help wondering what the influ- 
 ence was that you have over me to make me commit this kind 
 of crime, and whether the happiness of being one of your 
 family, of becoming your son, can wipe out the stain I feel on 
 my conscience." 
 
 "Pooh, you will get rid of it at confession," said Thuillier, 
 the free-thinker. 
 
 "Now," Theodose went on to. Brigitte, "you can pay the 
 price of the property in perfect security, eighty thousand 
 francs, and thirty thousand to Grindot; a hundred and 
 twenty thousand francs in all; with your share of the costs, 
 these last twenty thousand make it up to a hundred and 
 forty thousand. If you let the house to a tenant for sublet- 
 ting, make him pay a year's rent in advance, and reserve the 
 first floor above the entresol for my wife and me. Even then 
 you can get forty thousand francs a year, for twelve years. If 
 you should wish to leave this neighborhood and live nearer to 
 the Chamber, you will have ample room to live with us in that 
 spacious first floor, reserving the coach-house and stables and 
 everything needed for a handsome style of living. And now, 
 Thuillier, I mean to get you the Cross of the Legion of 
 Honor."
 
 160 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 At this last flash of hope Brigitte exclaimed : 
 
 "On my word, boy, you have managed our business so well, 
 that I leave it to you to conclude the bargain for the house." 
 
 "Do not abdicate, my lady aunt," said Theodose. "And 
 God preserve me from ever taking a step without you ! You 
 are the good genius of the family. I am thinking only of the 
 day when Thuillier sits in the Chamber. You will have forty 
 ! thousand francs in hand within the next two months ; and 
 that will not hinder Thuillier from getting his ten thousand 
 francs at the end of the first quarter." 
 
 Having given the old maid this hope, and leaving her jubi- 
 lant, he led Thuillier into the garden, and without beating 
 about the bush, he said: 
 
 "My dear fellow, find some excuse for asking your sister to 
 give you ten thousand francs, and never let her suspect that 
 they pass into my hands. Tell her the money is insisted on 
 in the office to enable you to be made chevalier of the Legion 
 of Honor, and that you know to whom to give it." 
 
 "That will do," said Thuillier. "Besides, I can repay her 
 out of the rent." 
 
 "Get the cash by this evening, my good fellow ; I am going 
 out to see about the Cross, and to-morrow we shall know where 
 we are." 
 
 "What a man you are !" cried Thuillier. 
 
 "The Ministry will not stand much longer, we must get 
 this out of them !" said Theodose shrewdly. 
 
 La Peyrade hastened off to see Madame Colleville, and 
 said, as he went in: 
 
 "I have won ! We shall have secured a property worth a 
 million francs for Celeste; Thuillier will settle it on her in 
 reversion, by her marriage contract. But we must keep the 
 secret, or Celeste will have peers of France paying court to 
 her. And the settlements will have to include me. Now 
 dress, and come with me to call on the Comtesse du Bruel; 
 she can get the Cross for Thuillier. While you are putting 
 on your war-paint, I will go and say something pretty to 
 Celeste; you and I can chat in the carriage."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 161 
 
 La Peyrade had caught sight of Celeste and Felix Phellion 
 in the drawing-room; Flavie had such perfect confidence in 
 her daughter that she had left her with the young professor. 
 
 Since the grand triumph he had won that morning, Theo- 
 dose felt the necessity of paying his first addresses to Celeste. 
 The moment for getting up a quarrel between these two had 
 come; he did not hesitate to put his ear to the drawing-room 
 door, before going in, to hear what little of the word love they 
 had by this time come to, and he was really invited, so to 
 speak, to commit this domestic breach of faith by certain 
 tones of voice which led him to conclude that they were quar- 
 reling. Love, says one of our poets, is the privilege in which 
 two beings indulge of causing each other a great deal of grief 
 over nothing at all. 
 
 Having, once for all, made Felix the choice of her heart as 
 her companion for life, Celeste felt less desire to study his 
 character than to become united to him by that communion 
 of soul which is the foundation of all true affection, and 
 which in young minds means an involuntary cross-question- 
 ing. The dispute which Theodose was fated to overhear had 
 its origin in a difference of opinion which had simmered for 
 some days between the mathematician and Celeste. 
 
 The girl, the outcome, morally, of the period when Madame 
 Colleville was endeavoring to repent of her sins, was immov- 
 ably pious; she was of the true flock of the faithful, and in 
 her unflinching Catholicism, tempered by the mysticism 
 which appeals to youthful souls, was the poetry of her heart, 
 the life within her life. From this stage girls go on to be 
 saints or very frivolous women. But during that phase of 
 their youth they have in their souls a touch of dogmatism, the 
 ideal of perfection is always before the e} r e of their fancy, for 
 them everything must be celestial, angelic, or divine. 
 Nothing outside that ideal can be allowed to exist ; everything 
 else is mud and filth. And this idea often leads to the rejec- 
 tion of a flawed diamond by a girl, who, as a woman, will wor- 
 ship paste. 
 
 Now Celeste had discerned that in matters of faith Felix
 
 162 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 
 
 was not irreligious but indifferent. Like most geometricians, 
 mathematicians, chemists, and great naturalists, he had sub- 
 jected religion to argument, and had found it a problem as 
 insoluble as the squaring of the circle. A deist at heart, he 
 still professed the religion of most Frenchmen without at- 
 taching any more importance to it than to the laws of last 
 July. There must be a God in heaven as there must be the 
 bust of a King at the Mairie. 
 
 Felix Phellion, the worthy son of his father, had not at- 
 tempted to conceal his mind; he allowed Celeste to read it 
 with the frankness and simplicity of an inquirer ; and the girl 
 confused the religious and the practical questions; she had a 
 deeply seated horror of atheism, and her confessor had told 
 her that a deist is first cousin to an atheist. 
 
 "Have you remembered, Felix, to do what you promised 
 me ?" asked Celeste as soon as her mother had left the room. 
 
 "No, my dear Celeste," replied Felix. 
 
 "Oh ! can you break a promise !" said she gently. 
 
 "It would be profanation," said Felix. "I love you so 
 much, and my love makes me so weak to your wishes, that I 
 promise a thing against my conscience Conscience, Celeste, 
 is our greatest treasure, our strength, our support. How 
 could jon wish me to go into a church to kneel before a priest 
 who is to me no more than a man ? You would have despised 
 me if I had obeyed you." 
 
 "And so, my dear Felix, you will not go to church?" said 
 Celeste, with a tearful glance at her lover. "If I were your 
 wife, you would leave me to go alone ? you do not love me as 
 I love you ! for till this moment I have cherished in my 
 heart a feeling for an atheist antagonistic to what God would 
 have in me." 
 
 "An atheist !" cried Felix, "no, no ! Listen, Celeste. There 
 is a God, no question; I believe in Him, but I have a loftier 
 idea of Him than your priests have. I do not lower Him to 
 my level. I try to rise to His. I listen to the voice He has 
 placed within me which honest men call their conscience, and 
 I try not to darken the rays of divine light that come to me.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 163 
 
 Never will I do anybody an injury, never will I sin against 
 the law of universal morality which was that of Confucius, 
 of Moses, of Pythagoras, of Socrates, and of Jesus Christ. I 
 dwell in the presence of God; my actions are my prayers. I 
 will never lie, my word is sacred, I will never do anything 
 base or vile. These are the tenets I derive from my excellent 
 father, and these I will bequeath to my children. I will do all 
 the good I can in the world even if I should suffer for it. 
 What more can you ask of a man?" 
 
 Celeste shook her head mournfully over this profession of 
 faith. 
 
 "Eead the Imitation of Christ" said she, "and read it at- 
 tentively. Try to be converted to the Holy Catholic, Apos- 
 tolic, Eoman Church, and you will understand how foolish 
 your words are. Listen, Felix. According to the Church, 
 marriage is not the affair of a day, the satisfaction of desire; 
 it is a bond for eternity. What, are we to live united by day 
 and night, and be one flesh, one spirit, and can we have in our 
 hearts two languages, two religions, a perpetual ground of 
 dissensions? Wpuld you condemn me to weeping in secret 
 over the state of your soul ; could I appeal to God if I con- 
 stantly beheld His right hand armed to punish you? Your 
 deistic blood, your convictions, might dwell in my children ! 
 Oh, Heaven, how many sorrows for a wife ! No, the idea is 
 intolerable. Felix, be of my faith, for I can never be of 
 yours. Do not set a yawning gulf between us. If you loved 
 me, by this time you would have read the Imitation of 
 Christ." 
 
 The Phellions, sons of the Constitutionnel, had no love of 
 priests. Felix was so rash as to answer this sort of supplica- 
 tion uttered by a yearning soul. 
 
 "You are repeating a lesson taught you by your confessor, 
 Celeste." said he, "and nothing is more fatal to happiness 
 than the intervention of priests in domestic matters " 
 
 "Oh !" cried Celeste, indignantly, for love alone had made 
 her speak, "you do not love me. The voice of my heart is not 
 heard in yours. You have not understood me because you
 
 164 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 have not apprehended my meaning, and I forgive you, for 
 you know not what you say." 
 
 She wrapped herself in proud silence, and Felix went to the 
 window, where he sat drumming with his fingers on the glass, 
 a sort of music very familiar to those who lose themselves in 
 bitter reflections. Felix, in fact, was putting these curious 
 but crucial questions to his Phellion conscience: 
 
 "Celeste is a wealthy heiress, and if I yield to her views in 
 opposition to the voice of natural religion, it would be that 
 I might make an advantageous marriage, which is a base ac- 
 tion. As a father of a family I could not allow priests to have 
 the smallest influence in my home ; if I give way now, I shall 
 be guilty of an act of weakness that would lead to many more, 
 equally fatal to the authority of a husband and father. All 
 this is unworthy of a philosopher." 
 
 He went back to his beloved Celeste. 
 
 "Celeste," said he, "on my knees I implore you not to con- 
 fuse things which the law in its wisdom has divided. We live 
 for two worlds, that of society and that of Heaven. Each one 
 must go his own way to work out his salvation ; but as to social 
 life, is not the observance of its law obedience to God ? Christ 
 said, 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' Caesar 
 is the political world. Now, let us forget this little quarrel." 
 
 "A little quarrel !" exclaimed the enthusiast. "I desire that 
 you should have my heart, whole, as I would have yours, and 
 you divide it into two parts ! Is not this dreadful ? You for- 
 get that marriage is a sacrament." 
 
 "Your priests have turned your brain !" cried the mathema- 
 tician, out of all patience. 
 
 "Monsieur Phellion," said Celeste, hastily interrupting 
 him, "enough of this subject." 
 
 It was at this moment that Theodose thought it necessary 
 to intervene; he found Celeste pale and the young professor 
 uneasy, as a lover must be who has just vexed his mistress. 
 
 "I heard the word enough has there been too much ?" he 
 asked, looking at Celeste and Felix by turns. 
 
 "We were speaking of religion," replied Felix, "and I was
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 165 
 
 explaining to mademoiselle how fatal clerical influence must 
 be to the privacy of home 
 
 "That was not the point, monsieur/' cried Celeste, with 
 asperity. "The question is, can a husband and wife make but 
 one heart when one is an atheist and the other a Catholic?" 
 
 "Are there any atheists?" cried Theodose, with an expres- 
 sion of the deepest amazement. "Can a Catholic marry a 
 Protestant ? No salvation is possible for a couple excepting in 
 absolute conformity on all points of religious opinion. I, to 
 be sure, I am a native of the Comtat, and of a family which 
 once gave a pope to Eome, for our coat-of-arms is gules, a key 
 argent with a friar carrying a church, and a pilgriirl holding a 
 staff or, and the motto, 'J'ouvre et je ferine? and I, I say, 
 am fiercely immovable on the subject. However, in these 
 days, thanks to the modern system of education, such discus- 
 sions are not thought extraordinary ! I, as I say, would not 
 marry a Protestant even if she had millions not even if I 
 went mad for love of her! Faith admits of no discussion: 
 Una fides, unus Dominus that is my motto in politics." 
 
 "You hear!" cried Celeste triumphantly, as she turned to 
 Felix. 
 
 "I am no bigot," la Peyrade went on. "I go to mass at six 
 in the morning when no one sees me; I fast on Friday; in 
 short, I am a son of the Church, and I would never begin 
 any serious undertaking without preliminary prayer, after the 
 manner of our forefathers. No one sees anything of my reli- 
 gion. During the Revolution of 1789 an incident occurred 
 in my family which attached us all more closely than ever 
 to our holy Mother Church. There was a poor Demoiselle de 
 la Peyrade, of the senior branch, the owners of the little estate 
 of la Peyrade for we are la Peyrade des Canquoelles, though 
 the two branches inherit reciprocally. This young lady had 
 married, six years before the Revolution, a lawyer who, in the 
 fashion of the time, was a Voltairean, that is to say, an unbe- 
 liever; or, if you choose, a deist. He took up revolutionary 
 notions and went in for those pleasing rites of which you have 
 heard, in honor of the goddess Reason, He came back to
 
 166 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 our part of the world soaked to fanaticism in the Convention. 
 His wife was extremely handsome; he compelled her to play 
 the part of Liberty. The unfortunate woman went mad 
 she died mad. Well, and in the present state of things we 
 may very well see another 1793." 
 
 This romance, invented on the spur of the moment, made 
 so deep an impression on Celeste's fresh and innocent im- 
 agination that she rose and, bowing to the two young men. 
 went to her room. 
 
 "Monsieur! wha't have you said!" cried Felix, stricken to 
 the heart by the cold glance which Celeste bestowed on him 
 with an affectation of utter indifference. "She fancies herself 
 figuring already as the goddess Reason." 
 
 "What, then, was the subject in dispute ?" 
 
 "My indifference on religious matters," 
 
 "The curse of our age !" replied Theodose, with solemnity. 
 
 "Here I am," said Madame Colleville, appearing, very 
 handsomely dressed. "But what is the matter with my poor 
 child? She is crying " 
 
 "Crying, madame ?" exclaimed Felix. "Tell her, pray, that 
 I will forthwith study the Imitation of Christ" 
 
 And Felix went downstairs with Theodose and Flavie, the 
 lawyer pressing her arm significantly to make her understand 
 that he would explain to her in the carriage what had so 
 greatly agitated the young professor. 
 
 An hour later, Madame Colleville, w.ith Celeste, Colleville, 
 and Theodose, went in to dine with the Thuilliers. Theodose 
 and Flav;e led Thuillier into the garden, where Theodose 
 said, "My dear fellow, you will have the Cross within a week. 
 Here, this sweet friend will tell you all about our visit to 
 Madame la Comtesse du Bruel " 
 
 And Theodose left them together on seeing Desroches ap- 
 proaching in the wake of Mademoiselle Thuillier, A fearful 
 and chilling presentiment led him to go forward to meet the 
 attorney. 
 
 "My dear sir," said Desroches in la Peyrade's ear, "I have
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 167 
 
 come to see whether you can command twenty-five thousand 
 francs, and two thousand six hundred and eighty francs, sixty 
 centimes, for costs." 
 
 "Then you are acting for Cerizet ?" cried the advocate. 
 
 "He has handed the papers over to Louchard, so you know 
 what awaits you after arrest. Now, is Cerizet wrong in sup- 
 posing you to have twenty-five thousand francs in your desk ? 
 You offered them to him, and to him it seems only natural 
 that you should not keep them locked up " 
 
 "I am much obliged for your kind intent," said Theodose, 
 "but, my dear sir, I foresaw this move." 
 
 "Between you and me," said the attorney, "you tricked him 
 handsomely. The old rogue will go any lengths for revenge, 
 for if you cast your gown to the sharks and go to prison he 
 will lose every penny." 
 
 "I !" cried Theodose. "Oh, I will pay. But there are five 
 more bills out each for five thousand francs; what does he 
 mean to do with them ?" 
 
 "Well, after this morning's business, I cannot say ; but my 
 client is a cunning dog and a mangy one; he has his little 
 plans, no doubt." 
 
 "Come, now, Desroches," said Theodose, taking the lean, 
 unbending attorney by the waist, "are the papers still in your 
 hands?" 
 
 "Do you mean to pay ?" 
 
 "Yes; give me three hours." 
 
 "Very good. Be at my place at nine o'clock. I will take 
 your cash and give you the bills; but by half-past nine Lou- 
 chard has them " 
 
 "All right to-night at nine," said Theodose. 
 
 "At nine," replied Desroches, whose eye had taken in the 
 whole family then assembled in the garden. 
 
 Celeste, with reddened eyes, was chatting with her god- 
 mother. Colleville and Brigitte, Flavie and Thuillier, were 
 on the steps of the broad, double flight from the garden up to 
 the entrance hall. Said Desroches to Theodose, who had led 
 him back there-
 
 768 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "You can certainly afford to pay your notes of hand." 
 
 At a single glance Desroches had understood all that the 
 advocate had taken in hand. 
 
 On the following morning, at break of day, Theodose went 
 to the "poor man's banker" to see what effect had been pro- 
 duced on the foe by the payment so punctually made over- 
 night, and to make one more effort to free himself from this 
 gad-fly. 
 
 He found Cerizet up and stirring, in colloquy with a wo- 
 man, and was somewhat imperatively desired to keep his 
 distance so as not to disturb the interview. This left la Pey- 
 rade at leisure to conjecture what gave this woman her im- 
 portance an importance to which the usurer's anxious ex- 
 pression bore ample testimony. Theodose had a suspicion, 
 though a very vague one, that the purport of this conference 
 would in some way affect Cerizet's intentions, for he could 
 see in the man's countenance the complete change that comes 
 of hope. 
 
 "But, my good Hainan Cardinal " 
 
 "Well, my worthy monsieur " 
 
 'What do you want ?" 
 
 "You must make up your mind- 
 
 Such beginnings or endings of sentences were the only 
 gleams of light cast on the motionless listener by this eager 
 conversation, carried on as it was lip to ear and ear to lip; 
 and la Peyrade's attention was riveted on Madame Cardinal. 
 
 Madame Cardinal was one of Cerizet's chief customers. 
 She was a costermonger trading in fish. Though Parisians 
 may be familiar with this class of beings peculiar to their soil, 
 foreigners never suspect their existence; and technically 
 speaking, Madame Cardinal was worthy of the interest she 
 had aroused in the lawyer. So many women of the type are 
 to be seen in the streets that the ordinary foot-passenger pays 
 no more heed to them than to the three thousand pictures in 
 an exhibition. But here, in these surroundings, Madame Car- 
 dinal had all the importance of an isolated masterpiece, for 
 she was a perfect example of her kind.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 169 
 
 She stood high in muddy wooden shoes; but her feet, be- 
 sides being carefully wrapped in sock-linings, were also clad 
 in stout, wrinkled stockings. Her print gown, heavy with a 
 flounce of mud, showed the wear of the strap which supports 
 the saleswoman's basket, cutting across the back rather below 
 the waist. Her principal wrap was a shawl of rabbit-wool, so 
 called, and the two ends were tied in a knot above her bustle, 
 for this word alone can describe the effect produced by the 
 strap across her skirts, bunching them up in a roll. A coarse 
 knit, tied round her neck as a scarf, showed a red throat, 
 crossed with wrinkles, like the ice on the pool of la Villette 
 after skating. On her head she wore a yellow bandana 
 twisted into a not unpicturesque turban. 
 
 Short and burly, with a fine high color, Madame Cardinal 
 no doubt relished her glass of brandy first thing in the morn- 
 ing. She had been handsome. Her "pals" of the market ac- 
 cused her in their vigorous figure of speech of having earned 
 many a day's wages by night. To bring her voice down to the 
 pitch of civil conversation, it had to be stifled and subdued 
 as if she were in a sick-room, and then it came thick and 
 wheezy from a throat accustomed to shout the name of each 
 fish in its season in tones that rang in the highest garret. 
 Her nose a la Roxalane, her not ill-shaped mouth, her blue 
 eyes, all that had once been beauty was buried in the rolls of 
 superfluous fat stamped with the traces of a life in the open 
 air. The stomach and bust were of an amplitude to please 
 Kubens. 
 
 "And do you want to see me lying on straw?" said she 
 to Cerizet. "What do I care for the Toupilliers? Am I 
 not a Toupillier myself? And how do you expect me to find 
 these Toupilliers ?" 
 
 This ferocious outburst was silenced by Cerizet with a long 
 hush-sh such as every conspirator submits to. 
 
 "Well, then, go and see what you can do, and come back 
 again," said Cerizet, pushing the woman to the door and 
 saying a few words in her ear. 
 
 "Well, my good friend," said Theodose to Cerizet, "you 
 have got your money."
 
 170 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Yes/' replied Cerizet, "we have measured our claws 
 they are equally sharp, equally long, equally strong what 
 then?" 
 
 "Am I to tell Dutocq that you were paid twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs last night ?" 
 
 "Oh, my dear fellow, if you love me, not a word!" cried 
 Ce'rizet. 
 
 "Listen to me," said Theodose. "I must know once for 
 all what you want. I am fully determined not to lie another 
 twenty-four hours on the gridiron where you have put me. 
 You may swindle Dutocq, I do not care a straw; but you 
 and I must come to an understanding. Twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs is a fortune, for you must have ten thousand 
 francs made in business, and you have enough to be honest 
 upon. Cerizet, if you let me alone, if you do not hinder 
 my becoming Mademoiselle Colleville's husband, I shall rise 
 to be attorney-general in Paris, or something very like it. 
 You cannot do better than secure a friend in such high 
 places/' 
 
 "These, then, are my terms not open to discussion; 
 you take 'em or leave J em : You will secure for me the 
 lease, for eighteen years, of Thuillier's house as principal 
 landlord, to sublet, and I will hand over to you one more 
 of those I. 0. U.'s of yours, receipted. I shall stand out 
 of your way, and you must settle with Dutocq for the other 
 four. You have done with me, and Dutocq is no match for 
 you." 
 
 "Well, I agree to your terms if you will pay forty-eight 
 thousand francs a year for the house, payable in advance, 
 the lease to date from next October." 
 
 "Very good; but I will give only forty-three thousand in 
 cash ; your bill will make up the forty-eight. I have seen the 
 house, I have inspected it thoroughlv; it is just what I 
 want." 
 
 "One thing more," said Theodose, "You will help me to 
 tackle Dutocq." 
 
 "No, no!" said Cerizet; "you have done him brown
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 171 
 
 enough without my helping to bake him any more. You 
 can toast him dry. There is reason in all things. The 
 poor man does not know which way to turn for the last fif- 
 teen thousand francs to pay for his place, and it is quite 
 enough for you to know that you can get your bills back for 
 fifteen thousand francs/' 
 
 "Well, then, give me a fortnight to get you your lease." 
 
 "Not a day beyond Monday next ! On Tuesday your bill 
 for five thousand francs will be in Louchard's hands, unless 
 you pay on Monday or Thuillier has granted me the lease." 
 
 "Well, Monday, then !" said Theodose. "Are we friends ?" 
 
 "We shall be on Monday," replied Cerizet. 
 
 "Very well, till Monday. You will treat me to a dinner ?" 
 said Theodose, laughing. 
 
 "At the Rocker de Cancale, if I have the lease. Dutocq 
 too. We will have a laugh. It is a very long time since I 
 laughed." 
 
 Theodose and Cerizet shook hands, saying: 
 
 "Till we meet again !" 
 
 It was not without reason that Cerizet had been so easily 
 mollified. In the first place, as Desroches would say, "Bile 
 does not help business;" and the usurer had felt the truth 
 of this too deeply not to take stock coolly of the position, 
 and to bleed the crafty Provengal. 
 
 "It is fair revenge," said Desroches, "and you have the 
 fellow on the hip. Wring him dry." 
 
 Now, in the course of the past ten years, Cerizet had 
 seen several men enriched by the business of subletting 
 houses. The first leaseholder, in Paris, is to the owner what 
 a farmer is to the landed proprietor. All Paris knows how 
 one of the great tailors built a most sumptuous house at his 
 own cost on the famous site of Frascati, paying fifty thou- 
 sand francs as the rent of this structure, which in nine- 
 teen years was to become the property of the ground land- 
 lord. Notwithstanding the expense of building about 
 seven hundred thousand francs by the end of the nineteen 
 years the profits are very considerable. 
 1437
 
 172 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Cerizet, on the lookout for a business, had considered the 
 chances of profit to be derived from renting the house 
 which Thuillier had positively stolen, as he told Desroches, 
 and he had seen that it could be let out for more than sixty 
 thousand francs within six years' time. It had four shop 
 fronts, two on each side, as it stood at the corner of a boule- 
 vard. 
 
 Cerizet expected to make ten thousand francs a year, at 
 least, for twelve years, irrespective of incidental profits and 
 premiums on renewals of the shop leases, which he would 
 grant only for six years at a time. 
 
 He intended to sell the good-will of his money-lending 
 business to Madame Poiret and Cadenet for ten thousand 
 francs; he had more than thirty thousand in hand, so he 
 was well able to pay the year's rent in advance, which the 
 owner commonly demands from the first lessee as a guaran- 
 tee. Cerizet had spent a night in bliss; he had slept with 
 happy dreams; he saw himself on the highroad to an honest 
 business, to becoming a respectable citizen like Thuillier, like 
 Minard, like a hundred others. He gave up the idea of pur- 
 chasing the house that was being built in the Eue Geoffroy- 
 Marie. 
 
 But he awoke to luck he little expected; he found fortune 
 standing before him pouring riches on him from her golden 
 horn, in the person of Madame Cardinal. 
 
 He had always been on good terms with this woman, 
 and for the last year he had promised her the sum requisite 
 for the purchase of an ass and a small truck, that she might 
 be able to trade on a larger scale, and go out of Paris into 
 the suburbs. Madame Cardinal, the widow of a stalwart 
 market porter, had an only daughter whose beauty had been 
 much praised to Cerizet by other women, his customers. 
 Olympe Cardinal was about thirteen years of age when, in 
 1837, Cerizet had set up as money-lender, and with a view 
 to the vilest profligacy, he was most accommodating to the 
 mother; he raised her from the depths of misery, hoping 
 to make Olympe his mistress. However, in 1838, the daugh-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 173 
 
 ter had run away, and was no doubt "seeing life," to use 
 the expression by which the people describe the abuse of the 
 most precious gifts of nature and of youth. 
 
 Now, to seek a girl in Paris is like hunting for a bleak in 
 the Seine you must take the chance of a haul. Madame 
 Cardinal, having treated a "pal" to the Theatre de Bobino, 
 recognized her daughter in the leading lady, who for three 
 years had been in the power of the leading "comic." The 
 mother, charmed at first to find her progeny in gaudy, tin- 
 seled array, her hair dressed like a duchess', with silk lace 
 stockings and satin shoes, applauded her first appearance 
 on the stage; but she presently shouted out from her seat: 
 
 "You shall hear of me again, you blight on your mother ! 
 I will see whether you rascally play-actors have a right to 
 carry off girls of sixteen!" 
 
 She tried to get hold of the girl at the stage door; but 
 the damsel and her comic man had no doubt jumped over 
 the footlights, and gone out with the public, instead of by 
 the side door, where the Widow Cardinal and her ally, Ma- 
 dame Mahoudeau, made an infernal uproar subdued only 
 by two functionaries of the police. These august authori- 
 ties, before whom the two ladies moderated the pitch of 
 their voices, pointed out to the mother that if her daughter 
 was sixteen, she was of the age to go on the stage, so that 
 instead of shrieking at the stage door for the manager, she 
 could summons the girl before a magistrate or in a criminal 
 court, whichever she preferred. 
 
 Next morning Madame Cardinal thought she would con- 
 sult Cerizet, since he worked under a justice of the peace; 
 but before betaking herself to his den in the Rue des Poules 
 she had been startled by the arrival of the porter from the 
 house where her uncle lived, old Toupillier, who, as the 
 messenger informed her, had but two days to live. 
 
 "Well, how can I help that?" replied Madame Cardinal. 
 
 "We put our trust in you, my dear Madame Cardinal; 
 you will not forget the good turn we are doing you. This 
 is how things stand. In the last few weeks your uncle has
 
 174 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 not been able to stir, and he trusted me to go and collect the 
 rents of his house in Kue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, and 
 the arrears of dividends on a treasury bond he holds for 
 eighteen hundred francs " 
 
 Madame Cardinal's eyes, which had been wandering, sud- 
 denly assumed a stare. 
 
 "Yes, my beauty," the worthy Perrache went on, a little 
 hunchback, "and seeing that you are the only person that 
 ever thought of him and brought him a bit of fish now and 
 then, and came up to see him, perhaps he will remember you 
 in his will. My wife has been nursing him and sitting up 
 with him these last few days ; she has mentioned you to him, 
 but he would not let us tell you how bad he was. But you 
 see it is time you should drop in. Why, it is close on two 
 months now since he has been to business." 
 
 "You may say, old leather puncher," said she to the 
 porter a shoemaker by trade as they walked at a great 
 pace to the Eue Honore-Chevalier, where her uncle lodged 
 in a squalid garret, "that the hair would be thick in the 
 palm of my hand before it ever entered my head that Uncle 
 Toupillier was a rich man ! What, the godly old beggar of 
 Saint-Sulpice !" 
 
 "Aye !" said the porter, "and he fed himself comfortably ; 
 he took his deary to bed with him o' nights a fat bottle 
 of Eoussillon. My wife knows the taste of it; but he always 
 told us it was but six sous a bottle. He bought it at the 
 wine-shop in the Eue des Canettes." 
 
 "Now, no blabbing, my good man," said the widow, as 
 she parted from her informant. "I will remember you if 
 there is anything." 
 
 This man Toupillier, once a drum-major in the Guards, 
 had entered the service of the Church two years before 1789 
 by becoming the Suisse or beadle of the Church of Saint- 
 Sulpice. The Eevolution had deprived him of his functions, 
 and he fell into abject poverty. He then took up the busi- 
 ness of painters' model, for he was a finely made man. 
 
 When the services of the Church were restored, he re-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 175 
 
 sumed the beadle's halbert; but in 1816 he was dismissed 
 from office, as much for immoral conduct as for his politi- 
 cal opinions; he was supposed to be a Bonapartist. How- 
 ever, by way of pension, he was allowed to stand by the door 
 and offer holy water to the worshipers. 
 
 After this, a luckless business, of which more will tran- 
 spire ere long, deprived him of his sprinkler; still clinging 
 to the church by hook or by crook, he obtained leave to sit 
 outside the church door, a licensed beggar. There, being 
 by this time seventy-two years old, he gave himself out to 
 be ninety-six, and traded as a centenarian. 
 
 Nowhere in Paris could you see such hair or such a beard 
 as Toupillier's. He walked bent almost double, holding a 
 stick in a shaking hand, a hand tawny as with the lichen 
 that grows on granite, and he held out the classic hat, greasy, 
 broad-brimmed, and cobbled, into which alms fell freely. 
 His legs, wrapped in linen rags, dragged a pair of wretched 
 hempen shoes comfortably lined' with stout horse-hair soles. 
 He made up his face with ingredients that looked like the 
 traces of severe illness and deep wrinkles, and he acted the 
 senility of old age to perfection. After 1830 he was a hun- 
 dred; in reality his age was eighty years. He was the chief 
 of the beggars, the cock of the walk; and all who came to 
 beg under the church porch, protected there from the perse- 
 cutions of the police by favor of the Suisse, the verger, the 
 holy-water giver, and the parish church, paid him a sort of 
 tribute money. 
 
 When a chief mourner, a bridegroom, or a godfather, as 
 he came out of church, gave a sum of money, saying, 
 "Here, this is for you all ; no begging," Toupillier, as repre- 
 sentative of the Suisse, pocketed three-quarters of the dole, 
 and gave his acolytes but one-fourth, and their toll was a 
 sou a day. Money and wine were the passions of his later 
 day?, but he regulated his indulgence in drink and devoted 
 himself to hoarding, not, however, to the neglect of his 
 personal comfort. Pie drank only in the evening after the 
 church was closed. For twenty years he went to sleep every 
 night in the arms of intoxication, his last mistress.
 
 176 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 By daybreak every morning he was at his post with all his 
 munitions of war. From dawn till dinner which he ate 
 at Pere Lathuile's, made famous by Charlet he gnawed 
 crusts as his sole food, but with the craft of an actor, and 
 such resignation as brought him abundant alms. 
 
 The Suisse and the holy water man, with whom no doubt 
 he had an understanding, used to say of him: 
 
 "He is the recognized church-beggar; he knew the Cure 
 Languet, who built Saint-Sulpice ; he was Suisse here for 
 twenty years before and after the Revolution ; he is a hun- 
 dred years old." 
 
 This little biography, familiar to every worshiper, was the 
 best of advertisements, no hat was better filled in Paris. 
 In 1826 he bought his house, and in 1830 invested in the 
 funds. 
 
 Judging from the price of these two securities, he must 
 have been making six thousand francs a year, and have 
 turned them over by money-lending of the same type as 
 Cerizet's, for the house cost forty thousand francs and he 
 invested forty-eight thousand in the funds. His niece, 
 completely deceived, as were the porter's family, the minor 
 church officials, and the charitable souls, believed him poorer 
 than herself; and when her fish was getting high, she would 
 take it to the poor man. 
 
 So she now thought herself justified in taking advantage 
 of her liberality and her charity to an uncle who had no 
 doubt a crowd of unknown relations, since she was the third 
 and youngest of the Toupillier daughters; she had four 
 brothers, and her father, a truck-porter, had told her in her 
 young days of three aunts and four uncles of variously 
 luckless fortunes. 
 
 After visiting the invalid she returned at a hand-gallop 
 to consult Cerizet, to tell him how she had found her daugh- 
 ter, and the reasons, suppositions, and indications which led 
 her to believe that Uncle Toupillier hid a pile of gold in his 
 wretched mattress. Madame Cardinal quite understood that 
 she was not clever enough unaided to get possession of the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 177 
 
 inheritance by either fair or foul means, so she put her trust 
 in Cerizet. 
 
 The petty usurer, like a rag-picker in luck, had at length 
 found some diamonds in mire he had been raking for four 
 years in the hope of one of those strokes of chance which 
 occur, it is said, in the heart of these districts whence rich 
 men sometimes emerge in wooden shoes. This was the secret 
 of his civility to the man whose ruin was a sealed doom. 
 His anxiety may be imagined as he awaited Madame Cardi- 
 nal's return after showing her how she might verify her 
 suspicions as to the existence of the treasure, promising her 
 complete success if only she would leave it to him to har- 
 vest the crop. This dark and wily conspirator was not 
 the man to hesitate at a crime, especially if he could com- 
 mit it by other hands than his own while absorbing the 
 profits. Then he would buy the house in the Rue Geof- 
 froy-Marie, and see himself at last a citizen of Paris, a 
 capitalist in a position to carry on an extensive business. 
 
 "My Benjamin," said the costermonger, coming with a 
 purple face, the result alike of greed and of her swift re- 
 turn, "my uncle is lying on more than a hundred thousand 
 francs in gold pieces, and I am positive that the Perraches, 
 under pretence of nursing him, have an eye on the cash." 
 
 "That will not be much, divided among forty heirs/' said 
 Cerizet. "Listen to me, mother; I will marry your daugh- 
 ter, give her your uncle's gold, and I will give you the in- 
 come from the house and securities for life." 
 
 "And we shall run no risk?" 
 
 "None whatever." 
 
 "Done !" said Madame Veuve Cardinal, clasping hands 
 with her future son-in-law. "Six thousand francs a year 
 a jolly life !" 
 
 "And me for a son-in-law, into the bargain," added Ceri- 
 zet. 
 
 "Now," said Cerizet, after a pause in which the couple 
 embraced each other, "I must go and inspect the ground. 
 Do not leave this place. Tell the porter you are expecting
 
 178 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 a doctor the doctor, that's me. Pretend you do not know 
 me." 
 
 "You are a sharp one, you old rogue !" cried the woman, 
 giving Cerizet a slap on the stomach by way of farewell. 
 
 An hour later, Cerizet, dressed in black, disguised in a 
 red wig and an artistically made-up face, arrived at the Rue 
 Honore-Chevalier in a decent hired vehicle. He asked the 
 shoemaker porter to show him up to the room in which a 
 pauper lodged named Toupillier. 
 
 "Then you are the doctor Madame Cardinal is expect- 
 ing?" 
 
 Cerizet no doubt realized the gravity of the part, for he 
 made no reply. 
 
 "Is it this way?" he asked, turning to one side of the 
 courtyard. 
 
 "No, monsieur/' replied the worthy Perrache, leading him 
 to the backstairs up to the garret where the patient lodged. 
 
 The inquisitive porter remained at liberty to cross-question 
 the cab-driver, and we will leave him to the occupation of 
 carrying out his investigations. 
 
 The house in which Toupillier lived was one of ,those 
 which are fated to be cut in half by the widening of the 
 street, for the Eue Honore-Chevalier is one of the narrowest- 
 in the neighborhood of Saint- Sulpice. The owner, for- 
 bidden by law to raise or to repair the structure, was 
 obliged to sublet the wretched tenement in the state in 
 which he had bought it. It was a hideous building, con- 
 sisting of one story over the ground floor, with garrets above, 
 and a sort of wing at the back on each side. The court- 
 yard thus formed ended in a garden planted with trees, and 
 let with the first-floor rooms. This plot, divided from the 
 courtyard by a railing, would have enabled a rich owner 
 to sell the house to the municipal authorities to be rebuilt 
 on the whole of the courtyard; but as it was, the whole of 
 the first floor was sublet to a mysterious lodger who held 
 himself aloof, and had evaded all the detective efforts of the 
 porter and the curiosity of the other tenants.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 179 
 
 This resident, now seventy years of age, had, in 1829, 
 had a flight of steps thrown out of the end window of one 
 of the wings looking on the garden, so as to be able to go 
 down and walk in it without crossing the courtyard. The 
 left-hand side of the ground floor was occupied by a book- 
 stitcher, who had turned the stables and coach-house into 
 work-rooms ten years since; the other half was rented by a 
 binder. The binder and the stitcher each inhabited half of 
 the garrets to the street. Those on one side of the yard 
 were let, with the first floor, to the mysterious tenant; and 
 Toupillier paid a rent of a hundred francs for the loft over 
 the other little wing to the left, to which there was a stair- 
 case dim in borrowed lights. The carriage entrance formed 
 a bay, an indispensable arrangement in a street so narrow 
 that two vehicles could not pass. 
 
 Cerizet took the cord that served as a holdfast to climb 
 the sort of ladder that led to the room where the aged beggar 
 lay dying; the room offered the hideous aspect of poverty 
 elaborately shammed. 
 
 Now, in Paris everything that is done to an end is done to 
 perfection. The poor are in such matters as clever as shop- 
 keepers are in dressing their windows, or as the falsely rich 
 in getting credit. 
 
 The floor had never been swept; the tiles were invisible 
 under a litter of dirt, dust, dried mud, and all the rubbish 
 flung down by Toupillier. A wretched cast-iron stove 
 with a pipe bricked into a closed fireplace was the most 
 conspicuous object in this den. There was a recess with a 
 bed in it, with green serge curtains hanging from a pole, 
 and eaten into lace-work by moths. The window was almost 
 opaque with the thick deposit of dirt, which made a blind 
 unnecessary. The whitewashed walls had a fuliginous tone 
 from the smoke of charcoal and turf burned in the stove. 
 There was a chipped water-jug on the chimney shelf, with 
 two bottles and a cracked plate. A tumble-down, worm- 
 eaten chest of drawers contained the man's linen and clean 
 clothes. The rest of the furniture was a night-table of the
 
 180 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 commonest kind, a table worth perhaps forty sous, and two 
 kitchen chairs almost bare of straw. The picturesque cos- 
 tume of the customary beggar hung to a nail, and beneath 
 it, the formless hemp shoes he wore, with his enormous staff 
 and his hat, composed a sort of panoply of pauperism. 
 
 Cerizet, as he went in, cast a rapid look at the old man, 
 whose head rested on a pillow brown with dirt, and with 
 no slip. His sharp profile, resembling the faces which en- 
 gravers thought it amusing to make out of the precipitous 
 rocks in a landscape, stood out darkly against the green 
 curtain. Toupillier, a man nearly six feet high, was staring 
 hard at some imaginary object at the foot of his bed; he 
 did not move when he heard the door creak a heavy door 
 lined with iron and furnished with a strong bolt to protect 
 his domicile. 
 
 "Has he his wits?" asked Cerizet, and Madame Cardinal 
 started back, recognizing only his voice. 
 
 "Pretty well/' said she. 
 
 "Come out on the stairs, then, that he may not hear us. 
 This is what we must do," he went on, speaking in his 
 future mother-in-law's ear. "He is weak, but he does not 
 look badly, and we have quite a week before us yet. Besides, 
 I will find a doctor to suit us. I will come in one evening 
 with six poppy-heads. In the state he is in, you see, a 
 decoction of poppy-heads will make him sleep soundly. I 
 will send you in a truckle-bed under the pretext that you 
 want to spend the nights with him. When he is asleep we 
 will lift him on to the other bed, and when we have counted 
 the money hidden in that precious piece of furniture, we 
 shall easily find some means of removing it. The doctor 
 will say that he has some days yet to live, and above all that 
 he can make a will." 
 
 "My son!" 
 
 "But we must find out who the tenants are of this 
 wretched building. Perrache might give the alarm, and 
 every lodger is of course a spy." 
 
 "Well, I know already," replied Madame Cardinal, "that
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 181 
 
 Monsieur du Portail, who has the first floor, takes care of a 
 mad girl, whom I heard called Lydie, only this morning, 
 by an old Flemish nurse named Katt. The old man has 
 only one servant, an old man like himself, called Bruno, who 
 does everything but the cooking." 
 
 "But the binder and stitcher," said Cerizet, "they work 
 from early dawn. Well, we must see," he added, as a mai> 
 having no fixed plan. "At any rate, I will go round by the 
 Mayor's offices in your district to get a copy of Olympe's 
 register of birth and have the banns published. Next Satur- 
 day week, the wedding!" 
 
 "Go it, go it ! old rascal !" said Madame Cardinal, giving 
 her formidable son-in-law a friendly shove with the shoul- 
 der. 
 
 As Cerizet went downstairs he was surprised to see the 
 little old man, this du Portail, walking in the garden with 
 one of the foremost personages of the government, Count 
 Martial de la Roche-Hugon. He hung about the court- 
 yard examining the old house, built in time of Louis XIV. ; 
 its yellow walls, though of good masonry, were bowed like 
 old Toupillier; he stared into the workshops and counted the 
 hands employed; then, finding himself observed, Cerizet 
 went away, reflecting on the difficulty of extracting the sum 
 hidden by the sick man, small in compass as it was. 
 
 "How can I get it away at night? The doorkeeper is on 
 the watch; by day twenty pairs of eyes would be on me. It 
 is not so easy to stow twenty-five thousand francs in gold 
 about one's person." 
 
 Social existence has two limit-lines of perfection. The 
 first is a stage of civilization in which the moral sense being 
 equally developed does not allow of crime, even in thought: 
 the Jesuits have been known to reach this sublime height, 
 which was normal in the primitive church; the second is a 
 state of civilization in which the mutual supervision of its 
 members makes crime impossible. This, which is the stage 
 aimed at by modern society, makes a felony so difficult to 
 carry out that a man must be really out of his mind to at-
 
 182 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 tempt it. In fact, none of the misdeeds which the law fails 
 to touch go unpunished; the social verdict is even more se- 
 vere than that of any tribunal. 
 
 If a will is destroyed without a single witness to the deed, 
 as was done by Minoret, the postmaster of Nemours, the 
 crime will be traced by the keen eye of virtue, as a theft is 
 detected by the police. No act of dishonesty goes undis- 
 covered; wherever there is damage done, the scar remains 
 discernible. 
 
 Things can no more be made away with than men, so thor- 
 oughly are they numbered, especially in Paris, and houses 
 watched, streets guarded, open places observed. Crime, to 
 live at ease, needs sanction like that granted to the Bourse, 
 like that given to Cerizet by his clients, who never com- 
 plained and would only have been alarmed if they had failed 
 to find their skinflint in his kitchen on a Tuesday morn- 
 ing. 
 
 ''Well, my dear sir," said the porter's wife, going out to 
 meet Cerizet, "how is the poor man, the favorite of God?" 
 
 "I am not the doctor," said Cerizet, definitively giving up 
 the part. "I am Madame Cardinal's man of business. I 
 have advised her to have a bed brought in so as to be at hand 
 day and night to attend to her uncle; but perhaps he may 
 need a nurse." 
 
 "I could nurse him very well," said Madame Perrache; 
 "I have been a monthly nurse/' 
 
 "Well, we shall see," answered Cerizet. "I will settle all 
 that. Who lodges on the first floor?" 
 
 "Monsieur du Portail. Oh, he has lived here for thirty 
 years. He is a gentleman of private means, sir, a highly 
 respectable party. A man of means, who lives on his means, 
 you know. He used to be in business. It is about eleven 
 years since he began to try to restore the daughter of a 
 friend to her right mind Mademoiselle Lydie de la Pey- 
 rade. She is well cared for, I can tell you, by two of the 
 most famous doctors. Why, only this morning they had a 
 consultation. But up to now nothing has done her any
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 183 
 
 good; indeed, she has to be closely watched, for sometimes 
 she gets up in the night." 
 
 "Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade I" cried Cerizet. "Are 
 you quite sure of the name?" 
 
 "Madame Katt, the housekeeper, who does their little bit 
 of cooking, has told me a hundred times; though, as a rule, 
 neither Monsieur Bruno, the man-servant, nor Madame 
 Katt, will talk at all. As to asking them for information, 
 it is like speaking to a wall. We have been porters here these 
 twenty years, and never heard a word about Monsieur du 
 Portail. What is more, monsieur, he owns that little house 
 alongside. You see the door in the wall? Well, he can 
 go out when he pleases, and let people in without our know- 
 ing anything about it. Why, the house-landlord himself 
 knows no more than we do. If any one rings at the side 
 door Monsieur Bruno goes to open it." 
 
 "So you did not see the gentleman go in with whom the 
 sly old devil is now talking?" 
 
 "Lord ! No, indeed." 
 
 "This is the daughter of Theodose's uncle/' said Cerizet 
 to himself, as he got into his cabriolet. "Can this du Por- 
 tail be the man who in past days sent that young rascal two 
 thousand five hundred francs? Supposing I were to favor 
 the old gentleman with an anonymous letter, telling him 
 of the scrape his advocate nephew is in over the twenty-five 
 thousand francs in promissory notes." 
 
 An hour after this a complete camp-bed came in for Ma- 
 dame Cardinal, to whom the inquisitive porter's wife of- 
 fered her services to provide her with food. 
 
 "Would you like to see Monsieur le Cure ?" asked Madame 
 Cardinal of the old man, for she observed that the arrival 
 of the bed had roused him from his torpor. 
 
 "I want some wine," said the sufferer. 
 
 "How are you feeling, Pere Toupillier?" asked Madame 
 Perrache, in her most insinuating voice. 
 
 "I tell you I want some wine," repeated the man, with 
 such determined energy as would not have been expected 
 from his weak condition.
 
 184 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "We must know first if it will be good for you, Uncle 
 Buncle," said Madame Cardinal, in coaxing accents. "Wait 
 and see what the doctor says." 
 
 "The doctor ! I won't have one, I tell you. And what the 
 devil are you here for? I want nobody." 
 
 "My dear uncle, I came to see if anything would tempt 
 your fancy. I have some nice fresh flounders. Now a teeny 
 flounder, heh ! cooked in butter with a relish of lemon- 
 
 juice 
 
 "Much good will your fish do me," replied Toupillier; "it 
 is sheer rottenness. The last you brought me, six weeks 
 ago, is in the cupboard still; you may have it back." 
 
 "Mercy, how ungrateful these sick folks are!" said the 
 niece, in an undertone, to Madame Perrache. 
 
 Meanwhile, to show her solicitude, she settled the pillow 
 under the sick man's head, saying: 
 
 "There, uncle ! Is not that better now ?" 
 
 "Leave me alone," Toupillier bellowed, in a rage. "I want 
 to be let alone. Wine, I say, and leave me in peace." 
 
 "Now, don't be cross, uncle, and we will fetch you the 
 wine." 
 
 "Wine at six sous, Eue des Canettes !" cried the beggar. 
 
 "Yes," said Madame Cardinal; "but wait till I count 
 over my cash. I want to make your place look decent. Why, 
 an uncle, you see, is a second father, and I should stick at 
 nothing !" 
 
 She sat down, her knees wide apart, on one of the straw- 
 less chairs, and turned out all the contents of her pocket 
 on her apron a knife, a snuff-box, two pawntickets, some 
 crusts, and a quantity of copper cash, from among which 
 she finally extracted a few silver pieces. 
 
 The performance, intended to prove the most generous and 
 zealous devotion, had no effect whatever. Toupillier did not 
 seem even to have seen what she was doing. Exhausted by 
 his delirious energy in demanding his favorite panacea, he 
 made an effort to change his position, and, turning his back 
 on bis two nurses, after muttering again "Wine wine!" he
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 185 
 
 uttered no further sound but the stertorous breathing that 
 showed that the lungs and tubes were becoming clogged. 
 
 "I must get him his wine, at any rate," observed Madame 
 Cardinal, restoring to her pocket all the cargo she had un- 
 loaded, in no pleasant mood. 
 
 "If you do not care to put yourself about, Mere Cardi- 
 nal " said the porter's wife, ready to offer her services. 
 
 The market-woman hesitated for a moment; then, reflect- 
 ing that she might gain some light from a conversation with 
 the wine-seller, and also that so long as Toupillier was hatch- 
 ing the treasure the woman might safely be left with him, 
 she said: 
 
 "Thank you, Madame Perrache, but I may as well get into 
 the way of knowing the places where he shops." 
 
 Noticing behind the night-table a dirty bottle that would 
 hold at least two litres : 
 
 "Hue des Canettes, I think he said?" she asked of the 
 porter's wife. 
 
 "Corner of the Rue Guisarde," replied Madame Perrache. 
 "Master Legrelu, a tall, handsome man with large whiskers 
 and no hair on his head." 
 
 Then lowering her voice, she added: 
 
 "His six-sous wine, you know, is prime Roussillon. How- 
 ever, the wine-seller knows all about that. It will be enough 
 if you say that you have come from his old customer, the 
 Saint-Sulpice beggar." 
 
 "I don't need telling anything twice," replied Madame 
 Cardinal, opening the door but not leaving the room. 
 
 "By the by," said she, coming back, "I wonder what he 
 burns in his stove, if I wanted to heat anything to do him 
 good." 
 
 "Bless you," said the porter's wife, "he can't have laid in 
 firing for the winter; why, it is midsummer " 
 
 "And not a pan or a pot of any kind," the niece went on. 
 "What a way of living, good God! Nor a thing to go to 
 fetch home provisions in, for I declare it looks dreadful 
 mean to let everybody see what you have got at market."
 
 186 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I can lend you a flat basket," said the porter's wife, 
 anxious to oblige. 
 
 "No, thank you, I will get a market-basket," replied the 
 fish-hawker, thinking more of what might have to be car- 
 ried out of the house than of what she should bring into 
 it. "There must be an Auvergnat somewhere near by who 
 sells wood and charcoal?" 
 
 "At the corner of the Rue Feron you will find what you 
 want. A fine shop, too, with logs painted like faces in an 
 archway over the door; you could believe they were going 
 to speak to you." 
 
 "I can see it !" said Madame Cardinal. 
 
 Before finally leaving she had an idea of the deepest 
 hypocrisy. She had evidently hesitated to leave the woman 
 alone with the sick man. She now said : 
 
 "Madame Perrache, you will not leave him, will you? 
 poor dear ! not till I come back ?" 
 
 The reader may have observed that in embarking on this 
 undertaking Cerizet had no very definite plans as to the part 
 he would play. That of a doctor, which he had at first thought 
 of assuming, he was afraid of trying, and he had intro- 
 duced himself to the Perraches as Madame Cardinal's man 
 of business. As soon as he was alone he saw more clearly 
 the difficulties of the case; his first plan, complicated by a 
 doctor, a nurse, and a notary, was encompassed by insur- 
 mountable obstacles. A will in favor of the niece could 
 not be made on the spur of the moment. It would take a 
 long time to accustom the old beggar's suspicions and 
 obstinate temper to the new idea, but death was at hand, 
 and in the winking of an eye might balk his most elaborate 
 preparations. 
 
 As to performing the scene from Regnard's play Le Lega- 
 taire, it was out of the question in the midst of the refined 
 watchfulness of the police, and of a state of civilization 
 of which the first aim would seem to be to deprive the 
 romance and drama of life of the last breath of vital air 
 that remains to them.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 187 
 
 By giving up the notion of persuading the old man to 
 make his will, the eighteen hundred francs a year and the 
 house in the Eue Notre-Dame de Nazareth would of course 
 go to the heirs-at-law, and Madame Cardinal, to whom he 
 had hoped to secure these two items, would come in for 
 no more than her share. Still, abandoning this visible por- 
 tion of the estate was the surest way of appropriating what 
 was hidden. Besides, if this could best be secured to begin , 
 with, what would hinder a subsequent attempt to get a will 
 signed ? 
 
 So Cerizet, reducing the operations to the most simple 
 terms, fell back on the manceuvre before mentioned of ad- 
 ministering an infusion of poppy-heads and trusting to this 
 mode of warfare alone. He was on his way back to Tou- 
 pillier's lodgings to give Madame Cardinal fuller instruc- 
 tions when he met her with the basket she had just purchased 
 on her arm. In it she had the desired panacea. 
 
 "Heyday I" said the money-lender, "is this how you mount 
 guard ?" 
 
 "I had to go out to get him some wine," replied the woman. 
 "He bellowed out like a creature on hot bars that I was to 
 leave him in peace, and that he wanted to be alone, and 
 that I should give him his jorum ! The man is persuaded 
 that strong Eoussillon is the best cure for his complaint, 
 and I am going to give him his bellyful ' When he is 
 screwed he will be quieter perhaps." 
 
 "You are right," said Cerizet pompously. "Sick people 
 should never be contradicted; you must medicate the wine 
 by a little infusion of this" and he raised one of the basket- 
 lids and slipped in some poppy-heads, "you will secure the 
 poor man a sound nap for five or six hours at least. I will 
 look in this evening, and there will be nothing, I fancy, to 
 hinder our investigating the value of the estate." 
 
 "All right," said Madame Cardinal, with a wink. 
 
 "Till this evening," said the usurer, without more words. 
 
 He foresaw a difficult and discreditable business, and did 
 
 not care to be seen talking to his accomplice in the street. 
 VOL. 1438
 
 188 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 On returning to Toupillier's garret, the woman found him 
 still in the same torpid state. She dismissed Madame Per- 
 rache, and went to the door to take in a small load of sawn 
 logs which she had ordered of the Auvergnat in the Rue 
 Feron. She had provided herself with an earthen pipkin, 
 fitting the hole at the top of the stove on which poor folks 
 set the pot to stew, and in this she placed the poppy-heads, 
 soaking in two-thirds of the bottle of wine she had brought; 
 she lighted a good fire beneath so "as to get the decoction 
 as soon as possible. 
 
 The crackling of wood, and the warmth that soon raised 
 the temperature of the room, roused Toupillier from his 
 heavy slumbers. When he saw fire in the stove : 
 
 "What, a fire ?" cried he. "Do you want to burn the house 
 down?" 
 
 "Why, uncle," said Madame Cardinal, "I have bought the 
 wood with my own money to take the chill oft* the wine. The 
 doctor does not wish you to drink it cold." 
 
 "Well, and where is the wine ?" asked Toupillier, some- 
 what pacified by hearing that the cooking was not at his ex- 
 pense. 
 
 "You must wait till it has boiled," replied she. "The 
 doctor insisted on it. However, if you will be quiet I will 
 give you just a drop to stay your stomach. I take the re- 
 sponsibility, and you must not tell." 
 
 "I will have no doctor! Scoundrels who put men out of 
 the world," cried Toupillier, roused at the thought of a 
 drink. "Now, where is that wine ?" he added, in the tone of 
 a man whose patience has run out. 
 
 Quite sure that if her yielding did him no harm it would 
 at any rate do him no good, the woman half-filled a wine- 
 glass and held it with one hand, while with the other she 
 raised him into a sitting posture to drink. Toupillier 
 clutched the glass with his lean and greedy fingers, and hav- 
 ing swallowed the contents at one gulp, he cried, "What a 
 thimblefull! and watered at that!" 
 
 "No, you must not say that, uncle. I went myself to get
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 189 
 
 it from Legrelu, and I have given it to you just as I bought 
 it. But wait for the rest to simmer a bit; the doctor said 
 you could have it whenever you were thirsty." 
 
 Toupillier shrugged his shoulders and submitted; when, 
 a quarter of an hour after, the mixture was ready, Madame 
 Cardinal, without waiting to be asked, brought him a cup 
 full to the brim. 
 
 The avidity with which he drank it gave the old man no 
 time to observe that it was drugged; but at the last mouth- 
 ful he was aware of a vapid, nauseous flavor, and flung the 
 cup down on the bed, crying out that she had poisoned him. 
 
 "Well, look, that is all the poison in it," replied Madame 
 Cardinal, draining the few drops that remained at the bot- 
 tom of the mug, and she then assured the old man that if the 
 wine did not taste as usual it was because his mouth was 
 foul. 
 
 By the end of this discussion, which was carried on for 
 some time, the narcotic began to take effect, and in an hour 
 the invalid was sleeping heavily. 
 
 While waiting for Cerizet, having nothing to do, Madame 
 Cardinal had an idea. It struck her that to facilitate the 
 coming and going which might be necessary when the time 
 came for removing the treasure, it would be well to miti- 
 gate the vigilance of the Perraches. So, after taking care to 
 throw the poppy-heads away, she called the porter's wife and 
 said: 
 
 "Just taste his wine, Madame Perrache. Would you not 
 have thought he was ready to drink a hogshead? And after 
 one cupful he wants no more !" 
 
 "Here's to you," said the woman, clinking her glass 
 against that of Madame Cardinal, who took care to fill her 
 own with pure wine. 
 
 Madame Perrache, not so keen a connoisseur as the old 
 beggar, and drinking the wine cold, detected no flavor in 
 the insidious liquor which could lead her to suspect the nar- 
 cotic ; on the contrary, she declared that it was "like velvet," 
 and only regretted that her husband was not at home to take 
 toll of it.
 
 190 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 
 
 After a long chat the women parted. Madame Cardinal 
 then made a meal off some cold meat she had bought, and 
 the remains of the Roussillon in the bottle, and crowned it 
 with a nap. To say nothing of the excitements of the day, 
 the fumes of one of the strongest wines in the world would 
 amply account for the soundness and length of her slum- 
 bers; when she awoke it was already dark. 
 
 Her first care was to look at the sick man. His sleep was 
 disturbed, and he was dreaming aloud. 
 
 "Diamonds," said he, "diamonds? When I am dead 
 not before." 
 
 "Hallo!" said Madame Cardinal. "What next? He has 
 got some diamonds " 
 
 And seeing that Toupillier seemed to be suffering from 
 a violent nightmare, instead of trying to relieve him by a 
 change of position, she leaned over him to catch every word, 
 in the hope of hearing some important revelation. 
 
 At this juncture a sharp tap at the door, from which this 
 capital sick-nurse had taken care to remove the key, an- 
 nounced Cerizet's return. 
 
 "Well ?" said he, as she admitted him. 
 
 "Well, he took the drug. He has been sleeping like a top 
 these four hours. Just now, while dreaming, he talked about 
 some diamonds." 
 
 "Bless me !" said Cerizet, "it would not astonish me to 
 find some. When these paupers once set their heart on 
 riches, there is nothing they will not pick up " 
 
 "And pray, my good friend," asked the woman, "what 
 possessed you to go and tell Mother Perrache that you 
 were not a doctor, but my man of business? We agreed this 
 morning that you were to call yourself a doctor " 
 
 Cerizet did not choose to confess that the assumption of 
 such a title had seemed to him too rash; this might have 
 frightened his accomplice. 
 
 "I saw that the woman was just going to consult me, and 
 I got rid of her in that way." 
 
 "I see," said Madame Cardinal, "great wits jump! and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 191 
 
 it was my game, too, to turn matters the other way round; 
 that I should have a man of business here seemed to put 
 notions into the cobbler-woman's head. Did the Perraches 
 see you come in?" 
 
 "I fancied I saw the woman asleep in her chair." 
 
 "She ought to be," said Madame Cardinal, with mean- 
 ing. 
 
 "What! Keally?" said Cerizet. 
 
 "Enough for one is enough for two," said the fish-hawker. 
 "I treated* her to the rest of the mixture." 
 
 "As to the husband, he is there, sure enough," said Ceri- 
 zet, "for as he pulled his thread he gave me a gracious nod 
 of recognition which I could ven* well have dispensed with." 
 
 "Wait till it is quite dark, and we will get up a little per- 
 formance that will puzzle him a bit." 
 
 And, in fact, a quarter of an hour later, the woman, 
 with an amount of spirit that amazed the money-lender, 
 carried through a little farce of seeing out a gentleman 
 who pressed her to take no such trouble. Making a great 
 show of escorting the doctor as far as the front gate, she pre- 
 tended, half-way across the courtyard, that the wind had 
 blown her candle out, and then, while trying to relight it, 
 she extinguished Perrache's candle too. All this little scene, 
 with a bewildering flow of exclamations and talk, was so 
 dexterously managed that the porter, if called before the 
 bench, would not have hesitated to swear that the doctor, 
 whom he had seen come in, had come down and quitted the 
 premises between nine and ten o'clock. 
 
 As soon as the partners were thus in quiet possession 
 of the scene of their operations, Madame Cardinal quite 
 unwittingly acted on a hint of Beranger's, and for fear 
 some prying neighbor might get a glimpse of their proceed- 
 ings, she hung her rabbit-wool shawl over the window like 
 a curtain, as though to screen Lisette's amours. 
 
 In the Luxembourg quarter the stir of life is over at 
 an early hour. Before ten o'clock every sound had ceased, 
 in the house as well as outside. One resident alone, bent, on
 
 192 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 finishing an instalment of a novel, kept the conspirators in 
 check for some little time; but no sooner had he placed the 
 extinguisher on his candle than Cerizet was anxious to set to 
 work. By beginning at once there was a better chance that 
 the sleeper would remain under the influence of the narcotic ; 
 also, if it did not take them too long to discover the treas- 
 ure, Madame Cardinal might have the front door open to 
 let her out, under pretence of having to go to the druggist 
 for some remedy unexpectedly required. It might be hoped 
 that the Perraches, after the manner of gatekeepers roused 
 from their first sleep, would pull the latch-cord without get- 
 ting out of bed. Thus Cerizet could get out at the same time, 
 and they could at once remove a part of the coin, at any 
 rate, to safe hiding. As for the remainder, it would be easy 
 to find some way of disposing of it in the course of the mor- 
 row. 
 
 Cerizet, great in council, was but inefficient in action; 
 without the woman's stalwart help he could never have lifted 
 what may be called the corpse of the ex-dr urn-major. Dead 
 asleep and absolutely unconscious, ToupUiier was an inert 
 weight which could fortunately be handled without any great 
 caution. The athletic fishwife, doubly strong under the ex- 
 citement of avarice, succeeded in transferring her uncle to 
 the other bed without misadventure, and the mattress was 
 eagerly searched. 
 
 At first they found nothing; the woman, being pressed to 
 explain how she had persuaded herself in the morning that 
 her uncle was lying on a hundred thousand francs, was 
 obliged to own that the gossip of the Perraches and her own 
 perfervid imagination had been chiefly responsible for her al- 
 leged conviction. Cerizet was furious. After cherishing the 
 idea and hope of a fortune for a whole day, and making up 
 his mind to a rash and compromising undertaking, to find 
 himself at last face to face with emptiness ! The disappoint- 
 ment was so crushing that, had he not feared the worst from 
 an encounter with his future mother-in-law, he would have 
 been tempted to raging extremity.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 193 
 
 At any rate, he could vent his passion in words. Ma- 
 dame Cardinal, violently attacked, would say no more than 
 that all hope was not yet lost, and with the faith that re- 
 moves mountains tossed the bed over from top to bottom, 
 and was about to empty the mattress after rummaging it in 
 all its corners, but that Cerizet would allow no such extreme 
 measure, remarking that the autopsy of the bedding would 
 leave a litter of straw on the floor which would give rise to 
 suspicions. 
 
 Madame Cardinal, to leave no burden on her conscience, 
 insisted on removing the sacking bottom of the bed, in spite 
 of Cerizet, who thought this absurd; and certainly the ardor 
 of her search had sharpened her senses, for, as she lifted 
 the wooden frame, she heard the sound of some small object 
 falling out onto the floor. Ascribing to this trifle, which any 
 one else might have overlooked, greater importance than 
 seemed at all likely, the spirit of research moved her to take 
 the candle, and after feeling about for some time in the filth 
 that covered the ground, at last she laid her hand on a small 
 object in polished steel, about half an inch long, of which 
 the use was to her a perfect mystery. 
 
 "It is a key !" exclaimed Cerizet, who had looked on with 
 no little indifference, but whose imagination now went off at 
 a gallop. 
 
 "Aha ! You see I" said Madame Cardinal, with exultant 
 pride. "But what can it belong to?" added she, thought- 
 fully. "A doll's trunk?" 
 
 "Not at all," replied Cerizet. "It is a modern invention. 
 Very strong locks may be opened with this little key." 
 
 And as he spoke he glanced rapidly at all the furniture in 
 the room, went to the chest of drawers and pulled them all 
 out, peeped into the stove, under the table nowhere could he 
 see a sign of such a lock as the little key might fit. 
 
 Suddenly the woman had a flash of inspiration. 
 
 "Stay," said she, '''I remember that as he lay on his bed 
 the old thief kept his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him."
 
 194 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "A cupboard concealed in the wall? That is not impos- 
 sible," said Cerizet, eagerly taking up the candle. 
 
 But after having carefully examined the door in the recess, 
 which faced the head of the bed, he found nothing but thick 
 hangings of spiders' webs and dust. 
 
 He then tried the sense of touch, which is in some ways 
 keener, tapping and feeling the wall all over. At the spot 
 off which Toupillier had never^ taken his eyes he certainly 
 discerned the hollow sound of a space within, and at the same 
 time he felt sure that he was tapping on wood. He rubbed 
 the place hard with his handkerchief rolled into a ball, and 
 ' under the layer of dirt that he had cleared away he presently 
 found an oak plank closely fitted into the wall; at one edge 
 of this board was a tiny round hole the keyhole of the lock 
 to which the key belonged. 
 
 While Cerizet turned the key, which worked without diffi- 
 culty, Madame Cardinal, holding the light, stood pale and 
 gasping. But, dreadful disappointment! When the cup- 
 board was opened nothing was visible but an empty space, 
 vainly illuminated by the candle she eagerly thrust forward. 
 
 Leaving this fury to fulminate exclamations of despair 
 and to shower all the most abusive epithets of her vocabulary 
 on her uncle, Cerizet preserved his presence of mind. He put 
 his arm into the opening and all round the bottom of it. 
 
 "There is an iron chest," said he; adding impatiently, 
 "Come, show me a light, Madame Cardinal!" 
 
 Then, as the glimmer did not shine far enough into the 
 space he wanted to investigate, he snatched the dip out of the 
 neck of a bottle in which Madame Cardinal had stuck it for 
 lack of a candlestick, and, holding it in his fingers, moved 
 it carefully about over every portion of the iron cover he had 
 found within. 
 
 "No lock !" said he, after a minute examination. "There 
 must be a secret spring." 
 
 "What a cunning villain he is, the old hunks!" said 
 Madame Cardinal, while Cerizet's bony fingers poked and 
 punched every spot.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 195 
 
 "Aha! I have it!" he exclaimed, after feeling about for 
 more than half an hour, during which Madame Cardinal's 
 life seemed to be suspended. 
 
 Under Cerizet's pressure the iron lid sprang open. Inside 
 the wall, among a heap of gold pieces tossed loosely into a 
 fairly large space thus thrown open, a red morocco jewel-case, 
 was seen, which by its dimensions promised splendid booty. 
 
 "I will take the diamonds for the marriage portion," said 
 Cerizet, when he saw the magnificent set contained in the 
 case. "You, mother, would not be able to dispose of them. 
 I leave you the gold for your share. As to the consols and 
 the house, they are not worth the worry of getting the old 
 fellow to make a fresh will." 
 
 "Stop a minute, my boy!" said the woman, who thought 
 this division rather too summary. "We will count the coin 
 first." 
 
 "Hark !" said Cerizet, pausing to listen. 
 
 "What?" asked she. 
 
 "Did you not hear some one moving below ?" 
 
 "No; I heard nothing." 
 
 Cerizet signed to her to be silent, and listened more at- 
 tentively. 
 
 "I hear steps on the stairs," he said a minute after ; and he 
 hastily replaced the jewel-case in the iron chest, which he 
 vainly tried to close. 
 
 While he was ineffectually struggling with it, the steps 
 came nearer. 
 
 "Yes, indeed ; some one is coming !" gasped Madame Car- 
 dinal in terror. Then, clutching at a straw, she added, "Pooh ! 
 I dare say it is the mad girl. They say she often wanders 
 round at night." 
 
 If so, the crazy woman had a key to fit the door, for a mo- 
 ment later it was turned in the lock. Madame Cardinal 
 hastily measured the distance between herself and the door; 
 had she time to push the bolt ? But calculating that she had 
 not, she blew out the candle to give herself the chance of 
 darkness.
 
 196 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 A vain precaution ! The spoil-sport who came in had a 
 candle in his hand. As soon as she saw that the enemy was 
 a little, frail-looking old man, Madame Cardinal, with flash- 
 ing eyes, flew to meet the visitor like a lioness about to be 
 robbed of her cubs. 
 
 "Compose yourself, my good woman," said the old man, 
 with sarcastic coolness. "I have sent for the police ; they will 
 be here in a minute." 
 
 At the word police, you might have knocked Madame Car- 
 dinal down with a feather, as the saying goes. 
 
 "Why, sir? the police !" she gasped. "We are not thieves." 
 
 "I would not wait for them, all the same, if I were you," 
 said the old man. "They sometimes make awkward mis- 
 takes." 
 
 "I may slope, then?" said she incredulously. 
 
 "Yes; as soon as you have handed over to me anything 
 you may by chance have slipped into your pockets." 
 
 "Indeed, my good sir, I have nothing in my hands, nothing 
 in my pockets. I want to harm nobody; what I came for 
 was only to nurse this poor innocent uncle of mine search 
 me if you like." 
 
 "Well, be off then, all right," said the little old man. 
 
 Madame Cardinal did not wait to be told twice; she made 
 off down the stairs. 
 
 C6rizet seemed inclined to follow in her wake. 
 
 "As for you, monsieur, it is another matter," said the 
 stranger. "We shall have something to say to each other. 
 However, if you prove manageable, everything may be satis- 
 factorily settled." 
 
 Whether the effect of the drug was exhausted, or the com- 
 motion going on close to him had roused Toupillier, he now 
 opened his eyes, looked about him as if he did not quite know 
 where he was, and then, seeing his precious cupboard open, 
 his excitement gave him strength to shout in a voice that 
 might have roused the whole house: "Thieves! Thieves!" 
 
 "No, Toupillier, you are not robbed," said the little old 
 man, "I came up in time, and nothing is touched."
 
 The spoil-sport who came in had a candle in his hand
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 197 
 
 "And are you not going to have that villain arrested?" 
 cried Toupillier, pointing to Cerizet. 
 
 "The gentleman is not a thief," replied the old man. "On 
 the contrary, he is a friend of mine come up with me to lend 
 me support." 
 
 Then, turning to Cerizet, he went on in a lower tone: "I 
 believe, my dear fellow, that we had better put off the few 
 words I have to say to you till to-morrow at ten at Monsieur 
 du Portail's, the house adjoining this. After what has taken 
 place this night, I may tell you that it will be awkward for 
 you if you should fail to keep the appointment. I should 
 inevitably find you again; for I have the honor to know who 
 you are you are the man whom the opposition papers at 
 one time called Cerizet the brave." 
 
 In spite of the ironical point of this reminiscence, Cerizet, 
 perceiving that he would be no more severely dealt with than 
 Madame Cardinal, was onlv too glad to foresee such a termi- 
 nation, and, promising to be punctual, he made his escape. 
 
 Cerizet did not fail to be punctually on the spot as he had 
 been directed. 
 
 He was examined through a. wicket, and then, on giving 
 his name, was admitted to the house and conducted to du 
 PortaiPs study, where the old man was writing. 
 
 Without rising, and merely nodding to his visitor to be 
 seated, the old man finished a letter. After closing it, and 
 sealing it with such care and accuracy as showed him to be 
 either excessively precise and fastidious, or else a man who 
 had held some diplomatic post, du Portail rang for Bruno, 
 his man-servant, and, giving him the letter, desired him to 
 take it to the Justice of the Peace for the district. 
 
 He elaborately wiped the steel pen he had been using, re- 
 arranged everything symmetrically on his table, and it was 
 not till all these fidgety little matters had been attended to 
 that he addressed Cerizet, saying: 
 
 "You know that poor Monsieur Toupillier died in the 
 night ?"
 
 198 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "No, indeed/' said Cerizet, assuming the most sympathetic 
 air he could command. "You, monsieur, give me the first 
 tidings." 
 
 "You might at least have expected it. When a dying man 
 is dosed with a large cupful of hot wine which has been 
 drugged into the bargain since Madame Perrache, after 
 drinking a wine-glassful, has lain in an almost lethargic 
 sleep all night it is clear that arrangements have been made 
 to hasten the catastrophe." 
 
 "I cannot know, monsieur, what Madame Cardinal may 
 have given to her uncle," said Cerizet, with dignity. "I was 
 rash enough, I confess, to help the woman in her care and 
 interest to preserve the property to which, as she told me, she 
 had undoubted right. But as to attempting the old man's 
 life, I am incapable of such a thing ; nothing of the sort ever 
 entered my thoughts." 
 
 "Was it you who wrote me this letter?" said du Portail, 
 point-blank, and taking from under a Bohemian glass paper- 
 weight a note, which he showed to the money-lender. 
 
 "That letter?" said Cerizet, with the hesitation of a man 
 who doubts whether he had better deny or confess. 
 
 "I am sure of the fact," du Portail went on. "I happen to 
 have a mania for autographs. I have one of yours, picked up 
 at the time when the opposition had bestowed on you the 
 glory of martyrdom. I have compared the writing, and it is 
 you, beyond a doubt, who yesterda)', in this note, informed 
 me of the pecuniary straits in which young la Peyrade just 
 now finds himself." 
 
 "Knowing that you had in your care a young lady named 
 la Peyrade," said the money-lender, "who is probably Theo- 
 dose's cousin, I suspected that you might be the unknown 
 protector from whom, on more than one occasion, my friend 
 has received the most liberal assistance. As I have a great 
 affection for the poor boy, in his interest I made so bold " 
 
 "You did very right," said du Portail. "I am delighted 
 to have met a friend of his. Nor need I conceal from you 
 that last evening it wa? this very fact that shielded you.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 199 
 
 But what is the history of these twenty-five thousand francs' 
 worth of promissory notes? Is he doing badly in business? 
 Does he lead a dissipated life?" 
 
 "Far from it," said Cerizet; "he is a perfect puritan. He 
 is a man of devout habits, and as an advocate will plead for 
 none but the poorest clients. Also he is about to marry a 
 rich woman." 
 
 "Aha ! He is going to be married 1 and to whom ?" 
 
 "There is an idea of his becoming the husband of Made- 
 moiselle Colleville, daughter of the Secretary to the Mayor 
 of the Twelfth Arrondissement. The girl herself has no for- 
 tune, but a certain Monsieur Thuillier, her godfather, mem- 
 ber of the Municipal Council, has promised to give her a 
 suitable portion." 
 
 "And who is working the matter?" 
 
 "La Peyrade has done the Thuilliers great services; he 
 was introduced to them by Monsieur Dutocq, clerk to the 
 justice of the peace for that district." 
 
 "But you say in this letter that the notes of hand were 
 signed in favor of Monsieur Dutocq. Is it a case of .matri- 
 monial brokerage?" 
 
 "Something of the sort, very probably," replied Cerizet. 
 "As you know, monsieur, such transactions are common 
 enough in Paris; the clergy even do not scorn to meddle in 
 them." 
 
 "Then the marriage is almost settled?" said du Portail. 
 
 "Why, yes; within the last few days, especially, matters 
 have gone on rapidly." 
 
 "Well, my dear sir, I rely on you to see that it comes to 
 nothing. I have other purposes for Theodose, another match 
 to propose to him." 
 
 "Excuse me," said Cerizet, "but to hinder his marriage 
 would be to make it impossible for him to pay his debts, and 
 I may respectfully point out to you that these bills are seri- 
 ous matter. Monsieur Dutocq is clerk to the Justice of the 
 Peace, which is as much as to say that it will not be easy 
 to get round him on any point of law and interest."
 
 200 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "As to Monsieur Dutocq's claims, you must purchase the 
 bills/' said du Portail. "You and he must settle that be- 
 tween you. At a pinch, and if Theodose should prove refrac- 
 tory to my purpose, those bills, in our hands, will be a valu- 
 able weapon. You will make it your business to prosecute 
 in your own name, and you will not be the loser ; I will under- 
 take to pay the original sum and the costs." 
 
 "You do business handsomely, sir," said Cerizet, "it is 
 really a pleasure to work for you. But now if you should 
 think the time had come to inform me more particularly as to 
 the mission you do me the honor to entrust to me " 
 
 "You spoke just now," said du Portail, "of Theodose's 
 cousin, Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade. This young lady 
 no longer very young, for she is nearly thirty is the 
 natural daughter of the famous Mademoiselle Beaumesnil, 
 of the Theatre-Frangais, and of la Peyrade, Commissioner- 
 General of the Police under the Empire, and our friend's 
 uncle. Till the hour of his death, which was sudden, leav- 
 ing his daughter whom he had acknowledged and whom he 
 positively worshiped entirely destitute, I had lived on 
 terms of intimate friendship with that excellent man." 
 
 Cerizet, proud to show that he knew something of du Por- 
 tail's private life, observed: 
 
 "And you, monsieur, have fulfilled the duties of that 
 friendship to the uttermost, for, by taking the interesting 
 orphan to dwell under your roof, you undertook a difficult 
 charge. Mademoiselle de la Peyrade's health requires, I 
 have heard, the most patient and tender care." 
 
 "Yes," said the old man. "At the time of her father's 
 death the poor child had such a cruel experience that her 
 reason remained impaired; but a happy change has lately 
 taken place, and no longer ago than yesterday I called a con- 
 sultation between Doctor Bianchon and the two head physi- 
 cians of the Salpetriere. These gentlemen are unanimously 
 agreed that marriage and the birth of a child would certainly 
 cure her; as you understand, the remedy is too easy and too 
 pleasant not to be tried."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 201 
 
 "Then it is to Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade that you 
 wish Theodose to be married?" said Cerizet. 
 
 "As you say," replied du Portail. "But you must not sup- 
 pose that, if our young friend should accept this arrange- 
 ment, I require him to devote himself altogether gratui- 
 tously. Lydie is pleasing in person, she is accomplished, she 
 has a charming temper, and will be able to secure for her 
 husband a handsome position in public business. She also 
 has a nice little fortune, consisting partly of what her mother 
 had to leave her ; of all I possess which, as I have no direct 
 heirs, I shall settle on her at her marriage ; and, finally, of a 
 pretty considerable sum that has come to her this past night." 
 
 "What !" cried Cerizet, "did old Toupillier 
 
 "A holograph will here it is constitutes her the old 
 beggar's sole legatee. So, as you fcee, it was handsome on my 
 part to take no further steps in the matter of your attempt 
 last night, for you were intending to rob me of our prop- 
 erty." 
 
 "Good Heavens!" said Cerizet, "I do not think of excus- 
 ing Madame Cardinal's aberration," said Cerizet. "At the 
 same time, as heir-at-law, dispossessed in favor of a stranger, 
 it seems to me that she has some claim to the mercy you were 
 prepared to show her." 
 
 "In that you are mistaken," replied du Portail, "and the 
 handsome legacy by which Mademoiselle de la Peyrade seems 
 to have been enriched, is simply a restitution." 
 
 "Restitution?" said Cerizet, puzzled. 
 
 "Yes, and nothing is easier to prove. Do you remember 
 a great diamond robbery committed some ten years since by 
 which one of our famous actresses lost her jewels ?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Cerizet, "I was at that time editor of one 
 of my papers and wrote the Paris news myself. Wait a min- 
 ute the actress was Mademoiselle Beaumesnil." 
 
 "Exactly so. Mademoiselle Lydie de la Peyrade's mother." 
 
 "And so that wretch Toupillier No," added Cerizet, 
 
 "I remember the thief was punished. His name was Charles 
 Crochard; and it was whispered, I recollect, that he was the
 
 202 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 
 
 natural son of a great personage, the Comte de Granville, 
 Attorney-General in Paris under the Restoration/' 
 
 "Well," said du Portail, "this is what happened. The 
 theft, as you will also remember, was committed in a house 
 in the Rue de Tournon where Mademoiselle Beaumesnil 
 lived. Charles Crochard, a handsome young fellow, was on a 
 very intimate footing there, it would seem." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Cerizet. "I recall very vividly the lady's 
 embarrassment when she was called upon to state the facts, 
 and the loss of voice she suffered from when the presiding 
 judge asked her how old she was." 
 
 "The robbery," said du Portail, "was boldly committed in 
 broad daylight, and Charles Crochard, having possessed him- 
 self of the jewel-case, went to the church of Saint-Sulpice, 
 where he had made an appointment with an accomplice to 
 meet him. As chance would have it, instead, of the man he 
 expected, who was a few minutes late, Crochard found him- 
 self face to face with a famous member of the detective force 
 whom he perfectly well knew, for the young rascal had fallen 
 into the hands of the law before this. The absence of his 
 assistant and the presence of this man, who, as he fancied, 
 looked at him with suspicion, the disorder of his conscience, 
 and finally a swift turn which, by the merest chance, the de- 
 tective made towards the door, made the thief suspect that 
 he had been watched. 
 
 "In his panic he lost his head; his first point was to get rid 
 of the jewel-case, which, if found upon him, would prove his 
 guilt. He felt certain he should be captured on leaving the 
 church, imagining it to be surrounded by the police, and, see- 
 ing Toupillier in his place near to the holy-water vessel, he 
 went close up to him, and having convinced himself that 
 nobody was watching them, 'Here, my good man/ said he, 
 'will you take care of this parcel for me ? It is a box of lace. 
 I am going to a house close by, to a certain Countess who 
 never pays her bills; instead of giving me my money she is 
 sure to ask to see this, which is something quite new, and 
 to ask me to let her have it on credit. I would rather not
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 203 
 
 have it about me. But whatever you do/ he added, 'do not 
 open the paper it is wrapped in, for there is nothing so diffi- 
 cult as to refold a parcel in the old creases.' ' : 
 
 "What an idiot !" cried Cerizet guilelessly. "His instruc- 
 tions were enough to make the man eager to see the con- 
 tents/' 
 
 "You are a shrewd philosopher," said du Portail. "An 
 hour later, when Charles Crochard, finding no cause for 
 alarm, came back to fetch the parcel, Toupillier had disap- 
 peared. As you may suppose, at early mass next morning 
 Charles Crochard was eager to meet the holy-water server, 
 and found him duly exercising his functions; but night, they 
 say, brings wisdom. The dear man audaciously declared that 
 nothing had been given into his care and that he did not 
 know what Crochard was talking about." 
 
 "And of course it was impossible to tackle him and make 
 a commotion," observed Cerizet, who was very near sympa- 
 thizing with a trick so neatly done. 
 
 "The theft had no doubt already become known," du Por- 
 tail went on, "and Toupillier, who was p, remarkably clever 
 fellow, had, of course, calculated that the thief by accusing 
 him would reveal himself and be obliged to give up his plun- 
 der. When the case was tried Charles Crochard never said 
 a word about the way he had been tricked, and when he was 
 sentenced to ten years with hard labor, during all the six 
 years he spent on the hulks part of the sentence having 
 been remitted he never opened his lips to a living soul as 
 to the breach of confidence to which he had been a victim." 
 
 "I call that pluck !" cried Cerizet. The story fired him 
 with admiration; he viewed it from the point of view of the 
 connoisseur and artist. 
 
 "During this time," du Portail said, "Madame Beau- 
 mesnil died, leaving her daughter some remnants of a large 
 fortune, and more especially these diamonds, which she espe- 
 cially mentioned, in the event of their ever being recovered. 3 '' 
 
 "Aha !" said Cerizet, "that spoiled the game for Toupil- 
 lier ; for having such a man as you to deal with " 
 
 VOL. 1439
 
 204 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Thinking only of revenge, Charles Crochard's first act on 
 regaining his liberty was to accuse Toupillier as receiver of 
 the stolen jewels. Toupillier was brought to trial, but de- 
 fended himself with such blunt good-humor that, as there 
 was absolutely no proof against him, the case was dismissed. 
 He nevertheless lost his place by the holy-water vessel in 
 Saint-Sulpice, and only with great difficulty obtained leave 
 to beg at the church door. For my part, I was convinced 
 of his guilt; notwithstanding his dismissal, I had him nar- 
 rowly watched, but I trusted chiefly to my own vigilance. 
 As a man of independent means and ample leisure, I stuck 
 close to my man and made it the business of my life to un- 
 mask him. 
 
 "At that time he was living in the Eue du Coaur Volant ; I 
 contrived to rent a room adjoining his, and one night, 
 through a hole patiently made with a gimlet in the partition 
 between, I saw him take the jewel-case out of a very ingeni- 
 ously contrived hiding-place and spend nearly an hour in 
 gazing with rapture at the diamonds, which he moved about 
 to catch the play of light, and pressed passionately to his 
 lips. The man loved them for themselves, and had never 
 thought of making money of them." 
 
 "I quite understand," said Cerizet. "A monomaniac, like 
 Cardillac the jeweler, about whom a melodrama was writ- 
 ten." 
 
 "Just the very same thing," said du Portail. "Th& 
 wretched man was in love with the jewels; indeed, when 1 
 called upon him shortly after and gave him to understand 
 that I knew everything, that he might not be deprived of 
 what he called the comfort of his life he implored me to leave 
 him in possession of them for life, pledging himself in re- 
 turn to leave everything he had to Mademoiselle de la Pey- 
 rade. He at the same time told me that he owned a consid- 
 erable sum in gold, to which he was adding every day, besides 
 a small freehold and money in the funds." 
 
 "If be meant to act honestly," said Cerizet, "the bargain 
 was a good one. The interest of the capital sunk in the set 
 of diamonds was quite made up by the other items."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 205 
 
 "Well, as you have seen, my good fellow, I was not ill- 
 judged in trusting him. However, I took sound precautions. 
 I insisted on his taking a room in the house I lived in, so 
 that I could watch him closely; the hiding-place of which 
 you so ingeniously discovered the secret was contrived under 
 my directions, but what you do not know is that the secret 
 spring, as it opens the iron chest, at the same time rings a 
 loud bell in my room, to warn me of any attempt at robbery 
 that may endanger our hoard." 
 
 "Poor Madame Cardinal," said Cerizet, with a laugh, 
 "what a sell for her !" 
 
 "This, then, is the present situation," said du Portail. 
 "The interest I feel in my old friend's nephew, apart from 
 the relationship which makes me think the alliance suitable, 
 has led me to wish that Theodose should marry his cousin 
 and her fortune. But as the young lady's mental condition 
 might possibly make la Peyrade averse to my views, I have 
 thought it as well not to propose the match to him myself. 
 You crossed my path; I know you to be clever, crafty, and 
 it at once occurred to me to place this little matrimonial 
 negotiation in your hands. 
 
 "Now, understand clearly, you must speak of a young lady 
 of wealth who suffers indeed from a drawback, but who has a 
 makeweight a nice little fortune. Name no one, and come 
 to me at once to report how the idea has been received." 
 
 "Your confidence," said Cerizet, "is a pleasure and an 
 honor to me, and I will do my best to justify it." 
 
 "You must be under no illusion," said du Portail. "The 
 first impulse of a man who has another engagement in view 
 will be to refuse; but we will not confess ourselves beaten. 
 I do not readily give up a scheme when 'I believe it to be 
 right, and even if we were to carry our zeal for la Peyrade's 
 happiness so far as to have him imprisoned for debt at 
 Clichy, I am determined not to be defeated in a project of 
 which the results will, I am certain, show him that I was 
 happily inspired. So, in any case, take the credit notes off 
 Monsieur Dutocq's hands."
 
 206 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "At par?" asked CSrizet. 
 
 "Yes, at par, if you can do no better. We need not look 
 too closely at a thousand francs one way or the other. Only, 
 that matter once settled, Monsieur Dutocq must promise us 
 his support, or at least his neutrality. From what you say 
 of the other match, I need not point out to you that we must 
 lose no time in putting the irons in the fire." 
 
 "I have an appointment to meet la Peyrade two days 
 hence," Cerizet observed. "We have a little matter to settle. 
 Do not you think that it would be as well to wait till then ? 
 At that meeting I may speak of this match incidentally. In 
 case of his refusing, that, as seems to me, would save our 
 dignity." 
 
 "So be it," said du Portail; "that is not delay. And re- 
 member, monsieur, that if you succeed you will find in me, 
 not the man to call you to account for your rashness in aid- 
 ing Madame Cardinal, but one under serious obligations and 
 ready to serve you to the utmost; a man, too, whose influence 
 is wider than may generally be believed." 
 
 After such a kind speech the two men could only part in 
 the best understanding, and equally well satisfied on both 
 sides. 
 
 Like the old Turnstile, the Rocher de Cancale, whither the 
 scene is now to be transferred, is no more than a memory. A 
 wine-shop with a pewter-plated counter has taken the place 
 of that Temple of Taste, that sanctuary of European fame 
 which had been the great focus of gastronomy all through 
 the Empire and the Eestoration. 
 
 On the day before that on which they had agreed to meet, 
 la Peyrade had this brief note from Cerizet : 
 
 "To-morrow, lease or no lease, at the Rocher half-past 
 six." 
 
 As to Dutocq, Cerizet saw him every day, being his copy- 
 ing-clerk; he had invited him by word of mouth; but the 
 attentive reader will note a difference in the hour named 
 to this second guest. "At the Rocker a quarter past six,"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 207 
 
 Ce'rizet had said, so it was clear that he wished to have him 
 to himself for at least a quarter of an hour before la Pey- 
 rade should arrive. 
 
 The money-lender meant to spend that quarter of an hour 
 in bargaining for the purchase of la Peyrade's promissory 
 notes; and he fancied that his offer, made point-blank, with- 
 out any preparation, would be more cordially accepted. By 
 not giving the holder time to consider the matter he might 
 be induced to sell cheap; and having once acquired the bills 
 below par, the usurer might consider whether it would be 
 better for him to keep the difference, or to gain credit with 
 du Portail by handing over to him the benefit he might se- 
 cure. It may be said, indeed, that apart from all subsidiary 
 considerations Cerizet would have tried to get the better of 
 his friend. In him it was instinct, a craving of nature. He 
 had as great a horror of the straight line in business as the 
 admirers of English gardens have in laying out their walks. 
 
 Dutocq, who was still in debt for a part of the price of 
 his connection, and obliged to save very closely, lived so fru- 
 gally that a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale was a sort of 
 event in his life. He appeared with the punctuality that 
 showed his interest in the appointment, and at precisely a 
 quarter past six walked into the box at the restaurant where 
 Cerizet awaited him. 
 
 "Oddly enough," said he, "here we are in exactly the same 
 conditions as when we first took up this business of la Pey- 
 rade's; only the spot for the meeting of the three emperors 
 is somewhat better chosen. I prefer the Tilsit of the Hue 
 Montorgueil to the Tilsit of the Rue de 1'Ancienne- Come' die 
 and Pinson's wretched eating-house." 
 
 "On my word," replied Cerizet, "I hardly know whether 
 the results justify the change; for where, when all is done, 
 are the profits from the formation of that triumvirate?" 
 
 "Well, it was a conditional agreement," said Dutocq, "and 
 we cannot complain that la Peyrade has lost time in achiev- 
 ing his establishment at the Thuilleries, if I may be allowed 
 to pun. The rascal has gone ahead, you must admit."
 
 208 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Not so fast," said Cerizet, "but that his marriage is at 
 this moment a very doubtful matter." 
 
 "Doubtful? How?" 
 
 "Yes. I have been instructed to propose another match to 
 him, to bolster him up; and I very much doubt whether he 
 will have any choice offered him." 
 
 "But the devil's in it, man; can you think of lending a 
 hand to promote this second match, when we have a mort- 
 gage on the first?" 
 
 "My good friend, we cannot always control circumstances. 
 I plainly saw that under those that have been laid before me 
 the marriage we had planned is simply swept down stream. 
 So then I looked to see what could be saved from the wreck." 
 
 "Bless me! Are they fighting for this boy, Theodose? 
 Who is the girl? Has she a fortune?" 
 
 "A very presentable dowry; quite as good as Mademoiselle 
 Colleville's." 
 
 "Then she may go hang. La Peyrade backed the notes, 
 and he shall pay." 
 
 "He shall pay indeed! That is the question. You are 
 not in business, nor is Theodose. It might occur to him to 
 repudiate the paper. Who can tell whether the Court, when 
 informed as to their origin, seeing that the Thuillier match 
 is broken off, may not quash them as drawn without value 
 received ? I can snap my fingers at such a discussion ; it can- 
 not affect me; besides, I have taken precautions. But you, 
 as clerk to a justice of the peace, would surely after such an 
 action have differences to settle with the Chancellor's office." 
 
 "Indeed, my good fellow," said Dutocq, with the temper 
 of a man who finds himself confronted with an argument for 
 which he has no answer, "you really have a mania for med- 
 dling in things " 
 
 "I have told you," said Cerizet, "that this affair came to 
 me, and I saw so clearly from the first that there was no 
 chance of making fight against the evil influence which 
 threatens us, that I made up my mind to save myself by a 
 sacrifice."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 209 
 
 "What kind of sacrifice?" 
 
 "Well, I sold my notes of hand, and left it to the pur- 
 chaser to fight it out with our friend, the advocate." 
 
 "And who took them of you?" 
 
 "Who do you suppose would put himself into my shoes, 
 but some one who had an interest in the other marriage, so 
 as to be able to coerce Master Theodose, by curtailing his 
 liberty, if necessary." 
 
 "Ah, then they really require the bills I hold?" 
 
 "Certainly. However, I would not deal till I had con- 
 sulted you." 
 
 "Well, and what is the bid?" 
 
 "What I was willing to take for mine. Knowing better 
 than you how dangerous their rivalry would be, I agreed to 
 take ready money at a bad discount." 
 
 "But what are the terms, come?" 
 
 "I parted with them for fifteen thousand." 
 
 "Don't tell me," said Dutocq, with a shrug. "Presumably 
 you see your way to recovering the difference on the broker- 
 age; and the whole thing, after all, may be a got-up business 
 between you and la Peyrade." 
 
 "You do not mince your words, my good friend. A ras- 
 cally idea enters your head, and you blurt it out with beau- 
 tiful candor! But fortunately you will presently hear me 
 make the proposal to Theodose, and you can judge by his 
 demeanor how far we are in collusion." 
 
 "Well, well," said Dutocq, "I withdrew the insinuation. 
 But really your principals are perfect corsairs. A man 
 is not to be bled so desperately; and besides I have not, as 
 you have, a premium to look forward to." 
 
 "That, my poor friend, is just what I argued. I said to 
 myself: Poor Dutocq is dreadfully hampered for money to 
 pay off the last debt on his office; here he has a chance of 
 clearing it off at one stroke. The event proves how risky it 
 would be to compromise la Peyrade; we offer you cash in 
 hand and on the nail ; it is not, after all, such a bad bargain." 
 
 "Very true but to lose two-fifths!"
 
 210 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Look here," said Cerizet, "you spoke just now of a pre- 
 mium. I see a way by which you may secure one ; if you will 
 undertake to fight tooth and nail against the Colleville 
 match, and take the opposite side from that on which you 
 have hitherto stood, I do not despair of getting you the round 
 sum of twenty thousand francs." 
 
 "Then you evidently think that la Peyrade will not take 
 kindly to this new scheme? that he will kick? Pray, is the 
 heiress in question a damsel from whom he has already 
 taken something on account?" 
 
 "All I can tell you is that we expect a tough pull before 
 we get him round/' 
 
 "I am ready and willing to pull on your side and annoy la 
 Peyrade; but five thousand francs! think of it that is too 
 much to give up." 
 
 At this moment the door of the box was opened and the 
 waiter announced the expected guest. 
 
 "You can bring dinner," said CSrizet, "I expect no one 
 else." 
 
 It was evident that Theodose was trying his flight to upper 
 social spheres; he constantly gave his mind to the decoration 
 of his person. He was in evening dress, a tailcoat and patent 
 leather shoes, while the other two men received him in morn- 
 ing dress, with muddy boots. 
 
 "I am afraid, messeigneurs, that I am a little late," said 
 he. "But that infernal Thuillier, with the pamphlet I am 
 correcting for him, is the most intolerable nuisance. I un- 
 fortunately agreed that we should correct the proofs to- 
 gether, and we have a fight over every paragraph. 'What 
 I don't understand/ says he, 'the public won't understand,' 
 and I have to stand out for every word." 
 
 "What do you expect, my dear boy," said Dutocq; "when 
 a man wants to get on he must have courage enough for some 
 sacrifices. When once you are married you can hold up your 
 head." 
 
 "Yes, indeed !" said la Peyrade, "I shall, I hope ; for since 
 the time when you first made me eat this bread of bitterness, 
 I have become very tired of it."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 211 
 
 "Cerizet is going to give us some better food," said 
 Dutocq. 
 
 At first they devoted themselves wholly to doing justice to 
 the bill of fare ordered by Cerizet the first tenant, and to 
 reminiscences of better days. As always happens at these 
 business dinners, when each one is thinking of the matters 
 to be discussed, and yet avoids speaking of them for fear of 
 losing some advantage by seeming too eager, the conversa- 
 tion for some time was on general subjects; and it was not 
 till dessert was served that Cerizet made up his mind to ask 
 Theodose what had been decided on with regard to his lease. 
 
 "Nothing, my dear fellow," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Nothing how is that? I gave you ample time to come 
 to some conclusion." 
 
 "And some conclusion has, in fact, been arrived at: there 
 is to be no first tenant. Mademoiselle Brigitte herself will 
 sublet." 
 
 "That is another thing," said Cerizet, with stern reserve. 
 "After your promises to me, I own I was far' from expect- 
 ing such a result." 
 
 "How can I help it, my good friend ! I promised, barring 
 contingencies; it was not in my power to alter matters. 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier, as a masterful woman and a living 
 instance of perpetual motion, made up her mind that she 
 could manage the business of the house, and put into her own 
 pocket the profit you hoped to make. In vain did I repre- 
 sent to her all the worry and anxiety she was bringing on 
 herself. 
 
 " Tooh, nonsense !' said she, 'it will keep my blood stirring 
 and be very good for my health.' * 
 
 "But it is terrible !" said Cerizet. "The poor woman will 
 not know which way to turn; she has no idea of what it is 
 to have an empty house on her hands to be filled with ten- 
 ants from top to bottom." 
 
 "I urged all those arguments," said Theodose, "but I did 
 not begin to change her mind. There you are, my worthy 
 democrats ; you fomented the Eevolution of '89 ; you flattered
 
 212 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 yourselves that it was a capital speculation to dethrone the 
 nobility in favor of the middle class, and now you are simply 
 turned out of doors. It may sound like a paradox, but it 
 was not really the yokel who could be taxed and worked to 
 the bone, it was the aristocrat. The aristocracy, to preserve 
 their dignity by prohibiting themselves a vast number of 
 vulgar details, even that of learning to write, found them- 
 selves dependent, in fact, on the crowd of servants whom 
 they necessarily had recourse to, and were compelled to trust 
 for three-fourths of their daily actions. Those were the 
 golden days of the intendants, or stewards the crafty and 
 wide-awake factors through whose hands all the interests of 
 the great families had to pass, and who, though they may not 
 have deserved the odious reputation they earned, by the force 
 of circumstances grew fat on the mere parings of the vast 
 fortunes they had to deal with. Nowadays we have no end 
 of practical aphorisms. 'If you want a thing well done, do 
 it yourself. There is nothing disgraceful in knowing your 
 own business/ and a thousand other humdrum axioms which, 
 by making every man a man of business, have suppressed 
 the middleman. 
 
 "How can you expect that Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier 
 should not try to manage her house when dukes and peers 
 go themselves to the Bourse, examine their leases, have every 
 paper read to them before signing, and go to discuss every 
 point with the notary whom they formerly scorned as a 
 scrivener ?" 
 
 During la Peyrade's harangue Cerizet had had time to 
 recover from the blow that had taken his breath away; and, 
 to lead by a transition to the other matter entrusted to his 
 management, he said, with an air of indifference: 
 
 "All your remarks, my dear boy, are exceedingly clever; 
 but the thing which most clearly proves our discomfiture is 
 that you are not on such a footing of personal influence with 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier as you would have us believe. She 
 slips through your fingers when she chooses, so it strikes me 
 that your marriage is far from being such a settled thing 
 as Dutocq and 1 were willing to think it."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 213 
 
 "No doubt," said la Peyrade, "the work we have sketched 
 still needs some finishing touches, but I believe it to be well 
 on towards completion." 
 
 "I, on the contrary, am sure that you have lost ground, 
 and nothing can be more natural; you have just done these 
 people a very great service; that is never forgiven." 
 
 "Well, we shall see," said Theodose. "I still hold them by 
 more than one line." 
 
 "No, indeed ; you thought you could do wonders by loading 
 them with kindness, and now that they are independent they 
 will treat you as dirt ; the human heart is made so, especially 
 the heart of the middle classes. It is not only that I myself, 
 in the present instance, feel the blow that is upsetting you; 
 in your place I should not think I was standing on solid 
 ground, and if some chance were afforded me to turn 
 back 
 
 "What ! Merely because I have failed in securing the 
 lease for you, am I to throw the handle after the axe?" 
 
 "As I tell you," said Cerizet, "I am not viewing the mat- 
 ter from the standpoint of my own interest. But, as I have 
 no doubt whatever that you made every conceivable effort, 
 as my sincere friend, to gain the point, your failure and dis- 
 missal are to me a very unsatisfactory symptom. In fact, 
 they lead me to speak of a matter which I should not other- 
 wise have mentioned, since, in my opinion, when a man has 
 an end in view he should go straight on to it without looking 
 in front, or behind, or allowing himself to be diverted from 
 it by any other ambition." 
 
 "Well, well !" said la Peyrade, "what is all this tall talk 
 about? What do you want me to do? And what will it 
 cost?" 
 
 "My dear boy," said Cerizet, ignoring his impertinence, 
 "you yourself can judge of the value of such a find as a young 
 lady, well educated, gifted with beauty and talents and a 
 fortune, at least equal to Celeste's, of her very own, plus fifty 
 thousand francs worth of diamonds, like Mademoiselle 
 George's in a provincial poster ; besides, what must chiefly at-
 
 214 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 tract a man of an ambitious spirit, some influence in politi- 
 cal circles for her husband's benefit." 
 
 "And you have this jewel in your pocket?" asked la Pey- 
 rade incredulously. 
 
 "Better still; I am authorized to make you the offer. I 
 might almost say I am commissioned to do so." 
 
 "My good man, you are fooling me, unless this phoenix 
 has some prohibitive defect.*' 
 
 "Ah, I confess," said Cerizet, "there is one little draw- 
 back, not in the family connection, for, to tell the truth, 
 the lady has none." 
 
 "Oho ! a natural child ! and moreover ?" 
 
 "Moreover, she is not so young as she was; she may be 
 nine-and-twenty ; but nothing can be easier than to picture a 
 maid not yet quite old as a young widow." 
 
 "And that is the worst you have to say?" 
 
 "Yes, all that is irremediable." 
 
 "What do you mean by that ? A case of rhinoplastics ?" 
 
 The word as addressed to Cerizet was singularly offensive. 
 In fact, this tone had been very evident in all the lawyer 
 had said during dinner. However, it was not the usurer's 
 game to seem offended. 
 
 "No," said he, "our nose is as well made as our figure and 
 foot; but we are, I must own, somewhat afflicted with hys- 
 teria." 
 
 "I see," said Theodose, "and as there is but one step from 
 hysteria to insanity " 
 
 "Just so," Cerizet eagerly put in. "Troubles have left our 
 brain slightly affected, but the doctors are unanimously 
 agreed that at the birth of the first child not a sign will re- 
 main of this little mental disturbance." 
 
 "The doctors, of course, are infallible !" replied the lawyer, 
 "but in spite of all your discouragement you must excuse 
 me, my good friend, if I continue to pay my addresses to 
 Mademoiselle Colleville. It seems an absurd confession, but 
 the truth is that I am gradually falling quite in love with 
 the little girl. It is not that her beauty is remarkable, or
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 215 
 
 that the splendor of her fortune has dazzled me ; but the girl 
 has an artless soul added to a. strong foundation of good 
 sense, and, which settles the question in my mind, there is 
 something very attractive in her sincere and solid piety. I 
 believe she will make her husband happy." 
 
 "Yes," said Cerizet, who, having been on the stage, re- 
 membered Moliere's word, " 'Your hymen will be soaked in 
 sweets and joys.' ' : 
 
 This quotation from Tartuffe nettled la Peyrade, and he 
 retorted : 
 
 "The contact of her innocence will purge me of the infec- 
 tion of the low company I have hitherto kept." 
 
 "And you will pay your notes of hand," added Cerizet. 
 "With as little delay as possible, if you take my advice, for 
 Dutocq, here present, confessed to me but just now that he 
 would not be sorry to see the color of your money." 
 
 "I? Never!" exclaimed Dutocq. "On the contrary, our 
 friend is well within the time allowed by law." 
 
 "Well, I, for my part, am quite of Cerizet's opinion," said 
 Theodose. "The less a debt is legally due, and the more 
 disputable and discreditable it is, the greater haste to pay 
 and have done with it." 
 
 "But, my dear la Peyrade," said Dutocq, "you speak with 
 such bitterness !" 
 
 La Peyrade, taking out his pocket-book, merely said: 
 
 "Have you the bills with you, Dutocq?" 
 
 "Indeed, my dear boy, I have not," said the other, "and 
 am the less likely to have them about me because they are 
 now in Cerizet's hands." 
 
 "Well," said the advocate, rising, "whenever you like to 
 call, I pay over the counter. Cerizet can tell you that." 
 
 "What, are you off without waiting for coffee ?" said Ceri- 
 zet, utterly amazed. 
 
 "Yes ; I have an appointment for eight o'clock in an arbi- 
 tration case. And we have said all we had to say : You have 
 not got the lease; you have got your twenty-five thousand 
 francs; Dutocq's are ready for him whenever he chooses to
 
 216 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 call at my office. I see nothing to hinder me from going 
 where my business calls me, wishing you a very good even- 
 ing." 
 
 "Heyday!" said Cerizet, as Theodose went out, "this is a 
 rupture." 
 
 "Aye, and made as emphatic as possible," remarked 
 Dutocq. "The air with which he took out his pocket-book !" 
 
 "But where the devil did he find the money?" asked the 
 money-lender. 
 
 "In the same place, no doubt," replied Dutocq ironically, 
 "where he found that which he produced to redeem the notes 
 you were obliged to let him have so cheap." 
 
 "My good friend," said Cerizet, "I will explain the cir- 
 cumstances in which that insolent rogue released himself 
 from me, and you will see if he did not literally rob me of 
 fifteen thousand francs." 
 
 "That is very likely; but you, my kind agent, wanted to 
 do me out of ten thousand." 
 
 "No, indeed. I was instructed to purchase your share of 
 the bills ; and after all, I had gone as far as twenty thousand 
 when our gentleman came in " 
 
 "At any rate," said Dutocq, "when we leave I will go to 
 your house and you shall give me his notes of hand ; for, as 
 you may suppose, to-morrow morning at the earliest human 
 hour, I shall call at what monsieur calls his office. I will 
 not give his paying mood time to cool/' 
 
 "And you will be very wise ; for, take my word for it, there 
 will be some rough play in his career before long." 
 
 "Then do you really mean that story of a crazy girl whom 
 he is to marry? I must confess that, in his place, with affairs 
 looking so promising of success, I should not have jumped 
 at the offer. Nina and Ophelia are very interesting on the 
 stage, but in the domestic circle " 
 
 "In the domestic circle, where they have a comfortable 
 fortune, you are only the guardian," said Cerizet sapiently, 
 "in point of fact, you get the fortune without the wife." 
 
 "Well," said Dutocq, "that is one way of looking at it/'
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 217 
 
 "If you like, we will get our coffee elsewhere," Cerizet sug- 
 gested. "This dinner has ended so flatly that I only want 
 to get out of the place it is very stuffy." 
 
 He called the waiter. "The bill," said he. 
 
 "M'sieu', it is paid." 
 
 "Paid and by whom?" 
 
 "By the gentleman who went out just now." 
 
 "But it is inconceivable !" cried Cerizet. "I ordered the 
 dinner, and you allowed a stranger to pay for it." 
 
 "It is no fault of mine," said the waiter; "the gentleman 
 paid the lady at the desk. She supposed it was all right, 
 no doubt. It is not so very common to find gentlemen fight- 
 ing for the pleasure of paying." 
 
 "Well all right !" said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter. 
 
 "No coffee, gentlemen?" said the man before he left. "It 
 is paid for." 
 
 "For that very reason we will not have it!" said Cerizet 
 irritably. "It is really monstrous that in a house of this 
 character such a blunder should be possible. Can you con- 
 ceive of such insolence?" he added, when the waiter was 
 gone. 
 
 "Faugh !" said Dutocq, taking his hat ; "it is a schoolboy's 
 trick to show that he has money in his pocket. It is a new 
 sensation, evidently." 
 
 "No, no," said Cerizet, "it is not that. It is a way of in- 
 sisting on the quarrel. 'I do not choose to be indebted to 
 you even for a dinner' that is what it means." 
 
 "In point of fact, my dear fellow," said Dutocq, as they 
 went down the steps, "this banquet was intended to celebrate 
 your enthronement as principal tenant. He could not get 
 you the lease; so I can understand that his conscience was 
 ill at ease under the notion of allowing you to pay for a din- 
 ner which, like my promissory notes, were for no value re- 
 ceived." 
 
 Cerizet made no comment on this ill-natured explanation. 
 They were in front of the desk where the lady presided who 
 had allowed herself to be paid by the wrong man; and the
 
 218 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 usurer, to save his dignity, felt bound to speak his mind. The 
 two men then went out together, and the money-lender took 
 his master to find a cup of coffee in a poor sort of tavern in 
 the Passage du Saumon. 
 
 Here the Amphitryon who had got off so cheaply re- 
 covered his temper; he was like a fish out of water restored 
 to its element. Sunk as he was to such a level as makes a 
 man ill at ease in places where better company is to be met, 
 it .was almost with delight that Cerizet found himself in his 
 element again in this saloon where pool was being noisily 
 played for the benefit of a hero of the Bastille. 
 
 He had a reputation in this establishment as a billiard- 
 player, and was requested to join in the game already begun. 
 He bought a ball, that is to say, one of the players sold him 
 his turn and his chances. Dutocq took advantage of this 
 arrangement to make himself scarce, going off, as he said, 
 to inquire after a sick friend. 
 
 Not long after, just as Cerizet, in his shirt-sleeves and with 
 a pipe between his teeth, had achieved one of those masterly 
 strokes which rouse the gallery to frenzied admiration, on 
 casting an exultant glance behind him he saw a terrible 
 kill-joy. 
 
 Among the lookers-on, du Portail was gazing at him over 
 his stick, as it were, on which his chin was propped. 
 
 A flush spread over Cerizet's cheeks, and he hesitated to 
 recognize and bow to the gentleman whom he had little ex- 
 pected to meet in such a place. Incapable of making the 
 best of this unpleasant incident, he lost his presence of 
 mind; this affected his play, and a few strokes after he 
 found himself put out. 
 
 While he was putting on his coat, feeling very cross, du 
 Portail rose, and pushing by him as he went out, said in an 
 undertone : 
 
 "Hue Montmartre, at the end of the Passage." 
 
 When they met, Cerizet was so clumsy as to try to explain 
 his being found in such loose attire and in this place. 
 
 "But to see you there I was necessarily there myself," said 
 du Portail.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 219 
 
 "That is true/' said the money-lender, "and I was con- 
 siderably surprised at finding a peaceful resident of the 
 Saint-Sulpice quarter in that den." 
 
 "Which sufficiently proves," said the gentleman, in a voice 
 which stifled curiosity and cut off all explanations, "that 
 I am in the habit of going everywhere and anywhere, and 
 that my lucky star can' guide me on the track of those whom 
 I want to see. I was thinking of you just as you came in. 
 Well, what have you done?" 
 
 "Nothing of any use," said Cerizet. "After playing me 
 a horribly scurvy trick and keeping me out of a splendid 
 stroke of business, our man rejected all overtures with su- 
 preme contempt. There is no hope of buying in Dutocq's 
 bills; la Peyrade is in funds, it would seem, for he wanted 
 to take them up then and there, and will undoubtedly pay 
 them off to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Then he regards his marriage to Mademoiselle Colleville 
 as a (Settled thing?" 
 
 "Not only that, but his latest pretence is to give out that 
 it is a marriage for love. He favored me with a long speech 
 to convince me that he was sincerely attached to her." 
 
 "Very good," said du Portail, "stay the proceedings" 
 by which he meant, do nothing further in the matter. "I 
 will undertake to bring our gentleman to reason. Come 
 to me to-morrow to give me full particulars as to the family 
 he wants to marry into. You have missed one stroke of 
 business; do not let that worry you; by helping me others 
 will turn up." 
 
 So speaking, he called a hackney coachman who hap- 
 pened to be driving past, got into the cab, and with a 
 friendly but patronizing nod to Cerizet, told the man to 
 drive to the Kue Honore-Chevalier. 
 
 As he walked down the Eue Montmartre towards the 
 Estrapade quarter, Cerizet thrashed his brain to guess who 
 this little old man could be, with his abrupt speech, his im- 
 perious tone, and his manner when he addressed people as 
 VOL. 14 40
 
 220 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 of holding them with grappling-irons; who came, too, so 
 far from home to spend his evening in a place where his dis- 
 tinguished superiority made him appear quite out of his ele- 
 ment. 
 
 He had got as far as the Halle without hitting on any 
 solution of this problem ; but he was roughly roused from his 
 meditation by a hearty slap on the back. 
 
 He hastily turned round, and found himself face to face 
 with Madame Cardinal, not that there was anything to as- 
 tonish him in meeting her in this neighborhood, whither 
 she came in the small hours of the morning to lay in her 
 stock in trade. 
 
 Since the evening they had spent in the Eue Honore-Che- 
 valier, in spite of the leniency then extended to her, the 
 good woman had thought it prudent to pay very brief visits 
 to her own lodgings; and for the last two days had been 
 drowning the sore of her discomfiture in liquor taken "short," 
 and called "drops of comfort." 
 
 Her voice was thick and her face on fire as she said: 
 
 "Hallo, daddy! And how did you get on with the little 
 old man?" 
 
 "I explained to him in a very few words," said the money- 
 lender, "that, so far as I was concerned, he was under a 
 misapprehension. You, my poor woman, have behaved 
 throughout with unpardonable recklessness. When you 
 asked me to help you in securing your uncle's property, how 
 was it that you did not know of his having a natural daugh- 
 ter, to whom he long since left all he had by will ? The little 
 old man, who interrupted you in your absurd attempt to an- 
 ticipate the inheritance, was neither more nor less than the 
 legatee's guardian." 
 
 "Oho ! So that is a guardian !" said the woman. "Well, a 
 pretty sort they are your guardians ! To talk to a woman 
 at my time of life only because she wishes to find out if her 
 uncle has anything to leave about sending for the police! 
 If that is not abominable, disgusting !" 
 
 "Come, Madame Cardinal," said Cerizet, "you have noth- 
 ing to complain off; you got off cheap."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 221 
 
 "And you? I should like to know! You, who picked 
 the locks and wanted to pocket the diamonds under pretence 
 of marrying my daughter! As if she would even look at 
 you my daughter! And a legitimate daughter, she is! 
 'Never, mother,' says she, 'never would I give my heart to 
 a man with a nose like that !' s> 
 
 "The you have found the girl?" 
 
 "No longer ago than last evening. She has given up her 
 vermin of an actor, and is, I flatter myself, in a splendid 
 position, eating off silver, having her brougham by the 
 month, and highly respected by a lawyer who would marry 
 her out of hand, but that he must wait till his parents die, 
 because his father, as it happens, is a mayor, and such a 
 marriage might displease the government." 
 
 "My good woman, what stuff you are talking. His father 
 is his mother?"* 
 
 "Dear me, what next ! Mayor of the district of the elev- 
 enth arrondissement, Monsieur Minard, a retired cocoa 
 merchant, enormously rich." 
 
 "Ah, to be sure, to be sure. I know him. And Olympe, 
 you say. is with his son." 
 
 "That is to say, they do not live together, to avoid scandal, 
 though his intentions are strictly honorable. He lives with 
 his father, and meanwhile they have bought all their furni- 
 ture, and it is housed, with my daughter, in rooms near the 
 Chaussee d'Antin. A stylish quarter, isn't it?" 
 
 "Why, that seems to me a capital arrangement," said 
 Cerizet, "and as it is clear that Heaven did not mean us for 
 each other " 
 
 "Yes, that's just where it is. I believe the child will turn 
 out quite a comfort to me; and there is a thing I want to 
 ask your advice about." 
 
 "What is that?" asked Cerizet. 
 
 "It is just this : my daughter being in such luck, of course 
 I cannot go on crying fish in the streets, and since I am 
 disinherited by that uncle of mine, don't you think I have a 
 right to ask for an allowance for element?" 
 
 * Mere, mother maire, mayor.
 
 222 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "You are dreaming, my good woman; your daughter is 
 under age; it is you who ought to be keeping her, and not 
 she who ought to allow you aliment." 
 
 "And so those who have not, are to give to those who 
 have I" exclaimed Madame Cardinal, her temper rising. "A 
 pretty thing is the law as well as your guardians, who talk 
 of sending for the police for a mere nothing. All right ! 
 Let Mm fetch the police ! Let him have me executed. That 
 will not hinder me from saying that rich men are all 
 thieves, and the poor people ought to make another revolu- 
 tion to get their rights, which you, my boy, and my daughter, 
 and her lawyer Minard, and tne little guardian, will have 
 to knock under, d'ye see?" 
 
 Seeing that his ex-stepmother had reached a really in- 
 coherent pitch of excitement, Cerizet abruptly left her, and 
 when he was fifty paces away he could hear himself still 
 pursued by abuse which he promised himself he would pay 
 her out for, the very next time she should come to the 
 bank, in the Rue des Poules, to ask him to make things easy 
 for her. 
 
 As he got near the house, Cerizet, who was anything 
 rather than brave, had a shock; he perceived a figure in am- 
 bush by the door a man, who, on his approach, moved out 
 and was evidently coming to meet him. 
 
 Happiiy it was only Dutocq ; he had come for la Peyrade's 
 notes of hand. Cerizet handed them over to him with some 
 ill-humor, complaining of the distrust implied in a visit 
 at such an unseemly hour. 
 
 Dutocq cared little enough for his touchiness, and early 
 next morning he called on la Peyrade. 
 
 Theodose paid him on the nail, and to some effusive 
 speeches which Dutocq was tempted to make when he felt 
 the cash in his pocket, he replied with marked coldness. 
 Everything in his demeanor betrayed the attitude of a slave 
 who had just broken his chains, and who does not care to 
 make any particularly Christian use of his freedom. 
 
 As he let his late creditor out, Dutocq found himself con-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 223 
 
 fronting a woman dressed like a servant, who was about 
 to ring the bell. She was, as it would seem, an acquaintance 
 of Dutocq's, for he said to her : 
 
 "So-ho, mother, you found a craving to consult a lawyer, 
 heh ? You are quite wise. At the family council some very 
 serious stories were told about you." 
 
 "Heh ! Thank God, I am afraid of no one, and I can 
 hold up my head and march on," replied the woman thus 
 addressed. 
 
 "So much the better!" said the law clerk, "so much the 
 better, but you will probably be summoned, ere long, to 
 account for this business before the judge. But after all 
 you are in good hands, and our friend la Peyrade can give 
 you the best advice." 
 
 "Sir, you are quite mistaken," replied the woman; "it was 
 not on account of what you fancy that I came to consult 
 monsieur the lawyer." 
 
 "Well, well, take care of yourself, my good woman, for I 
 warn you that you will be plucked in style. The relations 
 are furious with you, and they will stick to the notion that 
 you are very rich/'' 
 
 As he spoke, Dutocq fixed an eye on Theodose, who avoided 
 his gaze and desired his client to step in. 
 
 This was what had taken place, the day before, between 
 this woman and la Peyrade. 
 
 La Peyrade, it may be remembered, was in the habit of 
 going, every morning, to early mass in his parish church. 
 For some time past he had found himself the object of 
 curious attention on the part of the woman who had just 
 now entered his room; like Dorine in Tartuffe, she had been 
 careful to attend regularly at his exact hour, and these pro- 
 ceedings had puzzled him greatly. 
 
 An unspoken passion? Such an explanation was incom- 
 patible with the mature age and pragmatical devotion of the 
 woman who, wearing the close-fitting cap, a la Janseniste, 
 by which a few ardent votaries of the sect may still be identi- 
 fied in the Saint-Jacques quarter, covered up all her hair
 
 224 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 like a nun ; while, on the other hand, her clothes were almost 
 fastidiously neat; and a gold cross hanging round her 
 neck from a black velvet ribbon excluded the hypothesis of 
 timid poverty anxious to delay the moment when it must 
 boldly stand confessed. 
 
 On the morning of the day when the dinner was to be 
 given at the Rocher de Cancale, la Peyrade, tired of these 
 manreuvres which were at last beginning to occupy his 
 thoughts, and perceiving that this puzzle in a close cap 
 seemed anxious to speak to him, had gone up to the woman 
 and asked if there were anything he could do for her. 
 
 "I believe, sir, that you are the famous Monsieur de la 
 Peyrade, the advocate of the poor?" 
 
 "My name is la Peyrade, and I have, in fact, had the op- 
 portunity of helping some of the poorer people of this quar- 
 ter." 
 
 This was the Provencal's modest version of the matter 
 not, at that moment, too excessively a Southerner. 
 
 "If, sir, you would of your kindness listen, and advise 
 me." 
 
 "The place," said Theodose, "is not very well chosen for 
 such a consultation. What you have to say is important, 
 it would seem, for I have noticed you moving about me for 
 some little time; I live close by, Rue Saint-Dominique- 
 d'Enfer, and if you will take the trouble to come to my 
 
 rooms " 
 
 "I shall not trouble you too much, sir?" 
 "Not at all ; it is my business to attend to my clients." 
 "At what hour, not to put you to any inconvenience, sir ?" 
 "When you please; I shall be at home all the morning." 
 "Then I will attend mass again and take communion; 
 I should not have dared to do so at this service, the idea 
 of speaking to you, sir, would have distracted my mind. 
 When I have performed my devotions, I can be at your rooms 
 by about eight, if that suits you, sir." 
 
 "Perfectly; and you need not make so much ceremony 
 over it," said la Peyrade impatiently.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 225 
 
 This touch of irritation may, perhaps, have arisen from 
 a little professional jealousy, for it struck him that he had 
 to deal with a practised hand, who could give him points. 
 
 At the appointed hour, not a minute before or after, the 
 bigot rang the lawyer's bell, and he, after persuading her, 
 with some difficulty, to sit down, desired her to speak. 
 
 The good woman was then afflicted with the little post- 
 poning cough that comes in to secure a short delay when 
 approaching a difficult subject. Finally, making up her 
 mind to the plunge, she explained the object of her visit. 
 
 "I came," said she, "to ask you, sir, to be so good as to 
 tell whether it is true that a very charitable man, now dead, 
 left a fund for rewarding servants who have done well by 
 their masters?" 
 
 "That is to say/' replied la Peyrade, "Monsieur de Mon- 
 thyon founded a set of prizes which have, in fact, been fre- 
 quently given to zealous and exemplary servants. But mere 
 good conduct is not enough to earn one of these rewards; 
 some act of heroic devotion must be proved, of truly Chris- 
 tian self-sacrifice." 
 
 "Eeligion," said the bigot, "enjoins humility, and I cer- 
 tainly should not dare to praise myself; but for more than 
 twenty years I have lived in the service of an old man, dull 
 beyond all you can fancy, who has spent all he has on in- 
 venting things, and whom I am obliged to maintain and 
 there are persons who think I am not altogether unworthy 
 to obtain the prize." 
 
 "It is, no doubt, from among such cases that the Academy 
 selects the candidates," said la Peyrade. "What is your mas- 
 ter's name?" 
 
 "Monsieur Picot; old Father Picot he is always called 
 in the neighborhood ; he walks about dressed like a guy at 
 carnival-time, and all the children troop at his heels, crying 
 after him : 'Good-day, Daddy Picot.' But that is the man 
 all over ; he never cares what folks think of him ; he is always 
 wool-gathering. What is the good of my wearing myself 
 to the bone to cook him something tasty ? If you asked him
 
 226 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 what he had for dinner he could not tell you. A clever 
 man, too, who has turned out some good pupils; perhaps, 
 sir, you know young Phellion, a professor 'at the Saint-Louis 
 school, who still comes pretty frequently to our house." 
 
 "Then your master is a mathematician /" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Yes, sir; and mathematics have been his ruin. He has 
 taken up some queer ideas, in which it would seem there is 
 no sense at all, after ruining his eyesight at the Observa- 
 tory, near by, where he was employed for a good many 
 years/' 
 
 "Well," said la Peyrade, "you must get some testimonials 
 to prove all your devotion to the old man, and I will then 
 draw you up a form of application, and take the preliminary 
 steps." 
 
 "How kind you are !" cried the woman, clasping her 
 hands. "But if you would allow me there is a little diffi- 
 culty 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 "I have been told, sir, that to get a prize you must be 
 very poor indeed." 
 
 "Well, not quite a pauper; at the same time the Academy 
 endeavors, no doubt, to help those who are in poor cir- 
 cumstances, and who have made sacrifices really beyond their 
 means." 
 
 "As for sacrifices, I may flatter myself I have made 
 enough, when the whole of a little fortune I had from my 
 parents has been spent in the housekeeping^; and for more 
 than fifteen years I have never had a penny of my wages, 
 which, at three hundred francs a year, with the compound 
 interest, mounts up to a nice little sum, as you will allow, 
 sir." 
 
 At the words "compound interest," which presupposed 
 some financial experience, la Peyrade looked more closely at 
 this Antigone. 
 
 "Then the difficulty in question ?" said he. 
 
 "You will not regard it as an objection, I hope, sir, that 
 I should lately have lost a very rich uncle, who died in Eng-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 227 
 
 land, and who, after doing nothing for his family during 
 his lifetime, left me by his will the sum of twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs." 
 
 "Of course/' said la Peyrade, "nothing can be more natu- 
 ral or more perfectly legitimate." 
 
 "And yet, sir, I Have been told that it might do me a 
 mischief in the opinion of the judges." 
 
 "That, no doubt, is possible, because, as you now are in 
 easy circumstances, the devotion you still propose to show 
 to your master, as I suppose, will be evidently less meri- 
 torious." 
 
 "I certainly will never desert the good man, in spite of his 
 faults, although the poor little property I have come in for 
 will be in the greatest peril." 
 
 "How so?" asked la Peyrade, who was curious. 
 
 "Bless me, sir, if he thinks I have any money, if it is but 
 a mouthful, it will all be swamped in his inventions for per- 
 petual motion, which have been his ruin, and mine too." 
 
 "Then, as I understand," said la Peyrade, "what you wish 
 is that this legacy should remain a secret both from the 
 Academy and from your master?" 
 
 "You are so clever, sir ; you understand so well !" said the 
 pious dame, smiling. 
 
 "And to that end," the lawyer went on, "you do not wish 
 to keep the money in your own hands?" 
 
 "That my master may find it and grab it ! Besides, as 
 you may believe, I should be glad, if only to enable me to 
 get him some little extra treats, that the money should bring 
 in some interest." 
 
 "And the more the better," observed la Peyrade. 
 
 "Well, sir, say five to six per cent." 
 
 "Then it would appear that what you want my advice on 
 is not only a memorial to apply for a prize for virtue, but 
 also a sound investment?" 
 
 "You are so kind, sir, so charitable, so encouraging!" 
 
 "The form of application, after making some inquiry, 
 will not be difficult; but an investment affording good se-
 
 228 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 curity, and at the same time kept absolutely secret, is far 
 less easy to manage." 
 
 "But if I dared " said she. 
 
 "What ?" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "You understand me, sir?" 
 
 "I? not in the least." 
 
 "I prayed to Heaven but just now that you might your- 
 self take charge of the money. I should feel so confident 
 that it was in safe hands, and that nothing would be said 
 about it." 
 
 At this moment la Peyrade was reaping the reward of 
 the farce he had played of devotion to the poorer class. 
 Nothing could have inspired this woman with the boundless 
 confidence she felt in him, unless it were the chorus of 
 praise from all the porters' wives in the neighborhood. The 
 thought of Dutocq flashed on him, and he felt ready to be- 
 lieve that this woman had been sent to him by Providence. 
 But the more he longed to take advantage of such a chance 
 of purchasing freedom, the more it behooved him to seem to 
 yield against his will ; and he made endless difficulties. 
 
 In point of fact he had no great belief in his client's char- 
 acter, and he was not anxious, in robbing Peter to pay 
 Paul, as the saying goes, to throw over a creditor who, after 
 all, was in the same boat with him, in favor of an old woman, 
 who might become troublesome at any moment, and, in her 
 eagerness to recover her money, might make such a fuss as 
 would seriously damage his reputation. He determined, 
 therefore, to play a desperate game. 
 
 "My good woman," said he, "I am in no want of money, 
 and I am not rich enough to pay you the interest on a sum 
 of twenty-five thousand francs without investing it. The 
 only thing I can do is to put it, in my own name, in the 
 hands of a notary, Monsieur Dupuis, a pious man whom 
 you may see any Sunday on the official bench in the parish 
 church. Notaries, as you know, give no form of receipt; 1 
 shall therefore give you none. I can only pledge myself 
 to leave among my papers, in case of my death, a note that
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 229 
 
 secure you the repayment of your capital. As you see, 
 it is a matter of blind confidence and even so, I take the 
 money most unwillingly and merely to oblige a person who 
 commends herself so strongly to my good-will by her pious 
 sentiments, and by the charitable use she proposes to make 
 of her little fortune." 
 
 "If you see no other way, sir " 
 
 "This is the only plan that seems to me possible/' replied 
 la Peyrade. "However, I do not despair of getting you six 
 per cent, and at any rate you may be certain that it will 
 be punctually paid. Only it might happen that the notary 
 could not command the capital under six or twelve months' 
 notice, because the moneys which notaries usually invest 
 in mortgages are commonly tied up for a longer or shorter 
 term. Also, as soon as you have gained the prize for virtue, 
 which in all probability I can enable you to get, as you then 
 may no longer care to conceal your little fortune though 
 J quite understand your wishing to do so at present I must 
 warn you that in case of any indiscretion on your part the 
 capital will be immediately returned to you, and I shall not 
 hesitate to tell the world at large how you have concealed 
 this legacy from the master to whom you profess such en- 
 tire devotion. This, as you must see, will reveal you as a 
 hypocrite, and detract greatly from your reputation for 
 piety." 
 
 "Oh, sir," said the woman, "can you suppose I would tell 
 anything I ought to hold my tongue about?" 
 
 "Bless me, my good woman, in business we must provide 
 against every contingency. Money makes quarrels between 
 the best friends, and leads to the most unforeseen issues. 
 So take time and think it over ; come again a few days hence. 
 Between this and then you may have thought of some plan 
 that you like better, and I myself, though proposing so reck- 
 lessly an arrangement which I confess does not please me, 
 may have discerned difficulties which escape me at the pres- 
 ent moment." 
 
 This threat, hinted at in conclusion, was certain to clinch 
 the matter.
 
 230 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I have thought it all over/' said the woman. "With so 
 religious a man as you, sir, there can be no risk." 
 
 She took a small pocketbook out of the bosom of her dress 
 and extracted twenty-five thousand-franc banknotes. 
 
 The dexterity with which she counted them was a revela- 
 tion to la Peyrade. The woman was evidently used to finger- 
 ing money, and a queer notion flashed through his brain 
 "Supposing I were receiving stolen goods!" 
 
 "No, no," he said. "In order to draw up the petition to 
 be presented to the Academy, I must first, as I told you, 
 make some little inquiry, so I shall be calling on you in the 
 natural course of things by and by. At what hour are you 
 alone?" 
 
 "My master goes out at about four to take a turn in the 
 Luxembourg." 
 
 "And where do you live?" 
 
 "Hue du Val-de-Grace, No. 8." 
 
 "Very well, at four o'clock then ; and if as I see no reason 
 to doubt my information is satisfactory, I will then take 
 your money. Otherwise, as we can take no further steps 
 in the matter of the prize you will not need to make any 
 mystery of your legacy. Then you can invest it in a more 
 ordinary manner than I have been obliged to suggest to 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, you are very cautious, sir," said the woman, who 
 had fancied the business settled. "I did not steal the money, 
 thank the Lord ! And you can make every inquiry you wish 
 among the neighbors." 
 
 "That is just what I must do, whether or no," said la 
 Peyrade dryly, for he did not altogether like this alert 
 shrewdness, which, under an assumption of artlessness, read 
 all his thoughts. "Prizes for virtue are not given for the 
 asking, and short of being a thief you may not be a Sister 
 of Charity; there is a wide interval between the two ex- 
 tremes." 
 
 "As you please, sir," said the woman. "You are doing 
 me too great a service for me to make any demur to your
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 231 
 
 precautions." And with a most unctuous courtesy she de- 
 parted, taking her money with her. 
 
 "The devil!" thought la Peyrade, "that woman is more 
 than a match for me. She swallows an affront with an air of 
 gratitude and never a wry face. I have not learned to control 
 myself so effectually." He was half afraid that he had been 
 too cautions, and that his client might change her mind 
 before he paid her the call he had promised. 
 
 However, the mischief was done, and though a little wor- 
 ried at the thought of having perhaps missed an opportunity, 
 he would sooner have lost a limb than yield to the tempta- 
 tion to call a minute earlier than the hour he had fixed. 
 
 The information he picked up in the neighborhood was 
 contradictory; some spoke of his client as a perfect saint, 
 others thought her a very cunning hussy; still, there was 
 nothing on the whole against her moral conduct, or calculated 
 to scare la Peyrade away from the piece of good luck she 
 had put in his way. 
 
 When he saw her again at four o'clock she was still in 
 the same mind. 
 
 It was with this money in his pocket that he went to the 
 Rocher de Cancale; perhaps the various excitement through 
 which he had passed in the course of the day had some- 
 thing to do with the abrupt and hasty way of his rupture 
 with his associates. This manner of behavior was very ill- 
 judged, and not the outcome of either his natural or his 
 acquired temperament. In fact, the money, all hot, that 
 he had in his pocket, had a little turned his brain, and the 
 mere touch of it had filled him with an eager impatience 
 for freedom which was beyond his control. He had thrown 
 Cerizet overboard without even consulting Brigitte; and 
 yet he had not all the courage of his treachery, since he 
 had ascribed to the old maid a purpose which was the off- 
 spring solely of his own ill-will, and his bitter memories of 
 entanglements with the man who so long had him in his power. 
 
 Thus all through the day la Peyrade had come short of 
 being the infallible and ever-ready man we have hitherto
 
 232 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 found him. Once already, when holding the fifteen thou- 
 sand francs given to him by Thuillier, he had been dragged 
 by Cerizet into an illegal action which had compelled him to 
 the master-stroke of his bargain with Sauvaignou. 
 
 It is, no doubt, more difficult to keep a level head in good 
 than in bad fortune. 
 
 The Farnese Hercules, strong in quiescence, shows more 
 fully the reserve of muscular force than other figures of 
 Hercules in violent action, represented in all the excitement 
 of their labors.
 
 PART II. 
 
 BETWEEN the two parts of this narrative, a great event had 
 occurred in the Phellions" life. 
 
 Everybody has heard of the disaster of the Odeon, the 
 ill-starred theatre which for so many years devoured its 
 managers. Eightly or wrongly, the residents in the neigh- 
 borhood of this dramatic failure are convinced that they take 
 the greatest interest in its prosperity, and more than once 
 the mayor and the bigwigs of the arrondissement have en- 
 deavored, with a courage that does them honor, to promote 
 various schemes for galvanizing the corpse. 
 
 Now, to have a finger in some theatrical pie is one of the 
 perennial ambitions of the middle-class man; hence the 
 would-be saviours of the Odeon, one after another, thought 
 themselves magnificently repaid when they were allowed 
 the semblance of a vote in the management of the con- 
 cern. 
 
 It was as a member of a board of this kind that Minard, 
 as Mayor of the eleventh arrondissement, was appointed 
 president of the Beading Committee, with liberty to select 
 as assessors a certain number of notables of the Quartier 
 Latin. 
 
 The reader will ere long be fully informed as to the 
 point reached by la Peyrade in his attempts on Celeste's 
 fortune. It may at once be said that as his schemes ad- 
 vanced towards maturity they had inevitably been talked 
 about; and since at this stage they apparently excluded the 
 pretensions alike of the younger Minard and of Felix the 
 professor, the prejudice which Minard senior had allowed 
 himself to betray against the elder Phellion had been con- 
 verted into an unequivocal disposition to friendly overtures, 
 for nothing binds and subdues men more effectually than 
 the sense of a common repulse. 
 
 (233)
 
 234 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Thus seen by eyes unblinded by paternal rivalry, Phellion 
 was to Minard as a noble Koman of unimpeachable in- 
 tegrity, a man whose little books had been adopted by the 
 University that is to say, a healthy and well-tested mind. 
 
 So when it was the Mayor's duty to form a committee for 
 the dramatic custom-house of which he was the head, he 
 immediately chose Phellion; and this noble citizen, on the 
 day when a seat was offered him on that august tribunal, 
 felt as though a fillet of gold crowned his brow. It may 
 well be believed, not lightly nor unadvisedly had so pompous 
 a mortal as Phellion accepted the high and sacred func- 
 tions proposed to him. He was called, he told himself, to 
 exercise a magistracy, a priesthood. 
 
 "To form an opinion of men," said he to Minard, who 
 was surprised at his hesitancy, "is an alarming task: but 
 to judge intellects! Who may conceive himself equal to 
 euch a task?" 
 
 And, once more, family considerations, that rock ahead of 
 all brave resolve, had encroached on the rights of conscience; 
 the thoughts of the boxes and admissions which would be 
 at the disposal of a member of the board, had given rise to 
 such a commotion in the household, that for a moment his 
 free option had seemed to be in danger- Happily, how- 
 ever, Brutus thought himself justified in deciding on the 
 line of action towards which the consensus of the whole tribe 
 of Phellion was urging him; from the observations made 
 by his son-in-law Barniol, as well as from his personal judg- 
 ment, he saw reason to believe that by his vote, always to 
 be recorded in favor of works of irreproachable morality, 
 and by his firm determination always to oppose any drama 
 to which a mother might hesitate to take her daughter, 
 he would be enabled to do the most signal service to good 
 principles and public morals. 
 
 So Phellion had become a member, to use his own words, 
 of the Areopagus presided over by Minard, and he had just 
 come home from exercising his functions, as delicate as 
 they were interesting, to quote him once more, when the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 235 
 
 conversation took place which is now to be reported. As 
 being necessary for the apprehension of the subsequent 
 events of this story, and as giving expression to the envious 
 instinct which is one of the salient features of the middle- 
 class nature, this conversation is indispensable in this place. 
 
 The committee meeting had been very stormy. 
 
 In discussing a tragedy entitled, "The Death of Hercules/' 
 the classical and the romantic factions, which the Mayor 
 had carefully balanced in the selection of his jury, had been 
 ready to tear each other's hair. 
 
 Twice had Phellion risen to speak, and his colleagues 
 had been amazed at the flood of metaphor a major of the 
 National Guard may have at his command when his literary 
 convictions are threatened. 
 
 The votes being take*n, victory was declared on the side 
 of which Phellion was the eloquent mouthpiece, and as they 
 went downstairs, he said to Minard: 
 
 "We have done good work to-day. This 'Death of Her- 
 cules' reminds me of the 'Death of Hector' by poor Luce 
 de Lancival, who died; the piece we have just read is full 
 of sublime lines." 
 
 "Yes," said Minard, "the verse is neat enough; there are 
 some good passages, and I confess I place this class of 
 literature a little way above our friend Colleville's ana- 
 grams." 
 
 "Oh," said Phellion, "Colleville's anagrams are mere play- 
 ing with words, and have nothing in common with Melpom- 
 ene's stern accents." 
 
 "But I assure you," said Minard, "he attaches great im- 
 portance to that nonsense; and our friend, the musician, 
 has taken great credit to himself for his anagrams, as well 
 as for many other matters. In fact, since they moved to 
 the neighborhood of the Madeleine, it strikes me that not 
 Colleville only, but his wife, his daughter, the Thuilliers, 
 and their whole set, have given themselves airs of impor- 
 tance, not altogether justifiable." 
 
 "What do you expect?" said Phellion. "A man must have 
 VOL. 1441
 
 236 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 a strong brain to stand the heady fumes of opulence. Our 
 friends have gained great riches hy the acquisition of the 
 house they have now gone to live in ; we must allow them an 
 interval of intoxication. And, really, the dinner they gave 
 us yesterday, by way of a housewarming, was not only 
 abundant, but well served." 
 
 "Well," said Minard, "I may flatter myself that I, too, 
 have given a few fairly distinguished dinners, to men of 
 high position in the state, who have not scorned to sit at 
 my- table, but I am not therefore unduly puffed up. What 
 I have always been, I am still." 
 
 "You, Monsieur le Maire, have long been accustomed to 
 the handsome mode of life you made for yourself by your 
 remarkable commercial faculties. Our friends, on the con- 
 trary, so recently embarked as passengers in the smiling 
 barque of fair fortune, have not yet got their sea-legs, as the 
 phrase is." 
 
 And to cut short a conversation, in which the Mayor's 
 tone was to Phellion's mind rather too caustic, he paused 
 to take leave of him. Their way home lay in different di- 
 rections. 
 
 "Are you going through the Luxembourg ?" asked Minard, 
 not choosing to lose his companion. 
 
 "I shall cross it, but not remain there. I am to meet 
 Madame Phellion at the end of the broad walk, where she 
 is to wait for me with the Barniol children." 
 
 "Well, then," said Minard, "I will give myself the pleas- 
 ure of greeting Madame Phellion, and at the same time 
 breathe a mouthful of fresh air; for even listening to fine 
 things tires the brain, in such work as we have been doing." 
 
 Minard had quite understood that Phellion did not meet 
 him half-way in response to his rather acrid remarks on 
 Thuillier's new establishment. So he made no attempt to 
 reopen the subject with him; but when Madame Phellion 
 was his listener, feeling quite sure that his animadversions 
 would find an echo in her, he said: 
 
 "Well, lady fair, and what did you think of our dinner 
 yesterday ?"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 237 
 
 "It was very well done," replied Madame Phellion, "and 
 the moment the potage a la bisque was served I perceived 
 that some master-hand such as Chevet had taken the place 
 of the native cook. But it was flat; it lacked the cordiality 
 of our little meetings in the Quartier Latin. And then 
 did it strike you> as it did me, that neither Madame nor 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier seemed thoroughly at home? I de- 
 clare I felt at last as if I were dining with Madame what 
 is her name? I cannot get it into my head." 
 
 "Torna, Comtesse de Godollo," said Phellion, interven- 
 ing. "But it is a most euphonious name, too." 
 
 "As euphonious as you please, my dear; to my ears it is 
 no name at all." 
 
 "It is a Magyar, or, to speak vulgarly, a Hungarian name. 
 Our name, now, if any one chose to quarrel with it, might 
 be said to seem borrowed from the Greek." 
 
 "Possibly. But we have the advantage of being well 
 known, not only in our own neighborhood but the whole 
 educational world, where we have succeeded in making an 
 honorable position; whereas, that Hungarian Countess who 
 rules the roast in the Thuilliers' house where has she drop- 
 ped from, I should like to know? Why on earth, with her 
 fine-lady airs for it cannot be denied that the woman has 
 very elegant manners why, I say, has she thrown herself 
 into the arms of Brigitte, who, between you and me, smells 
 of the sod, and is the porter's daughter to a degree that makes 
 one sick? For my part, I believe that this devoted friend 
 is just an adventuress. She scents a fortune and is plotting 
 some clever way of turning it to advantage." 
 
 "Dear me," said Minard, "are you still in ignorance of 
 the beginnings of the intimacy between the Countess and 
 the Thuilliers?" 
 
 "She is one of their tenants. She has the entresol below 
 them." 
 
 "Very true; but there is something more than that. Ze- 
 lie, my wife, had it from Josephine, who, at one time, 
 wanted to enter our service; that fell through, however,
 
 238 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 because our Frangoise, who was leaving to get married, 
 changed her mind. You must know then, lady fair, that 
 it was owing entirely to Madame de Godollo that the Thuil- 
 liers migrated at all, and she, in fact, was their upholsterer 
 and decorator." 
 
 "What ! an upholsterer !" cried Phellion, "that stylish 
 woman of whom one might truly say : Incessa patuit dea, 
 which we very inadequately render by the expression, 'she 
 treads like a queen.' '' 
 
 "Nay," said Minard, "I do not say that Madame de Go- 
 dollo actually deals in furniture. But at the time when 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier, by la Peyrade's advice, decided 
 on managing the subletting of the house by the Madeleine, 
 that young gentleman, whose influence is not so paramount 
 as he would like us to believe, could not persuade her, with- 
 out some strong measure, to go and inhabit the magnificent 
 apartment in her own house, where she received us yester- 
 day. Mademoiselle Brigitte argued that she must alter all 
 her habits, that her old friends would not come to her in 
 a distant part of town." 
 
 "It is perfectly true," said Madame Phellion, "that if 
 we are to be prepared to take a carriage every Sunday, we 
 must have some better amusement in prospect than that we 
 are likely to find in their drawing-room. When you think 
 that, excepting on the evening when they had that little 
 dance in honor of the nomination to the Municipal Council, 
 no one ever dreams of opening the piano !" 
 
 "It would indeed have been a pleasure to find such a talent 
 as yours occasionally called into requisition," said Minard, 
 "but that is an idea that would never enter our good Bri- 
 gitte's head. She would have considered that two more 
 wax-lights would be burning. Five-franc pieces make the 
 music she loves. So, when la Peyrade and Thuillier urged 
 her to leave the apartment in the Rue Saint-Dominique- 
 d'Enfer, her one idea was the expense attending the removal. 
 She reflected, and very rightly, that the old lumber out of 
 that house would look queer indeed among all that gilt panel- 
 ing."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 239 
 
 "That is how all things hang together/' exclaimed Phel- 
 lion, "and how, beginning at the top of the social scale, 
 luxury, filtering down to the lower classes, involves em- 
 pires, sooner or later, in ruin." 
 
 "There, my dear major, you touch on one of the vexed 
 questions of social economy. On the other hand, many ju- 
 dicious writers are of opinion that luxury is a very impor- 
 tant element in the expansion of trade, which is, no douht, 
 the life of the state. This view, which is not yours, it would 
 seem, is that, at any rate, of Madame de Godollo, for she is 
 said to have furnished her own rooms very daintily; and 
 to tempt Mademoiselle Thuillier into her own elegant 
 courses she made this proposition : 'One of my friends,' said 
 she, 'a Russian princess, for whom one of the decorators 
 in Paris has just made a magnificent suite of furniture, has 
 been suddenly recalled by the Czar, a gentleman who does 
 not understand a joke. So the poor woman is compelled 
 to turn everything she possesses into ready money, and I am 
 sure that she will part with all her furniture for a quarter 
 of what it cost her, to any one who will pay on the nail. It 
 is almost new, and there are some pieces that have never 
 been used.' '' 
 
 "So then," said Madame Phellion, "all the splendor dis- 
 played yesterday is cheap and second-hand magnificence !" 
 
 "Just so, madame," answered Minard. "And the thing 
 that brought Mademoiselle Brigitte to the point of accept- 
 ing this splendid offer, was not so much her wish to acquire 
 new furniture 1 as the idea of securing a great bargain. 
 There is always a vein of Madame la Eessource, in I'Avare, 
 in that woman." 
 
 "I think you are mistaken, Monsieur le Maire," said Phel- 
 lion. "Madame la Ressource is a character in Turcaret, a 
 very immoral play by Le Sage." 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Minard. "Possibly. What at 
 any rate is quite certain is that while the advocate made his 
 way into Brigitte's good graces by enabling her to buy the 
 house, it was by this jobbery over the furniture that the for-
 
 240 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 eign lady gained such a footing. Perhaps, indeed, you may 
 have observed that there is the beginning of a struggle be- 
 tween the two powers the real and personal estate !" 
 
 "Yes, indeed!" cried Madame Phellion, with a sort of 
 glee that showed how interesting she found this conversa- 
 tion. "I observed that the great lady allowed herself to con- 
 tradict our young friend the lawyer, and that she even did so 
 with some acerbity." 
 
 "Oh ! it is very marked," replied Minard, "and he is too 
 keen not to be quite aware of it. And her hostility disturbs 
 him not a little. He easily got round the Thuilliers, for, 
 between you and me, they are not very wide-awake; but in 
 her he feels that he has a capable adversary, and he is 
 anxiously seeking her vulnerable point." 
 
 "Indeed," said Madame Phellion, "it is just retribution. 
 This gentleman was for some little time modest and humble, 
 but lately he has assumed the most intolerably domineering 
 airs in that house ; he flaunted the son-in-law ; and really, in 
 the matter of Thuillier's election, he tricked us all by mak- 
 ing every one the stepping-stone to his matrimonial ambi- 
 tions." 
 
 "Yes," replied Minard. "But at this moment I can as- 
 sure you that the man is at a discount. In the first place 
 he cannot every day find an opportunity of enabling his 'dear 
 fellow,' as he calls him, to buy a freehold worth a million 
 francs for a mere song." 
 
 "Then did they get the house so very cheap?" asked Ma- 
 dame Phellion. 
 
 "They bought it for next to nothing, by means of a ras- 
 cally intrigue of which Desroches the attorney told me the 
 whole story: as a fact, if the matter came to the knowledge 
 of the Association, it might get our advocate into a very 
 ugly scrape. Now the election to the Chamber lies ahead. 
 Our worthy Thuillier's appetite has grown with eating; still 
 he perceives already that when he tries to cut that cake. Mas- 
 ter la Peyrade will not find it so easy to make us his dupes 
 once more. That is why they have attached an ally in the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 241 
 
 person of Madame de Godollo, who has high connections, 
 it would seem, in political circles. However, quite apart 
 from this affair, which is still far enough away, the lady 
 is making herself constantly indispensable to Brigitte; for 
 it must be owned that if it were not for the help of the great 
 lady the poor woman in her fine gilded drawing-room would 
 look like a rag in a bride's wedding outfit." 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur le Maire, you are too cruel !" said Madame 
 Phellion with a simper. 
 
 "Nay, but really and truly," said Minard, "is Brigitte, 
 is Madame Thuillier, in the least capable of presiding over a 
 'Salon'? The Hungarian lady has superintended all the ar- 
 rangements of the house; it was she who secured the man- 
 servant who is so well trained and so intelligent; it was she 
 who had made out the menu for yesterday's dinner; in 
 short she is the guardian angel of the colony, which, but for 
 her assistance, must have been the laughing-stock of the 
 whole neighborhood. 
 
 "And there is one very strange thing: instead of being, 
 as you fancied, a mere parasite like the Provengal, this for- 
 eign lady, who seems to have a nice little fortune of her 
 own, it not only disinterested but generous. The dresses 
 worn by Brigitte and by Madame Thuillier, which you 
 ladies all remarked, were a present she insisted on making 
 them; and it was as a result of her having presided in per- 
 son at the toilet of our two hostesses, that you saw them yes- 
 terday not quite such guys as usual." 
 
 "But what object can she have in view that she shows them 
 such maternal devotion?" asked Madame Phellion. 
 
 "My dear," said Phellion solemnly, "human actions are 
 not, thank God ! invariably based on selfish motives and the 
 promptings of greedy interest. There are yet some hearts 
 to be found who love doing good for its own sake. This 
 lady may have seen that our friends were likely to lose their 
 way in a sphere of which they did not appreciate the height ; 
 and, having guided their first steps to the purchase of the 
 furniture, she may, as a foster-mother gets attached to her
 
 242 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 charge, have found pleasure in giving them the milk of in- 
 formation and advice." 
 
 "Your dear husband!" said Minard to Madame Phellion. 
 "You would think he meant no harm, and he bites the piece 
 out!" 
 
 "I bite a piece out!" said Phellion. "I did not intend 
 it, nor is it consonant to my habits." 
 
 "And yet you could hardly put it more plainly that the 
 Thuilliers are perfect fools and that Madame de Godollo has 
 volunteered to bring them up by hand!" 
 
 "I decline to accept, on behalf of our friends, an inter- 
 pretation so derogatory to their high respectability," re- 
 plied Phellion. "All I meant to imply was that perhaps 
 they lack experience, and that this noble lady places her 
 knowledge of the world and its ways at their disposal; but 
 I protest against any attribution of meaning beyond the 
 idea thus strictly defined." 
 
 "Still, my dear major, you must admit that there woiild 
 be something more than want of worldly wisdom in allow- 
 ing this la Peyrade to marry Celeste. It would be at once 
 stupid and immoral; for, after all, the advocate's barefaced 
 flirtation with Madame Colleville " 
 
 "Monsieur le Maire," said Phellion, with aggravated 
 pomposit}% "Solon, the great lawgiver, would assign no 
 punishment for parricide, believing the crime to be impos- 
 sible. I think the same of such gross misconduct as you seem 
 to allude to. That Madame Colleville should favor the at- 
 tentions of Monsieur de le Peyrade while meaning to give 
 him her daughter no, monsieur, no ! That is beyond my 
 imagining. If she were questioned on the subject before a 
 tribunal, Madame Colleville, like Marie Antoinette, couH 
 but reply, *I appeal to all mothers !' ' : 
 
 "At the same time, my dear," said his wife, "allow me 
 to tell you that Madame Colleville is abominably profligate, 
 and has very sufficiently proved it." 
 
 "Enough of this, my -dear," said Phellion. "Indeed, it 
 is near the dinner hour, and it seems to me that by degrees
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 243 
 
 we have allowed the conversation to drift on to the mud- 
 banks of slander." 
 
 "You are full of illusions, my dear friend," said Minard, 
 shaking hands with Phellion; "but they are honorable illu- 
 sions, and I honor you. Madame, I have the honor " 
 
 added the Mayor, bowing respectfully to Madame Phellion. 
 
 And they went their ways. 
 
 The information supplied by the worthy Mayor of the 
 eleventh arrondissement was correct. 
 
 In the Thuillier's drawing-room, since their migration 
 to the Madeleine quarter, the face and figure of a bewitch- 
 ingly gracious woman was to be found between Brigitte's 
 asperity and Madame Thuillier's plaintive indolence, giv- 
 ing the place an unexpected stamp of elegance. 
 
 It was also true that by this woman's instrumentality 
 Brigitte had effected an investment in furniture not less ad- 
 vantageous and far more legitimate than the purchase of 
 the freehold. For six thousand francs she had found her- 
 self in possession of a set of furniture not long since in the 
 workshops, and representing a value of at least thirty thou- 
 sand francs. 
 
 It was no less true that in consequence of this service, 
 which went straight to her heart, the old maid had shown 
 the handsome foreigner a great deal of the respectful defer- 
 ence which her citizen class, in spite of its touchiness and 
 jealousy, is far more ready to pay to titles and high rank in 
 the social hierarchy than is generally supposed. The Hun- 
 garian Countess was a woman of great tact and superior 
 education, and while she assumed the tone of lofty control 
 which she thought fit to arrogate over the three persons she 
 chose to patronize, she took good care not to give her in- 
 fluence any taint of irritating or imperious authority. On 
 the contrary, she flattered Brigitte's conceit of being a model 
 housekeeper, and, so far as the material expenses of her own 
 house were concerned, she affected to consult Miss Thuillier, 
 as she called her by way of a pet name; so that while she
 
 244 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 reserved the administration of the sumptuary outlay in her 
 own and her neighbors' rooms, she appeared to be giving 
 and taking useful instruction rather than asserting her pat- 
 ronage. 
 
 Even la Peyrade himself" could make no mistake as to the 
 fact that his influence was waning before that of the 
 Countess. But this lady's antagonism was not limited to 
 a mere struggle for pre-eminence. She had boldly expressed 
 her disapproval of his pretensions to Celeste's hand; she 
 extended her protection in the plainest way to Felix the pro- 
 fessor's suit; and Minard, who had not failed to discern this, 
 had taken good care not to mention the fact to those whom 
 it most interested, while expatiating on other details. 
 
 Theodose was no doubt all the more distressed at rinding 
 himself undermined by a hostility which to him seemed in- 
 explicable, because he was conscious of having helped to get 
 this troublesome adversary into the heart of the citadel. 
 
 His first blunder had been his rash indulgence in the barren 
 satisfaction of keeping Cerizet out of his lease; if Brigitte 
 had not, by his advice and entreaties, undertaken the sub- 
 letting on her own account, the odds were that she would 
 never have come near Madame de Godollo. 
 
 Another rash act had been to urge the Thuilliers to leave 
 their remote solitude in the Quartier Latin. 
 
 But at that time, the blossoming time of his power over 
 them, Theodose believed that his marriage was a settled 
 thing, and he was in an almost childish hurry to take his 
 flight towards the superior sphere which seemed to be open- 
 ing before him. So he had added his persuasions to those 
 of the Hungarian Countess, feeling as though he were send- 
 ing the Thuilliers on in advance to make his bed in the 
 handsome apartment he was one day to share with them. 
 And he had foreseen another advantage from this arrange- 
 ment; it would remove Celeste from the almost daily meet- 
 ings with a rival whom he could but regard as dangerous. 
 Beyond the distance which made it possible "to drop in," 
 Felix could call but seldom ; and Theodose would find easier
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 245 
 
 opportunity for lowering him in the opinion of Celeste, who 
 had given him a place in her heart only on condition of his 
 affording her such satisfaction on religious points as had 
 found him refractory. 
 
 Still, more than one obstacle had arisen in the way of the 
 Provengal's plans. 
 
 If la Peyrade should open wider horizons to the Thuilliers, 
 he would run the risk of introducing rival competitors for 
 the exclusive admiration of which he was now the object. 
 In the provincial atmosphere they breathed, for lack of any 
 standard of comparison, Brigitte and the "dear fellow" had 
 placed Theodose on an eminence from which he must in- 
 evitably be dislodged when seen in juxtaposition with other 
 types of superiority and fashion. Thus, irrespective of the 
 shock obscurely dealt by Madame de Godollo, the idea of 
 establishing the transpontine colony was a bad one so far 
 as the Thuilliers were concerned, and not much better with 
 regard to the Collevilles. 
 
 This family had moved with their friends to the new house, 
 renting the entresol at the back, at a price within their 
 means. Colleville, however, complained that the rooms were 
 dark and stuffy, and being compelled to go every day from 
 the Boulevard de la Madeleine to the Faubourg Saint- 
 Jacques, where his office was, he grumbled at the new ar- 
 rangements to which he was a victim, and was apt to express 
 his opinion that la Peyrade was a perfect tyrant. Madame 
 Colleville, on the other hand, in order to be on a par with 
 the other inhabitants of the quarter where she had taken up 
 her residence, rushed into a perfect orgy of new bonnets, 
 mantles, and dresses; and these, necessitating extra cheques, 
 led to more or less stormy scenes in the household. 
 
 Celeste, to be sure, had fewer opportunities of seeing young 
 Phellion, but then there was less chance of her being led into 
 religious discussions; and absence, which endangers none but 
 weak attachments, made her think more tenderly and less 
 theologically of the man of her dreams. 
 
 And all those blunders after all were as nothing as com-
 
 246 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 pared with another source of humiliation which weighed on 
 Theodose. For the sum of ten thousand francs, which 
 Thuillier had disbursed with a very good grace, la Peyrade 
 had promised him, within a week, the Cross of the Legion 
 of Honor, the secret ambition of his whole life. 
 
 Now more than two months had elapsed and not a word 
 had been heard of the glorious bauble; and the ex-second 
 clerk, who would have been so happy in displaying his scrap 
 of red ribbon on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he 
 paced the asphalt with assiduous regularity, still had but a 
 flower to grace his buttonhole, the privilege of all men, of 
 which he was much less proud than Beranger. 
 
 La Peyrade had of course alluded darkly to some unfore- 
 seen and unaccountable obstacle which had paralyzed all the 
 efforts and all the good-will of the Comtessc du Bruel; but 
 Thuillier did not take this explanation kindly, and in his 
 acute disappointment he was often within an ace of saying, 
 like Chicaneau in Les Plaideurs: "Then give me back the 
 money !" However, he did not come to this point because la 
 Peyrade kept a hold over him through the famous pamphlet 
 on "Taxation and Eedemption." The fuss of removal had 
 hindered its completion. While all that excitement was in 
 the air Thuillier could not give his mind to the correction 
 of the proofs, which, it may be remembered, he reserved the 
 right to criticise minutely. 
 
 The lawyer, clearly understanding that he must strike 
 some decisive blow to restore his fast-evaporating influence, 
 seized on this haggling mood to be the fulcrum, as he hoped, 
 of a scheme no less deep-laid than bold. 
 
 One day, when they were at work on the last pages of the 
 pamphlet, a discussion arose over the word nepotism, which 
 Thuillier wished to eliminate from a sentence written by la 
 Peyrade, declaring he had never met with it, and that it was 
 a neologism, that is to say, in the literary notions of the 
 middle-class man, almost as bad as the idea of 1793 and the 
 Eeign of Terror. As a rule Theodose took his "dear fellow's" 
 ridiculous notions patiently enough; but that morning he
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 247 
 
 got very angry, informing Thuillier that he might finish the 
 work himself, since he chose to criticise it with such acumen 
 and intelligence; and for a few days they did not meet. 
 
 At first Thuillier supposed this to mean merely a passing 
 fit of temper; but as time went on and la Peyrade did not 
 return, he felt that he must take some steps towards a recon- 
 ciliation, so he called on the Provengal to apologize and put 
 an end to this fit of the sulks. Wishing, however, to give 
 this action such a turn as would leave a loophole for his self- 
 respect, he went in with an off-hand air and said: 
 
 "I find, my dear boy, that we were both in the right. 
 Nepotism means the authority assumed by the Pope's nephews 
 in the direction of the State. I looked in the dictionary and 
 that is the only meaning given ; but from what Phellion tells 
 me it would seem that in political parlance the meaning of 
 the word has been extended to include the influence exercised 
 illegally by the connivance of corrupt ministers. So I be- 
 lieve the expression may stand, though it is not used in that 
 sense by Napoleon Landais." 
 
 La Peyrade, who, while receiving his visitor, affected to 
 be absorbed in the arrangement of his papers, merely 
 shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. 
 
 "Well," said Thuillier, "have you looked at the proofs of 
 the last two sheets ? for we really must get on." 
 
 "If you have sent nothing to the printers," replied la 
 Peyrade, "we are not likely to get proofs. So far as I am con- 
 cerned, I have not touched the manuscript." 
 
 "But, my dear Theodose, you cannot have your back up, 
 'surely, for such a trifle. I do not pretend to be a skilled 
 writer; only, as I put my name to the thing, I think I may 
 be allowed an opinion as to a word." 
 
 "But Mosieu Phellion," retorted the lawyer, "is an author ; 
 and since you consult him, I do not see why you should not 
 ask him to help you to finish the work, on which, I promise 
 you, I will not touch another line." 
 
 "Good heavens! What a temper!" cried Thuillier. "Now 
 you are in a rage because I ventured to doubt the use of an
 
 248 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 expression, and took another opinion. But you knew per- 
 fectly well that I had read part of it to Phellion, Colleville, 
 Minard, and Barniol, as if the work were my own, to judge 
 of its effect on the public, and that is no reason why I should 
 sign my name to anything they might choose to write. To 
 give you an idea of the confidence I have in you: Madame 
 de Godollo, to whom I was reading a few pages of it last 
 evening, told me that the pamphlet was quite enough to get 
 me into trouble with the public prosecutor; and do you sup- 
 pose that would stop me?" 
 
 "Indeed," said la Peyrade sarcastically, "the oracle of your 
 household seems to me very far-sighted, and I have no wish 
 to bring your head to the block." 
 
 "All that is pure nonsense," said Thuillier. "Do you or 
 do you not intend to leave me in the lurch ?" 
 
 "Literary questions," replied the lawyer, "lead to quarrels 
 between the best friends even more often than political dif- 
 ferences. I wish to eliminate every subject of debate between 
 us." 
 
 "But, my dear Theodose, I never set up for being a man of 
 letters; I believe I am possessed of vulgar common sense, 
 and I say what I mean. You cannot blame me for that, and 
 if you play me such a scurvy trick as to refuse me your help, 
 it must certainly be because something else rankles of which 
 I am wholly unconscious." 
 
 "Why a scurvy trick ? Nothing can be easier for you than 
 not to write the pamphlet ; you will still be Jerome Thuillier 
 as you are now/* 
 
 "But it was you who were of opinion that this publication 
 might contribute to my election to the Chamber. Besides, 
 as I tell you, I have read portions of it to all our friends. I 
 have spoken of the pamphlet in the Municipal Council, and 
 if it now fails to appear I shall be discredited; it will be 
 said that the Government has bribed me." 
 
 "You have only to say that you are the friend of the incor- 
 ruptible Phellion; that will be .a sufficient answer. You 
 might even marry Celeste to his nincompoop of a son. Such
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 249 
 
 a connection would protect you even better against any sus- 
 picions." 
 
 "Theodose," said Thuillier, "there is something on your 
 mind which you will not tell me. It is not in nature that 
 you shall involve your friend in such loss of respect for 
 a simple matter of one word." 
 
 "Well, yes, then, if you will have it," said la Peyrade, with 
 an air of effort; "I cannot bear ingratitude." 
 
 "Nor can I," said Thuillier, with some spirit. "And if 
 you mean that you accuse me of anything so mean and vile, 
 I demand an explanation. We must at last speak out ! What 
 have you to complain of? Of what do you accuse me the 
 man whom, but a few days since, you called your friend ?" 
 
 "Nothing and everything," said Theodose; "your sister 
 and you are far too clever to quarrel openly with a man who 
 has put a million francs in your pockets at the risk of his 
 good name. But I am not so simple but that I can under- 
 stand shades of meaning. There are persons about you who 
 are making it their business to undermine me, and Brigitte's 
 one idea is to discover some decent excuse for not keeping 
 her promises. Men such as I do not urge this kind of claim, 
 and I certainly have no wish to force myself on anybody; 
 but I confess I was far from expecting such treatment." 
 
 "Come, come," said Thuillier, seeing in the lawyer's eye 
 the glitter of a tear, which completely deceived him ; "I am 
 sure I do not know what Brigitte may have done, but one 
 thing is certain, I have never ceased to be your sincerest 
 friend." 
 
 "Oh, no," said la Peyrade ; "since I failed in the matter of 
 the Cross, I am of no further use but to throw to the dogs. 
 And can I, do you suppose, make head against occult powers ? 
 Why, dear me ! It is, perhaps, this very pamphlet of which 
 you have talked too much by a great deal which annoys 
 the Government, and hinders your being promoted. The 
 ministry are such owls that they would rather wait to have 
 their hand forced by the success of the work, than yield 
 gracefully and reward you simply for past services. But
 
 250 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 these are political mysteries which are not likely to occur to 
 your sister's mind." 
 
 "Deuce take it I" said Thuillier. "I fancy I am pretty 
 clear-sighted, and really I cannot see that Brigitte has 
 changed in her treatment of you." 
 
 "Most true!" said la Peyrade. "Your sight is so keen 
 that you do not even see that Madame de Godollo always at 
 her heels, and that she cannot live without her!" 
 
 "So!" said Thuillier, enlightened, "we are suffering from 
 a little fit of jealousy." 
 
 "Jealousy !" retorted la Peyrade. "I do not know that it 
 is quite the right word. But, at any rate, your sister, who 
 is not at all above the common run, and whom you, a man of 
 such superior intellect, have allowed to usurp the authority 
 she enjoys and abuses " 
 
 "How can I help it, my dear boy ?" interrupted Thuillier, 
 inhaling the compliment, "she is so absolutely devoted to 
 me." 
 
 "Such weakness is very pardonable," said Theodose, "still, 
 I repeat it, your sister is no match for your little finger. Well, 
 as I was saying, when a man of such intelligence as you will, 
 I am sure, allow me, does her the honor to advise her and 
 serve her as zealously as I have done, it cannot be pleasant 
 for him to see himself cut out, supplanted in her confidence, 
 by a woman fallen from heaven knows where, and all on 
 account of some frippery curtains and old chairs she was able 
 to buy cheap." 
 
 ''With women, as you know," said Thuillier, "household 
 economy is paramount." 
 
 "And I may tell you that Brigitte, who meddles in every- 
 thing, also imagines that she can rule our love affairs with a 
 high hand. Since you are so clear-sighted, you must have 
 observed that in Brigitte's mind nothing is less settled than 
 my marriage to Mademoiselle Colleville. And yet my affec- 
 tion has been solemnly authorized by you." 
 
 "Yes, and by heaven," said Thuillier, "I should like to see 
 anybody try to meddle with our arrangements."
 
 THE MIDDLE CEASSES 251 
 
 "Setting Brigitte aside," replied the lawyer, "I can tell you 
 of some one who is quite determined to meddle, and that is 
 Mademoiselle Celeste herself. In spite of the apparent bar- 
 rier between them, in their difference of opinion on religious 
 questions, her head is very candidly full of that young Phel- 
 lion." 
 
 "And why not insist on Flavie's setting that to rights ?" 
 
 "Flavie, my dear fellow ! No one knows what she is better 
 than you. She is the woman rather than the mother. I 
 found myself let in for a little mild love-making ; and though 
 she approves of the marriage, you understand she has not 
 set her heart on it." 
 
 "Very well," said Thuillier, "then I will take it upon my- 
 self to speak to Celeste. It shall not be said that we were 
 beaten by a little girl." 
 
 "On no account," cried la Peyrade; "I particularly wish 
 that you should not interfere in this matter. Excepting as 
 regards your sister, you have a will of iron, and I will not 
 have it said that you forced Celeste into my arms. On the 
 contrary, I wish the child to be left sole mistress of her 
 heart; only I think I have a right to ask that she should 
 decide definitely between me and Monsieur Felix, for I really 
 cannot remain in this suspense, which is undermining me. 
 That the marriage should be hung up till you are elected 
 deputy is too vague; I cannot submit to see the most impor- 
 tant step of my life left to the chances of the future ; besides, 
 this arrangement, to which I gave in at first, has the smell 
 of a bargain about it which I do not at all like. 
 
 "I feel that I must tell you a secret ; a confidence to which 
 I am driven by all the difficulties I am exposed to. Dutocq 
 can tell you that before you left the house in Kue Saint- 
 Dominique, an heiress was proposed to me, in his presence, 
 quite seriously, with a larger fortune than you can leave to 
 Mademoiselle Colleville. I refused because I am fool 
 enough to have lost my heart, and because a connection with 
 so respectable a family as yours seems to me supremely de- 
 sirable. Still, Brigitte must be made to understand that, 
 even if Celeste throws me over, I am not left destitute." 
 
 VOL. 14 42
 
 252 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "That I can easily believe," said Thuillier. "But to leave 
 the whole decision to that little brain especially if, as you 
 say, she has a fancy for Felix !" 
 
 "That I cannot consider," said the lawyer. "At any cost 
 I must escape from the present predicament it is intoler- 
 able, so far as I am concerned. You talk of your pamphlet, 
 I am incapable of finishing it. You, as a man who have 
 known something of women, must be well aware of the do- 
 minion the malignant creatures can exert over our life and 
 being." 
 
 "Yes indeed!" said Thuillier fatuously. "I have been a 
 lover; but I have not often been a slave; I have taken some 
 and left others." 
 
 "But I, with my southern temperament, am a prey to pas- 
 sion ; besides, Celeste has a greater charm than the mere suc- 
 cess of winning favors. Brought up as she has been by you, 
 under your eye, she is an adorable girl ; but it is folly to have 
 allowed that young fellow, who is in every respect unsuitable, 
 to take possession of her fancy." 
 
 "You are right ten times over. But they have been inti- 
 mate from their childhood; Felix and she played together, 
 and you only appeared on the scene at a later date. In fact, 
 it is a proof of our high opinion of you, that as soon as you 
 came we were ready to give up our old plans/' 
 
 "You were, yes," said Theodose. "You, with literary 
 ideas and proclivities, often full of brilliant wit and good 
 sense, have a heart of gold. With you I know where I 
 stand, and you know what you want ; but you will see, if you 
 say a word to Brigitte about hastening on this marriage, she 
 will fight tooth and nail." 
 
 "I believe firmly that Brigitte has always wished to sec 
 you her son-in-law, if I may so express myself; but if she 
 does not, I beg you to rest assured that in matters of im- 
 portance I can assert my will. Only let us be sure exactly 
 what it is^that you want. Then we will start, left, right, 
 and you will see all will be well." 
 
 "I want, in the first place," said la Peyrade, "to put the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 253 
 
 finishing touches to your pamphlet, for you must be my first 
 consideration." 
 
 "Certainly/' said Thuillier ; "it would not do to be wrecked 
 in sight of land." 
 
 "Well, then. Starting from the idea that I am annihi- 
 lated, overthrown by the thought of this marriage which re- 
 mains hung up, I tell you you will not get a page out of me, 
 by hook or by crook, till the question is settled." 
 
 "And what is the question; how do you formulate it?" 
 asked Thuillier. 
 
 "Obviously, if Celeste decides against me, I must wish to 
 know my fate at once. If it is my fate to marry, for 'rea- 
 son,' at least I ought not to miss the opportunity of which 
 I have spoken." 
 
 "Very good. And how much time do you give us?" 
 
 "It seems to me that any girl may know, her own mind in 
 the course of a fortnight." 
 
 "Beyond a doubt. But I do not like the idea of Celeste's 
 pronouncing sentence without appeal." 
 
 "I will take my chance. I shall be released from suspense, 
 which is the most important point; and then, between you 
 and me, I am not staking so rashly as you might think. It 
 is not in a fortnight that a son of Phellion's, that is to say, 
 obstinacy incarnate in folly, will get over his philosophic 
 doubts; and Celeste will certainly not accept him for her 
 husband till he has given proofs of conversion." 
 
 "That is highly probable. But supposing Celeste were to 
 temporize, and would not decide on either alternative?" 
 
 "That is your business," said the Provencal. "I do not 
 know what parental authority may be in Paris, but I do 
 know that in our good town of Avignon and those parts I 
 never heard of a little girl being allowed such liberty. If 
 you, and your sister, granting that she plays fair, and a 
 father and mother, cannot among you make a child, on 
 whom you are bestowing a fortune, agree to a request so 
 simple and reasonable as that she should freely choose be- 
 tween two suitors good-morning ! You must write over 
 the door of your house that Celeste is queen and sovereign."
 
 254 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "We have not quite come to that," said Thuillier, with a 
 competent air. 
 
 "As to you, old fellow, I must put you off till Celeste has 
 made up her mind. Then, for good or for ill, I will set to 
 work, and in three days it will be finished." 
 
 "At any rate," said Thuillier, "I know what you have on 
 your mind. I will talk it over with Brigitte." 
 
 "That is but a lame conclusion," said la Peyrade. "How- 
 ever, so matters stand, unfortunately." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I should, as you may suppose, prefer to be told that the 
 matter is settled. But old creases cannot be smoothed out." 
 
 '"What then! Do you imagine that I am a man devoid 
 of will and independence?" 
 
 "No. But I should like to be in a corner to see how you 
 will open the question with your sister." 
 
 "I shall open it very frankly, and a very determined I will 
 shall settle every objection." 
 
 "Oh, my dear old fellow," said la Peyrade, slapping him 
 on the shoulder, "since the time of Chrysale, in Les Femmes 
 Savantes, how much warlike thunder has lowered its tone 
 before the will of a woman accustomed to domineer !" 
 
 "That remains to be seen," said Thuillier, effecting a 
 stage exit. 
 
 His anxiety to see the pamphlet finished, and the doubts 
 so ingeniously hinted as to the inflexibility of his will, had 
 turned him into a raging tiger. He went away in the mood 
 to put the whole household to fire and sword, if his will were 
 defied. 
 
 As soon as he was at home, he attacked Brigitte on the 
 subject. She, with her crude good sense and selfishness, 
 pointed out to him that by thus hurrying forward the time 
 originally fixed for la Peyrade's marriage, they were very 
 foolishly disarming themselves; they could not feel certain 
 that, when the election should take place, the lawyer would 
 still devote himself with zeal to insuring their success. "It
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 255 
 
 be the Legion of Honor over again/' said the old maid. 
 
 "There is a difference/' replied Thuillier. "The Cross does 
 not depend directly on la Peyrade, whereas he can make 
 what use he pleases of the influence he has acquired in the 
 twelfth arrondissement." 
 
 "And if it should be his pleasure," retorted Brigitte, 
 "when we have set him on his feet, to use it for himself 
 the fellow is ambitious." 
 
 This danger did, indeed, strike the hopeful candidate; 
 still, he fancied there was some guarantee in la Peyrade's 
 moral sense. 
 
 "The man has not a delicate sense of honor," said Brigitte, 
 "who comes to force a bargain on you ; and this way of mak- 
 ing us dance on our hind-legs like poodles, for a lump of 
 sugar, before giving you the end of your pamphlet, does not 
 please me at all. Could you not get Phellion to help you, 
 and be rid of Theodose ? Or else, now I think of it, Madame 
 de Godollo, who knows all the political world, could no 
 doubt find you a journalist. They are all out at elbows, I 
 have heard ! for twenty crowns the thing would be done." 
 
 "And my secret," said Thuillier, "would be known to 
 three or four persons. No; I positively need la Peyrade; he 
 feels it, and can dictate terms. And, after all, we promised 
 he should marry Celeste; it is forestalling it by a year at 
 most a year? a few months, a few weeks only, perhaps; 
 the King may dissolve the Chamber at the moment when no 
 one expects it." 
 
 "But if Celeste will have nothing to say to him," Brigitte 
 suggested. 
 
 "Celeste ! Celeste, indeed !" cried Thuillier. "She must 
 do what is required of her. That should have been thought 
 of before we pledged ourselves to la Peyrade; for, after all, 
 we have given him our word. And are we not giving the 
 child a choice between him and Phellion?" 
 
 "So that if Celeste should decide in favor of Felix," paid 
 the sceptical Brigitte, "you would still believe in la Peyrade's 
 devotion to you?"
 
 256 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "What can I do? These are his conditions. Besides, the 
 rascal has calculated closely. He knows that Felix will never 
 make up his mind to bring the girl a certificate of confession, 
 and that, short of that, the little slut will never accept him 
 as her husband. La Peyrade's game is a very clever one." 
 
 "Much too clever/' said Brigitte. "However, settle the 
 business as you choose. I will have nothing to do with it ; all 
 these roundabout ways are not to my taste." 
 
 Thuillier next saw Madame Colleville, and intimated to 
 her that she -was to communicate to Celeste the plans that 
 depended on her. 
 
 Celeste had never been officially authorized to indulge her 
 inclinations with regard to Felix Phellion. On the contrary, 
 at an earlier stage of affairs, Flavie had expressly forbidden 
 her to give the young professor any hope; still, as she felt 
 herself supported by Madame Thuillier, her godmother, the 
 sole recipient of her confidence, she gently let herself glide, 
 without particularly troubling herself as to the difficulties 
 that might some day stand in the way of her choice. Con- 
 sequently, when she was commanded to decide between Felix 
 and Theodose, the guileless girl saw only one side of the 
 alternative, and fancied that she had gained an immense ad- 
 vantage by an arrangement which left her free to dispose 
 of herself in obedience to the impulse of her heart. 
 
 But la Peyrade had not been mistaken when he reckoned 
 on the young girl's religious intolerance on one hand, and, on 
 the other, on Phellion's philosophic obduracy, as invincible 
 obstacles to their engagement. 
 
 On the very evening of the day when Flavie had received 
 instructions to communicate to Celeste the sovereign will 
 of Thuillier, the Phellions came to spend the evening with 
 Brigitte, and a lively encounter took place between these 
 two young people. Mademoiselle Colleville did not need the 
 warning hinted by her mother that it would be highly indel- 
 icate to introduce into her controversial arguments any ref- 
 erence to the conditional approbation vouchsafed to their 
 affection. Celeste was at once too honorable and too fervently
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 257 
 
 religious to wish that the man she loved should owe his con- 
 version to any motive but conviction. 
 
 The evening was spent in theological discussions, and love 
 is so strange a Proteus and can assume such undreamed-of 
 shapes, that he figured that evening in the black robe and 
 beretta with far better grace than might be supposed. Still 
 Phellion fils was extraordinarily ill-starred in this encoun- 
 ter, of which he knew not the importance. Besides yielding 
 nothing, he affected a light and ironical tone, and put poor 
 Celeste at last into such a frenzy of distress that she con- 
 veyed to him her wish that all should be at an end, and that 
 he should never speak to her again. 
 
 In such a case a lover of more experience would have seen 
 her again the next morning, for two hearts are never nearer 
 to a mutual understanding than when they have agreed to 
 the necessity of an eternal parting. But this law is not to be 
 found in a table of logarithms, and Felix, quite incapable of 
 divining it, believed himself seriously and forever forbidden 
 her presence ; in fact, during the whole fortnight granted the 
 girl for mature deliberation (as the French code has it in 
 certain questions of inheritance), though Celeste was ex- 
 pecting him every day and every minute, and thinking no 
 more of la Peyrade than if he had nothing to do with the 
 matter, the pitiable youth never had the remotest thought 
 of breaking the ban. 
 
 Fortunately for this uninspired lover, a benevolent fairy 
 was keeping guard over him, and this was what happened 
 on the day before that on which Celeste was to pronounce 
 her decision. 
 
 It was a Sunday, on which day the Thuilliers still held 
 their weekly receptions. 
 
 Madame Phellion, fully convinced that the system of greas- 
 ing the cook's palm, or, as the French say, "making the bas- 
 ket dance/' is often the ruin of a prosperous household, was 
 in the habit of going to market herself at the shops whence 
 'she supplied herself. From time immemorial in the Phel- 
 lion family Sunday was sacred to the pot-au-feu (the stewed
 
 258 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 beef that is a standing dish in French households), and the 
 great citizen's wife in the carefully shabby aitire affected by 
 ladies when they go marketing, had come back very prosaic- 
 ally from the butcher's, followed by the cook, who carried 
 in her basket a noble cut of fresh top-side of beef. Twice 
 already had she rung at her door, and a terrific storm was 
 gathering to fall on the head of the boy who by his delay was 
 placing his mistress in a far worse predicament than that of 
 Louis XIV., who was only almost kept waiting. In her 
 furious impatience, Madame Phellion had just given the bell 
 a third and violent pull. Imagine her confusion and dis- 
 turbance when at this very moment a small coupe" came 
 rattling up to the main door of the house, she saw a lady 
 step out, and in this untimely and unlooked-for caller she 
 recognized the elegant Countess Torna de Godollo. 
 
 The unhappy housewife, blushing purple, lost her head 
 and plunged headlong into apologies; she would no doubt 
 have aggravated her already painful position, but that hap- 
 pily Phellion, startled by the repeated peals of the bell, came 
 out of his study robed in his dressing-gown and crowned 
 with a smoking-cap, to see what was the matter. 
 
 After a speech of which the pompous grace went far 
 towards compensating for the costume it was intended to 
 excuse, the citizen, with the calm presence of mind that never 
 deserted him, gallantly offered his arm to the fair foreigner, 
 and, having led her into the drawing-room, began: 
 
 "May I without indiscretion ask you, Madame la Com- 
 tesse, to what we owe the unexpected honor of this visit?" 
 
 "I was anxious," said the Hungarian lady, "to speak with 
 Madame Phellion of a matter she must have much at heart. 
 I never have a chance of seeing her alone; so, though indeed 
 we are hardly acquainted, I made so bold as to seek her here/' 
 
 "Nay, indeed, madame, you do our humble dwelling honor. 
 But what has become of Madame Phellion?" the good man 
 impatiently added, and he went to the door. 
 
 "No, I entreat you," said the Countess, "do not disturb' 
 her. I have come clumsily enough just at an inconvenient
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 259 
 
 moment for her household arrangements. Brigitte is be 
 ginning to train me very well, and I know that the careb of 
 a house-mistress ought to be respected. And, after all, I am 
 not to be pitied ; I have the consolation of your company, on 
 which I had not ventured to count/' 
 
 Before Phellion could reply to this amiable speech, 
 Madame Phellion came in ; a cap with smart bows had taken 
 the place of her market-bonnet and an ample shawl covered 
 the other defects of her morning attire. As his wife came in, 
 Phellion was about to withdraw. 
 
 "Monsieur Phellion," said the Countess, "you will not be 
 in the way at the conference I have sought with madame. 
 On the contrary, your admirable judgment can only be val- 
 uable in throwing light on a subject in which you are as 
 deeply interested as your excellent wife; it is the marriage 
 of your son/' 
 
 "Of my son !" echoed Madame Phellion, with great 
 amazement ; "why, I did not know that anything of the kind 
 was just now under discussion." 
 
 "That Monsieur Felix should marry Celeste, is, I fancy, 
 a thing you wish, if not actually a project?" said the 
 Countess. 
 
 "We have taken no definite steps to that end, madame," 
 said Phellion. 
 
 "I know that only too well," replied the Hungarian lady, 
 "for, on the contrary, every member of your family seems 
 to be doing their utmost to counteract my efforts. However, 
 one thing is clear, and that is, that in spite of all the silence, 
 and I may say quite plainly, all the clumsiness, that has 
 attended this business, the two young people love each other 
 and will be greatly to be pitied if they are not united. It is 
 to avert that disaster that I have taken the step of calling 
 on you this morning." 
 
 "We cannot but be deeply touched, madame, by the inter- 
 est you are so kind as to feel in our boy's happiness; but, to* 
 tell the truth, that interest 
 
 "Is so inexplicable," the lady hastily put in, "that it rouses 
 your suspicions?"
 
 260 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Oh ! madame," said Phellion, with a respectfully dtepre- 
 caLng bow. 
 
 "Bless me/ 7 said the Hungarian, "the explanation is ex- 
 tremely simple. I have studied Celeste, and in that sweet 
 and artless child I can discern a moral steadfastness which 
 would make me greatly regret her being sacrificed." 
 
 "Indeed it is true, madame. Celeste is an angel of sweet- 
 ness." 
 
 "As regards Monsieur Felix, I venture to feel an interest 
 in him, for I see in him the worthy son of a most virtuous 
 father " 
 
 "Madame, spare me!" said Phellion, with another low 
 bow. 
 
 "But he also has, in my eyes, the charm of that shyness of 
 true love which may be seen in all his looks and heard in his 
 speech. We women find infinite delight in seeing the passion 
 under an aspect which threatens no disappointment, no dis- 
 illusions." 
 
 "My son, to be sure, is not showy," said Madame Phellion, 
 with a hardly perceptible touch of rancor. "He is not a 
 young man of fashion." 
 
 "But he has more essential qualities," the Countess went 
 on, "merit unconscious of itself, the crown of intellectual 
 superiority/' 
 
 "Really, madame," said Phellion, "you compel us to hear 
 things " 
 
 "Which are not in excess of the truth," interrupted the 
 Countess. "Another reason which leads me to exert myself 
 for the happiness of these two young people is that I have no 
 interest whatever in that of Monsieur de la Peyrade, who is 
 false and avaricious. That man hopes to build up the suc- 
 cess of his inveigling schemes on the ruins of their happi- 
 ness." 
 
 "There can be no doubt," said Phellion, "that there are 
 impenetrable depths in Monsieur de la Peyrade on which it 
 is difficult to cast a gleam of light." 
 
 "And as it is my misfortune," Madame de Godollo went on,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 261 
 
 "to have a man of that character for a husband, the mere 
 thought of all the misery in store for Celeste under such an 
 unhappy union inspired me, for her sake, with the charitable 
 impulse which now I hope has ceased to surprise you." 
 
 "We did not need such conclusive explanations as you 
 have given us to throw light on your conduct, inadame," 
 said Phellion. "But with regard to the blunders by which 
 we have nullified your generous efforts, I must own that, with 
 a view to preserving us from repeating them, it might be as 
 well if you would point them out to us." 
 
 "How long is it, for instance," said the Countess, "since 
 any member . of your family set foot in the Thuilliers' 
 house?" 
 
 "Well, if I remember rightly," said Phellion, "we were 
 there on the Sunday after the house-warming dinner." 
 
 "Yes, a full fortnight !" said the lady. "And do you sup- 
 pose that nothing happens in a fortnight?" 
 
 "Certainly, much may happen, since in 1830 it took only 
 three days to overthrow a perjured dynasty and found the 
 order of things under which we now live." 
 
 "You see," said Madame de Godollo. "Well, and that 
 evening, did nothing pass between Celeste and your son?" 
 
 "Indeed, they had a most painful explanation on the mat- 
 ter of my son's religious views. For it must be owned that 
 good little Celeste, who is in every other respect a charming 
 creature, is somewhat fanatical on the question of piety." 
 
 "That I grant," said the Countess. "But she has been 
 brought up by such a mother as you know. She has never 
 seen the face of true piety, only its mask. Repentant Mag- 
 dalens of the type of Madame Colleville always insist on pre- 
 tending to live in a desert with a death's head for company. 
 They fancy it impossible to be saved on cheaper terms. But, 
 after all, what was it that Celeste asked of Monsieur Felix? 
 That he should read the Imitation of Christ." 
 
 "He had read it, madame," said Phellion, "he considers 
 it a very well written book ; but his convictions, unfortunately, 
 have not been even shaken by reading it."
 
 262 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "And do you think it skilful of him not to have been able 
 to yield one jot of his inflexible convictions to his lady 
 love?" 
 
 "My son, madame, never had from ine the least training 
 in such skill; honesty and good faith are the principles I 
 endeavored to inculcate." 
 
 "It does not seem to me, monsieur, that a man is false to 
 his honor when, in dealing with a perverse mood, he goes a 
 little out of his way to avoid irritating it. However, admit- 
 ting that Monsieur Felix owed it to his self-respect to be the 
 iron wall against which Celeste's entreaties beat in vain ; was 
 that a reason, after this scene which was not the first of 
 the kind, though it was by way of being final that, when 
 he had the chance of meeting her in Brigitte's drawing-room, 
 which is neutral ground, he should sulk in his tents for a 
 fortnight? Above all, that he should crown this fit of tem- 
 per by a proceeding which is quite beyond my comprehen- 
 sion, and which, having just come to our knowledge, has 
 filled Celeste at once with despair and with a feeling of ex- 
 treme indignation?" 
 
 "Can my son have been capable of any such proceeding? 
 Impossible, madame !" cried Phellion. "What it is I know 
 not, but I cannot hesitate to say that you must have been 
 misinformed." 
 
 "And yet nothing can be more certain. Young Colleville, 
 who to-day has an exeat, has just told us that for more than 
 a week Monsieur Felix, who has latterly been coming to give 
 him his lesson every alternate day, with the greatest punc- 
 tuality, has entirely ceased to come near him. Now, unless 
 your son is ill, I cannot help saying that this is to the last 
 degree ill-judged. In the position in which he stood to the 
 sister, he should rather have given the boy two lessons a day, 
 than select such a moment for withdrawing his help." 
 
 The Phellions, husband and wife, looked at each other 
 as if in consultation as to their reply. 
 
 "My son, madame," said Madame Phellion, "is not ex- 
 actly ill; but since you lead us to speak, by telling us of this
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 263 
 
 fact, which is, I must own, most extraordinary and utterly 
 unlike his character and habit of mind, I must confess that 
 since the day when Celeste seemed to convey that all was 
 at end between them, Felix has been in a very strange state 
 of mind. Monsieur Phellion and I are much worried about 
 it." 
 
 "Yes, madame," Phellion added, "the young man is cer- 
 tainly not himself." 
 
 "What, then, ails him?" asked the Countess, with much 
 interest. 
 
 "In the first place," said Phellion, "that evening, after 
 the scene, my son, on his return home, shed burning tears 
 on his mother's shoulder, giving us to understand that his 
 happiness was ruined for life." 
 
 "So far all is natural enough," said Madame de Godollo; 
 "lovers always see the darkest side of everything." 
 
 "No doubt," said Madame Phellion; "but from that mo- 
 ment Felix has never even remotely alluded to his misfor- 
 tune, and on the following day he threw himself into his 
 studies again with a sort of frenzy; do you think that equally 
 natural ?" 
 
 "Even that may be accounted for. Study is said to be a 
 great comforter." 
 
 "Nothing can be more true," observed Phellion. "But in 
 all my son's appearance and conduct there is a touch of ex- 
 citement, and at the same time an intensity of concentration, 
 that you can scarcely conceive of. If you speak to the youth, 
 he seems not to hear; he sits down to the table and forgets 
 to eat; or takes his food with such indifference as the medi- 
 cal faculty considers very bad for the digestion; he has to be 
 reminded of his ordinary duties and regular occupations, and 
 he is generally regularity itself. Then, the other day, while 
 he was at the Observatory, where he now spends every even- 
 ing, never coming in till very late, I took upon myself to go 
 into his room and look over his papers. I was appalled, 
 madame, at finding a note-book full of algebraical calcula-
 
 264 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 tions which seemed to me to extend beyond the powers of 
 the human intellect." 
 
 "Perhaps he is on the track of some grand problem," said 
 the Countess. 
 
 "Or on the road to madness," said Madame Phellion, with 
 a sigh, and lowering her voice. 
 
 "That is hardly likely," said Madame de Godollo ; "a man 
 of such a calm temperament and sound good sense is not 
 liable to such disaster. But I know of a misfortune far more 
 imminent, between this and to-morrow, if we cannot effect a 
 master-stroke this evening. Celeste may indeed be lost to 
 him forever." 
 
 "How is that ?" asked the parents, in a breath. 
 
 "Perhaps you are not aware," the lady went on, "that 
 Thuillier and his sister definitely pledged themselves to pro- 
 mote a marriage between Celeste and Monsieur de la Pey- 
 rade?" 
 
 "We had our suspicions," replied Madame Phellion. 
 
 "Still, the fulfilment of the bargain was fixed for a some- 
 what remote date, and contingent on certain conditions. 
 Monsieur de la Peyrade, after securing them the possession 
 of their new house, was to obtain for Monsieur Thuillier the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honor, to write a political pamphlet 
 in his name, and to conduct an election by which he was to 
 win a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. It was like a ro- 
 mance of chivalry in which the hero, to obtain the hand of 
 the princess, was required to exterminate a dragon." 
 
 "The Countess is very witty," said Madame Phellion to her 
 husband, who signed to her not to interrupt. 
 
 "I have not time," the Countess went on, "nor is it of any 
 use to expatiate on the tricks by which Monsieur de la Pey- 
 rade has managed to hurry matters to a conclusion. What 
 it is important that you should know is this : by his contriv- 
 ance, Celeste has been compelled to make a final choice be- 
 tween him and Monsieur Felix. The poor child was given 
 a fortnight in which to decide; the time is up to-morrow, 
 and in consequence of the disastrous effect on her mind, pro-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 265 
 
 duced by your son's attitude and conduct, there is very real 
 danger that she may sacrifice her best feelings and instincts 
 to the evil promptings of her outraged affections." 
 
 "But what is to be done, madame?" asked Phellion. 
 
 "Fight it out, monsieur. Come in full force this evening 
 to the Thuilliers' persuade Monsieur Felix to accompany 
 you, lecture him well, and make him yield a little of the 
 rigidity of his philosophical opinions. 'Paris is worth a 
 Mass/ said Henri IV. ; at any rate, let him avoid such ques- 
 tions. Surely, his heart can supply him with accents that 
 may appeal to the woman who loves him, and that is a long 
 stride towards her thinking him in the right. I shall be 
 there. I will help him to the utmost of my power; and per- 
 haps, on the spur of the moment, I may hit on some means 
 of making my support effective. One thing is certain, a 
 great battle must be fought this evening, and if we do not, 
 every one ot us, do our duty, the victory may be won by that 
 la Peyrade." 
 
 "My son is not at home, madame," answered Phellion, "and 
 I am very sorry, for your eager interest and warm encour- 
 agement might have shaken him from his torpor. However, 
 I will set all the gravity of the case before his eyes, and he 
 shall most undoubtedly accompany us this evening to the 
 Thuilliers' house." 
 
 "I need not say," added the Countess, as she rose, "that 
 we must carefully avoid every appearance of collusion. We 
 must not consult together, and unless the circumstances 
 should quite naturally lead to it, we had better not even 
 speak to each other." 
 
 "Rely on my. prudence, madame," replied Phellion, "and, 
 at the same time, permit me to offer you the expression " 
 
 "Of your most respectful esteem !" interrupted the lady, 
 laughing. 
 
 "No, madame, I reserve that for the close of a letter," 
 answered Phellion solemnly. "Allow me, I beg of you, to ex- 
 press my most fervent and perpetual gratitude." 
 
 "We will talk about that, when we are out of the scrape/'
 
 266 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 said Madame de GodoUo, going towards the door, "and if 
 Madame Phellion, the tenderest and most virtuous of wives 
 and mothers, will grant me a small place in her regard, I 
 shall be more than paid for my exertions." 
 
 Madame Phellion plunged into compliments without end. 
 The Countess, handed to her carriage by Phellion, was al- 
 ready out of sight, while Phellion was still sending after her 
 a volley of respectful thanks. 
 
 By degrees, as the company from the Quartier Latin 
 dwindled away from Brigitte's drawing-room, and showed 
 diminished assiduity, a more living stratum of Parisian vital- 
 ity filtered in. The town councillor had drawn some impor- 
 tant recruits from among his colleagues on the Municipal 
 Board and the upper employes in the prefecture; the Mayor 
 of the arrondissement and his deputies, on whom Thuillier 
 had called on settling in his new house, had hastened to re- 
 turn the civility, and a few of the officers of the First Legion 
 had also called. 
 
 The house itself had contributed a contingent; several 
 newly established tenants lent a fresh aspect to the Sunday 
 evening parties. Among these must be mentioned Rabour- 
 din, formerly the head of the room in which Thuillier had 
 had a place in the Exchequer. Having been so unhappy as 
 to lose his wife, whose "salon" had once held its own in 
 rivalry with Madame Colleville's, Eabourdin now lived in 
 bachelor quarters on the third floor, over the rooms let to 
 Cardot, the honorary notary. In consequence of an odious 
 case of favoritism, by which he was passed over, he sent in his 
 resignation of the public service, and at the time when Thuil- 
 lier again came across him he was a director of one of the 
 myriad projected railways, which was constantly postponed 
 by parliamentary rivalry and delays. 
 
 It may here be incidentally mentioned that Phellion's 
 meeting again with this really clever man of business, now a 
 man of consequence in the financial world, afforded this 
 worthy and honest citizen an opportunity of once more show- 
 ing his native magnanimity. At the time when Eabourdin
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 267 
 
 had found himself compelled to retire, Phellion alone, of all 
 the clerks in his department, had been faithful to him in his 
 reverses. Eabourdin, now in a position to dispense places, as 
 soon as chance threw his staunch supporter in his way, was 
 prompt to offer him an easy and lucrative position. 
 
 "Mosieur," said Phellion, "your kindness touches me, and 
 does me honor, but in honesty I must make a confession, 
 which I can but beg you not to take amiss : I have no belief 
 in these iron roads or railways." 
 
 "You have every right to your own opinion," said Eabour- 
 din, with a srnile. "But meanwhile we are remunerating our 
 servants on a very satisfactory scale, and I should be happy 
 to have you on my staff. I know by experience that you are 
 a man to be relied on." 
 
 "Mosieur," said the Great Citizen, "I did my duty and 
 nothing more. As to the offer you are good enough to make 
 me, I cannot accept it. I am content with my modest posi- 
 tion; I do not need or wish to embark on a more responsible 
 career ; I may say, with the Latin poet : 
 
 ' 'Claudite jam vivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt.' " 
 
 Thus raised in the social scale, the Thuilliers' evenings 
 now needed another element of vitality, and to speak like 
 Madelon in Les Precieuses ridicules, this "frightful dearth of 
 amusement," of which Madame Phellion had spoken to Mi- 
 nard, needed a remedy. Thanks to Madame de Godollo, the 
 general in command, who took advantage of Colleville's con- 
 nection with the musical world, some performers introduced 
 a variety into the perpetual boston and bouillotte. Then these 
 old-fashioned games soon made way for whist, the only 
 amusement, said the Hungarian, by which decent people 
 could kill time. 
 
 Just as Louis XVI. began by setting the example of the 
 reforms under which his throne was ultimately crushed, Bri- 
 gitte at first encouraged this domestic revolution, and her 
 wish to maintain her position becomingly in the neighbor- 
 hood to which she had made up her mind to move, made her 
 docile to every suggestion for comfort and elegance. But on 
 VOL. 14-^43
 
 268 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the day when the scene occurred which we are about to re- 
 late, a detail, apparently trivial, had suddenly revealed to her 
 the danger of the slope on which she was standing. 
 
 Most of the new guests invited by Thuillier were ignorant 
 of his sister's supremacy in the house; on arriving, they 
 begged their host to introduce them to Madame Thuillier, 
 and he, of course, could not tell them that his wife was but 
 a dummy queen trembling under the iron hand of a Riche- 
 lieu in petticoats, who was the Sole responsible authority. 
 So it was only after their first homage had been paid to the 
 titular sovereign that these newcomers were presented to 
 Brigitte, and the sternness of her demeanor, resulting from 
 her vexation at this transfer of dignity, hardly encouraged 
 them to take any further trouble to please her. 
 
 Alive to this loss of importance "If I do not take 
 care," thought this Queen Elizabeth, with the keen instinct 
 for preeminence which was her consuming passion, "I shall 
 become a mere nobody." 
 
 And pondering this idea, she began to think that under 
 the conditions of a common household shared with la Peyrade 
 as Celeste's husband, the decline she was beginning to fear 
 might be further complicated. At once, by some sudden in- 
 tuition, Felix Phellion a good young man, too much ab- 
 sorbed in mathematics ever to become a formidable rival to 
 her rule struck her as a far more suitable match than the 
 audacious lawyer; so, when she saw the Phellions arrive 
 without their son, she was the first to be uneasy at his ab- 
 sence. In spite of Madame de Godollo's advances, this 
 shocking lover had acted on the last line of Millevoye's fa- 
 mous lament: 
 
 "Et son amante ne vint pas." 
 
 (The beloved came not.) 
 
 As may easily be supposed, Brigitte was not the only per- 
 son to remark the luckless youth's rigid absenteeism ; Madame 
 Thuillier very guilelessly, and Celeste with assumed indif- 
 ference, also expressed their surprise. As to Madame de 
 Godollo, who, though she had a remarkably fine voice, had
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 269 
 
 hitherto needed much entreating to sing, when she perceived 
 how little heed Felix had paid to her counsels, she went to 
 beg Madame Phellion to be good enough to accompany her, 
 and between the two verses of a fashionable ballad: 
 
 "Where is your son?" she asked. 
 
 "He is coming presently," answered Madame Phtllion. 
 "His father rated him soundly; but there is a conjunction 
 of some planets to-night, a great occasion at the observa- 
 tory, and he was obliged to go " 
 
 "How can a man be so inconceivably clumsy?" said the 
 Countess. "Theology was not bad enough, but astronomy 
 must be lugged in!" 
 
 Irritation gave her voice increased brilliancy, and she 
 ended her song amid what the English call a thunder of ap- 
 plause. 
 
 Theodose, who was in mortal dread of her, was not back- 
 ward in paying her his tribute of admiration as she resumed 
 her seat; but she accepted his compliments with coldness 
 amounting to incivility, and their hostility was but fomented. 
 
 He went off to console himself with Flavie. She still had 
 too much pretension to beauty not to hate a woman who inter- 
 cepted so much admiration. 
 
 "And do you mean to say that you really think that woman 
 sings well?" Madame Colleville scornfully asked the advo- 
 cate. 
 
 "At least I had to tell her so," replied la Peyrade, "since 
 she alone can save our souls with Brigitte. But look at your 
 Celeste. She never takes her eyes off the door, and every time 
 a tray is brought in, though it is too late for any more ar-' 
 rivals, her face falls with disappointment." 
 
 It must be mentioned, by the way, that since Madame de 
 Oodollo had risen to power, trays of refreshments were freely 
 handed on reception days and on no mean scale, loaded with 
 ices, cakes, and fruit syrups from Tanrade, the best provider. 
 
 "Leave me in peace !" said Flavie, "I know what the little 
 goose is thinking about. You are only too certain to marry 
 her."
 
 270 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "But am I doing it for my own sake?" asked la Peyrade. 
 "Is it not my inevitable fate, in view of insuring future pros- 
 perity for all of us? Come, come, now, there are tears in 
 your eyes; I must leave you, you are too unreasonable. The 
 deuce! If you want the end, you want the means, as that 
 prig, old Phellion, says." 
 
 He went to join a group consisting of Celeste, Madame 
 Thuillier, Madame de Godollo, Colleville, and Phellion. 
 
 Madame Colleville followed him, and, stung by the fit of 
 jealousy she had hinted at to unmotherly ferocity, 
 
 "Celeste," said she, "why do not you sing? Several of 
 these gentlemen have wished to hear you." 
 
 "Oh ! mamma," said Celeste, "with my poor little voice 
 after Madame de Godollo. Besides, as you know, I have a 
 little cold." 
 
 "That is to say that as usual you are airified and disoblig- 
 ing. You sing as you can, and every voice has its own 
 merits." 
 
 "My dear," said Colleville, who, having just i.ost twenty 
 francs at cards, in the courage of his vexation tound spirit 
 enough to contradict his wife, "you sing as you can is a 
 mere vulgar axiom. You sing with your voice if you have 
 one, and above all not after hearing an opei-atic voice like 
 the Countess'. For my part I am ready xo let Celeste off 
 the performance of one of her little cooing love-songs." 
 
 "Much good is there in paying masters so dear and getting 
 nothing in return !" And she walked away. 
 
 "So Felix has ceased to inhabit the earth," said Colleville, 
 carrying on the conversation which Fiavie had interrupted. 
 "He dwells among the stars?" 
 
 "My dear old friend," said Phellioii, "I am as much an- 
 noyed as you can be, to find my son neglecting the oldest 
 friends of the family. And although the contemplation of 
 the vast luminous bodies suspended in space by the Creator's 
 hand is of greater interest in my opinion than your over- 
 wrought brain seems to think, I consider that if Felix fails 
 to come this evening, as he promised me he would, he will
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 271 
 
 fail in the barest good manners. And I will let him know 
 it too, you may rely on that." 
 
 "Science is a fine thing," said Theodose. "But it is a draw- 
 back that it makes men bears and maniacs." 
 
 "To say nothing," added Celeste, "of its undermining all 
 ideas of religion." 
 
 "In that you ape mistaken, my dear child !" said the 
 Countess. "Pascal, himself a splendid instance of the falsity 
 of your view, said, if I am not mistaken, that a little science 
 leads us away from religion, but a great deal brings us back 
 to it." 
 
 "Nevertheless, madame, everybody agrees that Monsieur 
 Felix is very learned. When he was giving my brother les- 
 sons, nothing could be clearer or more . intelligible, Frangois 
 said, than his explanations. And you see he is none the 
 more religious." 
 
 "And I tell you y my good child, that Monsieur Felix is 
 not irreligious, but that with a little sweetness and patience 
 nothing will be easier than to bring him back to the fold." 
 
 "Bring a philosopher back to the practice of religion! 
 That, madame," said la Peyrade, "seems to me a difficult 
 matter. These gentlemen place the aim and end of their 
 studies above all else. For instance, tell a mathematician or 
 a geologist that the Church imperatively insists that Sunday 
 shall be kept holy by the postponement of every kind of work 
 he will but shrug his shoulders, though God himself did 
 not disdain to rest on the seventh day." 
 
 "At the same time it is quite true," said Celeste inno- 
 cently, "that by not coming here this evening Monsieur Felix 
 is guilty not merely of bad manners, but of actual sin." 
 
 "But tell me, my pretty child," answered Madame de Go- 
 dollo, "do you really think that God is better pleased at see- 
 ing us meet here this evening to sing songs, eat ices, and 
 malign our neighbors as is so often done in drawing-rooms, 
 than at seeing a man of learning in an observatory studying 
 the glorious secrets of creation?" 
 
 "There is a time for all things," retorted Celeste, "and as
 
 272 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Monsieur de la Peyrade says, God himself did not disdain to 
 rest." 
 
 "But, my dear girl, God had time to rest," said Madame 
 de Godollo. "He is eternal." 
 
 "That/' said la Peyrade, "is one of the smartest and witti- 
 est of impious speeches. These are the arguments that serve 
 the turn of worldly people. The commandments of God are 
 'interpreted/ however explicit and positive they may be. 
 One is taken and another left; distinctions are drawn; the 
 free-thinker submits them to his sovereign revision, and 
 from free-thinking it is but a step to free conduct." 
 
 During the lawyer's harangue Madame de Godollo had an 
 eye on the clock; it was half-past eleven. The room was 
 gradually getting empty. Only one card-table still stood 
 open, occupied by Thuillier, the elder Minard, and two new 
 acquaintances. Phellion had left the little group with whom 
 he had been talking, and had joined his wife and Brigitte in 
 a corner ; and from his eager gesticulations he was evidently 
 moved by feelings of the deepest indignation. All hope of 
 seeing the truant now was evidently lost. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the Countess to la Peyrade, "do you do 
 the gentlemen of the Rue des Postes the honor of believing 
 them to be good Catholics?" 
 
 "Beyond a doubt," said the lawyer, "religion has no more 
 staunch supporters." 
 
 "Well, this morning," said the lady, "I had the honor of 
 being received by Father Anselme. Though he is a pattern 
 of every Christian virtue, the reverend Father is recognized 
 as a very able mathematician." 
 
 "I never said, madame, that the two qualities were irre- 
 concilable." 
 
 "But you did say that a good Christian ought to do no 
 work of any kind on a Sunday ; Father Anselme must, there- 
 fore, be a terrible miscreant, for when I was admitted to his 
 room I found him in front of a blackboard, a bit of chalk in 
 his hand, engaged on a problem that was, no doubt, some- 
 what difficult, for the board was almost covered with alge-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 273 
 
 braic formulas ; and I may add that he did not seem alarmed 
 at the idea of any scandal, since a person whose name I am 
 not at liberty to mention a young savant of great promise 
 was engaged with him in this profane occupation/' 
 
 Celeste and Madame Thuillier looked at each other, and 
 each saw a gleam of hope in the other's eyes. 
 
 "Why cannot you give the name of the younger man?" 
 said Madame Thuillier, who always spoke out without any 
 tact. 
 
 "Because he has not, as Father Anselme has, the shelter 
 of his holiness to absolve him for such a flagrant desecration 
 of Sunday; also," said Madame de Godollo with evident 
 meaning, "because he entreated me not to say that I had 
 met him in that place." 
 
 "Then you know a good many young and learned men?" 
 said Celeste. "For this one and Monsieur Phellion make 
 two already." 
 
 "My dear child," said the Countess, "you are an inquisi- 
 tive little puss. But you cannot make me say what I do not 
 intend to say especially after what Father Anselme told 
 me in confidence, for your brain would be off at a gallop." 
 
 This it was already; and every word the Countess spoke 
 seemed to add to the girl's uneasiness. 
 
 "For my part," said la Peyrade ironically, "I should not 
 be in the least surprised if Father Anselme's colleague were 
 Monsieur Felix Phellion himself. Voltaire was always on 
 excellent terms with the Jesuits who had brought him up; 
 only he did not discuss religion with them." 
 
 "Ah ! well, my young philosopher does discuss it with his 
 reverend and scientific colleague. He has explained his 
 doubts, and in fact, that was the starting-point of their 
 friendship as scientific men." 
 
 "And does Father Anselme hope to convert his young 
 friend?" asked Celeste. 
 
 "He is sure of it," replied the Countess. "The young 
 mathematician, with the exception only of religious training, 
 has been brought up in admirable principles. He also knows
 
 274 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 that his return to the Church would make the happiness of a 
 charming girl whom he loves and who loves him. Now, my 
 dear child, you will not get another word from me and must 
 fancy what you please." 
 
 "Oh, dear godmother!" cried Celeste, speaking in all the 
 guilelessness of her heart, "if it should be he !" 
 
 And she threw herself into Madame Thuillier's arms with 
 a burst of tears. 
 
 At this instant by a singlar coincidence a servant threw 
 open the door and announced Monsieur Felix Phellion. 
 
 The young professor came in perspiring profusely, his tie 
 askew, and quite out of breath. 
 
 "A pretty hour this!" said Phellion severely. 
 
 "I could not help it, father," said Felix, as he made his 
 way across the room to Madame Thuillier and Celeste. "I 
 could not leave till the phenomenon was over, and I found 
 no cab. I have run all the way." 
 
 "Your ears must have been burning," said la Peyrade, in 
 a sneering tone, "for you were foremost in the thoughts of 
 these ladies but a moment ago; they were trying to solve a 
 serious problem concerning you." 
 
 Felix made no reply; he saw Brigitte come into the room, 
 returning from the dining-room whither she had been to tell 
 the servant to bring in no more refreshments; he hastened 
 to greet her. 
 
 After hearing some mild reproofs as to the rarity of his 
 visits, and being dismissed forgiven by a gracious "Better 
 late than never," he turned again to his pole-star and was a 
 good deal surprised to hear Madame de Godollo say to him: 
 
 "I hope, monsieur, to be forgiven for an indiscretion I 
 was betrayed into in the heat of conversation; I told these 
 ladies, in spite of your express prohibition, where I last saw 
 you, only this morning." 
 
 "Where I had the honor of meeting you?" said Felix. 
 "But, madame, I did not see you." 
 
 A faint smile lighted up la Peyrade's face. 
 
 "You so certainly saw me that you spoke to me and pledged
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 275 
 
 me to secrecy. However, I have not compromised you 
 beyond the exact truth; I only said that you sometimes call 
 on Father Anselme, and that hitherto you had met on scien- 
 tific grounds, but that you defend your doubts against him 
 quite as stoutly as against Celeste." 
 
 "Father Anselme I" said Felix, stupidly puzzled. 
 
 "Why, of course !" said la Peyrade, "a great mathema- 
 tician, who does not despair of converting you. Mademoi- 
 selle Celeste wept for joy/' 
 
 Felix looked about him in utter bewilderment. Madame 
 de Godollo looked at him with an expression that a dog 
 would have understood. 
 
 "I only wish I could have done anything half so satisfac- 
 tory to Mademoiselle Celeste," he said at length, "but I am 
 afraid, madame, that you are mistaken." 
 
 "Listen to me, monsieur. I will dot my t's, and if your 
 bashfulness prompts you to hide to the last a proceeding of 
 which you have no reason to be ashamed, contradict me. I 
 will submit to it as a punishment for having divulged a 
 secret which, as I frankly confess, you commended to my 
 discretion." 
 
 Madame Thuillier and Celeste were a perfect spectacle in 
 themselves; never were doubt and expectation more strongly 
 painted on human features. 
 
 Measuring each word, Madame de Godollo went on : 
 
 "I told these ladies, because I know how deeply they are 
 interested in your salvation, and because you were accused 
 of shamelessly defying God's commandments by working on 
 Sunday I told them, I say, that I had met you this morn- 
 ing in Father Anselme's room in the Eue des Postes that 
 he, as learned as yourself, was engaged with your help in 
 working out a problem; I said that your interviews with 
 that holy and enlightened man had led to other discussions; 
 that you had laid your religious doubts before him, and that 
 he did not despair of refuting them. There is nothing to 
 humiliate your self-respect in confirming my statements. It 
 is merely that you had prepared a surprise for Celeste, and
 
 276 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 I unluckily let it out. But when she hears you say that I 
 have spoken the truth, you will still give her such happiness 
 that you cannot refuse to speak the words she hopes for." 
 
 ''Why, surely, monsieur, there can be no disgrace in seek- 
 ing for the light ; you, who are so honest, so averse to an un- 
 truth, can hardly deny a fact that the Countess so steadily 
 affirms!" said la Peyrade. 
 
 Felix hesitated a moment ; then he said to Celeste : "Will 
 you, Mademoiselle Celeste, let me speak two words to you 
 alone?" 
 
 Celeste rose, and at an approving nod from Madame 
 Thuillier Felix took her hand and led her into a window 
 recess two yards from where they were all standing. 
 
 "Celeste," he said, in a low tone, "I entreat you to wait a 
 little longer. Why, look," and he pointed to Charles' Wain 
 in the sky, "up and away beyond the visible stars there lies 
 a future for us all. As to Father Anselme, I cannot confirm 
 anything, for it is not true. It is a kindly meant fiction. 
 But have patience, you shall hear things " 
 
 Celeste turned away, leaving him to gaze at the stars. 
 
 "He is gone mad !" said she, in despairing accents, as she 
 took her place by Madame Thuillier. 
 
 And Felix confirmed the diagnosis by rushing out of the 
 room without observing how anxiously Phellion and his 
 mother followed close on his heels. 
 
 While all the bystanders gazed in dismay at this sudden 
 exit, la Peyrade went up to Madame de Godollo. 
 
 "You must admit," he said very politely, "that it is very 
 difficult to pull a man out of the water when he is bent on 
 drowning " 
 
 "I had not, I confess, conceived of such imbecility," an- 
 swered the Countess. "It is too idiotic. I go over to the 
 enemy; and with that enemy, whenever he pleases, I will 
 go into a full and frank explanation, in my own rooms." 
 
 Th6odose, next morning, was devoured by curiosity on two 
 points: How would Celeste decide in the choice she was to
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 277 
 
 make? What could this Countess Torna de Godollo have to 
 say to him, and what did she want of him ? 
 
 The first of these questions certainly seemed first to claim 
 an answer ; and yet, a secret instinct drew la Peyrade toward 
 a more immediate solution of the second. Still, as he made 
 up his mind to go first to the Countess, he quite understood 
 that, in the meeting to which he had been invited, he could 
 not be too carefully prepared and equipped. 
 
 It had rained in the morning, and this foreseeing rnind 
 did not need telling that a splash staining the polish of a boot 
 may bring a man to discomfiture. So he sent the porter to 
 fetch him a cab, and at about three o'clock drove off from the 
 Rue Saint-Dominique-d'Eufer towards the more fashionable 
 district of the Madeleine. 
 
 That he had devoted much thought to his toilet may be 
 easily supposed; it must hit the happy medium between the 
 free and easy style of morning wear and the full dress of 
 an. after-dinner call. Required by his profession to wear a 
 white neckcloth, which he very rarely failed to display, and 
 yet not daring to appear in a frock coat, he felt the risk of 
 falling into one of the two extremes which he thought it 
 desirable to avoid. But in a tail-coat closely buttoned across, 
 and gloves of a neutral tint, instead of straw-color, he es- 
 caped too great solemnity, and, at the same time, had not 
 the very provincial and poor-relation appearance that comes 
 of evening dress out walking at an hour when the sun is still 
 above the horizon. 
 
 Our crafty diplomatist took care not to be driven to the 
 door of the house. He would not have liked the occupant 
 of the entresol to see him getting out of a hackney-cab, and 
 he would have feared the eyes of the first-floor resi- 
 dents, detecting him in a visit to the rooms beneath them; it 
 would have given rise to endless comments. So he was set 
 down at the corner of the Rue Royale; thence, by walking 
 on the fairly dry footway, and carefully picking his steps, 
 he reached the house immaculate. 
 
 He was there so lucky as not to be seen from the porter's
 
 278 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 lodge. The husband, a beadle at the church of the Made- 
 leine, was on duty, and his wife was showing some still va- 
 cant rooms to an intending tenant. So Theodose, escaping 
 inspection, stole up to the door of the sanctuary to which 
 he was to be admitted. 
 
 A gentle pull at a rope trimmed with gimp rang a beil 
 within. A few seconds later another and a more emphatic 
 peal, of shriller tone, seemed intended to warn the maid-ser- 
 vant that she was too slow in answering the door; and, in 
 point of fact, immediately after, a woman of mature age, 
 too respectable to wear the costume of a chambermaid in a 
 comedy, had admitted him. 
 
 The lawyer gave her his name, and was desired to wait in 
 a dining-room of severely luxurious taste. The maid re- 
 turned at once, and ushered him into the most fascinating 
 and splendid drawing-room that is conceivable under the low 
 ceiling of an entresol. 
 
 The divinity of the place sat by a table covered with a cloth 
 of Italian design, in which gold thread sparkled among the 
 rich colors of fine embroidery. As la Peyrade went in, she 
 bowed without rising. The maid placed a chair, the Count- 
 ess, meanwhile, saying, "You will excuse me, monsieur, if 
 I seal a note to be sent in a hurry?" 
 
 .The lawyer bowed assent. The foreign lady took from a 
 desk inlaid with tortoise-shell, in the style of Boule, a sheet 
 of blue-tinted English note-paper, which she enclosed in an 
 envelope, and, after writing the address, she rose and rang 
 the bell. 
 
 The maid at once came in, lighted a spirit-lamp set in a 
 little stand ornamented with pretty sculptured figures; over 
 the flame hung a little silver-gilt pannikin, containing a 
 scrap of scented sealing-wax. As soon as the heat had 
 melted the wax, the maid dropped it on to the note, and 
 handed her mistress an engraved seal. The lady stamped it 
 wiih her own fair hands, and said, "Send this at once." 
 
 1'he woman stepped forward to take the letter, but from 
 inadvertence or over-haste, the document fell at la Peyrade's
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 279 
 
 feet, and as he quickly stooped to pick it up, he involuntarily 
 read the address. It was to Monsieur le Ministre des Affaires 
 etrangeres. And above, in one corner, the significant word 
 private, gave the missive a character of intimacy. 
 
 "I beg your pardon/' said the lady, taking the note from 
 la Peyrade's hand, for he had the good taste to restore it to 
 her, so as to render the little service to the mistress. "And 
 have the goodness not to lose it," she added severely, to the 
 luckless waiting-woman. 
 
 Having thus dismissed her, the Hungarian Countess 
 moved from the chair in front of the writing-table, and 
 seated herself on a sofa upholstered in pale gray satin. 
 
 During all this little flutter of business, la Peyrade had 
 had the pleasure of taking stock of the splendor about him. 
 Pictures by recognized masters showed up against a sober 
 background, enlivened by silk cord and gimp; on a stand of 
 gilt wood was an enormous Chinese jar; in front of the win- 
 dows were flower-stands, in which a lilum rubrum, with its 
 twisted petals, hung over dwarf camellias white and red, 
 and little Chinese magnolia shrubs, with their creamy white 
 flowers tipped with rose; then, in one corner, hung a trophy 
 of weapons, strange and very gorgeous, accounted for by the 
 semi-barbarous nationality of the owner. Finally, some 
 bronzes and statuettes of exquisite workmanship, and on 
 the seats, which rolled smoothly over a carpet of Turkish de- 
 sign, a medley anarchy of pillows and stuffs, completed the 
 furniture of the room, which the lawyer had last seen with 
 Thuillier and Brigitte, before it was inhabited. It was 
 transfigured beyond recognition. 
 
 With a little more knowledge of the world the lawyer 
 would have been less surprised at the infinite pains the 
 Countess had devoted to the arrangement of this little place. 
 A woman's drawing-room is her kingdom, where she is abso- 
 lute sovereign ; there she reigns and rules in the fullest sense 
 of the words. There she has to fight more than one battle, 
 and almost always comes off victorious. In fact, has she 
 not chosen every ornament, and harmonized all the colors,
 
 280 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 and does she not light or shade it to her taste? If she has 
 any intelligent sense of stage-arrangement, it is impossible 
 but that everything about her should be placed by her hand 
 where it tells with the best effect ; impossible but that all her 
 personal advantages should be thrown into rare relief. Yoii 
 may say that you do not know all a woman's perfections till 
 you have seen her in the prismatic light of her own drawing- 
 room; but, on the other hand, beware of attempting to gauge 
 and appraise her if you have never seen her anywhere else. 
 
 Coquettishly sunk in a corner of the sofa, her head care- 
 lessly resting on one arm of which the rounded whiteness 
 could be seen to the elbow in the loose open sleeve of a black 
 velvet wrapper, a foot for Cinderella, in an easy but tiny Rus- 
 sia-leather slipper, resting on an orange plush cushion 
 stamped with flowers in relief, the fair Hungarian looked 
 like a portrait by Lawrence or Winterhalter, but her attitude 
 was more artless. 
 
 ''Monsieur/' said she, with a smile, and the slight foreign 
 accent which gave added witchery to her speech, "I cannot 
 help regarding it as a very droll thing that a man of your 
 talent and keen penetration should have thought of me as 
 an enemy." 
 
 "Indeed, Madame la Comtesse," replied Theodose, showing 
 in his eyes some astonishment, not unmixed with distrust, 
 "appearances, as you must allow, justified my simplicity. A 
 rival crossed my path when I was going on towards a mar- 
 riage which offered itself to me as in every way suitable. By 
 a happy miracle this rival was clumsy to a degree, and not 
 difficult to set aside, when, suddenly, the most charming 
 and unlooked-for auxiliary rushed in to aid him on pre- 
 cisely the most vulnerable side . . ." 
 
 "And you must confess," said the Countess, laughing, 
 "that my protege was brilliant and seconded my efforts 
 nobly !" 
 
 "His blundering, I fancy," said la Peyrade, "was not alto- 
 gether unexpected by you; the encouragement with which 
 you honored him, madame, was all the more cruelly tan- 
 talizing to me."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 281 
 
 "And what great misfortune would it be," the lady went 
 on with fascinating insidiousness, "if you were exempt from 
 marrying Mademoiselle Celeste? Are you really so devoted, 
 monsieur, to that little schoolgirl?" 
 
 In the word, but yet more in the tone given to it, there 
 was something more than scorn, there was hatred. The 
 accent was sure not to escape so keen an observer as la Pey- 
 rade. Still, as he was not the man to venture very far on 
 the strength of this simple remark, he went on: 
 
 "Madame, the vulgar phrase 'to get settled' sums up the 
 situation when a man, after a long struggle, is at an end of 
 his efforts and his illusions, and ready to come to terms with 
 the future for better or worse. Well, when settling appears 
 under the form of a girl with more virtue than beaut}'-, I 
 do not deny, but who can bring her husband the money that 
 is indispensable for conjugal happiness, is it surprising 
 that gratitude should fill his heart, and that he should jump 
 at the peaceful joys which seem to smile on him ?" 
 
 "I had always thought," replied the lady, "that a man's 
 intelligence and purview ought to be the measure of his am- 
 bition; and I supposed that one so profoundly clever as to 
 proclaim himself the advocate of the poor would have less 
 modest, less rustic aspirations." 
 
 "Ah ! madame, the iron hand of necessity forces stranger 
 forms of resignation on us than that. The question of daily 
 bread is one before which every other pales, and to which 
 everything yields. Was not Apollo compelled for his living 
 to keep the sheep of Admetus?" 
 
 "But the folds of Admetus were at any rate those of a 
 king," replied Madame de Godollo. "Apollo would certainly 
 never have submitted to be shepherd to a middle-class citi- 
 zen." 
 
 The pause made in the conclusion by the handsome Hun- 
 garian seemed to be leading up to a name, and la Peyrade felt 
 that out of mere mercy the words "a Thuillier" had been left 
 out of the argument, which had been clinched by the men- 
 tion of the species instead of going so far as the individual
 
 282 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I feel, madame," said the lawyer, "that the distinction is 
 no less true than subtle. But Apollo has no choice." 
 
 "I do not like men who value themselves too highly," said 
 the Countess stiffly, "but even less I like those who under- 
 sell their merchandise. I am- always afraid lest they 
 should be making me the dupe of some clever and elab- 
 orate trick. You, monsieur, are fully aware of your own 
 value, and your hypocritical humility annoys me greatly. It 
 proves that my overtures of good-will have not given rise to 
 even a beginning of confidence between us." 
 
 "I assure you, on my honor, that up to this time life has 
 given me no reason to believe myself possessed of any fla- 
 grant superiority." 
 
 "Well," said the lady, "I ought, perhaps, to believe in the 
 modesty of a man who was prepared to accept the humiliat- 
 ing issue which I endeavored to hinder." 
 
 "As I, perhaps, ought to believe in the reality of the be- 
 nevolence, which, in order to rescue me, had previously chas- 
 tened me so severely," said la Peyrade, with meaning. 
 
 The Hungarian glanced at him reproachfully; she played 
 with one of the ends of her sash, and, casting down her eyes, 
 gave vent to a sigh, so faintly perceptible that it might al- 
 most have passed as part of her regular breathing. 
 
 "You are rancorous," said she, "and judge people from 
 general impressions. After all," she added, "you are pos- 
 sibly justified in reminding me that I took a roundabout 
 way of interfering absurdly enough in concerns which 
 are no business of mine. Go on, my dear sir, and prosper in 
 this brilliant marriage where you find so many advantages 
 combined ; only allow me to wish that you may never repent 
 of a success which I will no longer strive to postpone." 
 
 The Provengal had not been spoiled by women. Poverty, 
 against which he had so long been struggling, does not throw 
 gallant adventures in a man's way; and even since he had 
 freed himself from its worst clutches, devoting all his 
 thoughts to his future prospects, with the exception of the 
 farce played with Madame Colleville, "affairs of the heart 5 '
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 28S 
 
 had filled a very small part of his life. Like all the men 
 who are overwhelmingly busy and yet goaded by the demon 
 of the flesh, he was content with the ignoble love-making 
 that may be bought any night at a street corner, and that is 
 easily reconciled with the externals of devotion. 
 
 Thus the perplexity of a novice in such adventures may 
 be imagined, as he found himself balancing between the fear 
 of losing a delightful opportunity, and that of finding a ser- 
 pent under the flowers that seemed within his reach. Too 
 much reserve, too lukewarm an eagerness, might offend the 
 fair foreigner's self-esteem, and suddenly dry up the fount 
 at which she seemed to invite him to drink; but if, on the 
 other hand, this apparent forwardness on her part were but 
 a snare; if the kindness to him quite inexplicable of which 
 he had so suddenly become the object, aimed solely at be- 
 traying him into some false step, to be used subsequently as 
 a weapon against himself to embroil him with the Thuilliers, 
 what a blow that would be to his reputation for cleverness, 
 what a poor figure he would cut as the dog dropping the sub- 
 stance for the shadow. 
 
 As we have seen, la Peyrade was of the school of Tartuffe ; 
 and the candor with which that master explains to Elmire 
 that without some earnest of the favors to which he aspires 
 he cannot believe in her affectionate advances, seemed to the 
 lawyer not inapplicable to the present occasion a little 
 softened in the expression. 
 
 ''Madame la Comtesse," said he, "you place me in a posi- 
 tion in which I am much to be pitied. I was proceeding 
 cheerfully to this union you destroy my faith in it; and 
 yet, if I should break it off, what use am I, with these brill- 
 iant gifts, to make of my recovered liberty ?" 
 
 "La Bruyere, I think, remarks that nothing so cools the 
 blood as having escaped committing a folly." 
 
 "No doubt. Still, that is but a negative blessing. I am 
 of an age and in such circumstances as require me to look 
 for some more definite results. The interest you vouchsafe 
 
 to feel in me surely does not end at leaving me a blank page 
 VOL. 14 44
 
 284 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 I love Mademoiselle Colleville, not indeed with imperious 
 and overwhelming passion, but I do love her; her hand has 
 been promised me, and before giving it up 
 
 "So, under special circumstances," said the Countess 
 quickly, "you might be prepared to break it off; and," she 
 added, in a calmer tone, "there might be some chance of 
 convincing you that by thus seizing the first offer you are 
 compromising your future career that other opportunities 
 might present themselves?" 
 
 "But, then, madame, it would be wise to foresee some 
 glimpse of them." 
 
 This determination to be on the safe side seemed to irri- 
 tate the Countess. 
 
 "Faith is a virtue only because it trusts in the unseen," 
 said she. "You distrust yourself, another form of awkward- 
 ness! I am not happy in those I select as my proteges." 
 
 "But, at any rate, madame, am I very indiscreet in wish- 
 ing to have some remote notion of the prospect your kind- 
 ness may have imagined for me?" 
 
 "Highly indiscreet," said the lady coldly, "for it is evident 
 that you only pledge yourself to conditional obedience. Say 
 no more about it. You have gone far with Mademoiselle 
 Colleville; she suits you in many ways: marry her. One 
 struggle more you will not again find me in your way." 
 
 "But does Mademoiselle Colleville suit me so well?" said 
 la Peyrade. "That is precisely the point on which you 
 have raised a doubt in my mind. And do you not think 
 it really cruel to fling at me two such contradictory state- 
 ments without any proof to support either?" 
 
 "Ah!" said the Countess, out of patience, "I must bring 
 documentary evidence for my opinions? Well, monsieur, 
 there is only one very conclusive fact that I can swear to: 
 Celeste does not love you." 
 
 "I confess," said la Peyrade, "that I am certainly pledged 
 to a marriage of convenience." 
 
 "And she never can love you," Madame de Godollo went 
 on, with warmth, "because she can never understand you.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 28f 
 
 Her true match is that fair little man, as shy and pasty- 
 faced as herself. The contact of those two placid and life- 
 less natures will result in the lukewarm duet which consti- 
 tutes the ne plus ultra of happiness in the opinion of the 
 world in which she was born and has lived. Just try to 
 make the little simpleton understand that when money 
 is so lucky as to meet talent, it may think itself honored 
 in the conjunction ! Try to get that into the brains of the 
 odious wretches about her ! The enriched middle class ! 
 and among them you propose to find rest after your hard 
 work and your long trials ! But do you not see that twenty 
 times a day your contribution as compared with theirs 
 all in money will be weighed and found outrageously want- 
 ing? On one side the Iliad, the Cid, the Freyschutz and 
 the frescoes of the Vatican; on the other hand, a hundred 
 thousand crowns in hard cash and say which will com- 
 mand their admiration? Do you know to what I should 
 compare a man of imagination thrown into the middle-class 
 atmosphere? To Daniel cast into the lions' den minus the 
 miracle." 
 
 This invective against the citizen class had been poured 
 out with such vehement conviction that it could hardly fail 
 to be contagious. 
 
 "Ah ! madame," exclaimed Theodose, "how eloquently you 
 express the ideas which have haunted my dull and anxious 
 mind! But I have always felt myself pressed by the cruel 
 compulsion, the necessity of making a position " 
 
 "Necessity, position !" interrupted the Countess with even 
 greater warmth of tone, "mere empty words which have no 
 ring to a superior man, but which scare fools as if they 
 were formidable impediments. Necessity! Does it exist 
 for the choicer spirits, for those who know what Will means ? 
 A minister a Gascon uttered a motto which ought to be 
 graven over the entrance to every career: 'Everything comes 
 to him who knows how to wait.' 
 
 "And do you not know that to men of the highest stamp 
 marriage is either a chain that fetters them to the vulgarest
 
 286 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 and meanest facts of existence, or else wings to bear them 
 to the loftiest summits of the social world? The wife you 
 need, monsieur, and whom you may not have to long wait 
 for in the future, unless you are in frantic haste to sell 
 yourself for the first fortune that comes to hand, is the 
 woman who will understand you because she is able to read 
 you; who will be your coadjutor, your intellectual helpmate, 
 and not a cooking-pot on two legs; who, your secretary to- 
 day, might to-morrow hold her own as the wife of a deputy, 
 or of an ambassador; who is capable, in short, of giving you 
 her heart for a fulcrum, her drawing-room for a stage, her 
 friends for a ladder ; and who, as the reward of all the spring 
 and power she could give you, would ask no more than to 
 shine near your throne, in the glory and splendor she had 
 foreseen would be your lot." 
 
 Intoxicated by her own words, the Hungarian Countess 
 was grand ; her eyes flashed, her nostrils dilated ; she seemed 
 to see the visions called up by her vivid eloquence, to touch 
 them with her quivering hands. For a moment Theodose 
 was dazzled by this sort of sunrise suddenly blazing on his 
 life. 
 
 At the same time, as he was a monstrous prudent man, 
 who had made it a rule to himself never to advance any- 
 thing but on sound available security, he was tempted to re- 
 consider the situation. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," said he, "you blamed me just now 
 for talking like a bourgeois, and all I have to fear is that 
 you talk like a goddess. I admire you, I listen to you, but 
 I am not convinced. Such sublime devotion and self-sacri- 
 fice may be found perhaps in heaven, but, on earth, who dares 
 boast that he has met with it?" 
 
 "You are mistaken, monsieur," said the lady solemnly. 
 "Such devotion is rare, but it is neither incredible nor im- 
 possible. You only need the skill to find them, and yet more 
 the hand to hold them when they are offered you." 
 
 With these words she rose majestically. 
 
 La Peyrade understood that he had really displeased her
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 287 
 
 and was dismissed; he rose and bowed respectfully, asking 
 permission to call now and again. 
 
 "Monsieur/' said Madame de Godollo, "among Hun- 
 garians, a primitive and almost barbarous race, when a door 
 is open, it is wide open; when it is shut, it is double- 
 locked." 
 
 This dignified but ambiguous reply was emphasized by 
 a slight bow. La Peyrade went away, bewildered by man- 
 ners so new to him, so unlike those of Flavie, of Brigttte, 
 or Madame Minard, and wondering, as he went, whether 
 he had played the game well. 
 
 On leaving Madame de Godollo, la Peyrade felt that he 
 must have time to think. Beneath the surface of his con- 
 versation with this strange woman, what was it that he could 
 discern a trap, or the offer of a rich wife ? In this dilemma 
 it would be neither intelligent nor prudent to press Celeste 
 for her decision, since asking for her ultimatum would force 
 an engagement on himself, and close the door to the chances, 
 vague indeed, which had been hinted to him. 
 
 The upshot of his consultation with himself, as he walked 
 along the boulevard, was that for the moment he must think 
 only of gaining time. So, instead of calling at the Thuil- 
 liers', he went to his own rooms, and there wrote the follow- 
 ing note: 
 
 "MY DEAR THDILLIER: 
 
 "You will not, I dare say, have thought it strange that I 
 should not have gone to your house to-day. Apart from 
 my dread of what my sentence may be, I did not care to 
 appear like an impatient and ill-bred dun. A day or two 
 more or less count for little in such a case, but Made- 
 moiselle Celeste may find them advantageous for her per- 
 fect freedom of decision. You will see me no more till you 
 write to me. I have recovered some degree of composure, 
 and added a few pages to our manuscript, and we can now
 
 288 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 be ready to hand it over complete to the printers in a very 
 short time. 
 
 "Ever yours, 
 
 "THEODOSE DE LA PEYRADE." 
 
 Two hours later the "male servant" spoken of by Minard. 
 in a dress which was an evident transition towards a livery 
 which as yet they did not risk, brought la Peyrade this an- 
 swer: 
 
 "Come this evening without fail ; we will talk matters over 
 with Brigitte. 
 
 "Yours most sincerely, 
 
 "JEROME THUILLIER." 
 
 "Good !" said la Peyrade to himself. "There is a hitch 
 somewhere, and I shall have time to turn round." 
 
 In the evening, when he called at the Thuilliers', Ma- 
 dame de Godollo, who was with Brigitte at the moment, 
 hastily rose and took leave. As she met the lawyer, she 
 bowed to him with distant formality. Nothing could be 
 inferred from this abrupt departure which might mean 
 anything. 
 
 After the usual remarks on the weather, such as always 
 pass between people who have met to discuss a delicate mat- 
 ter on which they are not certain to agree, Brigitte who 
 had sent her brother out for an airing, telling him to leave 
 the business to her began : 
 
 "My dear boy, it was very thoughtful of you not to come 
 like a highwayman and hold your pistol to our throats, for 
 we really were not fully prepared with an answer. I rather 
 think that Celeste will ask for a little renewal," she added, 
 borrowing her metaphor from her old business of a bill-dis- 
 counter. 
 
 "Then, at any rate," said la Peyrade eagerly, "she has 
 not decided in favor of Monsieur Felix Phellion ?" 
 
 "You rogue!" said the old maid. "You settled that last
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 289 
 
 evening. Still, there is no need to tell you that she leans 
 a little to that side." 
 
 "Short of being blind, who can help seeing it?" said The*o- 
 dose. 
 
 "Not that that would stand in the way of my plans/' 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier went on, "but it accounts for my 
 asking for a little time for Celeste. I had another reason, 
 too, for postponing the marriage ;. I wanted to give you time 
 to make your way a little in the child's liking; but you two 
 .you and Thuillier, between you, have upset all my plans." 
 
 "Nothing that 1 know of has been done without your 
 consent," said the lawyer, "and though I said nothing to 
 you about it for a fortnight, it was out of sheer good feel- 
 ing; Thuillier told me that you and he had settled every- 
 thing." 
 
 "Thuillier knows perfectly well, on the contrary, that 
 I would have nothing to do with all your schemes, and per- 
 haps if you had not made yourself so scarce lately, I should 
 have been the first to say that I did not approve of them. 
 However, I may add that I too have done nothing to in- 
 terfere with their success." 
 
 "That was not enough," said la Peyrade; "your concur- 
 rence was necessary." 
 
 "Possibly; but I, knowing women better than you do, 
 being one of the sort myself, strongly suspected that, having 
 two lovers to choose from, Celeste might think she was 
 left free to think as much as she pleased of the one she 
 liked best, and I had always left her in uncertainty about 
 Felix, foreseeing the moment when she would have to be 
 brought to her senses." 
 
 "In short," said Theodose, "she refuses me." 
 
 "Far worse, she accepts you, saying that she had given 
 her word. But it is so easy to see that she regards herself 
 as your victim, that in your place I should not think such 
 success very flattering or very promising." 
 
 At any other time la Peyrade would have answered that 
 he accepted the sacrifice, and that it would be his business
 
 290 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 to win the heart which at present yielded so reluctantly; 
 but a little delay suited his ends. 
 
 "What, then, is your advice?" he asked Brigitte. "What 
 steps should I take?" 
 
 "The first step," said Brigitte, "will be to finish the pam- 
 phlet for Thuillier, for he is going crazy over it, and then 
 leave me to manoeuvre in your interest." 
 
 "But are my interests in friendly hands? For, to tell 
 the truth, little aunt, I cannot be blind to the fact that for 
 some little time past I have found you changed toward me." 
 
 "I changed toward you? Where do you see that, you 
 fanciful mortal?" 
 
 "Oh, in mere shades of manner," said la Peyrade; "but 
 it is perfectly evident that since the advent here of your 
 Countess Torna " 
 
 "My dear boy, the Hungarian lady had done me good 
 service, and I am grateful; but is that any proof that I am 
 ungrateful to you, who have done us far greater services?" 
 
 "You must allow," said Theodose craftily, "that she has 
 spoken ill of me to you?" 
 
 "That is but natural, whatever she may have said. Fine 
 ladies like her must have all the world at their feet, and she 
 knows that you are thinking only of Celeste. But what- 
 ever she may have said it has run off me like water off oil- 
 cloth." 
 
 "And so, little aunt, I may rely on you?" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Yes, if you do not worry me, and let me go my own way 
 to work." 
 
 "Come now, what will you do?" said la Peyrade, with 
 blunt good-humor. 
 
 "In the first place, I shall forbid Felix from ever setting 
 foot in the house again." 
 
 "But will that be possible?" said the lawyer, "or even 
 decent ?" 
 
 "Perfectly possible, and I will let him know it through 
 Phollion himself. As his principles are his favorite hobby, 
 he will be the first to admit that as his son declines to do
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 291 
 
 what is needful to win Celeste, he ought to relieve us of his 
 presence." 
 
 "And what next?" 
 
 "Next, I shall explain to Celeste that she was allowed to 
 have her choice of one of two husbands; and that as she 
 will not take Felix, she must put up with you a pious 
 youth, such as she fancies. Be quite easy, I will make the 
 best of you of your generosity in not taking advantage 
 of the promise she gave; but all this will take time, and if 
 we have to wait another week for that pamphlet, between 
 this and then Thuillier will only be fit for Charenton." 
 
 "The pamphlet can be finished in two days; but honor 
 bright, little aunt, we are playing a square game? Moun- 
 tains, as the saying goes, cannot meet, but men may; and 
 when the election comes on, I am in a position to do Thuil- 
 lier a good turn or a bad one. The other day, I may tell 
 you, I had a dreadful fright. I had a letter in my pocket in 
 which he spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me, 
 and for a minute I thought I lost that letter in the Luxem- 
 bourg. There would have been a pretty to-do in all the 
 neighborhood." 
 
 "Who can steal a march on an artful one like you?" 
 said the old maid, fully understanding the covert threat of 
 this last speech, brought in so naturally in the course of 
 conversation. "Still, honestly," she added, "have you any 
 fault to find with us? Is it not you, on the contrary, who 
 have dealt short measure of what you promised ? The Cross, 
 which was to be given within a week, and the pamphlet, 
 which ought to have been out long ago?" 
 
 "The pamphlet and the Cross will each bring the other," 
 said la Peyrade, rising. "Tell Thuillier to come and see 
 me to-morrow evening. I think he may finish off the last 
 sheet. But, above all, do not believe all the mischief Ma- 
 dame de Godollo tries to make, I have a great idea that, to 
 become entirely mistress of the house, she wants to alienate 
 all your friends, and at the same time to flatter and hood- 
 wink Thuillier."
 
 292 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "It is quite true," said Brigitte, whom the lawyer, as a 
 Parthian shot, had stung in the tender spot, her love of 
 authority; "I will bear what you say in mind. She is a 
 bit of a flirt, is that young madame." 
 
 By his ingeniously worded phrase la Peyrade had ascer- 
 tained an important point; Brigitte's reply showed him that 
 the Countess had said nothing of the visit he had paid her 
 that day. This reticence he thought meant a great deal. 
 
 Four days later, the printer, the stitcher, and the hot- 
 presser having all done their work, Thuillier could give him- 
 self the indescribable pleasure of setting out for a walk in 
 the evening, beginning at the boulevards and through va- 
 rious arcades, to the Palais-Eoyal. On every bookseller's 
 window he paused to glance where he saw staring at him 
 from yellow paper, the grand title: 
 
 DE 1/IMP6T ET DE L'AMORTISSEMENT 
 
 PAR J. THUILLIER 
 
 Membre du Conseil General de la Seine 
 
 Having succeeded in persuading himself that the care 
 he had given to the correction of the proofs gave him the 
 credit of the work, his paternal heart, like that of the crow 
 in the fable, was bursting with satisfaction. It may be 
 added, that he formed a very poor opinion of the booksellers 
 who did not announce this latest new work for sale, destined, 
 as he believed, to be an European event. Without having 
 any very clear idea as to how he could be revenged on 
 them for their neglect, he made a note of the names of 
 these refractory dealers, and owed them as bitter a grudge 
 as if they had affronted him. 
 
 He spent the next day in the delightful occupation of 
 writing some letters ot presentation, and wrapping up fifty 
 copies, to which the inscription within, "from the author," 
 seemed to him to give an inestimable value.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 293 
 
 The third day, however, brought a check to his satisfac- 
 tion. He had employed, as his publisher, a young man who 
 had rushed recklessly into the business, establishing him- 
 self in the Passage des Panoramas, where he paid an enor- 
 mous rent. He was the nephew of Barbet, the publisher 
 who was Brigitte's tenant in the house in the Hue Saint- 
 Dominique-d'Enfer, with whom she did her discounting 
 business ; and this Barbet junior was a young man who knew 
 not fear, and who, when his uncle recommended him to 
 Thuillier, was quite sure that, if he were not restricted in 
 the matter of advertisements, he could secure a call for a 
 second edition by the end of a week. 
 
 Now Thuillier had spent nearly fifteen hundred francs 
 in advertising; numberless copies had been sent to the 
 papers; at the end of the third day, just seven copies had 
 been sold, and three of these taken on credit. 
 
 It might be supposed that the youthful publisher would 
 somewhat lower his assurance, when telling Thuillier of 
 this beggarly result. 
 
 On the contrary, "I am delighted," said this Guzman 
 of the book-trade. "If we had sold a hundred copies, I 
 should be very uneasy as to the fifteen hundred we have 
 printed. I should call that hanging fire; whereas, this very 
 small sale proves that the whole edition will be sold off at 
 one rush." 
 
 "But when?" asked Thuillier, to whom this seemed some- 
 what paradoxical. 
 
 "Why, as soon as we get notices in all the papers," said 
 Barbet. "Advertisements only serve to catch the eye of 
 the public, they attract notice. 'This must be an inter- 
 esting work Taxation and its Abatement a good title !' 
 But the more catching the title, the more shy are the buyers; 
 they have often been taken in. They wait for the reviews. 
 Instead of that, if a book is doomed not to sell well, there 
 are always a hundred buyers to rush in, and, after them, 
 thank you for nothing ! Not a copy sold." 
 
 "So you do not think it a hopeless case?" asked Thuillier.
 
 294 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "On the contrary, I take a most favorable view of it. 
 As soon as the Debats, the Constitutionnel, the Siecle, and 
 the Presse have reviewed it, and especially if it is abused by 
 the Debats, which is ministerial, it will all be cleared out in 
 less than four days." 
 
 "You talk very big," replied Thuillier; "but how are we 
 to get at this chorus of the press?" 
 
 "Oh, -I will take care of that," sale! Barbet. "I am on 
 capital terms with all the editors; they say I have so much 
 go, that I remind them of Ladvocat at his best." 
 
 "In that case, my good fellow, you ought to have seen 
 them by this time." 
 
 "Oh, begging your pardon, Monsieur Thuillier, there is 
 some ceremony to be observed, in approaching your jour- 
 nalist; and as you complained of the fifteen hundred francs 
 it had cost you to advertise, I did not like to ask you to allow 
 me to open any further account." 
 
 "But what for?" said Thuillier. 
 
 "When you were elected member of the Municipal Coun- 
 cil, where was your election managed?" 
 
 "In my house, of course," replied Thuillier. 
 
 "In your house, yes ; but at a dinner, followed by a dance, 
 and a dance ending in a supper. Well, my dear sir, there 
 are not two ways of doing business. Boileau said: 
 
 "At dinner, in these days, we settle each question, 
 And men now are governed by help of digestion. " 
 
 "Then you advise me to give a dinner to the newspapers?" 
 "Yes; but not at your own house, for journalists, you 
 see, are bored by women they have to behave. Besides, 
 what we want here is not a dinner, but a breakfast. In the 
 evening, these gentlemen have first performances to attend, 
 the paptr to make up, to say nothing of their little private 
 affairs. In the morning, on the contrary, they have noth- 
 ing to think of. I have always given breakfast." 
 
 "But such meals are expensive. You journalists are so 
 very particular!"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 29,1 
 
 "Pooh! Twenty francs a head, besides wine. Say you 
 have a party of ten, with a hundred crowns you will do the 
 thing handsomely. In fact, from the point of view of econ- 
 omy, a breakfast is best; you would not get off for less than 
 five hundred francs for a dinner." 
 
 "You are going rather fast, young man," said Thuillier. 
 
 "Well, everybody knows that it costs money to get into 
 the Chamber, and you are paving the way for your election." 
 
 "But how am I to get at these gentlemen? Must I go 
 myself to invite them?" 
 
 "Not at all; you have sent them your pamphlet; you beg 
 them to meet you at Vefour's, or at Philippe's; they will 
 understand, never fear." 
 
 "Ten guests," said Thuillier, beginning to enter into the 
 idea. "But surely there are not so many leading news- 
 papers ?" 
 
 "That is true," said the publisher, "hut we must have 
 the tag-rag as well; the curs bark loudest. The breakfast 
 will be talked about; they will think you have tried to be 
 select, and each one excluded will mean an enemy." 
 
 "So you think it will be enough merely to send the in- 
 vitations ?" 
 
 "Yes. I will make a list; you write the notes and send 
 them to me. I will undertake to have them delivered; 
 some I will take myself." 
 
 "Well, if I were sure that this expense would have the de- 
 sired result," said Thuillier, doubtfully. 
 
 "If I were sure is good," said Barbet consequentially. 
 "But, my dear sir, it is as safe as a mortgage; do this and 
 I guarantee the sale of the fifteen hundred copies. Well, at 
 forty . sous, allowing for the discount, that comes to three 
 thousand francs. You see all expenses will be more than 
 covered, ordinary and extraordinary." 
 
 "Well," said Thuillier, leaving the shop, "I will talk it 
 over with la Peyrade." 
 
 "As you please, my dear sir. But make up your mind 
 quickly. Write it all hot; serve it all hot; swallow it all hot !
 
 296 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Those are the three quick moves of the author, the pub- 
 lisher, and the public. Short of that, the thing falls Hat, 
 and it is better to have nothing to do with it." 
 
 When la Peyrade was consulted, he did not honestly think 
 very highly of the plan; but in his heart of hearts he was 
 full of bitter animosity against Thuillier, and was delighted 
 to see this fresh tax levied on the man's cocksure imbe- 
 cility and confident inexperience. 
 
 As for Thuillier, his mania for appearing as a public 
 character, and being talked about, possessed him to such a 
 pitch that, though he groaned at seeing his purse still fur- 
 ther bled, he had made up his mind to the loss, even before 
 asking the lawyer's advice. La Peyrade's very reserved and 
 doubtful approbation was more than enough to confirm him 
 in his resolution, and that very evening he went back to 
 Barbet junior's and asked for the list of men to be invited. 
 
 Barbet had soon made it out, but instead of ten guests, 
 as he had suggested, he brought the number up to fifteen, 
 without counting himself and la Peyrade, whom Thuillier 
 felt he must have to be his second in a meeting where he 
 was conscious that he would be a little out of his depth. 
 
 As Thuillier glanced over the list just given to him 
 
 "Why, my dear boy," said he to the publisher, "you have 
 put down the names of papers that no one ever heard of. 
 What on earth are the Moralisateur, the Lanterne de 
 Diogene, the Pelican, and the iZclio de la Bievre?" 
 
 "You have made a bad shot in falling foul of the $cho de 
 la Bievre" answered Barbet ; "a paper that is printed in the 
 twelfth arrondissement for which you propose to stand, 
 and which is taken by all the tanners of the Mouffetard 
 quarter." 
 
 "Well, let that stand then," said Thuillier, "but the Peli- 
 can 
 
 "The Pelican? It is a paper that lies on every dentist's 
 waiting-room table the best agents for puff in the world. 
 Now, on an average, how many teeth are drawn, do you sup- 
 pose, every day in Paris?"
 
 .THE MIDDLE CLASSES 297 
 
 "Well, then, leave it," said Thuillier, who authoritatively 
 put his pen through some names, reducing the party to four- 
 teen. 
 
 "And then if anybody fails us, we shall be thirteen." 
 
 "As if I believed in that superstition ! What next ?" said 
 Thuillier the strong-minded. 
 
 And the list being closed and restricted to fourteen, then 
 and there, on a corner of the publisher's writing-table, he 
 wrote the invitations for the next day but one, as the mat- 
 ter was pressing, and Barbet assured him that no one would 
 take offence at the shortness of the notice. 
 
 The company was to assemble at Vefour's, the restaurant 
 most in vogue among the middle classes and provincials. 
 
 Barbet was on the scene even before Thuillier, wearing u 
 necktie enough of itself to be a feature and an event in the 
 satirical set to whom he was to display it. 
 
 The publisher took it upon himself to change various items 
 of the menu, and more especially, instead of vulgarly post- 
 poning the champagne till the last course, he ordered two 
 bottles well iced to be placed on the table from the first, 
 with some pounds of prawns, of which the giver of the feast 
 had not thought. 
 
 Thuillier, who very coldly sanctioned these amendments, 
 was followed by la Peyrade; then there was a long interval 
 during which no guests appeared. The hour had been fixed 
 at eleven, and at a quarter to twelve no one had come. 
 
 Barbet, whose spirits never fell, made the consolatory re- 
 mark that an invitation to a restaurant was like a bidding 
 to a funeral, where, as everybody knew, eleven o'clock means 
 twelve. In fact, at a few minutes to twelve two gentlemen 
 appeared, with goat-beards and smelling very strongly of 
 the smoking divan. Thuillier thanked them effusively for 
 the honor they were good enough to do him; then there 
 was another long wait of which the torment need not be de- 
 scribed. 
 
 By one o'clock five guests had dropped in, besides Barbet 
 and la Peyrade. It need hardly be said that no creditable
 
 298 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 representative of any respectable paper had accepted this 
 preposterous invitation. They were obliged to sit down; 
 a few polite speeches on the immensely interesting character 
 of his publication could not console Thuillier, or deceive 
 him as to the bitterness of his failure; but for the vivacity 
 of the publisher, who seized the reins Thuillier could not 
 hold, for he was as gloomy as Hippolytus on the road to 
 Myeena?, the icy coldness and depression of the meeting 
 would have been intolerable. 
 
 Oysters were first served; and the wines of Champagne 
 and Chablis with which they were washed down had begun 
 to raise the thermometer, when a youth in a cap, rushing 
 into the banqueting room, dealt Thuillier a deadly and 
 quite unexpected blow. 
 
 "Here, sir/' said the messenger to Barbet he was one 
 of the bookseller's clerks, "we are done for ! The police 
 have searched your place. A sergeant and two constables 
 have just seized this gentleman's pamphlet here is the 
 paper they gave me for you." 
 
 "See what that means, Mr. Lawyer," said Barbet, hand- 
 ing the stamped sheet to la Peyrade. His accustomed impu- 
 dence for the moment failed him. 
 
 "A summons to appear within a few days in the assize 
 court," said la Peyrade, after looking at the official scrawl. 
 
 Thuillier, as pale as death, turned to the publisher. 
 
 "Then you did not carry out all the requisite formali- 
 ties?" said he, with choking utterance. 
 
 "Oh ! it is not a question of formalities," said la Peyrade. 
 "The pamphlet is seized as illegal printed matter, inciting 
 hatred and contempt of the existing government. You, my 
 poor Thuillier, will, no doubt, find a similar document await- 
 ing you at home." 
 
 "But this is treachery !" cried Thuillier, losing his head. 
 
 "Bless me, my dear fellow, j r ou, I suppose, know what you 
 put into your pamphlet. I confess I found nothing in it to 
 whip a cat for." 
 
 "It is some misunderstanding," said Barbet, recovering
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 290 
 
 his courage. "It will be cleared up, and it will be a splen* 
 did advertiser* ent won't it, gentlemen ?" 
 
 "Waiter, a pen and ink I" cried one of the journalists 
 thus appealed to. 
 
 "You will have time enough to write your article," said 
 one of his colleagues. " 'What connection is there between 
 a bomb and this filet saute?'" 
 
 A parody of a famous speech made by Charles XII. of 
 Sweden, when a cannon-ball interrupted his dictating to one 
 of his secretaries. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Thuillier, rising, "you will excuse me; 
 if, as Monsieur Barbet thinks, this is all a mistake, it must 
 be cleared up at once, so with your permission I shall forth- 
 with proceed to the law-courts. La Peyrade," he added with 
 some meaning, "you will not, I think, refuse to accompany 
 me. And you, my worthy publisher, would do well to come 
 too." 
 
 "Not I," said Barbet junior. "Breakfast is breakfast. If 
 the lawyers have blundered, so much the worse for them !" 
 
 "But if the action is a serious matter," cried Thuillier, 
 in a perfect agony. 
 
 "Well, then, I can only say what is perfectly true that 
 I have not read a word of your pamphlet. One thing, how- 
 ever, is very annoying: those confounded juries object to a 
 beard ; I shall have to cut mine off if I am to appear before 
 one." 
 
 Come, my dear Amphitryon," said the editor of the 
 de la Bievre, "sit down again. We will bolster you 
 up. I have an article ready written that will make a com- 
 motion among the peat-sellers, and that honorable corpora- 
 tion is a power." 
 
 "No, gentlemen, no!" cried Thuillier. "Such a man as 
 I cannot rest half an hour under the imputation that has 
 fallen on me. Go on without us; I hope to return shortly. 
 Are you coming, la Peyrade?" 
 
 "He really is too funny!" said Barbet, as Thuillier and 
 
 his friend went away. "Fancy leaving your breakfast im- 
 VOL. 1445
 
 300 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 mediately after the oysters to go talk to a figure-head of 
 a judge ! Come on, gentlemen, close up/'' he added with 
 spirit. 
 
 "Hello !" said one of the famishing journalists, who had 
 been looking down into the garden of the Palais Royal com- 
 manded by the window of their room, "there goes Bar- 
 banchu. Suppose I were to call him up?" 
 
 "Why, to be sure ! 'a gentleman of position requires a 
 substitute,' " said Barbet, in parody of an advertisement 
 common enough on the walls. 
 
 "Barbanchu ! Barbanchu !" shouted the self-styled journal- 
 ist. 
 
 Barbanchu, wearing a queer, pointed hat, did not -imme- 
 diately discern from what cloud above him the voice fell on 
 his ear. 
 
 "Up here," said the voice, which appeared to him from 
 heaven, indeed, when he perceived that he was hailed by a 
 man holding a glass of champagne. 
 
 Then, as he still seemed doubtful, he was greeted with 
 a chorus: "Come up, old fellow, come up. There are good 
 pickings !" 
 
 Thuillier, when he came out of the law courts, could 
 indulge in no illusions. He was the object of a very serious 
 prosecution, and the severity of the Judge's tone left him, 
 at the same time, no hope of being treated with leniency. 
 
 Then, as always happens between accomplices when a 
 deed done in partnership turns out badly, he pelted la Pey- 
 rade with bitter animadversions : "He had paid no attention 
 to what he was writing; he had gone off at a canter on his 
 insane Saint-Simonian notions! Little he cared for the 
 consequences ! He would not have to pay the fine and go to 
 prison !" And then, when la Peyrade said that it did not 
 seem to him a very serious matter, and that he would un- 
 dertake to get a verdict in Thuillier's favor: 
 
 "Oh, of course, nothing can be simpler," he exclaimed. 
 "All you see in the business is a case for a showy defence. 
 But I am not going to trust my honor and my fortune in the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 301 
 
 hands of a feather-brain of your stamp. If the case comes to 
 trial, I will secure a first-class man. I have had enough of 
 your assistance, thank you !" 
 
 Under this storm of injustice, la Peyrade felt his temper 
 rising. However, as he wished to avoid a rupture, he was 
 helpless; he parted from Thuillier saying that he could for- 
 give a man excited by fear, and that he would call in the 
 course of the afternoon, when he hoped to find him calmer. 
 Then they might discuss the steps it would be well to take. 
 
 So at about four o'clock the Provengal went to the house 
 on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. Thuillier's irritation 
 had subsided, but had given way to frightful consternation. 
 If he had been expecting to be led to the scaffold in half 
 an hour's time, he could not have been more crushed and 
 dejected. 
 
 When la Peyrade went in, Madame Thuillier was ad- 
 ministering some lime-flower tea. The poor woman had 
 shaken off her apathy, and was proving herself a true Epo- 
 nina to her Sabinus. 
 
 As for Brigitte, who presently came in, herself carrying 
 a foot-bath, she was merciless and unmeasured in her 
 speech; her abuse, bitter and virulent out of all proportion 
 to the lawyer's fault supposing him to have committed 
 one, would have enraged the mildest of men. La Peyrade 
 saw that he had lost his footing in the Thuilliers' house, 
 where they seemed only too glad of an excuse for throw- 
 ing him over and for indulging in the most odious ingrati- 
 tude. On a satirical taunt as to his success in obtaining 
 honors for his friends, he rose and took leave, without any 
 attempt on their part to detain him. 
 
 After pacing the pavement for a little while, the Pro- 
 vengal, in the midst of his indignation, suddenly remem- 
 bered Madame de Godollo, for, to tell the truth, since their 
 first interview his thoughts had often dwelt on the fair for- 
 eigner. 
 
 Not once only had she abruptly retired, when on reaching 
 the Thuilliers' he had found her there. The manoeuvre
 
 302 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 had been repeated every time they had met; and without 
 fully understanding what she would be at, la Peyrade had 
 assured himself that this marked avoidance of him must 
 mean anything rather than indifference. It would have 
 been ill-judged to call again on the lady too soon after his 
 first visit; but by this time a long enough period had 
 elapsed for him to appear as a man entirely master of him- 
 self. So he turned back, and without asking at the porter's 
 door if the Countess were at home, he went in as if he were 
 going back to the Thuilliers', and rang at the door of the en- 
 tresol. 
 
 As on the first occasion, the maid desired him to wait 
 while she informed her mistress; but the room into which 
 he was shown was not the dining-room, but another small 
 room arranged as a library. 
 
 He was kept there a long time; he did not know what to 
 think. At the same time he comforted himself by reflect- 
 ing that if he was to be dismissed, the lady would not have 
 taken so long to think about it. 
 
 At last the woman returned, but not to show him in. 
 
 "Madame la Comtesse," said she, "is particularly engaged, 
 and begs that monsieur will be good enough to wait, and 
 to amuse himself with some of the books, as she may be 
 delayed longer than she would wish." 
 
 The excuse, in fact and in form, being by no means dis- 
 couraging, the lawyer proceeded to act on the advice given 
 him to avoid being dull. Without having to open either of 
 the carved rosewood bookcases, which contained some of the 
 most beautifully bound books 'he had ever seen, he found 
 on the long table with turned legs and a green cloth a mixed 
 collection of books, ample to feed the mind of a man whose 
 thoughts were probably otherwise engaged. 
 
 But as he opened, one by one, the volumes left at his com- 
 mand, he thought he had been intentionally left to the tor- 
 ments of Tantalus; one was English, another German, a 
 third Russian; there was even a book in Turkish characters. 
 Was this a polyglot practical joke?
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 30* 
 
 At last a book claimed his attention. The binding, un- 
 like that of the works which to him were as sealed letters, 
 was not so much handsome as smart. All by itself, on a 
 corner of the table far from its companions, it lay back 
 upwards, the open page spread out on the table-cloth, like a 
 tent. La Peyrade took it up, careful to note the page which 
 the last reader evidently meant to keep open. 
 
 It was an illustrated edition of Monsieur Scribe's works; 
 the print that turned up under the lawyer's eyes represented 
 the chief scene of a little piece played at the Gymnase, A 
 Woman's Hatred. 
 
 Few of my gentle readers, no doubt, are unacquainted 
 with the upshot of this drama, suggested so the story goes 
 to the illustrious writer of so many plays by a speech he 
 heard uttered one day by his porter's wife: 
 
 "There are some women," said she, "who make believe to 
 spit in the dish, so as to disgust others and get it all to 
 themselves." 
 
 In point of fact the chief figure in La Jiaine d'une Femme 
 is a young widow, relentlessly persecuting a poor young 
 man who does not know which way to turn. Everybody 
 believes that she hates him mortally. By her mischief-mak- 
 ing she almost destroys his reputation, and spoils a rich 
 match he might have made; but it is only, after all, to 
 give him far more than she has robbed him of; for she ends 
 by marrying him herself, and making a husband of the man 
 who had been pitied as her victim. 
 
 If it was chance that had isolated this volume and opened 
 it at the precise spot where la Peyrade had found it face 
 downward, it must be granted, after all that had passed be- 
 tween him and the Countess, that chance is sometimes clever 
 and ingenious. 
 
 As he considered the deep meaning that might underlie 
 this circumstance, fortuitous or not, la Peyrade read a few 
 pages to see whether, in parts as much as in the whole, the 
 allusion fitted his predicament. While he was reading with 
 some interest, if not with absorbed attention, he heard doors
 
 304 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 open and shut, and the lawyer, recognizing the fair Hun- 
 garian's silvery voice and rather indifferent tone, perceived 
 that she was seeing somebody to the door. 
 
 "So I may promise the Ambassadress," said the lady's 
 visitor and the visitor was a man, "that you will honor 
 her ball this evening with your presence?" 
 
 "Yes, Commander, if my headache, which at this moment 
 seems a little better, will only do me the favor of disappear- 
 ing altogether." 
 
 "Till this evening then, most adorable of your sex," said 
 the gentleman. 
 
 Then the doors shut again and silence reigned as before. 
 
 The title of Commander was reassuring to la Peyrade,! 
 for it is not one in common use by youthful sparks. Still, 
 he was curious to know who the person might be who 
 could take up so much of the lady's time. Hearing no- 
 body, the lawyer went to the window which looked out on 
 the street and cautiously opened the curtain, ready to drop 
 it instantly at the least sound, and to turn round so as 
 not to be caught in the very fact of vulgar curiosity. A 
 handsome brougham, in waiting a little way off, drew up, 
 a footman in a showy but well-appointed livery flew to 
 open the door, and a little old man, very brisk and dandified, 
 though he was one of those rare surviving relics of the past 
 who have not discarded hair-powder, stepped lightly into 
 the carriage, which drove off at a swift pace. La Peyrade 
 had just time to observe a long row of orders. This rainbow 
 of ribbon, added to the powdered wig, left no doubt as to 
 the wearer being a personage of diplomatic rank. 
 
 La Peyrade had had time to return to his book, for in any 
 case he thought it well to be "discovered" reading, when a 
 bell was rung, and a minute after a maid appeared to an- 
 nounce that his long waiting had come to an end. When 
 desired by the damsel to follow her, Theodose took care to 
 replace the volume as he had found it, and a moment later 
 he was in the Countess' presence. 
 
 There was a trace of suffering on the lady's handsome
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 305 
 
 features, but this did not impair her charms. On the sofa 
 where she sat there lay an open letter, written on gilt-edged 
 paper in a free and space-loving hand which betrayed it as 
 having emanated from some minister's cabinet or govern- 
 ment office. In her hand she held a cut-glass bottle with 
 a chased gold top, and she sat inhaling from it; a strong 
 smell of aromatic vinegar was predominant over all the 
 other scents in the room. 
 
 "You are not well, madame," said la Peyrade anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, it is nothing," said the Countess, "a headache I 
 very often have one. But you, monsieur, where have you 
 been? I was beginning to give up all hope of ever seeing 
 you again. Have you come to give me some great news? 
 The date of your marriage to Mademoiselle Colleville must 
 now be near enough to be announced to everybody." 
 
 This opening somewhat disconcerted la Peyrade. 
 
 "I should have supposed you, madame," replied he a little 
 stiffly, "to be sufficiently familiar with what goes on in the 
 Thuilliers' household to know that nothing of the sort is 
 imminent; nay, I may say, at present even probable." 
 
 "No, indeed, I assure you I know nothing. I firmly 
 resolved not to appear to take any interest in an affair with 
 which I had so foolishly mixed myself up; I talk to Made- 
 moiselle Brigitte of anything and everything excepting Ce- 
 leste's marriage." 
 
 "And it was, I suppose, to leave me at full liberty to dis- 
 cuss the subject, that you always made your escape whenever 
 I had the honor to meet you at our friend's house." 
 
 "Why, yes," said the Countess, "that, no doubt, was the 
 reason why I made way for you. Whv else should I be so 
 coy?" 
 
 "Oh, madame, a lady may avoid a man for many other 
 reasons ! For instance, he may have offended her ; he may 
 not have shown due respect and submission in acting on 
 the advice she has so greatly honored him by giving." 
 
 "Oh, my dear sir, I am not so ardent a proselytizer as to 
 take offence when my advice is not followed. Like other
 
 306 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 people, I am quite capable of taking a mistaken view of the 
 case." 
 
 "But, on the contrary, madame, as regards my marriage, 
 your view was the correct one." 
 
 "Indeed?" said the lady quickly. "Has the attack on 
 the pamphlet, following so closely on the delay in securing 
 the Cross, led to a rupture?" 
 
 "No," said la Peyrade, "my influence in the Thuilliers' 
 house rests on a firmer foundation. Compared with the 
 services I have done to Mademoiselle Brigitte and her 
 brother, these little disasters, happily reparable " 
 
 "Do you think so?" interrupted the Countess, with an air 
 of incredulity. 
 
 "No doubt," answered la Peyrade. "For if Madame la 
 Comtesse du Bruel takes it into her head to secure the red 
 ribbon, in spite of the difficulties that have stood in the way 
 of her good-will, she is quite able to obtain a thing which, 
 after all, is not beyond human attainment." 
 
 The Countess listened with a smile to this remark, but 
 shook her head doubtfully. 
 
 "Why, madame, only a few days since, the Countess told 
 Madame Colleville that this unexpected check had piqued 
 her pride, and that she would herself apply to the Minister." 
 
 "Ah, but you forget that the law has intervened, and it 
 is not usual to wait till a man has stood at the bar before 
 giving him the ribbon of the Order. This seizure it does 
 not seem to have struck you argues some ill-feeling, which 
 you do not quite appreciate, against Monsieur Thuillier, and 
 perhaps against you, monsieur, for you are the real culprit. 
 The authorities do not seem, on the present occasion, to 
 have acted independently." 
 
 La Peyrade looked at the Countess. 
 
 "I must own," said he, after a hasty glance, "that I have 
 tried in vain to find in the document in question any excuse 
 for the attack of which it has been the object." 
 
 "In my opinion, too," said the lady, "the King's sup- 
 porters must have a very lively imagination to convince
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 307 
 
 themselves that they had a seditious pamphlet to deal with; 
 but this is only additional proof of the powerful underground 
 influence which vitiates all your efforts for the benefit of 
 our worthy Monsieur Thuillier." 
 
 "And you, madame, know our secret foes ?" 
 
 "Perhaps," said the Countess, smiling again. 
 
 "Madame/' said la Peyrade, with agitation, "if I might 
 venture to utter a suspicion ?" 
 
 "Speak," replied Madame de Godollo, "I do not object to 
 your guessing right." 
 
 "Well, madame, our enemies Thuillier's and mine are 
 a woman." 
 
 "What then?" said the Countess. "Do you know how 
 many lines of a man's writing Richelieu required in order to 
 hang him ?" 
 
 "Four," said Theodose. 
 
 "Then you can understand that a pamphlet of more than 
 two hundred pages should have afforded matter for prosecu- 
 tion in the hands of a woman who has some little skill in 
 intrigue." 
 
 "I understand everything, madame," cried la Peyrade ve- 
 hemently. "I know her for a woman in ten thousand, with 
 as much mischievous wit as Richelieu himself; for an ador- 
 able witch who cannot only set the police andi gendarmes 
 in motion, but freeze a Cross, that is about to drop, to the 
 minister's fingers." 
 
 "Well, then," said the lady, "of what use is it to struggle ?" 
 
 "I struggle no more," said la Peyrade, calculating the 
 measure of her regard for him by the immense pains she 
 had been at. Then, with an air of assumed contrition, he 
 added : 
 
 "But, bless me, madame, you must hate me very bit- 
 terly." 
 
 "Not so bitterly as you might suppose," answered the 
 Countess; "but, after all, supposing I did?" 
 
 "Ah, madame !" cried Theodose rapturously, "I should be 
 the happiest of ill-starred wretches, for such hatred would
 
 308 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 be a thousand times more precious and delightful to me than 
 your indifference. But you do not hate me : why should you 
 feel for me that thrice-blessed feminine aversion which Scribe, 
 in one of his gems for the Gymnase, has described with so 
 much subtle wit?" 
 
 Madame de Godollo did not immediately reply ; she looked 
 down, and a little flutter in her breathing slightly shook 
 her voice. 
 
 "And can a man of your stoical temper be frivolous 
 enough to trouble himself about a woman's hatred?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, madame, I should trouble myself a great 
 deal; not to rebel against it; on the contrary, to bless the 
 severity which vouchsafed to chasten me. My fair foe once 
 known and confessed, I should not despair of moving her to 
 pity, for never again would I tread in a path that was not 
 hers, nor march under a banner she had not taken for her 
 own; I should not think till she inspired me, nor have any 
 will but hers; I should act only when she ordered, and be in 
 all things her auxiliary, nay, more, her slave; were she to 
 spurn me with her tiny foot, to punish me with her white 
 hand, I should endure all things with joy. As the reward 
 of so much submission and obedience, I should crave but 
 one favor, that of being allowed to kiss the print of the foot 
 that had repulsed me, of shedding all my tears in the hand 
 that had struck me!" 
 
 While pouring out this long outcry of an ecstatic and dis- 
 tracted heart, wrung from the impressionable Provengal na- 
 ture by the joy of hoped-for triumph, he had glided from his 
 seat, and at the end found himself kneeling on one knee at a 
 little distance from the Countess an attitude recognized on 
 the stage, and which is still less rare than might be thought 
 in private life. 
 
 "Rise, monsieur," said the Countess, "and have the good- 
 ness to answer me." She fixed a searching eye on his face. 
 and knitting her handsome brows. "Have you," she asked, 
 "carefully weighed the purport of the words you have just
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 309 
 
 spoken? Have you gauged their depth and all they pledge 
 you to ? Are you the man to do all they promise, your hand 
 on your heart and conscience; are you not one of those per- 
 fidiously humble men who affect to embrace our knees only 
 the better to throw our reason and will off its balance?" 
 
 "I !" cried la Peyrade, "shall I ever regret the fascination 
 which you exercised over me from the moment when we first 
 met? Nay, madame, the more I have rebelled and struggled 
 against it, the more should you believe in its reality and its 
 absolute supremacy. What I said I meant; what I have just 
 now thought aloud, I have thought to myself from the hour 
 when I was so happy as to be admitted to your presence ; and 
 the long days I have spent in fighting against the attraction, 
 have produced a reactionary strength of will which knows its 
 own mind, and which your utmost severity cannot now dis- 
 courage." 
 
 "My severity perhaps not," said the Countess. "But my 
 favors are another matter. Question yourself closely. We 
 foreigners do not understand the levity with which French 
 women often treat even the most solemn engagements. To 
 us, the word 'yes' is a sacred bond, our word is a pledge, we 
 wish nothing and do nothing by halves. A motto attached 
 to the arms of my family has much meaning here, All or 
 nothing. This is saying much, and yet hardly enough." 
 
 "Oh, I am quite of the same mind," replied the lawyer, 
 "and my first act on leaving this house will be to break, once 
 for all, every link with that ignoble past, which for a mo- 
 ment, I seemed to place in the scale against the intoxicating 
 future which you do not forbid me to hope for." 
 
 "No, no," said the Countess, "I do not like hasty freaks; 
 it will not flatter me in the least that you should fly round 
 breaking windows. These Thuilliers are not bad souls; they 
 humiliated you quite unconsciously; they live in another 
 world from yours. Is that their fault ? Untie the knot, do 
 not break it, and above all, pause to reflect once more. Your 
 conversion to a belief in me is so recent ! What man can be 
 sure of what his heart will say to-morrow?"
 
 310 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I, madame, am that man. We men of the <$outh do not 
 love a la Fran$aise." 
 
 "But I thought that the feeling under discussion as be- 
 tween us was hatred," said the Countess, with a bewitching 
 smile. 
 
 "Nay, madame, even when it is translated and under- 
 stood, there is something terrible in the word. Tell me, 
 rather, not that you love me, but that the words you conde- 
 scended to speak at our former meeting were the true ex- 
 pression of your feelings." 
 
 "My friend," said the Countess, emphasizing the word, 
 "one of your moralists has said : 'There are some persons who 
 when they say that a thing is or is not, need take no oath; 
 their character promises for them/ Be good enough to be- 
 lieve that I am one of them." 
 
 And she held out her hand to the lawyer with a gesture as 
 modest as it was graceful. 
 
 La Peyrade, beside himself, rushed at the hand, and de- 
 voured it with kisses. 
 
 "Enough, child," said the lady, gently disengaging her im- 
 prisoned fingers. "Good-bye, till we meet again. I believe 
 my headache is quite well." 
 
 La Peyrade took up his hat and rushed to the door; but 
 there he stopped, and cast a long and tender look at the en- 
 chantress. 
 
 The Countess bowed him a charming farewell, but as la 
 Peyrade seemed about to retrace his steps, she warned him 
 with her ringer to be good, and go away. He finally left. On 
 the stairs he paused to exhale, as it were, the overflowing joy 
 of his heart. The Countess' words, and the ingenuity with 
 which she had prepared him to divine her feelings, seemed to 
 him to guarantee their sincerity, and he departed in faith. 
 
 Given over to the intoxication of happiness, which betrays 
 itself not only in the victim's appearance, looks, and man- 
 ner, but sometimes even in actions which reason could not 
 strictly approve, after pausing for a minute on the stairs, 
 lie went up far enough to see the entrance to the Thuilliers' 
 apartments.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 311 
 
 "At last/' he cried, "I see glory, fortune, and happiness 
 within my grasp; and, even better, I may know the joys of 
 revenge! After Cerizet and Dutocq, I will crush you, vile 
 and vulgar brood !" 
 
 And he shook his fist at the innocent double doors. 
 
 Then he ran down and away, and the common phrase at 
 this moment was true of him; his feet seemed not to touch 
 the earth. 
 
 The very next morning, for la Peyrade could no longer 
 contain the storm that swelled within him, he went to call 
 on the Thuilliers. He arrived there in the bitterest and most 
 hostile frame of mind. Imagine, then, his bewilderment 
 when, before he had time to parry the demonstration of re- 
 conciliation and oblivion, Thuillier rushed into his arms. 
 
 "My dear fellow," cried the ex-clerk, when he relaxed his 
 embrace, "my political fortune is made; every paper, with- 
 out exception, speaks of the seizure of my pamphlet, and 
 you should see what the organs of the Opposition have to 
 say to the Government." 
 
 "It is quite natural/' said the lawyer, not entering into this 
 enthusiasm, "you are something to write about. But that 
 does not in the least mend the matter, and the legal author- 
 ities will be all the more determined to get an adverse ver- 
 dict, as they say." 
 
 "Well, then," said Thuillier, drawing himself up proudly, 
 "I will go to prison like Beranger, like Lamennais, like 
 Armand Carrel." 
 
 "My good sir, persecution is a beautiful thing at a dis- 
 tance ; but when you hear the big bolts shut upon you, believe 
 me the position will not smile on your fancy." 
 
 "In the first place," said Thuillier, "political prisoners are 
 never refused leave to serve their time in a private asylum, 
 and, as yet, I am not sentenced; you yourself only yester- 
 day thought I might hope to be acquitted." 
 
 "Yes; but since then I have heard things that make it 
 seem very doubtful. The same hand, no doubt, that withheld
 
 312 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the Cross, came down on your pamphlet. You are being 
 murdered of malice prepense." 
 
 "Since you know who this dangerous enemy is," said 
 Thuillier, "you will, I suppose, not decline to name him." 
 
 "I do not know," answered la Peyrade, "but I suspect. 
 This is what comes of finessing." 
 
 "Of finessing?" said Thuillier, with the natural animosity 
 of a man whose conscience is absolutely clear of the fault he 
 is accused of. 
 
 "Certainly," replied the lawyer. "You have used Celeste 
 as a sort of decoy-bird to tempt flutterers to your house. It 
 is not every one who is so long-suffering as Monsieur Gode- 
 schal, who, after his dismissal, behaved so generously in the 
 matter of the sale." 
 
 "Explain yourself," said Thuillier. "I do not understand 
 you in the least." 
 
 "Nothing can be easier to understand. How many suit- 
 ors without counting me are there for the hand of Made- 
 moiselle Colleville? Godeschal, Minard, Felix Phellion, 
 Olivier Vinet, the judge's deputy, men who have all been 
 kept dangling, just as I have been." 
 
 "Olivier Vinet !" cried Thuillier, struck as by a ray of 
 light. "To be sure; that is the quarter the blow comes from. 
 His father, they say, has a long arm. But can it be said 
 that we have kept him dangling, to use your very unseemly 
 phrase? He spent one evening here, and has made no pro- 
 posal; no more, indeed, has the younger Minard, or young 
 Phellion. Godeschal is the only man who ventured to come 
 to the point, and he was refused without hesitation; he was 
 not kept on tenterhooks." 
 
 "Very true," said la Peyrade, still bent on quarreling. 
 "It is only when a man speaks out decisively that there is 
 any point in playing fast and loose with him." 
 
 "Come," said Thuillier, "out with it. Whom are you talk- 
 ing at with these insinuations? Did you not settle every- 
 thing with Brigitte the other day ? You have chosen a good 
 time, I must say, to come to me about your love-affairs, when 
 the sword of justice is hanging over my head."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 313 
 
 "Oh, I dare say !" said la Peyrade ironically. "Now you 
 want to make capital of your interesting position as a man 
 attacked by the law. I knew just what would happen, and 
 that when once the pamphlet was finished you would be at 
 your tricks again." 
 
 "The pamphlet indeed!" said Thuillier. "I like your 
 assuming that it was to be the end of every difficulty, when 
 it is, on the contrary, at the bottom of all these deplorable 
 complications." 
 
 "Deplorable? Why? Your political fortune is made." 
 
 "Eeally and truly, my dear boy," said Thuillier sentiment- 
 ally, "I never could have thought that you would choose the 
 evil hour of adversity to come and hold a pistol to my head, 
 and make me the object of your vexatious remarks." 
 
 "Well done !" cried la Peyrade. "Now it is 'the evil hour 
 of adversity,' and not a minute ago you threw yourself into 
 my arms like a man who has had some unlooked-for good 
 fortune. You must really make up your mind whether you 
 are a man to be pitied or gloriously triumphant." 
 
 "You may be as sharp as you please," retorted Thuillier, 
 "you will not prove that I have contradicted myself. I am 
 logical, at any rate, though I may not be clever. It is very 
 natural that I should be comforted by finding public opinion 
 pronouncing in my favor, and affording me in the papers 
 every proof of respectful sympathy. But, on the whole, do you 
 not suppose that I would rather have seen things take their 
 course? As I see myself the object of low malignity on the 
 part of men so influential as the Vinets, can I foresee the 
 extent of the dangers to which I may be exposed ?" 
 
 "So you are definitively Jean qui pleure in doleful 
 dumps?" said la Peyrade, with pitiless insistency. 
 
 "Yes," replied Thuillier solemnly, "Jean qui pleure over a 
 friendship which I had believed to be genuine and sincere, 
 and which, when I need its help, has nothing to give but 
 satire." 
 
 "What help ?" asked la Peyrade. "Did you not tell me yes- 
 terday that you had had enough of my collaboration in any
 
 314 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 form ? I offered to plead your case ; you told me you would 
 secure some eminent counsel." 
 
 "Very true; in the first moment of dismay at such an un- 
 expected blow, I may have made such a foolish speech; but 
 on due reflection, who is better qualified than you to explain 
 the meaning of a document written by your own pen? I 
 was indeed beside myself yesterday; and you, to-day, with 
 your offended conceit that cannot forgive a hasty impulse, 
 are very caustic and cruel." 
 
 "So you apply to me, formally, to defend you before the 
 jury ?" 
 
 "Why, yes, my dear boy; I see no other man in whose 
 hands I can trust my case. I might pay some bigwig of 
 the bar an enormous fee and he would not defend me so 
 skilfully as you will." 
 
 "Well, and now I refuse. The parts, as you perceive, are 
 reversed. I, like you, thought yesterday that I was the man 
 for this case; to-day, I think that what you need is, in fact, 
 some bigwig of the law, since with Vinet as your antagonist, 
 the affair has assumed such importance as will load the ad- 
 vocate who undertakes it with really overwhelming responsi- 
 bilities." 
 
 "I quite understand," retorted Thuillier; "your Worship 
 always dreamed of a seat on the bench, and it will not do to 
 run any risk of quarreling with the man who is already 
 spoken of as a likely Keeper of the Seals. That is very pru- 
 dent but I do not see how it will further your prospects of 
 marriage." 
 
 "That is to say," replied la Peyrade, catching the ball 
 at the rebound, "that to snatch you from the clutches of 
 the jury is a sort of thirteenth labor of Hercules which you 
 set before me, before I can win Mademoiselle Colleville's 
 hand. I was prepared to find that your demands would in- 
 crease in proportion to the devotion I might prove; but I 
 am tired of it; and to put an end to this utilization of man 
 by man, I came here this morning to give you back your word. 
 You may dispose of Celeste's hand as you please; so far as I 
 am concerned, I make no claim on it."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 315 
 
 The abrupt tone of this unexpected declaration left 
 Thuillier speechless and voiceless; all the more so because 
 at this moment Brigitte came into the room. The good 
 woman's mood had also changed considerably since yester- 
 day, for her opening words were full of affectionate familiar- 
 
 ity. 
 
 "So here you are !" said she to la Peyrade, "our good 
 young lawyer !" 
 
 "Good-morning to you, mademoiselle," said the Proven- 
 gal, stiffly. 
 
 "Well/' she went on, not heeding la Peyrade's ceremoni- 
 ous greeting, "the . Government "has put its foot in it by 
 seizing your pamphlet. You should see how hot the papers 
 give it to them this morning. Here," she went on, handing 
 a sheet to Thuillier printed on flimsy paper in large but 
 not very legible type; "here is one you have not seen yet; 
 the porter has just brought it up. A paper printed in our 
 old quarter, I'Eclio de la Bievre. I do not know whether you 
 gentlemen will agree with me, but the article strikes me as 
 capitally written. But it is queer how careless these journal- 
 ists are; they spell your name without an ft; I think you 
 might complain." 
 
 Thuillier took the paper and read the article with which 
 gratitude for a well-filled stomach had inspired the editor 
 of the tanner's organ. Never in her life had Brigitte troubled 
 her head about a newspaper excepting to consider whether 
 the sheet were large enough for wrapping the parcel for which 
 she used it; but now, suddenly converted to faith in the 
 press by her strong affection for her brother, she stood be- 
 hind Thuillier, and reading over his shoulder the more im- 
 portant passages of the article she had thought so eloquent, 
 she pointed them out with her finger. 
 
 "Yes," said Thuillier, refolding the paper, "it is wamnly 
 expressed and highly flattering to me. But here we have 
 quite another matter on hand. Our gentleman here declares 
 that he refuses to plead my case, and that he gives up all 
 idea of marrying Celeste." 
 VOL. 14 46
 
 316 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "That is to say that he will give it up," answered Bri~ 
 gitte, "unless as soon as the case is over he is married at 
 once and out of hand. Well, for my part, I think the poor 
 boy's demand only reasonable. When he has done that one 
 thing more for us there can be no further reprieve, and 
 whether Mademoiselle Celeste likes it or no, she must make the 
 best of it, for, after all, everything must have an end." 
 
 "You hear, my dear fellow," said la Peyrade, taking up 
 Brigitte's words, "when I have defended you, then I am to be 
 married. Your sister is frankness itself, and does not beat 
 about the bush." 
 
 "Beat about the bush!" 'echoed Brigitte. "Not I, indeed, 
 do you think it ? I say what I mean ; the laborer has worked, 
 he must be paid for his pains." 
 
 "Do hold your tongue," said Thuillier, stamping his foot, 
 "every word you utter twists the dagger in the wound." 
 
 "The dagger in the wound; what do you mean?" asked 
 Brigitte. "What ! you have not quarreled ?" 
 
 "I told you," said Thuillier, "that la Peyrade has come to 
 cry off the bargain; and the reason he gives is that we are 
 asking him to do us a still further service before granting 
 him Celeste's hand. He thinks he has done us enough as 
 it is." 
 
 "He has done us good service, no doubt," replied Brigitte, 
 "but I do not see that we have been ungrateful. After all, 
 it was he who got us into the scrape and I should think it 
 very queer if he now left us in the lurch." 
 
 "Your argument, my dear lady, would have some sem- 
 blance of cogency if I were the only advocate in Paris; 
 but as the streets are paved with them, and as Thuillier 
 himself said yesterday he would prefer a man of distinction 
 at the bar, I do not scruple to refuse undertaking his de- 
 fence. Then, as to the marriage we spoke of, to prevent 
 its ever again being made an excuse for some vulgar and 
 mercenary bargain, I decline it in formal and emphatic 
 terms, and there is nothing to hinder Mademoiselle Colle- 
 ville from accepting all that Monsieur Phellion has to 
 offer."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 317 
 
 "Do not trouble yourself, my dear sir," replied Brigitte. 
 "If that is your last word, we shall have no difficulty about 
 finding a husband for Celeste, young Phellion or another; 
 but you will allow me to say that the reason you give is 
 not the true one, for we cannot dance faster than the fid- 
 dler can play. If we settled on the marriage this very day 
 the banns must be published. You have wit enough to see 
 that the mayor cannot marry you till the formalities are 
 carried out, and between this and then Thuilliers case will 
 be tried." 
 
 "Yes," said la Peyrade. "And if I lose his case it will 
 be my fault that Thuillier will be sent to prison, just as it 
 tvas I who yesterday had been the cause of the seizure of the 
 pamphlet." 
 
 "Hang it all, but it seems to me that if you had written 
 nothing, the police would have nothing to grab." 
 
 "My dear sister," said Thuillier, as la Peyrade answered 
 with a shrug, "your argument is unsound in so far as that 
 the document was in no way incriminating. It is not la 
 Peyrade's fault if personages in high position organized a 
 persecution against me. Uo you remember that little man, 
 Monsieur Olivier Vinet, whom Cardot brought to our house 
 one evening; he and his father are furious, it would seem, 
 because we did not think of him for Celeste, and they have 
 vowed to ruin me." 
 
 "And why did we refuse him," asked Brigitte, "but for 
 this gentleman's sake? For, after all, a Judge's deputy in 
 Paris is a very good match." 
 
 "No doubt," said la Peyrade coolly, "but he had not quite 
 a million to contribute to the common stock." 
 
 "Come !" said Brigitte, firing up. "If you are going to 
 talk about the house you enabled us to purchase, I, for my 
 part, will tell you plainly that if you had had ready money 
 enough yourself to sneak it from the notary, you would not 
 have corne to us. You need not think that I was altogether 
 your dupe; you talked big just now about driving a bargain, 
 but it was you yourself who proposed it: 'Give me Celeste/
 
 318 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 said you, 'and I will give you the house.' That was what 
 you gave us to understand in so many words ; and after all we 
 had to make greater sacrifices than we had expected." 
 
 "Now, now, Brigitte," said Thuillier, "you are stickling 
 over trifles !" 
 
 "Trifles ! Trifles, indeed !" cried Brigitte. "Was the sum 
 at first named exceeded, or was it not?" 
 
 "My dear Thuillier," said la Peyrade, "I, like you, regard 
 the matter as settled, and useless repetitions can only lead 
 to bitterness. My determination was final before 1 came 
 here ; all I hear only confirms it. I shall not be your son-in- 
 law, but we shall, nevertheless, remain fast friends." 
 
 And he rose to go. 
 
 "One minute, Monsieur 1'avocat," said Brigitte, stopping 
 the way. "There is one matter, which, so far as I am con- 
 cerned, is by no means settled; and as we no longer are to 
 have any purse in common, I should not be sorry if you would 
 be so good as to tell me what became of a little sum of ten 
 thousand francs which Thuillier handed over to you, to be 
 paid to some rascally officials for the Cross of which we 
 have heard so much and seen nothing?" 
 
 "Brigitte!" said Thuillier, in an agony, "you have a hell- 
 fire tongue. You ought to have known nothing about that; 
 I told you about it in a fit of temper and you promised never 
 to utter a word about it to any one whomsoever." 
 
 "True, but we are parting company," answered the im- 
 placable old maid. "Well, when partners part they pay. 
 Ten thousand francs ! I should have thought a real Cross 
 dear at the money ; and for a Cross in the clouds, this gentle- 
 man must admit it is a very large price." 
 
 "La Peyrade, my dear friend," said Thuillier, going up to 
 the lawyer, who was white with rage, "do not listen to Bri- 
 gitte ; her affection for me is too much for her judgment. I 
 know what offices are; and I should not be surprised if you 
 had paid even more out of your own pocket." 
 
 "Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "it is not in my power, un- 
 fortunately, to send you at once the sum which I am required
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 319 
 
 to account for, with such insolent brutality. But grant me 
 a brief delay, and if, to encourage your patience, you will 
 accept my note of hand, I am ready to sign one." 
 
 "Get along with your note of hand," said Thuillier, "you owe 
 me nothing ; we are in your debt, for Cardot told me that your 
 profit on this splendid property, which you enabled us to buy, 
 ought to be ten thousand francs at the very least." 
 
 "Cardot ! Cardot !" said Brigitte scornfully, "he is free 
 enough with other people's money ! He was to have had 
 Celeste something better than ten thousand francs !" 
 
 La Peyrade was too great an actor not to turn this humiliat- 
 ing conclusion into an effective finale. With tears in hid 
 voice, and ere long in his eyes, he addressed Brigitte. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said he, "when I first had the honor of 
 being admitted to your house I was poor; and for a long 
 time after you saw me depressed and ill at ease, because I 
 knew that poverty exposes a man to every sort of indignity. 
 From the day when I was enabled to show you the way to a 
 fortune I did not covet for myself, I recovered a little con- 
 fidence, and your kindness, too, encouraged me to shake off 
 my shyness and abasement. To-day, then, when I am tak- 
 ing a loyal step which must relieve you of much anxiety, 
 for, if you would be honest, you would confess that you have 
 dreamed of another husband for Celeste, we might have 
 agreed to give up a plan which my delicacy of feeling pro- 
 hibits my carrying out, and yet have remained friends. All 
 that was needed was that we should remain on such terms 
 of politeness as you may see in an example daily before you : 
 for, although Madame de Godollo has not any great kindness 
 for me, I am sure that her good breeding would not allow 
 her to approve of your odious behavior. But, thank heaven ! 
 I have some religious feeling. The gospel is not a dead 
 letter to me, so understand me clearly, mademoiselle, I for- 
 give you. Not to Thuillier, who would not accept the money, 
 but to you, as my revenge, I will shortly repay the ten thou- 
 sand francs which you believe me to have appropriated to my 
 own needs. When the sum is in your own hands, if you should
 
 320 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 repent of your unjust suspicions and scruple to keep it, you 
 can hand it over to some benevolent society " 
 
 "A benevolent society !" cried Brigitte, interrupting him. 
 "Thank you for nothing ! To be given to a crowd of ne'er- 
 do-weels and bigots, who spend it in feasting after taking 
 the sacrament. I have been poor myself, my boy ; for a very 
 long time I made bags to hold other people's money before I 
 had any of my own. I have money now and I keep it; so 
 as soon as you please I am ready to take it. If you do not 
 know how to carry through a business when you undertake it, 
 and waste powder and shot on cock-sparrows, so much the 
 worse for you." 
 
 Seeing that he had failed in his purpose, and had not even 
 scored the granite of which Brigitte was made, la Peyrade, 
 with a scornful glance, made a dignified exit. 
 
 He saw that Thuillier's impulse was to detain him, but an 
 imperious movement of Brigitte's, always queen and mistress, 
 had riveted him to the spot. 
 
 As soon as he got home, the lawyer completed his eman- 
 cipation my writing to Madame Colleville that, as his en- 
 gagement to Celeste was broken off, he thought that ordinary 
 propriety, as well as good feeling, prohibited his being seen 
 at her house any more. 
 
 As Colleville made his way to the office next morning, he 
 called on la Peyrade to ask him what nonsense he had been 
 writing to Flavie that had reduced her to despair. Theodose 
 very solemnly repeated to the husband the words of the letter 
 he had written to the wife certainly not a love-letter, 
 
 "And that is what you call friendship?" said Colleville, 
 with the friendly tu that he had long been in the habit of 
 using to la Peyrade. "You will not marry the daughter; is 
 that a reason for quarreling with her parents ? It is making 
 us answerable for the words you may have had with Thuillier. 
 Is that any concern of ours? Has not my wife been in- 
 variably kind to you?" 
 
 "Indeed," said la Peyrade, "I have received nothing but 
 kindness from Madame Colleville."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 321 
 
 "And so you want to see her die of grief? Since yes- 
 terday she has constantly had her handkerchief in her hand. 
 I tell you she will really be ill." 
 
 "Listen, my dear Colleville," replied the lawyer. "I owe 
 it to you to tell you the truth, and you have a right to be 
 told it. Besides the fact that I could not meet Mademoiselle 
 Celeste ; 
 
 "Well, you need never meet her," interrupted the worthy 
 man. "When you come to the house the child can retire to 
 her own room. Besides, she will be married before long." 
 
 "No doubt. But I ought to add that my frequent visits to 
 your house have been talked about; calumnious reports have 
 got about. It is alike my duty and my desire to put a stop 
 to them." 
 
 "What!" exclaimed the husband. "Can a man of your 
 sense listen to such absurd gossip? Do you fancy that you 
 stop tongues wagging? Why, my wife has been talked about 
 for five and twenty years, only because she is rather better 
 looking than Brigitte and Madame Thuillier. I must be a 
 greater ruffian than you, for all this tittle-tattle has never 
 troubled our household peace for a quarter of an hour." 
 
 "Well," said la Peyrade, "while I admire you for being so 
 strong-minded, I think such a contempt of public opinion very 
 rash." 
 
 "What next!" said Colleville. "Public opinion! I 
 trample it in the dust a lying hussy. It is Minard who 
 keeps such reports afloat, because his fat cook of a wife never 
 attracted the attention of any decent man. Monsieur le 
 Maire would do far better to keep an eye on his son, who is 
 ruining himself with an elderly actress from Bobino's." 
 
 "At any rate, my dear good fellow," said la Peyrade, "try 
 to bring Flavie to her senses." 
 
 "Ah ! that's better," said Colleville, wringing the lawyer's 
 hand. "You call her Flavie in the old way. I have found 
 my friend again." 
 
 "Certainly," said la Peyrade, in a calmer tone, "friends 
 once are friends for ever."
 
 322 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Yes, yes; friends are friends," repeated Colleville. "A 
 gift of the gods, to console us for all the vexations of life. 
 Then it is an understood thing, you will call on my wife and 
 restore my unhappy home to gladness and serenity ?" 
 
 La Peyrade vaguely acquiesced, and when his importunate 
 guest had departed, he wondered whether this type of husband 
 which is far commoner than might be supposed was 
 genuine, or mere acting. 
 
 Just as la Peyrade was about to lay at the Countess' feet 
 the liberty he had so violently snatched at, he received a 
 scented note which set his heart beating ; he recognized on the 
 seal the famous motto, "All or nothing," which had been 
 proposed to him as the rule that was to govern the intimacy 
 he hoped for. 
 
 "Dear monsieur," said Madame de Godollo, "I have heard of 
 your determination ; many thanks ! But I must now prepare 
 to carry out mine, for you cannot suppose that I intend to live 
 for ever in a sphere that is so far from being ours, and to 
 which I have no ties. To make some arrangements, so as 
 not to have to explain how it is that the entresol is open to 
 the voluntary exile from the first floor, I must have to-day 
 and to-morrow to myself ; so do not come to see me till the day 
 after to-morrow. By that time I shall have settled with Bri- 
 gitte, as they say on 'change, and shall have much to tell 
 you. 
 
 "Tua iota, 
 
 "COMTESSE DE GODOLLO." 
 
 Wholly yours, in Latin, struck la Peyrade as charming; 
 nor did it surprise him, Latin being almost a second national 
 tongue in Hungary. The two days' delay to which he was 
 condemned added fuel to the fire of passion that possessed 
 him; and when, on the second day, he arrived at the house 
 near the Madeleine, his love had arrived at a height of in- 
 candescence of which he could not have believed himself 
 capable a few days sooner.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 323 
 
 This time the porter's wife caught sight of him as he went 
 in. But, irrespective of the fact that he might be supposed 
 to be going up to the Thuilliers, he wotfld nol have cared if 
 the real object of his visit had been known. The ice was 
 broken, his happiness was recognized, and he felt more 
 inclined to proclaim it to all comers than to make a mystery 
 of it. 
 
 Flying nimbly up the stairs, the lawyer was about to pull 
 the bell, when, on putting out his hand to take the silken 
 cord by the side of the door, he noticed that the bell-pull was 
 gone. 
 
 La Peyrade's first idea was that some attack which makes 
 every kind of noise unendurable to the sufferer might account 
 for the absence of the missing cord ; but various observations 
 at once presented themselves to weaken this hypothesis, which, 
 indeed, would not have been particularly consolatory. 
 
 From the hall to the Countess' door there used to be a 
 stair-carpet, held at each step by a brass rod, and affording 
 visitors a velvety ascent; this carpet had disappeared. 
 
 An outer door, covered with green worsted velvet and 
 trimmed with gilt fillets, had guarded the entrance; of this 
 /io sign but a little damage done to the wall by the workmen 
 who had removed it. 
 
 For an instant the lawyer, in his agitation, fancied he had 
 mistaken the floor; but glancing over the banisters he saw 
 that he had indeed stopped at the entresol. Then Madame 
 de Godollo was moving ! 
 
 The Provengal made up his mind that he must rap at the 
 fine lady's door just as if she were a pretty milliner; but his 
 knuckles only produced that hollow echo which proves 
 vacancy within, intonuere cavernce, and at the same moment 
 he perceived, under the door on which he now hit with his 
 fist, that streak of daylight which betrays deserted rooms 
 when curtains, carpets, and furniture are gone, and there is 
 nothing to deaden sound or subdue the sunshine. 
 
 Compelled to acknowledge that the removal was an ac- 
 complished fact, la Peyrade concluded that, after a quarrel
 
 324 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 with Brigitte, some virulence on the old maid's part had led 
 to this radical and violent change ; but why had he not been 
 told, and what was this whim of leaving him to suffer from 
 the absurd annoyance of coming on a fool's errand? 
 
 Before raising the siege, as if doubt were any longer possi- 
 ble, la Peyrade once mors assaulted the door with noisy vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 "Who is that knocking as if he meant to have the house 
 down?" cried the porter's wife, brought to the foot of the 
 stairs by the clatter. 
 
 "Does Madame de Godollo no longer live here?" asked la 
 Peyrade. 
 
 "Certainly not, since she has left. If you had told me, 
 sir, that you were going to see her, I could have saved you 
 the trouble of kicking the door in." 
 
 "I knew she was leaving," said la Peyrade, not choosing 
 to seem ignorant of her intentions, "but I had no idea she 
 was to go so soon." 
 
 "She was in a hurry, I suppose," said the woman, "since she 
 set off this morning with post-horses." 
 
 "With post-horses !" echoed la Peyrade, in dismay. "Then 
 she has left Paris?" 
 
 "It is to be supposed so," said the dreadful woman. "It is 
 not usual to have a postilion and horses to move from one 
 part of Paris to another." 
 
 "And she did not say where she was going ?" 
 
 "No, sir. You have a queer notion of things if you sup- 
 pose that we are kept informed !" 
 
 "No ; but, after all, if any letters should come for her after 
 she has left?" 
 
 "I have orders to send them to Monsieur le Commandeur. 
 the little old gentleman who came here so often; you must 
 have met him, sir." 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course," said la Peyrade, preserving his pres- 
 ence of mind under this succession of shocks; "so that little 
 old man in powder came almost every day?" 
 
 "Oh, not to say every day, but very often. Well, I have 
 orders to send Madame la Comtesse's letters to him/'
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 325 
 
 "And she left no message to any one else of her ac- 
 quaintance; she gave you no instructions?" 
 
 "None whatever, sir." 
 
 "Thank you, my good lady, I am much obliged," said la 
 Peyrade ; and he turned to leave the house. 
 
 "But I fancy," added the porter's wife, "that mademoiselle 
 knows more about it. Will you not go up to her? She is 
 at home, and so is Monsieur Thuillier." 
 
 "No, it is of no consequence," said la Peyrade. "I came 
 to give Madame de Godollo some information she had asked 
 me to get. I have not time to stay." 
 
 "Well, as I tell you, she went off this morning with post- 
 horses. Why, not two hours ago, you would have found her 
 here, sir; but traveling post, she must be far enough away 
 by this time." 
 
 With this trick of saying everything twice over, the wo- 
 man, who had just given him such cruel information, seemed 
 to insist on every detail which must torture him. He went 
 away with despair in his heart. To say nothing of this abrupt 
 disappearance, he was possessed by sudden jealousy, and at 
 this acute stage of his overwhelming disappointment the most 
 terrible explanations occurred to his mind. 
 
 After brief consideration, he thought the matter out. 
 
 "These diplomatic women," said he to himself, "are often 
 charged with secret missions, in which perfect secrecy and 
 extreme rapidity of movement are requisite." But then, 
 with a sudden revulsion, "Supposing," thought he, "that she 
 were one of those adventuresses whom foreign governments 
 often employ as their secret agents. If the story, more or less 
 suspicious, of the Kussian Princess who was compelled to 
 sell her furniture to Brigitte, were that also of my Hungarian 
 lady ! And yet," he reflected, as a third view presented it- 
 self to his brain, tormented by a frightful chaos of ideas and 
 feelings, "her education, her manners, language, everything 
 proclaims her a woman of position in the world. And then, 
 if she were but a bird of passage, why should she be at so 
 much pains to bewitch me?"
 
 326 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Thus for a long time would la Peyrade have gone on argu- 
 ing for and against, if he had not felt himself seized from 
 behind, while a voice he knew exclaimed: 
 
 "My dear sir, take care where you are going. You are on 
 the very verge of a dreadful end, and are running headlong 
 to it." 
 
 La Peyrade with a start found himself in Phellion's 
 arms. 
 
 The scene occurred at the bottom of a house that was be- 
 ing pulled down, at the corner of the Hue Duphot and the 
 Rue Saint-Honore. 
 
 Phellion, standing on the pavement opposite the reader 
 may remember his mania for building "works" had for a 
 quarter of an hour been watching the drama of a wall about 
 to be overthrown by the united efforts of a party of workmen ; 
 the great citizen, watch in hand, was calculating how many 
 minutes longer. the mass of stone and mortar would resist 
 the subversive forces brought to bear on it. 
 
 It was at the most critical moment of the imminent down- 
 fall, that la Peyrade, absorbed in the turmoil of his thoughts, 
 and heedless of the warnings addressed to him from all sides, 
 had walked into the space where the aerolite would inevitably 
 fall. Phellion who would indeed have done as much for a 
 stranger had rushed to the rescue, and la Peyrade certainly 
 owed to him his escape from a dreadful death, for at the 
 very moment when he was dragged back by the vigorous 
 inhabitant of the Quartier Latin, the wall came crashing down 
 just in front of him, with the uproar of a cannon and a dense 
 cloud of dust. 
 
 "Are you deaf and blind, man ?" cried the workman placed 
 on guard to warn the passers-by of danger, in a tone of voice 
 that may be imagined. 
 
 "Thank you, my dear sir," said la Peyrade, coming down 
 from the clouds. "But for you, I should have been crushed 
 like an idiot." 
 
 And he wrung Phellion's hand. 
 
 "My reward," said Phellion, "is the satisfaction of having
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 327 
 
 snatched you from such imminent peril ; and I may say that 
 this satisfaction is not unmingled with pride, for I was not 
 two seconds wrong in the calculation which had enabled me 
 to foresee the instant when that formidable block was over- 
 balanced from its centre of gravity. But what were you 
 thinking about, my dear sir? Of your defence, no doubt, 
 in this case of Thuillier's; for the public papers have in- 
 formed me of the impending action to be taken by public 
 vengeance against our highly estimable friend. But you will 
 address the court in a noble cause, monsieur ; with my hand 
 on my conscience, and accustomed as I am by my labors as a 
 member of the committee at the Odeon to judge of literary 
 efforts, rafter reading some passages of the incriminating 
 document, I cannot see that the tone of that pamphlet is such 
 as to justify the rigorous measures that have been taken. 
 Between you and me," added the great citizen, lowering his 
 voice, "I confess it is a small-minded action on the part of 
 the Government." 
 
 "That is my opinion too," said la Peyrade. "But I do 
 not undertake the defence. I have advised Thuillier to secure 
 the help of some celebrated counsel." 
 
 "That may be good advice," said Phellion. "And at any 
 rate it does honor to your modesty. You have just seen our 
 dear friend, no doubt ? I called on him on the day when the 
 bomb fell, and I am on my way to him now. I did not find him 
 at home on my first visit; I only saw Brigitte, who was dis- 
 cussing the matter with Madame de Godollo. There is a 
 woman of political purview ! On my honor, she had fore- 
 told the catastrophe." 
 
 "You know that she has left Paris?" said la Peyrade, seiz- 
 ing an opening for coming back to the absorbing idea of the 
 moment. 
 
 "Indeed! she is gone?" said Phellion. "Well, monsieur, 
 though you and she were little in sympathy, I must tell you 
 that I regard her departure as a misfortune. She will leave 
 a great gap in our friends' drawing-room. I must say so, for 
 I really think it, and I am not in the habit of disguising my 
 feelings."
 
 328 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Why, certainly," said la Peyrade, "she was a very remark- 
 able woman, with whom I believe I should have come to an 
 understanding in spite of her prejudices. But this morn- 
 ing, without leaving any trace as to whither she was going, 
 she set out suddenly, posting." 
 
 "Ah ! posting," replied Phellion. "I do not know whether 
 you are of my mind, but that seems to me, monsieur, a very 
 pleasant way of traveling; and Louis XI., to whom we owe 
 the institution, had certainly a very clever idea, though in 
 other respects, his despotic and sanguinary rule was not, ac- 
 cording to my poor lights, absolutely above reproach. Only 
 once in my life have I availed myself of that mode of locomo- 
 tion, and I must say I found it very superior, in spite of its 
 relative slowness, to the mad career of a railway, on which 
 rapidity is achieved only at the risk of the passengers and the 
 tax-payers." 
 
 La Peyrade was paying little heed to Phellion's grandilo- 
 quence. 
 
 "Where can she have gone?" This was the thought he 
 turned over and over in his mind, an absorbing thought which 
 would have rendered him indifferent to a far more interesting 
 discourse; but the great citizen, fairly started like a locomo- 
 tive, went on steadily. 
 
 "It was the last time Madame Phellion was confined. She 
 was in the country of le Perche with her mother, when I heard 
 that serious complications had supervened with milk-fever. 
 A wound in the pocket is never fatal, as they say, so, terrified 
 by the danger that threatened my wife, I flew off to the 
 coach-office to take steps to secure a place in the mail. Not 
 one was to be had; they were all taken for a week to come- 
 At once I made up my mind. I went off to the Rue Pigalle and 
 for gold down I had succeeded in obtaining the use of a chaise 
 and two horses, when the necessity for a passport, with which 
 I had omitted to provide myself, and without which, by a 
 decree of the Consulate of the 17th ISTivose, Year XII., no 
 traveler was to be allowed to take horses 
 
 But these words were as a flash of light to la Peyrade, and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 329 
 
 without waiting for the end of the great citizen's posting 
 Odyssey, he had set off in the direction of the Eue Pigalle, 
 before Phellion, cut short in his speech, was fully aware of 
 his disappearance. 
 
 But when he had reached the royal posting station, la Pey- 
 rade was not a little puzzled to know where he could apply 
 for the information he had come to seek. So he was engaged 
 in explaining to the office-porter that he had a letter of the 
 greatest importance to transmit to a lady of his acquaintance ; 
 that this lady had been so heedless as to leave no address, and 
 that he had thought he might learn her place of destination 
 from the passport she must have shown before she could 
 engage horses, when a postilion, sitting in the corner of the 
 office where la Peyrade was making his inquiries, put his 
 word in. 
 
 "Was it, now, a lady traveling with her maid, that I loaded 
 up not far from the Madeleine ?" he asked. 
 
 "The very thing," said la Peyrade, advancing eagerly and 
 slipping a five-franc piece into this providential informant's 
 hand. 
 
 "Bless me, but she's a rum sort of traveler," said the man. 
 "She made me take her to the Bois de Boulogne, where we 
 drove round and round for an hour. Then we pulled up at 
 the Barriere de 1'fitoile, where she gave me something hand- 
 some for myself, and took a cab, telling me to take the car- 
 riage back to a man she had hired it from in the Cour des 
 Coches, Faubourg Saint-Honore." 
 
 "And what is the man's name ?" asked la Peyrade eagerly. 
 
 "Simonin," answered the postilion. 
 
 Armed with this information, la Peyrade set out again, 
 and a quarter of an hour later he confronted the job master ; 
 but all the man knew was that a lady living near the Made- 
 leine had hired a traveling carriage, without horses, for half 
 a day ; that it had been sent out at nine in the morning, and 
 had been back in the coach-house by noon, brought home by 
 a postilion from the Eoyal Office. 
 
 "Never mind," said la Peyrade. "I know now that she has
 
 330 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 not left Paris, and is not avoiding me. She has made a pre- 
 tence of setting out, to be rid, once for all, of the Thuilliers. 
 Fool that I am ! I dare say a letter is waiting for me at home, 
 explaining everything." 
 
 Dead with fatigue and agitation, la Peyrade, to verify the 
 truth of this idea as quickly as possible, got into a hackney 
 cab; in less than a quarter of an hour, for he had promised 
 good pay, he was set down in the Eue Saint-Dominique- 
 d'Enfer. 
 
 Here again he had to endure the torments of waiting. 
 Since Brigitte had ceased to live in the house, Monsieur 
 Coffinet, the porter, neglected his duties, and when la Peyrade 
 rushed to the lodge to get his letter, which, in fact, he could 
 see in the pigeon-hole appropriated to his service, the porter 
 and his wife were both absent and their door locked. The 
 woman was busy doing the housework of one of the tenants, 
 and Coffinet, taking advantage of the opportunity, had al- 
 lowed himself to be tempted to a tavern in the neighborhood, 
 where, between two noggins of wine, he was defending the 
 cause of the householder against a republican who had small 
 respect for proprietors. 
 
 It was fully twenty minutes before this worthy, remember- 
 ing the property supposed to be in his charge, came back to 
 resume his functions. The torrent of abuse vented on him 
 by la Peyrade may be imagined. He excused himself, saying 
 that he had been out on an errand by Mademoiselle's orders, 
 and that he could not be at the same time in the lodge and 
 running messages for his mistress. 
 
 At last he gave the lawyer a letter with the Paris stamp. 
 It was his heart rather than his eyes that recognized the writ- 
 ing, and turning the letter over, the arms and motto assured 
 him that he saw the end of the most cruel experience of his 
 life. 
 
 To read the letter in the presence of this dreadful porter 
 seemed to him sheer profanation; with a refinement of pas- 
 sion in which every lover will sympathize, he allowed himself 
 the pleasure of postponing his happiness ; he would not open
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES - 331 
 
 this thrice-blessed missive till, in his own rooms, with the 
 doors shut, so that nothing could disturb him, he might be 
 able to revel in the delicious sensations of which his heart 
 already felt the foretaste. 
 
 Having flown up the stairs with a rush, the lawyer was 
 childish enough to lock himself in, and at length, seated at his 
 ease before his desk, after raising the seal with pious care, 
 he was obliged to press his hand to his heart, which seemed 
 ready to burst his ribs. 
 
 "My dear Sir," said the letter, "I am disappearing for ever, 
 as my part is played out. I must thank you for having made 
 it not only easy, but agreeable. By entangling you in a 
 quarrel with the Thuilliers and the Collevilles, who are now 
 very fully informed as to the true feelings you entertain to- 
 wards them, and by taking care to comment on the sufficiently 
 aggravating circumstances of your sudden and ruthless 
 breach, in the way most likely to nettle their middle-class 
 pride, I am proud and happy to have done you signal service. 
 The girl does not love you, and you love only the bright looks 
 of her fortune. So 1 have saved yon both from a hell on 
 earth. In exchange for the young lady you have so impu- 
 dently thrown over, a charming wife is in reserve for you. 
 She is richer and handsomer than Mademoiselle Colleville, 
 and, to allude to myself, she is freer than your unworthy 
 servant, 
 
 the married woman, TORNA, COMTESSE DE GODOLLO. 
 
 "P.S. For further information refer without delay to M. 
 du Portail, gentleman, Rue Honore-Chevalier, near Eue 
 Cassette, Quartier Saint-Sulpice. He expects you." 
 
 Having read to the end, the advocate of the poor clasped 
 his head in both hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, 
 thought nothing; he was crushed. 
 
 Some days elapsed before la Peyrade could rally from the 
 VOL. 14 47
 
 332 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 sledge-hammer blow that had felled him. The shock was in- 
 deed a terrible one. On coming out of the golden dream that 
 had shown him the future under so fair a guise, he saw him- 
 self the victim of a hoax which was all the more cruel to his 
 conceit, and his pretensions to craft and skill, because it left 
 him irrevocably embroiled with the Thuilliers and loaded 
 with a debt of twenty-five thousand francs. This, to be sure, 
 was not immediately due, but he was also pledged to pay 
 Brigitte a sum of ten thousand francs, and this his care for 
 his dignity required him to do as soon as possible; finally, 
 the thing that put the finishing touch to his humiliation and 
 disappointment was that, on searching his heart, he felt that 
 he was not radically cured of his passionate admiration for 
 the woman who had wrought this great disaster and led him 
 to ruin. 
 
 Either this Delilah was a very great lady, of such high posi- 
 tion that she might indulge her most compromising whims, 
 and had given herself the amusement of playing the coquette 
 in a sort of dialogue, he playing the simpleton ; or she was an 
 adventuress of great accomplishment, in the pay of this Mon- 
 sieur du Portail, and the agent for his matrimonial schemes. 
 So the two alternative verdicts he could pronounce on this 
 dangerous lady were, that she was a bad woman, or that she 
 had a bad heart ; and in either case it did not seem that she 
 had any great claim to be regretted by her victim. 
 
 But we must put ourselves in the place of this son of the 
 south, with his hot blood and fiery spirit, who, for the first 
 time in his life, had found himself in presence of a passion 
 in scent and laces, and believed he might drink it out of 
 a golden cup. As on waking, we retain the impression of a 
 dream that agitated us, so la Peyrade, still bewitched with 
 what had never been but a shadow, needed all his moral 
 strength to evict the image of the perfidious Countess. To 
 be accurate, he did not cease to yearn for her; only he took 
 care to clothe in a decent pretext his intense desire to find her 
 which he called curiosity, thirst for revenge, working out 
 this ingenious argument:
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 333 
 
 "Cerizet spoke to me of a rich heiress ; the Countess in her 
 letter tells me that the elaborate intrigue in which she had 
 entangled me will lead to a wealthy marriage. Now, rich 
 marriages, to be flung at a man's feet, do not grow so thick 
 that two such chances should fall in my way within a few 
 weeks. Consequently, 'the match proposed to me by Cerizet, 
 and this that has again been offered me are the same this 
 crazy girl to whom they are so strangely bent on marrying 
 me ! Consequently, Cerizet, being in the plot, must know 
 the Countess; consequently through him I must get on the 
 track of the Hungarian. At any rate I shall get some in- 
 formation as to the strange selection of which I am the object. 
 People who can bring such well-dressed puppets on the stage 
 to gain their ends must be of some importance in the world. 
 I will go to see Cerizet." 
 
 And he went to see Cerizet. 
 
 The two old allies had not met since the dinner at the 
 Roclier de Cancale. Once or twice at Thuillier's, whither 
 Dutocq came but rarely now that they lived so far apart, la 
 Peyrade had asked the clerk of assize what had become of 
 his copying-clerk. 
 
 "He never mentions you," replied Dutocq. Whence the 
 lawyer had concluded that resentment, the manet alia mente 
 repostum, was still hot in the vindictive money-lender. 
 
 This did not stop la Peyrade. After all, he was not going 
 to ask him a favor ; he was going under pretence of reopening 
 an affair in which Cerizet had interfered; and Cerizet never 
 interfered in anything that was not likely to prove profitable 
 to himself. Hence the chances were in favor of an eager and 
 affectionate reception rather than a repulse. Also, the lawyer 
 decided on calling on Cerizet in his master's office; it was a 
 less personal visit than going to see him in his den in the Eue 
 des Poules, not an inviting spot. 
 
 It was about two o'clock when la Peyrade went into the 
 offices of the police court of the twelfth arrondissement. He 
 went through the outer room where the appellants were wait- 
 ing, who perpetually besiege the magistrates of the lower
 
 334 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 courts for matters connected with the affixing and removing 
 of seals after a death, with affidavits and declarations, with 
 disputes between employers and servants, landlords and 
 tenants, purchasers and dealers, or cases brought in by the 
 police. Without stopping, la Peyrade went on to the room 
 between the waiting-room and the office of the clerk of assize. 
 There sat Cerizet, writing at a shabby desk of black stained 
 wood, opposite a chair for an inferior clerk, at this moment 
 vacant. 
 
 As Cerizet saw the advocate come in, he gave him a sinister 
 look, and, without moving from his place, or ceasing to copy 
 a decision that lay before him, he said : 
 
 "What ! You, Maitre la Peyrade. Well, you have got your 
 friend Thuillier into a pretty mess !" 
 
 "How are you?" said la Peyrade, with determined fa- 
 miliarity. 
 
 "I?" replied Cerizet. "As you see, always chained to the 
 oar; and to continue the nautical metaphor, I may ask you 
 what wind has blown you here. Is it by chance the blast of 
 adversity ?" 
 
 La Peyrade, without answering, brought a chair up to the 
 table, and said very gravely: 
 
 "My dear boy, we must have a few words together." 
 
 "It would seem," said Cerizet with malignant insistency, 
 "that there is a coolness between you and the Thuilliers since 
 the seizure of the pamphlet." 
 
 "The Thuilliers are ungrateful wretches," answered la Pey- 
 rade. "I have cut their acquaintance." 
 
 "Whether you have cut them or they have cut you," said 
 Cerizet, "they have shut their door on you; and from what 
 Dutocq tells me, Brigitte speaks of you with anything rather 
 than respect. This, my friend, is what comes of trying to 
 manage your affairs single-handed; when difficulties arise 
 there is no one to round the corners off. If you had but got 
 me the lease, I should have been acquainted with the Thuil- 
 liers, Dutocq would not have thrown you over, and we could 
 have steered you safely into port."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 335 
 
 "And supposing I don't want to be steered into port," 
 retorted la Peyrade rather angrily. "I tell you I have had 
 more than enough of the Thuilliers; I was the first to break 
 off with them ; I told them to get out of my light ; and if Du- 
 tocq told you anything different you may tell him he is a liar ; 
 is that plain enough? It seems to me 1 am explicit." 
 
 "Just so, my dear fellow, and if you are so much annoyed 
 at all this Thuillerie, you should have turned me loose among 
 them; you would have seen how I would have avenged you 
 and worried them." 
 
 "There you are right enough," said la Peyrade, "and I 
 should be glad to have set you at their heels ; but, once for all, 
 I could do nothing in the matter of the lease." 
 
 "I suppose," said Cerizet, "that your conscience made you 
 feel it a duty to explain to Brigitte that the sum of twelve 
 thousand francs, which I hoped to make, might as well re- 
 main in her pocket." 
 
 "It seems that Dutocq still carries on the worthy business 
 of spy which he used to exercise in the Exchequer offices; 
 and like all men of that foul calling, he draws up reports 
 that are no more ingenious than they are true." 
 
 "Take care !" said Cerizet. "You are speaking of my 
 master and in his own den." 
 
 "Come now," said la Peyrade, "I came to discuss serious 
 business. Will you be so good as to let me hear no more of the 
 Thuilliers or their concerns, and to give me all your atten- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Speak on, my dear boy," said Cerizet, laying down his 
 pen, which, till now, had not ceased to run over the sheet of 
 stamped paper. "I am listening." 
 
 "Not long ago," la Peyrade went on, "you spoke to me of a 
 girl to be married, rich, of full age, and suffering a little from 
 hysteria as you euphemistically expressed it." 
 
 "Aha!" cried the money-lender, "I have been waiting for 
 this. You have had great difficulty in catching me up !" 
 
 "When you proposed this heiress to me," asked la Peyrade, 
 "what had you in your head ?"
 
 336 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Why, a splendid stroke of business for you, to be sure; 
 you had only to stoop and pick her up. I was formally 
 instructed to make the offer, and there was no brokerage; I 
 should have relied entirely on your generosity." 
 
 "But you were not the only person instructed to sound me ; 
 there was a woman employed on the same errand." 
 
 "A woman!" said Cerizet quite naturally. "Not to my 
 knowledge." 
 
 "Yes. A foreigner, fairly young and pretty, whom you 
 must surely have met at the house of the young lady's family, 
 for she seemed very ardently devoted to them." 
 
 "There has never been any woman implicated in this nego- 
 tiation. I have every reason to believe that it was left en- 
 tirely to me." 
 
 "Do you mean to say," said la Peyrade, fixing a scrutinizing 
 eye on the copying-clerk, "that you have never heard of the 
 Comtesse Torna de Godollo?" 
 
 "Never in all the days of my life. I never heard the name 
 till this moment." 
 
 "Then there must be another party in the field; for this 
 lady, after many singular preliminaries too long to relate, 
 formally proposed to me a match with a young person of 
 greater wealth than Mademoiselle Colleville." 
 
 "Of full age and hysterical ?" asked Cerizet. 
 
 "No, the offer was not enhanced by those accessory details ; 
 but there was another point which may perhaps afford a clue. 
 Madame de Godollo desired me, if I cared to follow the 
 matter up, to call on one Monsieur du Portail, gentleman." 
 
 "Rue Honore-Chevalier ?" asked Cerizet eagerly. 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 "Well, then, it is certainly the same match offered through 
 two intermediaries. But it is strange that I should not have 
 been told of this combination of forces." 
 
 "So that, in fact," said la Peyrade, "you not only had no 
 suspicion of the Countess' intervention, out you do not know 
 her, and can give me no information about her ?" 
 
 "At this moment certainly not," said the money-lender.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 337 
 
 "But I shall make inquiries, for such a proceeding, as regards 
 myself, strikes me as a little cool. As regards you, this em- 
 ployment of two agents proves how suitable the family think 
 you." 
 
 At this moment the door of the office was cautiously opened 
 a little way; a woman's head appeared, and a voice, at once 
 recognized by la Peyrade, said : 
 
 "Oh ! I beg pardon ! You are engaged, sir. Might I 
 speak two words to you, sir, when you are alone?" 
 
 Cerizet, whose eye was as quick as his pen, noticed this. 
 La Peyrade, sitting where the newcomer could see him, no 
 sooner heard the honeyed drawl, than he hastened to turn his 
 head so as to hide his features. Consequently, instead of dis- 
 missing the woman roughly, as was the usual treatment ac- 
 corded to intruders by this least affable and kindly of copying- 
 clerks, the modest visitor heard the words: 
 
 "Come in, come in, Madame Lambert; you would have to 
 wait a long time." 
 
 "Oh ! monsieur ! The advocate of the poor !" cried his 
 creditor, whom the reader has no doubt recognized. "How 
 glad I am to meet you, sir. I had been several times to your 
 place to ask whether you had had time to attend to my little 
 affair." 
 
 "To be sure. I have had lately many occupations that have 
 taken me out," said la Peyrade. "But everything is done, 
 and the papers sent in to the secretary." 
 
 "How good you are, sir !" said the pious dame, clasping her 
 hands. 
 
 "What, you and Madame Lambert have business together !" 
 said Cerizet ; "you did not tell me that. Are you old Picot's 
 adviser ?" 
 
 "No, indeed, unfortunately," said the woman. "My master 
 will take advice of no one ; he is so wilful, so pigheaded. But, 
 my dear sir, is it true that another family council is to be 
 held?" 
 
 "Not a doubt of it," said Cerizet, "and no later than to- 
 morrow."
 
 338 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "But how is that, monsieur, when the judges in court have 
 decided that the family has 110 rights?" 
 
 "Very true, yes," replied the clerk, "the lower court and 
 the Court of Appeal rejected the application on the part of 
 the relations for a commission in lunacy." 
 
 "I should think so, indeed," said Madame Lambert. 
 "Fancy trying to make out that such a capable man is mad." 
 
 "But the relations will not give in. They are taking the 
 matter up from another side, and insist on the appointment 
 of trustees of the estate. It is for that they are to meet to- 
 morrow, and this time I think, my dear Madame Lambert, 
 that old father Picot will be placed in leading-strings. 
 There are some very serious allegations; to pluck the bird 
 a little is one thing, but not till it is quite bare." 
 
 "What ! Can you believe ?" said the woman, raising her 
 clasped hands to her chin, and lifting her shoulders. 
 
 "I ! I believe nothing," said Cerizet, "I am not the judge 
 in the case. But the relations say that you have made away 
 with considerable sums of money, and made investments 
 which they mean to inquire into." 
 
 "Dear Heaven !" said the pious soul, "they may search. I 
 have not a bond, not a share, not a note, not the smallest 
 security in my possession." 
 
 "Oho !" said Cerizet, with a side glance at la Peyrade. 
 "You have obliging friends who take charge well, well, it 
 is no concern of mine ; people must go their own way. And 
 what in particular do you want to say to me ?" 
 
 "I wanted," replied the bigot, "to entreat you, monsieur, to 
 ask Monsieur Dutocq to intercede for us with Monsieur the 
 Justice of the Peace; the vicar of Saint- Jacques will speak 
 for us, too. Poor old man !" she added, with tears, "if they 
 worry him so, they will be the death of him." 
 
 "The Justice of the Peace is against you, I cannot conceal 
 the fact," replied Cerizet. "The other day, as you know, he 
 refused to see you. As to the clerk of assize and myself, there 
 is little that we can do. And besides, my good lady, you are 
 really too close with us."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 339 
 
 "You ask me, monsieur, if I had invested any little savings. 
 I cannot say I have, when, on the contrary, all my own /ittle 
 money has been spent in housekeeping for poor Monsieur 
 Pi-i-cot, whom I am accu-u-used of robbing." 
 
 Madame Lambert had come to sobs. 
 
 "It is my opinion, and I tell you so plainly," said Cerizet, 
 "that you make yourself out much poorer than you are, and 
 if my friend la Peyrade, who seems to be honored with your 
 confidence, were not tongue-tied by the obligations of his pro- 
 fession " 
 
 "I," interrupted la Peyrade quickly, "I know nothing of 
 this lady's affairs. She came to me to draw up a memorial 
 for her in a matter that has no connection with either law 
 or finance." 
 
 "Ah, yes ; that was it," remarked Cerizet. "Madame Lam- 
 bert had been to you about that memorial on the day when 
 Dutocq met her the day after the famous dinner at the 
 Rocher de Cancale, where you played the lord." 
 
 And then, as if he attached no importance to this recollec- 
 tion, he added: 
 
 "Well, my good Madame Lambert, I will ask the Master 
 to speak to the Justice, and if I have a chance I will do so 
 myself ; but I warn you, he is not on your side/' 
 
 Madame Lambert withdrew with many courtesies and 
 many protestations of gratitude. 
 
 When she was gone la Peyrade spoke. 
 
 "You do not seem to believe," said he, "that this woman 
 came to me to get a memorial drawn up. It is, nevertheless, 
 absolutely true; she is regarded as a saint in the street where 
 she lives, and from all I could find out about her, the old 
 man, whom she is accused of fleecing, lives on her sacrifices. 
 Consequently, somebody put it into the good lady's head to 
 try for one of the Monthyon prizes, and it was her various 
 claims to such a reward that she asked me to prove and set 
 forth." 
 
 "To be sure, the Monthyon prizes !" exclaimed Cerizet. 
 "That is a hint, my dear fellow, and we are foolish not to try
 
 340 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 for them ourselves. I, especially, being the banker of the 
 poor, as you are their advocate. As to your client, she may 
 think herself lucky that old Picot's relatives are not members 
 of the Academy, for the prize for virtue they would award 
 her is given in the criminal court. But to return to our own 
 business; as I was saying, I advise you to have done with 
 shilly-shally, and like your Countess, I say you cannot do 
 better than go to call on du Portail." 
 
 "What sort of man is he ?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "A little old man as delicate as amber," answered Cerizet, 
 "and who seems to me to have quite unlimited credit. Go. 
 Seeing, as they say, costs nothing." 
 
 "Yes," said la Peyrade, "I may possibly go. But first you 
 must find out who and what is this Comtesse de Godollo." 
 
 "What is the Countess to you ?" said Cerizet ; "she is only a 
 supernumerary in the play." 
 
 "I have my notions," said the lawyer. "Within two or three 
 days you will surely know where you stand with regard to her, 
 and then I will call on you again." 
 
 "My good fellow," said the money-lender, "you seem to 
 me to be dawdling over trifles at the very door. Are you in 
 love, by chance, with this fair matrimonial agent ?" 
 
 "A plague on the man !" thought the lawyer. "He guesses 
 everything, and it is impossible to keep one's own secrets. 
 No," said he aloud, "I am not in love; on the contrary, I am 
 cautious. I confess that I nibble but feebly at this marriage 
 with a mad woman, and before embarking on the enterprise, I 
 should like to see where I am setting foot. This roundabout 
 method of proceeding is barely satisfactory, and since such 
 various influences are brought to bear, I will try to check one 
 by the other. So do not try any of your tricks, nor give me 
 the sort of information concerning the Comtesse Torna de 
 Godollo that you can spin out of your own brain, like the 
 description in a passport ; a round chin and oval face a sad- 
 dle to fit any horse. I warn you that I am quite able to verify 
 the accuracy of your report, and if I find you trying to play 
 any games on me, I have nothing to say to your du Portail.''
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 341 
 
 "Play any games on you, monseigneur ; who would dare try 
 it ?" replied Cerizet, putting on the tone and accent of Fre- 
 derick Lemaitre. 
 
 As he made this ironical speech, Dutocq came in, followed 
 by his under-clerk. He had been employed on business in 
 town. 
 
 "Hallo !" cried he, on finding la Peyrade with Cerizet, "be- 
 hold the Trinity re-instituted. But the object of the alliance, 
 the casus fosderis, is gone down stream, it seems. What have 
 you been doing to our worthy Brigitte, my dear la Peyrade? 
 She is mortally offended with you." 
 
 "And Thuillier ?" asked the advocate. 
 
 It was the scene in Moliere the other way about; Tartuffe 
 asking for news of Orgon. 
 
 "Thuillier at first was not so hostile ; but the matter of the 
 pamphlet, it would seem, is not looking badly. As he wants 
 you less, he is beginning to swim in his sister's wake ; and as 
 things go on I hardly doubt that within a few days, if the 
 King's Counsel decide that there is no case against him, you 
 will be a man to be hanged, in his opinion." 
 
 "Well, I am out of that mess," said la Peyrade, "and if I am 
 ever caught in such another ! Good-bye, my dear boys," he 
 added. "And you, Cerizet, in the matter I spoke to you about, 
 promptitude, accuracy, and secrecy." 
 
 When la Peyrade got out into the courtyard of the Mairie, 
 he was accosted by Madame Lambert, who had waited for him. 
 
 "I hope, monsieur," she said unctuously, "that you do not 
 believe all the shocking things Monsieur Cerizet said in your 
 presence. You know, for a fact, that I came by my money 
 through inheritance from my uncle in England ?" 
 
 "Well and good !" said la Peyrade. "But you must under- 
 stand that, with all the reports put about by your master's 
 relations, there is little enough chance for you of the prize 
 for virtue." 
 
 "If it is not God's will that I should obtain it 
 
 "And you must see, too, how important it is, for your 
 own sake, that you should keep the secret of the service I
 
 842 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 have done you. At the very first breath of indiscretion, as I 
 told you, the money will be returned to you without mercy." 
 
 "Oh, sir, you may be quite easy." 
 
 "Well, then, good-bye, my dear," said la Peyrade, in a 
 patronizing tone. 
 
 As he went away he heard a voice calling from a window 
 on the stairs : 
 
 "Madame Lambert!" 
 
 It was Cerizet, who suspected this meeting, and came to 
 make sure. 
 
 "Madame Lambert," he repeated, "Monsieur Dutocq is 
 come in, and if you want to speak to him " 
 
 La Peyrade had no means of hindering the interview, 
 though he felt that the secret of his borrowing from the wo- 
 man would be in the greatest danger. 
 
 "Decidedly," thought he, as he went on his way, "I am out 
 of luck. I do not see the end of it." 
 
 There was so strong an instinct of dominion in Brigitte 
 that it was without regret, nay, it must be said, with secret 
 joy, that she saw Madame de Godollo disappear. That wo- 
 man, she was well aware, was her superior to a crushing 
 degree; and this, though it added to the good effect of her 
 house, at the same time put her ill at ease ; so, when the part- 
 ing took place, on perfectly good terms and under a plausible 
 and decent pretext, Miss Thuillier breathed more freely. 
 She was like a sovereign who has been long overborne by a 
 domineering but indispensable minister, and who illuminates 
 his heart on the day when death comes to deliver him from 
 the tyrant whose services and rival influence he has so im- 
 patiently endured. 
 
 Thuillier was not far from feeling the same with regard 
 to la Peyrade. But Madame de Godollo had only added 
 elegance, whereas the advocate had been useful in the house 
 they had almost simultaneously abandoned; and by the end 
 of a few days, the presence of the Provengal was a want 
 keenly felt, as prospectuses say, in his "dear fellow's" political 
 and literary plans.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 343 
 
 The town councillor found himself suddenly called upon 
 to draw up an important report. He could not shirk the 
 task which had fallen to him a$ a result of the reputation 
 his pamphlet had earned him as a clever writer and a man 
 of letters; and confronted with the perilous honor conferred 
 on him by his colleagues of the Municipal Board, he felt 
 overwhelmed by his isolation and incapacity. 
 
 In vain did he shut himself up in his study, gorge him- 
 self with black coffee, mend his pens, and write twenty 
 times over, on paper which he carefully cut to the exact size 
 of that used by la Peyrade, "A Report to the Worshipful 
 Members of the Municipal Council of the City of Paris;" 
 adding on a separate line a grandly engrossed "Gentlemen" 
 and then rush frantically out to complain that a fearful 
 racket checked the flow of his ideas, when some one in the 
 house had merely shut a door, opened a cupboard, or moved 
 a chair. All this did not advance matters, nor even begin 
 the composition. 
 
 Fortunately, Eabourdin wanted to make some little alter- 
 ation in the arrangement of the rooms he occupied, and he 
 came, as a matter of course, to submit the plan to the land- 
 lord. Thuillier eagerly consented, and he then spoke to his 
 tenant of the report he was to draw up, being anxious, as he 
 said, to have his opinion on the subject of it. 
 
 Eabourdin, to whom no detail of official work was un- 
 familiar, at once shed a vast amount of clear and helpful 
 light on the question submitted to him. He was one of those 
 men to whom the intellectual character of their hearers is 
 a matter of indifference ; a fool or a clever man serves equally 
 well to spur them to think aloud, and is an equally efficient 
 exciting cause. 
 
 When he had done, Eabourdin saw perfectly that Thuil- 
 lier had not understood him; but he had listened to himself 
 with much pleasure; he was grateful, too, for his hearer's 
 attention, obtuse as it was, and for his landlord's readiness to 
 grant his request. 
 
 "Indeed," he added, as he went away, "I must have some
 
 344 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 notes on the subject among my papers; I will look them up 
 and send them to you." 
 
 And that evening he sent a voluminous manuscript to 
 Thuillier, who spent the night in drawing on this valuable 
 well-spring of ideas. He finally extracted more than he 
 needed to compose a really remarkable paper, in spite of a 
 somewhat inept use of his plunder. 
 
 The report, which was read two days after to the Council, 
 had an immense success, and Thuillier came home beaming 
 from the compliments he had received. From that hour 
 for even in his old age he would still talk of "the" report I 
 had the honor of laying before the Municipal Council of the 
 Seine" la Peyrade sank considerably in his estimation; he 
 thought he could henceforth well dispense with the Pro- 
 vengal's services, and thus proudly emancipated, he encour- 
 aged himself with the prospect of another piece of fortune 
 which came upon him at about the same time. 
 
 A parliamentary crisis was impending; this suggested to 
 the Ministry that, with a view to depriving the opposition 
 of a ground of hostility, which always strongly influences 
 public opinion, they would do well to relax the rigorous 
 measures which had of late been too strenuously dealt to the 
 press. Thuillier was included in this hypocritical amnesty, 
 and received a letter one morning from the advocate he had 
 engaged instead of la Peyrade. This letter informed him 
 that the Council had dismissed the case, and that the seizure 
 of the documents was nullified. 
 
 Then Dutocq's prophecy came true. With, this load re- 
 moved, Thuillier swaggered over the dismissal of the case, 
 and, joining in chorus with Brigitte, he spoke of la Peyrade 
 as a sort of sneak whom he had nourished, who had swindled 
 him of considerable sums, and behaved with the grossest 
 ingratitude, and whom he rejoiced no longer to count among 
 his acquaintance. Orgon, in short, had rebelled, and like 
 Dorine, would have been ready to cry : 
 
 "A pauper who came without shoes to his feet, 
 Whose clothes not a beggar would wear in the street."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 345 
 
 C6rizet, to whom Dutocq duly reported these indignities, 
 would not have failed to repeat them all hot to la Peyrade; 
 but the interview with the copying-clerk, when he was to 
 supply the required information, never took place. La Pey- 
 rade found out the truth for himself. 
 
 This was what happened. 
 
 Haunted persistently by the thought of the fair Hunga- 
 rian, while waiting or rather without waiting for the re- 
 sult of Cerizet's investigations, he tramped all over Paris, 
 and was to be seen like the idlest of loafers in all the most 
 crowded resorts, his heart persuading him that at any moment 
 he might meet the object of his burning search. 
 
 One evening in the middle of October, the autumn was 
 splendid, as it often is in Paris, on the boulevards where 
 the lawyer aired his passion and his melancholy, the bustle 
 of out-of-door life was as lively as in the middle of the 
 summer. 
 
 On the Boulevard des Italiens, formerly called the Boule- 
 vard de Gand, as he wandered past the row of chairs in front 
 of the Cafe de Paris, where an espalier of fly-by-night beauties 
 await the gloved hand that shall pluck them, mixing mean- 
 while with married wives from the Chaussee d'Antin, ac- 
 companied by their husbands and children, la Peyrade was 
 suddenly pierced to the heart; he saw from afar his adored 
 Countess. 
 
 She was alone, and in a splendor of dress which seemed 
 scarcely appropriate to the place and to her loneliness; 'in 
 a chair in front of her was a little white dog, which she 
 was caressing with her elegant hands. 
 
 After convincing himself that he was not mistaken, the 
 lawyer was rushing to greet the heavenly vision, when he 
 was outstripped by a lion of the most conquering type ; with- 
 out throwing away his cigar, or even lifting his hat, this 
 fine young gentleman began to talk with the Ideal Being. 
 As she caught sight of the Provengal, very pale and about 
 to address her, the siren no doubt took fright, for she rose, 
 and hastily taking the young man's arm:
 
 346 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Is your carriage here, Smile?" said she, "it is the last 
 night at Mabille, and I want to go." 
 
 The name of that disreputable resort, thus flung at the 
 unhappy lawyer, was in fact a boon, for it saved him from a 
 signal act of folly ; that of speaking to a woman arm in arm 
 with a man so suddenly constituted her protector a worth- 
 less creature of whom he had been thinking with a world of 
 tenderness, only a few minutes since. 
 
 "She is not worth insulting," said he to himself. 
 
 But, as lovers are not easily driven to raise a siege when 
 they have begun it, the Provengal would not yet believe that 
 he knew all. 
 
 Not far from the seat just left by the Hungarian lady, 
 sat another woman, also alone, but she was elderly, with a 
 feathered bonnet ; and under an Indian shawl, a worn stand- 
 ard with colors faded by time, were some pitiable relics of 
 tarnished elegance, and shabby, unfashionable magnificence. 
 Her whole appearance, in short, was not imposing or respect- 
 inspiring on the contrary. So la Peyrade sat down next 
 this matron, and addressing her without ceremony, asked 
 her: 
 
 "Do you, madame, happen to know the woman who has 
 just gone off on a gentleman's arm?" 
 
 "Certainly I do, monsieur. I know nearly all those ladies 
 who come here." 
 
 "And her name is?" 
 
 "Madame Komorn." 
 
 "Is she as impregnable as the fortress whose name she 
 bears?" asked the lawyer. 
 
 It may be remembered that at the time of the revolution 
 in Hungary, our ears were constantly pestered by novel- 
 writers and the newspaper press, with the famous citadel 
 of Komorn, and la Peyrade knew that an inquiry started with 
 apparent indifference and levity is always more likely to be 
 successful. 
 
 "Did you think of making her acquaintance, monsieur ?" 
 
 "I do not know," said la Peyrade. "But she is a woman 
 to be remembered."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 347 
 
 "And a very dangerous woman, monsieur," replied the 
 matron; "a leech for monej', and without any propensity for 
 a generous acknowledgment of anything done for her. I 
 speak of what I know; when she came here from Berlin, six 
 months ago, she was very highly introduced to me." 
 
 "Indeed !" said la Peyrade eagerly. 
 
 "Yes, I had a very fine place at that time, near Ville 
 d'Avray, a park, preserves, a fishing-stream, and as I was 
 dull there, all by myself, and had not money enough to lead 
 a genteel country life, several gentlemen and ladies said to 
 me: 'Madame Louchard, you ought to get up parties, pic- 
 nics' 
 
 "Madame Louchard ?" exclaimed la Peyrade. "Are you re- 
 lated to Monsieur Louchard, of the commercial police?" 
 
 "I am his wife, sir, but legally separated. A dreadful 
 man, who only wanted me to make it up again. But, no ! I 
 can forgive anything but want of consideration; when I 
 tell you that one day he dared to raise his hand to strike 
 me " 
 
 "And so you arranged the picnics," said la Peyrade, to 
 bring the lady back to the point, "and Madame de Godollo 
 Madame Komorn, I should sa} r ?" 
 
 "She was one of the first to dwell under my roof. There 
 she made the acquaintance of an Italian, a very genteel young 
 man, a political refugee, but quite high class. As you may 
 suppose, I did not choose that any intrigues should be carried 
 on in my house ; but the poor man was so much in love, and 
 so unhappy because Madame Komorn would have nothing to 
 say to him, that I really took an interest in his love-affair 
 which was a very good stroke of business for that madam, 
 for she got large sums out of the Italian gentleman. Well, 
 and would you believe that, when I happened to stand in need 
 of a small sum, and asked her to oblige me, she refused point- 
 blank, and left the house, taking her young man with her; 
 and he has had no reason to rejoice over the connection." 
 
 "Why. what happened to him?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "What happened was that that viper knows every Ian-
 
 348 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 guage of Europe; that she is clever down to the ends of her 
 finger-nails, and even more intriguing; and being, it would 
 seem, in some way employed by the police, she handed over 
 to the Government some papers her Italian had left about, 
 so that he was packed out of this country." 
 
 "And since the Italian left, Madame Komorn ?" 
 
 "Since then she has had many adventures and damaged 
 some fine fortunes; I thought she had vanished. For more 
 than two months she remained perfectly invisible, till the 
 other day she reappeared, more splendid than ever. For my 
 part, I cannot advise you, monsieur, to run after her. At 
 the same time, you look like a southerner; you have your 
 passions, no doubt, and perhaps all I have told you has only 
 fired your fancy. And, after all, being warned, there is no 
 great danger; you honor your saint as you find her. And it 
 cannot be denied that she is a fascinating woman, oh, most 
 fascinating. She was really very fond of me, though we did 
 not part friends; and only just now she asked me my address 
 that she might come to see me." 
 
 "Well, madame, I will think it over," said la Peyrade, ris- 
 ing and bowing. 
 
 The bow was returned with stern coldness; his abrupt de- 
 parture showed that he did not really mean business. 
 
 On finding the lawyer making his investigation almost 
 gayly, the reader might suppose that he was suddenly cured ; 
 but this superficial coolness and impartiality were but the un- 
 wonted calm which precedes a tempest. 
 
 On leaving Madame Louchard, la Peyrade jumped into a 
 hackney cab, and then a deluge of tears, like that which 
 Madame Colleville had witnessed on the occasion of the 
 bidding for the house, when he believed Cerizet to have 
 cheated him, was the first explosion of his grief. 
 
 The siege he had so elaborately and patiently laid to the 
 Thuilliers, at the cost of so many sacrifices, now absolutely 
 useless; Flavie so completely avenged for the atrocious farce 
 he had played with her; his affairs in a worse plight now 
 than when Cerizet and Dutocq had shut him up, like a wolf
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 349 
 
 in the fold, from which he was now driven out like a mere 
 silly sheep; then the schemes prompted by hatred to ruin 
 the woman who had so easily got the better of him in spite of 
 all his skill, and the still lively remembrance of the charms 
 to which he had succumbed, these were the thoughts and 
 emotions of a night spent in waking, or in sleep disturbed by 
 painful dreams. 
 
 By morning la Peyrade had ceased to think; he was in 
 a violent fever, and the complications were sufficiently serious 
 for the physician, who was called in, to take precautions 
 against the development of brain fever, of which the sym- 
 toms supervened. Leeches, bleeding, ice on his head these 
 were the delightful sequel to the Provengal's dream of love; 
 but then it must be said that the crisis to his constitution 
 physically led to a complete cure of the moral malady. The 
 advocate no longer felt anything but the coldest contempt 
 for the treacherous Hungarian, not even rising to the notion of 
 revenge. 
 
 Restored to health, and seriously considering his future 
 prospects, having lost so much ground, la Peyrade asked him- 
 self whether it would not be wise to patch up his quarrel with 
 the Thuilliers, or whether he had better continue his road 
 in the company of the crazy heiress who had gold where 
 others have a brain. But everything that could remind him 
 of his disastrous experience filled him with invincible disgust ; 
 besides, what security had he in dealing with this du Portail, 
 who could bring into the range of the means he employed 
 instruments of such base quality ? 
 
 Great agitations of soul are like storms that purify the 
 atmosphere; they give tone and bring counsel of strong and 
 generous resolve. 
 
 La Peyrade, after the mortification he had suffered, was 
 led to introspection. He looked back on the life of base 
 and ignoble intrigue he had been leading for a year past. 
 Was there no better, no nobler use to be made of the high 
 faculties of which he was conscious? The bar was open to
 
 350 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 him as to all; and this was a broad and direct road which 
 might lead him to the satisfaction of every legitimate am- 
 bition. Like Figaro, who, merely to live, had expended more 
 science and learning than had been brought to bear in a 
 century on the government of the Spanish Empire, he, to 
 establish and maintain his footing in the Thuilliers' house and 
 to marry the daughter of a musician and a flirt, had laid out 
 more wit, more art, and it must be said, since in so corrupt a 
 society it is a factor to be counted with more dishonesty than 
 would have been needed to get on in an honorable career. 
 
 "Enough," thought he to himself, "of such acquaintances 
 as Dutocq and Cerizet; enough of the nauseous atmosphere 
 that is breathed in the world of the Minards, the Phellions, 
 the Collevilles, the Barniols, the Laudigeois! Let me live in 
 Paris, and shake off this provincial life in town, which is a 
 thousand times more absurd and more petty than provincial 
 life in the country. That, with all its narrowness, had at 
 least its individuality and a dignity sui generis; it is hon- 
 estly what is it, the antipodes of Paris life; this is but its 
 parody." 
 
 La Peyrade, in consequence, went to call on two or three 
 attorneys who had offered to introduce him to the courts by 
 giving him some second-class cases; he accepted those that 
 were at once offered him, and three weeks after his quarrel 
 with the Thuilliers he had ceased to be the advocate of the poor 
 and had become a recognized pleader. 
 
 La Peyrade had already defended some cases with success, 
 when a letter reached him one morning which disturbed him 
 greatly. The president of the Association of Advocates 
 begged him to call on him in his chambers in the Palais in 
 the course of the day; something of importance was to be 
 communicated to him. 
 
 The house near the Madeleine at once occurred to him. 
 This transaction, if it had come to the knowledge of the Board 
 of Control, would render him immediately answerable to that 
 body, and he knew how strict the rules were. 
 
 Now, du Portail, on whom he had not yet called, in spite of
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 351 
 
 the half promise made to Cerizet, might have heard the whole 
 story from Cerizet himself. To that man, if he might judge 
 from his employing the Hungarian, all ways and means were 
 acceptable. In his determination to arrange the crazy girl's 
 marriage, it was quite possible that the maniac, du Portail, 
 might have reported him to the board. Might not his perse- 
 cutor, on seeing him starting with courage and some prospects 
 of success in a career that promised independence and fortune, 
 have made up his mind to render his advancement impossible ? 
 This certainly was probable enough to make the lawyer look 
 forward with anxiety to the moment when he should be able to 
 verify the exact nature of this alarming invitation. 
 
 While the Provengal gave himself up to conjecture over a 
 frugal breakfast, Madame Coffmet, whose privilege it was to 
 do his rooms, came to ask him if he would receive Monsieur 
 fitienne Lousteau. 
 
 fitienne Lousteau ! La Peyrade fancied he had somewhere 
 seen the name. 
 
 "Show him into my private room," said he. 
 
 And a moment later he went to greet the visitor, whose face, 
 too, was not altogether unknown to him. 
 
 "Monsieur," said he to la Peyrade, "I had the honor of 
 breakfasting in your company not long ago at Vefour's. I 
 was invited to that entertainment, which did not go quite 
 smoothly, by your friend Monsieur Thuillier." 
 
 "Ah, to be sure," said the lawyer, giving him a chair, "you 
 are employed on some newspaper." 
 
 "Editor of Echo de la Bievre; and it is with regard to that 
 paper that I wish to speak with you. You know what is 
 going on?" 
 
 "No," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "What ? not that the Ministry met with a severe rebuff yes- 
 terday, and that instead of retiring as everybody expected, 
 they have dissolved Parliament and intend to appeal to the 
 country." 
 
 "I knew nothing of it," said la Peyrade; "I have not read 
 the morning's papers."
 
 352 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "So the campaign of parliamentary ambitions has begun, 
 and, if I am well informed, Monsieur Thuillier, a member 
 already of the Municipal Council, will be getting himself 
 nominated as candidate for the twelfth arrondissement." 
 
 "That, no doubt, will be his next step." 
 
 "Well, then, monsieur, I should wish to place at his dis- 
 posal an organ of which I fancy you will appreciate the value. 
 The Echo de la Bievre, as a local paper, may have an im- 
 portant influence on the election in that district." 
 
 "And you are prepared to use that influence to support 
 Thuillier's election ?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "More than that," replied tienne Lousteau. "I wish to 
 propose to Monsieur Thuillier that ho should become the 
 owner of the paper; as the owner he can command it as a 
 master." 
 
 "But in the first place/' said the lawyer, "what position 
 does the paper hold? As a local paper, as you say, I have 
 scarcely come across it; indeed, it would be altogether un- 
 known to me but for the remarkable article you were good 
 enough to publish in Thuillier's defence, when his pamphlet 
 was seized." 
 
 Lousteau bowed in acknowledgment ; then he went on : 
 
 "The position is sound, and we could sell on very reason- 
 able terms, for we were on the point of giving it up." 
 
 "That is strange, with a prosperous paper." 
 
 "Not at all, nothing can be more natural," said Lousteau. 
 "The founders, all representative men of the great leather 
 industries, had started the paper for a special end. That end 
 is achieved; the Echo de la Bievre remained an effect with- 
 out a cause. Under these circumstances, for shareholders 
 who do not care for unnecessary trouble or fag ends of busi- 
 ness, and who do not fancy small investments, the simplest 
 thing is to sell the concern." 
 
 "Well" said la Peyrade, "but does the paper pay its way ?" 
 
 "That," said Lousteau, "is a matter we have never troubled 
 ourselves about. We never looked for subscribers. The ma- 
 chinery was simply put in motion to exert a direct effect
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 353 
 
 on the Ministry of Commerce to secure an increased duty on 
 imported leather. This, as you may suppose, was not a 
 matter to fire the enthusiasm of the public outside the trade." 
 
 "But I certainly supposed," said la Peyrade doggedly, 
 "that a newspaper, however limited its aim, was a lever of 
 which the force must depend on the number of subscribers'?" 
 
 "Not in the case of a paper started for a definite pur- 
 pose," replied Lousteau pompously. "In that case, on the 
 contrary, subscribers are a trouble; they want to be catered 
 for and amused, and meanwhile the aim in view is neglected. 
 A paper working within restricted limits ought to be a lens, 
 which, being constantly focused to a certain spot, makes the 
 gun go off at the right moment." 
 
 "Very well," said la Peyrade, "and what value do you 
 suppose such a publication to stand at, when it has few or 
 no subscribers, and does not pay its way, especially when it 
 has hitherto been devoted to a quite different purpose from 
 that to which it must henceforward be directed?" 
 
 "Before answering you," said Lousteau, "I must ask you a 
 question: Are you thinking of buying?" 
 
 "That must depend on circumstances," said the lawyer. 
 "Of course I must see Thuillier; but I may say at once that 
 he has no sort of experience in the business of a newspaper; 
 that, to his narrow and commonplace ideas, a newspaper is 
 an almost ruinous form of property. Consequently, if, when 
 presenting to his mind an entirely novel idea which cannot 
 fail to scare him, you at the same time name a formidable 
 figure, it is quite useless to broach the matter. I can tell 
 you at once that it will come to nothing." 
 
 "No," answered Lousteau, "as I have told you, we will bo 
 reasonable, and the gentlemen have given me a free hand. 
 At the same time I may tell you that we have several offers, 
 and that in giving Monsieur Thuillier the refusal we believe 
 ourselves to be doing him a special service. When may I 
 hope for a reply ?" 
 
 "By to-morrow, I think. Shall I do myself the honor of 
 calling on you, or at the office of the paper ?"
 
 354 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "No," said Lousteau, rising, "I will be here at the same 
 hour to-morrow, if that suits you." 
 
 "Perfectly," said la Peyrade, seeing out his visitor, who 
 struck him as self-sufficient rather than capable. 
 
 The reader will have understood, from la Peyrade's way of 
 meeting the suggestion that he was to play the go-between 
 to Thuillier, that a sudden change had come over his notions 
 of things. Even if he had not received that disturbing 
 note from the President of the Association, the new position 
 in which Thuillier now found himself by the opportunity 
 afforded to his parliamentary ambition, would have given 
 him much to think about. His "dear fellow" would evidently 
 be brought back to him, and his mania for sitting in the 
 Chamber would hand Thuillier over to him, bound hand and 
 foot. Was not this an opportunity, while hedging himself be- 
 hind all the cautions suggested by past experience, for re- 
 opening the question of his marriage to Celeste ? This possi- 
 ble conclusion, far from invalidating the good resolutions 
 formed at the time of his luckless love-affair and his fever, 
 would, on the contrary, secure their fulfilment and success. 
 Still, if, as might be feared, he should receive from the Board 
 of Control of his Society one of those reprimands which crush 
 a career at the outset, it would seem natural enough that he 
 should look for the remedy to the originator of the mischief ; 
 it was his instinct and his right to apply to the Thuilliers 
 for protection, as the accomplices of his ill deed and the first 
 cause of his overthrow. 
 
 And thinking over all these things, la Peyrade made his 
 way to wait on the President at the Palais de Justice. 
 
 He had guessed rightly ; in a clear and circumstantial state- 
 ment, a report of all he had done in the matter of the house 
 had been laid before the council of his fellow-advocates; and 
 the dignitary of the Association, while admitting that an 
 anonymous indictment must always be regarded with extreme 
 suspicion, explained to the accused that he was prepared te 
 accept his explanations. 
 
 La Peyrade dared not risk a formal denial of the charges. 
 The hand that had dealt the blow was, he felt sure, too de-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 355 
 
 termined and too skilful to be unsupported by proofs. But, 
 while acknowledging the fundamental accuracy of the state- 
 ment, he tried to give the facts a presentable aspect. 
 
 He understood, however, that he had not won the day when 
 the President of the Board made reply : 
 
 "Immediately after the next vacation I will lay the matter 
 before the council both the information against you, and 
 your plea on your own behalf. Only the council can pro- 
 nounce judgment in so important a case." 
 
 Thus dismissed, la Peyrade saw that his prospects as a 
 pleader were in danger. However, there was a respite, and 
 in case of the worst, he might find where to lay his head. 
 He put on his gown, which he still had the right to wear, and 
 went into court, where he had a case to argue. 
 
 On coming out of court, loaded with one of those bundles 
 of briefs which are carried tied up with a webbing strap, and 
 being too big to tuck under one arm, are necessarily balanced 
 on the forearm and hand, propped against the body, the 
 Provengal began to walk along the gallery known as the Salle 
 des pas perdus, with the hurried gait of a man who is so busy 
 that he only wishes he could be in two places at once. 
 
 Whether he had really got heated over his defence, or 
 merely affected to be in a violent perspiration so as to prove 
 that his gown was not for show only, but his panoply in the 
 fight, he was mopping his brow with his handkerchief as he 
 went, when from afar he caught sight of his Thuillier, who 
 had just seen him in the vast hall and was bearing down upon 
 him. 
 
 The meeting did not surprise him. On leaving home he 
 had told Madame Coffinet that he was going into court and 
 should remain there till three o'clock, so that she should send 
 everybody on who wanted to see him. 
 
 Not wishing to make matters too easy for Thuillier, la 
 Peyrade turned round, as if he had suddenly remembered 
 something, and sat down on one of the benches that are 
 placed all round that great ante-room to justice. He then 
 unstrapped his bundle, took out some papers, and buried him-
 
 S5G THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 self behind them with the air of a man who has not had 
 time to study in his private room the case which his readiness 
 of thought and speech will enable him to plead at sight. Or 
 this airy reference to his papers in this public spot might 
 be regarded as the act of a cautious and conscientious pleader, 
 refreshing his memory and giving a last glance at his forces 
 before engaging the foe. 
 
 All this time, of course, the Provengal was watching 
 Thuillier's manoeuvres out of the corner of his eye; and he, 
 supposing la Peyrade to be engrossed in serious business, was 
 doubting how to address him. 
 
 After a few turns up and down, the Town Councillor at 
 last made up his mind, and making straight sail for the point 
 towards which he had for the last quarter of an hour been 
 mentally steering: 
 
 "Why, Theodose !" he exclaimed. "Then you are often in 
 court now?" 
 
 "Well, it seems to me," said la Peyrade, "that a pleader in 
 the law-courts is like a Turk at Constantinople, where a 
 fellow-countryman of mine assures me that they abound. 
 I ought rather, on the contrary, to be surprised at seeing you 
 here." 
 
 "Not at all," said Thuillier lightly. "I am here about that 
 confounded pamphlet. Is there ever an end of your law and 
 justice? I was called upon to appear again this morning. 
 However, I cannot regret it, since I have been so lucky as 
 to come across you." 
 
 And he, like la Peyrade, used the fraternal tu. 
 
 "I am delighted, too, to have met you," said Theodose, 
 tying up his papers; "but I must leave you; I have an ap- 
 pointment. You, too, have to go into court." 
 
 "I have just come out," said Thuillier. 
 
 "Was it your favorite foe, Olivier Vinet, that you saw ?" 
 
 "No," said Thuillier, and he named another judge. 
 
 "That's queer," said la Peyrade. "That youthful deputy 
 judge seems to be ubiquitous. He has been on the bench all 
 the morning, and pronounced judgment in a case I was de- 
 fending only a minute ago."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 357 
 
 Thuillier colored, and making the best of his blunder he 
 said: 
 
 "Well, well ! I do not know one of these men from the 
 other. I mistook him, perhaps." 
 
 La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and spoke his thoughts 
 aloud to himself. 
 
 "Still the same man- finessing, wriggling, never going 
 straight to the goal !" 
 
 "Of whom are you speaking ?" asked Thuillier, looking not 
 a little out of countenance. 
 
 "Why, of you, my dear fellow, who seem to think us a 
 pack of fools; as if everybody did not know that the case of 
 your pamphlet was quashed this fortnight since. Come, what 
 were you called here for ?" 
 
 "I was bidden to attend," said Thuillier awkwardly, "to 
 pay some fees or expenses to the office. How should I know 
 what all this scribbling and scrawling is about?" 
 
 "Ha ! and so they bid you to attend," said la Peyrade, "on 
 the very day when the Moniteur, announcing the dissolution 
 of the Chambers, also speaks of j r ou as a candidate for election 
 in the twelfth arrondissement ?" 
 
 "And why not?" said Thuillier. "What connection can 
 there be between my nomination and the costs I am called 
 on to pay?" 
 
 "I will explain the connection," said la Peyrade dryly. 
 "There is nothing so amiable and obliging as Justice. 'Ha- 
 ha !' says she, 'here is good Monsieur Thuillier preparing 
 to stand for the lower Chamber ; he must be a little hampered 
 now by his position relatively to his former friend Monsieur 
 de la Peyrade, a little sorry now that- he ever quarreled with 
 him. I must get him out of the scrape. I will "bid him 
 to attend" about some costs he does not owe; then he will 
 come to the Palais where la Peyrade comes every day; thus 
 he can meet him in the most innocent way in the world, and 
 a proceeding which might be humiliating to his self-respect 
 will be quite cleverly glozed over.' >: 
 
 "Well, I can only be quits with you by telling you without
 
 358 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 any sort of finesse," said Thuillier, "that I came here from 
 your house, and it was your porter's wife who sent me here." 
 
 "Ah ! that is better," said la Peyrade. "I like plain deal- 
 ing. It is easy to come to an understanding with a man 
 who plays a square game. Well, now, what is it you want of 
 me? Did you want to discuss your election? I have been 
 working at that already." 
 
 "Really !" said Thuillier, "and in what way ?" 
 
 "Look here," said la Peyrade, fumbling under his gown 
 and producing a paper from his pocket. "This is what I was 
 writing just now, in court, while my opponent was beating 
 about the bush with his precedents." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Thuillier. 
 
 "Read, and you will see." 
 
 The paper was as follows : 
 
 ESTIMATE 
 
 FOR A NEWSPAPER, QUARTO SIZE, SUBSCRIPTION THIRTY 
 FRANCS A YEAR. 
 
 Calculating for five thousand copies, the cost per mensem 
 would be: 
 
 Paper; five reams at 12 francs . . 1,860 (sic) 
 
 Type-setting ..... . 2,400 
 
 Printing 450 
 
 Editor 250 
 
 Office clerk 100 
 
 Business manager and cashier . . 200 
 
 Despatch clerk 100 
 
 Women to fold it. . . 120 
 
 Office boy 80 
 
 Wrappers and office expenses . . 150 
 
 Rent 100 
 
 Postage and stamps .... 7,500 
 
 Editing and reporters .... 1,800 
 
 Total per mensem . . . frs. 15,110 
 Total per annum .... 181,320
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 359 
 
 "Do you want to start a paper?" asked Thuillier, in dis- 
 may. 
 
 "I ?" said la Peyrade ; "I do not want anything ; you must 
 ask yourself if you want to be deputy." . 
 
 "Undoubtedly, since you put that ambition into my head 
 by getting me on to the Town Council. But consider, my 
 dear boy, a hundred and eighty-one thousand three hundred 
 francs to be put down ! Have I a fortune that can meet such 
 an outlay?" 
 
 "Yes," said la Peyrade. "In the first place, you could 
 actually, and without any pinch, afford the expense, which, 
 as compared with the end in view, is by no means exorbitant. 
 In England a man spends a great deal more than that to 
 get a seat in Parliament. But I would have you to observe, 
 at the same time, that the figures in this estimate are un- 
 necessarily high. There are certain items to be docked; for 
 instance, you do not need a manager. You as an old ac- 
 countant, and I as an ex-journalist, may well undertake the 
 management, and do it without any trouble ; in the same way 
 we need not allow for rent, you have your old rooms in the Eue 
 Saint-Dominique, which are not let, and will make a splendid 
 office." 
 
 "All that," said Thuillier, "only saves us two thousand 
 four hundred francs a year." 
 
 "That is something, at any rate ; but the mistake you make 
 is basing your calculations on a year's expenses. When is 
 the election?" 
 
 "In two months' time." 
 
 "Well, then, for two months it will cost you just thirty 
 thousand francs, even supposing that you never had a single 
 subscriber." 
 
 "That is true," said Thuillier. "The outlay is certainly 
 less than I had fancied at first. But do you really think a 
 paper indispensable." 
 
 "So indispensable that without that weapon in our hands 
 I will have nothing to do with the election. You do not
 
 960 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 fully realize, my poor friend, that by settling on the other side 
 of the river you lost ground very seriously, from the point of 
 view of an election. You are no longer the man on the spot, and 
 may be destroyed by a word; what the English call Ab- 
 senteeism. You have a far more difficult game to play than 
 you had." 
 
 "That I admit," said Thuillier; "but for this paper we 
 need, besides mone} r , a name, an editor, contributors." 
 
 "The name is ready made. The contributors are you and 
 I, and a few of such young men as are to be found in shovel- 
 fuls in Paris. The responsible editor well, I have a man in 
 my eye." 
 
 "And what is the name to be ?" asked Thuillier. 
 
 "The tfcho de la Bievre/' 
 
 "But there is a paper of that name already." 
 
 "That is the very reason why I advise you to take this 
 matter up. Do you suppose I am fool enough to want to 
 start a new paper? L'Eclio de la Bievre! Tha. title is in 
 itself a treasure when jou want to stand for election in the 
 twelfth arrondissement. Say the word, and that treasure is 
 yours." 
 
 "How?" asked Thuillier, with interest. 
 
 "How? By buying it. You can have it for a mere song." 
 
 "You see," said Thuillier gloomily, "there is the purchase 
 money you had not included." 
 
 "You are dashed by mere trifles," said la Peyrade, with a 
 shrug. "There are far worse difficulties to be met." 
 
 "Worse difficulties !" echoed Thuillier. 
 
 "Bless me! do you suppose," said la Peyrade, "that after 
 all that has passed between you and me, I am bold enough 
 to go in for your election before I know exactly what I am 
 to get by it ?" 
 
 "Indeed!" said Thuillier, in some surprise, "I supposed 
 'that friendship meant the interchange of services." 
 
 "By all means. But when the interchange is all on one 
 side, with nothing on the other, friendship gets tired of the 
 bargain, and asks for something rather more equitable."
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 361 
 
 "But, my dear fellow, what have I to offer you but the 
 thing you yourself rejected ?" 
 
 "I rejected it, because it was not honestly offered me, and 
 seasoned with Mademoiselle Brigitte's vinegar sauce, any 
 self-respecting man would have acted as I did. You cannot 
 both give a thing and keep it, is an axiom in law, and that 
 is what you tried to do." 
 
 "For my part, I think you took offence very absurdly; 
 however, negotiations may be reopened." 
 
 "So be it," said la Peyrade ; "but I will not be dependent 
 on the success of the election, nor the slave of Mademoiselle 
 Celeste's whims. I ask for something definite and certain. 
 One good turn for another. Short accounts make long friend- 
 ships." 
 
 "I quite agree with you," replied Thuillier, "and I have 
 always been too entirely honest with you, to have any reason 
 to fear such precautions as you may take ; but what do you ask 
 as a guarantee ?" 
 
 "I ask that it should be Celeste's husband who helps you on, 
 not Theodose de la Peyrade." 
 
 "Hurry as we will, as Brigitte observed, that would take 
 a fortnight; and, just think, out of the eight weeks before 
 the election, we should have to stand at ease for two." 
 
 "Our names can be posted at the Mairie by the day after 
 to-morrow," replied the Provengal, "and we may do some- 
 thing in the interval between the publishing of the banns. 
 That is not, of course, an act which is absolutely irrevocable, 
 but it is a serious pledge, and a great step in the right direc- 
 tion. We can have the contract drawn up by your notary; 
 and, above all, if you make up your mind to buy the paper, 
 as you would not want to have a horse idle in your stable, 
 I should have no fear of your throwing me over, for the gun 
 will be too heavy for you to handle without my help." 
 
 "But if, after all, my dear boy, the transaction should prove 
 to be beyond my means." 
 
 "You, of course, can be the only judge of the conditions of 
 the sale. I no more wish to buy a pig in a poke than you
 
 3G2 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 do. To-morrow, -if you authorize me not to deal, but to say 
 that you might be willing to deal, I will talk the matter over 
 with the owner, and you need not doubt that I should regard 
 your interests as though they were my own." 
 
 "Very well, my boy, go ahead." 
 
 "And as soon as the paper is yours the day for the signing 
 of the contract is to be fixed." 
 
 "As soon as you please," said Thuillier. "But you pledge 
 yourself to exert all your influence in my favor?" 
 
 "As I would for my own success-, and that is not altogether 
 hypothetical; for I have had it hinted to me that I might 
 come forward myself, and if I were vindictive " 
 
 "There can be no doubt," said Thuillier humbly, "that 
 you would make the better deputy. But you are not of legal 
 age, surely?" 
 
 "There is a stronger objection than that," said la Peyrade. 
 "You are my friend. I find you now just what you have 
 always been, and I will keep the promise I gave you. I should 
 like it to be said of me, 'He made deputies, but would never 
 be made one.' Now, I must leave you and keep my appoint- 
 ment. Come to my office to-morrow at noon. I shall have 
 news for you." 
 
 He who has dabbled in journalism will dabble in it again 
 the prediction is as certain as that relating to drunkards. 
 
 Every man who has known that life of fevered occupa- 
 tion and of comparative idleness and independence; who 
 has wielded that power over intellect, art. talent, glory, virtue, 
 ridicule, and even truth itself; who has strutted on the plat- 
 form raised by his own hands and fulfilled the functions of 
 the tribunal with which his own authority has invested him ; 
 who has, in short, if only for an hour, been the representa- 
 tive of public opinion, arrogating his own dignity by unani- 
 mous vote, and when thrown back into private life feeling 
 himself in exile, like royalty sent to Cherbourg, as soon as 
 the opportunity offers, anxiously stretches out a hand to snatch 
 back his crown. 
 
 From the mere fact that la Pevrade had once been a
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 363 
 
 journalist, when fitienne Lousteau placed within his reach 
 the weapon known as the flcho de la Bievre, however poor 
 its temper, he felt all his instincts as a warrior of the press 
 revive within him. 
 
 The journal had failed ; la Peyrade believed that he could 
 work it up again. The subscribers, as even the vendor ad- 
 mitted, had always been few and far between; compelle intrare 
 should be brought to bear on them in a coercive and irresisti- 
 ble manner. And in the circumstances attending this trans- 
 action, might it not be regarded a dispensation of Providence ? 
 The lawyer, in danger of being disbarred, thus would acquire 
 a perfectly independent position, and if he should be com- 
 pelled to defend himself, might take the initiative and oblige 
 his adversaries to treat him with respect. 
 
 In the eyes of the Thuilliers the newspaper would certainly 
 make him a person of importance ; it would give him a better 
 chance of working the election with success ; and at the same 
 time, by employing their capital in an undertaking which, 
 to them, without him, could only be a snare and an engulfing 
 void, he bound them over too closely to feel any further fear 
 of their whims or their ingratitude. 
 
 This horizon, which had opened before him since Lousteau's 
 visit, had dazzled the Provengal, and we have seen how im- 
 peratively he had hinted to Thuillier that he must throw 
 himself heart and soul into this search for the philosopher's 
 stone. 
 
 The price of the property was a mere trifle. For a five- 
 hundred-franc note, of which fitienne Lousteau gave no very 
 clear account to the shareholders, the ownership, title-deeds, 
 plant, and good-will of the newspaper were transferred 
 to Thuillier; and the reorganization was at once put in 
 hand. 
 
 This reform was in progress, when Cerizet one morning 
 went to call on du Portail, with whom la Peyrade was more 
 than ever resolved to avoid all contact, 
 
 "Well," said the little old gentleman to the money-lender, 
 "have you heard what effect the information transmitted to
 
 364 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the President of the Board has had on our man? Has the 
 matter got wind among the lawyers?" 
 
 "Faugh !" said C6rizet, whose increasingly frequent inter- 
 views with Monsieur du Portail had led to his assuming a 
 certain degree of familiarity, "what the devil does it matter ? 
 The eel has slipped through our lingers. Xeither gentleness 
 nor violence can catch that limb of a man. If he has got 
 into a scrape with his President, he is thicker than ever with 
 his Thuilliers. 'Mutual utility,' says Figaro, 'bridges over 
 distance.' Thuillier needs him for his nomination in the 
 Saint-Jacques quarter; they have kissed and made friends." 
 
 "And the marriage, no doubt, is fixed to take place at an 
 early date?" said du Portail, without seeming much im- 
 pressed. 
 
 "Quite soon," said Cerizet, "and then there is another ma- 
 chine to work. That lunatic has persuaded Thuillier to buy 
 a newspaper; he will let them in for forty thousand francs 
 over this concern. Thuillier, when he finds himself in the 
 swim, will want to get his money back, so they are likely to 
 stick together for an unlimited period." 
 
 "What is the paper?" asked du Portail, with indifference. 
 
 "A rag, a 'cabbage-leaf/ called L'Echo de la Bievre," said 
 Cerizet scornfully, "a paper that an old journalist, out at 
 elbows, managed to set going in the Mouffetard quarter among 
 the curriers, that being, as you know, the chief industry in 
 that part of the town. From the literary and political point 
 of view, the thing is not a paper at all ; but from Thuillier's 
 it is a master-stroke of business." 
 
 "Well, for a local election the instrument is not ill-chosen," 
 observed the old gentleman. "La Pcyrade is clever, energetic, 
 full of resource he may make something of his ficho. And 
 under what flag does Messire Thuillier sail?" 
 
 "Thuillier!" said Cerizet. "He is a mere oyster; he has 
 no opinions. Until his pamphlet came out, he was a rabid 
 conservative like all his class. But since the seizure of his 
 work he has, no doubt, gone over to the opposition. Left 
 centre was probably his first stage ; but if, at the election, the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 365 
 
 wind blows another way, he will easily back over to the ex- 
 treme left. With men like that interest is the standard of 
 conviction." 
 
 "Peste !" said du Portail, "this notion of the lawyer's might 
 rise to the dignity of political mischief, from the point of 
 view I take ; my opinions are strongly conservative and on the 
 side of the Government." 
 
 Then he remarked thoughtfully: 
 
 "You have dabbled in journalism, I think, Cerizet the 
 Brave?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the money-lender. "I even managed a 
 paper with la Peyrade an evening paper. A nice business it 
 was too, and we were well paid." 
 
 "Well, then," said du Portail, "why should you not do the 
 same again, with la Peyrade?" 
 
 Cerizet looked at him with amazement. 
 
 "My word !" he said. "Are you the devil in person, mon- 
 sieur, that nothing can be hidden from you ?" 
 
 "Aye," said du Portail, "I know a good many things. 
 But now, exactly how far are you and la Peyrade in agree- 
 ment ?" 
 
 "Thus far; that he, remembering my experience in the 
 business, and not knowing whom he could employ, came last 
 evening to offer me the management." 
 
 "I did not know that," said du Portail, "but it seemed 
 probable. And you accepted?" 
 
 "Very conditionally. I asked for time to consider it. I 
 wanted to know what you would think of the matter." 
 
 "Ah ! Well, I think that when mischief cannot be hin- 
 dered, it is well to get out of the scrape as best we may. I 
 would rather see you in the plot than out of it." 
 
 "Very good. But to get in, there is a little obstacle; la 
 Peyrade knows that I am in debt, and he declines to stand 
 security for the thirty-three thousand francs that have to be 
 posted in my name. Now, I have not got them ; and even if 
 I had. I should not care to admit it, and expose the sum to 
 being seized by my creditors."
 
 366 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "But you still have a large sum left from the twenty-five 
 thousand francs which la Peyrade repaid you two months 
 ago?" 
 
 "I have just two thousand two hundred francs, fifty cen- 
 times," replied Cerizet. "I counted it over yesterday. The 
 rest went in paying pressing creditors." 
 
 "But if you have paid you are out of debt ?" 
 
 "Yes, so far as I have paid; but I still owe what I have 
 not paid." 
 
 "Do you mean that you owed more than twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs," said du Portail, in a tone of disbelief. 
 
 "Would a man become bankrupt for less ?" replied Cerizet, 
 as if stating an axiom. 
 
 "I see I shall have to stand the money," said du Portail, 
 with annoyance. "The question is whether your cooperation 
 in the job is likely to be worth three hundred and thirty thou- 
 sand three hundred and thirty-three francs, thirty-three cen- 
 times." 
 
 "As to that," said Cerizet, "if once I were at Thuillier's 
 elbow, I should not despair of setting him and la Peyrade 
 by the ears before long. In the management of a paper there 
 are no end of inevitable hitches, and by always taking the 
 fool's part against the clever man, I should inflate the vanity 
 of one and snub the vanity of the other to a degree which 
 would soon make it impossible for them to work together. 
 And then you said something about political dangers. A 
 manager, as you must know, if he has wit enough to be more 
 than a man of straw, can often quietly give matters a list to 
 the side where it is needed." 
 
 "There is some truth in that," replied du PortaiL "But 
 what is most important to me is to upset la Peyrade's coach." 
 
 "Well," said Cerizet, "I fancy I have another rather in- 
 sidious little trick that will demolish him as regards Thuil- 
 lier." 
 
 "Out with it, then," exclaimed du Portail irritably. "You 
 beat about the bush as if you could get anything by finessing 
 with me."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 361 
 
 "You remember," said Cerizet, delivering himself at last, 
 "that some time ago Dutocq and I were excessively puzzled 
 at the insolent fashion in which la Peyrade suddenly found 
 himself in a position to pay that twenty-five thousand francs." 
 
 "Well," the old man eagerly put in, "have you discovered 
 the source of that unexpected flow of money into the lawyer's 
 hands ? Is there anything discreditable in that ?" 
 
 "This is the story," said Cerizet; and he related with full 
 details the history of Madame Lambert, adding, however, 
 that after an interview with the woman in the justice's office 
 on the day when she had met la Peyrade there, he could get 
 no facts out of her, though by her fencing the good lady had 
 amply confirmed his suspicions and Dutocq's. 
 
 "Madame Lambert, Hue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9, at Mon- 
 sieur Picot's, a professor of mathematics," said du Portail, 
 writing down the address. "Very good, my dear sir. Come 
 and see me again to-morrow," he added. 
 
 "But I beg to remind you," said the money-lender, "that I 
 must give la Peyrade an answer in the course of to-day. He 
 is in a hurry to settle matters." 
 
 "Very good. Accept; ask for twenty-four hours' grace to 
 pay in the security money, and if after I have made in- 
 quiries we see any good reason for getting out of the business 
 you will only have failed to keep your word. You will not 
 find yourself in the dark for that." 
 
 Apart from a sort of unexplained fascination exerted by du 
 Portail over his agent, he never missed an opportunity of re- 
 minding him of the somewhat shady beginnings of their busi- 
 ness connection. 
 
 Next day, when Ce"rizet was again in the presence of his 
 patron : 
 
 "You guessed rightly," said du Portail, "the woman Lam- 
 bert, being anxious to conceal the existence of her hoard, and 
 at the same time to hide it at good interest, thought of going 
 to seek la Peyrade; his apparent piety recommended him to 
 her confidence, as the money was to be handed over to hi a
 
 368 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 without any written acknowledgment. In what form was 
 Dutocq paid ?" 
 
 "In nineteen thousand-franc notes and twelve five-hun- 
 dred-franc notes." 
 
 "Exactly so," said du Portail, "and not a doubt remains. 
 And now, with regard to Thuillier, what use do you propose 
 to make of this information ?" 
 
 "I shall hint to him that la Peyrade, who is to marry his 
 goddaughter, is loaded with debt; that he borrows money un- 
 der the rose at usurious rates; that to pay his way he will 
 pick the newspaper profits to the bone; that his position of 
 insolvency may come out at any moment, and do the greatest 
 injury to the candidate who stands for election with him for 
 a supporter." 
 
 "Not amiss," said du Portail. "But you can make a further 
 and more decisive use of our discovery." 
 
 "Tell me, sir; I hear and obey." 
 
 "Thuillier is to this day mystified, I imagine, as to the 
 seizure of the famous pamphlet." 
 
 "Certainly," replied the money-lender. "Only yesterday la 
 Peyrade was saying, to show how far Thuillier's guileless 
 stupidity could go, that he had made him swallow the most 
 absurd invention. The worthy citizen was convinced that the 
 attack had been prompted by Monsieur Olivier Vinet, the At- 
 torney-General's deputy. This young lawyer had for a 
 moment aspired to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and, 
 to the estimable Thuillier, this procedure of the law was by 
 way of avenging the refusal of one of its members." 
 
 "Well done !" said du Portail. "To-morrow, as prelimi- 
 nary to another version of the business, which it will be your 
 part to communicate to Thuillier, the good man will receive 
 from Monsieur Vinet an emphatic and unqualified protest 
 denying such an abuse of power as he so ridiculously be- 
 lieved in." 
 
 "Indeed?" said Cerizet inquisitively. 
 
 "Another explanation must then be given," du Portail went 
 on, "and you must affirm to Thuillier that he has been the
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 369 
 
 victim of the horrible machinations of the police. As 
 you know, that is the great business of the police machina- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Precisely so," said the money-lender. "I have put my 
 name to the statement a score of times, when I worked on 
 the Eepublican papers and when " 
 
 "When you were Cerizet the Brave," du Portail put in. 
 "Well now, the machination of the police was this: The 
 government was much annoyed at Thuillier's election, with 
 out Ministerial influence, to the Municipal Council of the 
 Seine; it owed a deep grudge to an independent and patri- 
 otic citizen who had carried his nomination through with 
 such a high hand; it also knew that this great citizen was 
 preparing a pamphlet on the always delicate financial ques- 
 tion, on which this dangerous adversary was an authority of 
 great experience. What, then, was the action of this corrupt ( 
 and bribing Government? Why, it circumvented the man 
 with whom Thuillier was said to take counsel, and for the 
 price of twenty-five thousand francs, a mere trifle to the 
 police, that perfidious adviser undertook, without betraying 
 himself, to slip into the work two or three sentences for 
 which the writer might be haled before the bench. Now, 
 why should Thuillier doubt this story for an instant when he 
 is told that la Peyrade, who, as he knows, had not a sou in 
 the world, paid down in good money to Dutocq exactly that 
 sum of twenty-five thousand francs ?" 
 
 "The deuce!" exclaimed Cerizet. "Not a bad idea. Men 
 like Thuillier believe everything you can tell them of the 
 police." 
 
 "Very well, then, you understand," added du Portail, "that 
 Thuillier will not particularly wish to secure the assistance 
 of such a colleague, and still less to see him married to his god- 
 daughter." 
 
 "You are a remarkable man, monsieur," said Cerizet, again 
 approving. "But I must confess to you that I am not with- 
 out some scruples as to the part you wish me to play in the
 
 370 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 matter. La Peyrade has offered me the management of the 
 paper, and I meanwhile am to try to squeeze him out." 
 
 "And how about the lease he kept you out of, after the 
 most solemn promises; have you forgotten that?" asked the 
 old man. "Besides, are we not really working for the happi- 
 ness of that obstinate fellow, who so persistently evades our 
 most benevolent intentions ?" 
 
 "The result, no doubt, will absolve me," said Cerizet. 
 "I will proceed undauntedly in the road you have pointed 
 out to me. Still, there is one things to be considered. I can- 
 not simply fling the facts at Thuillier's head on the first 
 day; there must be some little preparation; whereas the cau- 
 tion money must be paid almost immediately." 
 
 "Listen to me, Monsieur Cerizet," said du Portail authori- 
 tatively; "if la Peyrade marries my ward, I have every in- 
 tention of rewarding you for your services, and the thirty 
 thousand francs shall be yours. Thus with thirty thousand 
 francs from one party, and twenty-five thousand from ^the 
 other, you will have got fifty-five thousand out of your friend 
 la Peyrade's matrimonial affairs. But I do not mean to 
 pay before I come out, as peasants do in the shows at a fair. 
 Now, if you deposit the security, I shall be quite easy; you 
 will no doubt find some way of saving it from your creditors' 
 clutches. If, on the contrary, it is my money that is risked, 
 you will be neither so anxious to protect it from danger, nor 
 so ingenious in your methods. So you must manage, by hook 
 or by crook, to deposit the thirty thousand francs on your own 
 account. If all turns out well, you will have invested the 
 money at cent per cent. That is my last word, and I listen 
 to no arguments." 
 
 Cerizet had no time for argument, for at this moment 
 the door suddenly opened the interview had taken place in 
 du Portail's study and a fair, slender woman, with a counte- 
 nance of angelic sweetness, came hastily into the room. 
 
 In her arms, wrapped in fine white baby-clothes, lay the 
 form of an infant. 
 
 "Ah!" said she, "that wicked Katt! She assured me it
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 371 
 
 was not the doctor. But I was quite sure that I had 
 Keen him come in. Do you know, doctor," she went on, ad- 
 dressing Cerizet, "I am not satisfied about the child, not at all 
 satisfied ; she is pale and much thinner. I believe she is cut- 
 ting her teeth." 
 
 Du Portail signed to Cerizet to accept the part so unex- 
 pectedly suggested to him, and which reminded him of that 
 he had for a moment thought of assuming in the famous busi- 
 ness with Madame Cardinal. 
 
 "It is evidently teething," said he. "Children are always 
 a little pulled down at that time ; but I assure you, dear ma- 
 dame, that there is nothing to make you at all uneasy." 
 
 "You really think so, doctor," said the crazy woman for 
 the reader will have understood that this was Lydie, du 
 PortaiPs ward. "But only look at her poor little arms ; they 
 have dwindled to nothing." 
 
 And unpinning the outer wrappings, she showed to Cerizet 
 a bundle of clothes which to her poor wits represented a sweet 
 pink-and-white baby. 
 
 "Not at all, not at all," said Cerizet. "She is a little thin, 
 no doubt ; but the flesh is firm and her color healthy." 
 
 "Poor darling !" said Lydie, clasping her dream to her 
 bosom. "Yes, I really think she is better since this morning. 
 What must I give her, doctor? She will not take pap, nor 
 will she touch broth of any kind." 
 
 "Well, then," said Cerizet, "try a little bread and milk. 
 Does she fancy sweet things?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the poor soul, brightening ; "she loves them. 
 Would chocolate be good for her?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Cerizet; "but without vanilla; that is 
 heating." 
 
 "What they call chocolat de Sante" said Lydie, in the tone 
 of a mother who listens to the voice of the doctor who can 
 reassure her, as to the voice of a god. "Uncle," said she, 
 turning to du Portail, "will you ring for Bruno, that he may 
 go at once and buy a few pounds from Marquis?" 
 
 "Bruno is just gone out," replied the old man ; "but thert 
 is no hurry ; he shall go in the course of the day."
 
 372 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "There, she is falling asleep," said Cerizet, not sorry to put 
 an end to a scene of which even his callous nature could not 
 fail to feel the pathos. 
 
 "So she is," said the crazy girl, wrapping up the bundle 
 and rising. "I will put her in her bed. Good-bye, doctor, 
 it is very kind of you to come sometimes without being sent 
 for; if you could only fancy how anxious we poor mothers 
 are, and how much good you can do them with a few words ! 
 Oh, now she is crying again." 
 
 "It is but natural," said Cerizet ; "she is dying for sleep ; 
 she will be far better in her cradle !" 
 
 "I will go and play her the sonata by Beethoven that my 
 poor father was so fond of. It is wonderful how soothing 
 it is. Good-bye, doctor," she repeated, as she stood in the 
 doorway. "Good-bye, kind doctor." 
 
 And she kissed her hand to him. 
 
 Cerizet was quite overcome. 
 
 "You see," said du Portail, "what an angel she is; never 
 cross, never a sharp word. Melancholy sometimes, but always 
 from some anxiety arising from her motherly instincts. That 
 is what makes the physicians so sure that if the reality could 
 take the place of her constant hallucinations, it would restore 
 her reason. Well, and that is what that fool la Peyrade re- 
 fuses, with the addition of a splendid fortune ! But he must 
 be brought round or I shall lose my reputation. Hark !" 
 he added, as they heard the piano. "Listen, what playing! 
 A mad woman ! Why, there are thousands of sane women 
 who are not to compare with her, and whose better sense is 
 but on the surface." 
 
 When the sonata, played with a perfection of feeling and 
 emotion which filled Cerizet with admiration, had come to a 
 close : 
 
 "I quite agree with you, monsieur," said he; "la Peyrade 
 is rejecting an angel, a jewel, a pearl, and if I stood in his 
 
 shoes But we will bring him to a better mind; and it 
 
 is not with zeal alone that I will do your bidding, but with 
 passion fanatically."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 373 
 
 Just as Cerizet had pronounced this oath of fidelity, out- 
 pide the door of the room where du Portail had received him 
 he heard a woman's voice, which was certainly not Lydie's. 
 
 "And is the dear Commandeur in his study?" asked the 
 voice, with a slight foreign accent. 
 
 "Yes, madame ; but please go into the drawing-room. My 
 master is engaged ; I will tell him you are here." 
 
 And this was the voice of Katt, the old Dutch house- 
 keeper. 
 
 1 "Here this way," said du Portail hurriedly, to Cerizet; 
 and he opened a small door into a dark passage leading to 
 the stairs. 
 
 The first leader in a new newspaper, by which it is in- 
 troduced to the public its profession of faith, as it is 
 technically called is always a difficult and laborious effort. 
 In this particular case it was indispensable that Thuillier's 
 aspiration to election should be hinted at, if not actually de- 
 clared. The outlines of this manifesto were the subject of 
 long discussions after la Peyrade had sketched them. Ceri- 
 zet was present at the debate, for, in obedience to du Portail's 
 instructions, he had accepted the editorship ; he had not yet, 
 however, deposited the security, taking advantage of the days 
 of grace which, on the transfer of such property, is usually 
 accorded to the new officials. 
 
 The discussion, skilfully fanned by the crafty money- 
 lender, who at once put himself forward as Thuillier's flat- 
 terer, more than once grew stormy, and took an acrid tone; 
 but as, by the code of partnership, la Peyrade was always to 
 have the last word on every point connected with the editing, 
 it ended in his sending the article to be printed exactly as he 
 had written it. 
 
 Thuillier was furious at what he regarded as an abuse of 
 power, and on the following day, finding himself alone with 
 Cerizet, while hastening to pour his woes and grievances into 
 the ear of his faithful manager, he gave him the most natural 
 opening for repeating the calumnious revelations he had 
 plotted with the old man in the Kue Honore-Chevalier.
 
 3M THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The insinuation was hinted with a skill and moderation 
 which would have taken in a keener judgment than Thuil- 
 lier's. Cerizet affected to he frightened at having hetrayed a 
 secret dragged from him hy the fervor of his zeal, and by the 
 sympathy commanded by the dignity of mind and character, 
 which had struck him from the first in Thuillier. Thuil- 
 lier reassured the traitor by pledging himself that Cerizet's 
 name should not even be hinted at in .the explanation to 
 which this information might probably lead. He would allow 
 it to be supposed that it had reached him from another source, 
 and, at a pinch, would direct suspicion to Dutocq. So, leav- 
 ing the dart in the wound, Cerizet went away to make certain 
 arrangements for the final settlement of the security. 
 
 The scene had taken place in the office. Ever since he had 
 concluded the purchase, Thuillier, coming to the office two 
 hours sooner than was necessar} r , spent his day there, wearing 
 everybody to death with his officious restlessness; he came 
 back again after dinner ; he would almost have slept there, and 
 at the rare times when he was visible to his family, he had 
 nothing to say but lamentations over his fatigue under such 
 a multiplicity of occupations, till it might have been sup- 
 posed that he must succumb to the burden, or seriously in- 
 jure his health. 
 
 Thuillier, thus crammed with the dreadful revelation, 
 could not sit still; he wanted to disburden himself, to talk 
 over the attitude he ought to assume under such a diabolical 
 plot. So he sent for a hackney cab, and within a quarter 
 of an hour he had poured it all out to his Egeria, his be- 
 loved sister Brigitte. 
 
 Brigitte had been strenuously antagonistic to all that Thuil- 
 lier had done during the last few days. To begin with, on 
 no account whatever,, not even to secure her brother's election, 
 would she have had him renew his relations with la Peyrade. 
 She had a deep grudge against him, the strongest grounds 
 for a lasting estrangement. And then, in the event of this 
 intriguing rogue, as she called him, marrying Celeste after 
 all, the dread of seeing her own influence diminished giving
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 375 
 
 her a sort of second sight, she saw at last all the black depths 
 of the ProvengaPs character, and declared that on no con- 
 sideration whatever, in any circumstances, would she agree 
 to be one in a joint household with him. 
 
 Thuillier, rabid with ambition, had changed the subject; 
 he hoped to cure his sister later of these prejudices. But 
 when, on the top of this, the question of the newspaper was 
 raised, he found Brigitte in a frame of antagonism amounting 
 to acrimony. 
 
 "Ruin yourself, my dear," said she; "it is your own busi- 
 ness. What comes in by the flute goes out by the drum." 
 
 However, when the purchase was concluded, when Brigitte 
 had been consulted as to various details of the management, 
 in which she found new play for her economical skill, when 
 she had been able to place two women as folders in the office, 
 and had promoted her concierge of the Rue Saint-Dominique 
 to be the office "boy," diminishing his wages as doorkeeper 
 there by two hundred francs, in consideration of this plural- 
 ity; when she had been entrusted with the purchase of the 
 calico for the office curtains, of the lamps, shovels, and tongs, 
 and had been requested to look in from time to time, and keep 
 an eye on the washing of the inkstands, the sweeping of the 
 floors, and other little details of order and cleanliness, her 
 ill-humor was considerably mollified; so that now, as she 
 listened to her brother's confidential narrative, she responded 
 not with reproaches, but with a sort of pagan of triumph in 
 honor of the probable increase of her own powers. 
 
 "So much the better!" cried she.- "At last we know for 
 certain that he is a skunk. I always suspected that sneak. 
 Turn him out of doors without a word. We do not want 
 him; we can manage the paper without him. That Mon- 
 sieur Cerizet, who, from what you say of him, must be such 
 a good fellow, will find us another man. And Madame de 
 Godollo, when she left, promised to write to me; as soon as 
 I hear from her, she will have no difficulty in finding some- 
 body! Our poor Celeste! A pretty dish we were cooking 
 for her 1"
 
 376 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "You go too fast," said Thuillier. "La Peyrade, my dear, 
 is only accused; he must first be heard; besides, we are bound 
 by an agreement." 
 
 "Oh, very well !" retorted Brigitte. "I see the whole thing. 
 You will be entrapped again. An agreement with that sneak ! 
 As if such men as he were to hold or to bind !" 
 
 "Come, come, compose j'ourself, my dear Brigitte," said 
 Thuillier. "We must not let temper run away with us. 
 Certainly, unless la Peyrade can justify himself, and in 
 the clearest, fullest, and most categorical manner, I shall 
 have done with him, and I will show you that I am no 
 chicken-hearted gaby. But Cerizet himself has no evidence, 
 only inferences; and I came to consult you merely as to 
 whether or no I should demand an explanation." 
 
 "Not a doubt of it," said Brigitte, "and a complete ex- 
 planation too, or I deny you as my brother." 
 
 "That is enough," said Thuillier, departing with solemnity. 
 "You will see that you and I are of one mind in such mat- 
 ters." 
 
 The arrangements made for the establishment of the 
 flclio de la Bievre in the apartment in the Eue Saint-Domi- 
 nique-d'Enfer were as yet very incomplete, for they had been 
 made in great haste; the old offices in the Eue des Noyers 
 had seemed uninhabitable for an hour; the house was of the 
 most squalid appearance, and in going over the furniture 
 included in the deed of sale, Thuillier had been considerably 
 disappointed. 
 
 The inventory of this property was something as follows : 
 
 1. Three tables of black stained wood. 
 
 ' 2. Six chairs, with their straw seats complete, or nearly 
 so like the famous Bologna lute immortalized by Moliere. 
 
 3. A set of pigeon-holes, also in wood stained black, and 
 used for storing the back numbers of the paper according to 
 their dates. 
 
 4. An earthenware cistern covered with wicker, an article 
 gone out of fashion, but large enough to contain six pails of 
 water.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 377 
 
 5. Three candlesticks and a pair of snuffers, the illumi- 
 nation of the office under the old management not having risen 
 even to the dignity of snuffless "moulds." 
 
 6. A water-bottle and two glasses. 
 
 7. Nine empty bottles, most of which, if we may believe 
 the printed labels, had contained the best Jamaica rum and 
 genuine Swiss absinthe. 
 
 But the thing that gave the crowning stamp to the estab- 
 lishment, justifying Leon de Lora's famous proverb: "It is 
 a long lane that has no burning," was a splendid store of 
 peats discovered in a cupboard of the editor's room, large, 
 dry, compact, and durable; fuel, in short, of prime quality, 
 showing very plainly that the original shareholders had had 
 a finger in the purchase. 
 
 The list being verified, Thuillier, after the first quarter 
 of an hour's disgust, saw that something must be done, and 
 jumping into a cab, he was driven to the Rue Chapon. 
 
 Next day a painter was instructed to inscribe on one of 
 the doors of the new rooms, the sacramental formula: Office 
 and cashier; the room was divided by a boarding with a brass 
 railing above; and on each side of the opening where sub- 
 scriptions could be paid, this grating was provided with green 
 cotton curtains hung by Brigitte to a brass rod. 
 
 In the editor's room, also protected by a legend in smaller 
 characters, No admittance except on business, were a dozen 
 cherry-wood chairs, a high desk of oak, and a large oval table 
 not yet covered with a green cloth, as Mademoiselle Brigitte 
 had undertaken to find one second-hand; a case for papers, 
 a Dutch clock hanging on the wall and striking like a village 
 church-bell. All this, with two ancient maps made by Sam- 
 son, "Geographer to the King," composed a very decent 
 temporary outfit. 
 
 And at the moment when Thuillier, returning from his 
 conclave with Brigitte, came into the editor's office, the crown- 
 ing consecration was given to the existence of the newspaper ; 
 a printer's devil brought in from the press a ream of sheets
 
 378 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 headed with the style, title, and address of the ficlio. Until 
 ihe head-line is in type the paper cannot be said to exist. 
 This is, so to speak, its baptism, and that is why the founders 
 of a newspaper always begin by this great symbolical act ; they 
 are afraid lest the bantling should die unchristened. 
 
 Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor, but during 
 the last quarter of an hour the lawyer had been considerably 
 embarrassed by the final authority he had arrogated to him- 
 self as to the choice of articles and writers. Phellion, 
 prompted by his family, and as a corollary to his functions 
 as a member of the committee of the Odeon, had come to pro- 
 pose himself as a contributor of articles on the stage. , 
 
 "My dear monsieur," said he, after inquiring of Thuillier 
 as to his health, "I was a very constant play-goer in my 
 young days: theatrical performances, all through my some- 
 what long career, have had an unfailing and special interest 
 in my eyes, and the white hairs which now crown my brow 
 do not seem to me an obstacle in the way of my giving your 
 interesting publication the benefit of my studies and of my 
 experience. As a member of the Heading Committee of the 
 Odeon, I have refreshed my impressions in the modern spring, 
 and if I were quite sure of your secrecy I might go so far 
 as to tell you that you might even find among my private 
 documents a certain tragedy entitled Sapor, which in my 
 golden days had some little success when I read it to a circle 
 of friends.'' 
 
 "Well," said la Peyrade, anxious to soften the refusal that 
 was inevitable, "but why not try now to get it put upon the 
 stage ? We might be of use in helping you." 
 
 "Of course," said Thuillier, "a theatrical manager to whom 
 we could introduce the work " 
 
 "No" said Phellion. "In the first place, as a member of 
 the Eeading Committee of the Odeon, called upon to pro- 
 nounce on the works of others, it would ill become me to enter 
 the arena. I am an old athlete, whose function now is to be 
 umpire and judge of the blows he can no longer deliver. 
 From that point of view criticism is quite within my province ;
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 379 
 
 all the more so because I have, I believe, some quite new 
 ideas as to the manner of composing a theatrical article. 
 Castigat ridendo mores is in my humble opinion the grand 
 rule, nay, let me say the only rule, of the stage. Hence I 
 shall be merciless in dealing with purely imaginative works 
 in which moral lessons have no place, and which the wisdom 
 of a mother 
 
 "Forgive me for interrupting you," said la Peyrade, "but 
 before giving you the trouble of expatiating on your theory 1 1 
 ought to tell you that we have already made our arrangements 
 for theatrical criticism." 
 
 "Ah! Then, indeed," replied Phellion, "an honest man 
 has but one word." 
 
 "Yes," said Thuillier, "we have a man. It never occurred 
 to us that you would come to offer us the honor of your as- 
 sistance." 
 
 "Well, then," said Phellion, becoming eager, for in the 
 atmosphere of a newspaper there is a mysterious element that 
 mounts to a man's head, especially a man of the middle class, 
 "since you are kind enough to imply that my pen might be 
 of some service to you, possibly some detached reflections on 
 different subjects, under the 'varieties,'* thoughts which I do 
 not hesitate to describe as 'detached,' might prove to some 
 extent interesting." 
 
 "Yes," said la Peyrade, with a mischievous intent which 
 Phellion failed to detect, "detached thoughts by all means, 
 especially in the style of Rochefoucauld or la Bruyere; what 
 do you say, Thuillier?" He was determined to leave the 
 responsibility of a refusal as often as possible to the pro- 
 prietor. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Thuillier, "that such thoughts, if 
 they were detached, would be rather wanting in connection." 
 
 "Obviously," replied Phellion. "When I say 'detached 
 thoughts/ I convey the idea of a vast number of subjects 
 round which the writer's pen may play without connecting 
 them into a whole." 
 
 "And you would, of course, sign your name in full ?" said 
 la Peyrade.
 
 380 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Oh, no," exclaimed Phellion in dismay. "I should not 
 like to put myself forward so conspicuously." 
 
 "That coyness, which I entirely understand and approve 
 of," said la Peyrade, "settles the question. The 'detached 
 thought' or aphorism is a peculiarly personal thing, and 
 must absolutely be individualized by a name. You must your- 
 self see that 'thoughts by Mr. Dash' can have no meaning to 
 .the public." 
 
 Seeing that Phellion was still prepared with arguments, 
 Thuillier, in a hurry to come to high words with the Pro- 
 vengal, made up his mind to cut the matter short. 
 
 "My dear Phellion," said he, "I beg your pardon for saying 
 that we must no longer enjoy the pleasure of your conversa- 
 tion; but I have to discuss an important article with la Pey- 
 rade, and in making up a paper time flies like the devil. We 
 will, if you please, postpone this matter till another day. 
 Madame Phellion is quite well, I hope?" 
 
 "Quite well," replied the other, rising without seeming 
 offended by his dismissal. "When does the first number come 
 out?" he added. "It is eagerly looked for in the arrondisse- 
 ment." 
 
 "Our profession of faith will, I hope, appear to-morrow," 
 said Thuillier, seeing him to the door, "and it is high time ; 
 for, if we set up nothing but the leavings in the editor's 
 drawer, we shall soon put the subscribers to flight. But you 
 will, of course, have a copy sent you, my dear friend, and we 
 shall see you again ere long ? Bring us some copy ; la Peyrade 
 is, perhaps, a little too dogmatic." 
 
 Balm thus shed on the wound, and Phellion fairly off the 
 premises, Thuillier rang for the office-boy. 
 
 "You would know that gentleman again, wouldn't you?''' 
 he asked. 
 
 "Yes, m'sieur, he has a queer enough phiz of his own. 
 Besides, it is Monsieur Phellion; I have let him in often 
 enough, I should think." 
 
 "Well, whenever he comes, neither I nor Monsieur de la 
 Peyrade are ever in the place. Eemember that, without ex- 
 ception. Now go."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 381 
 
 "The devil !" said la Peyrade, when they were alone, "you 
 have a short way with bores. Be careful, however. There 
 might happen to be a few voters among them; you were wise 
 to tell Phellion he should have the paper ; he is a man of im- 
 portance in that quarter/' 
 
 "Pooh !" said Thnillier, "can we let our time be wasted by 
 every vaporing idler who may come to offer his contributions'? 
 And it was no idle excuse that I made to Phellion. I have 
 something to discuss with you, and very seriously too. Take 
 a chair and listen to me." 
 
 "Do you know, my dear old boy, that journalism is making 
 you a very solemn personage? 'Take a chair, Cinna.' Au- 
 gustus himself might have spoken no otherwise." 
 
 "And Cinnas are unfortunately commoner than might be 
 supposed," replied Thuillier. 
 
 He was still moved by the impetus of his promise to 
 Brigitte, and intended to be scathingly satirical ; the top was 
 still in violent rotation from the stroke of the old maid's lash. 
 
 La Peyrade sat down by the oval table. As he was genuinely 
 puzzled, to give himself countenance, he took up the large 
 scissors which were used for cutting out borrowed paragraphs 
 from other papers, and snipped a sheet of paper on which an 
 article had been sketched, but not worked up, by Thuillier. 
 
 The Provengal was seated, but yet Thuillier did not begin ; 
 he rose and went to the door, which stood ajar, intending to 
 shut it. But as he reached it it was thrown wide open by 
 Coffinet. 
 
 "Monsieur," said he to la Peyrade, "can you see two ladies 
 who wish to speak to you?" 
 
 "Who are the ladies ?" asked the lawyer. 
 
 "Well-dressed ladies, sir, a mother and daughter, I 
 should say ; the daughter not to be sneezed at." 
 
 "Shall they be shown in ?" la Peyrade asked of Thuillier, "or 
 would you rather that I should see them in the waiting- 
 room ?" 
 
 "As they have been told that you are here, have them in," 
 said Thuillier, "but try to get rid of them quickly."
 
 383 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 And the proprietor of the ficlio de la Bievrc paced the 
 room with his hands behind his back; there was a reminis- 
 cence of Napoleon in his attitude. 
 
 Coffinet's opinion as to the dress of the two visitors whom 
 he now showed into the office was certainly open to revision. 
 A woman is well dressed, not when she wears handsome and 
 expensive clothes, but when her attire, which may be of the 
 utmost simplicity, shows a quiet harmony of shape and color 
 which makes it essentially the dress for her. Now, a bonnet 
 with a very shallow front called bibi in the lingo of the day, 
 trimmed with nodding flowers, and set so far back that it 
 seemed to be worn as a protection to the shoulders rather 
 than as a setting to the face ; a large French cashmere shawl, 
 worn with the awkward inexperience of a bride; a dress of 
 tartan silk in large checks with three flights of flouncing; a 
 quantity of chains and charms, but faultless gloves and 
 shoes it must be owned, composed the attire of the younger 
 woman. As to the other, in tow as it were of her smarter 
 consort, she was short, thick-set, with a high color, and wore 
 a gown, a shawl, and a bonnet, in which a practised eye would 
 at once have recognized, if not the rag-fair tone of the 
 Temple, at least an unmistakable stamp of "second-hand." 
 The actress' mother of whom the indescribable type stood 
 incarnate before la Peyrade is always arrayed by these in- 
 expensive means; the garments she wears, fated to do duty 
 for two generations, reversing the natural order of things, 
 after serving the young have reverted to the old. 
 
 After politely setting two chairs, "Whom have I the honor 
 of addressing?'' asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the younger visitor, who had uncere- 
 moniously come in before the elder, "I beg to introduce myself 
 under the auspices of one of your legal colleagues, Monsieur 
 Minard, the advocate." 
 
 "Indeed, most happy," said the Provencal. "And what is 
 the matter he recommends to my services ?" 
 
 "Monsieur, I am a dramatic artist. I made my first ap-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 383 
 
 pearance on any stage in this part of the town, and that makes 
 me hope that a local paper may be favorable to me; I have 
 lately left the Luxembourg theatre, where I was leading 
 lady." 
 
 "And now you are ?" 
 
 "At the Folies, monsieur, where I take Dejazet's parts." 
 
 "The Folies?" repeated la Peyrade, in a tone that de- 
 manded enlightenment. 
 
 "The Folies-Dramatiques," Madame Cardinal put in with 
 an engaging smile the reader will no doubt have identified 
 her. "These young ladies have a trick, you see, of shortening 
 the names. In the Delassements Comiques they say Delass- 
 Com. I always tell them that it is shocking bad style. In 
 business, now, it is just the other way about. In the fish line, 
 for instance, you would never say 'Skate, skate,' but 'Fresh 
 skate, all alive, oh !' That sounds to me ever so much better." 
 
 "Mother!" said the leading lady, with imperious severity, 
 for Madame Cardinal, carried away by old habits, as she 
 ended her speech had fallen into the sing-song cry of her trade 
 as a fish-hawker. 
 
 "And you are coming out there soon ?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, in a part in which I have five dresses: a 
 page's costume, the uniform of a little drummer of the cadets 
 of the Imperial Guard, a great coquette, a dress a la Dugazon, 
 with a long waist, and then the Fairy Lilas, appearing at the 
 end in a glow of colored fire." 
 
 "Very well, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, "I will instruct 
 our theatrical critic to pay particular attention to your first 
 appearance." 
 
 "And to give her a little encouragement, monsieur?" said 
 Madame Cardinal, in wheedling entreaty. "She is such a 
 young thing ! And though I say it as oughtn't, I can answer 
 for it she works day and night." 
 
 "Mother!" said Olympe severely. "I must take my chance. 
 It is enough if the gentleman will only promise that I shall 
 have a notice. So many pieces are brought out at the Folies 
 that nobody thinks about; but, as I say, belonging to this 
 part of the town "
 
 8&1 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Quite so, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade conclusively. 
 "My colleague Minard is well, I hope?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; he spent the evening with us yesterday, putting 
 me through my parts." 
 
 "Pray give him my compliments," said la Peyrade, as he 
 saw the ladies to the door. 
 
 Olympe Cardinal went out first, as she had come in, leaving 
 a distance of about twenty yards between herself and her 
 mother, who with difficulty kept pace with her. 
 ! "Well, what do you say to Monsieur Minard?" asked la 
 Peyrade of Thuillier as he came back, "one of the suitors for 
 Celeste's hand. There is a man who can bear to wait." 
 
 "-Not at home to anybody," cried Thuillier to the office-boy, 
 as he shut the door and bolted it. "Now, my good fellow," 
 he added to la Peyrade, "I really must talk to you. My dear 
 boy," said Thuillier, beginning in a tone of irony, he had 
 heard that nothing so discomfited an adversary, "I have 
 heard something that will delight you, I am sure ; I have been 
 told why my pamphlet was seized." 
 
 And he fixed la Peyrade with his eye. 
 
 "The deuce !" said la Peyrade, with perfect simplicity, "it 
 was seized because they were bent on seizing it. They sought, 
 and they found as anything can be found if you look for it 
 passages which the King's advisers chose to call seditious 
 doctrine." 
 
 "No, you are quite mistaken," replied Thuillier. "The 
 seizure was a thing plotted, prepared, arranged beforehand," 
 
 "And by whom ?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "By those who wanted to crush the pamphlet in concert 
 with those who pledged themselves to the treachery." 
 
 "At any rate the purchasers made no great bargain," re- 
 torted the lawyer, "for even as a victim to persecution I do 
 not see that your work has made any great sensation." 
 
 "But how about the sellers?" said Thuillier, with exacer- 
 bated irony. 
 
 "Well, they were the cleverer, no doubt," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Thuillier, "you think a great deal of
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 385 
 
 being clever; but allow me to observe that the police, whose 
 hand I can plainly trace in this matter, is not apt, as a rule, 
 to throw money out of the window."' 
 
 And again he stared hard at the lawyer. 
 
 "So you think you have discovered that the police had 
 bargained in advance for the suppression of the pamphlet?" 
 said la Peyrade, without wincing. 
 
 "Yes, my dear sir; and I even know for certain the price 
 paid to the person who undertook this honorable task." 
 
 "The person?" said la Peyrade. "It is not impossible that 
 by giving my mind to it I might also know who it was ; as to 
 the amount, I have no idea about it at all." 
 
 "Well, but I can state the figures twenty-five thousand 
 francs," said Thuillier emphatically. "That was the sum 
 paid over to Judas." 
 
 "Excuse me, my dear fellow, but twenty-five thousand 
 francs is a large sum of money. You are a man of importance, 
 that I do not deny ; at the same time you are scarcely such a 
 bugbear to the Government as to be worth so large an outlay. 
 Twenty-five thousand francs is as much as would be paid to 
 choke off some famous pamphlet attacking the administration 
 of the civil list; but our financial treatise did not aim so 
 high, and such a sum of money drawn from the secret service 
 fund merely for the pleasure of playing you a trick, seems to 
 me rather fabulously large." 
 
 "It would seem, then," said Thuillier bitterly, "that the 
 worthy traitor had some object in exaggerating my impor- 
 tance. One thing is certain : that gentleman owed twenty-five 
 thousand francs, a debt that worried him a good deal, and a 
 little while before the seizure the said gentleman suddenly 
 found himself in a position to pay. Now, unless you can tell 
 me where he found the money, the inference, it strikes me, is 
 one you will not find it hard to draw." 
 
 It was now la Peyrade who stared at Thuillier. 
 
 "Monsieur Thuillier," said he, raising his voice, "will you 
 be good enough to have done with general statements and 
 enigmas, and name your man?"
 
 886 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "No, I will not," said Thnillier, striking the table with his 
 fist. "I will not name him, in consideration of the feelings 
 of affection and esteem which have so long united us. But 
 you have understood me, Monsieur de la Peyrade." 
 
 "I have understood," said the Provencal, in a voice hoarse 
 with emotion. "And I might have known that when I 
 brought a serpent into the place I should ere long be fouled 
 by its venom. You poor fool, do you not see that you are 
 merely echoing some slander of Cerizet's ?" 
 
 "Cerizet has nothing to do with it ; on the contrary, he had 
 
 i nothing but good to say of you. But answer me ; how was it 
 
 1 that, not having a sou one day, as I know to my cost, on the 
 
 next you were in a position to pay over to Dutocq the round 
 
 sum of twenty-five thousand francs?" 
 
 La Peyrade reflected a minute. 
 
 "No," said he decisively, "it was not Dutocq who told you ; 
 he is not the man to take so strong an enemy on his hands as 
 I should be, unless it were very greatly to his interest. The 
 rascally accuser is Cerizet, from whom I snatched your house 
 near the Madeleine; Cerizet, whom I, in my long endurance, 
 sought out on his dunghill to place him in a respectable posi- 
 tion; that wretch, to whom every benefit received is but an 
 encouragement to some fresh treachery. Faugh ! If I were to 
 tell you all that man has been, I should sicken you with loath- 
 ing; he has discovered new worlds in the realms of infamy." 
 
 Thuilliers answer this time was to the purpose. 
 
 "I know not who or what Cerizet may be," said he. "I am 
 acquainted with him only through you, who introduced him 
 as an editor entirely to be relied on. But, if he were as black 
 as the devil, and supposing that the information had come 
 to me through him, that, my boy, would not make you a shade 
 whiter." 
 
 "It is true," said la Peyrade, "it is my fault that you have 
 had anything to do with him; but we wanted a man who un- 
 derstood the working of a newspaper, and he had that merit 
 for us. Can the depths of such natures ever be gauged ? I 
 believed him reformed. The responsible manager, after all,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 387 
 
 thought I, is but meat for the jail, a signing machine. I 
 fancied there would be in him the stuff for a man of straw ; 
 I was mistaken; he will never be anything but a man of 
 mud." 
 
 "That is all very fine/' said Thuillier, "but as regards those 
 twenty-five thousand francs that dropped so opportunely into 
 your hands, where did they come from? That is what you 
 omit to explain." 
 
 "But use your common sense," said la Peyrade. "How 
 should a man in my position go drawing on the reserve fund 
 of the police ; a man so poor that I could not even fling the 
 money in the teeth of your harpy of a sister when she called 
 on me to produce ten thousand francs with the insolence you 
 yourself witnessed?" 
 
 "Well, well," said Thuillier, "but if the money came from 
 an honest source, as I am more than read}' to believe, what 
 hinders you from telling me ?" 
 
 "I cannot," replied the lawyer; "the source of that money 
 is a professional secret." 
 
 "What next ! Why, you yourself have told me that the 
 rules of your cloth forbid vour meddling in money transac- 
 tions." 
 
 "And, granting that I have done something not quite regu- 
 lar," said la Peyrade, "it would be strange, I think, after all 
 I have risked for you, if you had the face to blame me." 
 
 "My poor fellow, you are trying to spoil the scent, but you 
 will not put us off the track. You want to keep your secret ; 
 well, keep it. I am master of my confidence and esteem, and 
 I shall simply pay you the forfeit as stipulated in our agree- 
 ment, and remain sole master of the paper." 
 
 "Indeed ! you turn me out !" cried la Peyrade. "The money 
 you have invested in the concern, and your hopes of election 
 you are prepared to sacrifice everything to an imputation 
 brought by a Cerizet ?" 
 
 "In the first place, as to a man to fill your place, they are 
 to be found, my good fellow. It was said long ago, the indis- 
 pensable man does not exist. As to the election, I would
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 rather never be returned at all, than owe it to the help of a 
 man " 
 
 "Finish your sentence," said la Peyrade, seeing Thuillier 
 hesitate. "Or, no, be silent rather, for you will certainly 
 blush at your suspicions, and ask my pardon on your knees.'' 
 
 The Provencal clearly saw that unless he made up his mind 
 to confess, the influence and prospects he had just recovered 
 would slip from his hold. 
 
 He -went on with great gravity: 
 
 "You will remember, my friend, that you are quite ruthless, 
 and that by subjecting me to a sort of moral torture, you are 
 forcing me to reveal a secret that is not my own." 
 
 "Go on, all the same," said Thuillier. "I will take the 
 responsibility. Only show me light in this darkness, and I 
 will be the first to acknowledge myself wrong." 
 
 "Well, then," said la Peyrade, "the twenty-five thousand 
 francs were the savings of a servant a woman who came to 
 implore me to keep the money and pay her interest." 
 
 "A woman-servant who has saved twenty-five thousand 
 francs ! By heaven, she must have lived in a good house." 
 
 "On the contrary, she is housekeeper to a feeble old pro- 
 fessor, and it was because her possession of such a sum 
 seemed so improbable, that she was anxious to make me a sort 
 of trustee by leaving it in my hands." 
 
 "On my honor," said Thuillier, in a mocking tone, "we 
 wondered where we were to get romances for our paper, but 
 with you here, I need never be uneasy. This is imagination, I 
 may say, with a vengeance." 
 
 "What !" exclaimed la Peyrade, "you do not believe me ?" 
 
 "No, I do not believe you. Twenty-five thousand francs 
 saved in the service of an old professor ! Why, it is about as 
 credible as the story of the captain of the Dame Blanche, who 
 bought an estate out of his pay." 
 
 "But if I prove the truth of my statement, if you put your 
 finger on it?" 
 
 "Then, like Saint Thomas, I will dip my flag to evidence. 
 But, my worthy friend, you must allow me to wait till the 
 proof is before me."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 389 
 
 Thuillier thought himself magnificent. "I would give two 
 louis," said he to himself, "if Brigitte were here to see how 
 I am handling him." 
 
 "Come, then," replied la Peyrade, "supposing that, without 
 going out of this room, by merely writing a note under your 
 own eyes, I bring here the person from whom I had the 
 money, and she confirms my statement, will you believe me 
 then?" 
 
 This proposition, and the confidence with which it was 
 made, could not but stagger Thuillier. 
 
 "Then, indeed," said he, changing his tone. "And you will 
 do it, to-day ; now, while we sit here ?" 
 
 "I said without leaving the room ; that is plain enough, I 
 should think." 
 
 "And who is to carry the note?" asked Thuillier. He 
 fancied that by thus insisting on every detail he was display- 
 ing the profoundest acumen. 
 
 "Who is to carry it? Why, your messenger, of course, to 
 whom you may hand it yourself." 
 
 "Well, then, write it," said Thuillier, determined to corner 
 his man. 
 
 La Peyrade took a sheet of paper and wrote, saying each 
 word aloud: 
 
 "Madame Lambert is requested to come at once, on im- 
 portant business, to the office of the paper, ficlio de la Bievre, 
 Hue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, whither the bearer will con- 
 duct her. She is impatiently awaited there by her 
 "Very obedient servant, 
 
 "TH^ODOSE DE LA PEYEADE." 
 
 "There, will that satisfy you ?" said he, handing the sheet 
 to Thuillier. 
 
 "Perfectly," said Thuillier, taking the precaution to fold 
 the note and seal it himself. 
 
 "Now for the address," said he, and the note went back into 
 la Peyrade's hands.
 
 390 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Thuillier rang for Coffinet. 
 
 "You must take this note," said he to the porter, "to the 
 person to whom it is addressed, and bring her back with you. 
 But will she be at home?" he asked. 
 
 "It is more than likely," replied la Peyradc. "But at any 
 rate neither you nor I leave this place till she comes. We 
 must see daylight !" 
 
 "Go," said Thuillier to the messenger, with a theatrical air. 
 
 As soon as they were alone, la Peyrade took up a newspaper 
 and seemed lost in study. 
 
 Thuillier, by this time rather uneasy as to the upshot of the 
 matter, was now sorry that he had not sooner had an idea 
 which dawned on him too late. 
 
 "I ought to have torn up the note and not have carried the 
 test any farther." Being anxious to appear to reinstate la 
 Peyrade in the position from which he had threatened to dis- 
 miss him: 
 
 "I say," he remarked, "I called at the printer's on my way. 
 The new type is delivered, and I think we may get our first 
 number out to-morrow." 
 
 La Peyrade made no answer, but rose and carried his paper 
 to the window. 
 
 "He is annoyed with me," thought Thuillier, "and not 
 without cause if he is guiltless. But then why did he bring 
 that Cerizet on to the premises?" 
 
 To cover his discomfiture and anxiety he sat down to the 
 editor's table, and taking a sheet of paper with the heading, 
 set himself to write a letter. 
 
 La Peyrade, on his part, soon sat down again, and taking 
 some paper, set to work, his pen flying over the page with the 
 feverish haste that betrays agitation of mind. 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye Thuillier tried to see what his 
 colleague was writing; and, observing that he was dividing 
 his paragraphs, with a number in the margin of each, 
 
 "Why," said he, "are you sketching a scheme for a law ?" 
 
 "Yes," said la Peyrade coldly : "the law of the beaten." 
 
 A few minutes after, the messenger opened the door and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 391 
 
 showed in Madame Lambert, whom he had found at home, 
 and who had come with him somewhat scared. 
 
 "You are Madame Lambert ?" asked Thuillier in an austere 
 tone. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," she replied, in a quavering voice. 
 
 After desiring her to be seated, seeing that Coffinet was 
 standing as if awaiting further orders: 
 
 "That will do," he added. "Go, and admit nobody." 
 
 Thuillier's solemnity and severe manner had aggravated 
 Madame Lambert's alarm. She had expected to meet only la 
 Peyrade, and she found herself in the presence of a stranger 
 with a very morose air, while the lawyer, who had merely 
 bowed to her, spoke not a word. Moreover, the scene was tak- 
 ing place in a newspaper office; and, as we all know, in the 
 eyes of the very pious everything that has to do with the press 
 savors of the pit and the devil. 
 
 "Well," said Thuillier to the lawyer, "there is nothing to 
 hinder you, that I can see, from explaining to the lady why 
 you sent for her." 
 
 To remove Thuillier's suspicions la Peyrade was bound to 
 attack the subject rudely and without any preliminaries. 
 
 "We want to ask you, madame," said he ex abrupto, 
 "whether, two months since, you did not place in my hands, 
 in trust, at interest, the sum of twenty-five thousand francs ?" 
 
 Though Madame Lambert felt that Thuillier and the Pro- 
 ven gal both had their eye on her, at this point-blank question 
 she could not repress a little jump. 
 
 "Lord in Heaven!" she exclaimed, "twenty-five thousand 
 francs ! Where on earth should I have got such a sum?" 
 
 La Peyrade's face did not betray such disappointment as 
 might have been expected. Thuillier turned to him with a 
 look of pain and pity. 
 
 "You see, my dear fellow " said he. 
 
 "Then you are quite sure, madame," said the lawyer, "that 
 you did not hand over to me a sum of twenty-five thousand 
 francs. You declare it, you would swear to it?" 
 
 "Indeed, sir, is it a likely story that a poor woman like me
 
 392 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 and twenty-five thousand francs should ever have gone in at 
 the same door together ? What little money I have ever had, 
 as every one knows, I have spent on housekeeping for the 
 poor dear gentleman I have served this twenty years past." 
 
 "This seems to me unanswerable," said Thuillier pom- 
 pously. 
 
 La Peyrade showed not the faintest shadow of distress ; on 
 the contrary, with an air of yielding completely to Thuillier, 
 he said: 
 
 "You hear, my good friend, and I may call upon you to 
 prove, that this lady never had twenty-five thousand francs, 
 consequently she can never have given them to me. So, as 
 the notary, Monsieur Dupuis, in whose hands I fancied I had 
 deposited the sum in my own name, went off to Brussels this 
 morning with all his clients' mone} r , I have nothing to refund 
 to Madame Lambert, and Dupuis escapes " 
 
 "Monsieur Dupuis, the notary, has run away !" gasped 
 Madame Lambert, carried away by this terrible news out of 
 her usually sweet demeanor and Christian resignation. "I 
 declare, what a villain! Only this morning he was taking 
 the sacrament at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas!" 
 
 "To ensure a prosperous journey, no doubt," replied la 
 Peyrade. 
 
 "You can talk lightly enough, sir," said the woman, "but 
 the swindler has carried off all my savings; and as a matter 
 of fact, I did give them to you, monsieur, and you will be 
 answerable I look only to you." 
 
 "Now, then," said la Peyrade to Thuillier, indicating Ma- 
 dame Lambert, in whose whole demeanor there was something 
 of the she-wolf just robbed of her cubs, "is that spontaneous 
 natural or do you think we have got up this little 
 comedy ?" 
 
 "I am speechless," replied Thuillier, "amazed at C^rizet's 
 impudence and my own stupidity; I can only surrender at 
 discretion.'* 
 
 "Madame," said la Peyrade pleasantly, "get over your ter- 
 rible alarm. The notary Dupuis is still a saintly man, and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 393 
 
 quite incapable of robbing his clients; your money is still 
 perfectly safe in his hands. As to this gentleman, to whom 
 it was necessary that I should prove having, in fact, received 
 that sum from you, he is my second self, and your secret, 
 though known to him, still dwells locked in my bosom." 
 
 "Very good, monsieur," said Madame Lambert; "then, gen- 
 tlemen, you have nothing more to say to me ?" 
 
 "No, dear madame, and I can only beg your forgiveness for 
 having been obliged to give you such a fright." 
 
 Madame Lambert left the room with every sign of the most 
 respectful humility; but at the door she turned back and 
 said to la Peyrade, in a tone of the most bland suavity : 
 
 "When, sir, do you think you could make it convenient to 
 let me have my money back?" 
 
 "I told you plainly," replied la Peyrade stiffly, "that nota- 
 ries never return on demand the moneys they have invested." 
 
 "Do you think, sir, that if I went myself to Monsieur 
 Dupuis to ask him to oblige ?" 
 
 "I think," said the lawyer. sharply, "that by going to him 
 you would do a perfectly idiotic thing. He had the money 
 from me, in my name, as you wished, and knows nothing of 
 any one else." 
 
 "Then, sir, will you be so good as to attend to the matter 
 and get back that little sum, which is but a trifle to you? I 
 do not wish to hurry you, sir, as is but fair; but within two 
 or three months I may find a use for it; I was told of a little 
 freehold that might be just the thing." 
 
 "All right, Madame Lambert," answered la Peyrade, with 
 suppressed irritation. "I will do as you wish, and sooner 
 perhaps than you expect I shall hope to hand you over your 
 money." 
 
 "If quite convenient, sir," said the bigot. "You told me 
 that at the least indiscretion on my part you would " 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course," said the Provengal, interrupting her. 
 
 "I have the honor to be your very humble servant gentle- 
 men both," said the woman, who this time really went away. 
 
 "You see, my dear fellow,*" said Theodose, when he was
 
 394 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 alone with Thuillier, "to what straits I am brought by the ne- 
 cessity for humoring your sick brain. This debt was dormant, 
 in a chronic state, and now you have roused it to the acute 
 form." 
 
 "I am grieved, my dear friend, to think of my stupid 
 credulity. But do not be worried about the woman's de- 
 mands; we will arrange the matter, and even if I have to 
 advance the money on the marriage settlements " 
 
 "Come what may, my excellent friend," said la Peyrade, 
 "we must begin by reconsidering our personal arrangements. 
 I do not choose to be hauled over the coals every morning ; and 
 just now, while we were waiting for that woman, I sketched 
 the outlines of a little agreement which we will talk over and 
 sign, if you please, before our first number comes out." 
 
 "But our deed of partnership," said Thuillier, "affords as 
 it seems to me a charter " 
 
 "Which, as clause 14 provides, by the payment of a miser- 
 able forfeit of five thousand francs, you may treat as so much 
 waste paper. Thank you for nothing! We will have some- 
 thing a little tighter than that." 
 
 At this moment Cerizet came in. His manner was swag- 
 gering and triumphant. 
 
 "I have brought the money, my masters," said he, "and in 
 an hour the security will be signed and sealed." 
 
 But remarking that his news was received with extreme 
 coldness, 
 
 "Why, what is the matter ?" he asked. 
 
 "The matter," said Thuillier, "is that I have no dealings 
 with double-faces and slanderers; that we will have nothing 
 to do with you or your money, and that I advise you not to 
 honor these premises with your presence for another minute." 
 
 "'Heyday ! heyday !" exclaimed Cerizet. "What, is our dear 
 old Thuillier caught once more?" 
 
 "Go, sir," said Thuillier, "you have no further business 
 here." 
 
 "Hallo, my boy !" said Cerizet to la Peyrade, "you seem 
 to have turned the good man's cream sour. Well, he did not
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 305 
 
 invent the printing-press, and we have seen what you can do. 
 Never mind, I consider that you were wrong in not going to 
 see du Portail, and I will tell him " 
 
 "Are you going ?" said Thuillier in an ominous tone. 
 
 "Well, well, my good sir," replied the money-lender, "I did 
 not come to seek you. I managed to live before your day, and 
 I can live after it. Only try to escape paying the twenty-five 
 thousand francs out of your own pocket, for you are within an 
 inch of it, I can tell you." 
 
 Thus speaking, Cerizet replaced his pocketbook, with the 
 thirty-three thousand francs in banknotes, in his breast- 
 pocket, and, taking up his hat, which he had placed on the 
 table, he carefully polished it with his coat-sleeve, and de- 
 parted. 
 
 Cerizet' s tale-bearing had led Thuillier to attempt a most 
 luckless campaign. He was now la Peyrade's humble slave, 
 and obliged to submit to all his terms. The lawyer was to 
 have five hundred francs i\ month for his services to the 
 journal ; all his contributions were to be separately paid for at 
 the rate of fifty francs a column, an exorbitant figure in 
 view of the small size of the sheet. The paper was to be kept 
 going for six months, under pain of a forfeit of fifteen thou- 
 sand francs; and as the chief contributor he stipulated for 
 despotic omnipotence, absolutely free to insert, alter, or reject 
 any article without even assigning his reasons for the deci- 
 sion; such were the ostensible conditions of the agreement 
 made in duplicate and signed in good faith by both parties. 
 
 But in virtue of another and private document, Thuillier 
 undertook to stand security for the sum of twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs due from la Peyrade to the bigot; "the afore- 
 mentioned la Peyrade, pleader-at-law, of the second part," 
 promising that in the event of his marrying Mademoiselle 
 Celeste Colleville, and of the money having been meanwhile 
 disbursed by Thuillier, he would acknowledge the sum 
 paid on demand as received in advance out of the bride's 
 fortune. By this ingenious trick the crafty Provengal evaded
 
 396 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the law, which allows no such forestalling of money in con- 
 sideration of a marriage. For what else than a payment on 
 account was this sum of twenty-five thousand francs, for 
 which Thuillier had no security whatever but the conclusion 
 of the match, which was still no more than a proposal in the 
 air? 
 
 Matters thus arranged and ratified by the candidate for 
 election, who, but for la Peyrade, saw no chance of success. 
 Thuillier had a happy idea. He went to hunt up, at the 
 Cirque-Olympique, where he had seen the man taking tickets 
 at the entrance, a retired clerk who had been in his office, 
 named Fleury, and offered him Cerizet's place. Fleury, for- 
 merly in the army, a good shot, a capital swordsman, would 
 certainly be the man to command respect in the office. Not 
 less dexterous in the art of "leading creditors a dance," he 
 was the first in the Exchequer office to hit on the ingenious 
 idea of inventing spurious claims on his salary, so as to 
 nullify any real claims that might be put in to stop his pay. 
 He adopted the same means to preserve from his creditors the 
 thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three francs 
 thirty-three centimes which he was required by law to deposit 
 in his nfame. 
 
 The paper thus constituted, and lacking only a few contribu- 
 tors, who could presently be found, la Peyrade, meanwhile, 
 with his ready pen, being quite able to fill their place, the 
 first number appeared. 
 
 Thuillier once more began the excursions through Paris in 
 which we found him embarked when his pamphlet was pub- 
 lished. He would walk into a reading-room or a cafe, and 
 call for the ficho de la Bievre, and when, as was unfortunately 
 too often the case, he was told that the paper was not 
 known, 
 
 "Why, it is incredible," he would say, "that any respectable 
 place should not take in such a popular journal !" 
 
 And he quitted the premises in disdain, never perceiving 
 that in many places, where this bagman's dodge was well 
 known, he was noticed only to be laughed at.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 397 
 
 On the evening of the day when that first number was 
 brought out, Brigitte had a large crowd in her rooms, though 
 it was not a Sunday. She had made up her quarrel with la 
 Peyrade, whom her brother had brought in to dinner, and 
 she declared that, flattery quite apart, she thought his first 
 article "wonderfully well hit off." And indeed every visitor 
 declared that the public was delighted with this first number. 
 
 The public everybody known what that means. To a man 
 who has launched any sort of work in print, the public is 
 composed of five or six intimate acquaintances, who, short of 
 quarreling with the author, cannot escape making some com- 
 ment on his lucubrations. 
 
 "For my part," cried Colleville, "I may say that it is the 
 first political article I ever read which did not send me to 
 sleep." 
 
 "Certainly," observed Phellion, "the article strikes me as 
 stamped with vigor, combined with such a classic style as we 
 should seek in vain in the ordinary run of public prints." 
 
 "Yes," said Dutocq, "it is very well formulated ; and there 
 is a turn, a character, in the expression that is by no means 
 common or commonplace. But we shall see how it wears. 
 To-morrow I expect to find that the Echo de la Bievre is furi- 
 ously attacked by all the other papers." 
 
 "But that is all we ask," said Thuillier, "and if only the 
 Government would do us the favor to be down upon us !" 
 
 "Thank you," said Fleury, who had also been brought in to 
 dinner by the proprietor; "but I would just as soon not be 
 called upon to play my part quite so soon." 
 
 "Oh, down on you !" said Dutocq. "No, you will not be 
 seized or stopped ; but I fancy the Ministerial papers will fire 
 a heavy broadside." 
 
 Thuillier was at the office by eight o'clock next morning, 
 to be the first to meet this formidable fire. After looking 
 through every paper, he discovered that there was no more 
 notice taken of the $cho de la Bievre than if it had not ex- 
 isted. When la Peyrade came in, he found his luckless friend 
 in despair.
 
 398 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Are you surprised?" said the lawyer coolly. "I left jou 
 yesterday to enjoy your anticipations of a hot engagement 
 with the press; but, for my part, I knew full well that not a 
 word would be said about us. Is not every paper that begins 
 with some brilliancy always met for the first fortnight, or 
 even for a month, with a conspiracy of silence ?" 
 
 "A conspiracy of silence !" echoed Thuillier admiringly. 
 
 He had no idea of what it meant, but in the mere words 
 there was something grandiose, which appealed to the imagi- 
 nation. When la Peyrade had explained that, by a conspiracy 
 of silence, he meant a deliberate system on the part of the 
 established journals of taking no notice whatever of those 
 newly born, so as to avoid advertising them by their com- 
 ments, Thuillier was hardly more satisfied than he had been 
 in the first instance by the sounding magniloquence of the 
 words themselves. That is the way with the middle-class 
 mind; words are a coinage which pass current without exam- 
 ination. It is fired or soothed by a word, indignant or en- 
 raptured. The citizen may be led by a watchword to raise 
 a revolution and overthrow the government he has chosen. 
 
 The paper, however, was but a means to an end; the end 
 was Thuillier' s election. It was hinted at, rather than urged, 
 in the early numbers ; but one morning in the columns of the 
 Echo a letter appeared from certain of the voters, thanking 
 their nominee of the Municipal Council for the firm and genu- 
 inely liberal attitude he had maintained in the management 
 of certain common interests. "This firmness," said the com- 
 munication, "had brought upon him persecution by a govern- 
 ment which, following in tow of foreign powers, had sacrificed 
 Poland and sold itself to England. The arrondissement now 
 looked for a man to represent it in the Chamber, who, having 
 well-tested convictions, would carry aloft the standard of 
 opposition to the ruling dynasty, and so, by the mere omen of 
 his name, become a standing warning to the existing power." 
 
 This letter, cleverly commented on by la Peyrade, was 
 signed with the names of Barbot and Metivier, both tenants 
 in the old house in the Rue Saint-Dominique, the second,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 399 
 
 jndeed, supplying the paper on which the Echo was printed; 
 and with those of most of the tradespeople that Brigitte dealt 
 with, having still given them her custom since removing 
 from the quarter, with an eye to the election ; the doctor, the 
 druggist, and the architect had also added their names, and 
 finally Barniol, Phellion's son-in-law, who held advanced 
 opinions. As to Phellon himself, he had thought it far too 
 mild, and ever "without fear and without reproach," though 
 he feared lest his refusal might damage his son's love-affairs, 
 he had bravely abstained from signing the letter. 
 
 This tentative flight had the happiest results; the ten or 
 twelve men, who had thus put their names forward, were 
 supposed to express the general wish of the voters of the con- 
 stituency, and were called "the voice of the electors/' and 
 thus Thuillier's cause at once made such a leap forward that 
 Minard hesitated to put forward his rival claims. 
 
 Brigitte, enchanted at the turn things were taking, was the 
 first to say that the marriage question must now be settled, 
 and Thuillier was quite of her mind, since he dreaded lest at 
 any moment he might be called upon to pay up the money for 
 which he was security. 
 
 The old maid and the lawyer thrashed the matter out. She 
 did not conceal her fears as to the endurance of her sovereign 
 authority, when a son-in-law of such spirit and mastery should 
 be settled in the house. 
 
 "And, if we are to disagree," said she in conclusion, "we 
 had far better have separate establishments from the first; we 
 shall be none the worse friends for that." 
 
 La Peyrade declared that he would never for all the world 
 agree to such an arrangement. On the contrary, he regarded 
 the perfect security he should enjoy as to the management of 
 his domestic affairs, under the supreme direction of Brigitte, 
 as one of the most important features of the happiness that 
 awaited him. He would have enough on his hands in the 
 management of business matters, and could not imagine how 
 she could suppose that he would want to interfere in concerns 
 in which he was entirely incompetent. In short, he so effect-
 
 400 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 ually reasoned and persuaded Brigitte, that she pledged her- 
 self to take immediate steps for having the banns published, 
 and to make it her business to announce an early termination 
 of the affair to Celeste, who she said would consent without 
 demur. 
 
 "My dear child," said she to Celeste, one morning, "I sup- 
 pose you have quite given up the idea of marrying Felix Phel- 
 lion. In the first place, he is more an atheist than ever, and 
 you yourself have noticed that his head was turned. You 
 have met Madame Marmus, at Madame Minard's, the wife 
 of a savant, an officer of the Legion of Honor; indeed, a 
 member of the Institute. There is no more wretched woman 
 on earth; her husband buries her behind the Luxembourg, 
 close to the Eue ISTotre-Dame des Champs, in the Eue Duguay- 
 Trouin, a street that is neither paved nor lighted. When he 
 goes out, he does not know which way he is walking, and finds 
 himself at the Champ de Mars, when he meant to go to the 
 Boulevard Poissonniere. He is incapable even of giving his 
 address to a cab-driver, and so absent-minded that he cannot 
 tell you whether he has had his dinner or no. You may fancy 
 what life is to the wives of these men, who always have their 
 spectacles on their nose to gaze at the stars." 
 
 "But Felix is not so absent-minded as that," said Celeste. 
 
 "Of course not, because he is younger; but with years his 
 absence of mind will increase with his atheism. So we are 
 all of one mind, child, that he is not a suitable husband for 
 you, and your mother and father and Thuillier and I every 
 one in the house who has any common sense we have all de- 
 cided that you are to make up your mind in favor of la 
 Peyrade, a man of the world who will make his way, who has 
 done us great service, and who is now going to get your god- 
 father into the Chamber. We are prepared to settle on you, 
 in his favor, such a sum as we should certainly not give you 
 for any other man. So consider it settled. The banns will 
 be published, and this day week we will sign the contract. 
 We shall give a grand dinner for your relations and intimate
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 401 
 
 friends, with an evening party afterwards, when the papers 
 will be signed, and your trousseau and presents will be 
 shown ; and as I am taking it in hand, you may depend on it 
 things will be done in style, especially if you do not behave 
 like a baby, but fall in with our ideas." 
 
 "But, Aunt Brigitte " said Celeste timidly. 
 
 "There are no buts nor ifs to the matter," said the old maid 
 peremptorily; "the whole thing is settled, and unless you 
 think yourself wiser than your betters, mademoiselle ' 
 
 "I will do as you wish, aunt," said Celeste, who felt a cloud 
 about to burst over her head, and knew she was not strong 
 enough to struggle against the iron will that had pronounced 
 sentence on her. 
 
 So she went off to pour her sorrows into her godmother, 
 Madame Thuillier's bosom; and hearing herself counseled 
 to be patient and resigned, the poor child saw that here again 
 she would find no support in the smallest attempt at resist- 
 ance, so she made up her mind that the sacrifice was an ac- 
 complished fact. 
 
 Brigitte, throwing herself with frenzied zeal into the new 
 sphere of occupation thus brought into her life, at once set to 
 work to get the trousseau made, and dresses and accessories 
 bought. Like all misers, who on great occasions shed their 
 habits, and seem to change their very natures, the old maid 
 thought nothing good enough, and flung her money about so 
 freely that until the day named for signing the contract, the 
 jeweler, the dressmaker, the seamstress, the milliner, the up- 
 holsterer, all from the most noted shops, almost lived in 
 the house. 
 
 "It is like a procession," said Josephine the cook, lost in 
 admiration, to Franchise from the Minards'; "from morning 
 till night the bell is on the go." 
 
 The dinner was ordered in from Chabot and Potel, not 
 from Chevet. Brigitte thus set the seal to her original genius, 
 and her emancipation from the beaten track of Madame de 
 Godollo. 
 
 The party consisted of three Thuilliers, three Collevilles,
 
 402 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 including the bride-elect, la Peyrade, Dutocq, and Fleury, the 
 responsible manager of the $cho de la Bievre, whom he had 
 asked to witness for him, the very small number of his ac- 
 quaintance allowing him no choice; Minard and Rabourdin, 
 the witnesses on Celeste's part; Madame and Mademoiselle 
 Minard, and Minard junior; two of Thuillier's colleagues 
 in the Town Council; Dupuis, the notary, who was to draw 
 up the settlements, and finally the Abbe Gondrin, the spir- 
 itual director of both Madame Thuillier and Celeste, who was 
 to pronounce the nuptial benediction. 
 
 j This last-mentioned member of the chosen party had for- 
 merly been priest of the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut- 
 Pas ; his elegant manners and talent for preaching had led to 
 his being transferred by the Archbishop from the very poor 
 parish to which he had first been appointed to the fashionable 
 church of the Madeleine. Since these two ladies had again 
 become his parishioners, the young Abbe occasionally called 
 on them, and Thuillier, who had gone in person to explain 
 to him in his own way the suitability of his choice of la Pey- 
 rade, while taking care to abuse young Phellion's religious 
 opinions, had easily persuaded him to use his unctuous and 
 persuasive eloquence to secure the victim's submission. 
 
 Just as they were about to sit down three guests were miss- 
 ing: the two Minards, father and son, and the notary Dupuis. 
 The notary had, indeed, sent Thuillier a line in the morning 
 to beg that he would not expect him to dinner ; that at nine 
 precisely he would join the part)-, bringing the papers with 
 him, and be at Mademoiselle Thuillier's orders. 
 
 Madame Minard apologized for her son by saying that he 
 was confined to his room by a bad sore throat ; as to the elder 
 Minard, who did not accompany his wife and daughter, his 
 absence remained unexplained, and Madame Minard, while 
 assuring them that he would certainly come, insisted on their 
 sitting down without him. Brigitte gave orders that the soup 
 should be kept hot for him; for, among the middle classes, 
 a dinner without soup is not a dinner at all. 
 
 The meal was not particularly cheerful ; and so far as
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 403 
 
 animation of talk was concerned, though the fare was better, 
 what a difference between this dinner and the famous im- 
 promptu banquet before the election to the Town Council ! 
 
 The absence of three of the company was an initial chill; 
 then Flavie was in low spirits, she had had an interview 
 with la Peyrade in her own house, and their explanation had 
 been drowned in tears. Celeste, even if she had been happy 
 in the choice made for her, could not with propriety have 
 shown much joy on the surface, and she made no effort to 
 look happy, not daring even to glance at her godmother, whose 
 face looked like one long woful bleat, so to speak; the poor 
 child felt that if they only exchanged a look, the tears must 
 rise to her eyes. Thuillier was puffed up with importance, 
 so he was stiff and pompous ; Brigitte, quite out of the groove 
 in which she was accustomed to rule without rivalry, was 
 equally awkward and uncomfortable. 
 
 Colleville, indeed, by a few facetious remarks tried to 
 raise the temperature of the meeting, but the rough flavor 
 of his pleasantries, in the atmosphere on which he tried to 
 float them, had the effect of cackling laughter in a sick room, 
 and a mute hint to "behave," given at the same time by 
 Thuillier, la Peyrade, and Flavie, put a damper on his high 
 spirits and turbulent festivity. 
 
 Oddly enough it was the gravest dignitary of the party 
 who, seconded by Rabourdin, succeeded in warming the air. 
 The Abbe Gondrin, a man of refined and cultivated mind, 
 had, like all pure and well-regulated souls, a fund of gentle 
 cheerfulness which he could make contagious, and some 
 degree of animation was beginning to be perceptible when 
 Minard came in. 
 
 After making his apologies on the ground of some business 
 at the Mairie that had to be settled before he could get away, 
 he shot a significant look at his wife, which seemed rather to 
 suggest that some private affair had detained him. La Pey- 
 rade and Thuillier, having received an order for a box for the 
 famous fairy drama in which Olympe Cardinal was to appear 
 that evening Le Telegraphs d' Amour were not altogether
 
 404 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 convinced of Julien Minard's illness. They, on their part, 
 exchanged meaning looks as they observed the elder Miuards' 
 mutual intelligence, and they seemed to be wondering whether 
 the young gentleman's secret were out, and if the task of 
 assuring himself of his son's misconduct were not the business 
 that had detained Monsieur le Maire so late. 
 
 Being fairly practised in the art of picking up the thread 
 of the conversation where he found it, and feeling, no doubt, 
 that he must conceal his anxieties under the semblance of 
 perfect freedom of mind, 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Minard, as soon as he had hastily 
 swallowed a few mouthf uls, "have you heard the great news ?" 
 
 "What is that ?" asked one and another with eager interest. 
 
 "An extraordinary discovery was communicated to the 
 Academy of Sciences at their meeting to-day; there is another 
 star in the sky." 
 
 "You don't say so," said Colleville. "Then it will take the 
 place of the star that Beranger missed from its place when he 
 lamented Chateaubriand's departure, to the air of a song 
 from Octavie: 
 
 "Chateaubriand, why leave your native shore ?" 
 
 Colleville sang the quotation, and this so exasperated Flavie 
 that if it were the custom for a wife to sit next her husband 
 at table, the retired musician would not have been let off with 
 the stern and imperative : "Colleville !" by which he was called 
 to order from the other end. 
 
 "The thing which gives this grea,i astronomical event a 
 peculiar interest for the party I have the honor of address- 
 ing," Minard went on, "is that the discoverer is a resident 
 in the twelfth arrondissement, where many of you lived, or 
 are still living. And, indeed, every detail of this great 
 scientific achievement is remarkable. The Academy, merely 
 from reading the paper which announces it, is so entirely 
 convinced of the existence of this new star that when they 
 rose, a deputation proceeded to the residence of this modern 
 Galileo to congratulate him in the name of their Body; and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 405 
 
 yet the star is invisible to the eye, even through a telescope; 
 it is by pure calculation and reasoning that its existence and 
 its place in the heavens are proved beyond all dispute. 
 'There must be an unknown star in that spot; I cannot see 
 it, but I am certain.' This is what the discoverer said at the 
 Academy after convincing them by mathematics. And now, 
 gentlemen, who do you think is the Christopher Columbus of 
 this new world ? A purblind old man, 'who can but just see 
 enough to guide himself in the streets." 
 
 "How splendid ! How wonderful !" they all exclaimed. 
 
 "And what is his name ?" asked several persons. 
 
 "Monsieur Picot, or, if you prefer it, Pere Picot, for that 
 is the style he is known by in the Rue du Val-de-Grace, where 
 he lives. He is neither more nor less than an old professor of 
 mathematics, who has turned out some very first-rate pupils. 
 Felix Phellion, indeed, whom we all know, studied under 
 him ; and it was he who just now read the paper before the 
 Academy on behalf of his old master." 
 
 On hearing the name of Felix, and remembering the 
 promise in the sky, of which he had spoken, and which she 
 had believed to be sheer insanity, Celeste looked at Madame 
 Thuillier, and her godmother's face had brightened up, 
 seeming to convey to her: 
 
 "Courage, my child; all is not yet lost." 
 
 "My dear boy," said Thuillier to la Peyrade, "Felix is to be 
 here this evening. You must get hold of him and persuade 
 him to let us have that paper. It would be a stroke of fortune 
 for the J^cho if only we could get it to publish first." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Minard, volunteering a reply. "It 
 would be catering handsomely for the curiosity of the public, 
 for the discovery will make an immense sensation. The 
 deputation, not having found Monsieur Picot at home, went 
 on at once to the Minister for Public Instruction; the Min- 
 ister flew immediately to the Tuileries, and this evening's 
 Messager, which came out unusually early this afternoon, so 
 that ] read it as I was driving here in my carriage, announces 
 that Monsieur Picot is made chevalier of the Legion of Honor,
 
 406 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 with a pension of eighteen hundred francs out of the fund 
 for the encouragement of science and literature." 
 
 "Well done!" cried Thuillier, "there, at any rate, is a 
 Cross well bestowed !" 
 
 "But eighteen hundred francs a year," said Dutocq, 
 "strikes me as very mean." 
 
 "It certainly is," said Thuillier, "when you remember that 
 the money is paid out of the taxes, and we constantly see it 
 wasted on a nobody recommended by the Camarilla" 
 
 "Oh, eighteen hundred francs is something, after all," re- 
 plied Minard, "especially for a savant. Those people have 
 hardly any wants, and are accustomed to live on very little." 
 
 "I rather fancy," said la Peyrade, "that good Monsieur 
 Picot's life is not very well cared for; for at this very time, 
 his family, who first tried to get a commission in lunacy, are 
 appealing for trustees to be appointed. He is being robbed, 
 they assert, by a housekeeper who lives with him. By the 
 way, Thuillier, you know the woman ; it was she who came to 
 the office, the other day, and who had been led to believe that 
 our notary, Dupuis, in whose hands she had some savings, 
 had gone off with the money." 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course," said Thuillier in a significant tone. 
 "Yes, I know the woman." 
 
 "It is a queer thing," said Brigitte, seizing the opportunity 
 for emphasizing the argument which she had derived a few 
 days since from the absence of mind of Marmus, the Acade- 
 mician, "all these learned men, outside their own science, are 
 no good at all, and in their own home have to be minded like 
 children." 
 
 "That," said the Abbe Gondrin, "shows how entirely they 
 are absorbed by their studies, and at the same time reveals an 
 artless nature which really has a touching side to it." 
 
 "When they are not as wilful as donkeys," said Brigitte 
 tartly. "All I can tell you, Monsieur FAbbe, is that if I had 
 ever thought of marrying, a learned man would not have 
 served my turn. In the first place, what is it they work at, I 
 ask you ? Stupid nonsense, for the most part. For here you are
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 407 
 
 all lost in admiration at the discovery of a star; but what the 
 better will any one of us be for that ? As to more stars, I can- 
 not see but what there are plenty already." 
 
 "Bravo, Brigitte!" cried Colleville, forgetting himself 
 again. "Eight you are, my girl; and, like you, I think that 
 a man who discovered a new dish would deserve better of 
 mankind." 
 
 "Keally, Colleville," said Flavie, "I must say your eccentric 
 remarks are in the very worst taste." 
 
 "Dear mademoiselle," said the Abbe to Brigitte, "you 
 might indeed be right if we were constituted solely of matter, 
 and if there were not bound up with our body a soul, whose 
 instincts and cravings need to be satisfied. For my part, I 
 think that the sense of the infinitude which dwells within us, 
 and to which each one strives to respond in his own way, is 
 admirably suited to apprehend the labors of astronomy, which 
 reveal to us new worlds scattered throughout space by the 
 hand of the Creator. 
 
 "In you that instinct of the infinite finds another outlet. 
 It looks nearer home; and your passion for the happiness of 
 those about you, your ardent and devoted affection for your 
 admirable brother, are no less manifestations of eager aspira- 
 tions which are not earth-born, and which, while seeking their 
 end, never pause to ask: 'Of what use is this or that; what 
 good will it do us?' However, I may tell you that the stars 
 are not so utterly useless as you seem to suppose ; but for them 
 mariners would sometimes be sorely puzzled how to steer, and 
 could not go to distant lands to fetch the vanilla, with which 
 you have flavored this delicious cream that I am now eating. 
 So, Monsieur Colleville will perceive that there is a closer 
 connection than he fancies between the stars and good dishes. 
 None are to be disdained neither astronomers nor good 
 housewives " 
 
 The abbe was interrupted by the noise of a violent alterca- 
 tion in the anteroom. 
 
 "I tell you, I will go in !" cried a voice. 
 
 "No, monsieur, you shall not go in," answered the voice of
 
 408 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 the man-servant. 'They are at dinner, sir, I tell you, and 
 you cannot force your way into a private house in that style." 
 
 Thuillier turned pale; since the seizure of his pamphlet 
 he scented the police in every unexpected visit. 
 
 Among other rules impressed on Brigitte by Madame de 
 Godollo, one which had needed most constant repetition, was 
 that she should never leave the table over which she was pre- 
 siding as the mistress of the house till she gave the signal for 
 a general move. But the circumstances being her excuse, 
 
 "I will go to see what is the matter," she said quickly to 
 Thuillier, seeing how uneasy he seemed. "What is it?" 
 she asked the servant, as soon as she reached the scene of the 
 struggle. 
 
 "A gentleman who says he will come in; that no one is still 
 at dinner at eight o'clock." 
 
 "But who are you, monsieur?" said she to an old man, 
 strangely dressed, with a green shade ovw his eyes. 
 
 "Madame, I am neither a beggar nor a vagabond/' replied 
 the old man in a loud voice. "My name is Picot. I am a 
 professor of mathematics " 
 
 "Of the Eue du Val-de-Grace ?" Brigitte put in. 
 
 "Yes, madame, No. 9, next the fruit shop." 
 
 "But come in, monsieur, come in; we are only too proud 
 to see you," cried Thuillier, who, hearing his visitor's name, 
 had rushed out to welcome him. 
 
 "He has dropped like his own star from the sky," said 
 Colleville. 
 
 "Well, you rascal/' said the old man, turning to where the 
 servant had been standing, though he had disappeared on find- 
 ing that all was amicably settled, "I told you I would go in !'' 
 
 Pere Picot was a tall man, with a severe, angular face, 
 stamped with a truculent and surly expression, in spite of 
 the mitigating effect of a fair wig, dressed in a thick roll, 
 and the subduing shade over his eyes; and his large features 
 were overcast with sickly pallor from unremitting study. He 
 had given proof of his irascible temper before entering the 
 dining-room, where everybody rose to receive him.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 409 
 
 His dress consisted of a voluminous garment, something 
 between an overcoat and a dressing-gown, under which an 
 enormous iron-gray cloth waistcoat, double-breasted, with 
 two rows of buttons from below his waist up to his throat, 
 formed a sort of breastplate ; his trousers, though it was now 
 near the end of October, were of black lasting, and the duller 
 tone of an ill-concealed ''darn, in contrast to two shining 
 patches, the result of friction about the knees, bore witness to 
 long service; but by daylight the most striking detail of the 
 old man's costume, were his Patagonian feet covered by shoes 
 of felt, which, yielding to the mountainous excrescences of 
 enormous bunions, irresistibly suggested the humps of a 
 dromedary, or an advanced case of elephantiasis. 
 
 As soon as he was seated in the chair eagerly placed for 
 him, and when everybody else had resumed their places, in 
 the midst of silence born of curiosity : 
 
 "Where is he ?" asked the old man in his voice of thunder, 
 "where is the villain, the scoundrel? Let him come forward, 
 let him speak !" 
 
 "Who is the object of your wrath?" said Thuillier in a 
 conciliatory tone, that was at the same time slightly patron- 
 izing. 
 
 "A rascal whom I did not find at home, monsieur, and who 
 is, I was told, in this house. I am, I believe, at Monsieur 
 Thuillier's, member of the Town Council, Place de la Made- 
 leine, on the first floor above the entresol?" 
 
 "Quite so, monsieur," replied Thuillier, "and I may add 
 that all here are your respectful admirers." 
 
 "And you will allow me, I hope," said Minard, "as the 
 mayor of the contiguous district to that in which you reside, 
 to congratulate myself on finding myself in the presence of 
 Monsieur Picot, he, no doubt, who has just immortalized 
 his name by the discovery of a star?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," answered the professor, raising yet higher 
 the pitch of his stentorian voice, " I am Picot Nepomucene, 
 and the man you mean ; but I have discovered no star, I do 
 not meddle with such fads; my eyes are weak, and it is a
 
 410 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 ridiculous hoax saddled on me by the insolent rascal I have 
 come here to seek. He is in hiding, the coward, and dares not 
 breathe a word in my presence." 
 
 "But who is the man you are so angry with?" several 
 voices asked at once. 
 
 "An unnatural disciple," said the terrible old mathema- 
 tician, "a scoundrel a clever fellow all the same the wretch 
 Felix Phellion." 
 
 The name was heard with such amazement as may be im- 
 agined. Colleville and la Peyrade thought the notion so 
 funny that they shouted with laughter. 
 
 "And you dare laugh, you villain !" cried the irate old man, 
 starting to his feet; "just come and laugh where I can get 
 at you." 
 
 And brandishing a heavy bamboo cane with a china knob, 
 that he used to guide his steps, he very nearly overthrew a 
 branched candlestick on to Madame Minard's head. 
 
 "You are mistaken, monsieur," said Brigitte, seizing his 
 arm in time, "Monsieur Felix Phellion is not here. It is pos- 
 sible that he may come by and by to a little party we are 
 giving, but he has not arrived yet." 
 
 "You do not begin your evening parties early," said the old 
 man. "It is past eight o'clock. However, since you expect 
 Monsieur Felix to come presently, I will ask you to allow me 
 to wait for him. You were at dinner, I think; do not dis- 
 turb yourselves." 
 
 And he more calmly sat down again. 
 
 "Since you are so kind, monsieur," said Brigitte, "we will 
 go on or rather finish, for we are at dessert. May I offer 
 you anything? A glass of champagne and a biscuit?" 
 
 "With pleasure, madame," said the old man. "No one 
 ever refuses champagne, and I often take a snack between 
 my meals; but you dine very late." 
 
 Eoom was made at the table between Colleville and Made- 
 moiselle Minard, and the musician undertook to keep his 
 neighbor's glass replenished, while a dish of dainty cakes was 
 placed before him.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 411 
 
 Then said la Peyrade in wheedling tones, 
 
 "But we are all surprised, monsieur, at your having any 
 cause for complaint of Monsieur Felix Phellion, the mildest 
 and most inoffensive of young men. What, exactly, has he 
 done to raise your indignation to such a pitch?" 
 
 The professor, whose mouth was full of pastry, which he 
 was consuming at a rate that alarmed Brigitte, signed that 
 he would answer immediately, and after mistaking his glass, 
 and swallowing the contents of Colleville's : 
 
 "What has he done ?" said he. "The wretch ! he has played 
 me such tricks as he ought to hang for and this is not the 
 first. He knows that I loathe the stars, and with reason, to 
 my cost. In 1807, being attached to the Astronomical Sur- 
 vey,* I was one of the scientific expedition sent to Spain 
 under my friend and colleague, Jean-Baptiste Biot, to pro- 
 long the line of the meridian from Barcelona to the Balearic 
 Isles. I was in the act of observing a star the very star, 
 perhaps, that my rascally pupil has just discovered when 
 suddenly, war having been declared between France and 
 Spain, the peasants, seeing me perched with a telescope at 
 the top of Mount Galazzo, took it into their heads that I was 
 signaling to the enemy. An infuriated mob broke my instru- 
 ments and talked of cutting my throat. I should have been 
 done for but for a ship's captain who took me prisoner, and 
 lodged me in the citadel of Belver, where I spent three years 
 in cruel captivity. 
 
 "Since then, as you may suppose, I have washed my hands 
 of the stellar system. It was I, nevertheless, who was the first 
 to detect the famous comet of 1811; but I should never have 
 said a word about it if it had not been for Monsieur Flau- 
 guergues, who was so silly as to publish the fact. Now Phel- 
 lion, like all my pupils, knows how I hate the stars, and he 
 knew that the dirtiest trick he could play me was to saddle 
 one on me, and I can tell you the deputation who came to go 
 through the farce of congratulating me was very lucky not to 
 find me at home, for the respected Academicians, in spite of 
 
 * Bureau des longitudes. 
 VOL. 1452
 
 412 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 their Academy, would have spent a very uncomfortable half- 
 hour." 
 
 The old mathematician's queer monomania struck the com- 
 pany as exceedingly droll. Only la Peyrade, who was begin- 
 ning to understand the part played by Felix, was annoyed 
 that the explanation should have been insisted on. 
 
 "Still, Monsieur Picot," said Minard, "if Felix has com- 
 mitted no other crime than giving you the credit of his own 
 discovery, it seems to me that there was some compensation 
 for his .misbehavior the Cross of the Legion of Honor, a 
 pension, and the fame that will accrue to you." 
 
 "The Cross and the pension I will take," said the old man, 
 emptying his glass, which he then set down on the table with 
 such violence as to break the stem, to Brigitte's great horror. 
 "The Government has owed them to me these twenty years; 
 not for discovering stars, I always scorned the article, but 
 for my famous treatise on Differential Logarithms, which 
 Kepler chose to call monologarithms, and which forms a 
 sequel to Napier's Tables; for my Postulatum of Euclid, 
 which I was the first to solve; and above all, for my Theory of 
 Perpetual Motion, four octavo volumes, with plates: Paris, 
 1825. As you perceive, monsieur, to offer me fame is pouring 
 water into the sea. I so little needed Monsieur Phellion's 
 services to secure me a scientific position that I turned 
 him out of my house in disgrace, a long time ago." 
 
 "Then this is not the first star he has dared to foist on 
 you?" asked Colleville flippantly. 
 
 "He has done worse than that," cried the old man ; "he has 
 ruined my reputation and tarnished my fame. My Theory of 
 Perpetual Motion, which it cost me a perfect fortune to print, 
 when it ought to have been done at the King's printing-press, 
 might have made me rich and immortalized my name. Well, 
 that miserable Felix hindered it all. Every now and then, 
 pretending to be acquainted with my publisher: 'Your book 
 is selling very well, Pere Picot/ the young imposter would 
 say: 'here are five hundred francs/ or fifty crowns 
 sometimes even a thousand francs 'which the publisher gave
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 413 
 
 me to pay to you.' This game went on for years, and the 
 publisher, who was mean enough to join in the conspiracy, 
 would say to me, as I went past his shop: 'Aye, aye, we are 
 not doing badly; things are humming; we shall get through 
 the first edition.' And I, suspecting nothing, would pocket 
 the money and say to myself: 'My book is liked; by degrees 
 the idea will make its way, and I may expect any day to see 
 some great capitalist come and propose to apply my sys- 
 tem ' ' 
 
 "Of absorbing liquids?'' asked Colleville, who was con- 
 stantly occupied in filling the old lunatic's glass. 
 
 "No, monsieur, of perpetual motion, four octavo volumes, 
 with plates: Paris, 1825. But the days slipped by and no- 
 body ever came; so, fancying that my publisher was not as 
 energetic as might be wished, I wanted to make terms for the 
 second edition with another publisher. Then it was, mon- 
 sieur, that the plot was discovered, and I had to turn the viper 
 out of doors. In six years just nine copies had been sold. I, 
 lulled in false security, had done nothing to push my book, 
 which was said to have 'gone off' without assistance, and thus, 
 the victim of the blackest jealousy and malice, I was unjustly 
 robbed of the reward of my labors." 
 
 "But surely," said Minard, speaking the thoughts of every- 
 body present, "might we not rather regard it as an equally 
 ingenious and delicate manner " 
 
 "Of doing me a charity, you mean?" interrupted the old 
 man, in a roar that made Mademoiselle Minard jump in her 
 chair; "of humiliating me, disgracing me me, his old mas- 
 ter! And do I need the doles of charity? I, Picot Nepo- 
 mucene, whose wife brought me a fortune of a hundred 
 thousand francs, have I ever begged of anybody ? But in these 
 days nothing commands respect; an old fellow, as they call us, 
 is pumped as to his beliefs, and cheated of his good faith, that 
 some one may be able to say : 'You see these doting old fools 
 are no good at all; we, the younger generation, the modern 
 men, young France, must step in and bring 'em up by hand.' 
 You, a beardless boy, you support me? Why, we doting
 
 414 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 fools have more learning in our little finger than you have in 
 your whole body, and you will never be a match for us, miser- 
 able plotters that you are ! However, I am sure to be avenged. 
 That young Phellion is bound to come to a bad end. What he 
 did to-day, reading a report in my name before a full meeting 
 of the Academ}', is neither more nor less than forgery, and 
 the law sends forgers to the galleys." 
 
 "True enough," said Colleville, "it is the forgery of a star 
 that is common property." 
 
 Brigitte, who was quaking for her glasses, and whose nerves 
 were quite upset by the old man's capacity for cakes and wine, 
 rose as a signal for the adjournment to the drawing-room. 
 She had several times heard the bell ring, announcing that 
 some of the company bidden to the evening party had already 
 arrived. First, they had to move the old professor, and 
 Colleville civilly offered him his arm. 
 
 "No, monsieur," said Picot ; "allow me, I beg, to stay where 
 I am. I am not dressed for an evening party, and a bright 
 light fatigues my eyes. Also, I have no fancy for being stared 
 at, and the explanation between me and my pupil had better 
 take place in a tete-a-tete." 
 
 "Well, then, leave him alone," said Brigitte to Colleville. 
 And nobody pressed the old man, who, without knowing it, 
 had almost stripped himself to all claims to reverence. Before 
 leaving the room, however, the thrifty mistress saw that 
 nothing breakable was left within his reach ; and then, as a 
 parting civility, she asked him whether she should send him 
 some coffee. 
 
 "I take it, madame, and a glass of brandy," replied Picot. 
 
 "Good heavens! he takes everything," said Brigitte to the 
 man-servant, as she left the room, and she warned him to keep 
 an eye on the old maniac. 
 
 As Brigitte went into the drawing-room she perceived that 
 the Abbe Gondrin was the centre of a large circle of almost 
 every one in the room, and joining the group, she heard him 
 saying: 
 
 "I thank Heaven for having granted me such happiness.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 415 
 
 I have never felt anything more deeply than the scene we 
 have just gone through, and even the somewhat burlesque 
 character of the revelation, which was on the whole artless, 
 too, for it was quite involuntary, contributed to glorify the 
 astonishing act of generosity it betrayed. Placed as I am by 
 my sacred calling in the way of seeing many charitable actions, 
 as the agent or witness of many a good deed, I may declare 
 that I never in my life met with a case of such touching and 
 ingenious generosity. Let not your left hand know what your 
 right hand doeth, is a precept of Christianity; but to go so 
 far as to sacrifice fame to make a chariot for another man, 
 under such strange circumstances, with every risk of being 
 told he lied, of being misunderstood and repulsed that is 
 worthy of the very apostle of benevolence ! How gladly would 
 I know the young man and clasp hands with him !" 
 
 Celeste, with her hand through her godmother's arm, was 
 standing near the priest. Her ears drank in his words, and as 
 he was talking in praise of Felix's conduct, she clung more 
 closely to Madame Thuillier's arm, saying in a whisper: 
 
 "You hear, godmamma, you hear." 
 
 To crush the impression which this heartfelt praise could 
 not fail to make on Celeste, Thuillier spoke: 
 
 "Unfortunately, Monsieur 1'Abbe," said he, "the young man 
 of whom you are telling such fine tales is not altogether a 
 stranger to you. I have, before now, had occasion to speak of 
 him to you, regretting that it was impossible to carry out 
 certain plans we had thought of for him, by reason of his very 
 compromising attitude with regard to religious matters." 
 
 "Oh ! Is this the same young man ?" said the Abbe. "You 
 surprise me greatly, and I must confess I should never have 
 thought that the two could be one." 
 
 "Dear me, Monsieur 1'Abbe," said la Peyrade, taking up 
 the matter, "you will see him here in a few minutes, and by 
 leading him to the discussion of certain questions, you will 
 have no difficulty in sounding the depths of deterioration 
 which the pride of learning can effect in the most nobly tern' 
 pered souls."
 
 .416 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I shall not see him," said the Abbe ; "for my black gown 
 would be out of place in the midst of the fashionable splen- 
 dor that is gradually filling the room. But as I know, Mon- 
 sieur de la Peyrade, that you are a man of sincere religious 
 convictions, and no doubt take as great an interest in this 
 young man's soul as I do myself, I will say, before leaving, 
 that you may be quite easy. Sooner or later these noble spirits 
 all come home to us, and though we may have long to wait 
 for the return of the wanderers ere we see them brought to 
 God, I should never despair of His infinite mercy towards 
 them." 
 
 Having thus spoken, the Abbe proceeded to look for his 
 hat, intending to make his escape. 
 
 Just as he fancied he could steal away unperceived, he was 
 accosted by Minard. 
 
 "Allow me, monsieur," said the Mayor, "to press your 
 hand, and thank you for the words of tolerance that have 
 fallen from your lips. Ah ! If all priests were like you, how 
 victorious might religion be ! At this moment I am in do- 
 mestic trouble, and must decide on a line of conduct on which 
 I should be very glad to have your opinion, and the guidance 
 of your superior wisdom." 
 
 "Whenever you please," replied the Abbe. "Kue de la 
 Madeleine, No. 8, behind the Cite Berryer. After early mass, 
 at six in the morning, I am generally at home all the fore- 
 noon." 
 
 As soon as the priest had left, Minard led his wife aside. 
 
 "It is all true," said he, "the anonymous letter did not mis- 
 lead us. Master Julien is, in fact, keeping an actress from 
 Bobino's, and it was to be present at her first appearance at 
 the Folies-Dramatiques that he gave it out that he was ill 
 this evening. The porter's wife, of the house where the 
 damsel resides, is on very bad terms with the mother, who was 
 a fish-hawker, they say, and for a five-franc piece she told 
 me the whole story, chapter and verse. When I go in this 
 evening, I will have a serious explanation with that young 
 gentleman, my son. "
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 4tt 
 
 "My dear," said Madame Minard, with theatrical empha- 
 sis, "I implore you come to no hasty resolutions." 
 
 "Gently," said Minard, "everybody can see us. As to 
 resolutions, I have made none; I have, indeed, just asked the 
 Abbe Gondrin to give me the benefit of his advice, for we 
 may scout the priests, no doubt, so long as all goes well, but 
 
 when adversity overtakes us " 
 
 ; "But, indeed, my dear, you are taking the matter too 
 seriously ; young men will be young." 
 
 "Yes," said Minard, "but there are some things which I 
 can never overlook. A respectable youth in the clutches of 
 such women ! It means dishonor and ruin to his family. 
 You, Zelie, cannot know what these actresses are Phryne, 
 Lais, and of the most dangerous species. If a man is of the 
 respectable classes, that is enough to give them a particular 
 pleasure in ruining him. They declare that all our money 
 earned in trade is simply stolen, that we make it by adultera- 
 tion and trickery, and they empty our pockets to make us 
 disgorge, as they say. How unlucky that I cannot now lay 
 my hand on Madame de Godollo, such a clever woman of the 
 world ! She would have been the very person to advise us." 
 
 Suddenly a terrific hubbub brought this matrimonial aside 
 to a close. Brigitte flew into the dining-room, whence there 
 came a clatter of falling furniture and crashing glass, and 
 there she found Colleville trying to reconstruct his tie and ex- 
 amining his coat to assure himself that, though it had been 
 shockingly dragged at the collar, the effects of violence had 
 not gone so far as a rent. 
 
 "What can be the matter?" asked Brigitte. 
 
 "That old lunatic," said Colleville, "flew into a fury. I 
 came to drink my coffee here to keep him company; he 
 chose to take offence at a little joke and flew into such a 
 passion that he seized me by the collar, and in the struggle 
 he threw over two or three chairs, and a tray of glasses that 
 Josephine was carrying, as she could not get out of the way 
 fast enough." 
 
 "It is all because you nagged him," said Brigitte crossly;
 
 418 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "why couldn't you stay in the drawing-room instead of 
 coming in here to poke fun, as you call it ! You always 
 think you are in the orchestra at the Opera Comique." 
 
 With this tart speech, Brigitte advanced with a resolute 
 air, seeing that she must positively get rid of this old savage 
 who threatened her house with fire and sword; she went up 
 to Pere Picot, who was now quietly amusing himself with 
 burning brandy in a saucer. 
 
 "Monsieur," said she, at the 'top of her voice as if she were 
 speaking to a deaf man she fancied a purblind man needed 
 the same treatment, "I may tell you something that won't 
 best please you. Monsieur and Madame Phellion are now 
 here, and they tell me that Monsieur Felix is not coming." 
 And adopting the explanation that had served Julien Minard : 
 "He has a sore throat," she added, "and an attack of hoarse- 
 ness." 
 
 "Which he got by reading his paper," cried the professor 
 delighted. "Serve him right ! Madame, where do you buy 
 your brandy?" 
 
 "At my grocer's," said Brigitte, surprised by the question. 
 
 "Well, madame, it is my duty to inform you that in a 
 house where the champagne is excellent, reminding me of 
 what I used to swig at the table of the Master of the Uni- 
 versity, the late Monsieur de Fontanes, it is a disgrace to pro- 
 duce such brandy as that. I tell you, with the frankness on 
 which I always pride myself, it is just good enough to 
 bathe your horses' feet with. If it had not occurred to me to 
 burn it " 
 
 "Why, he is the devil in person," thought Brigitte ; "there 
 is no excuse whatever for the mischief he has done, and now 
 to play tricks with my brandy ! Monsieur," said she, in 
 the same loud tone, "as Monsieur Felix will not be here, 
 don't you think that your family may be uneasy at your long 
 absence ?" 
 
 "Family, madame! I do not own such a thing since they 
 tried to prove me a lunatic; however, there is my housekeeper, 
 Madame Lambert, who must, indeed, be astonished at not
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 4U 
 
 seeing me at home before this, and I am quite ready and 
 willing to return to her ; for the later I am, the more violently 
 shall I be scolded. But I must confess that in this out of 
 the way part of Paris I might have some difficulty in finding 
 my way." 
 
 "Well, then, you must take a coach." 
 
 "A coach to come, and a coach to go home again! My 
 kind relations will for once have a right to talk of my ex- 
 travagance." . 
 
 "As it happens I have an important message to send to your 
 neighborhood," said Brigitte, who saw she must bear the ex- 
 pense. "I was going to send my porter in a cab if you 
 would take advantage of the lift?" 
 
 "I accept your offer, madame," said the old man rising; 
 "and in case of need you can certify that you have known me 
 to be stingy over the cost of a hackney-cab." 
 
 "Henri," said Brigitte to the man-servant, "take this gen- 
 tleman down to Monsieur Pascal, at the porter's lodge; and 
 tell him that before doing the commission I gave him just 
 now, he is to drop him at his own door, and take great care 
 of him." 
 
 "Great care, great care!" repeated the old man, refusing 
 the man's arm. "Do you take me for a parcel, madame, a 
 piece of damaged china ?" 
 
 Seeing her man safe at the door, Brigitte allowed herself to 
 speak her mind. 
 
 "What I said was for your good, sir," said she. "And 
 you will allow me to remark that your temper is none of the 
 best." 
 
 "Great care !" the old man repeated. "But are not you 
 aware, madame, that these are the sort of words that lead 
 to a commission in lunacy ? However, I will not be too rude 
 in return for the kind hospitality you have shown me all 
 the less because I natter myself that as for the gentleman who 
 seemed to lack respect for me, I taught him his place." 
 
 "Get along, do, old brute," said Brigitte, as she shut the 
 door behind him-
 
 420 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 And before returning to the drawing-room, she was obliged 
 to drink a whole tumblerful of water ; the effort she had made 
 to get rid of this obstreperous guest had, as she said, "given 
 her quite a turn/' 
 
 On the following morning, the elder Minard was shown 
 in to Phellion's study. The great citizen and his son Felix 
 were discussing some matter which seemed to be of absorbing 
 interest. . 
 
 "My dear Felix," exclaimed the Mayor of the eleventh 
 arrondissement, as he heartily shook hands with the younger 
 man, "it is you who have brought me here this morning. I 
 have come to offer you my congratulations." 
 
 "Why, what has happened?" asked the father. "Have the 
 Thuilliers at last 
 
 "The Thuilliers! What have they to do with it," inter- 
 rupted Minard. "But do you mean to say that this rogue 
 has concealed even from you " 
 
 "I do not imagine," said the great citizen, "that my son has 
 ever concealed anything from me." 
 
 "Then you knew of the sublime astronomical discovery 
 which he communicated yesterday to the Academy of 
 Sciences ?" 
 
 "Your kindly feeling for me, Monsieur le Maire," said 
 Felix hastily, "has misled you. I was only the reader, not the 
 writer, of the paper." 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense," said Minard; "only the reader! 
 Everything is known." 
 
 "But look," said Felix, handing the Constitutionnel to 
 Minard. "Here is the newspaper; it not only states that 
 Monsieur Picot is the discoverer, but it mentions the rewards 
 bestowed on him by the State without an hour's delay." 
 
 "Felix is right," said Phellion. "The paper bears him out; 
 and I am of opinion that on this occasion the Government has 
 behaved very creditably." 
 
 "But, my dear friend, I can but repeat that the cat is out 
 of the bag, and your son is all the more admirable. A man
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 421 
 
 who gives his old teacher the credit of such a discovery in 
 order to secure to him the favors of the State I know of 
 no finer action in all antiquity." 
 
 "Felix," cried his father with some emotion, "the endless 
 labors to which you have lately devoted yourself your con- 
 stant visits to the Observatory " 
 
 "No, no, father; Monsieur Minard is misinformed." 
 
 "Misinformed !" echoed Minard, "when I had the whole 
 story from Monsieur Picot himself." 
 
 This proof, stated in such a way as to leave no shadow 
 of doubt, convinced Phellion of the truth. 
 
 "Felix, my son !" he exclaimed, rising to embrace his son. ' 
 
 But he was obliged to sit down again; his legs refused to 
 support him, he turned pale, and this usually solid nature 
 seemed ready to succumb under the shock of such sudden 
 happiness. 
 
 "Good God!" cried Felix, "he is ill pray ring the bell, 
 Monsieur Minard." 
 
 And he hastily rushed up to the old man, whose necktie 
 and collar he at once unfastened, and slapped his hands 
 briskly. But the weakness was over in a moment; Phel- 
 lion was soon himself again, and clasping his son to his heart, 
 he held him in a long embrace, saying, in a voice broken by 
 the tears that came to the relief of this acute happiness: 
 
 "Felix, my noble son ! As great in heart as in mind." 
 
 Minard meanwhile had rung the bell with such magisterial 
 decision that all the house was roused. 
 
 "It is nothing nothing/' said Phellion, as he dismissed the 
 servants. 
 
 But at the next moment, seeing his wife come in, he re- 
 sumed his usual pomposity. 
 
 "Madame Phellion," said he, pointing to Felix, "how many 
 years is it since you brought this young man into the world ?" 
 
 Madame Phellion, puzzled by the question, hesitated for a 
 moment and then answered : 
 
 "Twenty-live years next January." 
 
 "And don't you think,"' continued her husband, "that up
 
 422 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 to the present time God has granted your maternal prayers 
 by bestowing on you for your offspring an honest man, a 
 dutiful son, gifted, too, with no mean aptitude for mathe- 
 matics the queen of sciences?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Madame Phellion, understanding less and 
 less what her husband was driving at. 
 
 "Well, then," said he, "you now owe to Heaven an addi- 
 tional act of thanksgiving, for God has made you the mother 
 of a man of genius; the studies which we have abused, and 
 which led us to fear for our beloved son's reason, have 
 f been the steep and rugged path by which he lias climbed to 
 ' glory." 
 
 "Well, well !" exclaimed Madame Phellion. "Do you 
 think you will at last be able to explain yourself ?" 
 
 "Your son," said Minard, a little more cautious now in 
 administering the joy he could give, for fear of causing a fresh 
 crisis of happiness, "has just made an astronomical discovery 
 of great importance." 
 
 "Really, truly ?" said Madame Phellion, turning to her son, 
 and taking his hands with a loving look. 
 
 "And when I say important," Minard went on, "I am 
 only trying to break the matter gently to your motherly 
 feelings. It is a sublime, a bewildering discovery. He is not 
 yet five-and-twenty, and his name will be immortal." 
 
 "And this is the man," said Madame Phellion, hugging 
 her son with effusive joy, "to whom they can prefer la Pey- 
 rade !" 
 
 "They do not prefer him, madame," said Minard ; "for the 
 
 Thuilliers are not the dupes of that intriguing rascal: he 
 
 forces himself on them. Thuillier fancies he cannot be 
 
 Delected without his help; but he has not got his seat yet, and 
 
 everything is to be sacrificed to gain that." 
 
 "But is it not atrocious," said Madame Phellion, "to 
 make one's ambitions ride rough-shod over one's child's happi- 
 ness?" 
 
 "Ah !" said Minard, "Celeste is not their child ; she is 
 joiily an adopted daughter."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 423 
 
 "So far as Brigitte is concerned, true," said Madame Phel- 
 lion. "But as to 'handsome' Thuillier " 
 
 "My dear," said Phellion, "let us have no bitterness. God 
 has just given us a great happiness. And besides, that 
 marriage about which I am sorry to say that Felix does not 
 show such philosophy as I could wish may not take place 
 after all." 
 
 Felix shook his head despondently. 
 
 "Very true," said Minard, "my friend is right. Last 
 evening, when the contract was to be signed, there was a 
 hitch. You were none of you there, to be sure ; your absence 
 was remarked on." 
 
 "We were invited," said Phellion, "and till the last moment 
 we hesitated as to whether we should go. But as you un- 
 derstand, we should have been in a false position. And Felix 
 was quite overdone with excitement and fatigue, which I can 
 now quite understand, as he had been reading his paper to 
 the Academy. It would have been very awkward to go with- 
 out him, and we, therefore, took the wise man's course and 
 stayed at home." 
 
 Not even the presence of the man whom he had just pro- 
 claimed to be immortal could hinder Minard from seizing the 
 opportunity as soon as it offered for rushing on one of the 
 delights which is most prized by the middle classes; that, 
 namely, of reporting and discussing gossip. 
 
 "Only think," said he, "the most extraordinary series of 
 incidents occurred last night at the Thuilliers', % each stranger 
 than the last." And he first related the curious episode of 
 Pere Picot's visit. 
 
 Then he repeated the warm approval of Felix's conduct 
 pronounced by the Abbe Gondrin, and the young priest's wisli 
 to make Phellion's acquaintance. 
 
 "I will go and call on him," said Felix: "do you know 
 where he lives?" 
 
 "No. 8 Rue de la Madeleine," replied Minard. "I have 
 this minute left him. 1 had a rather delicate case to discuss 
 with him, and his advice was as charitable as it was shrewd.
 
 424 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 But the great event of the evening was that a large and 
 well-dressed party had met to hear the marriage contract read, 
 and the notan r , after keeping us waiting for more than an 
 hour, never came at all." 
 
 "So that the papers were not signed?" said Felix anxiously. 
 
 "Not even seen, my dear boy. All on a sudden the news 
 was brought that the notary had set out for Brussels." 
 
 "On more pressing business, no doubt," said Phellion 
 innocently. 
 
 "Most pressing, indeed," replied Minard. "A little bank- 
 ruptcy for five hundred thousand francs is what the gentle- 
 man bolted from." 
 
 "But who can the man be who, as a public official, can 
 fail so grossly in the sacred duties of his calling?" asked 
 Phellion. 
 
 "No one but your neighbor in the Rue Saint-Jacques, the 
 notary Dupuis." 
 
 "What !" exclaimed Madame Phellion, "such a pious man, 
 church-warden of the parish ?" 
 
 "Indeed, madame," said Minard; "it is those very men who 
 go the pace ; it has been known before now." 
 
 "But," remarked Phellion, "such news falling into the 
 middle of a family party must have come like a thunder- 
 clap." 
 
 "All the more so," answered Minard, "because it was 
 brought in the strangest and most unexpected manner." 
 
 "Tell us all, about it," said Madame Phellion quite eagerly. 
 
 "Well, it would seem," Minard went on, "that this pious 
 swindler had in his hands the savings of a great many do- 
 mestic servants, and that Master la Peyrade for all those 
 saints, you see, form a clique made it his business to pick 
 up clients for him from among that class." 
 
 "I always said that the Provencal was a very bad sort," 
 interrupted Madame Phellion. 
 
 "And just lately he had sent to our notary the savings of 
 an old housekeeper, a hypocrite of the same kidney, a nice 
 little sum indeed which was worth taking care of twenty-five
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 425 
 
 thousand francs, if you please. This good woman, by name 
 Madame Lambert " 
 
 "Madame Lambert !" exclaimed Felix, "why, she is Mon- 
 sieur Picot's housekeeper: a close cap, a pale, thin face, no 
 hair visible, and never looks up when ste speaks ?" 
 
 "The very woman, a canting creature," said Minard. 
 
 "And she has saved twenty-five thousand francs!" said 
 Felix. "I do not wonder that Pere Picot was always 
 pinched." 
 
 "And that he had to look sharply after the sale of his 
 book," said Minard slyly. "At any rate, as you may sup- 
 pose, when this woman heard of the notary's flight, she was 
 in a fine pucker. Off she trotted at once to la Peyrade's 
 house; there she was told that la Peyrade was dining at the 
 Thuilliers'; but she did not get their new address right, so, 
 after running about the whole evening, at about ten o'clock, 
 when we had all been standing in that drawing-room for 
 hours, as it seemed, looking blankly at each other, and not 
 knowing what to do or what to say, for neither Brigitte nor 
 Thuillier was equal to redeeming such an awkward situation, 
 and we had neither Madame de Godollo's voice nor Madame 
 Phellion's delightful talent to charm us " 
 
 "You are too polite, Monsieur le Maire," said Madame 
 Phellion, smiling primly. 
 
 "In short, at about ten o'clock, this woman Lambert found 
 her way to the Town Councillor's apartment, and asked to 
 see the lawyer." 
 
 "Quite natural," said Phellion ; "as the agent for the in- 
 vestment the woman had a perfect right to call on him to 
 account for it." 
 
 "Well, you will see the Tartuffe," Minard went on. "He 
 had hardly left the room when he came back again with the 
 news. As we were all longing to be released, there was a 
 general exodus. Then what did our man do ? He went back to 
 Madame Lambert, whom he had left in the ante-room, and as 
 the worthy dame never ceased crying out that she was ruined, 
 that she was done for, which may perhaps have been spon-
 
 42G THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 taneous, but was quite as likely to be a scene got up with la 
 Peyrade, in the presence of all the company on which this 
 servant intruded her clamor: 'Be quite easy, my good wo- 
 man/ says monsieur the editor of the ficho de la Eievre, 
 'you were a party to* the investment, so that, in fact, I owe 
 you nothing ; but the money having passed through my hands, 
 my conscience holds me responsible ; if the assignees in bank- 
 ruptcy do not pay you in full, I will pay.' " 
 
 "Well," said Phellion, "it was my opinion from the first 
 that the agent was responsible. I should not have hesitated 
 to do as Monsieur la Peyrade has done, and I do not think he 
 can be taxed with Jesuitry for that." 
 
 "Yes, you would have done it," said Minard, "and so 
 would I. But we should not have done it to the sound of 
 trumpets; and, besides, we should have paid out of our own 
 pockets, like gentlemen. But this electioneering broker 
 where is he to find the money ? Out of the settlements ?" 
 
 At this moment the boy came in and handed a letter to 
 Felix Phellion. It was from Pere Picot, written at his dicta- 
 tion by Madame Lambert ; for this reason the original spelling 
 is not given here. 
 
 Madame Lambert's writing was such as, once seen, can 
 never be forgotten. Felix, recognizing it, at once said: "It 
 is from the old professor," and before opening it he added: 
 "You will allow me, Monsieur le Maire?" 
 
 "He will give it you smartly," said Minard. "In my life I 
 never saw anything so comical as his rage last evening." 
 
 As he read the epistle, Felix smiled. When he came to the 
 end, he handed it to his father. 
 
 "You can read it aloud," said he. 
 
 Then in his solemn tones the great citizen began : 
 
 "My dear Felix : I have just received your note. It came 
 in the very nick of time, for I was what you may call pretty 
 mad with you. You say that in committing the abuse of 
 confidence of which you have been guilty, and about which 
 I intended to give you a pretty sharp scolding, you meant to
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 427 
 
 deal a black-hander to my family by showing them that a 
 man who could make the elaborate calculations required for 
 the discoveiy you have made, was not a man to be treated as 
 a lunatic, or to have his affairs administered by others. This 
 argument is satisfactory, and is so far a reply to their in- 
 famous proceedings that I commend you for having thought 
 of it. But you have made me pay pretty dear for your argu- 
 ment, by making me the philosopher and friend of a star 
 which you very well knew I would never have had anything 
 to do with. 
 
 "At my time of life a man who has discovered perpetual 
 motion, does not trouble his head with such fantastic rubbish. 
 It is all very well for gabies and beginners like you; and 
 that is what I took the liberty of saying this morning to the 
 Minister of Public Instruction, "who received me indeed with 
 the greatest civility. I put it to him that, having mistaken 
 his man, he ought, perhaps, to take back his Cross and his 
 premium, though I have certainly earned them in other ways. 
 
 " 'The Government,' answered he, 'is not in the habit of 
 making mistakes. What it does is always well done, and a 
 patent signed by his Majesty cannot be annulled. Very good 
 work has won the favors bestowed on you by the King; it is, 
 indeed, a long-standing debt that I am happy to be able to pay 
 in his name.' 
 
 "'But how about Felix?' said I. Tor after all, for a 
 youngster, this discovery is none so bad.' 
 
 " 'Monsieur Felix Phellion/ replied he, 'will in the ceurse 
 of the day receive his appointment to be Chevalier of the 
 Legion of Honor; the patent will be signed by the King this 
 morning. And I may add that there happens to be a chair 
 vacant in the Academy of Sciences, and unless you claim 
 
 " 'I in the Academy !' cried I, with the frankness you know 
 so well, 'I execrate your Academies. They are wet blankets 
 gathering of idlers shops with a fine sign and nothing to 
 sell - ' 
 
 "'Well, then,' said the Minister, smiling, 'I fancy that 
 VOL 1453
 
 Monsieur Felix has every chance in his favor at the next elec- 
 tion, to say nothing of Government influence, which will be 
 on his side so far as its legitimate exercise will allow/ 
 
 "So this, my poor boy, is all I could do to reward you for 
 your good intentions, and show you that I owe you no grudge. 
 I fancy, in fact, that the 'family' will pull rather long faces. 
 Come and talk it all over to-day at four o'clock ; for I do not 
 dine as I saw a party dining yesterday, in a house where, by 
 the way, I heard you very handsomely spoken of. 
 
 "Madame Lambert, who is a better hand with the pan 
 than with the pen, will do her best, and though it is a Friday 
 you know she never lets me off she promises me a dinner 
 for an archbishop, though Lenten fare, washed down with a 
 half -bottle of champagne, aye, and a second if need be, to 
 hansel our red ribbon. 
 
 "Your old master and friend, 
 "PicoT, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 "P.S. If you could persuade your mother to entrust to 
 you a little bottle of that excellent old Cognac, of which 
 you once gave me a sample? I have not a drop left, and I 
 tasted some last night just fit to bathe a horse's feet; but 
 I did not mince matters with the fair Hebe who gave it 
 me." 
 
 "Certainly, he shall have some more," said Madame Phel- 
 lion, "and not a small bottle, but a large one." 
 
 "And I have some," added Minard, "not so bad, I can 
 tell you, of which I could send him a few bottles. But do not 
 tell him where it comes from, Monsieur le Chevalier, you 
 will accept me as your sponsor, I hope, for it is impossible 
 to guess how that extraordinary man will take a thing." 
 
 "Wife," said Phellion suddenly, "give me a white tie and 
 my black coat." 
 
 "Where are you off to?" asked Madame Phellion. "To 
 the Minister, to return thanks ?"
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 429 
 
 "Bring my things, I say. I have an important call to 
 make, and Monsieur le Maire I know will excuse me." 
 
 "Oh, I am going too," replied Minard, "for I have some 
 business to attend to concerning my son. He has not dis- 
 covered a star, I promise you." 
 
 Vainly cross-questioned by his wife and son, Phellion 
 dressed, put on a pair of white gloves, sent for a hackney 
 cab, and, a quarter of an hour later, was announced to Bri- 
 gitte, whom he discovered busy putting away the best china 
 and plate that had been in use the day before. 
 
 Ceasing her homely occupation to receive her visitor: 
 
 "Well, Papa Phellion," said the old maid, when they were 
 seated, "you gave us the slip last night. However, you showed 
 that you had a sharper nose than the rest. Do you know 
 what a trick the notary played us ?" 
 
 "I know all about it," said Phellion, "and the unexpected 
 reprieve in the execution of your plans, to which the inci- 
 dent has given rise, is the text, I may say, of an important 
 discussion I want to have with you. Providence occasionally 
 seems to find pleasure in thwarting our best-contrived 
 schemes; sometimes, again, by the obstacles it places in our 
 way it seems to signify to us that we have taken the. wrong 
 turning, and warns us to think better of it." 
 
 "Providence!" sai-d Brigitte the strong-minded, "Provi- 
 dence! It has other things to do without troubling about 
 us." 
 
 "That is a matter of opinion/' said Phellion. "For my 
 part, I am apt to see its hand in small things as in great; 
 and this much is certain : if, last evening, Providence had 
 allowed your promises to Monsieur de la Peyrade to be 
 carried into effect, you would not at this moment see me 
 here." 
 
 "So you think," retorted Brigitte, "that for want of a 
 notary a marriage must fall through. But for want of a 
 monk the abbey does not stand idle, the proverb says." 
 
 "My dear lady," said Phellion, "you will do me the justice 
 to admit that neither I nor my wife ever tried to influence
 
 430 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 your decisions. We allowed the young people to fall in love 
 without too carefully considering to what the attachment 
 might lead " 
 
 "To making them dissatisfied," said Brigitte. "That is 
 what love leads to, and that is why I have never allowed my- 
 self to indulge in it." 
 
 "What you say applies very truly to my unhappy son," 
 answered Phellion; "for in spite of the lofty occupations 
 by which he has tried to divert his thoughts, he is even now 
 so overcome by his sorrow that only this morning, notwith- 
 standing the splendid success he has just achieved, he was 
 talking to me of making a voyage round the world, an ex- 
 pedition which would absent him from home for at least three 
 years, if, indeed, he should escape the perils of so long a 
 journey." 
 
 "Why, really," said Brigitte, "that is not such a bad idea, 
 perhaps ; he might come back consoled, and discover three or 
 four more stars." 
 
 "One is enough for us," said Phellion, with twice his usual 
 solemnity. "And it is under the auspicies of this discovery, 
 which has lifted his name to so high a place in the world of 
 science, that I am so fatuous, mademoiselle, as to tell you 
 point-blank I have come to ask the hand of Mademoiselle 
 Celeste Colleville for my son Felix Phellion, who loves her, 
 and whom she loves." 
 
 "But, my good man, you are too late," said Brigitte. 
 "Consider, we are diametrically pledged to la Peyrade." 
 
 "It is never too late to do right, 'they say, and yesterday 
 would have been too soon for me to dare to come forward. 
 My son would not have then said, by way of compensation 
 for their disparity of wealth, 'If Celeste, by your liberality, 
 has a fortune with which mine cannot pretend to compare, 
 I have the honor to be a member of the Royal Order of the 
 Legion of Honor, and ere long, to all appearance, I shall be 
 a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, one of the five 
 departments of the Institute.' ' : 
 
 "No doubt," said Brigitte, "Felix promises to be a very
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 431 
 
 good match; but we are pledged to la Peyrade. His name 
 is put up with Celeste's at the Mairie ; but for a quite extra- 
 ordinary incident, the contract would have been signed; he 
 is working for Thuillier's election, which is already looking 
 well ; we have invested money in his interest in a newspaper ; 
 in short, even if we wished it, we could not possibly release 
 ourselves from our promise." 
 
 "And so," said Phellion, "in one of those rare cases in 
 which reason and inclination point the same way, you think 
 it well to make both yield to the question of interest? 
 Celeste, as we all know, has no particular liking for Mon- 
 sieur de la Peyrade. Brought up with Felix " 
 
 "Brought up with Felix!" interrupted Brigitte; "she had 
 her choice once between Monsieur de la Peyrade and your son, 
 so that is all the violence we have done her ; and she would 
 have nothing to say to Monsieur. Felix, whose atheism is well 
 known." 
 
 "There you are mistaken, mademoiselle ; my son is not an 
 atheist, and Voltaire himself doubted whether there could be 
 an atheist. No later than yesterday, in this very house, an 
 ecclesiastic as noted for his talents as for his virtues, while 
 speaking of Felix in the handsomest terms of praise, expressed 
 a wish to make his acquaintance." 
 
 "Yes, to convert him !" retorted Brigitte. "But as to the 
 marriage, I am eorry to say you are a day after the fair. 
 Thuillier will never give up his la Peyrade." 
 
 "Madem6iselle," said Phellion rising, "I do not feel in the 
 very least humiliated by the useless step I have taken; I do 
 not even ask yon to keep it a secret, for I shall be the first 
 to talk of it to all our friends and acquaintance." 
 
 "Talk away, my good man, to whomsoever you will," re- 
 plied Brigitte bitterly. "Next thing, I suppose, because your 
 son has discovered a star, if he did discover it, and not the 
 old fellow who has got all the rewards from Government, 
 he must marry one of the daughters of the King of the 
 French." 
 
 "We will say no more," said Phellion. "But I might
 
 432 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 answer that, without wishing to depreciate the Thuilliers, 
 the Orleans family are perhaps somewhat their superiors. 
 However, I do not wish to bring any unpleasant feeling into 
 the conversation, so begging you to accept the assurance of 
 my humble respect, I will take leave to withdraw." 
 
 This said, he made a majestic exit, leaving Brigitte in a fit 
 of ferocious temper under the sting of his final reflection, shot 
 in extremis like a Parthian arrow. She was all the more 
 furious because already, the evening before, Madame Thuil- 
 lier, after the company had left, had been so impossibly dar- 
 ing as to speak a few words in favor of Felix. The poor soul 
 had, of course, been roughly snubbed, and told to mind her 
 own business; but this effort at independence, on the part 
 of her sister-in-law, had provoked the old maid, and Phellion, 
 by reopening the question, could not fail to exasperate her. 
 
 On Josephine and the man-servant fell the storm result- 
 ing from this scene. During Brigitte's absence everything 
 had been done wrong, so she herself "turned to," and at the 
 risk of breaking her neck clambered on to a chair to reach 
 the topmost shelves of the cupboard where her best china was 
 carefully kept under lock and key. 
 
 This da} 7 , which had begun so badly for Brigitte, was 
 undoubtedly one of the busiest and stormiest of all this 
 history. 
 
 To relate its events in detail, we must go back to the 
 hour of six in the morning, and find Madame Thuillier on 
 her way to the Madeleine to hear mass which the Abbe 
 Gondrin always celebrated at that time, and then to take the 
 sacrament, a viaticum with which no pious soul fails to fortify 
 itself when it has some great enterprise in view. 
 
 Then, at eight o'clock, we see the elder Minard calling on 
 the young priest, as he had been told he might, and confid- 
 ing to the learned and conciliatory casuist the story of his 
 paternal woes. 
 
 The Abbe Gondrin mildly blamed him for training his 
 son to a profession in which, while bearing an official title
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 433 
 
 which seems to imply a life of hard work, idleness tempts a 
 youth to every folly; advocates without briefs, and doctors 
 without patients are, when impecunious, a nursery ground 
 for the ranks of revolution and mischief; or, when they are 
 rich, they ape the youthful aristocracy, which, bereft of all 
 its privileges but the dolce far niente, devotes almost all the 
 leisure of an idle and useless existence to training horses for 
 the turf and women for the stage. 
 
 In this particular instance, the strong proceedings which 
 the mayor of the eleventh arrondissement seemed desirous of 
 taking were purely chimerical. There is no Saint-Lazare 
 now for the accommodation of misbehaving youth, and 
 Manon Lescauts are no longer kidnapped for America. The 
 Abbe was, therefore, of opinion that the father should make 
 some pecuniary sacrifice: the siren must be paid off and 
 married; thus morality would triumph in two ways at once. 
 As to acting as go-betweens for this arrangement, the young 
 priest was by no means eager; he was, in fact, too young to 
 meddle in such affairs, where scandal is so ready to steal in 
 side by side with the credit for meaning well. As the girl 
 had a mother, Minard might send for the woman and treat 
 with her. 
 
 At about noon the Abbe Gondrin had a visit from Ma- 
 dame Thuillier and Celeste. The poor child pined for some 
 further explanation of the words in which, last evening, in 
 Brigitte's drawing-room, the eloquent speaker had answered 
 for the salvation of Felix Phellion. For, to the theological 
 damsel, it had seemed strange, indeed, that a man who had 
 never "practised religion" could be admitted to mercy by 
 Divine Justice and, in fact, the anathema is explicit : "Out- 
 side the church there is no salvation." 
 
 "My dear child," said the Abbe Gondrin, "you must get 
 a better understanding of this apparently inexorable dictum. 
 It is spoken to the glorification of those who are so happy 
 as to dwell within the pale of our holy Church, rather than as 
 a final curse on such as are so unhappy as to be outside of 
 it. God sees all hearts and knows His chosen few; and the
 
 434 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 treasures of His loving kindness are so infinite that it has been 
 given to none to gauge their depth and abundance. Who can 
 dare to say to God the Omnipotent: Thus far shalt thou be 
 forgiving and generous? Jesus Christ pardoned the woman 
 taken in adultery, and even on the Cross He promised 
 Paradise to the repentant thief, to show us that His wisdom 
 and mercy shall be supreme, and not the judgments of men. 
 Such an one, believing himself to be a Christian, may be an 
 idolater in the sight of God ; and such another is regarded as 
 a heathen, who is, without knowing it, a true Christian. As 
 I said last evening to Monsieur de le Peyrade, a pure spirit is 
 always won over in the end; we have only to give it time; 
 it is a trust which brings in large interest, and, besides, charity 
 enjoins it." 
 
 "Good heavens!" cried Celeste, "to hear this too late, 
 when I, who had my choice beween Monsieur Felix and Mon- 
 sieur de la Peyrade, dared not follow the dictates of my heart ! 
 Oh, Monsieur 1'Abbe, could not you speak to my mother? 
 Every one listens to you." 
 
 "Quite impossible, my child ; if I were Madame Colleville's 
 director I might, perhaps, make the attempt ; but we are too 
 constantly accused of meddling rashly in family concerns. 
 Believe me, my intervention, having no authority and no 
 weight, would do you more harm than good. You yourself, 
 and those who love you," and he glanced at Madame Thuil- 
 lier, "must consider whether the arrangements, rather far 
 advanced it must be owned, cannot be modified to meet your 
 wishes." 
 
 It was written that the poor girl should drain to the dregs 
 the cup she had brewed in her intolerance. As the priest 
 ceased speaking, his old housekeeper came to ask if he could 
 receive Monsieur Flix Phellion. And so, like the Charter of 
 1830, Madame de Godollo's official fib was coming true. 
 
 "You can go out this way," said the Abbe, hastily leading 
 the ladies to a back passage. 
 
 Life has such strange turns, that now and again the same 
 evasion may serve the purpose of a courtesan or a saint.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 435 
 
 "Monsieur 1'Abbe," said Felix, as soon as he and the priest 
 were alone together, "I have heard of the large-hearted way 
 in which you were good enough to speak of me at Monsieur 
 Thuillier's, and I should, in any case, have hastened here to 
 thank you ; but another matter also brings me to call." 
 
 The Abbe hurried ever the formalities to ask of what 
 service he might be. 
 
 "With intentions which I believe to be charitable/' replied 
 the young professor, "you were troubled yesterday with some 
 remarks as to the state of my soul. Those who are so in- 
 timate with it know more than I do about my inmost self, 
 for within these last few days I have been aware of some new 
 and inexplicable promptings. I have never denied God; but, 
 face to face with the infinitude whither He has permitted my 
 mind to soar in search of one of His creations, I feel as 
 though I had gained a less confused, a more immediate sense 
 of His Being, and have wondered whether, indeed, His om- 
 niscience requires of me nothing more than an honest and 
 upright life. Still, objections without number rise up in my 
 soul to the form of worship of which you are a priest; and 
 though I am fully sensible of the beauty of its forms, my rea- 
 son rebels against many of its injunctions and rules. My in- 
 difference and delay, in seeking relief from these doubts, have 
 cost me very dear my whole life's happiness, perhaps. But 
 I am now determined to sift the matter to the bottom. No one 
 better than you, Monsieur 1'Abbe, can settle my doubts. I 
 come in all confidence to submit them to you, to beseech you 
 to listen to me, to answer me, to tell me in what books I may 
 pursue my search for light, and at what hours you may be so 
 kind as to devote yourself to conversing with me. The soul 
 that appeals to you is sorely burdened. Is not that a fitting 
 preparation for receiving the good seed of your words ?" 
 
 The Abbe expressed the joy with which, notwithstanding 
 his poor ability, he would endeavor to answer the young 
 philosopher's conscientious scruples, and after begging Felix 
 to regard him as a friend, he advised him first to study the 
 Pensees of Pascal. A natural affinity in their talent for
 
 436 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 geometry ought, the priest believed, to exist between Pascal's 
 mind and his. 
 
 While this little scene was proceeding, a scene which de- 
 rived a certain dignity from the high interests at stake, and 
 the lofty moral and intellectual standpoint of the two 
 speakers, more easily understood than reproduced as is the 
 case with everything calm and reposeful, bitter discord, the 
 chronic disease of middle-class households where narrow- 
 minded and concentrated passions constantly open a door to 
 it, was raging in Thuillier s house. 
 
 Brigitte, standing on a chair, her hair in disorder, her 
 face and hands covered with dust, and wielding a feather 
 brush, was sweeping one of the shelves of the cupboard, 
 where she was replacing her library of plates, dishes, and 
 sauce-boats, when Flavie came in. 
 
 "Brigitte," said she, "as soon as you have done you will be 
 wise to come and call on us, or I can send Celeste over 
 to you; it strikes me she is going to give us some of her 
 nonsense." 
 
 "How is that ?" said Brigitte, not interrupting her dusting. 
 
 "Well, I fancy that she and Madame Thuillier went to- 
 gether this morning to the Abbe Gondrin, for up she comes 
 and gives me a rigmarole about Felix Phellion, speaking of 
 him as if he were a god ; and from that to throwing over la 
 Peyrade, as you may suppose, is but a step." 
 
 "Those confounded black-caps!" exclaimed Brigitte. 
 "They must have a finger in every pie. Well, .1 never wanted 
 him invited ; it was you who insisted on it." 
 
 "It was only common decency," said Flavie. 
 
 "Much I care for the proprieties!" retorted the old maid. 
 "A long-winded speechifier, who only put his foot in it. Well, 
 send Celeste to me ; 1 will talk to her, I promise you " 
 
 Just then the servant announced the managing clerk of 
 the notary, who, for lack of Dupuis, was to draw up the 
 marriage contract. 
 
 Heedless of her untidy appearance, Brigitte said he was to 
 be shown in ; however, she was so far civil as not to talk to 
 him from the elevation at which she was perched.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 437 
 
 "Monsieur Thuillier," said the lawyer's clerk, "looked in 
 at our office this morning to explain the terms of the set- 
 tlement he was good enough to place in my chief's hands. 
 But it is our practice, before setting out the clauses of a 
 marriage contract, to request the parties providing the moneys 
 to vouch personally for their generous intentions. Monsieur 
 Thuillier announced that he proposed to settle on the bride 
 the reversion of the house he inhabits this no doubt " 
 
 "Yes," said Brigitte, "that is his intention. I settle on 
 her three thousand francs a year in the three per cents, to be 
 absolutely hers; everything is settled for her sole use and 
 benefit." 
 
 "Quite correct," said the lawyer, consulting his notes; 
 "Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier, three thousand francs per 
 annum. Now, there is Madame Celeste Thuillier, wife of 
 Louis Jerome Thuillier, who likewise on her part settles a 
 sum in the three per cents, yielding six thousand francs a 
 year, in immediate possession, and six thousand more in re- 
 version." 
 
 "That," said Brigitte, "is as safe as if the notary Had seen 
 it; however, if it is your way of doing things, you can, if 
 you wish it, be shown in to my sister." 
 
 And she desired the servant to conduct the gentleman to 
 Madame Thuillier's room. 
 
 A moment after, the clerk returning, announced that there 
 would seem to be some mistake, for Madame Thuillier de- 
 clared that she would make no settlement whatever in the 
 marriage contract. 
 
 "That is pretty stiff!" cried Brigitte. "Come with me, 
 monsieur." 
 
 And she rushed like a tornado into Madame Thuillier's 
 room. The poor woman was pale and trembling. 
 
 "What is this you have been saying? that you will give 
 nothing towards Celeste's fortune?" 
 
 "Yes," said Madame Thuillier in frank rebellion, but in 
 a quavering voice ; "I intend to give her nothing." 
 
 "But these intentions of yours," said Brigitte, purple with 
 rage, "are something quite new."
 
 438 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "They are my intentions," was all the mutineer would say. 
 
 "At any rate, you will tell us why?" 
 
 "I do not like the marriage." 
 
 "Indeed ! And since when ?" 
 
 "It is useless," said Madame Thuillier, "to detain this 
 gentleman while we discuss it ; our explanations will have no 
 place in the settlements." 
 
 "You may well be ashamed of yourself," said Brigitte, 
 "for you are not showing yourself in a favorable light. It 
 is easier to erase a clause in the contract than to add one, I 
 believe, monsieur," she said to the clerk. 
 
 He bowed assent. 
 
 "Then draw it up as at first designed ; if Madame Thuillier 
 insists, we can strike out the annulled clause." 
 
 The lawyer bowed and went away. 
 
 When the sisters-in-law were left together, Brigitte broke 
 out: 
 
 "Have you lost your wits, may I ask?" said she. "What 
 is this freak of temper that has come over you?" 
 
 "It is not temper; it is a firm determination." 
 
 "For which you have paid your Abbe Gondrin ! Will you 
 dare tell me that you have not just come from him, with 
 Celeste?" 
 
 "Quite true, Celeste and I went this morning to see our 
 director. But I did not say one word to him as to my in- 
 tentions." 
 
 "Indeed ! and so it was in that little empty head of yours 
 that this cracker was concocted?" 
 
 "Yes. As I told you yesterday, I consider that Celeste 
 may find a more suitable match, and I am resolved not 
 to impoverish myself in favor of a marriage I do not ap- 
 prove." 
 
 "That you do not approve ! What next ? Bless me, we 
 are to ask my lady's leave and opinion !" 
 
 "I know," said Madame Thuillier, "that I have always 
 been nobody in the house. And so far as I am concerned, I 
 long since made up my mind to it ; but when the happiness is 
 at stake of a child I look upon as my own "
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 439 
 
 "The deuce is in it. You never were clever e> ough to 
 have cne ; for certainly Thuillier ' : 
 
 "Sister," said Madame Thuillier with some dignity. "I 
 took the communion this morning, and there are things which 
 I cannot really hear said." 
 
 "That is the way with all you precious sacrament-eaters !" 
 cried Brigitte. "Butter will not melt in your mouth, and 
 yet you turn a home topsy-turvy ! And do you suppose the 
 matter will end just so? Thuillier will be in before long, 
 and he will give you a piece of his mind." 
 
 By thus appealing to the marital authority in support of 
 her own, Brigitte betrayed her weakness and amazement at 
 the deep and unexpected blow thus dealt at her immemorial 
 rule. Her sister-in-law's calm tone, every moment more de- 
 termined, altogether upset her; she fell back on abuse. 
 
 "A sluggard !" she shrieked. "A lazy thing, incapable of 
 even picking up her pocket-handkerchief and she wants to 
 be mistress of the house !" 
 
 "I so little want to be mistress here that last night I al- 
 lowed myself to be silenced after merely trying to speak two 
 words. But I am mistress of my property, and as I believe 
 that Celeste will some day be a very miserable woman, I shall 
 keep it to use at the right time and opportunity." 
 
 "Good dog!" said Brigitte sarcastically. "Her property! 
 What next ?" 
 
 "Certainly, the money I had from my father and mother, 
 and brought in settlement to Thuillier." 
 
 "And who was it that turned that money to account, and 
 made it bring you in twelve thousand francs a year ?" 
 
 "I have never asked you to account for a penny of it," said 
 Madame Thuillier mildly. "If it had all been lost in the 
 affairs you chose to invest in, you would never have heard me 
 utter one word of complaint ; but it has turned out well, and 
 it is only fair that I should get the benefit. And, after all, 
 I am not saving it for myself." 
 
 "That is as may be. Tf these are the airs you give your- 
 self, it is none so certain that we shall long go in at the same 
 door."
 
 440 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "And do you imagine that Monsieur Thuillier will turn 
 me out? He would have to give some reasons, and, thank 
 God ! as a wife he has never had a fault to find with me." 
 
 "Viper! Hypocrite! Heartless wretch!" cried Brigitte, 
 having exhausted her arguments. 
 
 "Sister," said Madame Thuillier, "you are in my room." 
 
 "Get out of it then, you lazy baggage !" screamed the old 
 
 maid, gasping with rage. "If I only let myself go " and 
 
 her gesture was at once an insult and a threat. 
 
 Madame Thuillier rose to leave the room. 
 
 "No, you don't!" cried Brigitte, pushing her down again 
 into her chair ; "and till Thuillier has said what is to be done, 
 you stay locked in here." 
 
 When Brigitte, with a flaming face, reappeared in the room 
 where she had left Madame Colleville, she found her brother, 
 whose arrival she had predicted. Thuillier was beaming. 
 
 "My dear," said he to the harridan, not observing the state 
 she was in, "everything is going on swimmingly; the con- 
 spiracy of silence is at an end. Two papers the National 
 and a Carlist sheet have reprinted two of our articles this 
 morning, and there is a short attack in one of the ministerial 
 papers." 
 
 "Well, things are not going on swimmingly here," retorted 
 Brigitte ; "and if they go on like this, I shall simply leave the 
 place." 
 
 "Who has offended you ?" asked Thuillier. 
 
 "Your insolent idiot of a wife, who has just favored me 
 with a scene I am shaking all over still." 
 
 "Celeste ! A scene?" said Thuillier. "Why, it is the first 
 time in her life then." 
 
 "Everything must have a beginning, and if you do not take 
 a high hand " 
 
 "But what was this scene about ?" 
 
 "Oh, my lady objects to la Peyrade as her goddaughter's 
 husband, and out of spite at not being able to hinder the 
 marriage, she declares she will settle nothing on her." 
 
 "Come, come, compose yourself," said Thuillier quite coolly,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 441 
 
 the recognition of the tfcho as a polemical combatant mak- 
 ing him a second Pangloss. "I will settle it all." 
 
 "You, Flavie," said Brigitte, as Thuillier went off to his 
 wife's room, "will you have the goodness to go home and tell 
 Mademoiselle Celeste whom I will not see just now, for, 
 really, if she provoked me, I should be capable of slapping 
 her tell her, I say, that I do not like conspiracies ; that she 
 was left free to choose Monsieur Phellion junior, and she 
 would have nothing to say to him; that everything is settled 
 in accordance with that, and that if she does not wish to find 
 herself reduced to the fortune you can give her a pittance 
 that a banker's clerk could carry easily in his waistcoat 
 pocket 
 
 "Really, my dear Brigitte," Flavie put in, turning restive 
 under such impertinence, "you need not taunt us so severely 
 with our poverty; after all, we have never asked you for any- 
 thing ; we pay our rent regularly ; and, short of all this, Mon- 
 siour Felix Phellion would gladly take Celeste with the 
 fortune that a banker's clerk might carry in a bag." 
 
 And she emphasized the last word. 
 
 "Oho ! so you, too, are in the plot !" cried Brigitte. "Well, 
 go and fetch your Felix. I know, my fine madame, that you 
 have never much fancied this match. It is precious dull to 
 be no more than your son-in-law's mother-in-law." 
 
 But Flavie had recovered the presence of mind that for a 
 moment had deserted her. She only replied with a shrug. 
 
 By this time Thuillier returned ; his beatific expression had 
 disappeared. 
 
 "My dear Brigitte," said he, "you have the best heart in 
 the world ; but you can at times be so violent " 
 
 "Heyday !" cried his sister. "Then I am to be called to 
 account, it would s,eem." 
 
 "Of course I have nothing serious to bring against you, 
 and I have rated Celeste well for her presumption; but de- 
 cency must be respected." 
 
 "What nonsense are you talking with your 'decency'? 
 What, pray, is the 'decency' in which I have failed ?"
 
 442 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Well, my dear, to lift your hand against your sister." 
 
 "I lift my hand against that simpleton? Well, that is a 
 good one." 
 
 "And, besides," Thuillier went on, "a woman of Celeste's 
 age is not to be put in prison." 
 
 "Your wife and I put her in prison?" 
 
 "You cannot deny it, for I found her door double-locked 
 outside." 
 
 "By heaven ! because, in my anger at the abuse she 
 rained on me, I turned the key, I suppose, without knowing 
 it." 
 
 "Come, come," said Thuillier, "this is not the way for re- 
 spectable people like us to behave." 
 
 "Indeed ! So now I am in the wrong, I suppose ? Very 
 well, my boy. You will live to remember this day, and we 
 shall see how your house is managed when I have nothing 
 to do with it." ' 
 
 "You will always have something to do with it," said 
 Thuillier. "Housekeeping is the breath of life to you, and 
 you will be the first to suffer." 
 
 "That's what we shall see," retorted Brigitte. "After 
 twenty years of slavery to be treated like the scum of the 
 earth !" ' 
 
 And flinging herself out of the room, slamming the door 
 violently behind her, the old maid departed. 
 
 Thuillier was not in the least disturbed by this exit. 
 
 "Were you present, Flavie, when this scene took place ?" 
 
 "No ; they were in Celeste's room. So she was rather rough 
 with her?" 
 
 "Just as I said, lifted her hand to hit her and then locked 
 her in like a child. Celeste may be sleepy and stupid, still 
 there are limits that must not be overstepped." 
 
 "Our worthy Brigitte is not always easy to get on with," 
 said Flavie. "We had a little skirmish, too, she and I." 
 
 "Ah, well," said Thuillier, "it will all settle down again. 
 As I was saying, my dear Flavie, we have had the greatest 
 success this morning. The National copies two whole para-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 443 
 
 graphs of an article of which, as it happens, I wrote several 
 sentences ; 
 
 And here again Thuillier was interrupted in the story of 
 his political and literary good luck. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Josephine the cook, coming into the 
 room, "could you tell me where the key of the large trunk 
 is?" 
 
 "What for?" asked Thuillier. 
 
 "For mademoiselle ; she wants it in her room." 
 
 "What does she want it for?" 
 
 "Mademoiselle is going away, I suppose, sir. She has taken 
 all her clothes out of the drawers, and she is folding up her 
 gowns to pack them." 
 
 "Some fresh folly !" said Thuillier. "Go, Flavie, and see 
 what mad trick she is planning." 
 
 "Not if I know it," said Madame Colleville. "You had 
 better go yourself; in her present frame of mind she is quite 
 capable of beating me." 
 
 "It was my gaby of a wife," cried Thuillier, "who started 
 this wild nonsense about the settlements. She really must 
 have been very provoking to drive Brigitte to such extremi- 
 ties." 
 
 "You have not told me where the key is, sir," said 
 Josephine again. 
 
 "I know nothing about it," said Thuillier angrily. "Look 
 for it, or tell her it is lost." 
 
 "I should think so, indeed," said Josephine. "Catch me 
 telling her that." 
 
 At this moment the door-bell rang. 
 
 "I daresay that is la Peyrade," said Thuillier with % me 
 satisfaction. And, in fact, the Provengal was admitted. 
 
 "It was high time you should be here, I can tell you, my 
 dear fellow," said Thuillier; "for the house is in a state of 
 revolution, and all on your account. You, with your golden 
 tongue, must try to restore order and peace." 
 
 He explained to the lawyer the cause and circumstance, of 
 the civil war that had broken out. 
 VOL. 14^64
 
 444 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Under existing circumstances/' said Theodose to Madame 
 Colleville, "I may, I suppose, without impropriety be al- 
 lowed a few minutes' private conversation with Mademoiselle 
 Celeste?" 
 
 Here again la Peyrade showed his usual acumen; he saw 
 at once that, to effect the pacification he was asked to nego- 
 tiate, Celeste was at the heart of the situation. 
 
 "I will send for her," said Flavie, "and we will leave you 
 alone together." 
 
 "My dear Thuillier," said la Peyrade, "I will beg you quite 
 quietly and very briefly to tell Mademoiselle Celeste that 
 you require her to express her consent, so as to make her 
 think that she was sent for for that purpose. After that 
 you may leave us, and I will manage the rest." 
 
 So the servant was sent down to Madame Colleville's room 
 in the entresol, to tell Celeste that her godfather wished to 
 speak to her. 
 
 The sort of pantry, where the scenes here related had be- 
 gun in the midst of Brigitte's household cares, was not suit- 
 able for the interview requested by Theodose, so while wait- 
 ing for Celeste they adjourned to the drawing-room. 
 
 As soon as she came in, Thuillier began, in agreement with 
 the programme as arranged. 
 
 "My dear child," said he, "your mother has been telling me 
 things which much surprise me. Is it the fact that though 
 your contract was to have been signed last evening, you have 
 not yet made up your mind to the marriage we have arranged 
 for you?" 
 
 "Indeed, godfather," said Celeste, startled by this sudden 
 cross-examination, "I do not think I said that to mamma." 
 
 "But were you not just now speaking of Monsieur Felix 
 Phellion in terms of extravagant praise ?" said Flavie. 
 
 "I said no more than everybody is saying." 
 
 "Come," said Thuillier, in an authoritative tone, "we will 
 take no equivocation. Do you or do you not refuse to marry 
 Monsieur de la Peyrade ?" 
 
 "Dear fellow," said the Provengal, intervening, "you have
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 445 
 
 a rough and crude way of putting such questions, which 
 especially before me seems not quite appropriate to the oc- 
 casion. As I am the party principally interested, will you 
 allow me to have a few words with Mademoiselle Celeste 
 an explanation which may perhaps be necessary? Madame 
 Colleville will not refuse me this favor; in the position in 
 which I stand my request, I think, cannot alarm her motherly 
 caution." 
 
 "I would agree at once to your wishes," said Flavie; "but 
 that all this ceremony seems to suggest a doubt as to what is 
 irrevocably settled." 
 
 "Nay, my dear madame, it is my earnest wish that Made- 
 moiselle Celeste should remain till the last moment per- 
 fectly free to change her mind. So I will beg you to decree 
 my request, as we say." 
 
 "So be it," said Madame Colleville. "You think yourself 
 very clever; but if you allow that child to get the better of 
 you, so much the worse for you. Are you coming, Thuillier, 
 since we are in the way ?" 
 
 As soon as the two young people were left to themselves, 
 la Peyrade placed an easy-chair for Celeste, and sat down 
 himself, and then he said: 
 
 "You will, I venture to believe, mademoiselle, do me the 
 justice to allow that I have not hitherto wearied you with 
 too much expression of feeling. I have known alike the 
 impulse of your heart and the repugnance of your conscience. 
 I hoped in time, by keeping in the background, to creep in 
 between the two opposing currents; but at the stage we have 
 now reached, I do not think I am indiscreet or over-hasty in 
 begging you to tell me definitely what is your final decision ?" 
 
 "Indeed, monsieur," said Celeste, "since you speak so 
 kindly and frankly, I will tell you honestly what you know 
 already, that having been brought up in intimacy with Mon- 
 sieur Felix Phellion, and knowing him so much longer than 
 I have known you, the idea of marriage, always alarming 
 to a girl, seemed to me less terrifying with him than with 
 any other man."
 
 446 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Well, but at one time," observed Theodose, "you were 
 allowed a choice " 
 
 "Very true, but at that time there were religious diffi- 
 culties." 
 
 "And those are now removed ?" 
 
 "To a great extent," said Celeste. "I am accustomed to 
 yield my opinions to those who are more enlightened and 
 better informed than I am, and you yourself, monsieur, heard 
 what Monsieur 1'Abbe Gondrin said yesterday evening." 
 
 "God forbid," said the Provencal, "that I should dare in- 
 validate the decision of so eminent an authority. At the 
 same time I may point out to you that among the clergy 
 themselves there are various shades of opinion : some are 
 thought too severe, others too indulgent. The Abbe Gondrin 
 is more noted as a preacher than as a casuist." 
 
 "But Monsieur Felix seems ready to justify our good 
 priest's hopes," said Celeste eagerly ; "for I know that he was 
 calling on him this morning." 
 
 "Then he certainly must have been to see Father Anselm," 
 said la Peyrade, with some irony. "But even granting that, 
 on the religious side of the question, Monsieur Felix should 
 ere long be prepared to satisfy you fully, have you considered, 
 mademoiselle, the important change that is about to take place 
 in his life?" 
 
 "Certainly, I have, and it really does not seem to me a 
 reason for liking him the less." 
 
 "No; but it is a reason for his liking himself the more. 
 I am afraid lest, instead of the modesty and humility which 
 are among the great charms of his character, he should as- 
 sume a self-sufficiency and confidence which, while giving 
 rise to personal assertiveness, might choke or dry up the 
 spring of tender feeling. And besides, mademoiselle, you 
 cannot doubt that a man who has discovered one world will 
 crave to find another. Would you wish the whole firmament 
 to be your rival ?" 
 
 "You plead your case with much wit," said Celeste, smiling, 
 "and I can fancy you, as a pleader, quite as troublesome a 
 husband as Monsieur Phellion the astronomer."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 447 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said la Peyrade, "to speak seriously, I am 
 sure that you have your heart in the right place, and are 
 capable of the most delicate feeling. Well, then, do you 
 know what is happening to Monsieur Phellion? He has 
 lost nothing by his devotion to his old master ; his pious fraud 
 is known to all; his discovery is rightly attributed to him, 
 and if I may believe Monsieur Minard, whom I met but just 
 now, he is about to be made Chevalier of the Legion of 
 Honor, and, ere long, a member of the Academy of Sciences. 
 Now, if I were a woman, I should, I own, be distressed if, at 
 the very moment when I was about to take a man into favor, 
 such an avalanche of good things were to come down on him. 
 I should be afraid lest the world should accuse me of 
 worshiping the rising sun." 
 
 "Oh, monsieur," exclaimed Celeste warmly, "you cannot 
 imagine me capable of anything so base !" 
 
 "I cannot ; no," said the Provengal, "I have just expressed 
 the contrary opinion. But the world is so rash, so unjust, 
 and, at the same time, so perverse in its judgments." 
 
 Seeing that he had insinuated some anxiety into the girl's 
 mind, for she made no reply, la Peyrade went on. 
 
 "Now, to turn to a far more serious aspect of your posi- 
 tion, a matter which is not merely personal, and a question, 
 so to speak, between you and yourself, do you know at this 
 moment, in this very house, without intending it, you have 
 been the cause of the most terrible and lamentable scenes ?" 
 
 "I, monsieur?" said Celeste in surprise, mingled with 
 horror. 
 
 "Yes; your godmother's excessive affection for you has 
 transformed her into quite another woman. For the first 
 time in her life she haa a will of her own. With that obstinate 
 determination, which is to be accounted for only by long re- 
 pression of will, she has announced that she will not add any- 
 thing whatever to the sums to be settled on you, and I need 
 not tell you against whom this unexpected thriftiness is 
 directed." 
 
 "But T boi 1 ; you to believe that I knew nothing whatever 
 of my godmother's intentions."
 
 448 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I am sure of it ; and it would be but a trifling misfortune 
 were it not that Mademoiselle Brigitte chose to take this de- 
 cision of Madame Thuillier's as a personal offence, having 
 always till now found her yielding and submissive to her 
 dictation. An angry, nay, a violent, explanation ensued. 
 Thuillier, between the hammer and the anvil, could do noth- 
 ing; on the contrary, he quite involuntarily embittered mat- 
 ters, and they have come to such a point that if you could 
 venture to go to Mademoiselle Thuillier's without exposing 
 yourself to a storm of fury, you would find her packing up to 
 leave the house." i 
 
 "Monsieur ! what are you saying ?" cried Celeste in dis- 
 may. 
 
 "The exact truth, which you may verify by asking the 
 servants, for I feel that my statements are scarcely credible." 
 
 "But it is impossible !" cried the poor girl, her agitation in- 
 creasing at every word spoken by the wily Provengal. "I can- 
 not be the occasion of such disasters." 
 
 "That is to say, that you never meant to be ; for the mis- 
 chief is done, and Heaven only grant that it may not be ir- 
 remediable." 
 
 "Good God ! but what am I to do ?" cried Celeste, wring- 
 ing her hands. 
 
 "Sacrifice yourself, mademoiselle, is what I should reply 
 without hesitation; but that in the present circumstances the 
 part of the victim, at once deplorable and enviable, is allotted 
 to me." 
 
 "Indeed, monsieur," said Celeste, "you quite misunderstand 
 the objections I have felt, but scarcely expressed. I had a 
 preference, but I have never regarded myself as a victim ; and 
 whatever is necessary to restore peace in the household I have 
 upset. I am ready to do without repugnance, nay, very will- 
 
 "That," said la Peyrade, with hypocritical humility, "is far 
 beyond what I dare to hope for. Still, to achieve the result 
 we both desire, something more than that is needful, at any 
 rate, on the surface. Madame Thuillier has not asserted
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 449 
 
 her independence merely to resign it again at once on the 
 announcement of your submission. This, from my lips, is 
 preposterously absurd, but the position demands it ; your god- 
 mother must be led to believe in a strange want of taste on 
 your part, by your assuming an eagerness in favor of my 
 success, which, however improbable, shall be sufficiently "well 
 acted to deceive her." 
 
 "Very well," said Celeste, "I can affect to be light-hearted 
 and happy. My godmother, monsieur, is to me a second 
 mother and what can one not do for a mother ?" 
 
 The situation was so pathetic, and Celeste so innocently 
 betrayed how great was the sacrifice which she was, however, 
 prepared to carry out, that la Peyrade, if he had had a heart 
 at all, must have been disgusted with his own conduct. But 
 to him Celeste was but a stepping-stone ; and if only the ladder 
 will bear and raise a man, who ever thought of expecting it 
 to show enthusiasm ? It was settled then that Celeste should 
 go to her godmother, and should assure her of her mistake in 
 supposing that la Peyrade had ever been the object of the girl's 
 aversion. When once Madame Thuillier's opposition was re- 
 moved, all would be plain sailing: the lawyer undertook to 
 make peace between the sisters-in-law; and, as may be sup- 
 posed, he was not wanting in words to promise the guileless 
 girl a life in the future when, by unfailing love and devotion, 
 he would spare her all regrets for the necessity under which 
 she had accepted him. 
 
 And when Celeste spoke to her godmother, she found less 
 difficulty in convincing her than she had expected. To ven- 
 ture so far in rebellion the poor woman had made an almost 
 superhuman effort of will to overcome her every instinct and 
 natural impulse. At the moment when she heard her beloved 
 goddaughter's false confidences, reaction had set in, and she 
 probably would have been incapable of holding out in the 
 resistance she had begun, for lack of strength. So she was 
 easily deluded by the farce to be played for the benefit of 
 the Provencal. 
 
 The storm once lulled on that side, la Peyrade had no
 
 460 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 difficulty in explaining to Brigitte that she had gone rather 
 too far in her determination to repress the revolt against 
 her authority; and that authority being no longer disputed, 
 Brigitte forgave her sister-in-law for having so narrowly es- 
 caped a slapping; so with a few kind words and a kiss or 
 two", the squabble was made up, Celeste paying the indemnity 
 of the war. 
 
 After dinner, a family dinner, for it was impossible to 
 repeat the abortive party of the evening before, the notary 
 on whom they were to ca"ll next day came to wait on Made- 
 'moiselle Thuillier. This important functionary had come 
 to submit the clauses of the contract to the interested parties 
 before making a fair copy. Nor was there anything strange 
 in this proceeding as an attention to so important a personage 
 as Thuillier, since the notary naturally would omit nothing 
 that might secure him as a permanent client. 
 
 La Peyrade was much too clever to make any comment 
 whatever on the document that was read in his presence. 
 From certain changes suggested by Brigitte, which gave the 
 Provencal a very high opinion of the old maid's capacity for 
 business, he easily understood that the clauses in restriction 
 of his powers were rather tighter than was altogether polite ; 
 but he was determined to raise no difficulties. He well knew 
 that a marriage contract is never so close a net that a 
 clever and determined man cannot slip through it some- 
 where. The signing was to take place in the notary's office 
 on the following day, at two o'clock, in the presence of the 
 family only. 
 
 During part of the evening, taking advantage of the sem- 
 blance of kindness which he had enjoined on Celeste, and 
 which she did her best to affect, la Peyrade played the poor 
 child, as it were, compelling her, by his ardent assumption 
 of gratitude, to reply with a warmth that was far, indeed, 
 from the true feeling of a heart wholly filled by the image of 
 Felix Phellion. 
 
 Flavie, as she saw the Provengal thus laying himself out
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 451 
 
 to be fascinating, remembered how, not so long ago, he had 
 done the same to entangle her. "The wretch!" said she to 
 herself ; but she was forced to put a good face on her martyr- 
 dom, and presently a great service, apparently done by la 
 Peyrade to the Thuillier family, set the last seal on his in- 
 fluence and importance. 
 
 Minard was announced. 
 
 "My dear friends/' said he, "I have come to give you a little 
 piece of information a revelation that will certainly be a 
 surprise to you, and a lesson to us all when we are tempted 
 to admit strangers into our homes." 
 
 "What is that ?" said Brigitte inquisitively. 
 
 "That Hungarian you were so bewitched by, that Madame 
 Torna, Comtesse de Godollo " 
 
 "Well?" said the old maid. 
 
 "Well," said Minard, "she was just a good-for-nothing, 
 and for two months you petted and pampered the most im- 
 pudent courtesan." 
 
 "Who crammed you with that nonsense ?" said Brigitte, de- 
 termined not to admit too readily that she could have been 
 so duped. 
 
 "No one has crammed me !" retorted the Mayor. "I know 
 the facts myself de visu." 
 
 "Bah ! Then you keep company with these ladies ?" said 
 Brigitte, on the offensive. "A pretty story if only Zelie 
 could know it." 
 
 "It is not he who keeps such company," said Thuillier 
 knowingly ; "it is my gentleman, his son ; we have heard about 
 him." 
 
 "Well, that is the truth," said Minard, thoroughly annoyed 
 by the way his communication was received. "And since 
 that impudent rascal has gone so far as to introduce his 
 trumpery actress to get you to write her up in your paper, 
 I cannot conceal it. Master Julien has chosen to keep an 
 actress from some low theatre, arid it was in the society of 
 that creature that I met your friend, Madame de Godollo. I 
 have spoken plainly enough, it seems to me, and doubt is no 
 longer possible."
 
 452 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "It may be quite plain to you," replied Brigitte ; "but un- 
 less you are one of those worthy parents whom their sons 
 introduce to their mistresses, I should be glad to know how 
 you, of all men, found yourself in the company of Monsieur 
 Julien's fair?" 
 
 "Indeed !" cried Minard furious. "Then you suppose that 
 I am the man to encourage my son in his profligacy?" 
 
 "I suppose nothing," retorted Brigitte ; "you yourself said 
 'I found myself in the company ' ' : 
 
 "I said nothing of the kind," interrupted Minard. "I said 
 that I had seen Madame de Godollo whose real name is 
 Madame Komorn, and who is no more a countess than you 
 are, or than Madame Colleville in the company of the worth- 
 less creature on whom my son wastes his money and his time. 
 Now, do you wish me to explain the how and the why of the 
 meeting ?" 
 
 "Why, certainly," said Brigitte, in an incredulous tone, 
 "the explanation is not unnecessary." 
 
 "Well, to show you how little I shut my eyes to my son's 
 misconduct, being warned by an anonymous letter, as soon as 
 I heard of his debaucheries I took steps to assure myself of 
 the truth by the evidence of my own eyes ; for I know how far 
 an anonymous letter is to be relied on." 
 
 "By the way," said Brigitte, by way of parenthesis, and ad- 
 dressing la Peyrade, "it is odd we should never have had any 
 about you." 
 
 "If you do not mean to listen," said Minard, nettled at the 
 interruption, "it is quite useless to ask me for details." 
 
 "Yes, yes, we are listening," said Brigitte. "You wanted 
 to see with your own eyes." 
 
 "Yes," replied Minard, "and on the day of your dinner, 
 when I came in so late, I had been to the Folies-Drama- 
 tiques, the scene of Julien's dissipations, where this hussy 
 was to make her appearance. I wanted to make sure whether 
 the young scoundrel, who, saying he was ill, left the house 
 as soon as we were out of it, was in his place to applaud her. 
 It is a dreadful thing to say, but such, in fact, are the false-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 453 
 
 hoods to which such a lunatic will stoop when he is bewitched 
 by an actress." 
 
 "And was he there?" asked Brigitte, in a tone of small 
 sympathy with the Mayor's woes. 
 
 "No, mademoiselle, he was not. I did not see him any- 
 where in the house; but in a little stir which took place on 
 the stage as the curtain rose, I saw the boy, the disgrace of 
 my old age, talking in the airiest way to a fireman, and so far 
 forward from the side scenes that one of the vulgar audience 
 in the pit called out to him : 'Take your nut out of the way, 
 youngster!' You may imagine the joy to a father's heart at 
 hearing this pleasing admonition." 
 
 "You see," said Brigitte, "you have spoiled your dear 
 Julien." 
 
 "Far from spoiling him," said Minard; "but for his 
 mother's entreaties I was inclined to handle him pretty 
 smartly. However, having heard, last evening, such words of 
 wisdom and tolerance from the Abbe Gondrin, it occurred to 
 me that I would go and ask his advice, and by his counsel 
 I decided that " 
 
 "As if priests understood anything about such matters!" 
 exclaimed Brigitte scornfully. 
 
 "The proof that they do lies in the fact that the plan sug- 
 gested by Monsieur 1'Abbe was perfectly successful. I went 
 to this dangerous woman's mother, I told her that I was pre- 
 pared to make some sacrifice to put an end to a connection 
 which was, no doubt, as great a grief to her as to me ; that I 
 would go so far as to pay her daughter an allowance of fifteen 
 hundred francs a year, or a lump sum of thirty thousand 
 francs as a marriage portion; and I took care to add that 
 there was nothing more to be got out of my son, as I was 
 about to cut off supplies. 'The very thing!' replied the wo- 
 man. 'There is a copying clerk to the Justice of the Peace 
 for the twelfth arrondissement who has had his eye on 
 Olympe, and who is only too ready to bite.' " 
 
 "Did she mention the copying clerk's name?" said la Pey- 
 rade.
 
 454 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "I do not think so," answered Minard. "At any rate, I 
 have forgotten it. I settled everything on the nail with the 
 mother, who seemed a very good sort of woman." 
 
 "But in all this," remarked Brigitte, "I see no sign of 
 Madame de Godollo." 
 
 "Have patience," replied Minard. " 'The only thing I am 
 afraid of,' said the old mother, 'is that she may be ill advised 
 by a Polish woman, a Madame Cramone, who has got hold 
 of my girl and does what she likes with her; but perhaps if 
 you would see her, and hinted at some little present for her- 
 self, she might play our game for us. She is here, as it 
 happens; shall I call her in? I will tell her, naming no 
 names, sir, that a gentleman wants to speak to her.' I agreed ; 
 the lady was brought in; imagine my astonishment when I 
 found myself face to face with your Madame de Godollo, who, 
 the instant she saw me, turned tail and was off laughing like 
 a crazy thing." 
 
 "And are you quite sure it was she?" said Brigitte. "If 
 you only just saw her " 
 
 The wily Provencal was not the man to miss the oppor- 
 tunity thus offered of retaliating on the Hungarian's practical 
 joke. 
 
 "Monsieur le Maire was not mistaken," said he decisively. 
 
 "What ! So you know her too ?" said Mademoiselle Thuil- 
 lier. "And you allowed us to harbor such vermin !" 
 
 "Quite the contrary," answered la Peyrade. "It was I 
 who, without any fuss or saying a word to anybody, rid your 
 house of her. You may remember how suddenly she vanished. 
 It was I who, having discovered what she was, gave her two 
 days to clear out in, threatening that, if she hesitated, I 
 should tell you the whole truth." 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Thuillier, pressing the lawyer's 
 hand, "you acted with equal prudence and determination. 
 This is yet another debt we owe you." 
 
 "You see, mademoiselle," said la Peyrade to Celeste, "how 
 strange a patroness a certain person of your acquaintance 
 had."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 455 
 
 "Thank God !" said Madame Thuillier, "Monsieur Felix is 
 above all these vile things." 
 
 "Well, well, Papa Minard," said Brigitte, "mum's the word 
 about it all. Our lips shall remain sealed as to Monsieur 
 Julien's tricks. Will you take a cup of tea?" 
 
 "With pleasure," replied Minard. 
 
 "Celeste," said the old maid, "ring for Henri to put on the 
 big kettle." 
 
 Though they were not to go to the notary's office before two, 
 on the following day, by eight in the morning Brigitte was 
 already "on the rampage," as her brother called it: the frac- 
 tious, worrying, morning bustle which la Fontaine describes 
 in his fable of the old woman and her two maids. 
 
 Brigitte declared that no one would be ready in time if 
 she did not begin early. She would not let Thuillier go to the 
 newspaper office, saying that if he went out, she should see no 
 more of him ; she nagged at Josephine to have breakfast ready 
 before the usual time ; and in spite of what had occurred the 
 day before, she could hardly keep herself from bullying Ma- 
 dame Thuillier, who did not act so fully as she could have 
 wished on Brigitte's favorite saying: "Better too soon than 
 too late." 
 
 Then she went down to make the same commotion among 
 the Collevilles ; she set her veto on a far too showy dress that 
 Flavie proposed to wear, and gave express orders to Celeste 
 as to the gown and bonnet she was to appear in. As to Colle- 
 ville, who, as he represented, was bound to go to his office, 
 she made him put on his frock coat before going out, and set 
 his watch by hers, warning him that anyhow if he were late 
 they would not wait for him. 
 
 And so, funnily enough, it came to pass that it was Brigitte 
 who, after goading everybody about her, was very near being 
 unready herself at the appointed hour. Under pretence of 
 helping everybody, besides her usual occupations, which no 
 earthly consideration would have induced her to relax, she 
 had an eye and a finger in so many places at once that at last 
 she was fairly overdone.
 
 456 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The unpunctuality of which she was so nearly guilty was 
 ascribed by her to a hairdresser, for whom she had sent on 
 this great occasion "to part her hair straight." The artist 
 having chosen to dress her head in the fashion, had been 
 obliged to do his work all over again to restore his patient 
 to her ordinary appearance, which consisted, in fact, in not 
 having her hair dressed at all, but always looking like a cat 
 pulled through a hedge backward, to use a vulgar phrase. 
 
 By about half-past one la Peyrade, Thuillier, Colleville, 
 Madame Thuillier, and Celeste were all ready in the drawing- 
 room. Flavie joined them almost immediately ; she came in 
 clasping her bracelets to avoid a squabble, and was relieved to 
 find that Brigitte was not before her. As to Brigitte, furious 
 already at feeling herself late, she had another cause for vexa- 
 tion. The importance of the occasion had seemed to her to 
 demand stays, an elegancy in which she did not usually in- 
 dulge. And the unhappy maid who was at this moment lacing 
 her, and trying to discover exactly how tight she wanted them 
 to be drawn, alone knew all the storm and stress of "stays- 
 days." 
 
 "I would just as soon be set to put the obelisk into stays," 
 said the girl, "and I believe it would turn out a better figure; 
 at any rate it would not use such language." 
 
 While they were laughing among themselves without a 
 sound, at the flagrant breach of order in which "Queen Eliza- 
 beth" was caught, the concierge came in, and gave to Thuillier 
 a sealed letter that had just been placed in his hands with 
 this address : 
 
 "Monsieur Thuillier, proprietor of the llfcho de la Bievre. 
 To be delivered immediately." 
 
 The addressee hastily opened the packet and found within 
 a copy of a ministerial paper which had already shown some 
 discourtesy and hostility, refusing the exchange which is 
 commonly effected with much good-will among, the offices, 
 paper for paper. 
 
 Thuillier, greatly puzzled by the delivery of this missive at 
 his residence and not at the offices of the Echo, hastilv un-
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 457 
 
 folded the sheet and read the following paragraph with such 
 feelings as may be imagined. It was marked for notice with 
 a red pencil. 
 
 "An obscure newspaper was about to die decently in the 
 dark, when a man of newly fledged ambitions took it into his 
 head to galvanize it. He aims at making it a stepping-stone 
 to climb from municipal office to the coveted position of a 
 member of the Chamber. This intrigue has happily come 
 to light, and must prove abortive. Electors will not allow 
 themselves to be misled by the insidious hints in this sheet of 
 news, and when the time is ripe, if ridicule should not have 
 *uted this imprudent candidate, we will take it upon our- 
 selves to show him that for a man to attain to the honor of 
 representing his country, it is not enough to be able to pur- 
 chase an outcast paper, and to keep a Svhite-washer' to put the 
 fearful jargon of his articles and pamphlets into readable 
 French. We say no more to-day ; but our readers may rely on 
 being kept informed as to the progress of this electoral farce, 
 if the chief actor is brave enough to go through with it." 
 
 Twice did Thuillier read this declaration of war, which 
 was far from leaving him unmoved, and then, taking la Pey- 
 rade aside: 
 
 "Look here," said he, "this looks serious." 
 
 The Provengal read the passage. 
 
 "Well," said he. 
 
 "What well?" said Thuillier. 
 
 "What do you find so serious in this?" 
 
 "What that is serious? Why, the article is exceedingly 
 offensive to me, I should say." 
 
 "And it does not strike you that here you have again some 
 virtuous Cerizet who, out of revenge, is trying to trip you up ?" 
 
 "Cerizet, or any other man whoever wrote this, is an in- 
 solent ruffian," cried Thuillier hotly; "and the matter will 
 not stop here." 
 
 "If you take my advice," said la Peyrade, "you will make
 
 458 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 no rejoinder. You are not named nor identified, though of 
 course it is difficult not to suppose yourself attacked. We 
 must let the enemy declare himself more openly; when the 
 moment is ripe we will hit him over the knuckles." 
 
 "Not at all/' said Thuillier, "it is impossible to remain 
 passive under such an insult." 
 
 "The devil !" exclaimed the lawyer, "how thin-skinned you 
 are. But remember, my dear fellow, you are a journalist, 
 and going to stand an election; you must be a little more 
 pachydermatous." 
 
 "I, my friend, make it a rule to let no one tread on my toes. 
 Besides, the writer promises to sin again, so we must put a 
 stop to such impertinence." 
 
 "Well, try it," said la Peyrade. "It is true that in jour- 
 nalism, as in an election, a raging temper has its advantages. 
 It commands respect, and stops many attacks." 
 
 "Certainly," said Thuillier, "principiis obsta. Not to-day, 
 as we have not time, but no later than to-morrow I carry that 
 article into court." 
 
 "Into court !" cried la Peyrade. "You mean to get the law 
 to interfere? But there is not a case in it. Neither your 
 name nor the paper is mentioned ; and, besides, there is some- 
 thing so pitiful in a lawsuit. It is like children who have 
 squabbled, and run to complain to mamma or their tutor. If 
 you had told me that you meant to put Fleury forward in the 
 matter, that I could understand, though the quarrel is per- 
 sonal to yourself, -and it is difficult to see in it such an offence 
 to the social status of the paper, as it is the responsible 
 manager's business to ask an account of." 
 
 "I dare say," answered Thuillier. "And so you imagine 
 that I mean to commit myself with some Cerizet, or such an- 
 other swashbuckler of the Government ? I, my dear sir, pride 
 myself on my civic courage, which does not yield to prejudice, 
 and instead of taking justice with its own hands, has recourse 
 to the means of defence afforded by the law. Besides, the 
 supreme court takes such a tone, nowadays, about dueling that 
 I have no fancy to expose myself to banishment or a year or 
 two of imprisonmeDt."
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 450 
 
 "Well," said la Peyrade, "we can discuss all that later. 
 Here comes your sister, and she would think all was lost, if we 
 mentioned this little difficulty in her presence." 
 
 As Brigitte came in, Colleville exclaimed : 
 
 "Full up !" and began to sing the burden of the Parisienne. 
 
 "Goodness, Colleville ! How vulgar you are," said the late- 
 comer, hastily casting a stone into her neighbor's ground to 
 avoid one being thrown into hers. 
 
 "Well, then, are we ready?" she added, settling her cape 
 in front of the glass. "What time is it ? We must not be too 
 early, like country folks." 
 
 "Ten minutes to two," said Colleville, "my watch goes like 
 the Tuileries clock." 
 
 "Then we are just right," said Brigitte. "It will not take 
 us longer to get to the Eue Caumartin. Josephine," she 
 shouted, opening the drawing-room door, "we shall dine at six, 
 so note the time for putting the turkey down, and mind it is 
 not burnt as it was the other day. Hey ! What is that ?" she 
 hastily exclaimed, shutting the door she was holding open. 
 "A visitor bother ! I only hope Henri will have the sense to 
 say that no one is at home." 
 
 Not at all. Henri came to say that an old gentleman with 
 a ribbon in his buttonhole, and "quite the gentleman," begged 
 to be admitted on urgent business. 
 
 "Couldn't you say that we were all out ?" 
 
 "I should have done so, mademoiselle, if you had not 
 opened the drawing-room door at the very moment, so that 
 the gentleman could see all the family assembled." 
 
 "Oh !" said Brigitte, "you are never wrong." 
 
 "And what am I to tell him ?" asked the man. 
 
 "Tell him," said Thuillier, "that I am very sorry that I 
 cannot see him, but that we are expected at the notary's to 
 sign a marriage contract, and if he will return in a couple 
 of hours " 
 
 "I told him all that," replied Henri, "and he said that the 
 contract was the very business that brought him here, and that 
 
 his call was of more importance to you than to him." 
 YOL. 14 BK
 
 460 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Well, well, see him and get rid of him in no time," said 
 Brigitte. "It will be shorter than the explanations given by 
 Henri, who is such an orator." 
 
 If la Peyrade's opinion had been asked, he perhaps would 
 have come to a different conclusion ; for he had already had 
 more than one specimen of the attempts made by some occult 
 power to put a spoke in the wheels of his marriage, and this 
 visit seemed to him of ill omen. 
 
 "Show him into my study," said Thuillier, acting on his 
 sister's advice; then opening a door from the drawing-room 
 into that where he meant to receive this importunate caller, 
 he went in first. 
 
 Instantly Brigitte had her eye to the keyhole. 
 
 "There, now!" cried she, "if that idiot Thuillier has not 
 made him sit down, and at the further end of the room, too, 
 so that it is impossible to hear what they are saying." 
 
 La Peyrade meanwhile was pacing the room, his agitation 
 concealed under an affectation of extreme indifference; he 
 even went up to the group of women and made a few pretty 
 speeches to Celeste, which she received with the smiling satis- 
 faction that lay in the spirit of her part. As for Colleville, 
 he was killing time by composing an anagram out of the six 
 words Le journal I'ticho de la Bievre; and by shuffling the 
 letters presently produced this, not very promising for the 
 prospects of the paper, d'flcho jarni! la bevue reell (0 the 
 Echo, quite a blunder) ; but an e was wanting for the last 
 word, so the work was not quite perfect. 
 
 "What a lot of snuff he takes !" cried Brigitte, still keeping 
 an eye on the adjoining room. "His gold box beats Minard's ; 
 I never saw one such a size. But I fancy it is only silver gilt," 
 she added by way of comment. "And he talks and talks, and 
 Thuillier sits listening like a dummy. I don't care, I will 
 go in and say that ladies are not to be kept waiting in this 
 fashion." 
 
 She had her hand on the latch when she heard Thuillier's 
 visitor speaking much louder, and she again applied her eye 
 to the keyhole.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 461 
 
 "He is up at last," she said with satisfaction. 
 
 But presently, perceiving that she was mistaken, and that it 
 was only to speak with greater emphasis that the little old 
 man had risen to his feet and was walking up and down th 
 room 
 
 "On my honor, I will really go in," she said, "and tell 
 Thuillier that we will start now, and he can follow when they 
 have done talking." 
 
 So speaking, the old maid gave two short and imperative 
 little taps, and marched boldly into her brother's study. 
 
 Peyrade now had the bad taste, excusable only by interest 
 and curiosity, to look through the keyhole at what was going 
 on within. He at once, as he thought, recognized the little 
 old man as he whom he had once seen under the title of "the 
 Commander" at Madame de Godollo's; and then he observed 
 that Thuillier was addressing his sister with such impatience 
 and airs of authority as were very unlike his usual habits of 
 deference and submission. 
 
 "Thuillier finds the creature's conversation very interesting, 
 it would seem/' remarked Brigitte ; "for he ordered me out in 
 the rudest way, though the little old man himself said with 
 great politeness that he had nearly done. 'And wait for me, 
 whatever you do/ said Jerome. Bless me, since he has taken 
 up with his paper there is no knowing him. He gives himself 
 such airs of leading the whole world with a wand 
 
 "I am very much afraid," said la Peyrade, "lest he is being 
 mystified by some adventurer; I am almost sure that I saw 
 that little old man with Madame Komorn on th > day when I 
 went to advise her to clear out. He must be some one of the 
 same stamp." 
 
 "You might have told me so," said Brigitte. "I would have 
 asked him for news of the Countess, so as to let him see that 
 we know something about his Hungarian woman." 
 
 At this moment they heard chairs moved; Brigitte flew to 
 the keyhole. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "he is going. Jerome is showing him out, 
 bowing and scraping."
 
 462 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 As Thuillier did not immediately reappear, Colleville had 
 time to go to the window, and as he saw the old gentleman 
 step into the vehicle of which the reader has already heard 
 
 "The devil !" he exclaimed, "what a fine livery ! If he is an 
 adventurer, it is in the first style." 
 
 Presently Thuillier came in. His face was anxious and he 
 spoke very gravely. 
 
 "My dear la Peyrade," said he, "you never told us that you 
 had seriously thought of another offer of marriage?" 
 
 "Why, yes, I did. I told you that a very rich heiress had 
 been proposed to me, but that my heart was here ; that I had 
 not chosen to take the matter up, and that consequently noth- 
 ing definite had come of it." 
 
 "Well. I think you are wrong to make so light of the pro- 
 posal." 
 
 "What, you, in the presence of these ladies, can blame me 
 for being faithful to my first affections, and to our long- 
 standing engagements." 
 
 "My dear boy, the interview I have just had has enlightened 
 me considerably; and when you know all that I know, and 
 many other details which will be told to you alone, I am sure 
 you will agree with me. One thing is quite certain : we do not 
 go to the notary to-day. As for you, the best thing you can 
 do is to be off at once to call on Monsieur du Portail." 
 
 "That name again! It haunts me like remorse," cried la 
 Peyrade. 
 
 "Yes ; go there at once. He expects you, and it is an indis- 
 pensable preliminary to any further steps. When you have 
 seen that worthy gentleman, if you still persist in your suit 
 for Celeste's hand, we may encourage your purpose; till then 
 nothing can be done." 
 
 "But, my poor boy," said Brigitte, "you have allowed your- 
 self to be bamboozled by a rascal; the man belongs to the 
 Godollo set." 
 
 "Madame de Godollo," replied Thuillier, "is not in the 
 least what you think her, and the best thing to do in this 
 house is never to say a word about her, good or evil. As to la
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 463 
 
 Peyrade, as this is not the first invitation he has received, I 
 cannot really conceive why he hesitates to go to this Monsieur 
 du Portail " 
 
 "Deuce take it !" cried Brigitte ; "but the little old man has 
 altogether bewitched you." 
 
 "I can tell you that the little old man is all he appears on 
 the surface. He has seven Orders and a magnificent carriage, 
 and told me things that filled me with amazement." 
 / "Then he is perhaps a fortune-teller, in Madame Fon- 
 taine's line, the woman who upset me so one day when I went 
 with Madame Minard to consult her, expecting to have a good 
 laugh at the old witch." 
 
 "Well, if he is not a wizard," replied Thuillier, "he has at 
 least a very long arm, and I believe you will get no good out 
 of neglecting his advice. Why, he only just caught sight of 
 you, Brigitte, and he told me your character at once: he said 
 you were a masterly woman, born to command." 
 
 "As a matter of fact," said Brigitte, licking her lips over 
 this compliment, as if she had been tasting cream, "the little 
 old man looks quite the gentleman. Listen, my dear boy," 
 she went on to la Peyrade. "Since such a very big pot insists 
 on it, go at any rate to see this du Portail. That, it seems to 
 me, need pledge you to nothing." 
 
 "Of course," said Colleville. "If it were I, I would pay 
 thirty calls on all the du Portails, or du Portaux- on earth, if 
 I were advised to do so." 
 
 As the scene was beginning to be very like that in the Bar- 
 Here, in which every one desires Basile to go to bed, till he 
 feels quite in a fever, la Peyrade took up his hat in a pet, and 
 went where destiny called him Quo sua fata vocabant. 
 
 On arriving at the Eue Honore-Chevalier, la Peyrade had 
 a qualm; the dilapidated appearance of the house where he 
 was to call made him fancy that he must have forgotten the 
 number. He did not think that any man of such importance 
 as might be ascribed to this Monsieur du Portail, who was 
 such an incubus on his life, could reside in such a spot. It
 
 464 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 was with much hesitancy that he addressed himself to the 
 porter, Monsieur Perrache. But when he had mounted to the 
 rooms indicated to him, and found himself in the ante-room, 
 the good style of old Bruno, the man-servant, and the very 
 comfortable appearance of all the accessories, seemed quite 
 suitable to his expectations. He was shown at once into the 
 old gentleman's study, and his surprise was great when he 
 found himself face to face with the so-called commandeur, 
 Madame de Godollo's ally, and, as will have been understood, 
 the very man whom he had caught a glimpse of but just now, 
 calling on Thuillier. 
 
 "At last," said du Portail, rising to place a chair. "So you 
 have come, recalcitrant youth. You have taken a vast amount 
 of pulling." 
 
 "And may I ask, monsieur," said la Peyrade haughtily, 
 without taking the seat that was offered him, "what interest 
 you can possibly have in meddling in my concerns? I do not 
 know you, and I may add that the place where I once hap- 
 pened to see you did not lead me to indulge in any excessive 
 desire to make your acquaintance." 
 
 "Where, then, did you see me ?" asked du Portail. 
 
 "In the rooms of a demirep, who called herself Madame la 
 Comtesse de Godollo." 
 
 "On whom you, too, were presumably calling," said the old 
 man, "and with less disinterested aims than mine." 
 
 "I did not come here to bandy repartee," replied Theodose. 
 "I have a right, monsieur, to some explanation as to your 
 proceedings in general towards me. I would venture, then, 
 to beg that you will not postpone them by your witty remarks, 
 to which I am not at all in the humor to listen submissively." 
 
 "Well, well, my dear boy, sit down," said du Portail. "I 
 am not in the humor to dislocate my neck by speaking up to 
 your height." 
 
 The intimation was but reasonable, and was made in a 
 tone that seemed to convey that lordly airs would not scare 
 the old gentleman. So la Peyrade made up his mind to yield 
 to his host's desire, though he took care to obey with the worst 
 grace he could display.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 465 
 
 "Monsieur Cerizet," du Portail began, "a man of very good 
 position in the world, and who has the honor of counting you 
 among his friends " 
 
 "I no longer see the man," said la Peyrade vehemently, 
 fully understanding the old man's malicious insinuation. 
 
 ''At any rate," du Portail went on, "at a time when you did 
 occasionally meet for instance, when you paid for his dinner 
 at the Rocker de Cancale I desired that virtuous Monsieur 
 Cerizet to sound you as to a marriage " 
 
 "Which I declined," interrupted Theodose, "and which I 
 now refuse more decisively than ever." 
 
 "That is just the question," said the gentleman. "Now I, 
 on the contrary, believe that you will accept it; and it is to 
 talk the matter over that I have so long wished to see you." 
 
 "But who is this crazy woman you are flinging at my head," 
 said la Peyrade, "and what is she io you ? She is, I imagine, 
 neither your daughter nor any relation of yours, for you 
 would surely be less barefaced in your husband-hunting on 
 her behalf." 
 
 "The lady," said du Portail, "is the daughter of one of 
 my friends. She lost her father more than ten years since, 
 and from that time has always lived with me. I have given 
 her all the care demanded by her sad condition ; her fortune, 
 which I have greatly increased, added to my own, which I 
 intend she should inherit, makes her immensely wealthy. I 
 know that you have no aversion for handsome settlements, 
 since you seek them in the lowest ranks in such a house as 
 the Tlmilliers', for instance, or, to use your own word, in that 
 of a demirep whom you scarcely knew; I consequently sup- 
 posed that you might be willing to accept them from me, since 
 the young lady's malady is pronounced quite curable, while no 
 one can ever cure Monsieur Thuillier of being a fool or his 
 sister of being a harridan any more than you can cure Ma- 
 dame Komorn of being a flighty woman of very mediocre 
 virtue." 
 
 "It may nevertheless please me to marry the goddaughter 
 Of a fool and a vixen, if she is my own choice ; nay, if passion
 
 466 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 should carry me away, I might become the husband of a dis- 
 reputable coquette. But no one, neither you, sir, nor cleverer 
 and more powerful men than you, could make me accept 
 the Queen of Sheba if she were forced upon me." 
 
 "And for that reason I appeal to your good sense and in- 
 telligence ; but to speak to a man one must get sight of him. 
 Come, consider what your position is, and do not be alarmed 
 if, like a surgeon anxious to cure his patient, I ruthlessly lay 
 my hand on the wounds of a life that has hitherto been so 
 laborious and storm-tossed. The first point to note is that 
 Celeste Colleville is quite lost to you." 
 
 "Why ?" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Because I have just left Thuillier quite terrified by a 
 picture of all the disasters he has already incurred, and will 
 yet incur, if he persists in his determination to make his god- 
 daughter marry you. He knows now that it was I who paral- 
 yzed the action of the Comtesse du Bruel in the matter of the 
 Cross ; that it was I who had his pamphlet seized ; that it was 
 I who sent the Hungarian to his house to trick you all so 
 effectually ; that it was by my care that the ministerial jour- 
 nals have opened a fire which will be hotter every day, to say 
 nothing of other machinery to be set in motion to hinder his 
 election, if need should arise. So you see, my dear sir, not 
 only have you ceased to have the crowning merit in Thuillier's 
 eyes of being his most influential voter ; you are actually the 
 stumbling-stone in the way of his ambition. That is enough 
 to show you that the outworks by which you impressed and 
 governed the family, who, in fact, never really wanted you, 
 are now wholly reduced and dismantled." 
 
 "But who are you/* said la Peyrade, "that you can flatter 
 yourself that you have done all this?" 
 
 "I will not retort that you are too curious, because I shall 
 presently answer that question ; but we will go on, if you 
 please, with our autopsy of your past existence a now dead 
 existence, for which I am preparing a glorious resurrection. 
 You are eight and twenty; you have barely started on the 
 career in which I forbid you taking one step onward. In a
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 46? 
 
 few days from now the Board of the Pleaders' Association will 
 meet, and will censure, in a more or less final verdict, your 
 conduct as to the freehold you so foolishly secured for Thuil- 
 lier. Now do not deceive yourself: even if you underwent 
 nothing worse than a severe reprimand, and that is the least 
 that can befall you, a lawyer is not like the hackney coach- 
 man whom the disapproval of the Court could not hinder from 
 driving his cab; if you are but blamed, your name may as 
 well be struck from the roll." 
 
 "And it is to your benevolent interference, I suppose, that 
 I owe this precious result ?" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "I am proud to think so," said du Portail ; "for to tow you 
 back into harbor, the first thing was to cut away your tackle. 
 Otherwise you would always be wanting to set your own sails 
 among that ruck of the middle classes." 
 
 Seeing that his adversary could certainly play a strong 
 game, the wily Provengal thought it wise to moderate his tone, 
 and said with much more reserve of manner: 
 
 "You will, at any rate, allow me, monsieur, to postpone my 
 gratitude till further developments." 
 
 "Here you stand, then," said du Portail, "at eight and 
 twenty, without a sou, without a profession, with antecedents 
 that may be called mediocre, and some old acquaintance such 
 as Dutocq and Cerizet 'the Brave' ; owing ten thousand francs 
 to Mademoiselle Thuillier, which, as a mere point of con- 
 science, you are bound to repay, even if you had not pledged 
 yourself to do so out of vanity; twenty-five thousand more 
 to Madame Lambert, which you would be only too glad, no 
 doubt, to replace in her hands; and to crown all, this mar- 
 riage, your last hope, your plank of deliverance, has become 
 impossible. Between you and me, now, if I have any reason- 
 tible offer to make, do not you think you may be open to my 
 suggestions?" 
 
 "There will be time enough to assert the contrary," replied 
 la Peyrade, "and I can come to no determination so long as 
 your plans in my behalf remain unknown to me." 
 
 "I sounded you through others as to a marriage," said du
 
 468 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Portail. "That marriage is indissolubly connected in my 
 mind with another scheme of life which comes to you in the 
 guise of a sort of hereditary vocation. Do you know what the 
 uncle you came to seek in 1829 was doing in Paris? Among 
 you, I know, he was supposed to be a millionaire ; as a fact, 
 dying suddenly before you reached him, he did not leave 
 money enough to pay for his burial. A pauper's bier and the 
 common grave these alone were his." 
 
 "Then you knew him ?" asked Theodose. 
 
 "He was my dearest and oldest friend." 
 
 "But then," exclaimed la Peyrade eagerly, "a sum of a 
 hundred louis which reached me from an unknown source, in 
 the early days of my stay in Paris " 
 
 "Was sent by me," said the other. "Overwhelmed at the 
 time by a mass of business which you shall presently under- 
 stand, I was unfortunately prevented from acting on the 
 kindly interest I felt in you, out of regard for your uncle's 
 memory. This will account for my having left you to ripen, 
 like medlars, on straw, to that rottenness of poverty which 
 involved you in the meshes of a Dutocq and a Cerizet." 
 
 "I am not the less obliged to you," said la Peyrade, "and 
 if I had known that you were the generous protector who re- 
 mained undiscoverable, believe me that, without awaiting 
 your commands, I should have been the first to seize an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing and thanking you." 
 
 "Enough of compliments," said du Portail. "To come 
 to the more serious matter of our conference: what would 
 you say if I told you that this uncle, whose protection and 
 support you came to seek in Paris, was one of the agents of 
 that occult power which is the subject of so many absurd 
 fables and so much silly prejudice ?" 
 
 "I do not follow you," said la Peyrade with anxious curi- 
 osity. "Might I beg you to explain your meaning?" 
 
 "Well, for instance," du Portail went on, "supposing your 
 uncle were alive and could say to you : *You want money and 
 influence, my fine nephew; you are eager to rise above the 
 herd, to mingle in the great movements of your time; you
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 469 
 
 wish to find employment for your active and keen wits, for a 
 mind full of resource, and a decided bent for intrigue; in 
 short, you would like to employ, in a sphere of wealth and 
 fashion, the powers of will and ingenuity which you have 
 until now frittered in barren and thankless efforts to utilize 
 the driest and toughest thing in this world a man of the 
 middle class. Well, then, bend your head, my worthy nephew, 
 follow me in at the little door I will open to you, into a large 
 house of no great repute indeed, but better than its reputation. 
 As soon as you have crossed the threshold, you may stand 
 up to the full height of your genius, if there is a spark of 
 genius in you. Statesmen and kings will tell you their most 
 secret thoughts ; you will be their unknown colleague, and in 
 this path none of the joys that money and important functions 
 can give a man will be beyond your ambition and reach/ " 
 
 "But you will allow me to remark," said la Peyrade, "with- 
 out pretending that I yet fully understand you, that my uncle 
 died in such misery that he was buried at the cost of public 
 charity " 
 
 "Your uncle," du Portail put in, "was a man of the rarest 
 talent; but there was a certain levity in his character which 
 had a fatal effect on his fortunes. He was a spendthrift, 
 eager for pleasure, and took no care for the future ; he craved, 
 too, for that happiness, meant only for commoner souls, 
 which is the greatest burden, the greatest snare to those who 
 have any exceptionally high calling I mean a family and 
 home. He had a daughter on whom he doted, and through 
 her his terrible enemies found a breach which enabled them 
 to plot the terrible catastrophe that ended his life. Your 
 uncle you see I enter into your argument your uncle died 
 of rapid poison." 
 
 "And that you think an encouragement to tread in the dark 
 ways where you would have me follow him," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "But if I myself, my dear sir, should lead the way ?" 
 
 "You, monsieur!" exclaimed la Peyrade in amazement. 
 
 "Yes, I your uncle's pupil and afterwards his protector 
 and providence. I, whose influence has grown almost daily
 
 470 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 for the last half -century. I, who am rich, who have seen suc- 
 cessive governments, tumbling over each other's heels like 
 rows of cards, come, each in its turn, to seek from me security 
 and a promise of endurance. I, who am the manager of a vast 
 theatre of marionettes, including Columbines of the pattern 
 of Madame de Godollo; I, who, if it were necessary for the 
 success of one of my comedies or dramas, might appear before 
 you to-morrow wearing the ribbon of the first rank of the 
 Legion of Honor, of the Order of the Garter, or of the Golden 
 Fleece ! And would you like to know why neither you nor I 
 shall die by poison? Why I, happier than contemporary 
 kings, can transmit my sceptre to a successor of my own 
 choosing? It is because I like you, my young friend, not- 
 withstanding your southern complexion have been cool and 
 deeply calculating; because I never lost my time in trifling 
 on the threshold; because my ardor, when circumstances re- 
 quired me to make a show of it, never lay deeper than the 
 surface. It is more than likely that you have heard of me; 
 well, for your benefit I will open a gap in my cloud. Look at 
 me, mark me well : I have no cloven feet, no sign of a tail ; on 
 the contrary, I seem to be the most inoffensive of old gentle- 
 men living on their means in all the quarter near Saint- 
 Sulpice, where, for five and twenty years, I have, I may say, 
 enjoyed the esteem of all ; I am known as du Portail ; but to 
 you, by your leave, I shall be known as Corentin." 
 
 "Corentin !" cried la Peyrade, almost with dismay. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, and as you see, merely by revealing this 
 secret, I lay my hand on your shoulder and enrol you Coren- 
 tin, 'the greatest man in the police of modern times,' as was 
 said of me by the author of an article in the Biographie des 
 Hommes vivants, though, to do him justice, he knows not a 
 word about my life/' 
 
 "I will certainly keep your secret, monsieur," said la Pey- 
 rade ; "but the part you are so kind as to offer me 
 
 "Terrifies you, or, to say the least, startles you," the old 
 man hastily put in. "Before you even know exactly what it is, 
 the mere word scares you ! The secret po-o-o-lice ! Prejudice
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 471 
 
 has set a mark on its brow, and you could not bear to be free 
 from that prejudice?" 
 
 "Of course," said la Peyrade, "it is a valuable institution ; 
 but I do not think that all that is said about it is calumny. 
 If it were an honorable profession, why should those who 
 pursue it conceal themselves ?" 
 
 "Because all that endangers society, and which it is their 
 duty to counteract, is plotted and prepared in the dark," said 
 Corentin. "Do thieves and conspirators stick a notice on their 
 hat, 'I am Guillot, the shepherd of this flock,' or ought we, 
 when we want to apprehend them, to send the crier before 
 us with a bell, as the health officer does who goes round every 
 morning to see that the lodge-porters sweep in front of each 
 door?" 
 
 "Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "when a feeling is so general, 
 it is not a prejudice but an opinion; and that opinion must 
 be the rule of every man who has any pretensions to his own 
 respect or that of others." 
 
 "And if you could rob this bankrupt notary," cried Coren- 
 tin, "if you stripped a corpse to enrich the Thuilliers, you 
 could still esteem yourself and hope for the esteem of your 
 order; nay, who knows that there may not have been even 
 darker deeds than this in your life ! I am an honester man 
 than you, for outside my duties I cannot accuse myself of a 
 single doubtful action; when I have a good deed placed in 
 my way I have always done it. Do you suppose that for the 
 past eleven years the care of this crazy girl has been a con- 
 stantly delightful task? But she was the daughter of your 
 uncle, of my oldest friend ; and when, as I feel my days de- 
 clining, I appeal to you, with my hands full of hard coin, to 
 relieve me of this charge 
 
 "What !" exclaimed la Peyrade, "the crazy girl is my uncle 
 la Peyrade's daughter?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, the woman I want you to marry is the 
 daughter of Peyrade, for he had popularized his name, or, 
 if you prefer it, of Pere Canquoelle, a name he assumed for 
 business purposes from the little estate of les Canquoelles,
 
 472 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 where your father and his eleven children lived in starvation. 
 In spite of your uncle's strict secrecy about his family, do I 
 not know it as if it were my own ? Have I not acquired all 
 the information I could get before selecting you for your 
 cousin's husband ? You turn up your nose at the police ; but, 
 as the common folks say, you owe the best of your nose to the 
 police. Your uncle belonged to it, and thanks to his functions 
 he was Louis XVIII.'s confidant, I might almost say his 
 friend, for the King delighted in his conversation. Your 
 cousin was born in that purple. You, by your character and 
 mind, by the stupid fix into which you have got yourself, in- 
 evitably gravitate towards the solution I suggest to you; and 
 understand, monsieur, that it is to take my place, and step 
 into Corentin's shoes. And then you fancy that I have no hold 
 over you; that for the sake of some silly notions of middle- 
 class conceit you can give me the slip !" 
 
 La Peyrade was apparently less determined in his refusal 
 than might have, been supposed, for the great functionary's 
 warmth, and the sort of annexation claimed over his person, 
 brought a smile to his face. 
 
 Corentin, meanwhile, had risen, and striding up and down 
 the room where the scene took place, he went on as if speaking 
 to himself: 
 
 "The police ! Why, you might say of the police what Don 
 Basilio says to Bartolo of calumny: 'The police, sir! the 
 police ! you do not know what you are scorning !' After all," 
 he went on, "who is it that scorns it? Idiots, who know no 
 better than to .insult the thing that is their safeguard. For if 
 you suppress the police, you suppress civilization. Does it 
 ask for the good opinion of such men as they ! It seeks to im- 
 press them with one feeling alone, that of fear, the great lever 
 by which men are moved that foul race whose horrible in- 
 stincts we can scarcely control by the help of God and the 
 devil, the executioner and the constable!" 
 
 Then, pausing in front of la Peyrade, and looking at him 
 with a contemptuous smile 
 
 "And you, too," the panegyrist went on, "are you one of
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 473 
 
 those simpletons who look upon the police as a mere mob of 
 spies and informers, who have never suspected that they are 
 the subtlest politicians, diplomatists of the first water, Kiche- 
 lieus without the cardinal's robes ? And Mercury, my dear sir, 
 what of Mercury, the keenest witted of all the gods of the 
 heathen ? Was not he the very incarnation of the police ? He 
 was, to be sure, the god of thieves as well. So we are better 
 than he, in so far as we do not double the parts." 
 
 "And yet," said la Peyrade, "Vautrin, the famous chief of 
 the detective force 
 
 "Oh, of course, in the lowest depths there is always some 
 mud," replied Corentin, resuming his march. "But at the 
 same time, make no mistake, Vautrin is a man of genius; 
 only his passions, like your uncle's, have led him astray. But 
 go a little higher for the kernel of the whole question lies in 
 finding the rung of the ladder on which you have the wit to 
 settle. Is Monsieur the Prefect of Police, an honored min- 
 ister, respected and made much of, a mere spy? Well, mon- 
 sieur, I am the Prefect of the secret police of diplomacy and 
 state politics; and you hesitate to accept the throne which I, 
 Charles V., in my old age think of abdicating ? 
 
 "To appear small and do immense work, to live in a den, 
 a comfortable den like this, and command the light; to have 
 an invisible army at command, always ready, always devoted, 
 always obedient; to know the under side of everything, and 
 never to be the dupe of any wire-pulling, because I hold the 
 end of every wire in my hand ; to see through every wall, know 
 every secret, and every heart and every conscience this, 
 monsieur, is the life you are afraid of ! You, who were not 
 afraid to plunge into the foul, dark bog of the Thuilliers' 
 house; you, a thoroughbred, have allowed yourself to be har- 
 nessed to a hackney cab, to the ignoble tasks of electioneering, 
 and of the paper run by a rich parvenu !" 
 
 "A man must do what comes to his hand," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "But it is a remarkable fact," Corentin went on, following 
 out his own line of thought, "the language has done us jus- 
 tice; fairer and more grateful than the opinions of men, it
 
 474 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 takes the idea developed into the Police to be synonymous 
 with civilization and the antipodes of a savage existence, when 
 it speaks of a Polity. And I can solemnly assure you that we 
 care little enough for the prejudice that tries to injure us. 
 None better than we know what men are, and to know men is 
 to scorn their contempt as well as their esteem." 
 
 "There is, no doubt, much truth in the arguments you so 
 eagerly put forward," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Much truth !" cried Corentin, sitting down again. "It is 
 the truth, nothing but the truth, but not indeed the whole 
 truth. However, my dear sir, enough of this for to-day. Will 
 you second me in my plan, and marry your cousin with a 
 fortune which cannot be less than five hundred thousand 
 francs : that is my offer ? I do not ask you to answer me now. 
 I should have no confidence in a decision that had not been 
 maturely considered. I shall be at home here all to-morrow 
 morning, and can but hope that my conviction may have con- 
 vinced you." 
 
 Then, dismissing his visitor with a curt, dry nod, he added : 
 
 "I do not say good-bye, but only du revoir, Monsieur de la 
 Peyrade." 
 
 Thereupon Corentin went to a side table where stood all 
 things needful for preparing a glass of eau-sucree, which he 
 had indeed well earned; and without once glancing at the 
 Provengal, who left the room a little dazed, he seemed to de- 
 vote himself exclusively to this prosaic mixture. 
 
 Was it really needful that a call from Madame Lambert, 
 on the very next day, should add its weight to la Peyrade's 
 decision? The woman had become a mere importunate dun. 
 As the tempter had remarked the day before, there was in his 
 character, in his mind, in his aspirations, and in the follies of 
 his past life a striking concurrence, leading him to a sort of 
 invisible slope down to the curious solution of every difficulty 
 which had suddenly opened before him. Fatality, if the word 
 may be allowed, had been lavish of entanglements to which 
 he was certain to succumb. It was now the 31st of October,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 475 
 
 the legal vacation was drawing to an end; the Courts would 
 reopen on the 2d of November, and at the moment when 
 Madame Lambert withdrew, he received an order to appear 
 on that day before the chief authority of his Association. 
 
 To Madame Lambert, who urgently pressed for payment 
 under the pretence that she was leaving Monsieur Picot's ser- 
 vice and about to return to her own part of the country, he 
 could but say that if she would call again in two days, at the 
 same hour, the money would be ready for her. 
 
 To the command to appear before his peers, he replied that 
 he did not recognize the right of the Board to examine him as 
 to a circumstance of his private life. This was answering 
 for the sake of answering, and would inevitably lead to the 
 exclusion of his name from the list of pleaders before his 
 Majesty's Bench. Still, it had an assumption of dignity and 
 protest which saved his self-esteem. 
 
 He finally wrote a note to Thuillier, announcing that his 
 visit to du Portail had resulted in proving the absolute ne- 
 cessity for his accepting the other match proposed to him. 
 He released Thuillier from his word, and took back his own, 
 and all with the 'driest brevity, without any expression of re- 
 gret for the alliance he was repudiating. In a postscript he 
 added : "We must talk over my position as regards the paper/' 
 thus hinting that it might be part of his plans to withdraw 
 from that also. 
 
 He took care to keep a copy of this letter, and an hour later, 
 when, in Corentin's study, he was asked to what conclusion 
 his reflections had brought him, in reply he handed to the 
 great chief of the police the renunciation of matrimony that 
 he had just sent off. 
 
 "That is well," said Corentin. "But you may perhaps find 
 it necessary to keep up your connection with the newspaper 
 for some little while. That idiot's ambition to be elected is 
 inconvenient to the Government, and we will discuss a little 
 plan for tripping up our municipal councillor. You, in your 
 
 position as omnipotent chief editor, will perhaps have to play 
 VOL. 1456
 
 476 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 him some trick, and I do not fancy that your conscience will 
 rebel too stoutly against the task ?" 
 
 "Certainly not/' said la Peyrade, "the recollection of the 
 humiliations to which he has so long exposed me will, on the 
 contrary, give a keen relish to any form of revenge on that 
 commonplace tribe." 
 
 "Be cautious," said Corentin, "you are young and must be- 
 ware of such jaundiced impulses. In our stern calling we 
 neither love nor hate anybody. Men are to us mere pawns 
 ivory or wooden according to their quality. We are but the 
 sword which cuts what it is bidden to cut ; but which has no 
 feeling of good or ill will, and only asks to be kept finely 
 sharpened. Now, to speak of your cousin, to whom, I suppose, 
 you are somewhat curious to be introduced." 
 
 La Peyrade had not to affect eagerness; it was very 
 genuine. 
 
 "Lydie de la Peyrade," said Corentin, "is now near thirty ; 
 but a maiden life, added to a mild form of insanity which 
 has preserved her from all the passions, ideas, and impressions 
 which tell on life, has embalmed her, as it were, in perpetual 
 youth. You would not think her more than twenty; she is 
 fair and slim ; her face is very refined, and remarkable for its 
 expression of a*ngelic sweetness. Bereft of her wits by the 
 terrible catastrophe that killed her father, her monomania 
 has a very pathetic feature ; she constantly has in her arms, 
 or lying by her side, a bundle of clothes which she rocks and 
 tends with care like a sick child ; and excepting only me, and 
 Bruno, my man-servant, whom she knows, all other men 
 are to her doctors whom she consults and obeys as if they were 
 oracles. ' A sort of crisis which occurred some time ago con- 
 vinced Horace Bianchon, the prince of medical science, that if 
 the reality of motherhood could but take the place of this long 
 dream, her reason w^ould be completely restored. And would 
 it not be a pleasing task to bring light again to the spirit 
 where it is only under a cloud? And does it not strike you 
 that the bond of relationship that nature has created between 
 you, points you out especially as the means to effect that cure,
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 477 
 
 of which, as I repeat, neither Bianchon nor the other eminent 
 men with whom he has held consultation have the smallest 
 doubt ? 
 
 "Now, I will take you to Lydie ; but be careful to play your 
 part as a medical man ; for the only risk of rousing her from 
 her habitual gentleness arises from not falling in with her one 
 idea her fancy for taking advice." 
 
 After passing through several rooms, la Peyrade and his 
 leader were just going into that where Lydie usually sat when 
 she did not want more space for walking up and down to 
 soothe her imaginary infant, when they suddenly paused at 
 hearing a few chords struck in masterly style on a piano of the 
 finest tone. 
 
 "What is that?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "It is Lydie playing," replied Corentin, with what might 
 be called paternal pride. "She is an admirable musician, and 
 though she no longer writes charming compositions, as she 
 used to do in the time before her wits went astray, she can 
 still often compose, as she plays, airs which go to my soul 
 the soul of Corentin," said the old man, smiling. "That, I 
 fancy, is high praise of the performer. But we will sit down 
 and listen; if we were to go in, the music would come to an 
 abrupt end, and the consultation would at once begin." 
 
 La Peyrade was amazed as he heard an improvised fantasia 
 in which a rare combination of inspiration and science opened 
 to his impressionable soul a source of emotion as deep as it was 
 unexpected. Corentin was delighted at the astonishment 
 expressed by the Provencal, who gave vent to it in repeated 
 exclamations ; and the old man, eager to cry up his property, 
 did the same. 
 
 "That is good playing, heh ?" said he. "Liszt cannot com- 
 pare with her." 
 
 After a very lively scherzo, the player began with a prelude 
 adagio. 
 
 "Aha, she is going to sing," said Corentin, recognizing the 
 air. 
 
 "Then she sings, too ?"
 
 478 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Like Pasta and Malibran. Just listen to that !" 
 
 And in fact, after a few introductory bars in arpeggios, a 
 thrilling voice was heard which seemed to stir the Provencal 
 to the very depths of his being. 
 
 "How sensitive you are to music/' said Corentin ; "you were 
 made for each other." 
 
 La Peyrade, with a gesture, exhorted him to silence, and as 
 the song went on, his agitation increasing every moment, at , 
 last made him exclaim : 
 
 "Good heavens ! It is the same air, the same voice !" 
 
 Corentin was amazed. 
 
 "Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you have already 
 seen and heard Lydie ?" 
 
 "I do not know I cannot think it " replied la Peyrade 
 
 in a broken voice, "and in any case it is long, very long ago 
 and yet, that song that voice I fancy ' 
 
 "Come in," said Corentin. 
 
 And hastily opening the door, he drew in the Provengal. 
 
 Lydie, her back to the door, and hindered by the sound of 
 the piano from hearing the door opened, did not observe their 
 entrance. 
 
 "Look," said Corentin ; "have you any recollection of her ?" 
 
 La Peyrade went forward a few steps, and as soon as he 
 could see the crazy girl's side face: 
 
 "It is she!" he cried, wildly clasping his hands over his 
 head. 
 
 "Silence !" cried Corentin. 
 
 But at Theodore's exclamation, Lydie looked round, and 
 addressing herself to Corentin : 
 
 "How unkind and annoying you are," said she, "to disturb 
 me so. You know I cannot bear to be listened to oh no !" 
 she added, catching sight of la Peyrade in his black coat; 
 "for you have brought me the doctor. I was going to ask you 
 to send for him. The child has never ceased crying all the 
 morning. I have tried to sing her to sleep, but it is of no 
 use." 
 
 And she hurried off to a corner where she had contrived
 
 THE MIDDLE GLASSES 479 
 
 a sort of crib with two chairs and some sofa cushions, and 
 came back with what she called her child. 
 
 While with one hand she held her precious burden, as she 
 came up to la Peyrade, with the other her eyes fixed on the 
 creation of her crazy brain she was arranging the cap of 
 what she called her darling baby. But as she approached 
 Theodose, he, trembling and white, with a fixed gaze that now 
 jfully recognized Mademoiselle de la Peyrade, retired step by 
 step in evident terror, and did not pause till a chair behind 
 him stopped his progress and made him lose his balance, re- 
 ceiving him as he dropped. 
 
 So clever a man as Corentin, knowing as he did every detail 
 of the dreadful tragedy in which Lydie had lost her reason, 
 had already guessed and understood the truth; but it was 
 his intention to leave the broad light of evidence to fall on 
 this terrible darkness. "Look, doctor," said Lydie, unwrap- 
 ping the bundle and sticking the pins between her lips as she 
 took them up one by one, "does not she grow visibly thinner ?" 
 
 La Peyrade was incapable of speech ; his face hidden in his 
 handkerchief, he was breathing in short gasps which would 
 not have allowed of his uttering a word. 
 
 Then, with the feverish impatience of her mental disorder : 
 
 "Look at her, look at her !" said she, vehemently seizing la 
 Peyrade's arm and forcing him to reveal his features "Good 
 God !" she cried as she saw his face. 
 
 And dropping the bundle, she started back. Her eyes grew 
 haggard ; she passed her pale hands over her brow and through 
 her hair, tossing it in disorder, and seemed to be making a 
 frantic effort to revive some dormant and stubborn memory in 
 her mind. 
 
 Then, like a startled filly that comes close to examine an 
 object that has terrified it, she slowly came close to the Pro- 
 vengal, and bending over him to see his face more clearly, 
 while he held it down and tried to hide it from her, in the 
 midst of perfect silence she studied his features for some 
 seconds. Suddenly she uttered a fearful shriek, she flew for 
 refuge to Corenthrs arms, and clinging to him with frenzy 
 she cried aloud :
 
 480 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Save me, save me ! It is he the wretch the villain ! It 
 was he who did it all." 
 
 And with extended finger she seemed to nail the wretched 
 object of her aversion to the spot. 
 
 After this outburst she stammered a few incoherent words, 
 her eyes closed. Corentin felt the muscles relax, which a mo- 
 ment before had gripped him like a vise, and Lydie sank into 
 his arms unconscious, while la Peyrade, completely unnerved, 
 never even thought of giving his assistance in supporting her 
 and laying her on the sofa. 
 
 "Do not stay here, monsieur," said Corentin. "Go to my 
 study and I will presently join you there." 
 
 A few minutes later, having left Lydie to the care of Katt 
 and Bruno, and despatched Perrache post-haste for Doctor 
 Bianchon, Corentin came to la Peyrade. 
 
 "You see, monsieur," said he, very gravely, "that while fol- 
 lowing up the scheme of the marriage with a sort of frenzy, 
 I was fulfilling the will of God." 
 
 "Monsieur," said la Peyrade in a contrite tone, "I ought, 
 indeed, to confess to you " 
 
 "It is unnecessary," interrupted Corentin. "There is noth- 
 ing that you can tell me; on the contrary, it is I who have 
 much to tell you. Old Peyrade, your uncle, in the hope of 
 making a fortune for his daughter, whom he idolized, had 
 meddled in a private case a thing which you will never do 
 if you take my advice, a difficult thing to manage. In the 
 course of his proceedings in this business, he met the man, 
 Vautrin, of whom you were speaking yesterday, and who had 
 not then joined our ranks as he has done since. Your uncle, 
 clever as he was, was no match in the field against that man, 
 who, indeed, rejected no means in the sphere of his action; 
 neither murder, nor poison, nor rape. To cripple your uncle's 
 powers, Lydie was not indeed carried off, but tempted away 
 from her father's house, and taken to what seemed to be a 
 decent place, where for ten days she was kept shut up; still 
 she was in no great alarm as to her detention and her father's 
 non-appearance ; she had been persuaded to believe that every*
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 481 
 
 thing was done by his orders, and, as you remember, monsieur, 
 she could sing." 
 
 "Oh !" groaned la Peyrade, covering his face with his hands. 
 
 "Held as a hostage," Corentin went on, "the unhappy girl, 
 in the event of her father's failing to do what was required of 
 him within ten days, was to meet a terrible fate. A narcotic 
 and a man were to play the part of the executioner with the 
 daughter of Sejanus." 
 
 "Monsieur, have pity, have pity " cried Theodose. 
 
 "I told you yesterday," said Corentin, "that you had on 
 your conscience perhaps other things still worse than the 
 Thuilliers' house ! But you were then so young and without 
 experience; you had brought from your native province the 
 vehement brutality and fever of the south, which, on occasion, 
 plunges blindly onward. Also, your relationship to the victim 
 had become known, and to the artists in crime who were plot- 
 ing the ruin of this new Clarissa Harlowe, there was a refine- 
 ment of barbarity so fascinating in using you as their instru- 
 ment that a more experienced man than you could not have 
 hoped to escape the intrigues of which you were the object. 
 Happily, in all this appalling business, Providence hindered 
 any irreparable mischief. The same drug, according to its 
 application, may deal death or restore health." 
 
 "But shall I not be to her an object of horror? Will the 
 reparation you suggest to me be in any way possible ?" 
 
 "The doctor, sir," said Katt, opening the door. 
 
 "How is Mademoiselle Lydie ?" asked la Peyrade anxiously. 
 
 "Quite calm," replied Katt. "And just now, when to per- 
 suade her to go to bed, which she did not want to do, saying 
 that she was quite well, I brought her the bundle of clothes. 
 'What do you think I can do with that, my poor Katt?' said 
 she, looking quite puzzled. 'If you want me to play with a 
 doll/ said she, 'get me one that is a little better made than 
 that.' " 
 
 "You see," said Corentin, grasping the Provencal's hand; 
 "you will have been Achilles' spear." 
 
 And he left the room with Katt to speak with Bianchon.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 Theodose, left to himself, had been sitting for some time 
 lost in such reflections as may be imagined, when the study 
 door was thrown open and Bruno, the man-servant, ad- 
 mitted Cerizet. 
 
 On seeing la Peyrade : 
 
 "Aha !" cried he, "I knew that sooner or later it would 
 come to this, and you would call on du Portail. Well, and 
 how is the marriage getting on ?" 
 
 "It is of yours that we are expecting news," replied the 
 Provencal. 
 
 "So you have heard of it?" said Cerizet. "Well, yes, my 
 dear boy. All things must have an end after a long voyage 
 on the stormy seas. You know who the bride is?" 
 
 "Yes, a young actress, Mademoiselle Olympe Cardinal, a 
 protegee of the Minards, who are to give her thirty thousand 
 francs on her marriage." 
 
 "And that added to thirty thousand promised me by du 
 Portail when your marriage comes off, and to the twenty-five 
 thousand which I got out of your other marriage which did 
 not come off, makes a snug little round sum of eighty-five thou- 
 sand francs. With that, and a pretty wife, a man must be 
 misguided indeecl if he cannot try a little speculation now 
 and again. But first and foremost I have a little matter to 
 settle with you. Du Portail, who is too busy to see me, sent 
 me to you on purpose thab we should hit on some way of in- 
 terfering with Thuillier's return to Parliament. Have you 
 any scheme to that end ?" 
 
 "No, and I may frankly confess that in the frame of mind 
 resulting from the conversation I have just had with Monsieur 
 du Portail, I do not feel equal to any great effort of inven- 
 tion." 
 
 "Matters stand thus," Cerizet went on. "The Government 
 has another candidate in view who has not yet made much 
 show, because there have been difficulties in the way of minis- 
 terial arrangements with him. Meanwhile Thuillier's canvass 
 has made some progress; Minard, who had been relied on to 
 make some diversion, has stupidly remained in his corner;
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 483 
 
 the seizure of your pamphlet gave your dull nominee a certain 
 aroma of popularity. In short, the Ministry are very much 
 afraid lest he should succeed, and nothing could disgust them 
 more than his election. Pompous idiots like Thuillier are a 
 dreadful nuisance in the opposition; like jugs without han- 
 dles, you never know where to hold them." 
 
 "Monsieur Cerizet," said la Peyrade, assuming a patron- 
 izing tone, and curious, too, to know how far his man was ad- 
 mitted to Corentin's confidence, "you seem to me singularly 
 well informed as to the private feelings of the Government; 
 pray, have you found your way to a certain office in the Rue de 
 Grenelle?" 
 
 "No. All I have told you for it would seem that we no 
 Longer say tu to each other I heard from du Portail," said 
 Cerizet, using the more formal vous. 
 
 "Indeed," answered la Peyrade, lowering his voice, "and 
 who and what exactly is du Portail, since you have been on 
 intimate terms with him for some time?" (and at Cerizet's 
 hint, he resumed the tu). "So clever a fellow as you must 
 have got to the bottom of a man who, between you and me, 
 seems to have something very mysterious about him." 
 
 "My dear friend," replied Cerizet, "du Portail is a de- 
 cidedly superior man. He is a sharp old customer, who has, 
 I fancy, been employed in the management of the crown 
 lands; or, he may have been governor of some of the depart- 
 ments that were absorbed at the fall of the empire the De- 
 partment of the Dyle or the Doire, for instance, or Sambre-et~ 
 Meuse, or the Deux-Nethes." 
 
 "Aye," said la Peyrade. 
 
 "Then, I imagine," continued Cerizet, "he must have feath- 
 ered his nest, and having a natural daughter, he very ingeni- 
 ously made for himself a little philanthropical stepping-stone, 
 I by giving out that she is the child of a friend of his named 
 Peyrade, and that he had adopted her. And then, to bear out 
 the probability of the tale, your name of la Peyrade suggested 
 the idea of your marriage since, after all, she must marry 
 somebody."
 
 484 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Well and good ; but how do you account for his intimate 
 knowledge of the wishes of the Government, and his interest 
 in the election ?" 
 
 "Nothing can be more natural/' replied Cerizet. "Du Por- 
 tail is a man who loves money and who loves meddling; he 
 has done some little service, as an amateur, to Eastignac, the 
 great electoral wire-puller; they are, I think, from the same 
 part of the country. The other, in return, gives him informa- 
 tion that enables him to gamble in stocks." 
 
 "Was it he who told you all this ?" asked la Peyrade. 
 
 "What do you take me for?" replied Cerizet. "I play the 
 simpleton to the good old man, from whom, as you see, I have 
 extracted a promise of thirty thousand francs. I growl, but 
 I make Bruno talk, the old man-servant. You can get into 
 the family, my dear fellow; du Portail is enormously rich; 
 he will get you made Sous-Prefet; and from that to be a 
 Prefet, with such a fortune as you will have, is but a step, as 
 you understand." 
 
 "I am much obliged for your information," said la Peyrade ; 
 "at any rate I shall know which foot I stand on. But how did 
 you first know him ?" 
 
 "Oh, that is a very long story. By my intervention he re- 
 covered a large quantity of diamonds that had been stolen 
 from him." 
 
 At this moment Corentin returned. 
 
 "All is going on well," said he to la Peyrade. "Her reason 
 seems to be gradually returning. Bianchon, to whom I was 
 obliged to explain everything, wishes to talk to you. So, my 
 dear Monsieur Cerizet, we must put off our little consideration 
 of Thuillier's affairs till this evening." 
 
 "Well, here he is at last," said Cerizet, slapping la Peyrade 
 on the shoulder. 
 
 "Yes," said Corentin, "and you know what I promised you? 
 You may rely on getting it." 
 
 Cerizet went off in high spirits. 
 
 On the day following this, when Corentin, la Peyrade, and
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 485 
 
 Cerizet were to have held council, with a vie# to establishing 
 a state of siege about Thuillier's nomination the candidate 
 himself was discussing with his sister the letter in which 
 Theodose announced his resignation of all claims to Celeste's 
 hand, being more especially exercised by the postscript, which 
 hinted that the Provengal might also retire from the post of 
 editor-in-chief of the newspaper. At that moment Henri 
 came in to inquire whether he could see Monsieur Cerizet. 
 
 Thuillier's first impulse was to get rid of this unexpected 
 visitor. However, on thinking the matter over, it occurred to 
 him that in the dilemma in which la Peyrade might leave him 
 at any minute, C6rizet might prove a valuable assistant. 
 Consequently he said that he was to be shown in. 
 
 At the same time, his welcome was very cool, with a hint of 
 expectancy. Cerizet, on his part, came in unabashed, as a 
 man who has calculated the consequences of the step he has 
 taken. 
 
 "Well, my dear sir," said he to Thuillier, "are you beginning 
 to see daylight with regard to Monsieur de la Peyrade ?" 
 
 "What do you mean by that ?" asked the old beau. 
 
 "Well," said Cerizet, "the man who, after trying a thousand 
 intrigues to marry your goddaughter, suddenly breaks off the 
 engagement, as he will one day break through the contract he 
 made you sign, giving him the lion's share in the editorship 
 of the newspaper, can hardly, as it seems to me, be the object 
 of such blind confidence on your part as he has been hitherto." 
 
 "Then you have some definite information as to la Pey- 
 rade's intending to cease working with me on the newspaper ?" 
 asked Thuillier eagerly. 
 
 "No," replied the usurer. "On the terms that now exist 
 between us, as you may suppose, I have not seen him, and still 
 less am I in his confidence. But, to draw an inference, I have 
 only to start from the man's well-known character; and you 
 may regard it as certain that from the moment when he be- 
 lieves it to be to his advantage to part company, he will 
 simply cast you off as he would an old coat. I have gone 
 through it all and speak from experience."
 
 486 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Then you had dealings with him before this business 
 of the newspaper?" said Thuillier. 
 
 "I should think so,, indeed!" answered Cerizet. "That 
 business over the house that he got you mixed up in was 
 started by me in the first instance. He was to put me in 
 communication with you, and get me the first lease of 
 the house for subletting; but the unlucky story of the raised 
 bid leaked out, and he took advantage of it to swindle me 
 and keep all the profits in his own hands." 
 
 "The profits !" remarked Thuillier. "I do not see that they 
 amounted to much, and with the exception of the marriage, 
 which he now refuses " 
 
 "What !" cried the usurer. "Ten thousand francs that he 
 got out of you to begin with on the excuse of that Cross which 
 you are still awaiting for, and then twenty-five thousand due 
 to Madame Lambert, for which you stood security, and that 
 you are likely enough to pay like a gentleman." 
 
 "What do I hear?" cried Brigitte, in a fury. "You have 
 stood security for twenty-five thousand francs ?" 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle," said Cerizet. "There was a mys- 
 tery behind that transaction, -the woman had no more lent 
 the money that I had, and even if I did not lay my finger 
 on the true explanation, there was certainly some very dirty 
 work at the bottom of it. But la Peyrade had the knack of 
 whitewashing himself in your brother's eyes, and of making 
 it appear that he was both maligned and indispensable ' 
 
 "But if you have not seen Monsieur de la Peyrade since, 
 how do you know that I stood security for him ?" interrupted 
 Thuillier. 
 
 "From the woman herself, monsieur, who tells everybody 
 that she is sure now of being paid." 
 
 "Well," said Brigitte to her brother, "you do business in 
 style !" 
 
 "Mademoiselle," Cerizet went on, "I wanted to give mon- 
 sieur a little fright, but in reality I do not think you will 
 lose anything. Without knowing exactly whom la Peyrade is 
 to marry, it seems to me hardly possible that the lady's family
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 487 
 
 can leave him under the onerous burden of two such dis- 
 creditable debts; indeed, if necessary, I myself would inter- 
 fere." 
 
 "While thanking you, monsieur, for your officious inter- 
 vention," said Thuillier, "allow me to say that it surprises me 
 a little. The manner of our parting was not such as to justify 
 me in expecting it." 
 
 "Indeed," said Cerizet, "did you really fancy I could owe 
 you a grudge for that? I was sorry for you, that was all. 
 I saw that you were under the spell, and I said to myself that 
 you must be left to find out la Peyrade; but I knew that 
 the day of justice would ere long dawn for me. With that 
 young gentleman, a turn for the worse is never very long 
 delayed." 
 
 "Excuse me," said Thuillier, "but I do not regard as a 
 'turn for the worse' the breaking off of the marriage we 
 had intended; the rupture was in some degree by common 
 consent." 
 
 "And the predicament in which he intends to leave you 
 by throwing up his post as editor-in-chief?" said Cerizet; 
 "and the debt for which he is making you responsible? Do 
 you regard these too as amenities ?" 
 
 "Monsieur Cerizet," said Thuillier, still cautiously reserved, 
 "as I once told la Peyrade : No man is indispensable, and if 
 the place of editor-in-chief to my newspaper should fall 
 vacant, I am quite sure I should find many men eager to offer 
 me their services." 
 
 "Is that speech aimed at me?" asked Cerizet. "It would 
 be a very bad shot ; for even if you should do me the honor 
 to bid for my assistance, I could not possibly give it you. 
 I was long since sickened of journalism. I had allowed my- 
 self, I do not know how, to be ensnared by la Peyrade into 
 one more campaign with you ; but this last experiment being 
 unsuccessful, I am fully determined never to be caught again. 
 I came to talk to you of quite another matter." 
 
 "Ah !" said Thuillier. 
 
 "Yes," replied Cerizet. "Remembering the handsome way
 
 488 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 in which you treated the business of this house, in which you 
 do me the honor to receive me, it occurred to me that I could 
 not do better than turn to you for an affair of something 
 of the same kind which happens just to have come in 
 my way. But I shall not do like la Peyrade. I shall not 
 say that I want to marry your goddaughter, and that T am 
 doing it all out of love and devotion to you. If the thing 
 fcomes off, I want a share in it. Then, I fancy that you, made- 
 moiselle, must find the business of subletting this large house 
 a rather serious undertaking ; for I observed just now that all 
 your shops are still unlet. Well, if you would reconsider the 
 question of the lease which la Peyrade choked off, that might 
 be a consideration in the division of profits. This, mon- 
 sieur, was the purpose of my visit, and you see that it is 
 quite apart from the newspaper, which has nothing to do 
 with it." 
 
 "But we must know first what the business it," said Bri- 
 gitte. 
 
 "It is the exact opposite," said Cerizet, "to the transaction 
 you entered into with la Peyrade. You got this house for a 
 mere song, but you were troubled by a higher bidder. Now, 
 in this case, there is a farm in la Beauce which has just been 
 sold dirt cheap, and for a small additional sum you can get it 
 for an amazingly low price." And Cerizet proceeded to set 
 forth the details of the business, which the reader will excuse 
 us from repeating, seeing that they are, in all probability, 
 likely to interest him less than they interested Mademoiselle 
 Brigitte. His explanation was clear and emphatic; it quite 
 captivated the old maid ; and Thuillier, in spite of his preju- 
 dice and distrust, was obliged to confess that the trans- 
 action proposed to him promised to turn out a capital specu- 
 lation. 
 
 "Still, we must see the place," said Brigitte. 
 
 It may be remembered that when in treaty for the house, 
 she would not pledge herself to la Peyrade by a single word 
 before inspecting the premises. 
 
 "Nothing can be easier," said Cerizet. "I myself, in case
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 489 
 
 we should not come to terms, want to know what I am doing, 
 and I had intended to make a little excursion there one day 
 soon. I will be at your door this afternoon, if you like, in a 
 post-chaise; by to-morrow morning, early, we shall be at the 
 place ; we will look about us, breakfast, and can be home again 
 to-morrow by dinner-time." 
 
 "But traveling post is very lordly," said Brigitte. "The 
 diligence, I should think " 
 
 "Traveling by diligence, you never know when you may 
 get to your journey's end," said Cerizet. "And as to the ex- 
 pense, you need not worry over that. I should make the ex- 
 cursion alone, if not in your company, so I offer you two seats 
 in my chaise. Well, and then, if the bargain is concluded, 
 we will share all the expense." 
 
 To a miserly mind small advantages are often a determining 
 factor in important transactions; after making some little 
 difficulties for form's sake, Brigitte accepted the proposed 
 arrangement, and that same day the trio set out on the road 
 to Chartres. Cerizet had advised Thuillier not to give la 
 Peyrade notice of his intended journey, lest the Provengal 
 should take it into his head to turn his absence to account to 
 play him some scurvy trick. 
 
 By five o'clock next day they were back in Paris ; the uncle 
 and aunt, who in Cerizet's presence had not been free to dis- 
 cuss the business between themselves, were of opinion that 
 the purchase would be a good one. They had found land 
 of prime quality, buildings and outhouses in good order, 
 beasts and stock that looked sound and promising; and to 
 Brigitte the ownership of a country estate was the crowning 
 consecration of wealth. 
 
 "Minard," said she, "has nothing but his town house and 
 some investments. We shall have land, real estate: that is 
 the only way to be truly rich." 
 
 Thuillier was not so much bewitched by his day-dream 
 of which the realization was not yet in immediate pros-
 
 490 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 pect as to lose sight of his election and his newspaper. 
 His first inquiry was for the ificho which had come out that 
 morning. 
 
 "It has not been delivered," replied the servant. 
 
 "That is good management !" said Thuillier irritably. 
 "The owner even is not duly served." 
 
 And though it was near the dinner hour, and after the 
 long drive he was more in the mood to take a bath than to 
 go to the office, Thuillier called a hackney cab and went off to 
 the Eue d'Enfer. 
 
 Here was a fresh annoyance. The next issue was made 
 up. La Peyrade and all the clerks were gone; and as for 
 Coffinet, who, released from his functions as messenger, ought 
 to have been at his post as concierge, he had gone "of an 
 errand," according to his wife, and had taken the key of the 
 cupboard in which the surplus copies of the paper were kept. 
 So it was impossible to get at the ill-starred print which Thuil- 
 lier had come so far to procure. 
 
 To depict Thuillier's indignation is impossible. He 
 marched up and down the editor's office, talking aloud to 
 himself, as a man does under passionate excitement. 
 
 "I will turn out every man of them !" cried he, and we are 
 obliged to mitigate the vigor of his furious expressions. 
 
 As he fulminated his anathema, there was a tap at the 
 door of the room where he uttered it. 
 
 "Come in," said Thuillier, in a voice expressive of his irrita- 
 tion and rage. 
 
 In came Minard, who threw himself into Thuillier's arms. 
 
 "My dear, my admirable friend," the Mayor began, his em- 
 brace ending in a vehement hand-shaking. 
 
 "What? Why? What has happened?" asked Thuillier, 
 understanding nothing of these ardent demonstrations. 
 
 "My dear fellow, it is the handsomest thing. It is im- 
 possible to be more chivalrous and disinterested. The effect 
 in the arrondissement is magnificent." 
 
 "Of what? again I ask you," cried Thuillier, out of all 
 patience.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 491 
 
 "The article, the step you have taken," Minard went on; 
 "the whole thing is so noble, so dignified." 
 
 "But what article what step?" said the proprietor of the 
 tfcho, beside himself with irritation. 
 
 "The article in this morning's issue." 
 
 "This morning's ?" 
 
 "Come now, do you mean to say that you wrote it in your 
 sleep ; or are you heroical, as Monsieur Jourdain talked prose, 
 without knowing it ?" 
 
 "I?" said Thuillier; "I have written no article. I have 
 been out of Paris for twenty-four hours, and I do not even 
 know what there is in to-day's number; nor is there even an 
 office boy in the place to find me a copy." 
 
 "I have one," said Minard, producing the longed-for sheet 
 out of his pocket; "and if you did not write the article, at 
 any rate you inspired it, and the deed is done." 
 
 Thuillier had snatched the paper that Minard held out 
 to him, and devoured rather than read the following para- 
 graph : 
 
 "'For some time now the owner of this regenerate news- 
 paper has endured uncomplainingly, and without reply, such 
 cowardly insinuations as are poured by the venial press upon 
 every citizen who, strong in his convictions, refuses to pass 
 under the Caudine Forks of the existing powers. For some 
 time now, a man who has given ample proofs of disinterest- 
 edness and self-sacrifice in the important functions of a Paris 
 edile, has endured the imputations of being no more than 
 an ambitious intriguer. M. Jerome Thuillier, from his digni- 
 fied preeminence, has scorned to notice these vulgar insults, 
 till, encouraged by his contemptuous silence, suborned writers 
 have dared to say that a newspaper, which is the outcome of 
 the purest convictions and most devoted patriotism, was the 
 mere stepping-stone and speculation of a man who wanted to 
 be elected as a Deputy to the Chamber. 
 
 " 'M. Jerome Thuillier has stood unmoved by these accusa- 
 tions, because truth and justice are long-suffering, and he 
 VOL. 1457
 
 492 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 meant to crush the reptile with one blow. The day of judg- 
 ment is come.' 
 
 "The devil is in that la Peyrade!" exclaimed Thuillier, 
 pausing in admiration. "How he hits it off !" 
 "It is magnificent !" cried Minard. 
 Thuillier went on reading aloud. 
 
 "'Everybody, friends and foes alike, will do M. Jerome 
 Thuillier the justice to admit that he has done nothing to 
 court the nomination which was spontaneously offered to 
 him/ 
 
 "Quite true/' said Thuillier. Then he again read on : 
 
 " *But, seeing that his feelings have been so shamelessly 
 misrepresented, his intentions so disgracefully travestied, M. 
 Jerome Thuillier owes it to himself, and yet more to the 
 great national party for which he is one of the humble com- 
 batants, to set an example which shall annihilate the base 
 sycophants of power/ 
 
 "La Peyrade really does me great credit," said Thuillier, 
 stopping once more, "and I understand now Avhy he would 
 not let them send me the paper. He wanted to enjoy my 
 surprise. 'Annihilate the base sycophants of power/ " he 
 repeated, and went on : 
 
 " 'Far from founding a paper in opposition to the Dynasty, 
 merely to advertise and support his nomination, M. Thuil- 
 lier, at the moment when his return seems favored by the 
 most encouraging prospects, and the most disheartening for 
 his rivals, here publicly declares, in the most formal, definite, 
 and irrevocable terms, that he withdraws from the con- 
 test " 
 
 "What what is that?" cried Thuillier, thinking he had 
 misread or misunderstood the words.
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 493 
 
 "Go on/' said the Mayor. 
 
 And as Thuillier, with a bewildered look, seemed unable 
 to go on, Minard took the paper out of his hands, and read 
 instead and for him : 
 
 " 'Withdraws from the contest and requests his supporters 
 to transfer to M. Minard, Mayor of the eleventh arrondisse- 
 ment, his friend and colleague in the Municipal Council, 
 all the votes which they seemed ready to register in his be- 
 half.' ' ; 
 
 "It is infamous !" cried Thuillier, recovering his speech. 
 ''You have bribed that Jesuit la Peyrade " 
 
 "Do you mean to say," asked Minard, amazed at Thuillier's 
 dismay, "that you had not agreed with him as to the contents 
 of this article ?" 
 
 "The villain has taken advantage of my absence to insert 
 it in the paper. I understand now why he kept back my 
 copy." 
 
 "But, my dear fellow, that will seem a very unlikely story 
 to the outside world." 
 
 "But I tell you it is a betrayal, an abominable trick. 
 Withdraw from the contest ! Why should I withdraw ?" 
 
 "Indeed, my dear sir," said Minard, "if this is an abuse 
 of confidence, I am deeply grieved; but I have issued my 
 circulars, and now I cannot help it. Luck attend the lucky 
 one is all I can say." 
 
 "Leave me," said Thuillier. "It is a hoax paid for by 
 you." 
 
 "Monsieur Thuillier," cried Minard, in a fury, "I advise 
 you not to repeat that remark unless you are prepared In 
 answer for it." 
 
 Happily for Thuillier, whose profession of civic counigc 
 we have already heard, he was saved from a reply by Cof- 
 finet, who opened the office door to announce : 
 
 "A deputation of the voters of the -twelfth arrondisse- 
 ment."
 
 494 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 The arrondissement was represented by five gentlemen. A 
 druggist, as their chief, addressed Thuillier as follows: 
 
 "We have come, monsieur, in consequence of the publica- 
 tion of an article inserted in this morning's issue of the tieho 
 de la Bievre, to ask you exactly what the reason and mean- 
 ing are of that declaration, thinking it incredible that, after 
 canvassing for our suffrage, you should come just before the 
 election, in a fit of quixotic puritanism, to throw our ranks 
 into disorder and disunion, and probably secure the return 
 of the ministerial candidate. A nominee is not his own mas- 
 ter; he belongs to the electors who have promised him the 
 honor of their vote. However," added the orator, looking at 
 Minard, "the presence on these premises of the candidate you 
 have chosen to recommend shows his connivance; I need not 
 ask who are the dupes in this affair." 
 
 "No, gentlemen," replied Thuillier, "I have not retired 
 from being your candidate. That article was written and 
 printed without my knowledge. You will read my contra- 
 diction to-morrow in that same paper, and at the same 
 time you will learn that the wretch who has betrayed my con- 
 fidence is dismissed from the editorship." 
 
 "So, in fact," said the speaker, "and notwithstanding your 
 announcement to the contrary, you intend still to stand as 
 a candidate for the opposition ?" 
 
 "Yes, gentlemen, or die first ! And I can only beg that 
 you will use all your influence in the quarter to neutralize 
 officially this base trickery, pending the publication of my 
 most emphatic denial." 
 
 "Good ! very good !" said the deputation. 
 
 "And as to Monsieur Minard's presence, as my rival, on 
 these premises, he is not here by my invitation; indeed, at 
 the moment of your arrival I was discussing the matter with 
 him in a far from friendly way." 
 
 "Very good, very good !" said the electors once more. 
 
 So after shaking hands warmly with the druggist, Thuil- 
 lier escorted the deputation to the head of the stairs. 
 
 On his return to the editor's room he spoke :
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 495 
 
 "My dear Minard," said he, "I retract the words that gave 
 you offence ; but at any rate you see that my indignation was 
 genuine." 
 
 Coffinet again opened the door and announced : 
 
 "A deputation of the electors of the eleventh arrondisse- 
 ment." 
 
 These were represented by seven persons; a hosier, as 
 spokesman for the deputation, made the following little 
 speech, addressing himself to Thuillier : 
 
 "Sir, it was with the greatest admiration that we learned 
 this morning, from your paper, the great act of public virtue 
 which has touched us all so deeply. By withdrawing from 
 the contest you give proof of the rarest disinterestedness, and 
 the esteem of your fellow-citizens " 
 
 "Excuse me," said Thuillier, interrupting him, "I cannot 
 allow you to proceed. The article on which you are good 
 enough to compliment me was inserted by mistake." 
 
 "What !" said the hosier, "are you not intending to retire ? 
 And can you imagine that as a rival to Monsieur Minard, 
 whose presence on these premises is, in that case, somewhat 
 strange, you can have any hope of success ?" 
 
 "Sir," said Thuillier, "be so kind as to desire the electors 
 to wait for to-morrow's issue ; in that I will publish the fullest 
 explanations. The article printed this morning is the result 
 of a misapprehension." 
 
 "So much the worse for you, monsieur," said the hosier. 
 "You are losing an opportunity of placing yourself, in the 
 opinion of your fellow-citizens, on a level with Washington 
 and the other great men of antiquity." 
 
 "Wait till to-morrow, gentlemen," said Thuillier. "I am 
 not the less obliged to you for your visit ; and when you know 
 the whole truth, I hope you will not think that I have ceased 
 to merit your esteem." 
 
 "It is a very queer mess," observed an elector in a low 
 tone. 
 
 "Yes," replied another; "it looks rather like making fools 
 of us."
 
 496 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "Gentlemen, gentlemen," the president remonstrated, "wait 
 till to-morrow. We shall then see the candidate's explana- 
 tions." 
 
 And the party withdrew. 
 
 Thuillier would probably not have attended them beyond 
 the door of the office; at any rate he was stopped by the 
 arrival of la Peyrade at that very moment. 
 
 "I have just come from your house," said la Peyrade, in a 
 familiar tone. "They told me I should find you here, my 
 dear boy." 
 
 "And you followed me, no doubt, to give me some explana- 
 tion as to the strange article you have taken the liberty of 
 publishing in my name ?" 
 
 "Exactly so," replied la Peyrade. "The man you know of, 
 and whose far-reaching influence you have already felt, con- 
 fided to me yesterday, in your interest, the feeling of the Gov- 
 ernment, and I saw clearly that your defeat was inevitable. 
 I therefore arranged for your dignified and honorable retire- 
 ment." 
 
 "Very good, sir. But you will understand that henceforth 
 you can have nothing to do with editing the paper ?" 
 
 "I had come to tell you the very same thing." 
 
 "And also, I suppose, to settle up our little account." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Minard, "I see you have business to at- 
 tend to, and I will take my leave." 
 
 "Here are ten thousand francs," said la Peyrade, "which 
 I will beg you to hand to Mademoiselle Brigitte ; and here 
 is the paper you signed as security for the twenty-five thou- 
 sand francs due to Madame Lambert, for which I here have 
 her receipt." 
 
 "Quite right, monsieur " said Thuillier. 
 
 La Peyrade simply bowed and went. 
 
 "Viper !" said Thuillier, as he saw him depart. 
 
 "Cerizet hit the mark," said la Peyrade. "A pompous 
 idiot." 
 
 The blow struck at Thuillier's election was fatal, but
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 497 
 
 Minard did not benefit by it. While they were fighting 
 for the suffrages of the electors, a man from the Tuileries, 
 an aide-de-camp to the King, appeared on the scene, with 
 his pockets full of tobacco-licenses and such electioneering 
 small change, and stole a march on the two rival candidates, 
 who thought only of spiting each other. It need hardly be 
 said that Brigitte did not get her farm; it was but a mirage 
 conjured up to get Thuillier out of Paris and enable la Pey- 
 rade to play his stroke. This, while doing the Government a 
 service, was at the same time a piece of revenge for all the 
 humiliations the Provengal had suffered. 
 
 Thuillier had his suspicions of Cerizet's complicity; but 
 the man continued to justify himself, and by negotiating the 
 sale of the tfcho de la Bievre, which had become a perfect 
 nightmare to its hapless proprietor, he made himself seem 
 as white as snow. 
 
 The ill-starred newspaper, bought up by Corentin, became 
 a weekly, sold on Sundays in the taverns after being con- 
 cocted in the dens of the police. 
 
 About a month after the scene which had proved to la 
 Peyrade that an error in the past had irrevocably sealed his 
 fate in the future, he had married his unhappy cousin, who 
 now had long intervals of lucidity, though she could not en- 
 tirely recover her reason till the time and conditions should 
 be fulfilled which the physicians had counted on. 
 
 One morning Corentin and his future successor were to- 
 gether in the study. 
 
 Theodose, sharing in his labors, was serving his apprentice- 
 ship for the difficult and delicate duties of his office under this 
 great master. But Corentin did not find that his pupil 
 brought to his lessons so much spirit and good-will as he 
 could have wished. .He saw that the sense of a certain degra- 
 dation weighed on la Peyrade's soul ; time would heal the 
 wound, but the scar was not yet formed. 
 
 After opening a number of letters containing the reports 
 of his agents, Corentin just glanced through the informa-
 
 498 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 tion, far less often valuable than might be supposed, and 
 tossed them into a basket from which they were taken to be 
 burned in a heap. 
 
 But to one of these reports he devoted particular atten- 
 tion ; as he read it, he faintly smiled now and again, and when 
 he had done he handed the document to la Peyrade. 
 
 "Here," said he, "this will interest you, and you will see 
 that in our business, which seems to you so serious, we 
 sometimes find comedy in our way. Eead it aloud; it will 
 amuse us." 
 
 Before la Peyrade had begun: 
 
 "You must know," added Corentin, "that the report comes 
 to me from the man known as Henri, placed by Madame 
 Komorn in service with the Thuilliers." 
 
 "So servants recommended by you," said la Peyrade, "are 
 among your agents ?" 
 
 "Sometimes," replied Corentin. "To know everything, 
 every means must be tried; but a vast deal of nonsense is 
 talked about such matters. It is not the fact that the police 
 makes a system of such arrangements, or has ever, at certain 
 times, by a sort of general enlistment of footmen and women- 
 servants, spread its net through the private life of families. 
 There is no hard and fast rule in our methods; we act as 
 time and circumstances require. I wanted to keep an eye 
 and ear open at the Thuilliers', so I sent Madame Godollo: 
 she on her part, to help her out, placed one of our men there 
 an intelligent fellow as you will perceive ; but on some other 
 occasion I might arrest a servant who came to tell me his 
 master's secrets, and by my intervention a warning might be 
 sent to put the interested party on his guard, and tell him 
 not to trust the people about him." 
 
 " 'Monsieur the Chief of the secret Police,' wrote the man 
 known as Henri, 'I did not stay with the- little baron. He is 
 ;i man wholly given up to pleasure, and not once, as I believe, 
 did I pick anything up in his house in the least worth report- 
 ing to you. I have found another place where I have seen
 
 499 
 
 a good many things which, as bearing on the mission entrusted 
 to me by Madame de Godollo, may prove to be interesting. 
 So I take the liberty of bringing them to your knowledge. 
 The house where I am employed is that of an old professor, 
 by name M. Picot, lodging on the first floor, Place de la 
 Madeleine, in the house and in the very rooms formerly in* 
 habited by my previous masters the Thuilliers.' 
 
 "What !" cried la Peyrade, interrupting himself, "old Picot, 
 that penniless old dolt, living in those splendid rooms ?" 
 
 "Aye, aye," said Corentin, "life is full of stranger things 
 than that. You will come to the explanation. Our corre- 
 spondents they all drown the facts in details are over- 
 careful to dot their t's." 
 
 The man known as Henri went on: 
 
 " 'The Thuilliers left these parts some time ago to return 
 to their Quartier Latin. Mademoiselle Brigitte was never 
 very sweet on our part of the town; her dreadful want of 
 education made her feel uncomfortable. Because I speak 
 correctly she would always call me the orator, and she could 
 not bear M. Pascal the concierge, seeing that, being, as he 
 is, a beadle in the church of the Madeleine, he has some man- 
 ners; and even the tradesmen, in the market situate at the 
 back of the church, where she bought things, of course, she al- 
 ways had some fault to find with them, saying they gave them- 
 selves consequential airs, only because they do not use bad 
 words as they do in the other markets, and laughed in her 
 face when she beat down their prices. She has let her house 
 here out and out to one M. Cerizet, a very ugly man with only 
 half a nose, and he pays her a rent of fifty-five thousand 
 francs a year. This leaseholder seems to know what he is 
 about. He has just married an actress from one of the small 
 theatres, and he was going to settle on the first floor and es- 
 tablish himself there as well as the offices of a company for 
 insuring marriage portions, when M. Picot arrived from Eng- 
 land with his wife, a very wealthy Englishwoman, saw the
 
 500 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 rooms, and offered him such a good price that M. Cerizet de- 
 cided on giving them up to him. And then it was that, be- 
 ing introduced by M. Pascal the concierge, I took service with 
 M. Picot/ 
 
 "Monsieur Picot, married to a rich Englishwoman !" Pey- 
 rade again put in. "It is incomprehensible !" 
 
 "Read on/' said Corentin, "you will understand pres- 
 ently." 
 
 " 'My new master's fortune is quite a long story, and I 
 will report it to you, monsieur, because another person, which 
 Madame de Godollo was interested in his marriage, is mixed 
 up with it all. This other person is the man known as Felix 
 Phellion, who invented a new star, and in despair at not be- 
 ing able to have the young lady who was to have been married 
 to M. la Peyrade him that Madame de Godollo tackled so 
 smartly ' 
 
 "The rascal," said Theodose, "how he speaks of me ! But 
 he does not know yet whom he has to deal with." 
 
 Corentin had a hearty laugh, then he told la Peyrade to 
 read on. 
 
 "'And who in despair at not being allowed to marry her 
 had gone off to England, where he was to set sail on a voyage 
 round the world ; just like a lover. M. Picot, on hearing he 
 was gone, for he had been his master and was interested in 
 the young man, went off at once to stop this silly freak, which 
 was not so very difficult. The English are very touchy about 
 discoveries, and when they saw M. Phellion coming to go on 
 board with their own professors, they asked him if he had 
 an order from the Admiralty, which, as he could not show, 
 they laughed in his face, and would not listen to a word, but 
 went off without him for fear he should know more than they 
 do/
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES P01 
 
 "Your Monsieur Henri does not think much of the 
 entente cordiale," said la Peyrade, laughing. 
 
 "No," said Corentin. "And in all our agents' reports you 
 will be constantly struck by their general spirit of contempt. 
 But what is to be done, you cannot expect that angels will 
 take up the trade of spy ?" 
 
 " 'Left on the seashore, Telemaque and Mentor ' " la 
 
 Peyrade went on. 
 
 "Our men are scholars, you perceive," Corentin put in. 
 
 " 'Were about to return to France, when M. Picot received 
 a letter, such as none but an Englishwoman could ever write. 
 It said that the writer had read his Theory of Perpetual Mo- 
 tion; that she had heard of his magnificent discovery of a 
 new star; tha't she regarded him as a genius at least equal to 
 Newton, and that if the hand that penned these lines, with a 
 fortune of eighty thousand pounds sterling or two millions 
 of francs might meet his views, it was his to command. M. 
 Picot liked the offer; he went to the place appointed by the 
 English lady a woman of forty at least, with a red nose, 
 long teeth, and spectacles. The good man's first notion had 
 been to get her to marry his pupil ; but seeing at once that this 
 was out of the question, before accepting for himself, he 
 pointed out that he was an old man, three parts blind ; that 
 it was not him that discovered the star, and that he had not 
 a sou to bless himself with. 
 
 " 'The Englishwoman said that Milton was not a young man 
 and was stone blind; that perhaps M. Picot had only a 
 cataract, that she knew all about it, being, as she was, a 
 surgeon's daughter, and that she would pay for the opera- 
 tion; that she was not particular about his having dis-, 
 covered a star ; that it was the inventor of the Theory of Per- 
 petual Motion who, for ten years past, had been the man of 
 her dreams, and that to him she repeated the offer of her 
 hand with eighty thousand pounds sterling, or two millions
 
 502 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 of francs. M. Picot said that if he recovered his sight, and 
 if the lady would live in Paris, seeing as he had always hated 
 England, he would marry her. The operation was per- 
 formed, and with success, and by the end of three weeks the 
 couple arrived in our capital. 1 have all these details from 
 madame's maid, with whom I am on the best of terms ' " 
 
 "You see, the conceited ape !" said Corentin, laughing. 
 
 " 'But the rest of what I have to tell M. le Directeur, are 
 facts of which I can speak as eye-witness, and to which I 
 can take my oath. As soon as M. and Madame Pioot had 
 done furnishing, all in the most sumptuous and comfortable 
 style, my master gave me a 'packet of invitations to dinner, to 
 deliver to the Thuillier family, the Collevilles and family, 
 the Minards and family, M. 1'Abbe Gondrin, priest of the 
 Madeleine, in short, for almost all the guests that had met 
 at a dinner when, a month or more ago, he had happened to 
 drop in on the Thuilliers, and behaved in a most extraordi- 
 nary manner. Everybody who got an invitation was so as- 
 tonished to hear that the old man had married money, and 
 was living in the Thuilliers' apartment, that they most of 
 them came to see M. Pascal the concierge, to ask if they were 
 not the victims of a hoax. The information proving veritably 
 true, all the company turned up in due course; but M. Picot 
 himself was missing. They were received by Madame Picot, 
 who speaks very little French, and could only say to each ar- 
 rival, "My husband will be here presently," and then could 
 make no conversation, so that the company was very dull 
 and uncomfortable. At last M. Picot came in ; everybody was 
 amazed at seeing, not a shabby, blind old fellow, but a smart, 
 ha\e old man, carrying his years gayly, like M. Ferville of the 
 Gymnase. 
 
 " ' "I must apologize, ladies," says he in an airy way, "for 
 not being on the spot when you arrived; but I was at the 
 Academy of Sciences watching an election that of M. Felix
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 503 
 
 Phellion whom you all know, and who has just been elected 
 unanimously but for three votes." 
 
 " 'This news evidently interested the company. Then M. 
 Picot went on : 
 
 " ' "I have also to apologize to you, ladies, for the rather 
 strange manner of my behavior here, i?i this very place, a few 
 weeks ago. My excuses were in the first place my infirmity, 
 the worrits of a lawsuit, and an old housekeeper who robbed 
 and plagued me in fifty wa} r s, and now I am rid of her. 
 Now, to-day, here you see me young again, made rich by the 
 generosity of the amiable lady who has given me her hand, 
 and I should be in the happiest frame of mind to receive you 
 as I ought if the recollection of my young friend, whose fame 
 is sealed by his election to the Academy, did not cast a shade 
 of- sorrow over my mind. We, all of us here," he went on 
 raising his voice, "have been to blame as regards him. I was 
 guilty of ingratitude when he ascribed to me the glory of his 
 discovery and the reward of his immortal labors, not think- 
 ing that he would afterwards be taking me to England to be 
 the cause of the happiness that has come to me so late in life: 
 that young lady there, whose eyes I see are full of tears, fool- 
 ishly accused him of atheism; that other lady, of severer 
 countenance, responded sternly to a handsome proposal on 
 the part of his old father, whose white hairs she should have 
 treated with respect; Monsieur Thuillier sacrificed him to his 
 own ambition ; Monsieur Colleville did not rightly fulfil his 
 part as a father, which he ought to have chosen the worthiest 
 and most honest of men to be his daughter's husband; Mon- 
 sieur Minard was jealous and tried to foist his son into his 
 place. There are only two persons here, Madame Thuillier 
 and the Abbe Gondrin, who ever did him full justice. Well 
 now, I ask that saintly man, may we not almost doubt Divine 
 Justice sometimes, when we see that this generous young 
 man, the victim of us all, is at this very hour tossed by the 
 winds and waves, leaving us for three long years in anxiety 
 as to his safe return." 
 
 < "Providence is most powerful, monsieur," said the Abb,
 
 504 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 "God will protect M. Felix Phellion in the midst of perils; 
 and in three years I firmly hope he may be restored to his 
 friends." 
 
 "'"But in -three years," said Picot, "will it yet be time? 
 Will Mademoiselle Colleville wait for him ?" 
 
 " ' "Yes, I swear it !" cried the young lady, quite carried 
 away by feelings she could not control. 
 
 " 'And then quite abashed she sat down and melted into 
 tears. 
 
 " ' "And will you, Mademoiselle Thuillier," M. Picot went 
 on, "and you, Madame Colleville, allow this girl to wait for 
 the man who is so worthy of her?" 
 
 " { "Yes why yes !" every one exclaimed ; for M. Picot's 
 voice, which is deep and full, and sounded as if there were 
 tears in his throat, had roused everybody's feelings. 
 
 " ' "Then it is high time," said M. Picot, "to grant an 
 amnesty to Providence." And coming to the door at which I 
 had my ear indeed, he was very near catching me: 
 
 " ' "Announce M. Felix Phellion and family," said he in a 
 very loud voice. 
 
 " 'And a door opened, and five or six persons came in, 
 who followed M. Picot into the drawing-room. 
 
 " 'When she beheld her lover, Mademoiselle Colleville 
 fainted away; but the attack only lasted a minute or two, and 
 seeing M. Felix kneeling before her, she fell weeping into 
 Madame Thuillier's arms, saying, "Godmother, you always bid 
 me hope !" 
 
 " 'Mademoiselle Thuillier, who, as I have always felt, is 
 a very superior woman in spite of her hard nature and 
 want of education, then had a happy inspiration. Just as 
 everybody was going into the dining-room : "One minute !'' 
 says she. 
 
 " 'And going up to M. Phellion, the father: 
 
 " ' "Monsieur," says she, "and my old friend, I ask you in 
 the name of Mademoiselle Colleville, our adopted daughter, 
 to grant her your son in marriage Monsieur Felix Phel- 
 lion/'
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 505 
 
 " ' "Bravo, bravo !" cried every one present. 
 
 " ' "Dear heaven !" said M. Felix, his eyes full of tears. 
 "What have I done to deserve so much happiness ?" 
 
 " ' "You have been a good man and a Christian without 
 knowing it," said the Abbe Gondrin.' ' ; 
 
 At this point la Peyrade tossed down the letter. 
 
 "What, you are not going to finish it?" said Corentin, 
 picking it up. "But in fact there is nothing more. Mon- 
 sieur Henri confesses that the scene moved him deeply; he 
 says that knowing the interest I formerly took in the mar- 
 riage, he thought himself bound to let me know all the cir- 
 cumstances of its being settled, and, as in every police report 
 of any length, he ends by a request, very thinly disguised, for 
 a present in cash. Nay, there is, by the way, a further item 
 of importance : The English lady, in the course of the dinner, 
 seems to have made Monsieur Picot announce that, as she 
 has no heirs-at-law, after her husband's death and her own 
 her whole fortune will be left to Felix, who, consequently, will 
 be a very wealthy man." 
 
 La Peyrade had risen and was striding up and down the 
 room. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Corentin. 
 
 "Nothing," replied the Provengal. 
 
 "Yes, yes, there is something. I fancy you are a little 
 envious of that young man's good luck. But, my dear boy, 
 allow me to point out to you that if you wished to end as 
 he has done, you should have begun as he did. When I sent 
 you a hundred louis to go through your law studies, I did not 
 intend you to be my successor. I expected you to labor at 
 the oar of your own boat, to be brave enough for hard and un- 
 recognized toil, and then your day would have come. But 
 you insisted on violating Fate." 
 
 "Monsieur" said la Peyrade. 
 
 "I moan, hurrying her, cutting the hay green. You threw 
 yourself into journalism, then into business; then you made 
 the acquaintance of Dutocq and Cerizet; and, honestly, I
 
 506 THE MIDDLE CLASSES 
 
 think you very lucky to have reached the port where you have 
 at length found refuge. Besides, you are not simple-hearted 
 enough for such bliss as is appointed for Felix to be supreme 
 happiness to you. These middle-class people " 
 
 "The middle classes !" said la Peyrade. "I know them now, 
 and I have learned to know them to my cost. They are full 
 of the greatest absurdities nay, and of great vices ; but they 
 have their virtues, or, to say the least, estimable qualities : in 
 them lies all the strength of our corrupt society." 
 
 "Your society?" said Corentin, smiling. "You speak as 
 if you still belonged to its ranks. You are struck off its roll, 
 my dear boy, and you must make the best of your billet. Gov- 
 ernments change, societies perish or grow weak; but we we 
 rise superior to all that, and the Police is eternal." 
 
 THE END.
 
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