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 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 THE COMEDIE HUMAINE

 
 DON'T SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT HER, MY DEAR FRIEND, OR 
 YOU WILL SPOIL IT ALL."
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 Muse of the Department 
 AND Les Employes 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 JAMES WARING 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 ^ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The Gebbie Publishing Co., Ltd, 
 1899
 
 •V; 
 
 '9 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT . . . . i 
 LES EMPLOYES I95 

 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " don't say too much about her, my dear friend, or you 
 
 WILL SPOIL IT all" (p. 237) .... Frontispiece. 
 
 PAGE 
 " IS IT TO MONSIEUR MILAUD DE LA BAUDRAYE THAT I HAVE 
 
 THE HONOR ?" . ID 
 
 HE PERCEIVED THAT THERE WAS A LITTLE INTERVAL OF A 
 
 HUNDRED FEET BETWEEN THE LOWEST KNOT AND THE 
 POINTED ROCKS BELOW . . . ' . . . -69 
 
 ONE OF THE MINISTER'S CARRIAGES USED TO COME FOR DES 
 LUPEAULX AT HALF-PAST FOUR, JUST AS HE HIMSELF WAS 
 OPENING HIS UMBRELLA 264 
 
 "A WORD OR TWO WITH YOU, MY LORU" .... 373 
 
 Drawn by y. Ay ton Symington.

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Although "La Muse du Departement " is a most important 
 work, it cannot perhaps be spoken of in unhesitating terms. 
 It contains indeed, in the personage of Lousteau, one of the 
 very most elaborate of Balzac's portraits of a particular type of 
 men of letters. The original is said to have been Jules Janin, 
 who is somewhat disadvantageously contrasted here and else- 
 where with Claud Vignon, said on the same rather vague 
 authority to be Gustave Planche. Both Janin and Planche 
 are now too much forgotten, but in both more or less (and in 
 Lousteau very much " more ") Balzac certainly cannot be said 
 to have dealt mildly with his d^^g noire, the critical tempera- 
 ment. Lousteau, indeed, though not precisely a scoundrel, is 
 both a rascal and a cad. Even Balzac seems a little shocked 
 at his lettre de /aire part in reference to his mistress' child ; 
 and it is seldom possible to discern in any of his proceedings 
 the most remote approximation to the conduct of a gentleman. 
 But, then, as we have seen, and shall see, Balzac's standard 
 for the conduct of his actual gentlemen was by no means 
 fantastically exquisite or discouragingly high, and in the case 
 of his Bohemians it was accommodating to the utmost degree. 
 He seems to despise Lousteau, but rather for his insouciance 
 and neglect of his opportunities of making himself a position 
 than for anything else. 
 
 I have often felt disposed to ask those who would assert 
 Balzac's absolute infallibility as a gynaecologist to give me a 
 reasoned criticism of the heroine of this novel. I do not 
 entirely "figure to myself" Dinah de La Baudraye. It is 
 perfectly possible that she should have loved a "sweep" like 
 Lousteau; there is certainly nothing extremely unusual in a 
 woman loving worse sweeps even than he. But would she 
 
 (ix)
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 have done it, and having done it, have also done what she 
 did afterward ? These questions may be answered differently ; 
 I do not answer thenfi in the negative myself, but I cannot 
 give them an affirmative answer with the conviction which I 
 should like to show. 
 
 Among the minor characters, the subsiiiut de Chagny has a 
 touch of nobility which contrasts happily enough with Lous- 
 teau's unworthiness. Bianchon is as good as usual : Balzac 
 always gives Bianchon a favorable part. Madame Pi^defer is 
 one of the numerous instances in which the unfortunate class 
 of mothers-in-law atones for what are supposed to be its crimes 
 against the human race ; and old La Baudraye, not so hope- 
 lessly repulsive in a French as he would be in an English 
 novel, is a shrewd old rascal enough. 
 
 But I cannot think the scene of the Parisians blaguing the 
 Sancerrois a very happy one. That it is in exceedingly bad 
 taste might not matter so very much ; Balzac would reply, 
 and justly, that he had not intended to represent it as any- 
 thing else. That the fun is not very funny may be a matter 
 of definition and appreciation. But what scarcely admits of 
 denial or discussion is that it is tyrannously too long. The 
 citations of " Olympia " are pushed beyond measure, beyond 
 what is comic, almost beyond the license of farce ; and the 
 comments, which remind one rather of the heavy jesting on 
 critics in " Un Prince de la Boheme " and the short-lived 
 "Revue Parisienne," are labored to the last degree. The 
 part of Nathan, too, is difficult to appreciate exactly, and al- 
 together the book does not seem to me a reussite. 
 
 "The Muse of the Department" has a rather compli- 
 cated record. It appeared at first, not quite complete and 
 under the title of " Dinah Piedefer," in " Le Messager " dur- 
 ing March and April 1843, ^"^ ^^s almost immediately pub- 
 lished as a book, with works of other writers, under the general 
 title of " Les Mystferes de Province," and accompanied by 
 some other work of its own author's. It had four parts and
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 fifty-two chapters in " Le Messager," an arrangement which 
 was but slightly altered in the volume form. M. de Loven- 
 joul gives some curious indications of mosaic work in it, and 
 some fragments which do not now appear in the text. 
 
 As is the wont of Balzac's collections of mixed stories (with 
 the possible exception of the wonderful volume which opens 
 with "La Recherche de I'Absolu"), and as is naturally very 
 often the case with collections of short stories in general, the 
 volume which originally began with "La Maison Nucingen "* 
 is a little unequal. One of its contents, " Sarrasine," though 
 powerful in its way, is tarred with the same brush of morbid- 
 ness which stains " Une Passion dans le Desert" and "La 
 Filleaux Yeuxd'Or." 
 
 The other contents were a little miscellaneous, and were 
 very variously grouped in Balzac's successive rearrangements 
 of the Comedie. Indeed, in the so-called edition definitive 
 the minor stories are separated from " La Maison Nucingen," 
 while an earlier arrangement still was different again. 
 
 The long piece entitled " Les Employes," which fills more 
 than half the entire volume, and nearly two-thirds of it with- 
 out "Sarrasine," has rather dubious claims to be called a 
 novel or a story at all. Balzac, either from the fact of his 
 father having been employed in the civil department of the 
 army, or because he had been destined himself by kind family 
 friends to the rond-de-cuir (the office-stool), or because he was 
 a typical Frenchman — for while half the French nation sits on 
 these stools, the other half divides its time between laughing 
 at them and envying them — was always exceedingly intent on 
 the ways and manners of government offices. One of the 
 least immature scenes of his CEuvres de Jeunesse, the open- 
 ing passage of "Argow le Pirate," concerns the subject. The 
 collection of his CEuvres Diverses, only of late years opened 
 to the explorer who has less than libraries at his command, 
 
 * Included in the volume " The Seamy Side of History " in this edi- 
 tion.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 contains repeated returns to it, of which the " Physiologic de 
 L'Employe" was the best known and most popular; and the 
 novels proper are full of dealings with it. In this particular 
 piece, indeed, Balzac has actually incorporated something 
 from his earlier "Physiologic," and has thus made it even 
 less of a story than it was when it first appeared under the 
 title of "La Femme Superieure." In that condition it was 
 divided into three parts — " Entre deux Femmes," " Les 
 Bureaux," and "A qui la place." The later shape, with the 
 additions just referred to, tended to overweight the middle 
 part still more at the expense of the two ends; and as it 
 stands, it is little more than a criticism, partly in argu- 
 ment, partly in dialogue, of administration and administra- 
 tive methods, with a certain slight personal interest at both 
 ends. 
 
 "Les Employes" is an older book than many, being origi- 
 nally dated July 1836. It also appeared in the " Presse " 
 just a year after its composition, but was then called " La 
 Femme Superieure," which name it kept on its publication 
 by Werdet as a book in 1838. It was here enlarged, and had 
 "La Torpille" (the first title of "Esther" or "Comment 
 aiment les Filles") and "La Maison Nucingen " for com- 
 panions. There were, as usual, chapter divisions and titles. 
 At its first appearance in the Comedie the actual title and 
 " La Femme Superieure " were given as alternatives, but later 
 " Les Employes ' ' displaced the other. 
 
 G. S.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 To Monsieur le Comte Ferdinand de Gramont. 
 
 My dear Ferdinand : — If the chances of the 7vorld 
 of literature — habent sua fata libelli — should allow 
 these lines to be an enduring record, that will still be 
 but a trifle in return for the trouble you have taken — 
 you, the Hozier, the Cherin, the King-at-Arms of these 
 Studies of Life; you, to zvhom the N'avarreins, Cadig- 
 nans, Langeais, Blamont- Chauvrys, Chaulieus, Arthez, 
 Esgrignons, Mortsaufs, Valois—the hundred great 
 na?nes thai form the aristocracy of the ''Human 
 Comedy ' ' owe their lordly mottoes and ingenious armo- 
 rial bearings. Indeed, " the Armorial of the Etudes, 
 devised by Ferdinand de Gramont, gentleman, "is a 
 complete Manual of French Heraldry, in wiiich tioth- 
 ing is forgotten, not even the arms of the Empire, and 
 I shall preserve it as a monument of friendship and of 
 Benedictine patience. What profound knowledge of 
 the old feudal spirit is to be seen in the motto of the 
 Bauseants, Pulchre, sedens, melius agens ; in that of 
 the Espards, Des partem leonis; in that of the Van- 
 denesses, Ne se vend. And what elegance in the 
 thousand details of the learned symbolism which will 
 always show how far accuracy has been carried in my 
 work, to 7vhich you, the poet, have contributed. 
 Your old friend, 
 
 De Balzac. 
 
 On the skirts of Le Berry stands a town which, watered by 
 the Loire, infallibly attracts the traveler's eye. Sancerre 
 
 (1)
 
 2 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 crowns the topmost height of a chain of hills, the last of the 
 range that gives variety to the Nivernais. The Loire floods 
 the flats at the foot of these slopes, leaving a yellow alluvium 
 that is extremely fertile, except in those places where it has 
 deluged them with sand and destroyed them forever, by one 
 of those terrible risings which are also incidental to the Vistula 
 — the Loire of the northern coast. 
 
 The hill on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so 
 far from the river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault 
 thrives on the life of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and 
 oak staves are landed, with all the produce brought from the 
 upper and lower Loire. At the period when this story begins 
 the suspension bridges at Cosne and Saint-Thibault were 
 already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by the 
 Southern road were no longer ferried across the river from 
 Cosne to Saint-Thibault ; and this of itself is enough to show 
 that the great cross-shuffle of 1830 was a thing of the past, for 
 the House of Orleans has always had a care for substantial 
 improvements, though somewhat after the fashion of a husband 
 who makes his wife presents out of her marriage-portion. 
 
 Excepting that part of Sancerre which occupies the little 
 plateau, the streets are more or less steep, and the town is 
 surrounded by slopes known as the Great Ramparts, a name 
 which shows that they are the high-roads of the place. 
 
 Outside the ramparts lies a belt of vineyards. Wine forms 
 the chief industry and the most important trade of the country, 
 which yields several vintages of high-class wine full of aroma, 
 and so nearly resembling the wines of Burgundy, that the 
 vulgar palate is deceived. So Sancerre finds in the wine-shops 
 of Paris the quick market indispensable for liquor that will 
 not keep for more than seven or eight years. Below the town 
 lie a fev,' villages, Fontenoy and Saint-Satur, almost suburbs, 
 reminding us by their situation of the smiling vineyards about 
 Neufchatel in Switzerland. 
 
 The town still bears much of its ancient aspect ; the streets
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 3 
 
 are narrow and paved with cobbles carted up from the Loire. 
 Some old houses are to be seen there. The citadel, a relic of 
 military power and feudal times, stood one of the most terrible 
 sieges of our religious wars, when French Calvinists far outdid 
 the ferocious Cameronians of Walter Scott's tales. 
 
 The town of Sancerre, rich in its greater past, but widowed 
 now of its military importance, is doomed to an even less 
 glorious future, for the course of trade lies on the right bank of 
 the Loire. The sketch here given shows that Sancerre will 
 be left more and more lonely in spite of the two bridges con- 
 necting it with Cosne. 
 
 Sancerre, the pride of the left bank, numbers three thousand 
 five hundred inhabitants at most, while at Cosne there are 
 now more than six thousand. Within half a century the pait 
 played by these two towns standing opposite each other has 
 been reversed. The advantage of situation, however, remains 
 with the historic town, whence the view on every side is per- 
 fectly enchanting, where the air is deliciously pure, the vege- 
 tation splendid, and the residents, in harmony with nature, 
 are friendly souls, good fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, 
 though two-thirds of the population are Calvinists. Under 
 such conditions, though there are the usual disadvantages of 
 life in a small town, and each one lives under the officious eye 
 which makes private life almost a public concern, on the 
 other hand, the spirit of township — a sort of patriotism, which 
 cannot indeed take the place of a love of home — flourishes 
 triumphantly. 
 
 Thus the town of Sancerre is exceedingly proud of having 
 given birth to one of the glories of modern medicine, Horace 
 Bianchon, and to an author of secondary rank, Etienne Lous- 
 teau, one of our most successful journalists. The district in- 
 cluded under the municipality of Sancerre, distressed at find- 
 ing itself practically ruled by seven or eight large landowners, 
 the wire-pullers of the elections, tried to shake off the electoral 
 yoke of a creed which had reduced it to a rotten borough.
 
 4 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 This little conspiracy, plotted by a handful of men whose 
 vanity was provoked, failed through the jealousy which the 
 elevation of one of them, as the inevitable result, roused in 
 the breasts of the others. This result showed the radical 
 defect of the scheme, and the remedy then suggested was to 
 rally round a champion at the next election, in the person of 
 one of the two men who so gloriously represented Sancerre 
 in Paris circles. 
 
 This idea was extraordinarily advanced for the provinces, 
 for since 1830 the nomination of parochial dignitaries has 
 increased so greatly that real statesmen are becoming rare 
 indeed in the lower chamber. 
 
 In point of fact, this plan, of very doubtful outcome, was 
 hatched in the brain of the Superior Woman of the borough, 
 dux femina fasti, but with a view to personal interest. This 
 idea was so widely rooted in this lady's past life, and so entirely 
 comprehended her future prospects, that it can scarcely be 
 understood without some sketch of her antecedent career. 
 
 Sancerre at that time could boast of a Superior Woman, 
 long misprized indeed, but now, about 1836, enjoying a pretty 
 extensive local reputation. This, too, was the period at which 
 the two Sancerrois in Paris were attaining, each in his own 
 line, to the highest degree of glory for one, and of fashion 
 for the other. Etienne Lousteau, a writer in reviews, signed 
 his name to contributions to a paper that had eight thousand 
 subscribers ; and Bianchon, already chief physician to a 
 hospital, officer of the Legion of Honor, and member of the 
 Academy of Sciences, had just been made a professor. 
 
 If it were not that the word would to many readers seem to 
 imply a degree of blame, it might be said that George Sand 
 created Safidism, so true is it that, morally speaking, all good 
 has a reverse of evil. This leprosy of sentimentality has spoilt 
 many women, who, but for her pretensions to genius, would 
 have been charming. Still, Sandism has its good side, in that
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMEiVT. 5 
 
 the woman attacked by it bases her assumption of superiority 
 on feelings scorned ; she is a blue-stocking of sentiment ; and 
 she is rather less of a bore, love to some extent neutralizing 
 literature. The most conspicuous result of George Sand's 
 celebrity was to elicit the fact that France has a perfectly 
 enormous number of superior women, who have, however, till 
 now been so generous as to leave the field to the Marechal de 
 Saxe's granddaughter. 
 
 The Superior Woman of Sancerre lived at La Baudraye, a 
 town-house and country-house in one, within ten minutes of 
 the town, and in the village, or, if you will, the suburb of 
 Saint-Satur. The La Baudrayes of the present day have, as is 
 frequently the case, thrust themselves in, and are but a sub- 
 stitute for those La Baudrayes whose name, glorious in the 
 Crusades, figured in the chief events of the history of Le Berry. 
 
 The story must be told. 
 
 In the time of Louis XIV. a certain sheriff named Milaud, 
 whose forefathers had been furious Calvinists, was converted 
 at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To 
 encourage this movement in one of the strongholds of Cal- 
 vinism, the King gave the said Milaud a good appointment in 
 the " Waters and Forests," granted him arms and the title of 
 Sieur (or Lord) de La Baudraye, with the fief of the old and 
 genuine La Baudrayes. The descendants of the famous Cap- 
 tain La Baudraye fell, sad to say, into one of the snares laid 
 for heretics by the new decrees, and were hanged — an un- 
 worthy deed of the great King's. 
 
 Under Louis XV. Milaud de La Baudraye, from being a 
 mere squire, was made chevalier, and had influence enough to 
 obtain for his son an ensign's commission in the Musketeers. 
 Tliis officer perished at Fontenoy, leaving a child, to whom 
 King Louis XVI. subsequently granted the privileges, by 
 patent, of a farmer-general, in remembrance of his father's 
 death on the field of battle. 
 
 This financier, a fashionable wit, great at charades, capping
 
 6 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 verses, and posies to Chlora, lived in society, was a hanger-on 
 to the Duke of Nivernais, and fancied himself obliged to 
 follow the nobilitv into exile ; but he took care to carrv his 
 money with him. Thus the rich emigre was able to assist 
 more than one family of high rank. 
 
 In 1800, tired of hoping, and perhaps tired of lending, he 
 returned to Sancerre, bouglit back La Baudraye out of a feel- 
 ing of vanity and imaginary pride, quite intelligible in a 
 sheriff's grandson, though under the consulate his prospects 
 were but slender; all the more so, indeed, because the ex- 
 farmer-general had small hopes of his heir's perpetuating the 
 new race of La Baudrave. 
 
 Jean-Athanase-Polydore Milaud de La Baudraye, his only 
 son, more than delicate from his birth, was very evidently the 
 child of a man whose constitution had early been exhausted by 
 the excesses in which rich men indulge, who then marry at 
 the first stage of premature old age, and thus bring degeneracy 
 into the highest circles of society. During the years of the 
 emigration Madame de La Baudraye, a girl of no fortune, 
 chosen for her noble birth, had patiently reared this sallow, 
 sickly boy, for whom she had the devoted love mothers feel 
 for such changeling creatures. Her death — she was a Casteran 
 de la Tour — contributed to bring about Monsieur de La Bau- 
 draye's return to France. 
 
 This Lucullus of the Milauds, when he died, left his son the 
 iief, stripped indeed of its fines and dues, but graced with the 
 weathercocks bearing his coat-of-arras, a thousand louis-d'or — 
 in 1802 a considerable sum of mone)' — and certain recei-pts for 
 claims on very distinguished emigres inclosed in a pocket- 
 book full of verses, with this inscription on the wrapper: 
 Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. 
 
 Young La Baudraye did not die, but he owed his life to 
 habits of monastic strictness ; to the economy of action which 
 Fontenelle preached as the religion of the invalid; and, above 
 all, to the air of Sancerre and the influence of its fine elevation.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 7 
 
 whence a panorama of the valley of the Loire may be seen 
 extending for forty leagues. 
 
 From 1S02 to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots 
 to his vineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. 
 The Restoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he 
 dared not go to Paris to claim his debts ; but after Napoleon's 
 death he tried to turn his father's collection of autographs into 
 money, though not understanding the deep philosophy which 
 had thus mixed up I O U's and copies of verses. But the 
 vinegrower lost so much time in impressing his identity on 
 the Duke of Navarreins "and others," as he phrased it, that 
 he came back to Sancerre, to his beloved vintage, without 
 having obtained anything but offers of service. 
 
 The Restoration had raised the nobility to such a degree of 
 lustre as made La Baudraye wish to justify his ambitions by hav- 
 ing an heir. This happy result of matrimony he considered 
 doubtful, or he would not so long have postponed the step ; 
 however, finding himself still above ground in 1823, at the age 
 of forty-three, a length of years which no doctor, astrologer, or 
 midwife would have dared to promise him, he hoped to earn 
 the reward of his sober life. And yet his choice showed such 
 a lack of prudence in regard to his frail constitution, that the 
 malicious wit of a country town could not help thinking it must 
 be the result of some deep calculation. 
 
 Just at this time his eminence, Monseigneur the Archbishop 
 of Bourges, had converted to the Catholic faith a young per- 
 son, the daughter of one of the citizen families, who were the 
 first upholders of Calvinism, and who, thanks to their obscurity 
 or to some compromise with heaven, had escaped from the 
 persecutions under Louis XIV. The Piedefers — a name that 
 was obviously one of the quaint nicknames assumed by the 
 champions of the Reformation — had set up as highly respect- 
 able cloth merchants. But in the reign of Louis XIV., Abra- 
 ham Picdcfcr fell into difficulties, and at his death in 17S6 
 left his two children in extreme poverty. One of them, Tobie
 
 8 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Piedefcr, went out to the IndieS; leaving the pittance they had 
 inherited to his elder brother. During the Revolution MoVse 
 Piedefer bought up the nationalized land, pulled down abbeys 
 and churches with all the zeal of his ancestors, oddly enough, 
 and married a Catholic, the only daughter of a member of the 
 Convention who had perished on the scaffold. This ambitious 
 Piedefer died in 1819, leaving his wife a fortune impaired by 
 agricultural speculation, and a little girl of remarkable beauty. 
 This child, brought up in the Calvinist faith, was named 
 Dinah, in accordance with the custom in use among the sect 
 of taking their Christian names from the Bible, so as to have 
 nothing in common with the saints of the Roman church. 
 
 Mademoiselle Dinah Piedefer was placed by her mother in 
 one of the best schools in Bourges, that kept by the Demoi- 
 selles Chamarolles, and was soon as highly distinguished for 
 the qualities of her mind as for her beauty; but she found 
 herself snubbed by girls of birth and fortune, destined by-and- 
 by to play a greater part in the world than a mere plebeian, the 
 daughter of a mother who was dependent on tlie settlement of 
 Piedefer's estate. Dinah, having raised herself for the mo- 
 ment above her companions, now aimed at remaining on a 
 level with them for the rest of her life. She determined, 
 therefore, to renounce Calvinism, in the hope that the cardinal 
 would extend his favor to his proselyte and interest himself in 
 her prospects. You may from this judge of Mademoiselle 
 Dinah's superiority, since at the age of seventeen she was a 
 convert solely from ambition. 
 
 The archbishop, possessed with the idea that Dinah Piedefer 
 would adorn society, was anxious to see her married. But 
 every family to whom the prelate made advances took fright 
 at a damsel gifted with the looks of a princess, who was reputed 
 the cleverest of Mademoiselle Chamarolles' pupils, and who, 
 at the somewhat theatrical ceremonial of prize-giving, always 
 took a leading part. A thousand crowns a year, which was as 
 much as she could hope for from the estate of La Hautoy
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 9 
 
 when divided between the mother and daughter, would be 
 a mere trifle in comparison with the expenses into which a 
 husband would be led by the personal advantages of so bril- 
 liant a creature. 
 
 As soon as all these facts came to the ears of little Polydore 
 de La Baudraye — for they were tlie talk of every circle in the 
 Department of the Cher — he went to Bourges just when Madame 
 Piedefer, a devotee at high services, had almost made up her 
 own mind and her daughter's to take the first comer with 
 well-lined pockets — the first chien coiffe (handsome-faced dog), 
 as they say in Le Berry. And if the cardinal was delighted 
 to receive Monsieur de La Baudraye, Monsieur de La Bau- 
 draye was even better pleased to receive a wife from the hands 
 of the cardinal. The little gentleman only demanded of his 
 eminence a formal promise to support his claims with the 
 president of the Council to enable him to recover his debts 
 from the Due de Navarreins " and others " by a lien on their 
 indemnities. This method, however, seemed to the able min- 
 ister then occupying the Pavilion Marsan rather too sharp 
 practice, and he gave the vine-owner to understand that his 
 business should be attended to all in good time. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the excitement produced in the San- 
 cerre district by the news of Monsieur de La Baudraye's im- 
 prudent marriage. 
 
 "It is quite intelligible," said President Boirouge ; "the 
 little man was very mucli startled, as I am told, at hearing 
 that handsome young Milaud, the attorney-general's deputy 
 at Nevers, say to Monsieur de Clagny as they were looking at 
 the turrets of La Baudraye: 'That will be mine some day.' 
 ' But,' says Clagny, ' he may marry and have children.' ' Im- 
 possible ! ' So you may imagine how sucli a changeling as 
 little La Baudraye must hate that colossal Milaud." 
 
 There was at Nevers a plebeian branch of the Milauds, 
 which had grown so rich in the cutlery trade that the present 
 representative of that branch had been brought up to the civil
 
 10 THE MUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 service, in which he had enjoyed the patronage of Marchangy, 
 now dead. 
 
 It will be as well to eliminate from this story, in which 
 moral developments play the principal part, the baser material 
 interests which alone occupied Monsieur de La Baudraye, by 
 briefly relating the results of his negotiations in Paris. This 
 will also throw light on certain mysterious phenomena of con- 
 temporary history, and the underground difficulties in matters 
 of politics which hampered the Ministry at the time of the 
 Restoration. 
 
 The promises of ministers were so illusory that Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye determined on going to Paris at the time when 
 the cardinal's presence was required there by the sitting of the 
 Chambers. 
 
 This is how the Due de Navarreins, the principal debtor 
 as yet threatened by Monsieur de La Baudraye, got out of the 
 scrape : 
 
 The country gentleman, lodging at the Hotel de Mayence, 
 Rue Saint-Honore, near the Place Vendorae, one morning re- 
 ceived a visit from a confidential agent of the Ministry, who 
 was an expert in "winding up" business. This elegant per- 
 sonage, who stepped out of an elegant cab, and was dressed 
 in the most elegant style, was requested to walk up to No. 37 
 —that is to say, to the fourth floor, to a small room where he 
 found his provincial concocting a cup of coff'ee over his bed- 
 room fire. 
 
 " Is it to Monsieur Milaud de La Baudraye that I have the 
 honor ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the little man, draping himself in his dressing- 
 gown. 
 
 After examining this garment, the illicit offspring of an old 
 Chinese wrapper of Madame Piedefer's and a gown of the late 
 lamented Madame de La Baudraye, the emissary considered 
 the man, the dressing-gown, and the little stove on which the
 
 is IT TO MONSIEUR MiLAUD DE LA BAUDRAYE THAT I 
 HAVE THE HONOR ?"
 
 I "%:>.-■ -«
 
 II 
 
 Li
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 11 
 
 milk was boiling in a tin saucepan as so homogeneous and 
 characteristic that he deemed it needless to beat about the 
 bush. 
 
 "I will lay a wager, monsieur," said he audaciously, "that 
 you dine for forty sous at Hurbain's in the Palais Royal." 
 
 "Pray, why?" 
 
 "Oh, I know you, having seen you there," replied the 
 Parisian with perfect gravity. " All the princes' creditors 
 dine there. You know that you recover scarcely ten per cent, 
 on debts from these fine gentlemen. I would not give you 
 five per cent, on a debt to be recovered from the estate of the 
 late Due d'Orleans — nor even," he added in a low voice — 
 
 " from MONSIEUR." 
 
 " So you have come to buy up the bills ? " said La Baudraye, 
 thinking himself very clever. 
 
 "Buy them ! " said his visitor. "Why, what do you take 
 me for? I am Monsieur des Lupeaulx, master of appeals, sec- 
 retary-general to the Ministry, and I have come to propose an 
 arrangement." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Of course, monsieur, you know the position of your 
 debtor " 
 
 "Of my debtors " 
 
 "Well, monsieur, you understand the position of your 
 debtors; they stand high in the King's good graces, but they 
 have no money, and are obliged to make a good show. 
 Again, you know the difficulties of the political situation. 
 The aristocracy has to be rehabilitated in the face of a very 
 strong force of the third estate. The King's idea — and France 
 does him scant justice — is to create a peerage as a national in- 
 stitution analogous to the English peerage. To realize this 
 grand idea, we need years — and millions — the obligations of 
 rank. The Due de Navarreins, who is, as you know, first gen- 
 tleman of the bedchamber to the King, does not repudiate his 
 debt ; but he cannot Now, be reasonable. Consider the
 
 12 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 state of politics. We are emerging from the pit of Revolution. 
 And you yourself are noble. He simply cannot pay " 
 
 " Monsieur " 
 
 "You are hasty," said des Lupeaulx. '-'Listen. He can- 
 not pay in money. Well, then ; you, a clever man, can take 
 payment in favors — Royal or Ministerial." 
 
 "What ! When in 1793 my father put down one hundred 
 thousand " 
 
 " My dear sir, recrimination is useless. Listen to a simple 
 statement in political arithmetic : The collectorship at San- 
 cerre is vacant ; a certain paymaster-general of the forces has 
 a claim on it, but he has no chance of getting it ; you have the 
 chance — and no claim. You will get the place. You will 
 hold it for three months, you will then resign, and Monsieur 
 Gravier will give twenty thousand francs for it. In addition, 
 the order of the Legion of Honor will be conferred on you." 
 
 "Well, that is something," said the vine-grower, tempted 
 by the money rather than by the red ribbon. 
 
 "But then," said des Lupeaulx, "you must show your 
 gratitude to his excellency by restoring to Monseigneur the 
 Duke of Navarreins all your claims on him." 
 
 La Baudraye returned to Sancerre as collector of taxes. 
 Six months later he was superseded by Monsieur Grr.vier, 
 regarded as one of the most agreeable financiers who had 
 served under the Empire, and who was of course presented 
 by Monsieur de La Baudraye to his wife. 
 
 As soon as he was released from his functions, Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye returned to Paris to come to an understanding 
 with some other debtors. This time he was made a referen- 
 dary under the great seal, baron, and officer of the Legion of 
 Honor. He sold the appointment as referendary; and then 
 the Baron de La Baudraye called on his last remaining debtors, 
 and reappeared at Sancerre as master of appeals, with an ap- 
 pointment as royal commissioner to a commercial association 
 established in the Nivernais, at a salary of six thousand francs,
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 13 
 
 an absolute sinecure. So the worthy La Baudraye, who was 
 supposed to have committed a financial blunder, had, in fact, 
 done very good business in the choice of a wife. 
 
 Thanks to sordid economy and an indemnity paid him for 
 the estate belonging to his father, nationalized and sold in 
 1 793' by ^^ y^^^ 1827 the little man could realize the dream of 
 his whole life. By paying four hundred thousand francs down, 
 and binding himself to further installments, which compelled 
 him to live for six years on the air as it came, to use his own 
 expression, he was able to purchase the estate of Anzy on the 
 banks of the Loire, about two leagues above Sancerre, and its 
 magnificent castle built bv Philibert de I'Orme, the admiration 
 of every connoisseur, and for five centuries the property of the 
 Uxelles family. At last he was one of the great landowners 
 of the province ! It is not absolutely certain that the satis- 
 faction of knowing that an entail had been created, by letters- 
 patent dated back to December, 1820, including the estates 
 of Anzy, of La Baudraye, and of La Hautoy, was any com- 
 pensation to Dinah on finding herself reduced to unconfessed 
 penuriousness till 1835. 
 
 This sketch of the financial policy of the first Baron de La 
 Baudraye explains the man completely. Those who are 
 familiar with the manias of country-folk will recognize in him 
 the land-huuger which becomes such a consuming passion to 
 the exclusion of every other ; a sort of avarice displayed in the 
 sight of the sun, which often leads to ruin by a want of bal- 
 ance between the interest on mortgages and the products of 
 the soil. Those who, from 1802 till 1827, had merely laughed 
 at the little man as they saw him trotting to Saint-Thibault 
 and attending to his business, like a merchant living on his 
 vineyards, found the answer to the riddle when the ant-lion 
 seized his prey, after wailing for the day when the extrava- 
 gance of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse culminated in the sale 
 of that splendid property. 
 
 Madame Piedefer came to live with her daughter. The
 
 14 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 combined fortunes of Monsieur de La Baudraye and his 
 inother-in-law, who had been content to accept an annuity 
 of twelve hundred francs on the lands of La Hautoy which 
 slie handed over to him, amounted to an acknowledged in- 
 come of about fifteen thousand francs. 
 
 During the early days of her married life, Dinah had effected 
 some alterations which had made the house at La Baudraye a 
 very pleasant residence. She turned a spacious forecourt into 
 a formal garden, pulling down wine-stores, presses, and shabby 
 outhouses. Behind the manor-house, which, though small, 
 did not lack style with its turrets and gables, she laid out a 
 second garden with shrubs, flower-beds, and lawns, and 
 divided it from the vineyards by a wall hidden under creepers. 
 She also made everything within doors as comfortable as their 
 narrow circumstances allowed. 
 
 In order not to be ruined by a young lady so very superior 
 as Dinah seemed to be. Monsieur de La Baudraye was shrewd 
 enough to say nothing as to the recovery of debts in Paris. 
 This dead secrecy as to his money matters gave a touch of 
 mystery to his character, and lent him dignity in his wife's; 
 eyes during the first years of their married life — so majestic is 
 silence ! 
 
 The alterations affected at La Baudraye made everybody 
 eager to see the young mistress, all the more so because Dinah 
 would never show herself, nor receive any company, before 
 she felt quite settled in her home and had thoroughly studied 
 the inhabitants, and, above all, her taciturn husband. When, 
 one spring morning in 1825, pretty Madame de La Baudraye 
 was first seen walking on the mall in a blue velvet dress, with 
 her mother in black velvet, there was quite an excitement in 
 Sancerre. This dress confirmed the young woman's reputa- 
 tion for superiority, brought up, as she had been, in the capital 
 of Le Berry. Every one was afraid lest in entertaining this 
 phoenix of the Department, the conversation should not be 
 clever enough \ and, of course, everybody was constrained in
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 15 
 
 the presence of Madame de La Baudraye, who produced a 
 sort of terror among the women-folk. As they admired a 
 carpet of Indian shawl-pattern in the La Baudrayfe drawing- 
 room, a Pompadour writing-table carved and gilt, brocade 
 window curtains, and a Japanese bowl full of flowers on the 
 round table among a selection of the newest books ; when 
 they heard the fair Dinah playing at sight, without making 
 the smallest demur before seating herself at the piano, the idea 
 they conceived of her superiority assumed vast proportions. 
 That she might never allow herself to become careless or the 
 victim of bad taste, Dinah had determined to keep herself up 
 to the mark as to the fashions and latest developments of 
 luxury by an active correspondence with Anna Grossetete, her 
 bosom friend at Mademoiselle ChamaroUes' school. 
 
 Anna, thanks to a fine fortune, had married the Comte de 
 Fontaine's third son. Thus those ladies who visited at La 
 Baudraye were perpetually piqued by Dinah's success in leading 
 the fashion ; do what they would, they were always behind, 
 or, as they say on the turf, distanced. 
 
 While all these trifles gave rise to malignant envy in the 
 ladies of Sancerre, Dinah's conversation and wit engendered 
 absolute aversion. In her ambition to keep her mind on the 
 level of Parisian brilliancy, Madame de La Baudraye allowed 
 no vacuous small talk in her presence, no old-fashioned com- 
 pliments, no pointless remarks ; she would never endure the 
 yelping of tittle-tattle, the backstairs slander which forms the 
 staple of talk in the country. She liked to hear of the discov- 
 eries in science or art, or the latest pieces at the theatres, the 
 newest poems, and by airing the cant words of the day she 
 made a show of uttering thoughts. 
 
 The Abbe Duret, cure of Sancerre, an old man of a lost 
 type of clergy in France, a man of the world with a liking for 
 cards, had not dared to indulge this taste in so liberal a dis- 
 trict as Sancerre ; he, therefore, was delighted at Madame de 
 La Baudraye's coming, and they got on together to admira-
 
 16 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 tion. The sub-prefect, one Vicomte de Chargeboeuf, was 
 delighted to find in Madame de La Baudraye's drawing-room 
 a sort of oasis where there was a truce to provincial life. As 
 to Monsieur de Clagny, the public prosecutor, his admiration 
 for the fair Dinah kept him bound to Sancerre. The enthusi- 
 astic lawyer refused all promotion, and became a quite pious 
 adorer of this angel of grace and beauty. He was a tall, lean 
 man, with a minatory countenance set off by terrible eyes in 
 deep black circles, under enormous eyebrows ; and his elo- 
 quence, very unlike his love-making, could be incisive. 
 
 Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who, in the days 
 of the Empire, had been a charming ballad-singer; it was this 
 accomplishment that had won him the high position of pay- 
 master-general of the forces. Having mixed himself up in 
 certain important matters in Spain with generals at that time 
 in opposition, he had made the most of these connections to 
 the Minister, who, in consideration of the place he had lost, 
 promised him the receivership at Sancerre, and then allowed 
 him to pay for the appointment. The frivolous spirit and 
 light tone of the Empire had become ponderous in Monsieur 
 Gravier ; he did not, or would not, understand the wide 
 difference between manners under the Restoration and under 
 the Empire. Still, he conceived of himself as far superior to 
 Monsieur de Clagny; his style was in better taste; he fol- 
 lowed the fashion, was to be seen in a buff waistcoat, gray 
 trousers, and neat, tightly fitting coats ; he wore a fashionable 
 silk tie slipped through a diamond ring, while the lawyer 
 never dressed in anything but black — coat, trousers, and vest 
 alike, and those often shabby. 
 
 These four men were the first to go into ecstasies over 
 Dinah's cultivation, good taste, and refinement, and pro- 
 nounced her a woman of most superior mind. Then the 
 women said to each other: "Madame de La Baudraye must 
 laugh at us behind our backs." 
 
 This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from
 
 THE MUSE OF IHE DEPARTMENT. 17 
 
 visiting at La Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of 
 pedantry, because she spoke grammatically, was nicknamed 
 the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At last everybody made insolent 
 game of the great qualities of the woman who had thus roused 
 the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre. And they ended by 
 denying a superiority — after all, merely comparative ! — which 
 emphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it. Where 
 the whole population is hunchbacked, a straight shape is the 
 monstrosity ; Dinah was regarded as monstrous and dangerous, 
 and she found herself in a desert. 
 
 Astonished at seeing the women of the neighborhood only 
 at long intervals, and for visits of a few minutes, Dinah asked 
 Monsieur de Clagny the reason of this state of things. 
 
 " You are too superior a woman to be liked by other 
 women," said the lawyer. 
 
 Monsieur Gravier, when questioned by the forlorn fair, only, 
 after much entreaty, replied — 
 
 " Well, lady fair, you are not satisfied to be merely charm- 
 ing. You are clever and well educated, you know every book 
 that comes out, you love poetry, you are a musician, and you 
 talk delightfully. Women cannot forgive so much supe- 
 riority." 
 
 Men said to Monsieur de La Baudraye — 
 
 *' You who have such a Superior Woman for a wife are 
 very fortunate " And at last he himself would say — 
 
 ** I who have a Superior Woman for a wife, am very fortu- 
 nate," etc. 
 
 Madame Piedefer, flattered through her daughter, also 
 allowed herself to say such things — " My daughter, who is a 
 very Superior Woman, was writing yesterday to Madame de 
 Fontaine such and such a thing." 
 
 Those who know the world — France, Paris — know how true 
 it is that many celebrities are thus created. 
 
 Two years later, by the end of the year 1825, Dinah de La 
 2
 
 18 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Baudraye was accused of not choosing to have any visitors 
 but men ; then it was said that she did not care for women — 
 and that was a crime. Not a tiling she could do, not her 
 most trifling action, could escape criticism and misrepresenta- 
 tion. After making every sacrifice that a well-bred woman 
 can make, and placing herself entirely in the right, Madame 
 de La Baudraye was so rash as to say to a false friend who 
 condoled with her on her isolation — 
 
 " I would rather have my bowl empty than with in it ! " 
 
 This speech produced a terrible effect on Sancerre, and was 
 cruelly retorted on the Sappho of Saint-Satur when, seeing 
 her childless after five years of married life. Utile de La Bau- 
 draye became a by-word for laughter. To understand this 
 provincial witticism, readers may be reminded of the Bailli de 
 Ferrette — some, no doubt, having known him — of whom it 
 was said that he was the bravest man in Europe for daring to 
 walk on his legs, and who was accused of putting lead in his 
 shoes to save himself from being blown away. Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye, a sallow and almost diaphanous creature, would 
 have been engaged by the Bailli de Ferrette as first gentleman- 
 in-waiting if that diplomatist had been the Grand Duke of 
 Baden instead of being merely his envoy. 
 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye, whose legs were so thin that, for 
 mere decency, he wore false calves, whose thighs were like 
 the arms of an average man, whose body was not unlike that 
 of a cockchafer, would have been an advantageous foil to the 
 Bailli de Ferrette. As he walked, the little vine-owner's leg- 
 pads often twisted round on to his shins, so little did he make 
 a secret of them, and he would thank any one who warned 
 him of this little mishap. He wore knee-breeches, black silk 
 stockings, and a white vest till 1824. After his marriage he 
 adopted blue trousers and shoes with heels, which made San- 
 cerre declare that he had added two inches to his stature that 
 he might come up to his wife's chin. For ten years he was 
 always seen in the same little bottle-green coat with large
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 19 
 
 white-metal buttons, and a black stock that accentuated his 
 cold, stingy face, lighted up by gray-blue eyes as keen and pas- 
 sionless as a cat's. Being very gentle, as men are who act on 
 a fixed plan of conduct, he seemed to make his wife happy by 
 never contradicting her; he allowed her to do the talking, 
 and was satisfied to move with the deliberate tenacity of an 
 insect. 
 
 Dinah, adored for her beauty, in which she had no rival, 
 and admired for her cleverness by the most gentlemanly men 
 of the place, encouraged their admiration by conversations, 
 for which, it was subsequently asserted, she prepared herself 
 beforeliand. Finding herself listened to witli rapture, she 
 soon began to listen to herself, enjoyed haranguing her audi- 
 ence, and at last regarded her friends as the chorus in a 
 tragedy, there only to give her her cues. In fact, she had a 
 very fine collection of phrases and ideas, derived either from 
 books or by assimilating the opinions of her companions, and 
 thus became a sort of mechanical instrument, going off on a 
 round of phrases as soon as some chance remark released the 
 spring. To do her justice, Dinah was choke full of knowl- 
 edge, and read everything, even medical books, statistics, 
 science, and jurisprudence; for she did not know how to 
 spend her days when she had reviewed her flower-beds and 
 given her orders to the gardener. Gifted with an excellent 
 memory, and the talent which some women have for hitting 
 on the right word, she could talk on any subject with tlie 
 lucidity of a studied style. And so men came from Cosne, 
 from la Charite, and from Nevers, on the right bank; from 
 Lere, Vailiy, Argent, Blancafort, and Aubigny, on the left 
 bank, to be introduced to Madame de La Baudraye, as 
 they used in Switzerland to be introduced to Madame de 
 Stael. Those who only once heard the round of tunes emitted 
 by this musical snuff-box went away amazed, and told such 
 wonders of Dinah as made all the women jealous for ten 
 leagues round.
 
 20 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 There is an indescribable mental headiness in the admira- 
 tion we inspire, or in the effect of playing a part, which fends 
 off criticism from reaching the idol. An atmosphere, pro- 
 duced perhaps by unceasing nervous tension, forms a sort of 
 halo, through which the world below is seen. How otherwise 
 can we account for the perennial good faith which leads to so 
 many repeated presentments of the same effects, and the con- 
 stant ignoring of warnings given by children, such a terror to 
 their parents, or by husbands, so familiar as they are with the 
 peacock airs of their wives? Monsieur de La Baudraye had 
 the frankness of a man who opens an umbrella at the first drop 
 of rain. When his wife was started on the subject of negro 
 emancipation or the improvement of convict prisons, he would 
 take up his little blue cap and vanish without a sound, in the 
 certainty of being able to get to Saint-Thibault to see off a 
 cargo of puncheons, and return an hour later to find the dis- 
 cussion approaching a close. Or, if he had no business to 
 attend to, he would go for a walk on the mall, whence he 
 commanded the lovely panorama of the Loire valley, and 
 take a draught of fresh air, while his wife was performing a 
 sonata in words, or a dialectical duet. 
 
 Once fairly established as a Superior Woman, Dinah was 
 eager to prove her devotion to the most remarkable creations 
 of art. She threw herself into the propaganda of the romantic 
 school, including, under Art, poetry and painting, literature, 
 and sculpture, furniture and the opera. Thus she became a 
 medisevalist. Slie was also interested in any treasures that 
 dated from the Renaissance, and employed her allies as so 
 many devoted commission agents. Soon after she was mar- 
 ried she had become possessed of the Rougets' furniture, sold 
 at Issoudun early in 1824. She purchased some very good 
 things in the Nivernais and the Haute-Loire. At the New 
 Year and on her birthday her friends never failed to give her 
 some curiosities. These fancies found favor in the eyes of 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye \ they gave him an appearance of
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 21 
 
 sacrificing a few crowns to his wife's taste. In point of fact, 
 his land mania allowed him to think of nothing but the estate 
 of Anzy. 
 
 These "antiquities" at that time cost much less than 
 modern furniture. By the end of five or six years the ante- 
 room, the dining-room, the two drawing-rooms, and the 
 boudoir which Dinah had arranged on the first floor of La 
 Baudraye, every spot even to the staircase, were crammed 
 with masterpieces collected in the four adjacent departments. 
 These surroundings, which were called queer by the neighbors, 
 were quite in harmony with Dinah, All these marvels, so 
 soon to be the rage, struck the imagination of the strangers 
 introduced to her; they came expecting something unusual ; 
 and they found their expectations surpassed when, behind a 
 bower of flowers, they saw these catacombs full of old things, 
 piled up as Sommerard used to pile them — that " Old Mor- 
 tality " of furniture. And then these finds served as so many 
 fountains which, turned on by a question, played off an essay 
 on Jean Goujon, Michel Columb, Germain Pilon, BouUe, Van 
 Huysum, and Boucher, the great native painter of Le Berry; 
 on Clodion, the carver of wood, on Venetian mirrors, on 
 Brustolone, an Italian tenor who was the Michael Angelo of 
 boxwood and holm oak; on the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, 
 sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, on the glazes of Bernard 
 de Palissy, the enamels of Petitot, the engravings of Albrecht 
 Diirer — whom she called Dur ; on illuminations on vellum, on 
 Gothic architecture, early decorated, flamboyant and pure — 
 enough to turn an old man's brain and fire a young man with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye, possessed with the idea of waking 
 up Sancerre, tried to form a so-called literary circle. The 
 presiding judge. Monsieur Boirougc, who happened to have a 
 house and garden on his hands, part of the Poi)inot-Chandier 
 property, favored the notion of this coterie. The wily judge 
 talked over the rules of the society with Madame de La
 
 22 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Baudraye ; he proposed to figure as one of the founders, and 
 to let the house for fifteen years to the literary club. By the 
 time it had existed a year the members were playing domi- 
 noes, billiards, and cards, and drinking muUed-wine, punch, 
 and liqueurs. A few elegant little suppers were then given, 
 and some masked balls during the Carnival. As to literature 
 — there were the newspapers. Politics and business were dis- 
 cussed. Monsieur de La Baudraye was constantly there — on 
 his wife's account, as he said jestingly. 
 
 This result deeply grieved the Superior Woman, who de- 
 spaired of Sancerre, and collected the wit of the neighbor- 
 hood in her own drawing-room. Nevertheless, and in spite 
 of the efforts of Messieurs de Chargcboeuf, Gravier, and de 
 Clagny, of the Abbe Buret and the two chief magistrates, of 
 a young doctor and a young assistant judge — all blind ad- 
 mirers of Dinah's — there were occasions when, weary of dis- 
 cussion, they allowed themselves an excursion into the do- 
 main of agreeable frivolity which constitutes the common 
 basis of worldly conversation. Monsieur Gravier called this 
 ''from grave to gay." The Abbe Buret's rubber made 
 another pleasing variety on the monologues of the oracle. 
 The three rivals, tired of keeping their minds up to the level 
 of the " high range of discussion " — as they called their con- 
 versation — but not daring to confess it, would sometimes turn 
 with ingratiating hints to the old priest. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure is dying for his game," they would 
 say. 
 
 The wily priest lent himself very readily to the little trick. 
 He protested : 
 
 "We should lose too much by ceasing to listen to our 
 inspired hostess ! " and so he would incite Dinah's magnanim- 
 ity to take pity at last on her dear abbe. 
 
 This bold manoeuvre, a device of the sub-prefect, was 
 repeated with so much skill that Dinah never suspected her 
 slaves of escaping to the prison-yard, so to speak, of the card-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 23 
 
 table ; and they would leave her one of the younger function- 
 aries to harry. 
 
 One young landowner, and the dandy of Sancerre, fell away 
 from Dinah's good graces in consequence of some rash demon- 
 strations. After soliciting the honor of admission to this 
 little circle, where he flattered himself he could snatch the 
 blossom from the constituted authorities who guarded it, he 
 was so unfortunate as to yawn in the middle of an explanation 
 Dinah was favoring him with — for the fourth time, it is true — 
 of the philosophy of Kant. Monsieur de la Thaumassidre, 
 the grandson of the historian of Le Berry, was thenceforth 
 regarded as a man entirely bereft of soul, brains, understand- 
 ing, and wit. 
 
 The three devotees, her slaves, each submitted to these 
 exorbitant demands on their mind and attention, in hope of 
 a crowning triumph, when at last Dinah should become 
 human ; for neither of them was so bold as to imagine that 
 Dinah would give up her innocence as a wife till she should 
 have lost all her illusions. In 1826, when she was surrounded 
 by adorers, Dinah completed her twentieth year, and the 
 Abbe Duret kept her in a sort of perfervid Catholicism ; so 
 her worshipers had to be content to overwhelm her with little 
 attentions and small services, only too happy to be taken for 
 the carpet-knights of this sovereign lady by strangers ad- 
 mitted to spend an evening or two at La Baudraye. 
 
 "Madame de La Baudraye is a fruit that must be left to 
 ripen." This was the opinion of Monsieur Gravier, who was 
 
 waiting. 
 
 As to the lawyer, he wrote letters four pages long, to which 
 Dinah replied in soothing speech as she walked, leaning on 
 his arm, round and round the lawn after dinner. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye, thus guarded by three passions, 
 and always under the eye of her pious mother, escaped the 
 malignity of slander. It was so evident to all Sancerre that 
 no two of these three men would ever leave the tliird alone
 
 24 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 with Madame de La Baudraye, that their jealousy was a 
 comedy to the lookers-on. 
 
 To reach Saint-Thibault from Caesar's gate there is a way 
 much shorter than that by the ramparts, down what is known 
 in mountainous districts as a conrsiire, called at Sancerre le 
 Casse-cou, or Break-neck Alley. The name is significant as 
 applied to a path down the steepest part of the hillside, thickly 
 strewn with stones, and shut in by the high banks of the vine- 
 yards on each side. By way of the Break-neck the distance 
 from Sancerre to La Baudraye is much abridged. The ladies 
 of the place, jealous of the Sappho of Saint-Satur, were wont 
 to walk on the mall, looking down this Longchamp of the 
 bigwigs, whom they would stop and engage in conversation — 
 sometimes the sub-prefect and sometimes the public prosecutor 
 — and who would listen with every sign of impatience or uncivil 
 absence of mind. As the turrets of La Baudraye are visible 
 from the mall, many a younger man came to contemplate the 
 abode of Dinah while envying the ten or twelve privileged 
 persons who might spend their afternoons with the Queen of 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye was not slow to discover the ad- 
 vantage he, as Dinah's husband, held over his wife's adorers, 
 and he made use of them without any disguise, obtaining a 
 remission of taxes, and gaining two lawsuits. In every litiga- 
 tion he used the public prosecutor's name with such good 
 effect that the matter was carried no further, and, like all un- 
 dersized men, he was contentious and litigious in business, 
 though in the gentlest manner. 
 
 At the same time, the more certainly guiltless she was, the 
 less conceivable did Madame de La Baudraye's position seem 
 to the prying eyes of these women. Frequently, at the house 
 of the president of Boirouge, the ladies of a certain age would 
 spend a whole evening discussing the La Baudraye household, 
 among themselves of course. They all had suspicions of a 
 mystery, a secret such as always interests women who have
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 25 
 
 had some experience of life. And, in fact, at La Baudraye one 
 of those slow and monotonous conjugal tragedies was being 
 played out which would have remained for ever unknown if 
 the merciless scalpel of the nineteenth century, guided by the 
 insistent demand for novelty, had not dissected the darkest 
 corners of the heart, or at any rate those which the decency 
 of past centuries left unopened. And that domestic drama 
 sufficiently accounts for Dinah's immaculate virtue during her 
 early married life. 
 
 A young lady, whose triumphs at school had been the out- 
 come of her pride, and whose first scheme in life had been 
 rewarded by a victory, was not likely to pause in such a bril- 
 liant career. Frail as Monsieur de La Baudraye might seem, 
 he was really an unhoped-for good match for Mademoiselle 
 Dinah Piedefer. But what was the hidden motive of this 
 country landowner when, at forty-four, he married a girl of 
 seventeen; and what could his wife make out of the bargain? 
 This was the text of Dinah's first meditations. 
 
 The little man never behaved quite as his wife expected. 
 To begin with, he allowed her to take the five precious acres 
 now wasted in pleasure grounds round La Baudraye, and paid, 
 almost with generosity, the seven or eight thousand francs 
 required by Dinah for improvements in the house, enabling 
 her to buy the furniture at the Rougets' sale at Issoudun, and 
 to redecorate her rooms in various styles — Mediaeval, I^ouis 
 XIV., and Pompadour. The young wife found it difficult to 
 believe that Monsieur de La Baudraye was so miserly as he 
 was reputed, or else she must have great influence with him. 
 This illusion lasted a year and a half. 
 
 After Monsieur de La Baudraye's second journey to Paris, 
 Dinah discovered in him the Arctic coldness of a provincial 
 miser whenever money was in question. The first time she 
 asked for supplies she played the sweetest of the comedies of 
 which Eve invented the secret ; but the little man put it plainly 
 
 B
 
 26 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 to his wife that he gave her two hundred francs a month for 
 her personal expenses, and paid Madame Piedefer twelve hun- 
 dred francs a year as a charge on the lands of La Hautoy, and 
 that this was two hundred francs a year more than was agreed 
 to under the marriage-settlement. 
 
 '*I say nothing of the cost of housekeeping," he said in 
 conclusion. "You may give your friends cake and tea in the 
 evening, for you must have some amusement. But I, who 
 spent but fifteen hundred francs a year as a bachelor, now 
 spend six thousand, including rates and repairs, and this is 
 rather too much in relation to the nature of our property. A 
 vine-grower is never sure of what his expenses may be — 
 the making, the duty, the casks — while the returns depend 
 on a scorching day or a sudden frost. Small owners, like us, 
 whose income is far from being fixed, must base their estimates 
 on their minimum, for they have no means of making up a 
 deficit or a loss. What would become of us if a wine mer- 
 chant became bankrupt? In my opinion, promissory notes 
 are so many cabbage-leaves. To live as we are living, we 
 ought always to have a year's income in hand and count on 
 no more than two-thirds of our returns." 
 
 Any form of resistance is enough to make a woman vow to 
 subdue it ; Dinah flung herself against a will of iron padded 
 round with gentleness. She tried to fill the little man's soul with 
 jealousy and alarms, but it was stockaded with insolent confi- 
 dence. He left Dinah, when he went to Paris, with all the 
 convictions of Medor* in Angelique's fidelity. When she 
 affected cold disdain, to nettle this changeling by the scorn a 
 courtesan sometimes shows to her "protector," and which 
 acts on him with the certainty of the screw of a winepress. 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye gazed at his wife with fixed eyes, 
 like those of a cat which, in the midst of domestic broils, 
 waits till a blow is threatened before stirring from its place. 
 The strange, speechless uneasiness that was perceptible under 
 
 * Medora, in " Orl.indo Furioso." . ^^,
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 27 
 
 his mute indifference almost terrified the young wife of twenty ; 
 she could not at first understand the selfish quiescence of this 
 man, who might be compared to a cracked pot, and who, in 
 order to live, regulated his existence with the unchangeable 
 regularity which a clock-maker requires of a clock. So the 
 little man always evaded his wife, while she always hit out, as 
 it were, ten feet above his head. 
 
 Dinah's fits of fury when she saw herself condemned never 
 to escape from La Baudraye and Sancerre are more easily 
 imagined than described — she who had dreamed of handling 
 a fortune and managing the dwarf whom she, the giant, had 
 at first humored in order to command. In the hope of some 
 day making her appearance on the greater stage of Paris, she 
 accepted the vulgar incense of her attendant knights with a 
 view to seeing Monsieur de La Baudraye's name drawn from 
 the electoral urn ; for she supposed him to be ambitious, after 
 seeing him return thrice from Paris, each time a step higher 
 on the social ladder. But when she struck on the man's 
 heart, it was as though she had tapped on marble ! The man 
 who had been receiver-general and referendary, who was now 
 master of appeals, officer of the Legion of Honor, and royal 
 commissioner, was but a mole throwing up its little hills 
 round and round a vineyard ! Tlien some lamentations were 
 poured into the heart of the public prosecutor, of the sub- 
 prefect, even of Monsieur Gravier, and they all increased in 
 their devotion to this sublime victim ; for, like all women, 
 she never mentioned her speculative schemes, and — again like 
 all women — finding such speculation vain, she ceased to 
 speculate. 
 
 Dinah, tossed by mental storms, was still undecided when, 
 in the autumn of 1827, the news was told of the purchase by 
 the Baron de La Baudraye of the estate of Anzy. Then the 
 little old man showed an impulsion of pride and glee which 
 for a few months changed the current of his wife's ideas; she 
 fancied there was a hidden vein of greatness in the man when
 
 '28 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 she found him applying for a patent of entail. In his triumph 
 the baron exclaimed — 
 
 " Dinah, you shall be a countess yet ! " 
 
 There was then a patched-up reunion between the husband 
 and wife, such as can never endure, and which only humiliated 
 and fatigued a woman whose apparent superiority was unreal, 
 while her unseen superiority was genuine. This whimsical 
 medley is commoner than people think. Dinah, who was 
 ridiculous from the perversity of her cleverness, had really 
 great qualities of soul, but circumstances did not bring these 
 rarer powers to light, while a provincial life debased the small 
 change of her wit from day to day. Monsieur de La Bau- 
 draye, on the contrary, devoid of soul, of strength, and of 
 wit, was fated to figure as a man of character, simply by pur- 
 suing a plan of conduct which he was too feeble to change. 
 
 There was in their lives a first phase, lasting six years, 
 during which Dinah, alas 1 became utterly provincial. In 
 Paris there are several kinds of women : the duchess and the 
 financier's wife, the ambassadress and the consul's wife, the 
 wife of the minister who is a minister, and of him who is no 
 longer a minister ; then there is the lady — quite the lady — of 
 the right bank of the Seine and of the left. But in the 
 country there is but one kind of woman, and she, poor thing, 
 is the provincial woman. 
 
 This remark points to one of the sores of modern society. 
 It must be clearly understood : France in the nineteenth 
 century is divided into two broad zones — Paris and the prov- 
 inces. The provinces jealous of Paris ; Paris never thinking 
 of the provinces but to demand money. Of old, Paris was 
 the capital of the provinces, and the Court ruled the capital ; 
 now, all Paris is the Court, and all the country is the town. 
 
 However lofty, beautiful, and clever a girl born in any de- 
 partment of France may be on entering life, if, like Dinah 
 Piedefer, she marries in the country and remains there, she
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 29 
 
 inevitably becomes the provincial woman. In spite of every 
 determination, the commonplace of second-rate ideas, the in- 
 difference to dress, the culture of vulgar people, swamp the 
 sublimer essence hidden in the youthful plant ; all is over, it 
 falls into decay. How should it be otherwise ? From their 
 earliest years girls bred in the country see none but provin- 
 cials ; they cannot imagine anything superior, their choice 
 lies among mediocrities ; provincial fathers marry their daugh- 
 ters to provincial sons ; crossing the races is never thought of, 
 and the brain inevitably degenerates, so that in many country 
 towns intellect is as rare as the breed is hideous. Mankind 
 becomes dwarfed in mind and body, for the fatal principle of 
 conformity of fortune governs every matrimonial alliance. 
 Men of talent, artists, superior brains — every bird of brilliant 
 plumage flies to Paris. The provincial women, inferior in 
 herself, is also inferior through her husband. How is she to 
 live happy under this crushing twofold consciousness? 
 
 But there is a third and terrible element beside her con- 
 genital and conjugal inferiority which contributes to make the 
 figure arid and gloomy ; to reduce it, narrow it, distort it 
 fatally. Is not one of the most flattering unctions a woman 
 can lay to her soul the assurance of being something in the 
 existence of a superior man, chosen by herself, wittingly, as if 
 to have some revenge on marriage, wherein her tastes were so 
 little consulted? But if in the country the husbands are in- 
 ferior beings, the bachelors are no less so. When a provincial 
 wife commits her "little sin," she falls in love with some so- 
 called handsome native, some indigenous dandy, a youth who 
 wears gloves and is supposed to ride well ; but she knows at 
 the bottom of her soul that her fancy is in pursuit of the com- 
 monplace, more or less well dressed. Dinah was preserved 
 from this danger by the idea impressed upon her of her own 
 superiority. Even if she had not been so carefully guarded 
 during her early married life as she was by her mother, whose 
 presence never weighed upon her till the day when she wanted
 
 30 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 to be rid of it, her pride, and her high sense of her own des- 
 tinies, would have protected her. Flattered as she was to find 
 herself surrounded by admirers, she saw no lover among them. 
 No man here realized the poetical ideal which she and Anna 
 Grossetete had been wont to sketch. When, stirred by the 
 involuntary temptations suggested by the homage she received, 
 she asked herself: " If I had to make a choice, whom should it 
 be?" she owned to a preference for Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, 
 a gentleman of good family, whose appearance and manners 
 she liked, but whose cold nature, selfishness, and narrow am- 
 bition, never rising above a prefecture and a good marriage, 
 repelled her. At a word from his family, who were alarmed 
 lest he should be killed for an intrigue, the vicomte had al- 
 ready deserted a woman he had loved in the town where he 
 previously had been sub-prefect. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny, on the other hand, the only man 
 whose mind appealed to hers, whose ambition was founded on 
 love, and who knew what love means, Dinah thought perfectly 
 odious. When Dinah saw herself condemned to six years' 
 residence at Sancerre, she was on the point of accepting the 
 devotion of Monsieur le Vicomte de Chargeboeuf; but he 
 was appointed to a prefecture and left the district. To Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny's great satisfaction, the new sub-prefect was a 
 married man whose wife made friends with Dinah. The 
 lawyer had now no rival to fear but Monsieur Gravier. Now 
 Monsieur Gravier was the typical man of forty of whom 
 women make use while they laugh at him, whose hopes they 
 intentionally and remorselessly encourage, as we are kind to 
 a beast of burden. In six years, among all the men who were 
 introduced to her from twenty leagues round, there was not 
 one in whose presence Dinah was conscious of the excitement 
 caused by personal beauty, by a belief in promised happiness, 
 by the impact of a superior soul, or the anticipation of a love 
 affair, even an unhappy one. 
 
 Thus none of Dinah's choicest faculties had a chance of
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT 31 
 
 developing; she swallowed many insults to her pride, which 
 was constantly suffering under the husband who so calmly 
 walked the stage as supernumerary in the drama of her life. 
 Compelled to bury her wealth of love, she showed only the 
 surface to the world. Now and then she would try to arouse 
 herself, try to form some manly resolution ; but she was kept 
 in leading strings by the need for money. And so, slowly 
 and in spite of the ambitious protests and grievous recrimina- 
 tions of her own mind, she underwent the provincial meta- 
 morphosis here described. Each day took with it a fragment 
 of her spirited determination. She had laid down a rule for 
 the care of her person, which she gradually departed from. 
 Though at first she kept up with the fashions and the little 
 novelties of elegant life, she was obliged to limit her purchases 
 by the amount of her allowance. Instead of six hats, caps, or 
 gowns, she resigned herself to one gown each season. She 
 was so much admired in a certain bonnet that she made it do 
 duty for two seasons. So it was in everything. 
 
 Not infrequently her artistic sense led her to sacrifice the 
 requirements of her person to secure some bit of Gothic furni- 
 ture. By the seventh year she had come so low as to think it 
 convenient to have her morning dresses made at home by the 
 best needlewoman in the neighborhood ; and her mother, her 
 husband, and her friends pronounced her charming in these 
 inexpensive costumes which did credit to her taste. Her ideas 
 were imitated ! As she had no standard of comparison, Dinah 
 fell into the snares that surround the provincial woman. If a 
 Parisian woman's hips are loo narrow or too full, her inventive 
 wit, the desire to please, helps her to find some heroic remedy ; 
 if she has some defect, some ugly spot, or small disfigurement, 
 she is capable of making it an adornment ; this is often seen ; 
 but the provincial woman — never! If her waist is too short 
 and her figure ill balanced, well, she makes up her mind to 
 the worst, and her adorers — or they do not adore her — must 
 take her as she is, while the Parisian always insists on being
 
 32 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 taken for what she is not. Hence the preposterous bustles, 
 the audacious flatness, the ridiculous fullness, the hideous out- 
 lines ingeniously displayed, to which a whole town will become 
 accustomed, but which are so astounding when a provincial 
 woman makes her appearance in Paris or among Parisians. 
 Dinah, who was extremely slim, showed it off to excess, and 
 never knew the moment when it became ridiculous ; when, 
 reduced by the dull weariness of her life, she looked like a 
 skeleton in clothes; and her friends, seeing her every day, 
 did not observe the gradual change in her appearance. 
 
 This is one of the natural results of a provincial life. In 
 spite of marriage, a young woman preserves her beauty for 
 some time, and the town is proud of her ; but everybody sees 
 her every day, and when people meet every day their percep- 
 tion is dulled. If, like Madame de La Baudraye, she loses 
 her color, it is scarcely noticed ; or, again, if she flushes a 
 little, that is intelligible and interesting. A little neglect 
 is thought charming, and her face is so carefully studied, so 
 well known, that slight changes are scarcely noticed, and 
 regarded at last as "beauty spots." When Dinah ceased to 
 have a new dress with a new season, she seemed to have made 
 a concession to the philosophy of the place. 
 
 It is the same with matters of speech, choice of words and 
 ideas, as it is with matters of feeling. The mind can rust as 
 well as the body if it is not rubbed up in Paris ; but the thing 
 on which provincialism most sets its stamp is gesture, gait, and 
 movement ; these soon lose the briskness which Paris con- 
 stantly keeps alive. The provincial is used to walk and move 
 in a world devoid of accident or change ; there is nothing to 
 be avoided ; so in Paris she walks on as raw recruits do, never 
 remembering that there may be hindrances, for there are none 
 in her way in her native place, where she is known, where she 
 is always in her place, and every one makes way for her. 
 Thus she loses all the charm of the unforeseen. 
 
 And have you ever noticed the effect on human beings of a
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 33 
 
 life in common ? By the ineffaceable instinct of simian 
 mimicry they all tend to cdpy each other. Each one, without 
 knowing it, acquires the gestures, the tone of voice, the 
 manner, the attitudes, the very countenance of others. In six 
 years Dinah had sunk to the pitch of the society she lived in. 
 As she acquired Monsieur de Clagny's ideas she assumed his 
 tone of voice; she unconsciously fell into masculine manners 
 from seeing none but men ; she fancied that by laughing at 
 what was ridiculous in them she was safe from catching it ; 
 but, as often happens, some smut that she laughed at remained 
 in the grain. 
 
 A Parisian woman sees so many examples of good taste that 
 a contrary result ensues. In Paris women learn to seize the 
 hour and moment when they may appear to advantage ; while 
 Madame de La Baudraye, accustomed to take the stage, ac- 
 quired an indefinable theatrical and domineering manner, the 
 air of d. prima donna coming forward on the boards, of which 
 ironical smiles would soon have cured her in the capital. 
 
 But after she had acquired this stock of absurdities, and, 
 deceived by her worshipers, imagined them to be added graces, 
 a moment of terrible awakening came upon her like the fall of 
 an avalanche from a mountain. In one day she was crushed 
 by a frightful comparison. 
 
 In 1822, after the departure of Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, 
 she was excited by the anticipation of a little pleasure ; she 
 was expecting the Baronne de Fontaine. Anna's husband, 
 who was now director-general under the minister of finance, 
 took advantajre of leave of absence on the occasion of his 
 father's death to fake his wife to Italy. Anna wished to 
 spend a day at Sancerre with her school-friend. This meeting 
 was strangely disastrous. Anna, who at school had been far 
 less handsome than Dinah, now, as Baronne dc Fontaine, was 
 a thousand times handsomer than the Baronne de La Bau- 
 draye, in spite of her fatigue and her traveling dress. Anna 
 stepped out of an elegant traveling chaise loaded with Paris
 
 34 THE JSIUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 milliners' boxes, and she had with her a lady's-maid, whose 
 airs quite frightened Dinah. All 'the difference between a 
 woman of Paris and a provincial was at once evident to 
 Dinah's intelligent eye ; she saw herself as her friend saw her 
 — and Anna found her altered beyond recognition. Anna 
 spent six thousand francs a year on herself alone, as much as 
 kept the whole household at La Baudraye. 
 
 In twenty-four hours the friends had exchanged many con- 
 fidences; and the Parisian, seeing herself so far superior to 
 the phcenix of Mademoiselle ChamaroUes' school, showed her 
 provincial friend such kindness, such attentions, while giving 
 her certain explanations, as were so many stabs to Dinah, 
 though she perfectly understood that Anna's advantages all 
 lay on the surface, while her own were for ever buried. 
 
 When Anna had left, Madame de La Baudraye, by this 
 time two-and-twenty, fell into the depths of despair. 
 
 "What is it that ails you?" asked Monsieur de Clagny, 
 seeing her so dejected. 
 
 "Anna," said she, " has learned to live, while I have been 
 learning to endure." 
 
 A tragi-comedy was, in fact, being enacted in Madame de 
 La Baudraye's house, in harmony with her struggles over 
 money matters and her successive transformations — a drama 
 to which no one but Monsieur de Clagny and the Abbe Duret 
 ever knew the clue, when Dinah in sheer idleness, or perhaps 
 sheer vanity, revealed the secret of her anonymous fame. 
 
 Though a mixture of verse and prose is a monstrous anomaly 
 in French literature, there must be exceptions to the rule. 
 This tale will be one of the two instances in these Studies of 
 violation of the laws of narrative ; for to give a just idea of 
 the unconfessed struggle which may excuse, though it cannot 
 absolve Dinah, it is necessary to give an analysis of a poem 
 which was the outcome of her deep despair. 
 
 Her patience and her resignation alike broken by the de- 
 parture of the Vicomte de Chargebceuf, Dinah took the
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEFARTZIENT. 35 
 
 worthy abbe's advice to exhale her evil thoughts in verse — a 
 proceeding which perhaps accounts for some poets. 
 
 "You will find such relief as those who write epitaphs or 
 elegies over those whom they have lost. Pain is soothed in 
 the heart as lines surge up in the brain." 
 
 This strange production caused a great ferment in the de- 
 partments of the Allier, the Nievre, and the Cher, proud to 
 possess a poet capable of rivalry with the glories of Paris. 
 •'• Paquita la Seviilane," by Jan Diaz, was published in the 
 '•Echo du Morvan," a review which for eighteen months 
 maintained its existence in spite of provincial indifference. 
 Some knowing persons at Nevers declared that Jan Diaz was 
 making fun of the new school, just then bringing out its 
 eccentric verse, full of vitality and imagery, and of brilliant 
 effects produced by defying the Muse under pretext of adapt- 
 ing German, English, and Romanesque mannerisms. 
 
 The poem began with this ballad : 
 
 Ah! if you knew the fragrant jjlain, 
 The air, the sky, of golden Spain, 
 
 Its fervid noons, its balmy spring, 
 Sad daughters of the northern gloom, 
 Of love, of heav'n, of native home, 
 
 You never would presume to sing ! 
 
 For men are there of other mould 
 Than those who live in this dull cold. 
 
 And there to music low and sweet 
 Sevillian maids, from eve till dawn. 
 Dance lightly on the moonlit lawn 
 
 In satin shoes, on dainty feet. 
 
 Ah, you would be the first to blush 
 Over your dancers' romp and rush. 
 
 And your too hideous carnival. 
 That turns your cheeks all chill and blue, 
 And skips the mud in hoh-nail'd shoe — 
 
 A truly dismal festival.
 
 86 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 To pale-faced girls, and in a squalid room, 
 Paquita sang ; the murky town beneath 
 
 Was Rouen, whence the slender spires rise 
 To chew the storm with teeth, 
 
 Rouen so hideous, noisy, full of rage — 
 
 And here followed a mngnificent description of Rouen — 
 where Dinah had never been — written with the affected bru- 
 tality which, a little later, inspired so many imitations of 
 Juvenal ; a contrast drawn between the life of a manufacturing- 
 town and the careless life of Spain, between the love of heaven 
 and of human beauty, and the worship of machinery ; in short, 
 between poetry and sordid money-making. 
 
 Then Jan Diaz accounted for Paquita's horror of Normandy 
 by saying — 
 
 Seville, you see, had been her native home; 
 
 Seville, where skies are blue and evening sweet. 
 She, at thirteen, the sovereign of the town, 
 
 Had lovers at her feet. 
 
 For her three Toreadors had gone to death 
 
 Or victory ; the prize to be a kiss — 
 One kiss from those red lips of sweetest breath — 
 
 A longed-for touch of bliss ! 
 
 The features of the Spanish girl's portrait have served so 
 often as those of the courtesan in so many self-styled poems, 
 that it would be tiresome to quote here the hundred lines of 
 description. To judge of the lengths to which audacity had 
 carried Dinah, it will be enough to give the conclusion. Ac- 
 cording to Madame de La Baudraye's ardent pen, Paquita 
 was so entirely created for love that she can hardly have met 
 with a knight worthy of her; for 
 
 In her passionate fire 
 Every man would have swooned from the heat. 
 When she at love's feast, in her fervid desire, 
 As yet bad but taken h^r seat.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 37 
 
 "And yet she could quit the joys of Seville, its woods and 
 fields of orange-trees, for a Norman soldier who won her love 
 and carried her away to his hearth and home. She did not 
 weep for her Andalusia, the Soldier was her whole joy. But 
 the day came when he was compelled to start for Russia in 
 the footsteps of the great Emperor." 
 
 Nothing could be more dainty than the description of the 
 parting between the Spanish girl and the Norman Captain 
 of Artillery, who, in the delirium of passion expressed with 
 feeling worthy of Byron, exacted from Paquita a vow of abso- 
 lute fidelity, in the cathedral at Rouen, in front of the altar of 
 the Blessed Virgin, who 
 
 Though a Maid is a woman, and never forgives 
 When lovers are false to their vows. 
 
 A large part of the poem was devoted to describing Paquita's 
 sufferings when alone in Rouen waiting till the campaign was 
 over ; she stood writhing at the window bars, as she watched 
 happy couples go by ; she suppressed the passion in her heart 
 with a determination that consumed her ; she lived on nar- 
 cotics and exiiausted herself in dreams. 
 
 Almost she died, but still her heart was true; 
 
 And when at last her soldier came again. 
 He found her beauty ever fresh and new — 
 
 He had not loved in vain ! 
 
 "But he, pale and frozen by the cold of Russia, chilled to 
 the very marrow, met his yearning fair one with a melancholy 
 smile." 
 
 The whole poem was written up to this situation, which was 
 worked out with such vigor and boldness as too entirely justi- 
 fied the Abbe Buret. 
 
 Paquita, on reaching the limits set to real love, did not, like
 
 38 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Julie and HeloYse, throw herself into the ideal ; no, she rushed 
 into the paths of vice, which is, no doubt, shockingly natural ; 
 but she did it without any touch of magnificence, for lack of 
 means, as it would be difficult to find in Rouen men impas- 
 sioned enough to place Paquita in a suitable setting of luxury 
 and splendor. This horrible realism, emphasized by gloomy 
 poetic feeling, had inspired some passages such as modern 
 poetry is too free with, rather too like the flayed anatomical 
 figures known to artists as ecorches. Then, by a highly philo- 
 sophical revulsion, after describing the house of ill-fame where 
 the Andalusian ended her days, the writer came back to the 
 ballad at the opening : 
 
 Paquita now is faded, shrunk, and old, 
 But she it was who sang : 
 
 " If you but knew the fragrant plain, 
 The air, the sky, of golden Spain," etc. 
 
 The gloomy vigor of this poem, running to about six hundred 
 lines, and serving as a powerful foil, to use a painter's word, 
 to tiie two segtiidillas at the beginning and end, the masculine 
 utterance of an almost inexpressible grief alarmed the woman 
 who found herself admired by three departments, under the 
 black cloak of the anonymous. While she fully enjoyed the 
 intoxicating delights of success, Dinah dreaded the malignity 
 of provincial society, where more than one woman, if the 
 secret should slip out, would certainly find points of resem- 
 blance between the writer and Paquita. Reflection came too 
 late; Dinah shuddered with shame at having made "copy" 
 of some of her woes. 
 
 "Write no more," said the Abbe Duret. "You will cease 
 to be a woman ; you will be a poet." 
 
 Moulins, Nevers, Bourges were searched to find Jan Diaz ; 
 but Dinah was impenetrable. To remove any evil impression, 
 in case any unforeseen chance should betray her name, she
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 39 
 
 wrote a charming poem in two cantos on "The Mass Oak," 
 a legend of the Nivernais: 
 
 " Once on a time the folk of Nevers and the folk of Saint- 
 Saulge, at war with each other, came at daybreak to fight a 
 battle, in which one or other should perish, and met in the 
 forest of Faye. And then there stood between them, under 
 an oak, a ]uiest whose aspect in the morning sun was so com- 
 manding that the foes at his bidding heard mass as he per- 
 formed it under the oak, and at the words of the Gospel they 
 made friends." 
 
 The oak is still shown in the forest of Fave. 
 
 This poem, immeasurably superior to " Paquita la Sevil- 
 lane," was far less admired. 
 
 After these two attempts Madame de La Baudraye, feeling 
 herself a poet, had a light on her brow and a flash in her eyes 
 that made her handsomer than ever. She cast longing looks 
 at Paris, aspiring to fame — and fell back into her den of La 
 Baudraye, her daily squabbles with her husband, and her little 
 circle, where everybody's character, intentions, and remarks 
 were too well known not to have become a bore. Though 
 she found relief from her dreary life in literary work, and 
 poetry echoed loudly in her empty life, though she thus 
 found an outlet for her energies, literature increased her 
 hatred of the gray and ponderous provincial atmosphere. 
 
 When, after the Revolution of 1830, the glory of George 
 Sind was reflected on Le Berry, many a town envied La 
 Chatre the privilege of having given birth to this rival of 
 Madame de Stael and Camille Maupin, and were ready to do 
 homage to minor feminine talent. Tlius there arose in France 
 a vast number of tenth Muses, young girls or young wives 
 tempted from a silent life by the bait of glory. Very strange 
 doctrines were proclaimed as to the part women should play 
 in society. Though the sound commonsense which lies at 
 the root of the French nature was not perverted, women were
 
 40 THE MVSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 suffered to express ideas and profess opinions which they 
 would not have owned to a few years previously. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny took advantage of this outbreak of 
 freedom to collect the works of Jan Diaz in a small volume 
 printed by Desroziers at Moulins. He wrote a little notice 
 of the author, too early snatched from the world of letters, 
 which was amusing to those who were in the secret, but which 
 even then had not the merit of novelty. Such practical jokes, 
 capital so long as the author remains unknown, fall rather flat 
 if subsequently the poet stands confessed. 
 
 From this point of view, however, the memoir of Jan Diaz, 
 born at Bourges in 1807, the son of a Spanish prisoner, may 
 very likely some day deceive the compiler of some Universal 
 Biography. Nothing is overlooked ; neither the names of the 
 professors at the Bourges college, nor those of his deceased 
 schoolfellows, such as Lousteau, Bianchon, and other famous 
 natives of the province, who, it is said, knew the dreamy, 
 melancholy boy and his precocious bent toward poetry. An 
 elegy: " Tristesse " (Melancholy), written at school; the two 
 poems " Paquita la Sevillane " and " Le Chene de la Messe " 
 (The Mass Oak) ; three sonnets, a description of the cathedral 
 and the house of Jacques Coeur at Bourges, with a tale called 
 "Carola," published as the work he was engaged on at the 
 time of his death, constituted the whole of these literary re- 
 mains; and the poet's last hours, full of misery and despair, 
 could not fail to wring the hearts of the feeling public of the 
 Nievre, the Bourbonnais, the Cher, and the Morvan, where 
 he died near Chateau-Chinon, unknown to all, even to the 
 woman he had loved ! 
 
 Of this little yellow paper volume two hundred copies were 
 printed ; one hundred and fifty were sold — about fifty in each 
 department. This average of tender and poetic souls in three 
 departments of France is enough to revive the enthusiasm of 
 writers as to the French spirit, which nowadays is more apt to 
 expend itself in business than in books.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 41 
 
 'V\nien Monsieur de Clagny had given away a certain num- 
 ber of copies, Dinah still had seven or eight, wrapped u}) in 
 the newspapers which had published notices of the work. 
 Twenty copies forwarded to th.e Parii papers were swamped in 
 the editor's offices. Nathan was taken in as well as several of 
 his fellow-countrymen of Le Berry, and wrote an article on 
 the great man, in which he credited him with all the fine 
 qualities we discover in those who are dead and buried. 
 
 Lousteau, warned by his former schoolfellows, who could 
 not remember Jan Diaz, waited for information from Sancerre, 
 and learned that Jan Diaz was a pseudonym assumed by a 
 woman. 
 
 Then, in and around Sancerre, Madame de La Baudraye be- 
 came the rage ; she was the future rival of George Sand. From 
 Sancerre to Bourges a poem was praised which, at any other 
 time, would certainly have been hooted. The provincial 
 public — like every French public, perhaps — does not share 
 the love of the King of the French for the happy medium : it 
 lifts you to the skies or drags you in the mud. 
 
 By this time the good abbe, Madame de La Baudraye's 
 counselor, was dead ; he would certainly have prevented her 
 rushing into public life. But three years of work without 
 recognition weighed on Dinah's soul, and she accepted the 
 clatter of fame as a substitute for her disappointed ambitions. 
 Poetry and dreams of celebrity, which had lulled her grief 
 since her meeting with Anna Grossctgte, no longer sufficed to 
 exhaust the activity of her morbid heart. The Abbe Duret, 
 who had talked of the world when the voice of religion was 
 impotent, who understood Dinah, and promised her a happy 
 future by assuring her that God would compensate her for 
 sufferings bravely endured — this good old man could no longer 
 stand between the opening to sin and the handsome young 
 woman he had called his daughter. 
 
 The wise old priest had more than once endeavored to en- 
 lighten Dinah as to her husband's character, telling her that
 
 42 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the man could hate ; but women are not ready to believe in 
 such force in weak natures, and hatred is too constantly in 
 action not to be a vital force. Dinah, finding her husband 
 incapable of love, denied him the power to hate. 
 
 "Do not confound hatred and vengeance," said the abbe. 
 " They are two quite different sentiments. One is the instinct 
 of small minds ; the other is the outcome of law which great 
 souls obey. God is avenged, but He does not hate. Hatred 
 is a vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their meanness, 
 and make it a pretext for sordid tyranny. So beware of 
 offending Monsieur de La Baudraye ; he would forgive an in- 
 fidelity, because he could make capital of it, but he would be 
 doubly implacable if you should touch him on the spot so 
 cruelly wounded by Monsieur Milaud of Nevers, and would 
 make your life unendurable." 
 
 Now, at the time when the whole countryside — Nevers and 
 Sancerre, Le Morvan and Le Berry — was priding itself on 
 Madame de La Baudraye, and lauding her under the name of 
 Jan Diaz, "little La Baudraye" felt her glory a mortal blow. 
 He alone knew the secret source of " Paquita la Sevillane." 
 When this terrible work was spoken of, everybody said of 
 Dinah — " Poor woman ! Poor soul ! " 
 
 The women rejoiced in being able to pity her who had 
 so long oppressed them ; never had Dinah seemed to stand 
 higher in the eyes of the neighborhood. 
 
 The shriveled old man, more wrinkled, yellower, feebler 
 than ever, gave no sign ; but Dinah sometimes detected in 
 his eyes, as he looked at her, a sort of icy venom which gave 
 the lie to his increased politeness and gentleness. She under- 
 stood at last that this was not, as she had supposed, a mere 
 domestic squabble ; but wlien she forced an explanation with 
 her "insect," as Monsieur Gravier called him, she found the 
 cold, hard impassibility of steel. She flew into a passion ; 
 she reproached him for her life these eleven years past ; she 
 made — intentionally — what women call a scene. But " little
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 4S 
 
 La Baudraye " sat in an armchair with his eyes shut, and 
 listened phlegmatically to the storm. And, as usual, the 
 dwarf got the better of his wife. Dinah saw that she had 
 done wrong in writing ; she vowed never to write another 
 line, and she kept her vow. 
 
 Then was there desolation in the Sancerrois. 
 
 " Why did not Madame de La Baudraye compose any more 
 verses?" was the universal cry. 
 
 At this time Madame de La Baudraye had no enemies; 
 every one rushed to see her, not a week passed without fresh 
 introductions. The wife of the presiding judge, an august 
 bourgeoise, 7iee Popinot-Chandier, desired her son, a youth of 
 two-and-twenty, to pay his humble respects at La Baudraye, 
 and flattered herself that she might see her Gatien in the good 
 graces of this Superior Woman. The words Superior Woman 
 had superseded the absurd nickname of The Sappho of Saint- 
 Satur. This lady, who for nine years had led the opposition, 
 was so delighted at the good reception accorded to her son 
 that she became loud in her praises of the Muse of Sancerre. 
 
 "After all," she exclaimed, in reply to a tirade from 
 Madame de Clagny, who hated her husband's supposed mis- 
 tress, "she is the handsomest and cleverest woman in the 
 whole province ! " 
 
 After scrambling through so many brambles and setting o(T 
 on so many different roads, after dreaming of love in splendor 
 and scenting the darkest dramas, thinking such terrible joys 
 would be cheaply purchased so weary was she of her dreary 
 existence, one day Dinah fell into the pit she had sworn to 
 avoid. Seeing Monsieur de Clagny always sacrificing himself, 
 and at last refusing a high appointment in Paris, where his 
 family wanted to see him, she said to herself: " He loves me ! " 
 She vanquished her repulsion, and seemed willing to reward 
 so much constancy. 
 
 It was to this impulse of generosity on her part that a coali- 
 tion was due, formed in Sancerre to secure the return of
 
 44 THE MUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny at the next elections. Madame de La 
 Baudraye had dreamed of going to Paris in the wake of the 
 new deputy. 
 
 But, in spite of the most solemn promises, the hundred and 
 fifty votes to be recorded in favor of this adorer of the lovely 
 Uinah — wlio hoped to see this defender of the widow and the 
 orphan wearing the gown of the keeper of the seals — figured as 
 an imposing minority of fifty votes. Tlie jealousy of the 
 president of Boirouge, and Monsieur Gravier's hatred, for he 
 believed in the candidate's supremacy in Dinah's heart, had 
 been worked upon by a young sub-prefect ; and for this worthy 
 and exemplary deed the allies got the young man made a pre- 
 fect elsewhere. 
 
 "I shall never cease to regret," said he, as he quitted 
 Sancerre, "that I did not succeed in pleasing Madame de La 
 Baudraye ; that would have made my triumph complete ! " 
 
 The household that was thus racked by domestic troubles 
 was calm on the surface ; here were two ill-assorted but re- 
 signed beings, and the indescribable propriety, the lie that 
 society insists on, and which to Dinah was an unendurable 
 yoke. Why did she long to throw off the mask she had worn 
 for twelve years? Whence this weariness w^hich, everyday, 
 increased her hope of finding herself a widow ? 
 
 The reader who has noted all the phases of her existence 
 will have understood the various illusions by which Dinah, 
 like many another woman, had been deceived. After an 
 attempt to master Monsieur de La Baudraye, she had indulged 
 the hope of becoming a mother. Between those miserable 
 disputes over household matters and the melancholy convic- 
 tion as to her fate, quite a long time had elapsed. Then, 
 when she had looked for consolation, the consoler. Monsieur 
 de Chargeboeuf, had left her. Thus the overwhelming tempta- 
 tion which commonly causes women to sin had hitherto been 
 absent. For if there are, after all, some women who make 
 straight for unfaithfulness, are there not many more who cling
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 45 
 
 to hope, and do not fall till they have wandered long in a 
 labyrinth of secret woes? 
 
 Such was Dinah. She had so little impulse to fail in her 
 duty, that she did not care enough for Monsieur de Clagny to 
 forgive him his defeat. 
 
 Then the move to the Castle of Anzy, the rearrangement of 
 her collected treasures and curiosities, which derived added 
 value from the splendid setting which Philibert de Lorme 
 seemed to have planned on purpose for this museum, occupied 
 her for several months, giving her leisure to meditate one of 
 those decisive steps that startle the public, ignorant of the 
 motives which, however, it sometimes discovers by dint of 
 gossip and suppositions. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye had been greatly struck by the 
 reputation of Lousteau, who was regarded as a lady's man of 
 the first water in consequence of his intimacies among act- 
 resses ; she was anxious to know him; she read his books, 
 and was fired with enthusiasm, less perhaps for his talents than 
 for his success with women ; and to attract him to the country, 
 she started the notion that it was obligatory on Sancerre to 
 return one of its great men at the elections. She made Gatien 
 Boirouge write to the great physician, Bianclion, wlioni he 
 claimed as a cousin through the Popinots. Then she persuaded 
 an old friend of the departed Madame Lousteau to stir up the 
 journalist's ambitions by letting him know that certain persons 
 in Sancerre were firmly bent on electing a deputy from among 
 the distinguished men in Paris. 
 
 Tired of her commonplace neighbors, Madame de La 
 Baudraye would thus at last meet really illustrious men, and 
 might give her fall the lustre of fame. 
 
 Neither Lousteau nor Bianchon replied ; they were waiting, 
 perhaps, till the holidays. Bianchon, who had won his pro- 
 fessor's chair the year before after a brilliant contest, could 
 not leave his lectures. 
 
 In the month of September, when the vintage was at its
 
 46 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 height, the two Parisians arrived in their native province, and 
 found it absorbed in the unremitting toil of the wine-cup of 
 1836; there could therefore be no public demonstration in 
 their favor. "We have fallen flat," said Lousteau to his 
 companion, in the slang of the stage. 
 
 In 1836, Lousteau, worn by sixteen years of struggle in the 
 capital, and aged quite as much by pleasure as by penury, 
 hard work, and disappointments, looked eight-and-forty, 
 though h'- was no more than thirty-seven. He was already 
 bald, and had assumed a Byronic air in harmony with his early 
 decay and the lines furrowed in his face by over-indulgence 
 in champagne. He ascribed these signs-manual of dissipation 
 to the severities of a literary life, declaring that the Press was 
 murderous; and he gave it to be understood that it consumed 
 superior talents, so as to lend a grace to his exhaustion. In 
 his native town he thought proper to exaggerate his affected 
 contempt of life and his spurious misanthropy. Still his eyes 
 could flash with fire like a volcano supposed to be extinct, and 
 he endeavored, by dressing fashionably, to make up for the 
 lack of youth that might strike a woman's eye. 
 
 Horace Bianchon, who wore the ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honor, was fat and burly, as beseems a fashionable physician, 
 with a patriarchal air, his hair thick and long, a prominent 
 brow, the frame of a hard worker, and the calm expression of 
 a philosopher. This somewhat prosaic personality set off his 
 more frivolous companion to advantage. 
 
 The two great men remained unrecognized during a whole 
 morning at the inn where they had put up, and it was only 
 by chance that Monsieur de Clagny heard of their arrival. 
 Madame de La Baudraye, in despair at this, dispatched Gatien 
 Boirouge, who had no vineyards, to beg the two gentlemen 
 to spend a few days at the Castle of Anzy. For the last year 
 Dinali had played the chatelaine, and spent the winter only 
 at La Baudraye. Monsieur Gravier, the public prosecutor,
 
 THE MUSE 01' THE DEPARTMENT. 47 
 
 the presiding judge, and Gatien Boirouge combined to give a 
 banquet to the two great men, to meet the literary personages 
 of the town. 
 
 On hearing that the beautiful Madame de La Baudraye was 
 Jan Diaz, the Parisians went to spend three days at Anzy, 
 fetched in a sort of wagonette driven bv Gatien himself. The 
 young man, under a genuine illusion, spoke of Madame de La 
 Baudraye not only as the handsomest woman in those parts, a 
 woman so superior that she might give George Sand a qualm, 
 but as a woman who would produce a great sensation in Paris. 
 Hence the extreme though suppressed astonishment of Doctor 
 Bianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the 
 garden steps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere 
 with a deep tucker, in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for 
 they quite understood the pretentiousness of such extreme 
 simplicity. Dinah also wore a black velvet cap, like that in 
 the portrait of Raphael, and below it her hair fell in thick 
 curls. This attire showed off a rather pretty figure, fine eyes, 
 and handsome eyelids somewhat faded by the weariful life that 
 has been described. In Le Berry the singularity of this 
 artistic costume was a cloak for the romantic affectations of 
 the Superior Woman. 
 
 On seeing the affectations of their too amiable hostess — 
 which were, indeed, affectations of soul and mind — the friends 
 glanced at each other and put on a deeply serious expression 
 to listen to Madaine de La Baudraye, who made them a set 
 speech of thanks for coming to cheer the monotony of her 
 days. Dinah walked her guests round and round the lawn, 
 ornamented with large vases of flowers, which lay in front of 
 the Castle of Anzy. 
 
 " How is it," said Lonsteau, the practical joker, " that so 
 handsome a woman as yourself, and apparently so superior, 
 should have remained buried in the country? What do you 
 do to make life endurable ? " 
 
 "Ah! that is the crux," said the lady. "It is unendur-
 
 48 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 able. Utter despair or dull resignation — there is no third 
 alternative ; that is the arid soil in which our existence is 
 rooted, and on which a thousand stagnant ideas fall ; they 
 cannot fertilize the ground, but they supply food for the 
 etiolated flowers of our desert souls. Never believe in indif- 
 ference ! Indifference is either despair or resignation. Then 
 each woman takes up the pursuit which, according to her 
 character, seems to promise some amusement. Some rush 
 into jam-making and washing, household management, the 
 rural joys of the vintage or the harvest, bottling fruit, em- 
 broidering handkerchiefs, the cares of motherhood, the in- 
 trigues of a country town. Otliers torment a much-enduring 
 piano, which, at the end of seven years, sounds like an old 
 kettle, and ends its asthmatic life at the Castle of Anzy. Some 
 pious dames talk over the different brands of the Word of 
 God — the Abbe Fritaud as compared with the Abbe Guinard. 
 They play cards in the evening, dance with the same partners 
 for twelve years running, in the same rooms, at the same 
 dates. This delightful life is varied by solemn walks on the 
 mall, visits of politeness among the women, who ask each 
 other where they bought their gowns. 
 
 " Conversation is bounded on the South by remarks on the 
 intrigues lying hidden under the stagnant water of provincial 
 life, on the North by proposed marriages, on the West by jeal- 
 ousies, and on the East by sour remarks. 
 
 "And so," she went on, striking an attitude, "you see a 
 woman wrinkled at nine-and-twenty, ten years before the time 
 fixed by the rules of Doctor Bianchon, a woman whose skin is 
 ruined at an early age, who turns as yellow as a quince when 
 she is yellow at all — we have seen some turn green. When 
 we have reached that point, we try to justify our normal con- 
 dition ; then we turn and rend the terrible passions of Paris 
 with teeth as sharp as rats' teeth. We have Puritan women 
 here, sour enough to tear the laces of Parisian finery, and eat 
 out all the poetry of your Parisian beauties, who undermine
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 49 
 
 the happiness of others while they cry up their walnuts and 
 rancid bacon, glorify this squalid mouse-hole, and the dingy 
 color and conventual smell of our delightful life at Sancerre." 
 
 " I admire such courage, madame," said Bianchon. "When 
 we have to endure such misfortunes, it is well to have tlie wit 
 to make a virtue of necessity." 
 
 Amazed at the brilliant move by which Dinah thus placed 
 provincial life at the mercy of her guests, in anticipation of 
 their sarcasms, Gatien Boirouge nudged Lousteau's elbow, 
 with a glance and a smile, which said : 
 
 " Well ! did I say too much ? " 
 
 "But, madame," said Lousteau, "you are proving that we 
 are still in Paris. I shall steal this gem of description ; it 
 will be worth ten francs to me in an article." 
 
 "Oh, monsieur!" she retorted, "never trust provincial 
 women." 
 
 " And why not ? " said Lousteau. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye was wily enough — an innocent 
 form of cunning, to be sure — to sliow the two Parisians, one 
 of whom she would choose to be her conqueror, the snare into 
 which he would fall, reflecting that she would have the upper 
 hand at the moment when he should cease to see it. 
 
 " When you first come," said she, " you laugh at us. Then 
 when you have forgotten the impression of Paris brilliancy, 
 and see us in our own sphere, you pay court to us, if only as 
 a pastime. And you, who are famous for your past passions, 
 will be the object of attentions which will flatter you. Then 
 take care ! " cried Dinah, with a coquettish gesture, raising 
 herself above provincial absurdities and Lousteau's irony by 
 lier own sarcastic speech. " When a poor, little country-bred 
 woman has an eccentric passion for some superior man, some 
 Parisian wiio has wandered into the provinces, it is to her 
 something more than a sentiment ; she makes it her occupa- 
 tion and part of all her life. There is nothing more dangerous 
 than the attachment of such a woman ; she compares, she 
 4
 
 50 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 studies, she reflects, she dreams; and she will not give up her 
 dream, she thinks still of the man she loves when he has ceased 
 to think of her. 
 
 "Now one of the catastrophes that weigh most heavily on 
 a woman in the provinces is that abrupt termination of her 
 passion which is so often seen in England. In the countr}-, 
 a life under minute observation as keen as an Indian's com- 
 pels a woman either to keep on the rails or to start aside like 
 a steam engine wrecked by an obstacle. The strategies of 
 love, the coquetting which form half the composition of a 
 Parisian woman, are utterly unknown here." 
 
 ''That is true," said Lousteau. "There is in a country- 
 bred woman's heart a store of surprises, as in some toys." 
 
 " Dear me ! " Dinah went on, "a woman will have spoken 
 to you three times in the course of a winter, and, without your 
 knowing it, you will be lodged in her heart. Then comes a 
 picnic, an excursion, what not, and all is said — or, if you 
 prefer it, all is done ! This conduct, which seems odd to un- 
 observing persons, is really very natural. A poet, such as you 
 are, or a philosopher, an observer, like Doctor Bianchon, in- 
 stead of vilifying the provincial woman ar.d believing her 
 depraved, would be able to guess the wonderful unrevealed 
 poetry, every chapter, in sliort, of the sweet romance of which 
 the last phase falls to the benefit of some happy sub-lieutenant 
 or some provincial bigwig." 
 
 "The provincial women I have met in Paris," said Lous- 
 teau, "were, in fact, rapid in their proceedings " 
 
 "My word, they are strange," said the lady, giving a sig- 
 nificant shrug of her shoulders. 
 
 "They are like the playgoers wlio book for the second per- 
 formance, feeling sure that the piece will not fail," replied the 
 journalist. 
 
 "And what is the cause of all these woes?" asked Bian- 
 chon. 
 
 "Paris is the monster that brings us grief," replied the
 
 THE MUSE Of THE DEPARIMENT. 51 
 
 Superior Woman. " The evil is seven leagues round, and 
 devastates the whole land. Provincial life is not self-existent. 
 It is only when a nation is divided into fifty minor states that 
 each can have a physiognomy of its own, and then a woman 
 reflects the glory of the sphere wherein she reigns. This social 
 phenomenon, I am told, may be seen in Italy, Switzerland, 
 and Germany ; but in France, as in every country where there 
 is but one capital, a dead-level of manners must necessarily 
 result from centralization." 
 
 " Then you would say that manners could only recover 
 their individuality and native distinction by the formation of a 
 federation of French states into one empire?" said Lousteau. 
 
 "That is hardly to be wished, for France would have to 
 conquer too many countries," said Bianchon. 
 
 "This misfortune is unk; -wn to England," exclaimed 
 Dinah. " London does not exert such tyranny as that by 
 which Paris oppresses France — for which, indeed, French in- 
 genuity will at last find a remedy ; however, it has a worse 
 disease in its vile hypocrisy, which is a far greater evil ! " 
 
 "The English aristocracy," said Lousteau, . hastening to 
 put a word in, for he foresaw a Byronic paragraph, "has the 
 advantage over ours of assimilating every form of superiority ; 
 it lives in the midst of magnificent parks; it is in London for 
 no more than two months. It lives in the country, flourish- 
 ing there, and making it flourish." 
 
 "Yes," said Madame de la Baudraye, "London is the 
 capital of trade and speculation, and the centre of govern- 
 ment. The aristocracy hold a ' meet ' there for sixty days 
 only ; it gives and takes the passwords of the day, looks in on 
 the legislative cookery, reviews the girls to marry, the car- 
 riages to be sold, exchanges greetings, and is away again ; 
 and is so far from amusing that it cannot bear itself for more 
 than the few days known as ' the season.' " 
 
 " Hence," said Lousteau, hoping to stop this nimble tongue 
 by an epigram, " in perfidious Albion, as the ' Constitutionncl '
 
 52 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 has it, you may happen to meet a charming woman in any 
 part of the kingdom," 
 
 "But charming E nglishvf omtxil^^ replied Madame de la 
 Baudraye with a smile. " Here is my mother, I will intro- 
 duce you," said she, seeing Madame Piedefer coming toward 
 them. 
 
 Having introduced the two Paris lions to the ambitious 
 skeleton that called itself woman under the name of Madame 
 Piedefer — a tall, lean personage with a red face, teeth that 
 were doubtfully genuine, and hair that was undoubtedly dyed, 
 Dinah left her visitors to themselves for a few minutes. 
 
 "Well," said Gatien to Lousteau, "what do you think of 
 her?" 
 
 " I think that the clever woman of Sancerre is simply the 
 greatest chatterbox," replied the journalist. 
 
 "A woman who wants to see you deputy ! " cried Gatien. 
 "An angel ! " 
 
 "Forgive me, I forgot you were in love with her," said 
 Lousteau. "Forgive the cynicism of an old scamp. Ask 
 Bianchon ; I have no illusions left. I see things as they are. 
 The woman has evidently dried up her mother like a partridge 
 left to roast at too fierce a fire." 
 
 Gatien de Boirouge contrived to let Madame de La Bau- 
 draye know what the journalist had said of her in the course 
 of the dinner, which was copious, not to say splendid, and 
 the lady took care not to talk too much while it was proceed- 
 ing. This lack of conversation betrayed Gatien's indiscretion. 
 Etienne tried to regain his footing, but all Dinah's advances 
 were directed to Bianchon. 
 
 However, half-way through the evening, the baroness was 
 gracious to Lousteau again. Have you never observed what 
 great meannesses may be committed for small ends? Thus 
 the haughty Dinah, who would not sacrifice herself for a fool, 
 who in the deptlis of the country led such a wretched life of 
 struggles, of suppressed rebellion, of unuttered poetry, who to
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 53 
 
 get away from Lousteau had climbed the highest and steepest 
 peak of her scorn, and who would not have come down if she 
 had seen the sham Byron at her feet, suddenly stepped off it as 
 she recollected her album. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye had caught the mania for auto- 
 graphs ; she possessed an oblong volume which deserved the 
 i:!ame of album better than most, as two-thirds of the pages 
 were still blank. The Baronne de Fontaine, who had kept it 
 for three months, had with great difficulty obtained a line 
 from Rossini, six bars written by Meyerbeer, the four lines 
 that Victor Hugo writes in everv album, a verse from Lamar- 
 tine, a few words from Beranger : Calypso ne pouvait se consoler 
 du depart d' Ulysse (the first words of •' Telemaque ") written 
 by George Sand, Scribe's famous lines on the Umbrella, a 
 sentence from Charles Nodier, an outline of distance by Jules 
 Dupre, the signature of David d'Angcrs, and three notes writ- 
 ten by Hector Berlioz. Monsieur de Clagny, during a visit 
 to Paris, added a song by Lacenaire — a much-coveted auto- 
 graph, two lines from Fieschi, and an extremely short note 
 from Napoleon, which were pasted on to pages of the album. 
 Then Monsieur Gravier, in the course of a tour, had persuaded 
 Mademoiselle Mars to write her name on this album, with 
 Mademoiselles Georges, Taglioni, and Grisi. and some distin- 
 guished actors, such as Frederick Lemaitre, Monrose, Boufif^, 
 Rubini, Lablache, Nourrit, and Arna1 ; for he knew a set of 
 old fellows brought up in the seraglio, as they phrased it, who 
 did him this favor. 
 
 This beginning of a collection was all the more precious to 
 Dinah because she was the only person for ten leagues round 
 who owned an album. Within the last two years, however, 
 several young ladies had acquired such books, in which they 
 made their friends and acquaintances write more or less absurd 
 quotations or sentiments. You who spend your lives in col- 
 lecting autographs, simple and happy souls, like Dutch tulip 
 fanciers, you will excuse Dinah when, in her fear of not keep-
 
 54 THE MUKE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 ing lier guests more than two days, she begged Bianchon to 
 enrich the volume she handed to him with a few lines of his 
 writing. 
 
 The doctor made Lousteau smile by showing him this sen- 
 tence on the first page — 
 
 "What makes the populace dangerous is that it has in its 
 pocket an absolution for every crime. 
 
 "J. B. DE Clagnv." 
 
 "We will second the man who is brave enough to plead in 
 favor of the Monarchy," Desplein's great pupil whispered to 
 Lousteau, and he wrote below — 
 
 " The distinction between Napoleon and a water-carrier is 
 evident only to Society ; Nature takes no account of it. Thus 
 Democracy, which resists inequality, constantly appeals to 
 Nature. 
 
 "H. Bianchon." 
 
 "Ah ! " cried Dinah, amazed, " you rich men take a gold- 
 piece out of your purse as poor men bring out a farthing. I 
 do not know," she went on, turning to Lousteau, "whether 
 it is taking an unfair advantage of a guest to hope for a few 
 lines " 
 
 " Nay, madame, you flatter me. Bianchon is a great man, 
 but I am too insignificant ! Twenty years hence my name 
 will be more difficult to identify than that of the public prose- 
 cutor whose axiom, written in your album, will designate him 
 as an obscurer Montesquieu. And I should want at least 
 twenty-four hours to improvise some sufficiently bitter reflec- 
 tions, for I could only describe what I feel." 
 
 " I wish you needed a fortnight," said Madame de La Bau- 
 dra3'e graciously, as she handed him the book. " I should 
 keep you here all the longer."
 
 THE MUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT. 55 
 
 At five next morning all the party in the Anzy manor-house 
 were astir, little La Baudraye having arranged a day's sport 
 for the Parisians — less for their pleasure than to gratify his 
 own conceit. He was delighted to make them walk over the 
 twelve hundred acres of waste land that he was intending to 
 reclaim, an undertaking that would cost some hundred thou- 
 sand francs, but which might yield an increase of thirty to 
 sixty thousand francs a year in the returns of the estate of 
 Anzv. 
 
 " Do you know why the public prosecutor has not come 
 out with us?" asked young Gatien Boirouge of Monsieur 
 Gravier. 
 
 "Why, he told us that he was obliged to sit to-day; the 
 minor cases are before the court," replied the other, 
 
 "And did you believe that?" cried Gatien. "Well, my 
 papa said to me : ' Monsieur Lebas will not join you early, for 
 Monsieur de Clagny has begged him as his deputy to sit for 
 him!'" 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Gravier, changing countenance. "And 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye is gone to La Charite ! " 
 
 " But why do you meddle in such matters ? " said Bianchon 
 to Gatien. 
 
 "Horace is right," said Lousteau. "I cannot imagine 
 why you trouble your heads so much about each other ; you 
 waste your time in frivolities." 
 
 Horace Bianchon looked at Etienne Lousteau, as much as 
 to say that newspaper epigrams and the satire of the " funny 
 column " were incomprehensible at Sancerre. 
 
 On reaching a copse. Monsieur Gravier left the two great 
 men and Gatien, under the guidance of a keeper, to make 
 their way through a little ravine. 
 
 " Well, we must wait for Monsieur Gravier," said Bianchon, 
 when they had reached a clearing. 
 
 "You may be a great physician," said Gatien, "but you 
 are ignorant of provincial lif«. You mean to wait for Mon-
 
 66 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 sieur Graviei ? By this time he is running like a hare, in spite 
 of his little round stomach ; he is within twenty minutes of 
 
 Anzy by now " Gatien looked at his watch. "Good! 
 
 he will be just in time." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "At the castle for breakfast," replied Gatien. "Do you 
 suppose I could rest easy if Madame de La Baudraye were 
 alone with Monsieur de Clagny ? There are two of them now ; 
 they will keep an eye on each other. Dinah will be well 
 guarded." 
 
 "Ah, ha! Then Madame de La Baudraye has not yet 
 made up her mind?" said Lousteau. 
 
 " So mamma thinks. For my part, I am afraid that Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny has at last succeeded in bewitching Madame 
 de La Baudraye. If he has been able to show her that he had 
 any chance of putting on the robes of the keeper of tlie seals, 
 he may have hidden his moleskin complexion, his terrible 
 eyes, his touzled mane, his voice like a hoarse crier's, his 
 bony figure, like that of a starveling poet, and have assumed 
 all the charms of Adonis. If Dinah sees Monsieur de Clas:nv 
 as attorney-general, she may see him as a handsome youth. 
 Eloquence has great privileges. Beside, Madame de La Bau- 
 draye is full of ambition. She does not like Sancerre, and 
 dreams of the glories of Paris." 
 
 "But what interest have you in all this?" said Lousteau. 
 "If she is in love with the public prosecutor! Ah! you 
 think she will not love him for long, and you hope to succeed 
 him." 
 
 "You who live in Paris," said Gatien, "meet as many 
 different women as there are days in the year. But at San- 
 cerre, where there are not half a dozen, and where, of those six, 
 five set up for the most extravagant virtue, when the hand- 
 somest of them all keeps you at an infinite distance by looks 
 as scornful as though she were of the blood royal, a young 
 man of two-and-twenty may surely be allowed to make a guess
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 57 
 
 at her secrets, since she must then treat him with some con- 
 sideration." 
 
 "Consideration! So that is what you call it in these 
 parts? " said the journalist with a smile. 
 
 " I should suppose Madame de La Baudraye to have too 
 much good taste to trouble her head about that ugly ape," 
 said Bianchon. 
 
 "Horace," said Loustcau, "look here, O learned inter- 
 preter of human nature, let us lay a trap for the public prose- 
 cutor ; we shall be doing our friend Gatien a service and get 
 a laugh out of it. I do not love public prosecutors." 
 
 "You have a keen intuition of destiny," said Horace. 
 "But what can we do?" 
 
 "Well, after dinner we will tell sundry little anecdotes of 
 wives caught out by their husbands, killed, murdered under 
 the most terrible circumstances. Then we shall see the faces 
 that Madame de La Baudraye and de Clagny will make." 
 
 "Not amiss!" said Bianchon; "one or the other must 
 surely, by look or gesture " 
 
 "I know a newspaper editor," Lousteau went on, address- 
 ing Gatien, "who, anxious to forefend a grievous fate, will 
 take no stones but such as tell the tale of lovers burned, hewn, 
 pounded, or cut to pieces; of wives boiled, fried, or baked ; 
 he takes them to his wife to read, hoping that sheer fear will 
 keep her faithful — satisfied with that humble alternative, poor 
 man ! ' You see, my dear, to what the smallest error may 
 lead you ! ' says he, epitomizing Arnolfe's address to Agnes." 
 
 "Madame de La Baudraye is quite guiltless; this youth 
 sees double," said Bianchon. "Madame Piedefer seems to 
 me far too pious to invite her daughter's lover to the Castle of 
 Anzy. Madame de La Baudraye would have to hoodwink 
 her mother, her husband, her maid, and her mother's maid ; 
 that is too much to do. I acquit her." 
 
 "With the more reason because her husband never ' quits 
 her,' " said Gatien, laughing at his own wit.
 
 58 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "We can easily remember two or three stories that will 
 make Dinah quake," said Lousteau. "Young man — and you 
 too, Bianchon — let me beg you to maintain a stern demeanor ; 
 be thorough diplomatists, an easy manner without exaggera- 
 tion, and watch the faces of the two criminals, you know, 
 without seeming to do so — out of the corner of your eye, or 
 in a glass, on the sly. This morning we will hunt the hare, 
 this evening we will harry the public prosecutor." 
 
 The evening began with a triumph for Lousteau, who re- 
 turned the album to the lady with this elegy written in it : 
 
 SPLEEN. 
 
 You ask for verse from me, the feeble prey 
 Of this self-seeking world, a waif and stray 
 
 With none to whom to chng; 
 From me — iinliappy, purblind, hopeless devil! 
 Who e'en in what is good see only evil 
 
 In any earthly thing ! 
 
 f his page, the pastime of a dame so fair, 
 
 May not reflect tlie shadow of my care, 
 For all things have their place. 
 
 Of love, to ladies bright, the poet sings. 
 
 Of joy, and balls, and dress, and dainty things- 
 Nay, or of God and Grace. 
 
 It were a bitter jest to bid the pen 
 
 Of one so worn with life, so hating men, 
 
 Depict a scene of joy. 
 Would you exult in sight to one born blind. 
 Or — cruel ! of a mother's love remind 
 
 Some hapless orphan boy ? 
 
 When cold despair has gripped a heart still fond, 
 When there is no young heart that will respond 
 
 To it in love, the future is a lie. 
 If there is none to weep, when he is sad, 
 And share his woe, a man were better dead! — 
 
 And so I soon must die.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPJ .'^T.VENT. 59 
 
 Give me your pity ! often I blaspheme 
 
 The sacred name of God. Does it not seem 
 
 That I was born in vain ? 
 Why should I bless Hmi ? Or why thank Him, since 
 He might have made me handsome, rich, a prince — 
 
 And I am poor and plain ? 
 
 Etienne Lousteau. 
 September, 1836, Chateau d'Anzy. 
 
 "And you have written those verses since yesterday?" 
 cried Clagny in a suspicions tone. 
 
 " Dear me, yes, as I was following the game; it is only too 
 evident? I would gladly have done something better for 
 madame." 
 
 "The verses are exquisite ! " cried Dinah, casting up her 
 eyes to heaven. 
 
 "They are, alas ! the expression of a too genuine feeling," 
 replied Lousteau, in a tone of deep dejection. 
 
 The reader will, of course, have guessed that the journalist 
 had stored these lines in his memory for ten years at least, 
 for he had written them at the time of the Restoration in dis- 
 gust at being unable to get on. Madame de la Baudraye 
 gazed at him with such pity as the woes of genius inspire; 
 and Monsieur de Clagny, who caught her expression, turned in 
 hatred against this sham "Jeune Malade "* (young invalid). 
 He sat down to backgammon with the cure of Sancerre. The 
 presiding judge's son was so extremely obliging as to place a 
 lamp near the two players in such a way as that the light fell 
 full on Madame de la Baudraye, who took up her work; she 
 was embroidering in coarse wool a wicket-plait paper-basket. 
 The three conspirators sat close at hand. 
 
 "For whom are you decorating that pretty basket, Mad- 
 ame? " said Lousteau. " For some charity lottery, perhaps? " 
 
 "No," said she, "I think there is too much display in 
 charity done to the sound of a trumpet." 
 
 * The name of an Elegy written by Millevoye.
 
 CO THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "You are very indiscreet," said Monsieur Gravier. 
 
 "Can there be any indiscretion," said Lousteau, "in in- 
 quiring who the happy mortal may be in whose room that 
 basket is to stand? " 
 
 " There is no happy mortal in the case," said Dinah ; " it 
 is for Monsieur de La Baudraye." 
 
 The public prosecutor looked slily at Madame de La Bau- 
 draye and her work, as if he had said to himself: " I have lost 
 my paper- basket ! " 
 
 "Why, madame, may we not think him happy in having a 
 lovely wife, happy in her decorating his paper-baskets so 
 charmingly? The colors are red and black, like Robin Good- 
 fellow. If ever I marry, I only hope that, twelve years after, 
 my wife's embroidered baskets may still be for me." 
 
 " And why should they not be for you ? " said the lady, fix- 
 ing her fine gray eyes, full of invitation, on Etienne's face. 
 
 "Parisians believe in nothing," said the lawyer bitterly. 
 "The virtue of women is doubted above all things with ter- 
 rible insolence. Yes, for some time past the books you have 
 written, you Paris authors, your farces, your dramas, all your 
 atrocious literature turn on adultery " 
 
 "Come, come, Monsieur the Public Prosecutor," retorted 
 Etienne, laughing, " I left you to play your game in peace, I 
 did not attack you, and here you arc bringing an indictment 
 against me. On my honor as a journalist, I have launched 
 above a hundred articles against the writers you speak of; 
 but I confess that in attacking them it was to attempt some- 
 thing like criticism. Be just ; if you condemn them, you 
 must condemn Homer, whose ' Iliad ' turns on Helen of Troy ; 
 you must condemn Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' Eve and her 
 serpent seem to me a pretty little case of symbolical adultery ; 
 you must suppress the Psalms of David, inspired by the highly 
 adulterous love affairs of that Louis XIV. of Judah ; you must 
 make a bonfire of * Mithridate,' Me Tartufife,' M'EcoIe des 
 Femmes,' 'Phedre,' ' Andromaque,' * le Mariage de Figaro,'
 
 THE MUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT, Gl 
 
 Dante's 'Inferno,' Petrarch's Sonnets, all the works of Jean- 
 Jacques Rousseau, the romances of the Middle Ages, the His- 
 tory of France and of Rome, etc., etc. Excepting Bossuet's 
 * Histoire des Variations' and Pascal's ' Provinciales,' I do 
 not think there are many books left to read if you insist on 
 eliminating all those in which illicit love is mentioned." 
 
 " Much loss that would be ! " said Monsieur de Clagny. 
 
 Etienne, nettled by the superior air assumed by Monsieur de 
 Clagny, wanted to infuriate him by one of those cold-drawn 
 jests which consist in defending an opinion in which we have 
 no belief, simply to rouse the wrath of a poor man who 
 argues in good faith: a regular journalist's pleasantry. 
 
 " If we take up the political attitude into which you would 
 force yourself," he went on, without heeding the lawyer's 
 remark, "and assume the part of public prosecutor of all the 
 ages — for every Government has its public ministry — well, 
 the Catholic religion is infected at its fountain-head by a 
 startling instance of illegal union. In the opinion of King 
 Herod, and of Pilate as representing the Roman Empire, 
 Joseph's wife figured as an adulteress, since, by her own 
 avowal, Joseph was not the father of J.^sus. The heathen 
 judge could no more recognize the immaculate conception than 
 you yourself would admit the possibility of such a miracle i.f 
 a new religion should nowadays be preached as based on a 
 similar mystery. Do you suppose that a judge and jurv in a 
 police court would give credence to the operation of the Holy 
 Ghost ! And yet who can venture to assert that God will 
 never again redeem mankind? Is it any better now than it 
 was under Tiberius? " 
 
 "Your argument is blasphemy," said Monsieur de Clagny. 
 
 " I grant it," said the journalist, "but not with malicious 
 intent. You cannot suppress historical fact. In my opinion, 
 Pilate, when he sentenced Jesus, and Anytus — who spoke for 
 the aristocratic party at Athens — wlien he insisted on the 
 death of Socrates, both represented established social interests
 
 62 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 which held themselves legitimate, invested with cooperative 
 powers, and obliged to defend themselves. Pilate and Anytus 
 in their time were not less logical than the public prose- 
 cutors who demanded the heads of the sergeants of La Ro- 
 chelle; who, at this day, are guillotining the republicans who 
 take up arms against the throne as established by the revo- 
 lution of July, and the innovators who aim at upsetting society 
 for their own advantage under pretense of organizing it on a 
 better footing. In the eyes of the great families of Greece 
 and Rome, Socrates and Jesus were criminals ; to those 
 ancient aristocracies their opinions were akin to those of the 
 Mountain ; and if their followers had been victorious, they 
 would have produced a little ' ninety-three ' in the Roman 
 Empire or in Attica." 
 
 "To what are you trying to come, monsieur?" asked the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "To adultery! For thus, monsieur, a Buddhist as he 
 smokes his pipe may very well assert that the Christian 
 religion is founded in adultery; as we believe that Mahomet 
 is an impostor ; that his Koran is an epitome of the Old 
 Testament and the Gospels \ and that God never had the 
 least intention of constituting that camel-driver His prophet." 
 
 "If there were many men like you in France — and there 
 are more than enough, unfortunately — all government would 
 be impossible." 
 
 "And there would be no religion at all," said Madame 
 Piedefer, who had been making strangely wry faces all through 
 this discussion. 
 
 "You are paining them very much," said Bianchon to 
 Lousteau in an undertone. "Do not talk of religion; you 
 are saying things that are enough to upset them." 
 
 " If I were a writer or a romancer," said Monsieur Gravier, 
 " I should take the side of the luckless husbands. I, who 
 Ii.-ive seen many things, and strange things, too, know that 
 among the ranks of deceived husbands there are some whose
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 63 
 
 attitude is not devoid of energy, men who, at a crisis, can be 
 very dramatic, to use one of your words, monsieur," he said, 
 addressing Etienne. 
 
 "You are very right, my dear Monsieur Gravier," said 
 Lousteau. " I never thought that deceived husbands were 
 ridiculous; on the contrary, I think highly of them " 
 
 '"Do you not think a husband's confidence a sublime 
 thing?" Said Bianchon. "He believes in his wife, he does 
 not suspect her, he trusts her implicitly. But if he is so weak 
 as to trust her, you make game of him ; if he is jealous and 
 suspicious, you hate him ; what, then, I ask you, is the happy 
 medium for a man of spirit ? " 
 
 " If Monsieur de Clagny had not just expressed such vehe- 
 ment disapproval of the immorality of stories in which the 
 matrimonial compact is violated, I could tell you of a hus- 
 band's revenge," said Lousteau. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny threw the dice with a convulsive jerk, 
 and dared not look up at the journalist. 
 
 "A story, from you!" cried Madame de La Baudraye. 
 "I should hardly have dared to hope for such a treat " 
 
 "It is not my story, madame ; I am not clever enough to 
 invent such a tragedy. It was told me — and how delightfully ! 
 — by one of our greatest writers, the finest literary musician of 
 our day, Charles Nodier. " 
 
 " Well, tell it," said Dinah. "I never met Monsieur Nodier, 
 so you have no comparison to fear." 
 
 " Not long after the i8th Brumaire," Etienne began, " there 
 was, as you know, a call to arms in Brittany and la Vcnddc. 
 Tiie First Consul, anxious before all things for peace in France, 
 opened negotiations with the rebel chiefs, and took energetic 
 military measures ; but, while combiaing his plans of campaign 
 with the insinuating charm of Italian diplomacy, he also set 
 the machiavellian springs of the police in movement, Fouche 
 t'nen being at its head. And none of these means were super- 
 fluous to stifle the fire of war then blazing in the West.
 
 64 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "At this time a young man of the Maille family was 
 dispatched by the Chouans from Brittany to Saumur, to open 
 communications between certain magnates of that town and 
 its environs and the leaders of the Royalist party. The envoy 
 was, in fact, arrested on the very day he landed — for he 
 traveled by boat, disguised as a master mariner. However, 
 as a man of practical intelligence, he had calculated all the 
 risks of the undertaking ; his passport and papers were all in 
 order, and the men told off to take him were afraid of blun- 
 dering. 
 
 "The Chevalier de Beauvoir — I now remember his name — 
 had studied his part well ; he appealed to the family whose 
 name he had borrowed, persisted in his false address, and 
 stood his examination so boldly that he would have been set 
 at large but for the blind belief that the spies had in iheir in- 
 structions, which were unfortunately only too minute. In 
 this dilemma the authorities were more ready to risk an arbi- 
 trary act than to let a man escape to whose capture the 
 Minister attached great importance. In those days of liberty 
 the agents of the powers in authority cared little enough for 
 what we now regard as legal. The chevalier was therefore 
 imprisoned provisionally, until the superior officials should 
 come to some decision as to his identity. He had not long 
 to wait for it ; orders were given to guard the prisoner closely 
 in spite of his denials. 
 
 " The Chevalier de Beauvoir was next transferred, in obedi- 
 ence to further orders, to the Castle of I'Escarpe, a name which 
 sufficiently indicates its situation. This fortress, perched on 
 very high rocks, has precipices for its trenches ; it is reached 
 on all sides by steep and dangerous paths ; and, like every 
 ancient castle, its principal gate has a drawbridge over a wide 
 moat. The commandant of this prison, delighted to have 
 charge of a man of family whose manners were most agreeable, 
 who expressed himself well, and seemed highly educated, 
 received the chevalier as a godsend j he offered him the free-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 65 
 
 dom of the place on parole, that they might together the 
 better defy its dullness. The prisoner was more than content. 
 
 " Beauvoir was a loyal gentleman, but, unfortunately, he 
 was also a very handsome youth. He had attractive features, 
 a dashing air, a pleasing address, and extraordinary strength. 
 Well made, active, full of enterprise, and loving danger, he 
 would have made an admirable leader of guerrilla, and was the 
 very man for the part. The commandant gave his prisoner 
 the most comfortable room, entertained him at his table, and 
 at first had nothing but praise for the Vendeen. This officer 
 was a Corsican and married ; his wife was pretty and charm- 
 ing, and he thouglit her, perhaps, not to be trusted — at any 
 rate, he was as jealous as a Corsican and a rather ill-looking 
 soldier may be. The lady took a fancy to Beauvoir, and he 
 found her very much to his taste ; perhaps they loved ! Love 
 in a prison is quick work. Did they commit some impru- 
 dence ? Was the sentiment they entertained something 
 warmer than the superficial gallantry which is almost a duty 
 of men toward women ? 
 
 " Beauvoir never fully explained this rather obscure episode 
 of the story; it is at least certain that the commandant 
 thought himself justified in treating his prisoner with excessive 
 severity. Beauvoir was placed in the dungeon, fed on black 
 bread and cold water, and fettered in accordance with the 
 time-honored traditions of the treatment lavished on captives. 
 His cell, under the fortress-yard, was vaulted with hard stone, 
 *he walls were of desperate thickness ; the tower overlooked 
 the precipice. 
 
 " When the luckless man had convinced himself of the im- 
 possibility of escape, he fell into those day-dreams which are 
 at once the comfort and the crowning despair of prisoners. 
 He gave himself up to the trifles which in such cases seem so 
 important; he counted the hours and the days; he studied 
 the melancholy trade of being prisoner ; he became absorbed 
 in himself, and learned the value of air and sunshine ; then, 
 6
 
 66 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 at the end of a fortnight, he was attacked by that terrible 
 malady, that fever for liberty, whicli drives prisoners to those 
 heroic efforts of which the prodigious achievements seem to 
 us impossible, though true, and which my friend the doctor" 
 (and he turned to Bianchon) ''would perhaps ascribe to some 
 unknown forces too recondite for his physiological analysis to 
 detect, some mysteries of the human will of which the obscur- 
 ity baffles science." 
 
 Bianchon shook his head in negation. 
 
 " Beauvoir was eating his heart out, for death alone could 
 set him free. One morning the turnkey, whose duty it was 
 to bring him his food, instead of leaving him when he had 
 given him his meagre pittance, stood with his arms folded, 
 looking at him with strange meaning. Conversation between 
 them was generally brief, and the warder never began it. 
 The chevalier was therefore greatly surprised when the man 
 said to him : ' Of course, monsieur, you know your own busi- 
 ness when you insist on being always called Monsieur Lebrun, 
 or Citizen Lebrun. It is no concern of mine; ascertaining 
 your name is no part of my duty. It is all the same to me 
 whether you call yourself Peter or Paul. If every man minds 
 his own business, the cows will not stray. At the same time, 
 / know,* he said, with a wink, ' that you are Monsieur 
 Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de Beauvoir, and cousin to 
 Madame la Duchesse de Maille. Heh ? ' he added after a 
 short silence, during which he looked at his prisoner. 
 
 "Beauvoir, seeing that he was safe under lock and key, did 
 not imagine that his position could be any the worse if his 
 real name were known. 
 
 " ' Well, and supposing I were the Chevalier de Beauvoir, 
 what should I gain by that ? ' said he. 
 
 " 'Oh, there is everything to be gained by it,' replied tlie 
 gaoler in an undertone. ' I have been paid to help you to get 
 away; but wait a minute ! If I were suspected in the smallest 
 degree, I should be shot out of hand. So I have said that I
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 67 
 
 will do no more in the matter than will just earn the money. 
 Look here/ said he, taking a small file out of his pocket, 'this 
 is your key ; with this you can cut through one of your bars. 
 By the mass, but it will not be an easy job,' he went on, 
 glancing at the narrow loophole that let daylight into the 
 dungeon. 
 
 " It was in a splayed recess under the deep cornice that ran 
 round the top of the tower, between the brackets that sup- 
 ported the embrasures. 
 
 "'Monsieur,' said the man, 'you must take care to saw 
 through the iron low enough to get your body through.' 
 
 " ' I will get through, never fear,' said the prisoner. 
 
 "'But hish enouarh to leave a stanchion to fasten a cord 
 to,' the warder went on. 
 
 " ' And where is the cord ? ' asked Beauvoir. 
 
 " ' Here,' said the man, throwing down a knotted rope. 
 *It is made of raveled linen, that you may be supposed to 
 have contrived it yourself, and it is long enough. When you 
 have got to the bottom knot, let yourself drop gently, and 
 the rest you must manage for yourself. You will probably 
 find a carriage somewhere in the neighborhood, and friends 
 looking out for you. But I know nothing about that. I 
 need not remind you that there is a man-at-arms to the right 
 of the tower. You will take care, of course, to choose a dark 
 night, and wait till the sentinel is asleep. You must take 
 your chance of being shot ; but ' 
 
 " ' All right ! AH right ! At least I shall not rot here,' 
 cried the young man. 
 
 " 'Well, that may happen nevertheless,' replied the gaoler, 
 with a stupid expression. 
 
 "Beauvoir thought this was merely one of the aimless re- 
 marks that such folk indulge in. The hope of freedom filled 
 him with such joy that he could not be troubled to consider 
 the words of a man who was no more than a better sort of 
 peasant. He set to work at once, and had filed the bars
 
 68 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 through in the course of the day. Fearing a visit from the 
 governor, he stopped up the breaches with bread-crumb rubbed 
 in rust to make it look like the iron ; he hid his rope, and 
 waited for a favorable night with the intensity of anticipation, 
 the deep anguish of soul that makes a prisoner's life dramatic. 
 
 "At last, one murky night, an autumn night, he finished 
 cutting through the bars, tied the cord firmly to the stump, 
 and perched himself on the sill outside, holding on by one 
 hand to the piece of iron remaining. Then he waited for the 
 darkest hour of the night, when the sentinels would probably 
 be asleep ; this would be not long before dawn. He knew 
 the hours of their rounds, the length of each watch, every 
 detail with which prisoners, almost involuntarily, become 
 familiar. He waited till the moment when one of the men-at- 
 arms had spent two-thirds of his watch and gone into his box 
 for shelter from the fog. Then, feeling sure that the chances 
 were at the best for his escape, he let himself down knot by 
 knot, hanging between earth and sky, and clinging to his 
 rope with the strength of a giant. All was well. At the last 
 knot but one, just as he was about to let himself drop, a pru- 
 dent impulse led him to feel for the ground with his feet, and 
 he found no footing. The predicament was awkward for a 
 man bathed in sweat, tired, and perplexed, and in a position 
 where his life was at stake on even chances. He was about 
 to risk it, when a trivial incident stopped him ; his hat fell off; 
 happily, he listened for the noise it must make in striking the 
 ground, and he heard not a sound. 
 
 "The prisoner felt vaguely suspicious as to this state of 
 affairs. He began to wonder whether the commandant had 
 not laid a trap for him — but if so, why ? Torn by doubts, 
 he almost resolved to postpone the attempt till another night. 
 At any rate, he would wait for the first gleam of day, when it 
 would still not be impossible to escape. His great strength 
 enabled him to climb up again to his window; still, he was 
 almost exhausted by the time he gained the sill, where he
 
 HE PERCEIVED THAT THERE WAS A LITTLE INTERVAL 
 
 OF A HUNDRED FEET BETWEEN THE LOWEST KNOT 
 AND THE POINTED ROCKS BELOW.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 69 
 
 crouched on the lookout, exactly like a cat on the parapet of 
 a gutter. Before long, by the pale light of dawn, he per- 
 ceived as he waved the rope that there was a little interval of 
 a hundred feet between the lowest knot and the pointed rocks 
 below. 
 
 "'Thank you, my friend the governor!' said he, with 
 characteristic coolness. Then, after a brief meditation on 
 this skillfully planned revenge, he thought it wise to return to 
 his cell. 
 
 " He laid his outer clothes conspicuously on the bed, left 
 the rope outside to make it seem that he had fallen, and hid 
 himself behind the door to await the arrival of the treacher- 
 ous turnkey, arming himself with one of the iron bars he had 
 filed out. The gaoler, who returned rather earlier than usual 
 to secure the dead man's leavings, opened the door, whis- 
 tling as he came in ; but when he was at arm's length, 
 Beauvoir hit him such a tremendous blow on the head that 
 the wretch fell in a heap without a cry ; the bar had cracked 
 his skull. 
 
 " The chevalier hastily stripped him and put on his clothes, 
 mimicked his walk, and, thanks to the early hour and the 
 undoubting confidence of the warders of the great gate, he 
 walked out and away." 
 
 It did not seem to strike either the lawyer or Madame de 
 La Baudraye that there was in this narrative the least illusion 
 that should apply to them. Those in the little plot looked in- 
 quiringly at each other, evidently surprised at the perfect 
 coolness of the two supposed lovers. 
 
 "Oh! I can tell you a better story than that," said 
 Bianchon. 
 
 " Let us hear," said the audience, at a sign from Lousteau, 
 conveying that Bianchon had a reputation as a story-teller. 
 
 Amono the stock of narratives he had in store, for every 
 
 o 
 
 clever man has a fund of anecdotes as Madame de La Baud- 
 raye had a collection of phrases, the doctor chose that which
 
 70 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 is known as "La Grande Bretgche,"* and is so famous, 
 indeed, that it was put on the stage at the Gymnase-Dramat- 
 ique under the title of "Valentine." So it is not necessary 
 to repeat it here, though it was then new to the inhabit- 
 ants of the Castle of Anzy. And it was told with the 
 same finish of gesture and tone which had won such praise 
 for Bianchon when at Mademoiselle des Touches' supper- 
 party he had told it for the first time. The final picture of 
 the Spanish grandee, starved to death where he stood in the 
 cupboard walled up by Madame de Merret's husband, and 
 that husband's last word as he replied to his wife's entreaty, 
 " You swore on that crucifix that there was no one in the 
 closet ! " produced their full effect. 
 
 There was a silent minute, a pause highly flattering to 
 Bianchon. 
 
 " Do you know, gentlemen," said Madame de La Baudraye, 
 ** love must be a mighty thing that it can tempt a woman to 
 put herself in such a position ? " 
 
 *' I, who have certainly seen some strange things in the 
 course of my life," said Gravier, "was cognizant in Spain of 
 an adventure of the same kind." 
 
 "You come forward after two great performers," said 
 Madame de La Baudraye, with coquettish flattery, as she 
 glanced at the two Parisians. " But never mind — proceed." 
 
 "Some little time after his entry into Madrid," said the 
 receiver-general, "the Grand Duke of Berg invited the mag- 
 nates of the capital to an entertainment given to the newly 
 conquered city by the French army. In spite of the splendor 
 of the affair, the Spaniards were not very cheerful ; their 
 ladies hardly danced at all, and most of the company sat 
 down to cards. The gardens of the duke's palace were so 
 brilliantly illuminated that the ladies could walk about in as 
 perfect safety as in broad daylight. The fete was of imperial 
 magnificence. Nothing was grudged to give the Spaniards a 
 - In volume of " The Lily of the Valley,"
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARl'MENT. 71 
 
 high idea of the Emperor, if they were to measure him by the 
 standard of his officers. 
 
 " In an arbor near the house, between one and two in the 
 morning, a party of French officers were discussing the chances 
 of war, and the not too hopeful outlook prognosticated by the 
 conduct of the Spaniards present at that grand ball. 
 
 " ' I can only tell you,' said the surgeon-major of the com- 
 pany of which I was paymaster, ' I applied formally to Prince 
 Murat only yesterday to be recalled. Without being afraid 
 exactly of leaving my bones in the Peninsula, I would ratlier 
 dress the wounds made by our worthy neighbors the Germans. 
 Their weapons do not run quite so deep into the body as these 
 Castilian daggers. Beside, a certain dread of Spain is, with 
 me, a sort of superstition. From my earliest youth I have 
 read Spanish books, and a heap of gloomy romances and tales 
 of adventure in this country have given me a serious prejudice 
 against its manners and customs. 
 
 ti ( y/qW^ now, since my arrival in Madrid, I have already 
 been, not indeed the hero, but the accomplice of a dangerous 
 intrigue, as dark and mysterious as any romance by Lady 
 [Mrs.] Radcliffe. I am apt to attend to my presentiments, 
 and I am off to-morrow. Murat will not refuse me leave, 
 for, thanks to our varied services, we always have influential 
 friends.' 
 
 "'Since you mean to cut your stick, tell us what's up,' 
 said an old Republican colonel, who cared not a rap for Im- 
 perial gentility and choice language. 
 
 "The surgeon-major looked about him cautiously, as if to 
 make sure who were his audience, and, being satisfied that no 
 Spaniard was within hearing, he said : 
 
 "'We are none but Frenchmen — then, with pleasure, 
 Colonel Hulot. About six days since, I was quietly going 
 home, at about eleven at night, after leaving General Mont- 
 cornet, whose hotel is but a few yards from mine. Wc had 
 come away together from the quartermaster-general's, where
 
 72 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 we had played rather high at bouillotte. Suddenly, at the 
 corner of a narrow side-street, two strangers, or rather, two 
 demons, rushed upon me and flung a large cloak round my 
 head and arms. I yelled out, as you may suppose, like a dog 
 that is thrashed, but the cloth smothered my voice, and I was 
 lifted into a chaise with dexterous rapidity. When my two 
 companions released me from the cloak, I heard these dread- 
 ful words spoken by a woman, in bad French : 
 
 " ' " If you cry out or if you attempt to escape, if you make 
 the very least suspicious demonstration, the gentleman oppo- 
 site to you will stab you without hesitation. So you had better 
 keep quiet. Now, I will tell you why you have been carried 
 off. If you will take the trouble to put your hand out in this 
 direction, you will find your case of instruments lying between 
 us ; we sent a messenger for them to your rooms, in your 
 name. You will need them. We are taking you to a house 
 that you may save the honor of a lady who is about to give 
 birth to a child that she wishes to place in this gentleman's 
 keeping without her husband's knowledge. Though monsieur 
 rarely leaves his wife, with whom he is still passionately in 
 love, watching over her with all the vigilance of Spanish 
 jealousy, she has succeeded in concealing her condition ; he 
 believes her to be ill. You must bring the child into the 
 world. The dangers of this enterprise do not concern us: 
 only, you must obey us, otherwise the lover, who is sitting 
 opposite to you in this carriage, and who does not understand 
 a word of Frencli, will kill you on the least rash movement." 
 
 " ' "And who are you? " I asked, feeling for the speaker's 
 hand, for her arm was inside the sleeve of a soldier's uniform. 
 
 " ' " I am my lady's waiting-woman," said she, " and ready 
 to reward you with my own person if you show yourself gal- 
 lant and helpful in our necessities." 
 
 " ' " Gladly," said I, seeing that I was inevitably started on 
 a perilous adventure. 
 
 " ' Under favor of the darkness, I felt whether the person
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 73 
 
 and figure of the girl were in keeping with the idea I had 
 formed of her from her tone of voice. The good soul had, no 
 doubt, made up her mind from the first to accept all the 
 chances of this strange act of kidnapping, for she kept silence 
 very obligingly, and the coach had not been more than ten 
 minutes on the way when she accepted and returned a very 
 satisfactory kiss. The lover, who sat opposite to me, took no 
 offense at an occasional quite involuntary kick ; as he did not 
 understand French, I conclude he paid no heed to them. 
 
 " ' " I can be your mistress on one condition only," said the 
 woman, in reply to the nonsense I poured into her ear, carried 
 away by the fervor of an improvised passion, to which every- 
 thing was unpropitious. 
 
 "'"And what is it?" 
 
 " ' " That you will never attempt to find out whose servant 
 I am. If I am to go to you, it must be at night, and you 
 must receive me in the dark." 
 
 '" "Very good," said I. 
 
 " ' We had got as far as this, when the carriage drew up 
 under a garden wall. 
 
 " ' "You must allow me to bandage your eyes," said the 
 coquettish maid. " You can lean on my arm, and I will lead 
 you." 
 
 " 'She tied a handkerchief over my eyes, fastening it in a 
 tight knot at the back of my head. I heard the sound of a 
 key being cautiously fitted to the lock of a little side-door by 
 the speechless lover who had sat opposite to me. In a mo- 
 ment the waiting-woman, whose shape was slender, and who 
 walked with an elegant jauntiness ' — meneho, as they call it," 
 Monsieur Gravier explained in a superior tone, " a word which 
 describes the swing which women contrive to give a certain 
 part of their dress that shall be nameless. ' The waiting- 
 woman ' — it is the surgeon-major who is speaking," the nar- 
 rator went on — " ' led me along the gravel-walks of a large 
 garden, till at a certain spot she stopped. From the louder
 
 74 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 sound of our footsteps, I concluded that we were close to the 
 house. " Now silence ! " said she in a whisper, "and mind 
 what you are about. Do not overlook one of my signals ; I 
 cannot speak without terrible danger for both of us, and at 
 this moment your life is of the first importance." Then she 
 added : " My mistress is in a room on the first floor. To get 
 into it we must pass through her husband's room and close to 
 his bed. Do not cough, walk softly, and follow me closely, 
 so as not to knock against the furniture or tread anywhere but 
 on the carpets I laid down," 
 
 " * Here the lover gave an impatient growl, as a man an- 
 noyed by so much delay. 
 
 " ' The woman said no more, I heard a door open, I felt 
 the warm air of the house, and we stole in like thieves. 
 Presently the girl's light hand removed the bandage. I found 
 myself in a lofty and spacious room, badly lighted by a smoky 
 lamp. The window was open, but the jealous husband had 
 fitted it with iron bars, I was in the bottom of a sack, as it 
 were, 
 
 " 'On the ground a woman was lying on a mat ; her head 
 was covered with a muslin veil, but I could see her eyes 
 through it full of tears and flashing with the brightness of 
 stars; she held a handkerchief in her mouth, biting it so hard 
 that her teeth were set in it: I never saw finer limbs, but her 
 body was writhing with pain like a harp-string thrown on the 
 fire. The poor creature had made a sort of struts of her legs 
 by setting her feet against a chest of drawers, and with both 
 hands she held on to the bar of a chair, her arms outstretched, 
 with every vein painfully swelled. She might have been a 
 criminal undergoing torture. But she did not utter aery; 
 there was not a sound but the dull cracking of her joints. 
 There we stood, all three speechless and motionless. The 
 husband snored with reassuring regularity. I wanted to study 
 the waiting-woman's face, but she had put on a mask, which 
 she had removed, no doubt, during our drive, and I could see
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 75 
 
 nothing but a pair of black eyes and a pleasingly rounded 
 figure. 
 
 " ' The lover threw some towels over his mistress' legs and 
 folded the muslin veil double over her face. As soon as I had 
 examined the lady with care, I perceived from certain symi> 
 toms which I had noted once before on a very sad occasion 
 in my life, that the infant was dead. I turned to the maid in 
 order to tell her this. Instantly the suspicious stranger drew 
 his dagger; but I had time to explain the matter to the 
 woman, who explained in a word or two to him in a low 
 voice. On hearing my opinion, a quick, slight shudder ran 
 through him from head to foot like a lightning flash ; I fancied 
 I could see him turn pale under his black velvet mask. 
 
 " 'The waiting-woman took advantage of a moment when 
 he was bending in despair over the dying woman, who had 
 turned blue, to point to some glasses of lemonade standing 
 on a table, at the same time shaking her head negatively. I 
 understood that I was not to drink anything in spite of the 
 dreadful thirst that parched my throat. The lover was thirsty 
 too ; he took an empty glass, poured out some fresh lemonade 
 and drank it off. 
 
 " 'At this moment the lady had a violent attack of pain, 
 which showed me that now was the time to operate. I sum- 
 moned all my courage, and in about an hour had succeeded 
 in delivering her of the child, cutting it up to extract it. 
 The Spaniard no longer thought of poisoning me, understand- 
 ing that I had saved the mother's life. Large tears fell on 
 his cloak. The woman uttered no sound, but she trembled 
 like a hunted animal, and was bathed in sweat. 
 
 " 'At one horribly critical moment she pointed in the direc- 
 tion of her husband's room ; he had turned in his sleep, and 
 she alone had heard the rustle of the sheets, the creaking of 
 the bed or of the curtain. Wc all paused, and the lover and 
 the waiting-woman, through the eyeholes of their masks, gave 
 each other a look that said, " If he wakes, shall we kill him ? "
 
 76 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 *' * At that instant I put out my hand to take the glass of 
 lemonade the Spaniard had drunk part of. He, thinking that 
 I was about to take one of the full glasses, sprang forward like 
 a cat, and laid his long dagger over the two poisoned goblets, 
 leaving me his own, and signing to me to drink what was 
 left. So much was conveyed by this quick action, and it was 
 so full of good feeling, that I forgave him his atrocious 
 schemes for killing me, and thus burying every trace of this 
 
 event. 
 
 " 'After two hours of care and alarms, the maid and I put 
 her mistress to bed. The lover, forced into so perilous an 
 adventure, had, to provide means in case of having to fly, a 
 packet of diamonds stuck to paper; these he put into my 
 pocket without my knowing it ; and I may add, parenthetically, 
 that as I was ignorant of the Spaniard's magnificent gift, my 
 servant stole the jewels the day after, and went off with a 
 perfect fortune. 
 
 " ' I whispered my instructions to the waiting-woman as to 
 the further care of her patient, and wanted to be gone. The 
 maid remained with her mistress, which was not very reassur- 
 ing, but I was on my guard. The lover made a bundle of the 
 dead infant and the blood-stained cloths, tying it up tightly, 
 and hiding it under his cloak ; he passed his hand over my 
 eyes as if to bid me to see nothing, and signed to me to take 
 hold of the skirt of his coat. He went first out of the room, 
 and I followed, not without a parting glance at my lady of an 
 hour. She, seeing the Spaniard had gone out, snatched off 
 her mask and showed me an exquisite face. 
 
 " ' When I found myself in the garden, in the open air, I 
 confess that I breathed as if a heavy load had been lifted from 
 my breast. I followed my guide at a respectful distance, 
 watching his least movement with keen attention. Having 
 reached the little door, he took my hand and pressed a seal to 
 my lips, set in a ring which I had seen him wearing on a finger 
 of his left hand, and I gave him to understand that this sig-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 77 
 
 nificant sign would be obeyed. In the street two horses were 
 waiting; we each mounted one. My Spaniard took my bridle, 
 held his own between his teeth, for his right hand held the 
 blood-stained bundle, and we went off at lightning speed. 
 
 " *I could not see the smallest object by which to retrace 
 the road we came. At dawn I found myself close by my 
 own door, and the Spaniard fled toward the Atocha gate.' 
 
 " 'And you saw nothing which could lead you to suspect 
 who the woman was whom you had attended ? ' the colonel 
 asked of the surgeon. 
 
 " ' One thing only,' he replied. 'When I turned the un- 
 known lady over, I happened to remark a mole on her arm, 
 about half-way down, as big as a lentil, and surrounded with 
 brown hairs.' At this instant the rash speaker turned pale. 
 All our eyes, that had been fixed on his, followed his glance, 
 and we saw a Spaniard, whose glittering eyes shone through a 
 clump of orange-trees. On finding himself the object of our 
 attention, the man vanished with the swiftness of a sylph. A 
 young captain rushed in pursuit. 
 
 " ' By heaven ! ' cried the surgeon, ' that basilisk stare has 
 chille4 me through, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in 
 my ears ! I may take leave of you ; you will bury me here ! ' 
 
 " ' What a fool you are! ' exclaimed Colonel Hulot. ' Fal- 
 con is on the track of the Spaniard who was listening, and he 
 will call him to account.' 
 
 " 'Well,' cried one and another, seeing the captain return 
 quite out of breath. 
 
 " 'The devil's in it,' said Falcon ; 'the man went through 
 a wall, I believe ! As I do not suppose that he is a wizard, I 
 fancy he must belong to the house ! He knows every corner 
 and turning, and easily escaped.' 
 
 " ' I am done for,' said tlie surgeon, in a gloomy voice. 
 "'Come, come, keep calm, Bega,' said I This name was 
 Bega), ' we will sit on watch with you till you leave. We 
 vill not leave you this evening.'
 
 78 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 ** In point of fact, three young officers who had been losing 
 at play went home with the surgeon to his lodgings, and one 
 of us offered to stay with him. 
 
 "Within two days Bega had obtained his recall to France; 
 he made arrangements to travel with a lady to whom Murat 
 had given a strong escort, and had just finished dinner with a 
 party of friends, when his servant came to say that a young 
 lady wished to speak to him. The surgeon and the three 
 officers went down suspecting mischief. The stranger could 
 
 only say : ' Be on your guard ' when she dropped down 
 
 dead. It was the waiting-woman, who, finding she had been 
 poisoned, had hoped to arrive in time to warn her lover. 
 
 " ' Devil take it ! ' cried Captain Falcon, ' that is what I 
 call love ! No woman on earth but a Spaniard can run about 
 with a dose of poison in her inside ! ' 
 
 *' Bega remained strangely pensive. To drown the dark 
 presentiments that haunted him, he sat down to table again, 
 and with his companions drank immoderately. The whole 
 party went early to bed, half-drunk. 
 
 " In the middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by 
 the sharp rattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the 
 rods. He sat up in bed, in the mechanical trepidation which 
 we all feel on waking with such a start. He saw standing 
 before him a Spaniard wrapped in a cloak, who fixed on him 
 the same burning gaze that he had seen through the bushes. 
 
 " Bega shouted out: 'Help, help, come at once, friends!' 
 But the Spaniard answered his cry of distress with a bitter 
 laugh. ' Opium grows for all ? ' said he. 
 
 " Having thus pronounced sentence as it v/ere, the stranger 
 pointed to the three other men sleeping soundly, took from 
 under his cloak the arm of a woman, freshly amputated, and 
 held it out to Bega, pointing to a mole like that he had so 
 rashly described. * Is it the same?' he asked. By the light 
 of the lantern the man had set on the bed, Bega recognized 
 the arm, and his speechless amazement was answer enough.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 79 
 
 "Without waiting for further information, the lady's hus- 
 band stabbed him to the heart." 
 
 " You must tell that to the marines ! " said Lousteau. *' It 
 needs their robust faith to swallow it ! Can you tell me which 
 told the tale, the dead man or the Spaniard?" 
 
 "Monsieur," replied the receiver-general, " I nursed poor 
 Bega, who died five days after in dreadful suffering. That is 
 not the end. 
 
 "At the time of the expedition sent out to restore Fer- 
 dinand VII. I was appointed to a place in Spain ; but happily 
 for me, I had got no farther than Tours when I was promised 
 the post of receiver here at Sancerre. On the eve of setting 
 out I was at a ball at Madame de Listomere's, where we were 
 to meet several Spaniards of high rank. On rising from the 
 card-table, I saw a Spanish grandee, an afrancesado in exile, 
 who had been about a fortnight in Touraine. He had arrived 
 very late at this ball — his first appearance in society — accom- 
 panied by his wife, whose right arm was perfectly motionless. 
 Everybody made way in silence for this couple, whom we all 
 watched with some excitement. Imagine a picture by Murillo 
 come to life. Under black and hollow brows the man's eyes 
 were like a fixed blaze ; his face looked dried up, his bald 
 skull was red, and his frame was a terror to behold, he was so 
 emaciated. His wife — no, you cannot imagine her. Her 
 figure had the supple swing for which the Spaniards created 
 the word mfngho ; though pale, she was still beautiful; her 
 complexion was dazzlingly fair — a rare thing in a Spaniard ; 
 and her gaze, full of the Spanish sun, fell on you like a stream 
 of molten lead. 
 
 " ' Madame,' said I to her, toward the end of the evening, 
 ' what occurrence led to the loss of your arm? ' 
 
 " * I lost it in the war of indepedence,' said she." 
 
 " Spain is a strange country," said Madame de la Baudraye. 
 "It still shows traces of Arab manners." 
 
 "Oh!" said the journalist, laughing "the mania for
 
 80 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 cutting off arms is an old one there. It turns up again every 
 now tlien like some of our newspaper hoaxes, for the subject 
 has given plots for plays on the Spanish stage so early as 
 the year 1570 " 
 
 " Then do you think me capable of inventing such a story?" 
 said Monsieur Gravier, nettled by Lousteau's impertinent tone. 
 
 "Quite incapable of such a thing," said the journalist with 
 grave irony, 
 
 "Pooh!" said Bianchon, "the inventions of romances 
 and play-writers are quite as often transferred from their books 
 and pieces into real life, as the events of real life are made use 
 of on the stage or adapted to a tale. I have seen the comedy 
 of ' Tartuffe ' played out — with the exception of the close ; 
 Orgon's eyes could not be opened to the truth." 
 
 "And the tragi-comedy of 'Adolphe' by Benjamin Con- 
 stant is constantly enacted," cried Lousteau. 
 
 "And do you suppose," asked Madame de La Baudraye, 
 " that such adventures as Monsieur Gravier has related could 
 ever occur now, and in France? " 
 
 " Dear me ! " cried Clagny, " of the ten or twelve startling 
 crimes that are annually com.mitted in France, quite half are 
 mixed up with circumstances at least as extraordinary as these, 
 and often outdoing them in romantic details. Indeed, is not 
 this proved by the reports in the ' Gazette des Tribunaux ' — 
 the Police News — in my opinion, one of the worst abuses of 
 the press? This newspaper, which was started only in 1826 
 or 1827, was not in existence when I began my professional 
 career, and the facts of the crime I am about to speak of were 
 not known beyond the limits of the department where it was 
 committed. 
 
 " In the quarter of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps at Tours, a woman 
 whose husband had disappeared at the time when the army of 
 the Loire was disbanded, and who had mourned him deeply, 
 was conspicuous for her excess of devotion. When the mission 
 priests went through all the provinces to restore the crosses
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 81 
 
 that had been destroyed and to efface the traces of revolu- 
 tionarv inipiety, this widow was one of their most zealous 
 proselytes, she carried a cross and nailed to it a silver heart 
 pierced by an arrow; and, for a long time after, she went 
 every evening to pray at the foot of the cross which was erected 
 behind the cathedral apse. 
 
 "At last, overwhelmed by remorse, she confessed to a hor- 
 rible crime. She had killed her husband, as Fualdes was 
 murdered, by bleeding him ; she had salted the body and 
 packed it in pieces into old casks, exactly as if it had been 
 pork ; and for a long time she had taken a piece every morn- 
 ins: and thrown it into the Loire. Her confessor consulted 
 his superiors, and told her that it would be his duty to inform 
 the public prosecutor. The woman awaited the action of the 
 law. The public prosecutor and the examining judge, on ex- 
 amining the cellar, found the husband's head still in pickle in 
 one of the casks. 'Wretched woman,' said the judge to the 
 accused, * since you were so barbarous as to throw your hus- 
 band's body piecemeal into the river, why did you not get rid 
 of the head? Then there would have been no proof.' 
 
 "'I often tried, monsieur,' said she, 'but it was too 
 heavy.' " 
 
 " Well, and what became of the woman?" asked the two 
 Parisians. 
 
 "She was sentenced and executed at Tours," replied the 
 lawyer ; " but her repentance and piety had attracted interest 
 in spite of her monstrous crime." 
 
 "And do you suppose," said Bianchon, " that we know all 
 the tragedies that are played out behind the curtain of private 
 life that the public never lifts? It seems to me that human 
 justice is ill adapted to judge of crimes as between husband 
 and wife. It has every right to intervene as the police ; but 
 in equity it knows nothing of the heart of the matter." 
 
 "The victim has in many cases been for so long the tor- 
 mentor," said Madame de La Baudraye guilelessly, " that the 
 6
 
 82 THE MLSE OF THE DEPARTMENT 
 
 crime would sometimes seem almost excusable if the accused 
 could tell all." 
 
 This reply, led up to by Bianchon and by the story which 
 Clagny had told, left the two Parisians excessively puzzled as 
 to Dinah's position. 
 
 At bedtime council was held, one of those discussions 
 which take place in the passages of old country-houses where 
 the bachelors linger, candle in hand, for mysterious conversa- 
 tions. 
 
 Monsieur Gravier was now informed of the object in view 
 during this entertaining evening which had brought Madame 
 de La Baudraye's innocence to light. 
 
 "But, after all," said Lousteau, "our hostess* serenity may 
 indicate deep depravity instead of the most childlike inno- 
 cence. The public prosecutor looks to me quite capable of 
 suggesting that little La Baudraye should be put in pickle 
 and " 
 
 " He is not to return till to-morrow; who knows what may 
 happen in the course of the night?" said Gatien. 
 
 "We will know! " cried Monsieur Gravier. 
 
 In the life of a country house a number of practical jokes 
 are considered admissible, some of them odiously treacherous. 
 Monsieur Gravier, who had seen so much of the world, pro- 
 posed setting seals on the doors of Madame de La Baudraye 
 and of the public prosecutor. The ducks that denounced the 
 poet Ibycus are as nothing in comparison with the single hair 
 that these country spies fasten across the opening of a door by 
 means of two little flattened pills of wax, fixed so high up, or 
 so low down, that the trick is never suspected. If the gallant 
 comes out of his own door and opens the other, the broken 
 hair tells the tale. 
 
 When everybody was supposed to be asleep, the doctor, the 
 journalist, the receiver of taxes, and Gatien came barefoot, 
 like robbers, and silently fastened up the two doors, agreeing 
 to come again at five in the morning to examine the state of
 
 THE MUSE OF ThE DEPARTMENT. 83 
 
 the fastenings. Imagine their astonishment and Gatien's de- 
 light when all four, candle in hand, and with hardly any 
 clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found them in 
 perfect preservation on both doors. 
 
 "Is it the same wax? " asked Monsieur Gravier. 
 
 "Are they the same hairs ? " asked Lousteau. 
 
 "Yes," replied Gatien. 
 
 "This quite alters the matter!" cried Lousteau. "You 
 have been beating the bush for a will-o'-the-wisp." 
 
 Monsieur Gravier and Gatien exchanged questioning glances 
 which were meant to convey : '•' Is there not something offen- 
 sive to us in that speech ? Ought we to laugh or to be 
 angrv ? 
 
 "If Dinah is virtuous," said the journalist in a whisper to 
 Bianchon, "she is worth an effort on my part to pluck the 
 fruit of her first love." 
 
 The idea of carrying by storm a fortress that had for nine 
 years stood out against the besiegers of Sancerre smiled on 
 Lousteau. 
 
 With this notion in his head, he was the first to go down 
 and into the garden, hoping to meet his hostess. And this 
 chance fell out all the more easily because Madame de La 
 Baudraye on her part wished to converse with her critic. 
 Half such chances are planned. 
 
 "You were out shooting yesterday, monsieur," said Ma- 
 dame de La Baudraye, "This morning I am rather puzzled 
 as to how to find you any new amusement ; unless you would 
 like to come to La Baudraye, where you may study more of 
 our provincial life than you can see here, for you have made 
 but one mouthful of my absurdities. However, the saying 
 about the handsomest girl in the world is not less true of the 
 poor provincial woman ! " 
 
 " Tiiat little simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, repeated to 
 you a speech I made simply to make him confess that he 
 adored you," said Etienne. "Your silence, during dinner
 
 84 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the day before yesterday and throughout the evening, was 
 enough to betray one of those indiscretions which we never 
 commit in Paris. What can I say ? I do not flatter myself 
 that you will understand me. In fact, I laid a plot for the 
 telling of all those stories yesterday solely to see whether I 
 could rouse you and Monsieur de Clagny to a pang of remorse. 
 Oh ! be quite easy ; your innocence is fully proved. 
 
 " If you had the slightest fancy for that estimable magis- 
 trate, you would have lost all your value in my eyes. I love 
 perfection. 
 
 "You do not, you cannot love that cold, dried-up, taciturn 
 little usurer on wine-casks and land, who would leave any man 
 in the lurch for twenty-five centimes on a renewal. Oh, I 
 have fully recognized Monsieur de La Baudraye's similarity 
 to a Parisian bill-discounter; their nature is identical. At 
 eight-and-twenty, handsome, well conducted, and childless — I 
 assure you, madame, I never saw the problem of virtue more 
 .'admirably expressed. The author of ' Paquita la Sevillane ' 
 must have dreamed many dreams ! 
 
 " I can speak of such things without the hypocritical gloss 
 lent them by young men, for I am old before my time. I 
 have no illusions left. Can a man have any illusions in the 
 trade I follow?" 
 
 By opening the game in this tone, Lousteau cut out all ex- 
 cursions in the Pays de Tendre (country of sentiment), where 
 genuine passion beats the bush so long ; he went straight to 
 the point and placed himself in a position to force the offer 
 of what women often make a man pray for, for years ; witness 
 the hapless public prosecutor, to whom the greatest favor had 
 consisted in clasping Dinah's hand to his heart more tenderly 
 than usual as they walked, happy man ! 
 
 And Madame de La Baudraye, to be true to her reputation 
 as a Superior Woman, tried to console the Manfred of the 
 press by prophesying such a future of love as he had not had 
 in his mind.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 85 
 
 "You have sought pleasure," said she "but you have 
 never loved. Believe me, true love often comes late in life. 
 Remember Monsieur de Gentz, who fell in love in his old age 
 with P'anny Ellsler, and left the Revolution of July to take 
 its course while he made a practice of attending the dancer's 
 rehearsals." 
 
 "It seems to me unlikely," replied Loustcau. "I can 
 still believe in love, but I have ceased to believe in woman. 
 There are in me, I suppose, certain defects which hinder me 
 from being loved, for I have often been thrown over. Per- 
 haps I have too strong a feeling for the ideal — like all men 
 who have looked too closely into reality " 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye at last heard the mind of a man 
 who, flung into the wittiest Parisian circles, represented to her 
 its most daring axioms, its almost artless depravity, its ad- 
 vanced convictions; who, if he were not really superior, acted 
 superiority extremely well. Etienne, performing before Dinah, 
 had all the success of a first night. Paquita of Sancerre 
 scented the storms, the atmosphere of Paris. She spent one 
 of the most delightful days of her life with Lousteau and 
 Bianchon, who told her strange tales about the great men of 
 the day, the anecdotes which will some day form the ana of 
 our century; sayings and doings that were the common talk 
 of Paris, but quite new to her. 
 
 Of course, Lousteau spoke very ill of the great female celeb- 
 rity of Le Berry, with the obvious intention of flattering 
 , Madame de La Baudraye and leading her into literary confi- 
 dences, by suggesting that she could rival so great a writer. 
 This praise intoxicated Madame de La Baudraye ; and Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny, Monsieur Gravier, and Gatien, all thought 
 her warmer in her manner to Etienne than she had been on 
 the previous day. Dinah's three attaches greatly regretted 
 having all gone to Sancerre to blow the trumpet in honor of 
 the evening at Anzy ; nothing, to hear them, had ever been so 
 brilliant. The hours had fled on feet so light that none
 
 86 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 had marked their pace. The two Parisians they spoke of as 
 perfect prodigies. 
 
 These exaggerated reports loudly proclaimed on the mall 
 brought sixteen persons to Anzy that evening, some in family 
 coaches, some in waggonettes, and a few bachelors on hired 
 ; saddle horses. By aboUt seven o'clock this provincial com- 
 ' pany had made a more or less graceful entry into the huge 
 Anzy drawing-room, which Dinah, warned of the invasion, 
 had lighted up, giving it all the lustre it was capable of by 
 taking the holland covers off the handsome furniture, for she 
 regarded this assembly as one of her great triumphs. Lous- 
 teau, Bianchon, and Dinah exchanged meaning looks as they 
 studied the attitudes and listened to the speeches of these 
 visitors, attracted by curiosity. 
 
 What invalided ribbons, what ancestral laces, what ancient 
 flowers, more imaginative than imitative, were boldly dis- 
 played on some perennial caps ! The Presidente Boirouge, 
 Bianchon's cousin, exchanged a few words with the doctor, 
 from whom she extracted some " advice gratis " by expatiating 
 on certain pains in the chest, which she declared were nervous, 
 but which he ascribed to chronic indigestion. 
 
 " Simply drink a cup of tea every day an hour after dinner, 
 as the English do, and you will get over it, for what you suffer 
 from is an English malady," Bianchon replied very gravely. 
 
 "He is certainly a great physician," said the presidente, 
 coming back to Mesdames de Clagny, Popinot-Chandier, and 
 Gorju, the mayor's wife. 
 
 "They say," replied Madame de Clagny behind her fan, 
 "that Dinah sent for him, not so much with a view to the 
 elections as to ascertain why she has no children." 
 
 In the first excitement of this success, Lousteau introduced 
 the great doctor as the only possible candidate at the ensuing 
 elections. But Bianchon, to the great satisfaction of the new 
 sub-prefect, remarked that it seemed to him almost impossible 
 to give up science in favor of politics.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 87 
 
 "Only a physician without a practice," said he, "could 
 care to be returned as a deputy. Nominate statesmen, thinkers, 
 men whose knowledge is universal, and who are capable of 
 placing themselves on the high level which a legislator should 
 occupy. That is what is lacking in our Chambers, and what 
 our country needs." 
 
 Two or three young ladies, some of the younger men, and 
 the elder women stared at Lousteau as if he were a mounte- 
 bank. 
 
 "Monsieur Gatien Boirouge declares that Monsieur Lous- 
 teau makes twenty thousand francs a year by his writings," 
 observed the mayor's wife to Madame de Clagny. " Can you 
 believe it? " 
 
 " Is it possible ? Why, a public prosecutor gets but a thou- 
 sand crowns ! " 
 
 "Monsieur Gatien," said Madame Chandler, "get Mon- 
 sieur Lousteau to talk a little louder. I have not heard him 
 yet." 
 
 " What pretty shoes he wears," said Mademoiselle Chan- 
 dler to her brother, "and how they shine ! " 
 
 "Yes — patent leather." 
 
 " Why haven't you the same?" 
 
 Lousteau began to feel that he was too much on show, and 
 saw in the manners of the good townsfolk indications of the 
 desires that had brought them there. 
 
 "What trick can I play them?" thought he. 
 
 At this moment the footman, so-called — a farm-servant put 
 into livery — brought in the letters and papers, and among 
 them a packet of proof, which the journalist left for Bianchon ; 
 for Madame de La Baudraye, on seeing the parcel, of which 
 the form and string were obviously from the printers, ex- 
 claimed — 
 
 "What, does literature pursue you even here?" 
 
 " Not literature," replied he, " but a review in which I am 
 now finishing a story to come out ten days hence. I have
 
 88 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 reached the stage of ' To be concluded in our fiexi,^ so I was 
 obliged to give my address to the printer. Oh, we eat very 
 hard-earned bread at the hands of these speculators in black 
 and white ! I will give you a description of these editors of 
 magazines." 
 
 " When will the conversation begin ? " Madame de Clagny 
 asked of Dinah, as one might ask : " When do the fireworks 
 gooff." 
 
 "I fancied we should hear some amusing stories," said 
 Madame Popinot to her cousin, the Presidente Boirouge. 
 
 At this moment, when the good folk of Sancerre were be- 
 ginning to murmur like an impatient parquet, Lousteau ob- 
 served that Bianchon was lost in a meditation inspired by the 
 wrapper round the proofs. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Etienne. 
 
 " Why, here is the most fascinating romance possible on 
 some spoilt proof used to wrap yours in. Here, read it, 
 ' Olympia or Roman Revenge.' " 
 
 "Let us see," said Lousteau, taking the sheet the doctor 
 held out to him, and he read aloud as follows : 
 
 240 OLYMPIA 
 
 cavern. Rinaldo, indignant at his 
 companions' cowardice, for they had 
 no courage but in the open field, and 
 dared not venture into Rome, looked 
 at them with scorn. 
 
 " Then I go alone? " said he. He 
 seemed to reflect, and then he went 
 on : " You are poor wretches. I shall 
 proceed alone, and have the rich 
 booty to myself. You hear me ! 
 Farewell." 
 
 "My captain," said Lamberti, "if 
 you should be captured without 
 having succeeded ? "
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 89 
 
 " God protects me ! " said Rinaldo, 
 pointing to the sky. 
 
 With these words he went out, and on 
 his way he met the steward Bracciano 
 
 "That is the end of the page," said Lousteau, to whom 
 every one had listened devoutly. 
 
 *' He is reading his work to us," said Gatien to Madame 
 Popinot-Chandier's son. 
 
 *' From the first word, ladies," said the journalist, jumping 
 at an opportunity of mystifying the natives, " it is evident 
 that the brigands are in a cave. But how careless romancers 
 of that date were as to details which are nowadays so closely, 
 so elaborately studied under the name of ' local color.' If the 
 robbers were in a cavern, instead of pointing to the sky he 
 ought to have pointed to the vault above him. In spite of 
 this inaccuracy, Rinaldo strikes me as a man of spirit, and his 
 appeal to God is quite Italian. There must have been a 
 touch of local color in this romance. Why, what with brigands, 
 and a cavern, and one Lamberti who could foresee future pos- 
 sibilities — there is a whole melodrama in that page. Add to 
 these elements a little intrigue, a peasant maiden with her 
 hair dressed high, short skirts, and a hundred or so of bad 
 couplets. Oh ! the public would crowd to see it ! And then 
 Rinaldo — how well the name suits Lafont ! By giving him 
 black whiskers, tightly-fitfing trousers, a cloak, a mustache, a 
 pistol, and a peaked hat — if the manager of the Vaudeville 
 Theatre were but bold enough to pay for a few newspaper 
 articles, that would secure fifty performances, and six thousand 
 francs for the author's rights, if only I were to cry it up in 
 my columns. 
 
 " To proceed : 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 219 
 
 The Duchess of Bracciano found 
 her glove. Adolphe, who had brought 
 her back to the orange grove, might 
 
 h
 
 90 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 certainly have supposed that there was 
 some purpose in her forgetfulness, for 
 at this moment the arbor was de- 
 serted. The sound of the festivities 
 was audible in the distance. The 
 puppet-show that had been promised 
 had attracted all the guests to the 
 ballroom. Never had Olympia looked 
 more beautiful. Her lover's eyes met 
 hers with an answering glow, and they 
 understood each other. There was a 
 moment of silence, delicious to their 
 souls, and impossible to describe. 
 They sat down on the same bench 
 where they had sat in the presence of 
 the Cavaliere Paluzzi and the laughing 
 
 " Devil take it ! Our Rinaldo has vanished T •" cried Lous- 
 teau. " But a literary man once started by this page would 
 make rapid progress in the comprehension of the plot. The 
 Duchess Olympia is a lady who could intentionally forget her 
 gloves in a deserted arbor." 
 
 " Unless she may be classed between the oyster and head- 
 clerk of an office, the two creatures nearest to marble in 
 the zoological kingdom, it is impossible not to discern in 
 Olympia " Bianchon began. 
 
 "A woman of thirty," Madame de La Baudraye hastily in- 
 posed, fearing some all too medical term, 
 
 " Then Adolphe must be two-and-twenty," the doctor went 
 on, " for an Italian woman at thirty is equivalent to a Parisian 
 of forty." 
 
 "From these two facts, the romance may easily be recon- 
 structed," said Lousteau. "And this Cavaliere Paluzzi — what 
 a man ! The style is weak in these two passages ; the author 
 was perhaps a clerk in the excise office, and wrote the novel 
 to pay his tailor." 
 
 "In his time," said Bianchon, " the censor flourished ; you
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 91 
 
 must show as much indulgence to a man who underwent the 
 ordeal by scissors in 1805 as to those who went to the scaffold 
 in 1793." 
 
 "Do you understand in the least?" asked Madame Gorju 
 timidly of Madame de Clagny. 
 
 The public prosecutor's wife, who, to use a phrase of Mon- 
 sieur Gravier's, might have put a Cossack to flight in 1814, 
 straightened herself in her chair like a horseman in his stir- 
 rups, and made a face at her neighbor, conveying : " They are 
 looking at us ; we must smile as if we understood." 
 
 "Charming!" said the mayoress to Gatien. "Pray go 
 on, Monsieur Lousteau." 
 
 Lousteau looked at the two women, two Indian idols, and 
 contrived to keep his countenance. He thought it desirable 
 to say "Attention ! " before going on as follows: 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 209 
 
 dress rustled in the silence. Suddenly 
 Cardinal Borborigano stood before the 
 duchess. 
 
 His face was gloomy, his brow 
 was dark with clouds, and a bitter 
 smile lurked in his wrinkles. 
 
 " Madame," said he, " you are under 
 suspicion. If you are guilty, fly. If 
 you are not, still fly ; because, whether 
 criminal or innocent, you will find 
 it easier to defend yourself from a dis- 
 tance." 
 
 " I thank your eminence for your 
 solicitude," said she. "The Duke of 
 Bracciano will reappear when I find it 
 needful to prove that he is alive." 
 
 " Cardinal Borborigano ! " exclaimed Bianchon, " By the 
 pope's keys ! If you do not agree with me that there is a mag- 
 nificent creation in the very name, if at those words ' dress
 
 92 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 rustled in the silence ' you do not feel all the poetry thrown 
 into the part of Schedoni by Mrs. Radcliffe in ' The Black 
 Penitent,' you do not deserve to read a romance." 
 
 " For my part," said Dinah, who had some pity on the eigh- 
 teen faces gazing up at Lousteau, " I see how the story is pro- 
 gressing. I know it all. I am in Rome ; I can see the body 
 of a murdered husband whose wife, as bold as she is wicked, has 
 made her bed on the crater of a volcano. Every night, at 
 every kiss, she says to herself: 'AH will be discovered ! ' " 
 
 "Can you see her," said Lousteau, "clasping Monsieur 
 Adolphe in her arms, to her heart, throwing her whole life 
 into a kiss ? Adolphe I see as a well-made young man, but 
 not clever — the sort of man an Italian woman likes. Rinaldo 
 hovers behind the scenes of a plot we do not know, but which 
 must be as full of incident as a melodrama by Pixerecourt. 
 Or we can imagine Rinaldo crossing the stage in the back- 
 ground like a figure in one of Victor Hugo's plays." 
 
 "He, perhaps, is the husband," exclaimed Madame de La 
 Baudraye. 
 
 " Do you understand anything of it all ? " Madame Piedefer 
 asked of the presidents 
 
 " Why, it is charming," said Dinah to her mother. 
 
 All the good folk of Sancerre sat with eyes as large as five- 
 franc pieces. 
 
 " Go on, I beg," said the hostess. 
 
 Lousteau went on : 
 
 216 OLYMPIA 
 " Your key " 
 
 " Have you lost it ? " 
 
 " It is in the arbor." 
 
 " Let us hasten." 
 
 " Can the cardinal have taken it? " 
 
 "No, here it is." 
 
 " What danger we have escaped ! " 
 
 Olympia looked at the key, and
 
 THE MUSE CF THE DEPARTMENT. 93 
 
 fancied she recognized it as her own. 
 But Rinaldo had changed it ; his 
 cunning had triumphed; he had the 
 right key. Like a modern Cartouche, 
 he was no less skillful than bold, 
 and suspecting that nothing but a 
 vast treasure could require a duchess 
 to carry it constantly at her belt. 
 
 "Guess!" cried Lousteau. "The corresponding page is 
 not here. We must look to page 212 to relieve our anxiety." 
 
 212 OLYMPIA 
 
 " If the key had been lost ? " 
 
 " He would now be a dead man." 
 
 " Dead ? But ought you not to 
 grant the last request he made, and 
 to give him his liberty on the con- 
 ditions " 
 
 " You do not know him." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Silence ! I took you for my lover, 
 not for my confessor." 
 
 Adolphe was silent. 
 
 "And then comes an exquisite galloping goat, a tail-piece 
 drawn by Normand, and cut by Duplat. The names are 
 signed," said Lousteau. 
 
 "Well, and then?" said such of the audience as under- 
 stood. 
 
 "That is the end of the chapter," said Lousteau. "The 
 fact of this tail-piece changes my views as to the authorship. 
 To have his book gotten up, under the Empire, with vignettes 
 engraved on wood, the writer must have been a councilor of 
 State, or Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, or the late lamented 
 Desforges, or Sewrin." 
 
 "'Adolphe was silent.' Ah!" cried Bianchon, "the 
 duchess must have been under thirty."
 
 94 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 " If there is no more, invent a conclusion," said Madame 
 de La Baudraye. 
 
 "You see," said Lousteau, "the waste-sheet has been 
 printed fair on one side only. In printer's lingo, it is a back 
 sheet, or, to make it clearer, the other side which would have 
 to be printed is covered all over with pages printed one above 
 another, all experiments in making up. It would take too 
 long to explain to you all the complications of a making-up 
 sheet ; but you may understand that it will show no more trace 
 of the first twelve pages that were printed on it than you would 
 in the least remember the first stroke of the bastinado if a 
 pasha had condemned you to have fifty on the soles of your 
 feet." 
 
 "I am quite bewildered," said Madame Popinot-Chandier 
 to Monsieur Gravier. " I am vainly trying to connect the 
 councilor of state, the cardinal, the key, and the making- 
 up " 
 
 "You have not the key to the jest," said Monsieur Gra- 
 vier. "Well ! no more have I, fair lady, if that can comfort 
 you." 
 
 "But here is another sheet," said Bianchon, hunting on 
 the table where the proofs had been laid. 
 
 " Capital ! " said Lousteau, "and it is complete and unin- 
 jured ! It is signed * IV ; J, Second Edition.' Ladies, the 
 figure IV means that this is part of the fourth volume. The 
 letter J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, shows that this is the 
 tenth sheet. And it is perfectly clear to me that, in spite of 
 any publisher's tricks, this romance, in four duodecimo 
 volumes, had a great success, since it came to a second edi- 
 tion. We will read on and find a clue to the mystery." 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 217 
 
 corridor; but now finding that he 
 was pursued by the duchess' people
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 95 
 
 "Oh, get along ! 
 
 "But," said Madame de La Baudraye, " some important 
 events have taken place between your waste sheet and this 
 page." 
 
 "This complete sheet, madame, this precious make-up 
 sheet. But does the waste sheet in which the duchess forgets 
 her gloves in the arbor belong to the fourth volume ? Well, 
 deuce take it — to proceed : 
 
 Rinaldo saw no safer refuge than to 
 make forthwith for the cellar where 
 the treasures of the Bracciano fartiily 
 no doubt lay hid. As light of foot 
 as Camilla sung by the Latin poet, 
 he flew to the entrance to the Baths 
 of Vespasian. The torchlight al- 
 ready flickered on the walls when 
 Rinaldo, with the readiness bestowed 
 on him by nature, discovered the 
 door concealed in the stone work, 
 and suddenly vanished. A hideous 
 thought then flashed on Rinaldo's 
 brain, like lightning rending a cloud : 
 He was imprisoned ! He felt the 
 
 " Yes, this make-up sheet follows the waste sheet. The last 
 page of the damaged sheet was 212, and this is 217. In fact, 
 since Rinaldo, who in the earlier fragment stole the key of the 
 duchess' treasure by exchanging it for another very much like 
 it, is now — on the make-up sheet — in the palace of the Dukes of 
 Bracciano, the story seems to me to be advancing to a conclu- 
 sion of some kind. I hope it is as clear to you as it be- 
 comes to me. I understand that the festivities are over, the 
 lovers have returned to the Bracciano Palace ; it is night — one 
 o'clock in the morning. Rinaldo will have a good time." 
 
 "And Adolphe, too!" said President Boirouge, who was 
 considered rather free in his speech.
 
 96 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "And the style!" said Bianchon. " Rinaldo, who saw 
 no better refuge than to make for the cellar." 
 
 "It is quite clear that neither Maradan, nor Treuttel and 
 Wurtz, nor Doguereau were the printers," said Lousteau, " for 
 they employed proof-readers, a luxury in which our publishers 
 might very well indulge, and the writers of the present day 
 would benefit greatly. Some scrubby pamphlet-printer on 
 
 the quay " 
 
 "What quay?" a lady asked of her neighbor. "They 
 
 spoke of baths " 
 
 • " Pray go on,"^aid Madame de La Baudraye. 
 "At any rate, it is not by a councilor," said Bianchon. 
 "It may be by Madame Hadot," replied Lousteau. 
 " What has Madame Hadot of La Charite to do with it?" 
 Mme. the Presidente asked of her son. 
 
 "This Madame Hadot, my dear friend," the hostess an- 
 swered, " was an authoress, who lived at the time of the Con- 
 sulate." 
 
 "What, did women write in the Emperor's time?" asked 
 Madame Popinot-Chandier. 
 
 " What of Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael ? " cried 
 the public prosecutor, piqued on Dinah's account by this re- 
 mark. 
 
 "To be sure!" 
 
 "I beg you to go on," said Madame de La Baudraye to 
 
 Lousteau. 
 
 Lousteau went on, saying : " Page 218. 
 
 218 OLYMPIA 
 
 wall with uneasy haste, and gave a 
 shriek of despair when he had vainly 
 sought any trace of a secret spring. It 
 was impossible to ignore the horrible 
 truth. The door, cleverly constructed 
 to serve the vengeful purposes of the 
 duchess, could not be opened from
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 97 
 
 within. Rinaldo laid his cheek against 
 the wall in various spots; nowhere 
 could he feel the warmer air from the 
 passage. He had hoped he might 
 find a crack that would show him 
 where there was an opening in the 
 wall, but nothing, nothing ! The 
 whole seemed to be of one block of 
 marble. 
 
 Then he gave a hollow roar like 
 that of a hyaena 
 
 " Well, we fancied that the cry of the hyaena was a recent 
 invention of our own ! " said Lousteau, ''and it was already 
 known to the literature of the Empire. It is even introduced 
 with a certain skill in natural history, as we see in the word 
 'hollow.'" 
 
 " Make no more comments, monsieur," said Madame de La 
 Baudraye. 
 
 "There, you see!" cried Bianchon. "Interest, the ro- 
 mantic demon, has you by the collar, as he had me a while 
 ago." 
 
 "Read on," cried de Clagny, "I understand." 
 
 " What a coxcomb ! " said the presiding judge in a whisper 
 to his neighbor, the sub-prefect. 
 
 " He wants to please Madame de La Baudraye," replied the 
 new sub-prefect. 
 
 "Well, then, I will read straight on," said Lousteau 
 solemnly. 
 
 Everybody listened in dead silence. 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 2I9 
 
 A deep groan answered Rinaldo's 
 cry, but in his alarm he took it for an 
 echo, so weak and hollow was the 
 sound. It could not proceed from any 
 human breast.
 
 98 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMEN'J, 
 
 " Santa Maria ! " said the voice. 
 
 " If I stir from this spot I shall never 
 find it again," thought Rinaldo, when 
 he had recovered his usual presence 
 of mind. " If I knock, I shall be 
 discovered. What am I to do ? " 
 
 " Who is here?" asked the voice. 
 
 " Halloo ! " cried the brigand ; " do 
 the toads here talk?" 
 
 "I am the Duke of Bracciano. 
 
 220 OLYMPIA 
 
 Whoever you may be, if you are not a 
 follower of the duchess', in the name of 
 all the saints, come toward me." 
 
 " I should have to know where to find 
 you. Monsieur le Due," said Rinaldo, 
 with the insolence of a man who knows 
 himself to be necessary. 
 
 " I can see you, my friend, for my 
 eyes are accustomed to the darkness. 
 Listen : walk straightforward — good ; 
 now turn to the left — come on — this 
 way. There, we are close to each 
 other." 
 
 Rinaldo, putting out his hands as a 
 precaution, touched some iron bars. 
 
 " I am being deceived," cried the 
 bandit. 
 
 " No, you are touching my cage. 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 221 
 
 Sit down on a broken shaft of por- 
 phyry that is there." 
 
 " How can the Duke of Bracciano 
 be in a cage ? " asked the brigand. 
 
 " My friend, I have been here for 
 thirty months, standing up, unable to
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 99 
 
 sit down But you, who are 
 
 you ? " 
 
 " I am Rinaldo, prince of the Cam- 
 pagna, the chief of four-and-twenty 
 brave men whom the law describes as 
 miscreants, whom all the ladies ad- 
 mire, and whom judges hang in obe- 
 dience to an old habit." 
 
 " God be praised ! I am saved. 
 An honest man would have been 
 afraid, whereas I am sure of coming 
 
 222 OLYMPIA 
 
 to an understanding with you," criea 
 the duke. " Oh, my worthy deliverer, 
 you must be armed to the teeth." 
 "E verissimo " (most true). 
 
 " Do you happen to have " 
 
 " Yes ; files, pincers — Corpo di 
 Bacco ! (body of Bacchus). I came 
 to borrow the treasures of the Brac- 
 ciani on a long loan." 
 
 " You will earn a handsome share 
 of them very legitimately, my good 
 Rinaldo, and we may possibly go 
 
 man-hunting together " 
 
 " You surprise me, eccellenza ! " 
 " Listen to me, Rinaldo. I will 
 say nothing of the craving for ven- 
 geance that gnaws at my heart. I 
 have been here for thirty months 
 — you, too, are Italian — you will 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 223 
 
 understand me ! Alas, my friend, 
 my fatigue and my horrible incarcera- 
 tion are as nothing in comparison with 
 the rage that devours my soul. The
 
 100 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Duchess of Bracciano is still one of 
 the most beautiful women in Rome. 
 I loved her well enough to be jea' 
 ous " 
 
 " You, her husband ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was wrong, no doubt." 
 
 " It is not the correct thing, to be 
 sure," said Rinaldo. 
 
 " My jealousy was roused by the 
 duchess' conduct," the duke went 
 on. " The event proved me right. 
 A young Frenchman fell in love with 
 Olympia, and she loved him. I 
 had proofs of their reciprocal affection 
 
 ''Pray excuse me, ladies," said Lousteau, "but I find it 
 impossible to go on without remarking to you how direct 
 this Empire literature is, going to the point without any de- 
 tails, a characteristic, as it seems to me, of a primitive time. 
 The literature of that period holds a place between the sum- 
 maries of chapters in ' Telemaque ' and the categorical reports 
 of a public office. It had ideas, but refrained from express- 
 ing them, it was so scornful ! It was observant, but would 
 not communicate its observations to any one, it was so 
 miserly ! Nobody but Fouche ever mentioned what he had 
 observed. 'At that time,' to quote the words of one of the 
 most imbecile critics in the 'Revue des DeuxMondes,' 'lit- 
 erature was content with a clear sketch and the simple outline 
 of all antique statues. It did not dance over its periods.' 
 I should think not ! It had no periods to dance over. It 
 had no words to make play with. You were plainly told that 
 Lubin loved Toinette ; that Toinette did not love Lubin ; 
 that Lubin killed Toinette and the police caught Lubin, who 
 was put in prison, tried at the assizes, and guillotined. A 
 strong sketch, a clear outline ! What a noble drama ! Well, 
 in these days the barbarians make words sparkle." 
 "Like hair in a frost," said Monsieur de Clagny.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 101 
 
 " So those are the airs you affect ; "* retorted Lousteau. 
 
 "What can he mean? " asked Madame de Clagny, puzzled 
 by this vile pun. 
 
 " I seem to be walking in the dark," replied the mayoress. 
 
 "The jest would be lost in an explanation," remarked 
 Gaticn. 
 
 "Nowadays," Lousteau went on, "a novelist draws char- 
 acters, and, instead of a 'simple outline,' he unveils the 
 human heart and gives you some interest either in Lubin or 
 in Toinette." 
 
 "For my part, I am alarmed at the progress of public 
 knowledge in the matter of literature," said Bianchon. 
 "Like the Russians, beaten by Charles XII., who at last 
 learned the art of war, the reader has learned the art of writ- 
 ing. Formerly all that was expected of a romance was that 
 it should be interesting. As to style, no one cared for that, 
 not even the author ; as to ideas — zero ; as to local color — 
 noil est. By degrees the reader has demanded style, interest, 
 pathos, and complete information ; he insists on the five 
 literary senses — Invention, Style, Thought, Learning, and 
 Feeling. Then came criticism commenting on everything. 
 The critic, incapable of inventing anything but calumny, pro- 
 nounces every work that proceeds from a not perfect brain to 
 be deformed. Some magicians, as Walter Scott, for instance, 
 having appeared in the world, who combined all the five liter- 
 ary senses, such writers as had but one — wit or learning, style 
 or feeling — these cripples, these acephalous, maimed, or pur- 
 blind creatures — in a literary sense — have taken to shrieking 
 
 *The rendering given above is only intended to link the various 
 speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with the French. In the 
 original, " Font chatoyer les mots." 
 
 " Et quelquefois les maris," dit Monsieur de Clagny. 
 
 "Ah! Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-li" (airs-li). 
 
 Literally: "Make words brilliant." "And sometimes the dead." "Ah, 
 are those the airs you assume ? "—the play on the insertion of the letter 1< 
 {jiiuts, inorts) has no meaning in English.
 
 102 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 that all is lost, and have preached a crusade against men who 
 were spoiling the business, or have denounced their works." 
 
 "The history of your last literary quarrel!" Dinah ob- 
 served. 
 
 "For pity's sake, come back to the Duke of Bracciano," 
 cried Monsieur de Clagny. 
 
 To the despair of all the company, Lousteau went on with 
 the make-up sheet, 
 
 224 OLYMPIA 
 
 I then wished to make sure of my 
 misfortune that I might be avenged 
 under the protection of Providence 
 and the Law. The duchess guessed 
 my intentions. We were at war in 
 our purposes before we fought with 
 poison in our hands. We tried to 
 tempt each other to such confidence 
 as we could not feel, I to induce her 
 to drink a potion, she to get posses- 
 sion of me. She was a woman, and 
 she won the day ; for women have a 
 snare more than we men. I fell into 
 it — I was happy ; but I awoke next 
 day in this iron cage. All through the 
 day I bellowed with rage in the dark- 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 22$ 
 
 ness of this cellar, over which is the 
 duchess' bedroom. At night an in- 
 genious counterpoise acting as a lift 
 raised me through the floor, and I saw 
 the duchess in her lover's arms. She 
 threw me a piece of bread, my daily 
 pittance. 
 
 " Thus have I lived for thirty 
 months ! From this marble prison 
 my cries can reach no ear. There is
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 103 
 
 no chance for me. I will hope no 
 more. Indeed, the duchess' room is 
 at the farthest end of the palace, and 
 when I am carried up there none can 
 hear my voice. Each time I see my 
 wife she shows me the poison I had 
 
 226 OLYMPIA 
 
 prepared for her and her lover. I 
 crave it for myself, but she will not let 
 me die ; she gives me bread, and 1 eat 
 it. 
 
 " I have done well to eat and live ; 
 I had not reckoned on robbers ! " 
 
 " Yes, eccellenza, when those fools 
 the honest men arc asleep, we are wide 
 awake." 
 
 " Oh, Rinaldo, all I possess shall be 
 yours ; wc will share my treasure like 
 brothers; I would give you every- 
 thing — even to my duchy " 
 
 " Eccellenza, procure from the pope 
 an absolution w articulo mortis (at 
 the point of death). It would be of 
 more use to me in my walk of life." 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 227 
 
 " What you will. Only file through 
 the bars of my cage, and lend me your 
 dagger. Wc have but little time — 
 quick, quick ! Oh, if my teeth were 
 but files ! I have tried to eat through 
 this iron." 
 
 " Eccellenza," said Rinaldo, " I 
 have already filed through one bar." 
 
 "You are a god ! " 
 
 " Your wife was at the ffite given 
 by the Princess Villaviciosa. She 
 brought home her litlle Frenchman;
 
 104 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 she is drunk with love. You have 
 plenty of time." 
 
 •' Have you done ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 228 OLYMPIA 
 
 "Your dagger?" said the duke 
 eagerly to the brigand." 
 
 " Here it is." 
 
 " Good. I hear the clatter of the 
 spring." 
 
 " Do not forget me ! " cried the 
 robber, who knew what gratitude 
 was. 
 
 "No more than my father," cried 
 the duke. 
 
 " Farewell," said Rinaldo. " Lord ! 
 How he flies up! " he added to him- 
 self as the duke disappeared. " No 
 more than his father ! If that is all 
 he means to do for me. And I had 
 sworn a vow never to injure a 
 woman ! " 
 
 But let us leave the robber for a 
 
 OR ROMAN REVENGE 229 
 
 moment to his meditations and go 
 up, like the duke, to the rooms in the 
 palace. 
 
 "Another tail-piece, a Cupid on a snail. And page 230 is 
 
 blank," said the journalist. "Then there are two more 
 
 blank pages before we come to the word it is such joy to 
 
 write when one is unhappily so happy as to be a novelist — 
 
 * Conclusion ! ' " 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Never had the duchess been more 
 lovely ; she came from her bath 
 clothed like a goddess, and on seeing
 
 THE MUSE OF TtJE DEPARTMENT. 105 
 
 234 OLYMPIA 
 
 Adolphe voluptuously reclining on 
 piles of cushions — 
 
 "You are beautilul," said she. 
 
 "And so are you, Olympia ! " 
 
 "And you still love me ? " 
 " More and more," said he. 
 
 "Ah, none but a frenchman knows 
 how to love ! " cried the duchess. " Do 
 you love me well to-night?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then come ! " 
 
 And with an impulse of love and 
 hate — whether it was that Cardinal 
 Borborigano had reminded her of her 
 husband, or that she felt unwonted 
 passion to display, she pressed the 
 springs and held out her arms. 
 
 " That is all," said Lousteau, " for the foreman has torn off 
 the rest in wrapping up my proofs. But it is enough to show 
 that the author was full of promise." 
 
 "I cannot make head or tail of it," said Gatien Boirouge, 
 who was the first to break the silence of the party from San- 
 cerre. 
 
 " Nor I," replied Monsieur Gravier. 
 
 "And yet it is a novel of the time of the Empire," said 
 I.ousteau. 
 
 " By the way in which the brigand is made to speak," said 
 Monsieur Gravier, " it is evident that the author knew nothing 
 of Italy. Banditti do not allow themselves such graceful con- 
 ceits." 
 
 Madame Gorju came up to Bianchon, seeing him pensive, 
 and with a glance toward her daughter, Mademoiselle Euph- 
 6mie Gorju, the owner of a fairly good fortune — " What a 
 rhodomontade ! " said she. "The prescriptions you write 
 are worth more than all that rubbish."
 
 106 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The mayoress had elaborately worked up this speech, which, 
 in her opinion, showed strong judgment. 
 
 " Well, madame, we must be lenient, we have but twenty 
 pages out of a thousand," said Bianchon, looking at Made- 
 moiselle Gorju, whose figure threatened terrible things after 
 the birth of her first child. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur de Clagny," said Lousteau, "we were 
 talking yesterday of the forms of revenge invented by hus- 
 bands. What do you say to those invented by wives ? " 
 
 " I say," replied the public prosecutor, " that the romance 
 is not by a councilor of State, but by a woman. For extrav- 
 agant inventions the imagination of women far outdoes that 
 of men ; witness * Frankenstein ' by Mrs. Shelley, ' Leone 
 Lconi ' by George Sand, the works of Anne Radcliffe, and 
 the ' Nouveau Promethee ' (New Prometheus) of Camille de 
 Maupin." 
 
 Dinah looked steadily at Monsieur de Clagny, making him 
 feel, by an expression that gave him a chill, that, in spite of 
 the illustrious examples he had quoted, she regarded this as a 
 reflection on Paquita la Sevillane. 
 
 Pooh! " said little La Baudraye, "the Duke of Bracciano, 
 .whom his wife puts into a cage, and to whom she shows her- 
 self every night in the arms of her lover, will kill her — and 
 do you call that revenge ? Our laws and our society are far 
 more cruel." 
 
 " How so ? " asked Lousteau. 
 
 "Why, little La Baudraye is talking!" said Monsieur 
 Boirouge to his wife. 
 
 "Why, the woman is left to live on a small allowance, the 
 world turns its back on her, she has no more finery, and no 
 respect paid her — the two things which, in my opinion, are 
 the sum-total of woman," said the suddenly revived little old 
 man. 
 
 "But she has happiness!" said Madame de La Baudraye 
 sententiously.
 
 o 
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 107 
 
 *'No," said the master of the house, lighting his candle to 
 go to bed, " for she has a lover ! " 
 
 "For a man who thinks of nothing but his vine-stocks and 
 poles, he has some spunk ! " said Lousteau. 
 
 "Well, he must have something ! " replied Bianchon. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye, the only person who could hear 
 Bianchon's remark, laughed so knowingly, and at the same 
 time so bitterly, that the physician could guess the mystery of 
 this woman's life; her premature wrinkles had been puzzling 
 him all day. 
 
 But Dinah did not guess, on her part, the ominous prophecy 
 contained for her in her husband's little speech, which her 
 kind old Abbe Buret, if he had been alive, would not have 
 failed to elucidate. Little La Baudraye had detected in 
 Dinah's eyes, when she glanced at the journalist returning the 
 ball of his jests, that swift and luminous flash of tenderness 
 which gilds the gleam of a woman's eye when prudence is 
 cast to the winds, and she is fairly carried away. Dinah paid 
 no more heed to her husband's hint to her to observe the pro- 
 prieties than Lousteau had done to Dinah's significant warn- 
 ings on the day of his arrival. 
 
 Any other man than Bianchon would have been surprised 
 at Lousteau's immediate success ; but he was so much the 
 doctor, that he was not even nettled at Dinah's marked prefer- 
 ence for the newspaper- rather than the prescription-writer ! 
 In fact, Dinah, herself famous, was naturally more alive to wit 
 than to fame. Love generally prefers contrast to similitude. 
 Everything was against the physician — his frankness, his sim- 
 plicity, and his profession. And this is why: women who 
 want to love — and Dinah wanted to love as much as to be 
 loved — have an instinctive aversion for men who are devoted 
 to an absorbing occupation ; in spite of superiority, they are 
 all women in the matter of encroachment. Lousteau, a poet 
 and journalist, and a libertine with a veneer of misanthropy, 
 had that tinsel of the intellect, and led the half-idle life that
 
 108 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 attracts women. The blunt good sense and keen insight of 
 the really great man weighed upon Dinah, who would not con- 
 fess her own smallness even to herself. She said in her mind — 
 ''The doctor is perhaps the better man, but I do not like 
 him." 
 
 Then, again, she reflected on his professional duties, won- 
 dering whether a woman could ever be anything but a subject 
 to a medical man, who saw so many subjects in the course of 
 a day's work. The first sentence of the aphorism written by 
 Bianchon in her album was a medical observation strikinii so 
 directly at woman, that Dinah could not fail to be hit by it. 
 And then Bianchon was leaving on the morrow ; his practice 
 required his return. What woman, short of having Cupid's 
 mythological dart in her heart, could decide in so short a time ? 
 
 These little things — which lead to such great catastrophes — 
 having been seen in a mass by Bianchon, he pronounced the 
 verdict he had come to as to Madame de La Baudraye in a 
 few words to Lousteau, to the journalist's great amazement. 
 
 While the two friends stood talking together, a storm was 
 gathering in the Sancerre circle, who could not in the least 
 understand Lousteau's paraphrases and commentaries, and 
 who vented it on their hostess. Far from finding in his 
 talk the romance which the public prosecutor, the sub-prefect, 
 the presiding judge, and his deputy, Lebas, had discovered 
 there — to say nothing of Monsieur de La Baudraye and Dinah 
 — the ladies now gathered round the tea-table, took the matter 
 as a practical joke, and accused the Muse of Sancerre of having 
 a finger in it. They had all looked forward to a delightful 
 evening, and had all in vain strained every faculty of their 
 minds. Nothing makes provincial folk so angry as the notion 
 of having been a laughing-stock for Paris folk. 
 
 Madame Piedefer left the table to say to her daughter : " Do 
 go and talk to the ladies ; they are quite annoyed by your 
 behavior." 
 
 Lousteau could not fail to see Dinah's great superiority
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 109 
 
 over the best women of Sancerre; she was better dressed, her 
 movements were graceful, her complexion was exquisitely 
 white by candle-light — in short, she stood out against this 
 background of old faces, shy and ill-dressed girls, like a queen 
 in the midst of her court. Visions of Paris faded from his 
 brain ; Lousteau was accepting the provincial surroundings ; 
 and while he had too much imagination to remain unimpressed 
 by the royal splendor of this castle, the beautiful carvings, and 
 the antique beauty of the rooms, he had also too much ex- 
 perience to overlook the value of the personality which com- 
 pleted this gem of the Renaissance. So by the time when the 
 visitors from Sancerre had taken their leave one by one — for 
 they had an hour's drive before them — when no one remained 
 in the drawing-room but Monsieur de Clagny, Monsieur Le- 
 bas, Gatien, and Monsieur Gravier, who were all to sleep at 
 Anzy — the journalist had already changed his mind about 
 Dinah. His opinion had gone through the evolution that 
 Madame de La Baudraye had so audaciously prophesied at 
 their first meeting. 
 
 " Ah, what things they will say about us on the drive 
 home ! " cried the mistress of the house, as she returned to 
 the drawing-room after seeing the president and his wife 
 to their carriage with Madame and Mademoiselle Popinot- 
 Chandier. 
 
 The rest of the evening had its pleasant side. In the in- 
 timacy of a small party each one brought to the conversation 
 his contribution of epigrams on the figure the visitors from 
 Sancerre had cut during Lousteau's comments on the paper 
 wrapped round the proofs. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Bianchon to Lousteau as they went 
 to bed — they had an enormous room with two beds in it — 
 " you will be the happy man of this woman's choice — nee 
 Piedefer !" 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 " It is quite natural. You arc supposed here to have had
 
 110 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT 
 
 many mistresses in Paris ; and to a woman there is something 
 indescribably inviting in a man whom other women favor — 
 something attractive and fascinating ; is it that she prides her- 
 self on being longer remembered than all the rest ? that she 
 appeals to his experience, as a sick man will pay more to a 
 famous physician ? or that she is flattered by the revival of a 
 world-worn heart?" 
 
 "Vanity and the senses count for so much in love affairs," 
 said Lousteau, "that there may be some truth in all those 
 hypotheses. However, if I remain, it will be in consequence 
 of the certificate of innocence, without ignorance, that you 
 have given Dinah. She is handsome, is she not ? " 
 
 "Love will make her beautiful," said the doctor. " And, 
 after all, she will be a rich widow some day or other ! And 
 a child would secure her the life-interest in the Master of La 
 Baudraye's fortune " 
 
 "Why, it is quite an act of virtue to make love to her," 
 said Lousteau, rolling himself up in the bed-clothes, "and 
 to-morrow, with your help — yes, to-morrow, I — well, good- 
 night." 
 
 On the following day, Madame de La Baudraye, to whom 
 her husband had six months since given a pair of horses, 
 which he also used in the fields, and an old carriage that 
 rattled on the road, decided that she would take Bianchon so 
 ;far on his way as Cosne, where he would get into the Lyons 
 diligence as it passed through. She also took her mother and 
 Lousteau, but she intended to drop her mother at La Bau- 
 draye to go on to Cosne with the two Parisians, and return 
 alone with Etienne. She was elegantly dressed, as the jour- 
 nalist at once perceived — bronze kid shoes, gray silk stockings, 
 a muslin dress, a green silk scarf with shaded fringe at the 
 ends, and a pretty, black lace bonnet with flowers in it. As 
 to Lousteau, the wretch had assumed his war-paint — patent- 
 leather shoes, trousers of English kerseymere with pleats in 
 front, a very open vest showing a particularly fine shirt and
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. Ill 
 
 the black brocade waterfall of his handsomest cravat, and a 
 very thin, very short, black riding-coat. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny and Monsieur Gravier looked at each 
 other, feeling rather silly as they beheld the two Parisians in 
 the carriage, while they, like two simpletons, were left stand- 
 ing at the foot of the steps. Monsieur de La Baudraye, who 
 stood at the top waving his little hand in a little farewell to 
 the doctor, could not forbear from smiling as he heard Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny say to Monsieur Gravier — 
 
 *' You should have escorted them on horseback." 
 
 At this juncture Gatien, riding Monsieur de La Baudraye's 
 quiet little mare, came out of the side-road from the stables 
 and joined the party in the chaise. 
 
 '•'Ah, good!" said the receiver-general, "the boy has 
 mounted guard." 
 
 "What a bore!" cried Dinah as she saw Gatien. "In 
 thirteen years — for I have been married nearly thirteen years 
 — I have never had three hours' liberty." 
 
 "Married, madame ? " said the journalist with a smile. 
 "You remind me of a saying of Michaud's — he was so witty ! 
 He was setting out for the Holy Land, and his friends were 
 remonstrating with him, urging his age, and the perils of such 
 an expedition. 'And then,' said one, 'you are married.' 
 ' Married I ' said he, ' so little married.' " 
 
 Even the rigid Madame Piedefer could not repress a smile. 
 
 " I should not be surprised to see Monsieur de Clagny 
 mounted on my pony to complete the escort," said Dinah. 
 
 " Well, if the public prosecutor does not pursue us, you 
 can jret rid of this little fellow at Sancerre. Bianchon must, 
 of course, have left something behind on his table — the notes 
 for the first lecture of his course — and you can ask Gatien to 
 go back to Anzy to fetch it." 
 
 This simple little plot put Madame de La Baudraye into 
 high spirits. From the road between Anzy to Sancerre a 
 glorious landscape frequently comes into view, of the noble
 
 112 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Stretches of the Loire looking like a lake, and it was got over 
 very pleasantly, for Dinah was happy in finding herself well 
 understood. Love was discussed in theory, a subject allowing 
 lovers in secret to take the measure, as it were, of each other's 
 heart. The journalist took a tone of refined corruption to 
 prove that love obeys no law, that the character of the lovers 
 gives infinite variety to its incidents, that the circumstances 
 of social life add to the multiplicity of its manifestations, that 
 in love all is possible and true, and that any given woman, 
 after resisting every temptation and the seductions of the most 
 passionate lover, may be carried off her feet in the course of 
 a few hours by a fancy, an internal whirlwind of which God 
 alone would ever know the secret ! 
 
 "Why," said he, " is not that the key to all the adventures 
 we have talked over these three days past ? " 
 
 For these three days, indeed, Dinah's lively imagination 
 had been full of the most insidious romances, and the con- 
 versation of the two Parisians had affected the woman as the 
 most mischievous reading might have done. Lousteau watched 
 the effects of this clever manoeuvre to seize the moment when 
 his prey, whose readiness to be caught was hidden under the 
 abstraction caused by fatal irresolution, should be rendered 
 quite dizzy. 
 
 Dinah wished to show La Baudraye to her two visitors, and 
 the farce was duly played out of remembering the papers left 
 by Bianchon in his rooms at Anzy. Gatien flew off at a gallop 
 to obey his sovereign ; Madame Piedefer went to do some 
 shopping in Sancerre ; and Dinah went on to Cosne alone 
 with the two friends. Lousteau took his seat by the lady, 
 Bianchon riding backward. The two friends talked affection- 
 ately and with deep compassion for the fate of this choice 
 nature so ill understood and in the midst of such vulgar sur- 
 roundings. Bianchon served Lousteau well by making fun of 
 the public prosecutor, of Monsieur Gravier, and of Gatien ; 
 there was a tone of such genuine contempt in his remarks
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. US 
 
 that Madame de La Baudraye dared not take the part of her 
 adorers. 
 
 " I perfectly understand the position you have maintained," 
 said the doctor as they crossed the Loire. "You were in- 
 accessible excepting to that brain-love which often leads to 
 heart-love ; and not one of those men, it is very certain, is 
 capable of disguising what, at an early stage of life, is dis- 
 gusting to the senses in the eyes of a refined woman. To you, 
 now, love is indispensable," 
 
 "Indispensable!" cried Dinah, looking curiously at the 
 doctor. " Do you mean that you prescribe love to me ? " 
 
 " If you go on living as you live now, in three years you 
 will be hideous," replied Bianchon in a dictatorial tone. 
 
 " Monsieur ! " said Madame de La Baudraye, almost fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " Forgive my friend," said Lousteau, half jestingly. " He 
 is always the medical man, and to him love is merely a ques- 
 tion of hygiene. But he is quite disinterested — it is for your 
 sake only that he speaks — as is evident, since he is starting in 
 an hour " 
 
 At Cosne a little crowd gathered round the old repainted 
 chaise, with the arms on the panels granted by Louis XIV. to 
 the new La Baudraye. Gules, a pair of scales or ; on a chief 
 azure (color on color) three cross-crosslets argent. For sup- 
 porters two greyhounds argent, collared azure, chained or. 
 The ironical motto: Deo sic paiet fides et hominibtis, had been 
 inflicted on the converted Calvinist by Monsieur d'Hozier the 
 satirical. 
 
 "Let us get out; they will come and find us," said the 
 baroness, desiring her coachman to keep watch. 
 
 Dinah took Bianchon's arm, and the doctor set off by the 
 banks of the Loire at so rapid a pace that the journalist had 
 to linger behind. The physician had explained by a single 
 wink that he meant to do Lousteau a good turn. 
 
 "You have been attracted by Etienne," said Bianchon to 
 8
 
 114 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Dinah; ''he has appealed strongly to your imagination; last 
 night we were talking about you. He loves you. But he is 
 frivolous, and difficult to hold ; his poverty compels him to 
 live in Paris, while everything condemns you to live at San- 
 cerre. Take a lofty view of life. Make Lousteau your friend ; 
 do not ask too much of him ; he will come three times a year 
 to spend a few days with you, and you will owe to him your 
 beauty, happiness, and fortune. Monsieur de La Baudraye 
 may live to be a hundred ; but he might die in a few days if 
 he should leave off the flannel winding-sheet in which he 
 swathes himself. So run no risks, be prudent both of you. 
 Say not a word — I have read your heart." 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye was defenseless under this serried 
 attack, and in the presence of a man who spoke at once as a 
 doctor, a confessor, and confidential friend. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said she. " Can you suppose that any woman 
 would care to compete with a journalist's mistresses? Mon- 
 sieur Lousteau strikes me as agreeable and witty ; but he is 
 blase, etc., etc. " 
 
 Dinah had turned back, and was obliged to check the flow 
 of words by which she tried to disguise her intentions ; for 
 Etienne, who seemed to be studying progress in Cosne, was 
 coming to meet them. 
 
 "Believe me," said Bianchon, "what he wants is to be 
 truly loved ; and if he alters his course of life, it will be to the 
 benefit of his talent." 
 
 Dinah's coachman hurried up breathlessly to say that the 
 diligence had come in, and they walked on quickly, Madame 
 de La Baudraye between the two men. 
 
 " Farewell, my children ! " said Bianchon, before they got 
 into the town, " you have my blessing ! " 
 
 He released Madame de La Baudraye's hand from his arm, 
 and allowed Lousteau to draw it into his, with a tender look, 
 as he pressed it to his heart. What a difference tc Dinah ! 
 Etienne's arm thrilled her deeply. Bianchon's had not stirred
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 115 
 
 her in the least. She and the journalist exchanged one of 
 those glowing looks that are more than an avowal. 
 
 "Only provincial women wear lawn gowns in these days," 
 thought Lousteau to himself, "the only stuff which shows 
 every crease. This woman, who has chosen me for her lover, 
 will make a fuss over her frock ! If she had but put on a 
 foulard skirt, I should be happy. What is the meaning of 
 these difficulties ? " 
 
 While Lousteau was wondering whether Dinah had put on 
 a lawn gown on purpose to protect herself by an insuperable 
 obstacle, Bianchon, with the help of the coachman, was seeing 
 his luggage piled on the diligence. Finally, he came to take 
 leave of Dinah, who was excessively friendly with him. 
 
 "Go home, Madame la Baronne, leave me here — Gatien 
 will be coming," he added in an undertone. "It is getting 
 late," said he aloud. "Adieu!" 
 
 " Adieu — great man ! " cried Lousteau, shaking hands with 
 Bianchon. 
 
 When the journalist and Madame de La Baudraye, side by 
 side in the rickety old chaise, had recrossed the Loire, they 
 both were unready to speak. In these circumstances, the first 
 words that break the pregnant silence are full of deep and 
 terrible meaning. 
 
 " Do you know how much I love you? " said the journalist 
 point blank. 
 
 Victory might gratify Lousteau, but defeat could cause him 
 no grief. This indifference was the secret of his audacity. 
 He took Madame de La Baudraye's hand as he spoke these 
 decisive words, and pressed it in both his ; but Dinah gently 
 released it. 
 
 " Yes, I am as good as an actress or a grisetie,'' she said in 
 a voice that trembled, though she spoke lightly. " But can 
 you suppose that a woman who, in spite of her absurdities, has 
 some intelligence, will have reserved the best treasures of her 
 heart for a man who will regard her merely as a transient
 
 116 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 pleasure ? I am not surprised to hear from your lips the words 
 which so many men have said to me — but " 
 
 The coachman turned round. 
 
 " Here comes Monsieur Gatien," said he. 
 
 " I love you, I will have you, you shall be mine, for I have 
 never felt for any woman the passion I have for you! " said 
 Lousteau in her ear. 
 
 " In spite of my will, perhaps? " said she, with a smile. 
 
 '* At least you must seem to have been assaulted to save my 
 honor," said the Parisian, to whom the fatal immaculateness 
 of clean India muslin suggested a ridiculous notion. 
 
 Before Gatien had reached the end of the bridge, the outra- 
 geous journalist had crumpled up Madame de La Baudraye's 
 lawn dress to such effect that she was absolutely not present- 
 able. 
 
 " Oh, monsieur ! " she exclaimed in dignified reproof. 
 
 "You defied me,' said the Parisian. 
 
 But Gatien now rode up with the vehemence of a duped 
 lover. To regain a little of Madame de La Baudraye's esteem, 
 Lousteau did his best to hide the tumbled dress from Gatien's 
 eyes by leaning out of the chaise to speak to him from Dinah's 
 side. 
 
 "Go back to our inn," said he, "there is still time ; the 
 diligence does not start for half an hour. The papers are on 
 the table of the room Bianchon was in ; he wants them most 
 particularly, for he will be completely lost without his notes 
 for the lecture." 
 
 " Pray go, Gatien," said Dinah to her young adorer, with 
 an imperious glance. And the boy thus commanded turned 
 his horse and was ofiF with a loose rein. 
 
 " Go quickly to La Baudraye," cried Lousteau to the coach- 
 man. "Madame is not well Your mother only will 
 
 know the secret of my trick," added he, taking his seat by 
 Dinah. 
 
 "You call such infamous conduct a trick? " cried Madame
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 117 
 
 de La Baudraye, swallowing down a few tears that dried up 
 with the fire of outraged pride. 
 
 She leaned back in the corner of the chaise, crossed her 
 arms, and gazed out at the Loire and the landscape, at any- 
 thing rather than at Lousteau. The journalist put on his 
 most ingratiating tone, and talked till they reached La Bau- 
 draye, where Dinah fled indoors, trying not to be seen by any 
 one. In her agitation she threw herself on a sofa and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "If I am an object of horror to you, of aversion or scorn, 
 I will go," said Lousteau, who had followed her. And he 
 threw himself at her feet. 
 
 It was at this crisis that Madame Piedefer came in, saying 
 to her daughter — 
 
 " What is the matter? What has happened ? " 
 " Give your daughter another dress at once," said the au- 
 dacious Parisian in the prim old lady's ear. 
 
 Plearing the mad gallop of Gatien's horse, Madame de La 
 Baudraye fled to her bedroom, followed by her mother. 
 
 " There are no papers at the inn," said Gatien to Lousteau, 
 who went out to meet him. 
 
 "And you found none at the Chateau d'Anzy either?" 
 replied Lousteau. 
 
 "You have been making a fool of me," said Gatien, in a 
 cold set voice. 
 
 " Quite so," replied Lousteau. " Madame de La Baudraye 
 was greatly annoyed by your choosing to follow her without 
 being invited. Believe me, to bore a woman is a bad way of 
 courting her. Dinah has played you a trick, and you have 
 given her a laugh ; it is more than any of you has done in 
 these thirteen years past. You owe that success to Bianchon, 
 for your cousin was the author of the farce of ' The Manu- 
 script.' Will the horse get over it?" asked Lousteau with a 
 laugh, while Gatien was wondering whether to be angry or 
 not.
 
 118 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 " The horse ! " said Gatien. 
 
 At this moment Madame de La Baudraye came in, dressed 
 in a velvet gown, and accompanied by her mother, who shot 
 angry flashes at Lousteau. It would have been too rash for 
 Dinah to seem cold or severe to Lousteau in Gaticn's presence ; 
 and Eticnne, taking advantage of this, offered his arm to the 
 supposed Lucretia ; however, she declined it. 
 
 " Do you mean to cast off a man who has vowed to live for 
 you?" said he, walking close beside her. "I shall stop at 
 Sancerre and go home to-morrow." 
 
 "Are you coming, mamma? " said Madame deLa Baudraye 
 to Madame Piedefer, thus avoiding a reply to the direct chal- 
 lenge by which Lousteau was forcing her to a decision. 
 
 Lousteau handed the mother into the chaise, he helped 
 Madame de La Baudraye by gently taking her arm, and he 
 and Gatien took the front seat, leaving the saddle horse at 
 La Baudraye. 
 
 "You have changed your gown," said Gatien, blunder- 
 ingly, to Dinah. 
 
 "Madame la Baronne was chilled by the cool air off" the 
 river," replied Lousteau. " Bianchon advised her to put on 
 a warm dress." 
 
 Dinah turned as red as a poppy, and Madame Piedefer 
 assumed a stern expression. 
 
 "Poor Bianchon! he is on the road to Paris. A noble 
 soul ! " said Lousteau. 
 
 "Oh yes ! " cried Madame de La Baudraye, "he is high- 
 minded, full of delicate feeling " 
 
 "We were in such good spirits when we set out," said 
 Lousteau; "now you are overdone, and you speak to me so 
 bitterly — why ? Are you not accustomed to being told how 
 handsome and how clever you are ? For my part, I say boldly, 
 before Gatien, I give up Paris ; I mean to stay at Sancerre 
 and swell the number of your gallant slaves. I feel so young 
 again in my native district ; I have quite forgotten Paris and
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 119 
 
 all its wickedness, and its bores, and its wearisome pleasures. 
 Yes, my life seems in a way purified." 
 
 Dinah allowed Lousteau to talk without even looking at 
 him ; but at last there was a moment when this serpent's 
 rhodomontadc was really so inspired by the effort he made 
 to affect passion in phrases and ideas of which the meaning, 
 though hidden from Gatien, found a loud response in Dinah's 
 heart, that she raised her eyes to his. This look seemed to 
 crown Lousteau's joy ; his wit flowed more freely, and at last 
 he made Madame de La Baudraye laugh. When, under cir- 
 cumstances which so seriously compromise her pride, a woman 
 has been made to laugh, she is finally committed. 
 
 As they drove in by the spacious graveled forecourt, with 
 its lawn in the middle, and the large vases filled with flowers 
 which so well set off the facade of Anzy, the journalist was 
 saying : 
 
 " When women love, they forgive everything, even our 
 crimes ; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything 
 — not even our virtues. Do you forgive me," he added in 
 Madame de La Baudraye's ear, and pressing her arm to his 
 heart with tender emphasis. And Dinah could not help smil- 
 ing. 
 
 All through dinner and for the rest of the evening Etienne 
 was in the most delightful spirits, inexhaustibly cheerful ; but 
 while thus giving vent to his intoxication, he now and then 
 fell into the dreamy abstraction of a man who seems rapt in. 
 his own happiness. 
 
 After coffee had been served, Madame de La Baudraye and 
 her mother left the men to wander about the gardens. Mon- 
 sieur Gravier then remarked to Monsieur de Clagny : 
 
 "Did you observe that Madame de La Baudraye, after 
 going out in a lawn gown came home in a velvet one ? " 
 
 "As she got into the carriage at Cosne, the lawn dress 
 caught on a brass nail and was torn all the way down," re- 
 plied Lousteau.
 
 120 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "Oh ! " exclaimed Gatien, stricken to the heart by hear- 
 ing two such different explanations. 
 
 The journalist, who understood, took Gatien by the arm 
 and pressed it as a hint to him to be silent. A few minutes 
 later Etienne left Dinah's three adorers and took possession 
 of little La Baudraye. Then Gatien was cross-questioned as 
 to the events of the day. Monsicr Gravier and Monsieur de 
 Clagny were dismayed to hear that on the return from Cosne 
 Lousteau had been alone with Dinah, and even more so on 
 hearing the two versions explaining the lady's change of dress. 
 And the three discomfited gentlemen were in a very awkward 
 position for the rest of the evening. 
 
 Next day each, on various business, was obliged to leave 
 Anzy ; Dinah remained with her mother, Lousteau, and her 
 husband. The annoyance vented by the three victims gave 
 rise to an organized rebellion in Sancerre. The surrender of 
 the Muse of Le Berry, of the Nivernais, and of Morvan was 
 the cause of a perfect hue and cry of slander, evil report, and 
 various guesses in which the story of the muslin gown held a 
 prominent place. No dress Dinah had ever worn had been 
 so much commented on, or was half as interesting to the girls, 
 who could not conceive what the connection might be, that 
 made the married women laugh, between love and an India 
 muslin gown. 
 
 Madame the Presidentc Boirouge, furious at her son's dis- 
 comfiture, forgot the praise she had lavished on the poem of 
 *' Paquita," and fulminated terrific condemnation on the 
 woman who could publish such a disgraceful work. 
 
 *' The wretched woman commits every crime she writes 
 about," said she. " Perhaps she will come to the same end 
 as her heroine ! " 
 
 Dinah's fate among the good folk of Sancerre was like that 
 of Marshal Soult in the opposition newspapers : as long as he 
 is minister he lost the battle of Toulouse ; whenever he is out 
 of the Government he won it ! While she was virtuous.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 121 
 
 Dinah was a match for Camille de Maupin, a rival of the 
 most famous women ; but as soon as she was happy, she was 
 an unhappy creature. 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny was her valiant champion ; he went 
 several times to the Castle of Anzy to acquire the right to 
 contradict the rumors current as to the woman he still faith- 
 fully adored, even in her fall ; and he maintained that she 
 and Lousteau were engaged together on some great work. 
 But the lawyer was laughed to scorn. 
 
 The month of October was lovely ; autumn is the finest 
 season in the valley of the Loire ; but in 1836 it was unusually 
 glorious. Nature seemed to aid and abet Dinah, who, as 
 Bianchon had predicted, gradually developed a heart-felt pas- 
 sion. In one month she was an altered woman. She was 
 surprised to find in herself so many inert and dormant quali- 
 ties, hitherto in abeyance. To her Lousteau seemed an angel; 
 for heart-love, the crowning need of a great nature, had made 
 a new woman of her. Dinah was alive ! She had found an 
 outlet for her powers, she saw undreamed-of vistas in the 
 future — in short, she was happy, happy without alarms or hin- 
 drances. The vast castle, the gardens, the park, the forest, 
 favored love ! 
 
 Lousteau found in Madame de La Baudraye an artlessness, 
 nay, if you will, an innocence of mind which made her very 
 original ; there was much more of the unexpected and winning 
 in her than in a girl. Lousteau was quite alive to a form of 
 flattery which in most women is assumed, but which in Dinah 
 was genuine ; she really learned from him the ways of love ; 
 he really was the first to reign in her heart. And, indeed, he 
 took the trouble to be exceedingly amiable. 
 
 Men, like women, have a stock in hand of recitatives, of can- 
 tabile, of nocturnes, arias and refrains — shall we say of recipes, 
 although we speak of love — which each one believes to be 
 exclusively his own. Men who have reached Loustcau's age 
 try to distribute the " movements" of this repertoire through
 
 122 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT 
 
 the whole opera of a passion. Lousteau, regarding this ad- 
 venture with Dinah as a mere temporary connection, was 
 eager to stamp himself on her memory in indelible lines ; and 
 during that beautiful October he was prodigal of his most en- 
 trancing melodies and most elaborate barcarolles. In fact, 
 he exhausted every resource of the stage management of love, 
 to use an expression borrowed from the theatrical dictionary, 
 and admirably descriptive of his manoeuvres. 
 
 "If that woman ever forgets me! " he would sometimes 
 say to himself as they returned together from a long walk in 
 the woods, " I will owe her no grudge — she will have found 
 something better." 
 
 When two beings have sung together all the ducts of that 
 enchanting score, and still love each other, it may be said 
 that they love truly. 
 
 Lousteau, however, had not time to repeat himself, for he 
 was to leave Anzy in the early days of November. His paper 
 required his presence in Paris. Before breakfast, on the day 
 before he was to leave, the journalist and Dinah saw the master 
 of the house come in with an artist from Nevers, who restored 
 carvings of all kinds. 
 
 "What are you going to do ? " asked Lousteau. "What 
 is to be done to the castle ? " 
 
 "This is what I am going to do," said the little man, 
 leading Lousteau, the local artist, and Dinah out on the ter- 
 race. 
 
 He pointed out, on the front of the building, a shield sup- 
 ported by two sirens, not unlike that which may be seen on 
 the arcade, now closed, through which there used to be a pas- 
 sage from the Quai des Tuileries to the courtyard of the old 
 Louvre, and over which the words may still be seen', ^'■Biblio- 
 theque du Cabinet du Roi.'^ (Library of tlie King's Cabinet.) 
 This shield bore the arms of the noble House of Uxelles, 
 namely : or and gules party per fess, with two lions or, dexter 
 and sinister as supporters. Above, a knight's helm, mantled
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 123 
 
 of the tincture of the shield, and surmountea by a ducal 
 coronet. Motto, Cy paroist ! A proud and sonorous device, 
 
 " I want to put my own coat-of-arms in the place of that of 
 the Uxelles ; and as they are repeated six times on the two 
 fronts and the two wings, it is not a trifling affair." 
 
 "Your arms, so new, and since 1830 ! " exclaimed Dinah. 
 
 *' Have I not created an entail ? " 
 
 "I could understand it if you had children," said the 
 journalist. 
 
 "Oh ! " said the old man, " Madame de La Baudraye is 
 still young; there is no time lost." 
 
 This illusion made Lousteau smile ; he did not understand 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye. 
 
 "There, Didine ! " said he in Dinah's ear, "what a waste 
 of remorse ! " 
 
 Dinah begged him to give her one day more, and the lovers 
 parted after the manner of certain theatres, which give ten 
 last performances of a piece that is paying. And how many 
 promises they made ! How many solemn pledges did not 
 Dinah exact and the unblushing journalist give her. 
 
 Dinah, with the superiority of the Superior Woman, ac- 
 companied Lousteau, in the face of all the world, as far as 
 Cosne, with her mother and little La Baudraye. When, ten 
 days later, Madame de La Baudraye saw in her drawing-room 
 at La Baudraye Monsieur de Clagny, Gatien, and Gravier, 
 she found an opportunity of saying to each in turn : 
 
 " I owe it to Monsieur Lousteau that I discovered that I had 
 not been loved for my own sake." 
 
 And what noble speeches she uttered, on man,, on the nature 
 of his feelings, on the end of his base passions, and so forth. 
 Of Dinah's three worshipers. Monsieur de Clagny only said 
 to her — " I love you, come what may " — and Dinah accepted 
 him as her confidant, lavished on him all the marks of friend- 
 ship which women can devise for the Gurths who are ready 
 thus to wear the collar of gilded slavery.
 
 124 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 In Paris once more, Lousteau had, in a few weeks, lost the 
 impression of the happy time he had spent at the Anzy castle. 
 This is why : Lousteau lived by his pen. 
 
 In this century, especially since the triumph of the bour- 
 geoisie — the commonplace, money-saving citizen — who takes 
 good care not to imitate Francis I. or Louis XIV.* — to live 
 by the pen is a form of penal servitude to which a galley-slave 
 would prefer death. To live by the pen means to create — to 
 create to-day, and to-morrow, and incessantly — or to seem to 
 create ; and the imitation costs as dear as the reality. So, 
 beside his daily contribution to a newspaper, which was like 
 the stone of Sisyphus, and which came every Monday, crashing 
 down on to the feather of his pen. Etienne worked for thiee 
 or four literary magazines. Still, do not be alarmed ; he put 
 no artistic conscientiousness into his work. This man of 
 Sancerre had a facility, a carelessness, if you call it so, which 
 ranked him with those writers who are mere scriveners, literary 
 hacks. In Paris, in our day, hack-work cuts a man off from 
 every pretension to a literary position. When he can do no 
 more, or no longer cares for advancement, the man who can 
 write becomes a journalist and a hack. 
 
 The life he leads is not unpleasant. Blue-stockings, begin- 
 ners in every walk of life, actresses at the outset or at the close 
 of a career, publishers and authors, all make much of these 
 writers of the ready pen. Lousteau, a thorough man-about- 
 town, lived at scarcely any expense beyond paying his rent. 
 He had boxes at all the theatres ; the sale of the books he 
 reviewed or left unreviewed paid for his gloves ; and he would 
 say to those authors who published at their own expense : "I 
 have your book always in my hands ! " He took toll from 
 vanity in the form of drawings or pictures. Every day had 
 its engagements to dinner, every night its theatre, every morn- 
 ing was filled up with callers, visits, and lounging. His serial 
 in the paper, two novels a year for weekly magazines, and his 
 * The rei?n of each of these kings was ruinous to France.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 125 
 
 miscellaneous article were the tax he paid for this easy-going 
 life. And yet, to reach this position, Etienne had struggled 
 for ten years. 
 
 At the present time, known to the literary world, liked for 
 the good or the mischief he did with equally facile good- 
 humor, he let himself float with the stream, never caring for 
 the future. He ruled a little set of new-comers, he had friend- 
 ships, or rather, habits of fifteen years' standing, and men 
 with whom he supped, and dined, and indulged his wit. He 
 earned from seven to eight hundred francs a month, a sum 
 which he found quite insufficient for the prodigality peculiar 
 to the impecunious. Indeed, Lousteau found himself now 
 just as hard up as when, on first appearing in Paris, he had 
 said to himself: " If I had but five hundred francs a month, I 
 should be rich ! " 
 
 The cause of this phenomenon was as follows : Lousteau 
 lived in the Rue des Martyrs in pretty first-floor rooms with a 
 garden, and splendidly furnished. When he settled there in 
 1833 he had come to an agreement with an upholsterer that 
 kept his pocket-money low for a long time. These rooms 
 were let for twelve hundred francs. The months of January, 
 April, July, and October were, as he phrased it, his indigent 
 months. The rent and the porter's account cleaned him out. 
 Lousteau took no fewer hackney-cabs, spent a hundred francs 
 in breakfasts, all the same, smoked thirty francs' worth of 
 cigars, and could never refuse the mistress of a day a dinner 
 or a new dress. He thus dipped so deeply into the fluctuating 
 earnings of the following months that he could no more find 
 a hundred francs on his chimney-piece now, when he was 
 making seven or eight hundred francs a month, than he could 
 in 1822. when he was hardly getting two hundred. 
 
 Tired, sometimes, by the incessant vicissitudes of a literary 
 life, and as much bored by amusement as a courtesan, Lous- 
 teau would get out of the tideway and sit on the bank, and say 
 to one and another of his intimate allies — Nathan or Bixiou,
 
 126 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 as they sat smoking in his scrap of garden, looking out on an 
 evergreen lawn as big as a dining-table — 
 
 "What will be the end of us? White hairs are giving us 
 respectful hints ! " 
 
 "Lord! we shall marry when we choose to give as much 
 thought to the matter as we give to a drama or a novel," said 
 Nathan. 
 
 " And Florine? " retorted Bixiou. 
 
 "Oh, we all have a Florine," said Etienne, flinging away 
 the end of his cigar and thinking of Madame Schontz.* 
 
 Madame Schontz was a pretty enough woman to put a very 
 high price on the interest on her beauty, while reserving abso- 
 lute ownership for Lousteau, the man of her heart. Like all 
 those women who got the name in Paris of Lorettes, from the 
 church of Notre-Dame de Lorette round about which they 
 dwell, she lived in the Rue Flechier, a stone's throw from 
 Lousteau. This lady took a pride and delight in teasing her 
 friends by boasting of having a Wit for her lover. 
 
 These details of Lousteau's life and fortune are indispensable, 
 for this penury and this bohemian existence of a man to whom 
 Parisian luxury had become a necessity were fated to have a 
 cruel influence on Dinah's life. Those to whom the bohemia 
 of Paris is familiar will now understand how it was that, by 
 the end of a fortnight, the journalist, up to his ears in the 
 literary environment, could laugh about his baroness with his 
 friends and even with Madame Schontz. To such readers as 
 regard such doings as utterly mean, it is almost useless to make 
 excuses which they will not accept. 
 
 "What did you do at Sancerre ? " asked Bixiou the first 
 time he met Lousteau. 
 
 " I did good service to three worthy provincials — a receiver- 
 general of taxes, a little cousin of his, and a public prosecutor, 
 who for ten years had been dancing round and round one of 
 the hundred 'Tenth Muses' who adorn the department," 
 
 * See " Beatrix."
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 127 
 
 said he. " But they had no more dared to touch her than we 
 touch a decorated cream at dessert till some strong-minded 
 person has made a hole in it." 
 
 " Poor boy ! " said Bixiou. " I said you had gone to San- 
 cerre to turn Pegasus out to grass." 
 
 " Your joke is as stupid as my Muse is handsome," retorted 
 Lousteau. " Ask Bianchon, my dear fellow." 
 
 "A Muse and Poet! A horacEopathic cure then !" said 
 Bixiou. 
 
 On the tenth day Lousteau received a letter with the San- 
 cerre post-mark. 
 
 " Good ! very good ! " said Lousteau. 
 
 ** 'Beloved friend, idol of my heart and soul ' twenty 
 
 pages of it ! all at one sitting, and dated midnight ! She 
 writes when she finds herself alone. Poor woman ! Ah, ha ! 
 And a postscript — 
 
 " ' I dare not ask you to write to me as I write, every day; 
 still, I hope to have a few lines from my dear one every week, 
 to relieve my mind.' What a pity to burn it all ! it is really 
 well written," said Lousteau to himself, as he threw the ten 
 sheets of paper into the fire after having read them. " That 
 woman was born to reel off copy ! " 
 
 Lousteau was not much afraid of Madame Schontz, who 
 really loved him for himself; but he had supplanted a friend 
 in the heart of a marquise. This marquise, a lady nowise coy, 
 sometimes dropped in unexpectedly at his rooms in the even- 
 ing, arriving veiled in a hackney-coach ; and she, as a literary 
 woman, allowed herself to hunt through all his drawers. 
 
 A week later, Lousteau, who hardly remembered Dinah, 
 was startled by another budget from Sancerre — eight leaves, 
 sixteen pages! He heard a woman's step; he thought it an- 
 nounced a search from the marquise, and tossed these raptur- 
 ous and entrancing proofs of affection into the fire — unread ! 
 
 "A woman's letter!" exclaimed Madame Schontz as she 
 came in. " The paper, the wax, are scented "
 
 128 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "Here you are, sir," said a porter from the coach office, 
 setting down two huge hampers in the anteroom. " Carriage 
 paid. Please to sign my book." 
 
 " Carriage paid ! " cried Madame Schontz. " It must have 
 come from Sanccrre." 
 
 "Yes, madame," said the porter. 
 
 "Your Tenth Muse is a remarkably intelligent woman," 
 said the courtesan, opening one of the hampers, while Lous- 
 teau was writing his name. " I like a Muse who understands 
 housekeeping, and who can make game-pies as well as blots. 
 And, oh ! what beautiful flowers ! " she went on, opening the 
 second hamper. "Why, you could get none finer in Paris! 
 And here, and here ! A hare, partridges, half a roebuck ! 
 We will ask your friends and have a famous dinner, for Athalie 
 has a special talent for dressing venison." 
 
 Lousteau wrote to Dinah ; but instead of writing from the 
 heart, he was clever. The letter was all the more insidious ; 
 it was like one of Mirabeau's letters to Sophie. The style of 
 a true lover is transparent. It is a clear stream which allows 
 the bottom of the heart to be seen between two banks, bright 
 with the trifles of existence, and covered with the flowers of the 
 soul that blossom afresh every day, full of intoxicating beauty 
 — but only for two beings. As soon as a love letter has any 
 charm for a third reader, it is beyond doubt the product of 
 the head, not of the heart. But a woman will always be 
 beguiled ; she always believes herself to be the determining 
 cause of this flow of wit. 
 
 By the end of December Lousteau had ceased to read 
 Dinah's letters ; they lay in a heap in a drawer of his chest 
 that was never locked, under his shirts, which they scented. 
 
 Then one of those chances came to Lousteau which such 
 bohemians ought to clutch by every hair. In the middle of 
 December, Madame Schontz, who took a real interest in 
 Etienne, sent to beg him to call on her one morning on 
 business.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 129 
 
 *'My dear fellow, you have a chance of marrying." 
 
 " I can marry very often, happily, my dear." 
 
 "When I say marrying, I mean marrying well. You have 
 no prejudices : I need not mince matters. This is the posi- 
 tion : A young lady has got into trouble ; her mother knows 
 nothing of even a kiss. Her father is an honest notary, a man 
 of honor; he has been wise enough to keep it dark. He 
 wants to get his daughter married within a fortnight, and he 
 will give her a fortune of a hundred and fifty thousand francs 
 — for he has three other children ; but — and it is not a bad 
 idea — he will add a hundred thousand francs, under the rose, 
 hand to hand, to cover the damages. They are an old family 
 of Paris citizens. Rue des Lombards " 
 
 " Well, then, why does not the lover marry her?" 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 " What a romance ! Such things are nowhere to be heard 
 of but in the Rue des Lombards " 
 
 " But do not take it into your head that a jealous brother 
 murdered the seducer. The young man died in the most 
 commonplace way of a pleurisy caught as he came out of the 
 theatre. A head-clerk and penniless, the man entrapped the 
 daughter in order to marry into the business. A judgment 
 from heaven, I call it ! " 
 
 "Where did you hear the story?" 
 
 "From Malaga; the notary is her milord.'" 
 
 " What, Cardot, the son of that little old man in hair- 
 powder, Florentine's first friend?" 
 
 "Just so. Malaga, whose 'fancy' is a little tomtit of a 
 fiddler of eighteen, cannot in conscience make such a boy 
 marry the girl. Beside, she has no cause to do him an 
 ill turn. Indeed, Monsieur Cardot wants a man of thirty 
 at least. Our notary, I feel sure, will be proud to have 
 a famous man for his son-in-law. So just feci yourself all 
 over. You will pay your debts, you will have twelve thousand 
 francs a year, and be a father without any trouble on your 
 9
 
 130 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 part ; what do you say to that to the good ? And, after all, 
 you only marry a very consolable widow. There is an income 
 of fifty thousand francs in the house, and the value of the 
 connection, so in due time you may look forward to not less 
 than fifteen thousand francs a year more for your share, and 
 you will enter a family holding a fine political position ; 
 Cardot is the brother-in-law of old Camusot, the deputy who 
 lived so long with Fanny Beaupre." 
 
 "Yes," said Lousteau, "old Camusot married little Daddy 
 Cardot's eldest daughter; they had high old times together ! " 
 
 " Well ! " Madame Schontz went on, "and Madame Car- 
 dot, the notary's wife, was a Chiffreville — manufacturers of 
 chemical products, the aristocracy of these days ! Potash, I 
 tell you ! Still, this is the unpleasant side of the matter. You 
 will have a terrible mother-in-law, a woman capable of killing 
 
 her daughter if she knew ! This Cardot woman is a 
 
 bigot ; she has lips like two faded, narrow pink ribbons. 
 
 "A man of the town like you would never pass muster with 
 that woman, who, in her well-meaning way, will spy out your 
 bachelor life and know every fact of the past. However, 
 Cardot says he means to exert his paternal authority. The 
 poor man will be obliged to do the civil to his wife for some 
 days ; a woman made of wood, my dear fellow ; Malaga, who 
 has seen her, calls her a penitential scrubber. Cardot is a 
 man of forty ; he will be mayor of his district, and perhaps be 
 elected deputy. He is prepared to give in lieu of the hundred 
 thousand francs a nice little house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, 
 with a forecourt and a garden, which cost him no more than 
 sixty thousand at the time of the July overthrow; he would 
 sell, and that would be an opportunity for you to go and come 
 about the house, to see the daughter, and be civil to the mother. 
 And it would give you a look of property in Madame Cardot's 
 eyes. You would be housed like a prince in that little man- 
 sion. Then, by Camusot's interest, you may get an appoint- 
 ment as librarian to some public office where there is no library.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 131 
 
 Well, and then if you invest your money in backing up a news- 
 paper, you will get ten thousand francs a year on it, you 
 can earn six, your librarianship will bring you in four. Can 
 you do better for yourself? 
 
 " If you were to marry a lamb without spot, it might be a 
 light woman by the end of two years. What is the damage? — 
 an anticipated dividend ! It is quite the fashion. 
 
 " Take my word for it, you can do no better than come to 
 dine with Malaga to-morrow. You will meet your father-in- 
 law ; he will know the secret has been let out — by Malaga, 
 with whom he cannot be angry — and then you are master of 
 the situation. As to your wife ! Why, her misconduct leaves 
 you as free as a bachelor " 
 
 "Your language is as blunt as a cannon-ball." 
 
 " I love you for your own sake, that is all. And I can 
 reason. Well ! why do you stand there like a wax image of 
 Abd-el-Kader? There is nothing to meditate over. Marriage 
 is heads or tails — well, you have tossed heads up." 
 
 " You shall have my reply to-morrow," said Lousteau. 
 
 " I would sooner have it at once ■ Malaga will write you up 
 to-night." 
 
 ''Well, then, yes." 
 
 Lousteau spent the evening in writing a long letter to the 
 marquise, giving her the reasons which compelled him to 
 marry : his constant poverty, the torpor of his imagination, his 
 white hairs, his moral and physical exhaustion — in short, four 
 pages of arguments. "As to Dinah, I will send her a circular 
 announcing the marriage," said he to himself. "As Bixiou 
 says, I have not my match for knowing how to dock the tail 
 of a passion." 
 
 Lousteau, who at first had been on some ceremony with 
 himself, by next day had come to the point of dreading lest 
 the marriage should not come off. He was pressingly civil to 
 the notary. 
 
 " I knew monsieur your father," said he, " at Florentine's,
 
 132 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 SO I may well know you here, at Mademoiselle Turquet's. 
 Like father, like son. A very good fellow and a philosopher 
 was little Daddy Cardot — excuse me, we always called him 
 that. At that time, Florine, Florentine, Tullia, Coralie, and 
 Mariette were the five fingers of your hand, so to speak — it is 
 fifteen years ago. My follies, as you may suppose, are a thing 
 of the past. In those days it was pleasure that ran away with 
 me ; now I am ambitious ; but, in our day, to get on at all a 
 man must be free from debt, have a good income, a wife, and 
 a family. If I pay taxes enough to qualify me, I may be a 
 deputy yet, like any other man." 
 
 Maitre Cardot appreciated this profession of faith. Lous- 
 teau had laid himself out to please, and the notary liked him, 
 feeling himself more at his ease, as may be easily imagined, 
 with a man who had known his father's secrets than he would 
 have been with another. On the following day Lousteau was 
 introduced to the Cardot family as the purchaser of the house 
 in the Rue Saint-Lazare, and three days later Etienne dined 
 there. 
 
 Cardot lived in an old house near the Place du Chatelet. 
 In this house everything was "good." Economy covered 
 every scrap of gilding with gr^en gauze ; all the furniture wore 
 holland covers. Though it was impossible to feel a shade of 
 uneasiness as to the wealth of the inhabitants, at the end of 
 half an hour no one could suppress a yawn. Boredom perched 
 in every nook ; the curtains hung dolefully ; the dining-room 
 was like Harpagon's. Even if Lousteau had not known all 
 about Malaga, he could have guessed that the notary's real 
 life was spent elsewhere. 
 
 The journalist saw a tall, fair girl with blue eyes, at once 
 shy and languishing. The elder brother took a fancy to him ; 
 he was the fourth clerk in the office, but strongly attracted by 
 the snares of literary fame, though destined to succeed his 
 father. The younger sister was twelve years old. Lousteau, 
 assuming a little Jesuitical air, played the Monarchist and
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 133 
 
 churchman for the benefit of the mother, was quiet, smooth, 
 deliberate, and complimentary. 
 
 Within three weeks of their introduction, at his fourth din- 
 ner there, Felicie Cardot, who had been watching Lousteau 
 out of the corner of her eye, carried him a cup of coffee where 
 he stood in the window recess, and said in a low voice, with 
 tears in her eyes — 
 
 *' I will devote my whole life, monsieur, to thanking you 
 for your sacrifice in favor of a poor girl " 
 
 Lousteau was touched ; there was so much expression in her 
 look, her accent, her attitude. "She would make a good 
 man happy," thought he, pressing her hand in reply. 
 
 Madame Cardot looked upon her son-in-law as a man with a 
 future before him ; but, above all the fine qualities she ascribed 
 to him, she was most delighted by his high tone of morals. 
 Etienne, prompted by the wily notary, had pledged his word 
 that he had no natural children, no tie that could endanger 
 the happiness of her dear Felicie. 
 
 "You may perhaps think I go rather too far," said the 
 bigot to the journalist ; " but in giving such a jewel as my 
 Felicie to any man, one must think of the future. I am not 
 one of those mothers who want to be rid of their daughters. 
 Monsieur Cardot hurries matters on, urges forward his daugh- 
 ter's marriage ; he wishes it over. This is the only point on 
 which we differ. Though with a man like you, monsieur, a 
 literary man whose youth has been preserved by hard work 
 from the moral shipwreck now so prevalent, we may feel quite 
 safe; still, you would be the first to laugh at me if I looked 
 for a husband for my daughter with my eyes shut. I know 
 you are not an innocent, and I should be very sorry for my 
 Felicie if you were " (this was said in a whisper) ; " but if 
 
 you had any liaisoti For instance, monsieur, you have 
 
 heard of Madame Roguin, the wife of a notary who, unhappily 
 for our faculty, was sadly notorious. Madame Roquin has, 
 ever since 1820, been kept by a banker "
 
 134 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "Yes, du Tillet," replied Etienne ; but he bit his tongue 
 as he recollected how rash it was to confess to an acquaintance 
 with du Tillet. 
 
 " Yes. Well, monsieur, if you were a mother, would you 
 not quake at the thought that Madame du Tillet's fate might 
 be your child's? At her age, and nee de Grandville ! To 
 have as a rival a woman of fifty and more. Sooner would I 
 see my daughter dead than give her to a man who had such a 
 connection with a married woman. A grisette, an actress, 
 you take her and leave her. There is no danger, in my 
 opinion, from women of that stamp ; love is their trade, they 
 care for no one, one down and another to come on ! But a 
 woman who has sinned against duty must hug her sin ; her 
 only excuse is constancy, if such a crime can ever have an 
 excuse. At least, that is the view I hold of a respectable 
 woman's fall, and that is what makes it so terrible " 
 
 Instead of looking for the meaning of these speeches, 
 Etienne made a jest of them at Malaga's,* whither he went 
 with his father-in-law-elect ; for the notary and the journalist 
 were the best of friends. 
 
 Lousteau had already given himself the airs of a person of 
 importance ; his life at last was to have a purpose ; he was in 
 luck's way, and in a few days would be the owner of a delight- 
 ful little house in the Rue Saint-Lazare ; he was going to be 
 married to a charming woman, he would have about twenty 
 thousand francs a year, and could give the reins to his ambi- 
 tion ; the young lady loved him, and he would be connected 
 with several respectable families. In short, he was in full sail 
 on the blue waters of hope. 
 
 Madame Cardot had expressed a wish to see the cuts for 
 
 *'Gil Bias," one of the illustrated volumes which the French 
 
 publishers were at that time bringing out, and Lousteau had 
 
 taken the first numbers for the lady's inspection. The lawyer's 
 
 * See " The Imaginary Mistress."
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 135 
 
 wife had a scheme of her own, she had borrowed the book 
 merely to return it ; she wanted an excuse for walking in on 
 her future son-in-law quite unexpectedly. The sight of those 
 bachelor rooms, which her husband had described as charm- 
 ing, would tell her more, she thought, as to Lousteau's habits 
 of life than any information she could pick up. Her sister- 
 in-law, Madame Camusot, who knew nothing of the fateful 
 secret, was terrified at such a marriage for her niece. Mon- 
 sieur Camusot, a councilor of the supreme court, old Camu- 
 sot's son by his first marriage, had given his stepmother, who 
 was Cardot's sister, a far from flattering account of the jour- 
 nalist. 
 
 Lousteau, clever as he was, did not think it strange that the 
 wife of a rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing 
 only fifteen francs before deciding on the purchase. Your 
 clever man never condescends to study the middle-class, which 
 escapes his ken by this want of attention ; and while he is 
 making game of them, they are at leisure to throttle him. 
 
 So one day early in January, 1S37, Madame Cardot and 
 her daughter took a hackney-coach and went to the Rue des 
 Martyrs to return the parts of "Gil Bias" to Felicie's be- 
 trothed, both delighted at the thought of seeing Lousteau's 
 rooms. These domiciliary visitations are not unusual in the 
 old citizen class. The porter at the front gate was not in ; 
 but his daughter, on being informed by the worthy lady that 
 she was in the presence of Monsieur Lousteau's future mother- 
 in-law and bride, handed over the key of the apartments — all 
 the more readily because Madame Cardot placed a gold-piece 
 in her hand. 
 
 It was by this time about noon, the hour at which the jour- 
 nalist would return from breakfasting at the Cafe Anglais. As 
 he crossed the open space between the church of Notre- Dame 
 de Lorette and the Rue des Martyrs, Lousteau happened to 
 look at a hired coach that was toiling up the Rue de Faubourg- 
 Montmartre, and he fancied it was a dream when he saw the
 
 136 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 face of Dinah ! He stood frozen to the spot when, on reach- 
 ing his house, he beheld his Didine at the coach door. 
 
 " What has brought you here? " he inquired. He adopted 
 the familiar tu (thou). The formality of vous (you) was out 
 of the question to a woman he must get rid of. 
 
 "Why, my love," cried she, " have you not read my 
 letters?" 
 
 " Certainly I have," said Lousteau. 
 
 ''Well, then?" 
 
 ''Well, then?" 
 
 "You are a father," replied the country lady. 
 
 " Faugh ! " cried he, disregarding the barbarity of such an 
 exclamation. " Well," thought he to himself, " she must be 
 prepared for the blow." 
 
 He signed to the coachman to wait, gave his hand to Ma- 
 dame de La Baudraye, and left the man with the chaise full of 
 trunks, vowing that he would promptly send away, as he said 
 to himself, the woman and her luggage, back to the place 
 whence she had come. 
 
 "Monsieur, monsieur," called out little Pamela. 
 
 The child had some sense, and felt that three women must 
 not be allowed to meet in a bachelor's rooms. 
 
 "Well, well ! " said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along. 
 
 Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation ; how- 
 ever, she added — 
 
 "The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is there." 
 
 In his agitation, while Madame de La Baudraye was pouring 
 out a flood of words, Elienne understood the child to S7,y, 
 " Mother is there," the only circumstance that suggested itself 
 as possible, and he went in. 
 
 Felicie and her mother, who were by this time in the bed- 
 room, crept into a corner on seeing Etienne enter with a 
 woman. 
 
 "At last, Etienne, my dearest, I am yours for life ! " cried 
 Dinah, throwing her arms round his neck, and clasping him
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 137 
 
 closely, while he took the key from the outside of the door. 
 "Life was a perpetual anguish to me in that house at Anzy. 
 I could bear it no longer ; and when the time came for me to 
 proclaim my happiness — well, I had not the courage. Here I 
 am, your wife with your child ! And you have not written 
 me; you have left me two months without a line." 
 
 " But, Dinah, you place me in the greatest difficulty " 
 
 " Do you love me? " 
 
 " How can I do otherwise than love you? But would yon 
 not have been wiser to remain at Sancerre? I am in the most 
 abject poverty, and I fear to drag you into it " 
 
 "Your misery will be paradise to me, I only ask to live 
 here, never to go out " 
 
 " Good God ! that is all very fine in words, but " 
 
 Dinah sat down and melted into tears as she heard this speech, 
 roughly spoken. 
 
 Lousteau could not resist this distress. He clasped the 
 baroness in his arms and kissed her. 
 
 "Do not cry, Didine ! " said he; and, as he uttered the 
 words, he saw in the mirror the figure of Madame Cardot, 
 looking at him from the farther end of the rooms. " Come, 
 Didine, go with Pamela and get your trunks unloaded," said 
 he in her ear. " Go ; do not cry ; we will be happy ! " 
 
 He led her to the door, and then came back to divert the 
 storm. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Madame Cardot, "I congratulate myself 
 on having resolved to see for myself the home of the man who 
 was to have been my son-in-law. If my daughter were to 
 die of it, she should never be the wife of such a man as you. 
 You must devote yourself to making your Didine happy, 
 
 monsieur." 
 
 And the virtuous lady walked out, followed by Felicie, who 
 was crying too, for she had become accustomed to Etienne. 
 The dreadful Madame Cardot got into her hackney-coach 
 again, staring insolently at the hapless Dinah, in whose hearty
 
 1S8 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the sting still rankled of "that is all very fine in words;" 
 but who, nevertheless, like every woman in love, believed in 
 the murmured : " Do not cry, Didine ! " 
 
 Lousteau, who was not lacking in the sort of decision which 
 grows out of the vicissitudes of a storm-tossed life, reflected 
 thus: 
 
 " Didine is high-minded ; when once she knows of my pro- 
 posed marriage, she will sacrifice herself for my future pros- 
 pects, and I know how I can manage to let her know." De- 
 lighted at having hit on a trick of which the success seemed 
 certain, he danced round to a familiar tune — 
 
 '' Larifla, fia, fla ! And Didine once out of the way," he 
 went on, talking to himself, " I will treat Mammy Cardot to 
 a call and a novelette : I have seduced her Felicie at Saint- 
 Eustache — Felicie, guilty through passion, bears in her bosom 
 the pledge of our affection — and larifla, fla, fla ! The father 
 cannot give me the lie, fla, fla — no, nor the girl — larifla / 
 Ergo : the notary, his wife, and his daughter are caught, 
 nabbed " 
 
 And, to her great amazement, Dinah discovered Etienne 
 performing a prohibited dance. 
 
 "Your arrival and our happiness have turned my head with 
 joy," said he, to explain this crazy mood. 
 
 "And I had fancied you had ceased to love me!" ex- 
 claimed the poor woman, dropping the handbag she was car- 
 rying and weeping with joy as she sank into a chair. 
 
 " Make yourself at home, my darling," said Etienne, laugh- 
 ing in his sleeve; "I must write two lines to excuse myself 
 from a bachelor party, for I mean to devote myself to you. 
 Give your orders; you are at home." 
 
 Etienne wrote to Bixiou : 
 
 " My dear Boy : — My baroness has dropped into my arms, 
 and will be fatal to my marriage unless we perform one of the 
 most familiar stratagems of the thousand and one comedies at
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 139 
 
 the Gymnase. I rely on you to come here, like one of 
 Moliere's old men, to scold your nephew Leandre for his folly, 
 while the Tenth Muse lies hidden in my bedroom ; you must 
 work, on her feelings ; strike hard, be brutal, offensive. I, 
 you understand, shall express my blind devotion, and shall 
 seem to be deaf, so that you may have to shout at me. 
 " Come, if you can, at seven o'clock. 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 '' E. LOUSTEAU." 
 
 Having sent this letter by a commissionaire to the man who, 
 in all Paris, most delighted in such practical jokes — in the 
 slang of artists, a " charge " — Lousteau made a great show of 
 settling the Muse of Sancerre in his apartments. He busied 
 himself in arranging the baggage she had brought, and in- 
 formed her as to the persons and ways of the house with such 
 perfect good faith, and a glee which overflowed in kind words 
 and caresses, that Dinah believed herself the best-beloved 
 woman in the world. These rooms, where everything bore 
 the stamp of fashion, pleased her far better than her old 
 manor-house. 
 
 Pamela Migeon, the intelligent damsel of fourteen, was 
 questioned by the journalist as to whether she would like to be 
 waiting-maid to tlie imposing baroness. Pamela, perfectly 
 enchanted, entered on her duties at once, by going off to 
 order dinner from a restaurant on the boulevard. Dinah was 
 able to judge of the extreme poverty that lay hidden under 
 the purely superficial elegance of this bachelor home when she 
 found none of the necessaries of life. As she took possession 
 of the closets and drawers, she indulged in the fondest dreams ; 
 she would alter Etienne's habits, she would make him home- 
 keeping, she would fill his cup of domestic happiness. 
 
 The novelty of the position hid its disastrous side ; Dinah 
 regarded reciprocated love as the absolution of her sin ; she 
 did not yet look beyond the walls of these rooms. Pamela,
 
 140 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 whose wits were as sharp as those of a lorette, went straight to 
 Madame Schontz to beg the loan of some plate, telling her 
 what had happened to Lousteau. After making the child 
 welcome to all she had, Madame Schontz went off to her 
 friend Malaga, that Cardot might be warned of the catastrophe 
 that had befallen his future son-in-law. 
 
 The journalist, not in the least uneasy about the crisis as 
 affecting his marriage, was more and more charming to the 
 lady from the provinces. The dinner was the occasion of the 
 delightful child's-play of lovers set at liberty, and happy to 
 be free. When they had had their coffee, and Lousteau was 
 sitting in front of the fire, Dinah on his knee, Pamela, ran in 
 with a scared face. 
 
 " Here is Monsieur Bixiou! " said she. 
 
 " Go into the bedroom," said the journalist to his mistress; 
 " I will soon get rid of him. He is one of my most intimate 
 friends, and I shall have to explain to him my new start in 
 life." 
 
 "Oh, ho! dinner for two, and a blue velvet bonnet!" 
 cried Bixiou. " I am off. Ah ! that is what comes of marry- 
 ing — one must go through some partings. How rich one feels 
 when one begins to move one's sticks, eh?" 
 
 " Who talks of marrying ? " said Lousteau. 
 
 "What! are you not going to be married, then?" cried 
 Bixiou. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " No? My word, what next ? Are you making a fool of 
 yourself, if you please? What ! You, who, by the mercy of 
 heaven, have come across twenty thousand francs a year, and 
 a house, and a wife connected with all the first families of the 
 better middle-class — a wife, in short, out of the Rue des 
 Lombards ' ' 
 
 " That will do, Bixiou, enough ; it is at an end. Be off! " 
 
 "Be off? I have a friend's privileges, and I shall take 
 every advantage of them. What has come over you? "
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 141 
 
 "What has 'come over' me is my lady from Sancerre. 
 She is a mother, and we are going to live together happily to 
 the end of our days. You will have heard it to-morrow, so 
 you may as well be told it now." 
 
 " Many chimney-pots are falling on my head, as Arnal says. 
 But if this woman really loves you, my dear fellow, she will 
 go back to the place she came from. Did any provincial 
 woman ever yet find her sea-legs in Paris ? She will wound all 
 your vanities. Have you forgotten what a provincial is? 
 She will bore you as much when she is happy as when she is 
 sad J she will have as great a talent for escaping grace as a 
 Parisian has in inventing it. 
 
 " Lousteau, listen to me. That a passion should lead you 
 to forget to some extent the times in which we live is con- 
 ceivable ; but I, my dear fellow, have not the mythological 
 bandage over my eyes. Well, then, consider your position. 
 For fifteen years you have been tossing in the literary world ; 
 you are no longer young, you have padded the hoof till your 
 soles are worn through ! Yes, my boy, you turn your socks 
 under like a street urchin to hide the holes, so that the legs 
 cover the heels ! In short, the joke is too stale. Your ex- 
 cuses are more familiar, more generally known, than a patent 
 medicine " 
 
 " I may say to you, like the regent to Cardinal Dubois: 
 ' That is kicking enough ! ' " said Lousteau, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, venerable young man," replied Bixiou, " the iron 
 has touched the sore to the quick. You are worn out, aren't 
 you ? Well, then ; in the heyday of youth, under the pres- 
 sure of penury, what have you done ? You arc not in the 
 front rank, and you have not a thousand francs of your own. 
 That is the sum-total of the situation. Can you, in the de- 
 cline of your powers, support a family by your pen, when your 
 wife, if she is an honest woman, will not have at her command 
 the resources of the woman of the streets, who can extract her 
 thousand-franc note from the depths where milord keeps it
 
 142 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 safe ? You are rushing into the lowest depths of the social 
 theatre. 
 
 "And this is only the financial side. Now, consider the 
 political position. We are struggling in an essentially bour- 
 geois age, in which honor, virtue, high-mindedness, talent, 
 learning — genius, in short — is summed up in paying your way, 
 owing nobody anything, and conducting your affairs with 
 judgment. Be steady, be respectable, have a wife and chil- 
 dren, pay your rent and taxes, serve in the National Guard, 
 and be on the same pattern as all the men of your company — 
 then you may indulge in the loftiest pretensions, rise to the 
 Ministry ! And you have the best chances possible, since you 
 are no Montmorency. You were preparing to fulfill all the 
 conditions insisted on for turning out a political personage, 
 you are capable of every mean trick that is necessary in ofllice, 
 even of pretending to be commonplace — you would have 
 acted it to the life. And just for a woman, who will leave 
 you in the lurch — the end of every eternal passion — in three, 
 five, or seven years — after exhausting your last physical and 
 intellectual powers, you turn your back on the sacred hearth, 
 on the Rue des Lombards, on a political career, on thirty 
 thousand francs per annum, on respectability and respect. 
 Ought that to be the end of a man who has done with illu- 
 sions ? 
 
 " If you had kept a pot-boiling for some actress who gave 
 you your fun for it — well ; that is what you may call a cabinet 
 matter. But to live with another man's wife? It is a draft 
 at sight on disaster ; it is bolting the bitter pills of vice with 
 none of the gilding." 
 
 " That will do. One word answers it all ; I love Madame 
 de La Baudraye, and prefer her to every fortune, to every 
 position the world can offer. I may have been carried away 
 by a gust of ambition, but everything must give way to the 
 joy of being a father." 
 
 "Ah, ha! you have a fancy for paternity? But, wretched
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 143 
 
 man, we are the fathers only of our legitimate children. What 
 is a brat that does not bear your name ? The last chapter of 
 the romance. Your child will be taken from you ! We have 
 seen that story in twenty plays these ten years past. 
 
 " Society, my dear boy, will drop upon you sooner or later. 
 Read ' Adolphe ' once more. Dear me ! I fancy I can see 
 you when you and she are used to each other ; — I see you de- 
 jected, hang-dog, bereft of position and fortune, and fighting 
 like the shareholders of a bogus company when they are tricked 
 by a director. 
 
 "Your director is happiness." 
 
 "Say no more, Bixiou." 
 
 ''But I have only just begun," said Bixiou. "Listen, my 
 dear boy. Marriage has been out of favor for some time past ; 
 but, apart from the advantages it offers in being the only 
 recognized way of certifying heredity, as it affords a good- 
 looking young man, though penniless, the opportunity of mak- 
 ing his fortune in two months, it survives in spite of disadvan- 
 tages. And there is not the man living who would not repent, 
 sooner or later, of having, by his own fault, lost the chance 
 of marrying thirty thousand francs a year." 
 
 "You won't understand me," cried Lousteau, in a voice of 
 exasperation. " Go away — she is there " 
 
 "I beg your pardon; why did you not tell me sooner? 
 You are of age, and so is she," he added in a lower voice, 
 but loud enough to be heard by Dinah. " She will make you 
 repent bitterly of your happiness ! " 
 
 " If it is a folly, I intend to commit it. Farewell." 
 
 "A man gone overboard ! " cried Bixiou. 
 
 " Devil take those friends who think they have a right to 
 preach to you," said Lousteau, opening the door of the bed- 
 room, where he found Madame de La Baudraye sunk in an 
 armchair and dabbing her eyes with an embroidered handker- 
 chief. 
 
 "Oh, why did I come here?" sobbed she. "Good
 
 144 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 heavens, why indeed? Etienne, I am not so provincial as 
 you think me. You are making a fool of me." 
 
 "Darling angel," replied Lousteau, taking Dinah in his 
 arms, lifting her from her chair, and dragging her half-dead 
 into the drawing-room, ''we have both pledged our future, it 
 is sacrifice for sacrifice. While I was loving you at Sancerre, 
 they were engaging me to be married here, but I refused. 
 Oh ! I was extremely distressed " 
 
 "I am going," cried Dinah, starting wildly to her feet and 
 turning to the door. 
 
 *' You will stay here, my Didine. All is at an end. And 
 is this fortune so lightly earned after all ? Must I not marry 
 a gawky, tow-haired creature, with a red nose, the daughter 
 of a notary, and saddle myself with a stepmother who could 
 easily give Madame de Piedefer points on the score of bigotry 
 beside the " 
 
 Pamela flew in, and whispered in Lousteau's ear — 
 
 " Madame Schontz ! " 
 
 Lousteau rose, leaving Dinah on the sofa, and went out. 
 
 "It is all over with you, my dear," said the woman. 
 ** Cardot does not mean to quarrel with his wife for the sake 
 of a son-in-law. The lady made a scene — something like a 
 scene, I can tell you ! So, to conclude, the head-clerk, who 
 was the late head-clerk's deputy for two years, agrees to take 
 the girl with the business." 
 
 "Mean wretch!" exclaimed Lousteau. "What! in two 
 hours he has made up his mind?" 
 
 "Bless me, that is simple enough. The rascal, who knew 
 all the dead man's little secrets, guessed what a fix his master 
 was in from overhearing a few words of the squabble with 
 Madame Cardot. The notary relies on your honor and good 
 feeling, for the affair is settled. The clerk, whose conduct 
 has been admirable, went so far as to attend mass ! A finished 
 hypocrite, I say — just suits the mamma. You and Cardot 
 will still be friends. He is to be a director in an immense
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 145 
 
 financial concern, and he may be of use to you. So you have 
 been waked from a sweet dream." 
 
 " I have lost a fortune, a wife, and " 
 
 "And a mistress," said Madame Schontz, smiling. "Here 
 you are, more than married ; you will be insufferable, you will 
 be always wanting to get home, there will be nothing loose 
 about you, neither your clothes nor your habits. And, after 
 all, my Arthur does things in style. I will be faithful to him 
 and cut Malaga's acquaintance. 
 
 " Let me peep at her through the door — your Sancerre 
 Muse," she went on. "Is there no finer bird than that to 
 be found in the desert ? " she exclaimed. " You are cheated ! 
 She is dignified, lean, lachrymose; she only needs Lady Dud- 
 ley's turban ! " 
 
 "What is it now? " asked Madame de La Baudraye, who 
 had heard the rustle of a silk dress and the murmur of a 
 woman's voice. 
 
 "It is, my darling, that we are now indissolubly united. 
 I have just had an answer to the letter you saw me write, 
 which was to break off my marriage " 
 
 " So that was the party which you gave up ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "' Oh, I will be more than your wife — I am your slave, I 
 give you my life," said the poor deluded creature. " I did 
 not believe I could love you more than I did ! Now I shall 
 not be a mere incident, but your whole life?" 
 
 "Yes, my beautiful, my generous Uidine." 
 
 "Swear to me," said she, "that only death shall divide 
 us." 
 
 Lousteau was ready to sweeten his vows with the most 
 fascinating prettinesses. And this was why : Between the 
 door of the apartment where he had taken the lorette's fare- 
 well kiss and that of the drawing-room, wliere the Muse was 
 reclining, bewildered by such a succession of shocks, Lousteau 
 had remembered little de I^a Baudraye's precarious health, his 
 10
 
 146 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 fine fortune, and Bianchon's remark about Dinah: " She will 
 be a rich widow ! " and he said to himself, '• I would a hun- 
 dred times rather have Madame de La Baudraye for a wife than 
 Felicie! " 
 
 His plan of action was quickly decided on ; he determined 
 to play the farce of passion once more, and to perfection. 
 
 His mean self-interest and his false vehemence of passion 
 had disastrous results. Madame de La Baudraye, when she 
 set out from Sancerre for Paris, had intended to live in rooms 
 of her own quite near to Lousteau ; but the proofs of devo- 
 tion her lover had shown her by giving up such brilliant pros- 
 pects, and yet more the perfect happiness of the first days of 
 their illicit union, kept her from mentioning such a parting. 
 The second day was to be — and indeed was — a high festival, 
 in which such a suggestion proposed to "her angel" would 
 have been a discordant note. 
 
 Lousteau, on his part, anxious to make Dinah feel herself 
 dependent on him, kept her in a state of constant intoxication 
 by incessant amusement. These circumstances hindered two 
 persons so clever as these were from avoiding the slough into 
 which they fell — that of a life in common, a piece of folly of 
 which, unfortunately, many instances may be seen in Paris in 
 literary circles. 
 
 And thus was the whole programme played out of a provin- 
 cial amour, so satirically described by Lousteau to Madame de 
 La Baudraye — a fact which neither he nor she remembered. 
 Passion is born a deaf-mute. 
 
 This winter in Paris was to Madame de La Baudraye all 
 that the month of October had been at Sancerre. Etienne, 
 to initiate " his wife " into Paris life, varied this honeymoon 
 by evenings at the play, where Dinah would only go to the 
 stage box. At first Madame de La Baudraye preserved some 
 remnants of her countrified modesty; she was afraid of being 
 seen ; she hid her happiness. She would say —
 
 THE MUSE OF 'I HE DEPARTMENT. 147 
 
 "Monsieur de Clagny or Monsieur Gravier may have 
 followed me to Paris." She was afraid of Sancerre even in 
 Paris. 
 
 Lousteau, who was excessively vain, educated Dinah, took 
 her to the best dressmakers, and pointed out to her the most 
 fashionable women, advising her to take them as models for 
 imitation. And Madame de La Baudraye's provincial appear- 
 ance was soon a thing of the past. Lousteau, when his 
 friends met him, was congratulated on his conquest. 
 
 All through that season Etienne wrote little and got very 
 much into debt, though Daiah, who was proud, bought all 
 her clothes out of her savings, and fancied she had not been 
 the smallest expense to her beloved. By the end of three 
 months Dinah was acclimatized : she had reveled in the music 
 at the Italian opera; she knew the pieces "on" at all 
 theatres, and the actors and jests of the day ; she had 
 become inured to this life of perpetual excitement, this rapid 
 torrent in which everything is forgotten. She no longer 
 craned her neck or stood with her nose in the air, like an 
 image of Amazement, at the constant surprises that Paris has 
 for a stranger. She had learned to breathe that witty, vital- 
 izing, teeming atmosphere where clever people feel themselves 
 in their element, and which they can no longer bear to quit. 
 
 One morning, as she read the papers, for Lousteau had 
 them all, two lines carried her back to Sancerre and the past, 
 two lines that seemed not unfamiliar — as follows — 
 
 " Monsieur le Baron de Clagny, Public Prosecutor to the 
 Criminal Court at Sancerre, has been appointed Deputy Public 
 Prosecutor to the Supreme Court in Paris." 
 
 " How well that worthy lawyer loves you ! " said the jour- 
 nalist, smiling. 
 
 " Poor man ! " said she. "What did I tell you? He is 
 following me." 
 
 Etienne and Dinah were just then at the most dazzling and 
 fervid stage of a passion when each is perfectly accustomed to
 
 148 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the other, and yet love has not lost its freshness and relish. 
 The lovers know each other well, but all is not yet understood ; 
 they have not been a second time to the same secret haunts of 
 the soul ; they have not studied each other till they know, as 
 they must later, the very thought, word, and gesture that re- 
 sponds to every event, the greatest and the smallest. En- 
 chantment reigns ; there are no collisions, no differences of 
 opinion, no cold looks. Their two souls are always on the 
 same side. And Dinah would speak the magical words, em- 
 phasized by the yet more magical expression and looks which 
 every woman can use under such circumstances. 
 
 " When you cease to love me, kill me. If you should cease 
 to love mc, I believe I could kill you first and myself after." 
 
 To this sweet exaggeration, Lousteau would reply — 
 
 "All I ask of God is to see you as constant as I shall be. 
 It is you who will desert me ! " 
 
 ''My love is supreme." 
 
 "Supreme," echoed Lousteau. *' Come, now? Suppose 
 I am dragged away to a bachelor party, and find there one of 
 my former mistresses, and she makes fun of me ; I, out of 
 vanity, behave as if I were free, and do not come in here till 
 next morning — would you still love me?" 
 
 "A woman is only sure of being loved when she is pre- 
 ferred ; and if you came back to me, if Oh ! you make 
 
 me understand what the happiness would be of forgiving the 
 man I adore." 
 
 "Well, then, I am truly loved for the first time in my 
 life ! " cried Lousteau. 
 
 "At last you understand that ! " said she. 
 
 Lousteau proposed that they should each write a letter set- 
 ting forth the reasons which would compel them to end by 
 suicide. Once in possession of such a document, each might 
 kill the other without danger in case of infidelity. But in 
 spite of mutual promises, neither wrote the letter. 
 
 The journalist, happy for the moment, promised himself
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 149 
 
 that he would deceive Dinah when he should be tired of her, 
 and would sacrifice everything to the requirements of that 
 deception. To him Madame de La Baudraye was a fortune 
 in herself. At the same time, he felt the yoke. 
 
 Dinah, by consenting to this union, showed a generous 
 mind and the power derived from self-respect. In this abso- 
 lute intimacy, in which both lovers put off their mask, the 
 young woman never abdicated her modesty, her masculine 
 rectitude, and the strength peculiar to ambitious souls, which 
 formed the basis of her character. Lousteau involuntarily 
 held her in high esteem. As a Parisian, Dinah was superior 
 to the most fascinating courtesan ; she could be as amusing 
 and as witty as Malaga ; but her extensive information, her 
 habits of mind, her vast reading enabled her to generalize her 
 wit, while the Florines and the Schontzcs exerted theirs over 
 a very narrow circle. 
 
 "There is in Dinah," said Etienne to Bixiou, "the stuff to 
 make both a Ninon and a de Stael." 
 
 "A woman who combines an encyclopaedia and a seraglio 
 is very dangerous," replied the mocking spirit. 
 
 When the expected infant became a visible fact, Madame 
 de La Baudraye would be seen no more; but before shutting 
 herself up, never to go out unless into the country, she was 
 bent on being present at the first performance of a play by 
 Nathan. This literary solemnity occupied the minds of the 
 two thousand persons who regard themselves as constituting 
 "all Paris." Dinah, wlio had never been at a first-night's 
 performance, was full of very natural curiosity. She had by 
 this time arrived at such a pitch of affection for Lousteau that 
 she gloried in her misconduct ; she exerted a sort of savage 
 strength to defy the world ; she was determined to look it in 
 the face without turning her head aside. 
 
 She dressed herself to perfection, in a style suited to her 
 delicate looks and the sicklv whiteness of her face. Her 
 pallid complexion gave her an expression of refinement, and
 
 150 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 her black hair in smooth bands enhanced her pallor. Her 
 brilliant gray eyes looked finer than ever, set in dark rings. 
 But a terribly distressing incident awaited her. By a very 
 simple chance, the box given to the journalist, on the first 
 tier, was next to that which Anna Grossetete had taken. The 
 two intimate friends did not even bow ; neither chose to ac- 
 knowledge the other. At the end of the first act Lousteau 
 left his seat, abandoning Dinah to the fire of eyes, the glare 
 of opera-glasses ; while the Baronne de Fontaine and the 
 Comtesse Marie de Vandenesse, who accompanied her, re- 
 ceived some of the most distinguished men of fashion. 
 
 Dinah's solitude was all the more distressing because she 
 had not the art of putting a good face on the matter by ex- 
 amining the company through her opera-glass. In vain did 
 she try to assume a dignified and thoughtful attitude, and fix 
 her eyes on vacancy; she was overpoweringly conscious of 
 being the object of general attention ; she could not disguise 
 her discomfort, and lapsed a little into provincialism, display- 
 ing her handkerchief and making involuntary movements of 
 which she had almost cured herself. At last, between the 
 second and third acts, a man had himself admitted to Dinah's 
 box ! It was Monsieur de Clagnv. 
 
 " I am happy to see you, to tell you how much I am pleased 
 by your promotion," said she. 
 
 " Oh ! madame, for whom should I come to Paris ?" 
 
 "What!" said she. "Have I anything to do with your 
 appointment? " 
 
 "Everything," said he. "Since you left Sancerre, it had 
 become intolerable to me; I was dying " 
 
 "Your sincere friendship does me good," replied she, 
 holding out her hand. "I am in a position to make much 
 of my true friends; I now know their value. I feared I must 
 have lost your esteem, but the proof you have given me by 
 this visit touches me more deeply than your ten years' attach- 
 ment."
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 151 
 
 "You are an object of curiosity to the whole house," said 
 the lawyer. " Oh ! my dear, is this a part for you to be play- 
 ing? Could you not be happy and yet remain honored? 1 
 have just heard that you are Monsieur Etienne Lousteau's mis- 
 tress, that you live together as man and wife ! You have 
 broken for ever with society ; even if you should some day 
 marry your lover, the time will come when you will feel the 
 want of the respectability you now despise. Ought you not 
 to be in a home of your own with your mother, who loves you 
 well enough to protect you with her segis? Appearances at 
 least would be saved." 
 
 " I am in the wrong to have come here," replied she, " that 
 is all. I have bid farewell to all the advantages which the 
 world confers on women who knov/ how to reconcile happi- 
 ness and the proprieties. My abnegation is so complete that 
 I only wish I could clear a vast space about me to make a 
 desert of my love, full of God, of him, and of myself. We 
 have made too many sacrifices on both sides not to be united 
 — united by disgrace if you will, but indissolubly one. I am 
 happy; so happy that I can love freely, my friend, and con- 
 fide in you more than of old — for I need a friend." 
 
 The lawyer was magnanimous — nay, truly great. To this 
 declaration, in which Dinah's soul thrilled, he replied in 
 heart-rending tones — 
 
 " I wanted to go to see you, to be sure that you were loved: 
 I shall now be easy, and no longer alarmed as to your future. 
 But will your lover appreciate the magnitude of your sacrifice ; 
 is there any gratitude in his affection ? " 
 
 "Come to the Rue des Martyrs and you will see!" she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, I will call," he replied. "I have already passed 
 your door without daring to inquire for you. You do not yet 
 know the literary world. There are glorious exceptions, no 
 doubt ; but these men of letters drag terrible evils in their 
 train ; among these I account publicity as one of the greatest.
 
 152 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 for it blights everything. A woman may at any time commit 
 herself with " 
 
 "With a public prosecutor?" the baroness put in with a 
 smile. 
 
 "Well ! — and then after a rupture there is still something 
 to fall back on ; the world has known nothing. But with a 
 more or less famous man the public is thoroughly informed. 
 Why, look there ! What an example you have close at hand ! 
 You are sitting back to back with the Comtcsse Marie Van- 
 dcncsse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost 
 folly for a more celebrated man than Lousteau — for Nathan — 
 and now they do not even recognize each other. After going 
 to the very edge of the precipice, the countess was saved, no 
 one knows how ; she neither left her husband nor her house ; 
 but as a famous man was concerned, she was the talk of the 
 town for a whole winter. But for her husband's great for- 
 tune, great name, and high position, but for the admirable 
 management of that true statesman — whose conduct to his 
 wife, they say, was perfect — she would have been ruined ; in 
 her position no other woman would have remained respected 
 as she is." 
 
 "And how was Sancerre when you came away?" asked 
 Madame de La Baudraye, to change the subject. 
 
 " Monsieur de La Baudraye announced that your expected 
 confinement after so many years made it necessary that it 
 should take place in Paris, and that he had insisted on your 
 going to be attended by the first physicians," replied Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny, guessing what it was that Dinah most wanted 
 to know. "And so, in spite of the commotion to which your 
 departure gave rise, you still have your legal status," added 
 the public prosecutor. 
 
 "Why!" she exclaimed, "can Monsieur de La Baudraye 
 still hope " 
 
 "Your husband, madame, did what he always does — made 
 a little calculation."
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 153 
 
 The lawyer left the box when the journalist returned, bow- 
 ing with dignity. 
 
 " You are a greater hit than the piece," said Etienne to 
 Dinah. 
 
 This brief triumph brought greater happiness to the poor 
 woman than she had ever known in the whole of her provin- 
 cial existence ; still, as they left the theatre she was very grave. 
 
 " What ails you, my Didine? " asked Lousteau. 
 
 *• I am wondering how a woman succeeds in conquering the 
 world ? " 
 
 " There are two ways. One is by being Madame de Stael, 
 ihe other is by having two hundred thousand francs a year." 
 
 " Society," said she, "asserts its hold on us by appealing 
 to our vanity, our love of appearances. Pooh ! We will be 
 philosophers ! '' 
 
 That evening was the last gleam of the delusive well-being 
 in which Madame de La Baudraye had lived since coming to 
 Paris. Three days later she observed a cloud on Lousteau's 
 brow as he walked round the little garden-plot, smoking a 
 cigar. This woman, who acquired from her husband the 
 habit and the pleasure of never owing anybody a sou, was 
 informed that the household was penniless, v^nth two quarters' 
 rent owing, and on the eve, in fact, of an execution. 
 
 This reality of Paris life pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn ; 
 she repented of have tempted Etienne into the extravagances 
 of love. It is so difficult to pass from pleasure to work, that 
 happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped 
 to flow in sparkling jests. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne 
 taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beam- 
 ing as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not sum- 
 mon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff* of a 
 magazine. 
 
 It struck her that through the worthy Migeon, Pamela's 
 
 * A rent-dislraining constable. 
 ,1'
 
 154 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 father, she might pawn the few jewels she possessed, on which 
 her ''uncle," for she was learning to talk the slang of the 
 town, advanced her nine hundred francs. She kept three 
 hundred for her baby-clothes and the expenses of her illness, 
 and joyfully presented the sum due to Lousteau, who was 
 ploughing, furrow by furrow, or, if you will, line by line, 
 through a novel for a periodical. 
 
 " Dearest heart," said she, " finish your novel without 
 making any sacrifice to necessity ; polish the style, work up 
 the subject. I have played the fine lady too long; I am 
 going to be the housewife and attend to business." 
 
 For the last four months Etienne had been taking Dinah to 
 the Cafe Riche to dine every day, a corner being always kept 
 for them. The country-woman was in dismay at being told 
 that five hundred francs were owing for the last fortnight. 
 
 "What! we have been drinking wine at six francs a 
 bottle ! A Norman sole costs five francs ! — and twenty cen- 
 times for a roll? " she exclaimed, as she looked through the 
 bill Lousteau showed her. 
 
 " Well, it makes very little difference to us whether we are 
 robbed at a restaurant or by a cook," said Lousteau. 
 
 " Henceforth, for the cost of your dinner, you shall live like 
 a prince." 
 
 Having induced the landlord to let her have a kitchen and 
 two servant's rooms, Madame de La Baudraye wrote a {^'tt 
 lines to her mother, begging her to send her some linen and 
 a loan of a thousand francs. She received two trunks full of 
 linen, some plate, and two thousand francs, sent by the hand 
 of an honest and pious cook recommended her by her mother. 
 
 Ten days after the evening at the theatre when they had 
 met, Monsieur de Clagny came to call at four o'clock, after 
 coming out of court, and found Madame de La Baudraye 
 making a little cap. The sight of this proud and ambitious 
 woman, whose mind was so accomplished, and who had 
 queened it so well at the Castle of Anzy, now condescending
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 155 
 
 to household cares and sewing for the coming infant, moved 
 the poor lawyer, who had just left the bench. And as he saw 
 the pricks on one of the taper fingers he had so often 
 kissed, he understood that Madame de La Baudraye was not 
 merely playing at this maternal task. 
 
 In the course of this first interview the magistrate saw to the 
 depths of Dinah's soul. This perspicacity in a man so much 
 in love was a superhuman effort. He saw that Didine meant 
 to be the journalist's guardian spirit and lead him into a 
 nobler road ; she had seen that the difficulties of his practical 
 life were due to some moral defects. Between two beings 
 united by love — in one so genuine, and in the other so well 
 feigned — more than one confidence had been exchanged in 
 the course of four months. Notwithstanding the care with 
 which Etienne wrapped up his true self, a word now and then 
 had not failed to enlighten Dinah as to the previous life of a 
 man whose talents were so hampered by poverty, so perverted 
 by bad examples, so thwarted by obstacles beyond his courage 
 to surmount. " He will be a greater man if life is easy to 
 him," said she to herself. And she strove to make him 
 happy, to give him the sense of a sheltered home by dint 
 of such economy and method as are familiar to provincial 
 folk. 
 
 Thus Dinah became a housekeeper, as she had become a 
 poet, by the soaring of her soul toward the heights. 
 
 " His happiness will be my absolution." 
 
 These words, wrung from Madame de La Baudraye by her 
 friend, the lawyer, accounted for the existing state of things. 
 The publicity of his triumph, flaunted by Etienne on the 
 evening of the first performance, had very plainly shown the 
 lawyer what Lousteau's purpose was. To Etienne, Madame 
 de La Baudraye was, to use his own phrase, " a fine feather in 
 his cap." Far from preferring the joys of ashy and myste- 
 rious passion, of hiding such exquisite happiness from the 
 eyes of the world, he found vulgar satisfaction in displaying
 
 16G THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 the first woman of respectability who had ever honored him 
 with her affection. 
 
 The judge, however, was for some time deceived by the 
 attentions which any man would lavish on any woman in Ma- 
 dame de La Baudraye's situation, and Lousteau made them 
 doubly charming by the ingratiating ways characteristic of 
 men whose manners are naturally attractive. There are, in 
 fact, men who have something of the monkey in them by 
 nature, and to whom the assumption of the most engaging 
 forms of sentiment is so easy that the actor is not detected ; 
 and Lousteau's natural gifts had been fully developed on the 
 stage on which he had hitherto figured. 
 
 Between the months of April and July, when Dinah ex- 
 pected her confinement, she discovered why it was that Lous- 
 teau had not triumphed over poverty ; he was idle and had no 
 power of will. The brain, to be sure, must obey its own 
 laws; it recognizes neither the exigencies of life nor the voice 
 of honor ; a man cannot write a great book because a woman 
 is dying, or to pay a discreditable debt, or to bring up a family ; 
 at the same time, there is no great talent without a strong will. 
 These twin forces are requisite for the erection of the vast 
 edifice of personal glory. A distinguished genius keeps his 
 brain in a productive condition, just as the knights of old kept 
 their weapons always ready for battle. They conquer indo- 
 lence, they deny themselves enervating pleasures, or indulge 
 only to a fixed limit proportioned to their powers. This ex- 
 plains the life of such men as Walter Scott, Cuvier, Voltaire, 
 Newton, Buffon, Bayle, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Lopez de Vega, 
 Calderon, Boccaccio, Aretino, Aristotle — in short, every man 
 who delighted, governed, or led his contemporaries. 
 
 A man may and ought to pride himself more on his will 
 than on his talent. Though Talent has its germ in a cultivated 
 gift. Will means the incessant conquest of his instincts, of pro- 
 clivities subdued and mortified, and difficulties of every kind 
 heroically defeated. The abuse of smoking encouraged Lous-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 157 
 
 teau's indolence. Tobacco, which can lull grief, inevitably 
 numbs a man's energy. 
 
 Then, while the cigar deteriorated him physically, criticism 
 as a profession morally stultified a man so easily tempted by 
 pleasure. Criticism is as fatal to the critic as seeing two sides 
 of a question is to a pleader. In these professions the judg- 
 ment is undermined, the mind loses its lucid rectitude. The 
 writer lives by taking sides. Thus, we may distinguish two 
 kinds of criticism, as in painting we may distinguish art from 
 practical dexterity. Criticism, after the pattern of most con- 
 temporary leader-writers, is the expression of judgments formed 
 at random in a more or less witty way, just as an advocate 
 pleads in court on the most contradictory briefs. The news- 
 paper critic always finds a subject to work up in the book he 
 is discussing. Done after this fashion, the business is well 
 adapted to indolent brains, to men devoid of the sublime 
 faculty of imagination, or, possessed of it indeed, but lacking 
 courage to cultivate it. Every play, every book, comes to 
 their pen as a subject, making no demand on their imagina- 
 tions, and of which they simply write a report, seriously or in 
 irony, according to the mood of the moment. As to an 
 opinion, whatever it may be, French wit can always justify it, 
 being admirably ready to defend either side of any case. 
 And conscience counts for so little, these bravos have so little 
 value for their own words, that they will loudly praise in the 
 green-room the work they tear to tatters in print. 
 
 Nay, men have been known to transfer their services from 
 one paper to another with.out being at the pains to consider 
 that the opinions of a new sheet must be diametrically antag- 
 onistic to those of the old. Madame dc La Baudraye could 
 smile to see Lousteau with one article on the Legitimist side 
 and one on the side of the new dynasty, both on the same 
 occasion. She admired the maxim he preached — 
 
 " We are the attorneys of public opinion." 
 
 The other kind of criticism is a science. It necessitates a
 
 158 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 thorough comprehension of each work, a lucid insight into 
 the tendencies of the age, the adoption of a system, and faith 
 in fixed principles — that is to say, a scheme of jurisprudence, 
 a summing-up, and a verdict. The critic is then a magistrate 
 of ideas, the censor of his time ; he fulfills a sacred function ; 
 while in the former case he is but an acrobat who turns somer- 
 saults for a living as long as he has a leg to stand on. Be- 
 tween Claud Vignon and Lousteau lay the gulf that divides 
 mere dexterity from art, 
 
 Dinah, whose mind was soon freed from rust, and whose 
 intellect was by no means narrow, had ere long taken literary 
 measure of her idol. She saw Lousteau working up to the 
 last minute under the most discreditable compulsion, and 
 scamping his work, as painters say of a picture from which 
 sound technique is absent ; but she would excuse him by 
 saying: " He is a poet! " so anxious was she to justify him 
 in her own eyes. When she thus guessed the secret of many 
 a writer's existence, she also guessed that Lousteau's pen could 
 never be trusted to as a resource. 
 
 Then her love for him led her to take a step she would 
 never have thought of for her own sake. Through her mother 
 she tried to negotiate with her husband for an allowance, but 
 without Etienne's knowledge ; for, as she thought, it would be 
 an offense to his delicate feelings, which must be considered. 
 A few days before the end of July, Dinah crumpled up in her 
 wrath the letter from her mother containing Monsieur d: La 
 Baudraye's ultimatum- — 
 
 " Madame de La Eaudraye cannot need an allowance in 
 Paris when she can live in perfect luxury at her Castle of 
 Anzy: she may return." 
 
 Lousteau picked up this letter and read it. 
 
 " I will avenge you!" said he to Dinah in the ominous 
 tone that delights a woman when her antipathies are flattered. 
 
 Five days after this, Bianchon and Duriau, the famous 
 ladies' doctor, were engaged at Lousteau's ; for he, ever since
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 159 
 
 little La Baudraye's reply, had been making a great display of 
 his joy and importance over the advent of the infant. Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny and Madame Piedefer — sent for in all haste 
 — were to be the godparents, for the cautious magistrate feare(l 
 lest Lousteau should commit some compromising blunder. 
 Madame de La Baudraye gave birth to a boy that might have 
 filled a queen with envy who hoped for an heir-presumptive. 
 Bianchon and Monsieur de Clagny went off to register the 
 child at the mayor's office as the son of Monsieur and Madame 
 deLa Baudraye, unknown to Etienne, who, on his part, rushed 
 off to a printer's to have this circular set up : 
 
 ' ' Madame la Baronnc de La Baudraye is haf^pily delivered 
 of a son. 
 
 " Monsieur Etienne Lousteau has the pleasure of informing 
 you of the fact. 
 
 ' ' The mother and child are doing well. ' ' 
 
 Lousteau had already sent out sixty of these announcements 
 when Monsieur de Clagny, on coming to make inquiries, hap- 
 pened to see the list of the persons at Sancerre to whom Lous- 
 teau proposed to send this amazing notice, written below the 
 names of the persons in Paris to whom it was already gone. 
 Tlie lawyer confiscated the list and the remainder of the cir- 
 culars, showed them to Madame Piedefer, begging her on no 
 account to allow Lousteau to carry on this atrocious jest, and 
 jumped into a cab. The devoted friend then ordered from 
 the same printer another announcement in the following words : 
 
 ' ' Madame la Baronne de La Baudraye is happily delivered 
 of a son. 
 
 ' ' Monsieur le Baron de La Baudraye has the honor of in- 
 forming you of the fact. 
 
 ' ' Mother and child are doing well. ' *
 
 160 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 After seeing the proofs destroyed, the form of type, every- 
 thing that could bear witness to the existence of the former 
 document, Monsieur de Clagny set to work to intercept those 
 tliat had been sent ; in many cases he changed them at the 
 porter's lodge, he got thirty back into his own hands, and at 
 last, after three days of hard work, only one of the original 
 notes existed, that, namely, sent to Nathan. 
 
 Five times had the lawyer called on the great man without 
 finding him. By the time Monsieur de Clagny was admitted, 
 after requesting an interview, the story of the announcement 
 was known to all Paris. Some persons regarded it as one of 
 those waggish calumnies, a sort of stab to which every reputa- 
 tion, even the most ephemeral, is exposed ; others said they 
 had read the paper and returned it to some friend of the La 
 Baudraye family; a great many declaimed against the immor- 
 ality of journalists ; in short, this last remaining specimen was 
 regarded as a curiosity. Florine, with whom Nathan was 
 living, had shown it about, stamped in the postofifice as paid, 
 and addressed in Etienne's hand. So, as soon as the judge 
 spoke of the announcement, Nathan began to smile. 
 
 " Give up that monument of recklessness and folly ? " cried 
 he. '' That autograph is one of those weapons which an 
 athlete in the circus cannot afford to lay down. That note 
 proves that Lousteau has no heart, no taste, no dignity; that 
 he knows nothing of the world nor of public morality; that 
 he insults himself when he can find no one else to insult. 
 None but the son of a provincial citizen imported from San- 
 cerre to become a poet, but who is only the bravo of some 
 contemptible magazine, could ever have sent out such a cir- 
 cular letter, as you must allow, monsieur. This is a docu- 
 ment indispensable to the archives of the age. To-day Lous- 
 teau flatters me, to-morrow he may ask for my head. Excuse 
 me, I forgot you were a judge. 
 
 " I have gone through a passion for a lady, a great lady, as 
 far superior to Madame de La Baudraye as your fine feeling.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 161 
 
 monsieur, is superior to Lousteau's vulgar retaliation ; but I 
 would have died rather than utter her name. A few months 
 of her .lirs and graces cost me a hundred thousand francs and 
 my prospects for life; but I do not think the price too high ! 
 And I have never murmured ! If a woman betrays the secret 
 of her passion, it is the supreme offering of her love, but a 
 man ! He must be a Lousteau ! 
 
 " No, I would not give up that paper for a thousand 
 crowns." 
 
 " Monsieur," said the lawyer at last, after an eloquent battle 
 lastinsf half an hour, "I have called on fifteen or sixteen men 
 of letters about this affair, and can it be that you are the only 
 one immovable by an appeal of honor? It is not for Etienne 
 Lousteau that I plead, but for a woman and child, both equally 
 ignorant of the damage thus done to their fortune, their pros- 
 pects, and their honor. Who knows, monsieur, whether you 
 might not some day be compelled to plead for some favor of 
 justice for a friend, for some person whose honor was dearer 
 to you than your own. It might be remembered against you 
 that you had been ruthless. Can such a man as you are hesi- 
 tate?" added Monsieur de Clagny. 
 
 " I only wished you to understand the extent of the sacri- 
 fice," replied Nathan, giving up the letter, as he reflected on 
 the judge's influence and accepted this implied bargain. 
 
 When the journalist's stupid jest had been counteracted, 
 Monsieur de Clagny went to give him a rating in the presence 
 of Madame Piedefer; but he found Lousteau fuming with 
 irritation. 
 
 "What I did, monsieur, I did with a purpose!" replied 
 Etienne. "Monsieur de La Baudraye has sixty thousand 
 francs a year, and refuses to make his wife an allowance ; I 
 wished to make him feel that the child is in my power." 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, I quite suspected it," replied the lawyer. 
 " For that reason I readily agreed to be little Polydore's god- 
 father, and he is registered as the son of the Baron and Baronne 
 11
 
 162 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 de La Baudraye; if you have the feelings of a father, you 
 ought to rejoice in knowing that the child is heir to one of 
 the finest entailed estates in France." 
 
 "And pray, sir, is the mother to die of hunger?" 
 
 "Be quite easy," said the lawyer bitterly, having dragged 
 from Lousteau the expression of feeling he had so long been 
 expecting, "I will undertake to transact the matter with 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye." 
 
 Monsieur de Clagny left the house with a chill at his 
 heart. 
 
 Dinah, his idol, was loved for her money. Would she not, 
 when too late, have her eyes opened ? 
 
 " Poor woman ! " said the lawyer, as he walked away. 
 And this justice we will do him — for to whom should justice 
 be done unless to a judge? — he loved Dinah too sincerely to 
 regard her degradation as a means of triumph one day ; he 
 was all pity and devotion ; he really loved her. 
 
 The care and nursing of the infant, its cries, the quiet 
 needed for the mother during the first few days, and the 
 ubiquity of Madame Piedefer, were so entirely adverse to 
 literary labors, that Lousteau moved up to the three rooms 
 taken on the second floor for the old bigot. The journalist, 
 obliged to go to first performances without Dinah, and living 
 apart from her, found an indescribable charm in the use of his 
 liberty. More than once he submitted to be taken by the 
 arm and dragged off to some jollification ; more than once he 
 found himself at the house of a friend's mistress in the heart 
 of bohemia. He again saw women brilliantly young and 
 splendidly dressed, in whom economy seemed treason to their 
 youth and power. Dinah, in spite of her striking beauty, after 
 nursing her baby for three months, could not stand comparison 
 with these perishable blossoms, so soon faded, but so showy as 
 long as they live rooted in opulence. 
 
 Home life had, nevertheless, a strong attraction for Etienne.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT, 163 
 
 In three months the mother and daughter, with the help of 
 the cook from Sancerre and of little Pamela, had given the 
 apartment a quite changed ajipearance. The journalist found 
 his breakfast and his dinner there served with a sort of luxury. 
 Dinah, handsome and nicely dressed, was careful to anticipate 
 her dear Etienne's wishes, and he felt himself the king of his 
 home, where everything, even the baby, was subject to his 
 selfishness. Dinah's affection was to be seen in every trifle; 
 Lousteau could not possibly cease the entrancing deceptions 
 of his unreal passion. 
 
 Dinah, meanwhile, was aware of a source of ruin, both to 
 her love and to the household, in the kind of life into which 
 Lousteau had allowed himself to drift. At the end of ten 
 months she weaned her baby, installed her mother in the up- 
 stairs rooms, and restored the family intimacy which indis- 
 solubly links a man and woman when the woman is loving 
 and clever. One of the most striking circumstances in Benja- 
 min Constant's novel, one of the explanations of Ellenore's 
 desertion, is the want of daily — or, if you will, of nightly — 
 intercourse between her and Adolphe. Each of the lovers has 
 a separate home; they have both submitted to the world and 
 saved appearances. Ellenore, repeatedly left to herself, is com- 
 pelled to vast labors of affection to expel the thoughts of release 
 which captivate Adolphe when absent. The constant ex- 
 change of glances and thoughts in domestic life gives a woman 
 such power that a man needs stronger reasons for desertion 
 than she will ever give him so long as she loves him. 
 
 This was an entirely new phase both to Etienne and to 
 Dinah. Dinah intended to be indispensable ; she wanted to 
 infuse fresh energy into this man, whose weakness smiled upon 
 her, for she thought it a security. She found him subjects, 
 sketched the treatment, and at a pinch would write whole 
 chapters. She revived the vitality of this dying talent by 
 transfusing fresh blood into his veins; she pni)plied him with 
 ideas and opinions. In short, she produced two books which
 
 164 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 were a success. More than once she saved Lousteau's self- 
 esteem by dictating, correcting, or finishing his articles when 
 he was in despair at his own lack of ideas. The secret of this 
 collaboration was strictly preserved ; Madame Piedefer knew 
 nothing of it. 
 
 This mental galvanism was rewarded by improved pay, 
 enabling them to live comfortably till the end of 1838. Lous- 
 teau became used to seeing Dinah doing his work, and he 
 paid her, as the French people say in their vigorous lingo, in 
 " monkey money " — nothing for her pains. This expenditure 
 in self-sacrifice becomes a treasure which generous souls prize, 
 and the more she gave the more she loved Lousteau ; the time 
 soon came when Dinah felt that it would be too bitter a grief 
 ever to give him up. 
 
 But then another child was coming, and this year was a 
 terrible trial. In spite of the precautions of the two women, 
 Etienne contracted debts ; he worked himself to death to pay 
 them off while Dinah was laid up ; and, knowing him as she 
 did, she thought him heroic. But after this effort, appalled 
 at having two women, two children, and two maids on his 
 hands, he was incapable of the struggle to maintain a family 
 by his pen when he had failed to maintain even himself. 
 So he let things take their chance. Then the ruthless specu- 
 lator exaggerated the farce of love-making at home to secure 
 greater liberty abroad. 
 
 Dinah proudly endured the burden of life without support. 
 The one idea: " He loves me ! " gave her superhuman strength. 
 Slie worked as hard as the most energetic spirits of our time. 
 At the risk of her beauty and health, Dinah was to Lousteau 
 what Mademoiselle Delachaux was to Gardane, in Diderot's 
 noble and true tale. But while sacrificing herself, she com- 
 mitted the magnanimous blunder of sacrificing dress. She 
 had her gowns dyed, and wore nothing but black. She stank 
 of black, as Malaga said, making fun mercilessly of Lousteau. 
 
 By the end of 1839, Etienne, following the example of
 
 THE MUSE OF 'J HE DEPARTMENT. 165 
 
 Louis XV., had, by dint of gradual capitulations of conscience, 
 come to the point of establishing a distinction between his 
 own money and the housekeeping money, just as Louis XV. 
 drew the line between his privy purse and the public moneys. 
 He deceived Dinah as to his earnings. On discovering this 
 baseness, Madame de La Baudraye went through fearful tor- 
 tures of jealousy. She wanted to live two lives — the life of 
 the world and the life of a literary woman ; she accompanied 
 Lousteau to every first-night performance, and could detect in 
 him many impulses of wounded vanity, for her black attire 
 rubbed off, as it were, on him, clouding his brow, and some- 
 times leading him to be quite brutal. He was really the 
 woman of the two ; and he had all a woman's exacting per- 
 versity ; he would reproach Dinah for the dowdiness of her 
 appearance, even while benefiting by the sacrifice, which to a 
 mistress is so cruel — exactly like a woman who, after sending 
 a man through a gutter to save her honor, tells him she "can- 
 not bear dirt ! " when he comes out. 
 
 Dinah then found herself obliged to gather up the rather 
 loose reins of power by which a clever woman drives a man 
 devoid of will. But in so doing she could not fail to lose 
 much of her moral lustre. Such suspicions as she betrayed 
 drag a woman into quarrels which lead to disrespect, because 
 she herself comes down from the high level on which she had 
 at first placed herself. Next she made some concessions: 
 Lousteau was allowed to entertain several of his friends — 
 Nathan, Bixiou, Blondet, Finot — whose manners, language, 
 and intercourse were depraving. They tried to convince 
 Madame de La Baudraye that her principles and aversions 
 were a survival of provincial prudishness ; and they preached 
 the creed of woman's superiority. 
 
 Before long her jealousy put weapons into Lousteau's hands. 
 During the carnival of 1840, she disguised herself to go to the 
 balls at the opera-house, and to suppers where she met courte- 
 sans, in order to keep an eye on all Etienne's amusements.
 
 166 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 On the day of mid-lent — or, rather, at eight on the morning 
 after — Dinah came home from the ball in her fancy dress to 
 go to bed. She had gone to spy on Loustcau, who, believing 
 her to be ill, had engaged himself for that evening to Fanny 
 Bcaupre. The journalist, warned by a friend, had behaved 
 so as to deceive the poor woman, only too ready to be de- 
 ceived. 
 
 As she stepped out of the hired coach, Dinah met Monsieur 
 de La Baudraye, to whom the porter pointed her out. The 
 little old man took his wife by the arm, saying, in an icy 
 tone — 
 
 ** So this is you, madame ! " 
 
 This sudden advent of conjugal authority, before which she 
 felt herself so small, and, above all, these words, almost froze 
 the heart of the unhappy woman caught in the costume of a 
 debardeur (firewood carrier). To escape Etienne's eye the 
 more effectually, she had chosen a 'dress he was not likely to 
 detect her in. She took advantage of the mask she still had 
 on to escape without replying, changed her dress, and went 
 up to her mother's rooms, where she found her husband wait- 
 ing for her. In spite of her assumed dignity, she blushed in 
 the old man's presence. 
 
 " What do you want of me, monsieur? " she asked. "Are 
 we not separated for ever?" 
 
 "Actually, yes," said Monsieur de La Baudraye. "Legally, 
 
 no. 
 
 Madame Piedefer was telegraphing signals to her daughter, 
 which Dinah presently observed and understood. 
 
 " Nothing could have brought you here but your own in- 
 terests," she said, in a bitter tone. 
 
 "C«r interests," said the little man coldlv, " for we have 
 two children. Your uncle, Silas Piedefer, is dead, at New 
 York, where, after having made and lost several fortunes in 
 various parts of the world, he has finally left some seven or 
 eight hundred thousand francs — they say twelve — but there is
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 167 
 
 Stock-in-trade to be sold. I am the chief in our common in- 
 terests, and act for vou." 
 
 "Oh ! " cried Dinah, "in everything that relates to busi- 
 ness, I trust to no one but Monsieur de Claijny. He knows 
 the law, come to terms with him; what he does will be done 
 right." 
 
 " I have no occasion for Monsieur Clagny," answered 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye, " to take my children from 
 you " 
 
 " Your children ! " exclaimed Dinah. " Your children, to 
 whom you have not sent a sou ! Your children ! " She 
 burst into a loud shout of laughter ; but Monsieur de La Bau- 
 draye's unmoved coolness threw ice on the explosion. 
 
 "Your mother has just brought them to show me," he went 
 on. " They are charming boys. I do not intend to part 
 from them. I shall take them to our house at Anzy, if it 
 were only to save them from seeing their mother disguised 
 like a " 
 
 "Silence!" said Madame de La Baudraye imperatively. 
 "What do you want of me that brought you here? " 
 
 " A power of attorney to receive our Uncle Silas' property." 
 
 Dinah took a pen, wrote two lines to Monsieur de Clagny, 
 and desired her husband to call again in the afternoon. 
 
 At five o'clock. Monsieur de Clagny — who had been pro- 
 moted to the post of attorney-general — enlightened Madame 
 de La Baudraye as to her position ; still, he undertook to 
 arrange everything by a bargain with the old fellow, whose 
 visit had been prompted by avarice alone. Monsieur de La 
 Baudraye, to whom his wife's power of attorney was indis- 
 pensable to enable him to deal with the business as he wished, 
 purchased it by certain concessions. In the first place, he 
 undertook to allow her ten thousand francs a year so long as 
 she found it convenient — so the document was worded — to 
 reside in Paris; the children, each on attaining the age of six, 
 were to be placed in Monsieur de La Baudraye's keeping.
 
 168 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Finally, the lawyer exiracted the payment of the allowance in 
 advance. 
 
 Little La Baudraye, who came jauntily enough to say fare- 
 well to his wife and his children, appeared in a white india- 
 rubber overcoat He was so fani on his feet, and so exactly 
 like the La Baudraye of 1836, that Dinah despaired of ever 
 burying the dreadful little dwarf. From the garden, wliere he 
 was smoking a cigar, the journalist could watch Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye for so long as it took the little reptile to cross the 
 forecourt, but that was enough for Lousteau : it was plain to 
 him that the little man had intended to wreck every hope of 
 his dying that his wife might have conceived. 
 
 This short scene made a considerable change in the writer's 
 secret scheming. As he smoked a second cigar, he seriously 
 reviewed the position. 
 
 His life with Madame de La Baudraye had hitherto cost 
 him quite as much as it had cost her. To use the language of 
 business, the two sides of the account balanced, and they 
 could, if necessary, cry quits. Considering how small his 
 income was, and how hardly he earned it, Lousteau regarded 
 himself, morally speaking, as the creditor. It was, no doubt, 
 a favorable moment for throwing the woman over. Tired at 
 the end of three years of playing a comedy which never can 
 become a habit, he was perpetually concealing his weariness ; 
 and this fellow, who was accustomed to disguise none of his 
 feelings, compelled himself to wear a smile at home like that 
 of a debtor in the presence of his creditor. This compulsion 
 was every day more intolerable. 
 
 Hitherto the immense advantages he foresaw in the future 
 had given him strength ; but when he saw Monsieur de La 
 Baudraye embark for the United States, as briskly as if it were 
 to go down to Rouen in a steamboat, he ceased to believe in 
 the future. 
 
 He went in from the garden to the pretty drawing-roona, 
 where Dinah had just taken leave of her husband.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 169 
 
 " Etienne," said Madame de La Baudraye, " do you know 
 what my lord and master has proposed to me ? In the event 
 of my wishing to return to live at Anzy during his absence, 
 he has left his orders, and he hopes that my mother's good 
 advice will weigh with me, and that I shall go back there with 
 my children." 
 
 " It is very good advice," replied Lousteau drily, knowing 
 the passionate disclaimer that Dinah expected, and indeed 
 begged for with her eyes. 
 
 The tone, the words, the cold look, all hit the hapless 
 woman so hard, who lived only in her love, that two large 
 tears trickled slowly down her cheeks, while she did not speak 
 a word, and Lousteau only saw them when she took out her 
 handkerchief to wipe away these two beads of anguish. 
 
 "What is it, Didine ? " he asked, touched to the heart by 
 this excessive sensibility. 
 
 " Just as I was priding myself on having won our freedom," 
 said she, " at the cost of my fortune — by selling — what is 
 most precious to a mother's heart — selling my children ! — for 
 he is to have them from the age of six — and I cannot see 
 them without going to Sancerre ! — and that is torture ! Ah, 
 dear God ! What have I done ? " 
 
 Lousteau knelt down by her and kissed her hands with a 
 lavish display of coaxing and petting. 
 
 "You do not understand me," said he. " I blame myself, 
 for I am not worth such sacrifices, dear angel. I am, in a 
 literary sense, a quite ' .v,und-rate man. If the day comes 
 when I can no longer cut a figure at the bottom of the news- 
 paper, the editors will let me lie, like an old shoe flung into 
 the rubbish heap. Remember, we tight-rope dancers have no 
 retiring pension ! The State would have too many clever 
 men on its hands if it started on such a career of beneficence. 
 I am forty-two, and I am as idle as a marmot. I feel it — I 
 know it ; " and he took her hand, " my love can only be fatal 
 to you.
 
 170 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "As you know, at two-and-twenty I lived on Florine ; but 
 what is excusable in a youth, what then seems smart and 
 charming, is a disgrace to a man of forty. Hitherto we have 
 shared the burden of existence, and it has not been lovely for 
 this year and a half. Out of devotion to me you wear nothing 
 but black, and that does me no credit." Dinah gave one of 
 those magnanimous shrugs which are worth all the words ever 
 spoken. "Yes," Etienne went on, "I know you sacrifice 
 everything to my whims, even your beauty. And I, with a 
 heart worn out in past struggles, a soul full of dark presenti- 
 ments as to the future, I cannot repay your exquisite love with 
 an equal affection. We were very happy — without a cloud — 
 for a long time. Well, then, I cannot bear to see so sweet a 
 poem end badly. Am I wrong ? " 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye loved Etienne so truly, that this 
 prudence, worthy of de Clagny, gratified her and stanched 
 her tears. 
 
 " He loves me for my myself alone! " thought she, looking 
 at him with smiling eyes. 
 
 After four years of intimacy, this woman's love now com- 
 bined every shade of affection which our powers of analysis 
 can discern, and which modern society has created; one of 
 the most remarkable men of our age, whose death is a recent 
 loss to the world of letters, Beyle (Stendhal), was the first to 
 delineate them to perfection. 
 
 Lousteau could produce in Dinah the acute agitation which 
 may be compared to magnetism, that upsets every pov/er of 
 the mind and body, and overcomes every instinct of resistance 
 in a woman. A look from him, or his wand laid on hers, 
 reduced her to implicit obedience. A kind word or a smile 
 wreathed the poor woman's soul with flowers ; a fond look 
 elated, a cold look depressed her. Wlien she walked, taking 
 his arm and keeping step with him in the street or on the 
 boulevard, she was so entirely absorbed in him that she lost 
 all sense of herself. Fascinated by this fellow's wit, magnet-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 171 
 
 ized by his airs, his vices were but trivial defects in her eyes. 
 She loved the puffs of cigar smoke that the wind brought into 
 her room from the garden ; she went to inhale tliem, and 
 made no wry faces, hiding herself to enjoy them. She hated 
 the publisher or the newspaper editor who refused Lousteau 
 money on the ground of the enormous advances he had had 
 already. She deluded herself so far as to believe that her 
 bohemian was writing a novel, for which the payment was to 
 come, instead of working off a debt long since incurred. 
 
 This, no doubt, is true love, and includes every mode of 
 loving; the love of the heart and of the head — passion, caprice, 
 and taste — to accept Beyle's definitions. Didine loved him 
 so wholly, that in certain moments when her critical judg- 
 ment, just by nature and constantly exercised since she had 
 lived in Paris, compelled her to read to the bottom of Lous- 
 teau's soul, sense was still too much for reason, and suggested 
 excuses. 
 
 "And what am I?" she replied. "A woman who has put 
 herself outside the pale. Since I have sacrificed all a woman's 
 honor, why should not you sacrifice to me some of a man's 
 honor? Do we not live outside the limits of social conven- 
 tionality? Why not accept from me what Nathan can accept 
 from Florine? We will square accounts when we part, and 
 only death can part us — you know. My happiness is your 
 honor, Etienne, as my constancy and your happiness are mine. 
 If I fail to make you happy, all is at an end. If I cause you 
 a pang, condemn me. 
 
 " Our debts are paid ; we have ten thousand francs a year, 
 and between us we can certainly make eight thousand francs a 
 year — I will write theatrical articles. With fifteen hundred 
 francs a month we shall be as rich as Rothschild. Be quite 
 easy. I will have some lovely dresses, and give you every day 
 some gratified vanity, as on the first night of Nathan's play 
 that " 
 
 "And what about your mother, who goes to mass every day,
 
 172 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 and wants to bring a priest to the house and make you give up 
 this way of life? " 
 
 "Everyone has a pet vice. You smoke, she preaches at 
 me, poor woman ! But she takes great care of the children, 
 she takes them out, she is absolutely devoted, and idolizes me. 
 Would you hinder her from crying?" 
 
 " What will be thought of me ? " 
 
 "But we do not live for the world?" cried she, raising 
 Etienne and making him sit by her. " Beside, we shall be 
 married some day — we have the risks of a sea voyage " 
 
 " I never thought of that," said Lousteau simply ; and he 
 added to himself: " Time enough to part when little La Bau- 
 draye is safe back again." 
 
 From that day forth Etienne lived in luxury ; and Dinah, on 
 first nights, could hold her own with the best-dressed women 
 in Paris. Lousteau was so fatuous as to affect, among his 
 friends, the attitude of a man overborne, bored to extinction, 
 ruined by Madame de La Baudraye. 
 
 " Oh, what would I not give to the friend who would de- 
 liver me from Dinah ! But no one ever can ! " said he. 
 "She loves me enough to throw herself out of the window if 
 I told her." 
 
 The journalist was duly pitied ; he would take precautions 
 against Dinah's jealousy when he accepted an invitation. And 
 then he was shamelessly unfaithful. Monsieur de Clagny, 
 really in despair at seeing Dinah in such disgraceful circum- 
 stances when she might have been so rich, and in so wretched 
 a position at the time when her origirial ambitions would have 
 been fulfilled, came to warn her, to tell her — "You are be- 
 trayed," and she only replied, " I know it." 
 
 The lawyer was silenced ; still he found his tongue to say 
 one thing. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye interrupted him when he had 
 scarcely spoken a word.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 17S 
 
 *' Do you still love mc ? " she asked. 
 
 *' I would lose my soul for you ! " he exclaimed, starting to 
 his feet. 
 
 The hapless man's eyes flashed like torches, he trembled 
 like a leaf, his throat was rigid, his hair thrilled to the roots ; 
 he believed he was so blessed as to be accepted as his idol's 
 avenger, and this poor joy filled him with rapture. 
 
 " Wliy are you so startled ? " said she, making him sit down 
 again. ''That is how I love him." 
 
 The lawyer understood this argument of mankind. And 
 there were tears in the eyes of the judge, who had just con- 
 demned a man to death ! 
 
 Lousteau's satiety, that odious conclusion of such illicit re- 
 lations, had betrayed itself in a thousand little things, which 
 are like grains of sand thrown against the panes of the little 
 magical hut where those who love dwell and dream. These 
 grains of sand, which grow to be pebbles, had never been dis- 
 cerned by Dinah till they were as big as rocks. Madame de 
 La Baudraye had at last thoroughly understood Lousteau's 
 character. 
 
 "He is," she had said to her mother, "a poet, defenseless 
 against disaster, mean out of laziness, not for want of heart, 
 and rather too prone to pleasure ; in short, a great cat, whom 
 it is impossible to hate. What would become of him without 
 me? I hindered his marriage; he has no prospects. His 
 talent would perish in privation." 
 
 " Oh, my Dinah ! " Madame Piedefer had exclaimed, " what 
 a hell you live in ! What is the feeling that gives you strength 
 enough to persist? " 
 
 " I will be a mother to him ! " she had replied. 
 
 There are certain horrible situations in which we come to 
 no decision till the moment when our friends discern our dis- 
 honor. We accept compromises with ourself so long as we 
 escape a censor who comes to play prosecutor. Monsieur de 
 Clagny, as clumsy as a tortured man, had been torturing Dinah.
 
 174 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 "To preserve my love I will be all that Madame de Pom- 
 padour was to preserve her power," said she to herself when 
 Monsieur de Clagny had left her. And this phrase sufficiently 
 proves that her love was becoming a burden to her, and would 
 presently be a toil rather than a pleasure. 
 
 The part now assumed by Dinah was horribly painful, and 
 Lousteau made it no easier to play. When he wanted to go 
 out after dinner he would perform the tenderest little farces 
 of affection, and address Dinah in words full of devotion ; he 
 would take her by the chain, and when he had bruised her 
 with it, even while he hurt her, the lordly ingrate would say ; 
 " Did I wound you ? " 
 
 These false caresses and deceptions had degrading conse- 
 quences for Dinah, who believed in a revival of his love. The 
 mother, alas, gave way to the mistress with shameful readiness. 
 She felt herself a mere plaything in a man's hands, and at last 
 she confessed to herself — 
 
 '' Well, then, I will be his plaything ! " finding joy in it — 
 the rapture of damnation. 
 
 When this woman, of a really manly spirit, pictured herself 
 as living in solitude, she felt her courage fail. She preferred 
 the anticipated and inevitable miseries of this fierce intimacy 
 to the absence of the joys, which were all the more exquisite 
 because they arose from the midst of remorse, of terrible 
 struggles with herself, of a No persuaded to be Yes. At every 
 moment she seemed to come across the pool of bitter water 
 found in a desert, and drunk with greater relish than the 
 traveler would find in sipping the finest wines at a prince's 
 table. 
 
 When Dinah wondered to herself at midnight : 
 
 "Will he come home, or will he not?" she was not alive 
 again till she heard the familiar sound of Lousteau's boots and 
 his well-known ring at the bell. 
 
 She would often try to restrain him by giving him pleasure ; 
 she would hope to be a match for her rivals, and leave them
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 175 
 
 no hold on thai satiated heart. How many times a day would 
 she rehearse the tragedy of " Le Dernier Jour d' un condamne " 
 (The Condemned's Last DayJ, saying to herself: •' To-morrow 
 we part." And how often would a word, a look, a kiss full 
 of apparently artless feeling, bring her back to the depths of 
 
 her love ! 
 
 It was terrible. More than once had she meditated suicide 
 as she paced the little town garden where a few pale flowers 
 bloomed. In fact, she had not yet exhausted the vast treasure 
 of devotion and love which a loving woman bears in her 
 heart. 
 
 The romance of " Adolphe " was her Bible, her study, for 
 above all else she would not be an Ellenore. She allowed 
 herself no tears, she avoided all the bitterness so cleverly de- 
 scribed by the critic to whom we owe an analysis of this strik- 
 ing work ; whose comments indeed seemed to Dinah almost 
 superior to the book. And she read again and again this fine 
 essay by the only real critic who has written in the "Revue 
 des Deux Mondes," an article now printed at the beginning 
 of the new edition of " Adolphe." 
 
 " No," she would say to herself, as she repeated the author's 
 fateful words, "no, I will not 'give my requests the form of 
 an order,' I will not '• fly to tears as a means of revenge,' I 
 will not 'condemn the things I once approved without reser- 
 vation,' I will not 'dog his footsteps with a prying eye ; ' if 
 he plays truant, he shall not on his return 'see a scornful lip, 
 whose kiss is an unanswerable command.' No, ' my silence 
 shall not be a reproach nor my first word a quarrel.' I will 
 not be like every other woman ! " she went on, laying on her 
 table the little yellow paper volume which had already attracted 
 Lousteau's remark : " What ! are you studying ' Adolphe ? ' " 
 " If for one day only he should recognize my merits and say : 
 'That victim never uttered a cry!' — it will be all I ask. 
 And beside, the others only have him for an hour; I have 
 him for life!"
 
 176 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Thinking himself justified by his private tribunal in punish- 
 ing his wife, Monsieur de La Baudraye robbed lier to achieve 
 his cherished enterprise of reclaiming three thousand acres of 
 moorland, to which he had devoted himself ever since 1S36, 
 living like a mouse. He manipulated the property left by 
 Monsieur Silas Piedefer so ingeniously that he contrived to 
 reduce the proved value to eight hundred thousand francs 
 while pocketing twelve hundred thousand. He did not an- 
 nounce his return ; but while his wife was enduring unspeaka- 
 ble woes, he was building farms, digging trenches, and plough- 
 ing rough ground with a courage that ranked him among the 
 most remarkable agriculturists of the province. 
 
 The four hundred thousand francs he had filched from his 
 wife were spent in three years on this undertaking, and the 
 estate of Anzy was expected to return seventy-two thousand 
 francs a year of net profits after the taxes were paid. The 
 eight hundred thousand he invested at four and a half per 
 cent, in the Funds, buying at eighty francs, at the time of the 
 financial crisis brought about by the Ministry of the First of 
 March, as it was called. By thus securing to his wife an in- 
 come of forty-eight thousand francs he considered himself no 
 longer in her debt. Could he not restore the odd twelve 
 hundred thousand as soon as the four and a half per cents, 
 had risen above a hundred ? He was now the greatest man 
 in Sancerre, with the exception of one — the richest proprietor 
 in France — whose rival he considered himself. He saw him- 
 self with an income of a hundred and forty thousand francs, 
 of which ninety thousand formed the revenue from the lands 
 he had entailed. Having calculated that beside this net in- 
 come he paid ten thousand francs in taxes, three thousand in 
 working expenses, ten thousand to his wife, and twelve hun- 
 dred to his mother-in-law, he would say in the literary circles 
 of Sancerre — 
 
 " I am reputed miserly, and said to spend nothing : but my 
 outlay amounts to twenty-six thousand five hundred francs a
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 177 
 
 year. And I have still to pay for the education of my two 
 children ! I daresay it is not a pleasing fact to the Milauds 
 of Nevers, but the second house of La Baudraye may yet have 
 as noble a career as the first. I shall most likely go to Paris 
 and petition the King of the French to grant me the title of 
 count — Monsieur Roy is a count — and my wife would be 
 pleased to be Madame la Comtessc." 
 
 And this was said with such splendid coolness that no one 
 would have dared to laugh at the little man. Only Monsieur 
 Boirouge, the presiding judge, remarked — 
 
 " In your place, I should not be happy unless I had a 
 daughter." 
 
 '* Well, I shall go to Paris before long " said the baron. 
 
 In the early part of 1842 Madame de La Baudraye, feeling 
 that she was to Lousteau no more than a reserve in the back- 
 ground, had again sacrificed herself absolutely to secure his 
 comfort ; she had resumed her black raiment, but now it was 
 in sign of mourning, for her pleasure was turning to remorse. 
 She was too often put to shame not to feel the weight of the 
 chain, and her mother found her sunk in those moods of 
 meditation into which visions of the future cast unhappy souls 
 in a sort of torpor. 
 
 Madame Piedefer, by the advice of her spiritual director, 
 was on the watch for the moment of exhaustion, which the 
 priest told her would inevitably supervene, and then she 
 pleaded in behalf of the children. She restricted herself to 
 urging that Dinah and Lousteau should live apart, not asking 
 her to give him up. In real life these violent situations are 
 not closed as they are in books, by death or cleverly contrived 
 catastrophes ; they end far less poetically — in disgust, in the 
 blighting of every flower of the soul, in the commonplace of 
 habit, and very often too in another passion, which robs a 
 wife of the interest which is traditionally ascribed to women. 
 So, when commonsense, the law of social proprieties, family 
 interest — all the mixed elements which, since the Restoration, 
 12
 
 178 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 have been dignified by the name of Public Morals, out of 
 sheer aversion to the name of the Catholic religion — where this 
 is seconded by a sense of insults a little too offensive ; when 
 the fatigue of constant self-sacrifice has almost reached the 
 point of exhaustion ; and when, under these circumstances, a 
 too cruel blow — one of those mean acts which a man never 
 lets a woman know of unless he believes himself to be her 
 assured master — puts the crowning touch to her revulsion and 
 disenchantment, the moment has come for the intervention 
 of the friend who undertakes the cure. Madame Piedefer 
 had no great difficulty now in removing the film from her 
 daughter's eyes. 
 
 She sent for Monsieur de Clagny, who completed the work 
 by assuring Madame de La Baudraye that, if she would give up 
 Eiienne, her husband would allow her to keep the children 
 and to live in Paris, and would restore her to the command of 
 her own fortune. 
 
 "And what a life you are leading ! " said he. " With care 
 and judgment, and the support of some pious and charitable 
 persons, you may have a salon and conquer a position. Paris 
 is not Sancerre." 
 
 Dinah left it to Monsieur de Clagny to negotiate a reconcil- 
 iation with the old man. 
 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye had sold his wine well, he had 
 sold his wool, he had felled his timber, and, without telling 
 his wife, he had come to Paris to invest two hundred thousand 
 francs in the purchase of a delightful residence in the Rue 
 de I'Arcade, that was being sold in liquidation of an aristo- 
 cratic house that was in difficulties. He had been a member 
 of the Council for the Department since 1826, and now, pay- 
 ing ten thousand francs in taxes, he was doubly qualified for a 
 peerage under the conditions of the new legislation. 
 
 Some time before the elections of 1842 he had put himself 
 forward as candidate unless he were meanwhile called to the 
 Upper House as a peer of France. At the same time, he asked
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 179 
 
 for the title of count, and for promotion to the higher grade 
 of the Legion of Honor. In the matter of the elections, the 
 Ministry approved of everything that could give strength to 
 the dynastic nominations ; now, in the event of Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye being won over to the Government, Sancerre 
 would be more than ever a rotten borough of royalism. Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny, whose talents and modesty were more and 
 more highly appreciated by the authorities, gave Monsieur de 
 La Baudraye his support ; he pointed out that by raising this 
 enterprising agriculturist to the peerage, a guarantee would be 
 offered to such important undertakings. 
 
 Monsieur de La Baudraye, then, a count, a peer of France, 
 and commander of the Legion of Honor, was vain enough to 
 wish to cut a figure with a wife and handsomely appointed 
 house. 
 
 " He wanted to enjoy life," he said. 
 
 He therefore addressed a letter to his wife, dictated by Mon- 
 sieur de Clagny, begging her to live under his roof and to 
 furnish the house, giving play to the taste of which the evi- 
 dences, he said, had charmed him at the Castle of Anzy. The 
 newly made count pointed out to his wife that while the in- 
 terests of their property forbade his leaving Sancerre, the 
 education of their boys required her presence in Paris. The 
 accommodating husband desired Monsieur de Clagny to place 
 sixty thousand francs at the disposal of Madame la Comtesse 
 for the interior decoration of their mansion, requesting that 
 she would have a marble tablet inserted over the gateway with 
 the inscription : Hotel de La Baudraye. 
 
 He then accounted to his wife for the money derived from 
 the estate of Silas Piedefer, told her of the investment at four 
 and a half per cent, of the eight hundred thousand francs he 
 had brought from New York, and allowed her that income for 
 her expenses, including the education of the children. As he 
 would be compelled to stay in Paris during some part of the 
 session of the House of Peers, he requested his wife to reserve
 
 180 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 for him a little suite of rooms in an etitresol^ over the 
 kitchens. 
 
 " Bless me ! why, he is growing young again — a gentleman ! 
 — a magnifico ! What will he become next? It is quite 
 alarming," said Madame de La Baudraye. 
 
 "He now fulfills all your wishes at the age of twenty," 
 replied the lawyer. 
 
 The comparison of her future prospects with her present 
 position was unendurable to Dinah. Only the day before, 
 Anna de Fontaine had turned her head away in order to avoid 
 seeing her bosom friend at the Chamarolles' school. 
 
 "I am a countess," said Dinah to herself. " I shall have 
 the peer's blue hammer-cloth on my carriage, and the leaders 
 of the literary world in my drawing-room — and I will look at 
 her!" And it was this little triumph that told with all its 
 weight at the moment of her rehabilitation, as the world's 
 contempt had of old weighed on her happiness. 
 
 One fine day, in May, 1842, Madame de La Baudraye paid 
 all her little household debts and left a thousand crowns on 
 the top of the packet of receipted bills. After sending her 
 mother and the children away to the Hotel de La Baudraye, 
 she awaited Lousteau, dressed ready to leave the house. When 
 the deposed king of her heart came in to dinner, she said — 
 
 " I have upset the pot, my dear. Madame de La Baudraye 
 requests the pleasure of your company at the Rocher de 
 Cancale." 
 
 She carried off Lousteau, quite bewildered by the light and 
 easy manners assumed by the woman who till that morning 
 had been the slave of his least whim, for she too had been 
 acting a farce for two months past. 
 
 "Madame de La Baudraye is figged out as if for a first 
 night," said he — '^ urte premiere" (a first), the slang abbrevi- 
 ation for a first performance. 
 
 *A half-story, between the first and second.
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 181 
 
 " Do not forget the respect you owe to Madame de La 
 Baijdraye," said Dinah gravely. " I do not mean to under- 
 stand such a word ^% figged out.'' 
 
 " Didine a rebel?" said he, putting his arm round her 
 waist. 
 
 "There is no such person as Didine; you have killed her, 
 my dear," she replied, releasing herself. "I am taking you 
 to the first performance of Madame la Comtesse de La Bau- 
 draye. ' ' 
 
 " It is true, then, that our insect is a peer of France? " 
 
 " The nomination is to be gazetted in this evening's ' Moni- 
 teur,' as I am told by Monsieur de Clagny, who is promoted 
 to the court of appeal." 
 
 "Well, it is quite right," said the journalist. "The ento- 
 mology of society ought to be represented in the Upper 
 House." 
 
 " My friend, we are parting for ever," said Madame de La 
 Baudraye, trying to control the trembling of her voice. " I 
 have dismissed the two servants. When you go in, you will 
 find the house in order, and no debts. I shall always feel a 
 mother's affection for you, but in secret. Let us part calmly, 
 without a fuss, like decent people. 
 
 " Have you had a fault to find with my conduct during the 
 past six years ? ' ' 
 
 "None, but that you have spoilt my life and wrecked my 
 prospects," said he in a hard tone. "You have read Ben- 
 jamin Constant's book very diligently ; you have even studied 
 tlie last critique on it ; but you have read with a woman's eyes. 
 Though you have one of those superior intellects which would 
 make the fortune of a poet, you have never dared to take the 
 man's point of view. 
 
 "That book, my dear, is of both sexes. We agreed that 
 books were male or female, dark or fair. In * Adolphc ' 
 women see nothing but Ellenore ; young men see only 
 Adolphe; men of experience see Ellenore and Adolphe;
 
 182 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 political men see the whole of social existence. You did not 
 think it necessary to read the soul of Adolphe — any more 
 than your critic indeed, who saw only Ellenore. What kills 
 that poor fellow, my dear, is that he has sacrificed his future 
 for a woman ; that he never can be what he might have been 
 — an ambassador, a minister, a chamberlain, a poet — and 
 rich. He gives up six years of his energy at that stage of his 
 life when a man is ready to submit to the hardships of any 
 apprenticeship — to a petticoat, which he outstrips in the 
 career of ingratitude, for the woman who has thrown over 
 her first lover is certain sooner or later to desert the second. 
 Adolphe is, in fact, a tow-haired German, who has not spirit 
 enough to be false to Ellenore. There are Adolphes who 
 spare their Ellenores all ignominious quarreling and reproaches, 
 who say to themselves, ' I will not talk of what I have sacri- 
 ficed ; I will not for ever be showing the stump of my wrist 
 to that incarnate selfishness I have made my queen,' as Ra- 
 morny does in ' The Fair Maid of Perth.' But men like that, 
 my dear, get cast aside. 
 
 "Adolphe is a man of birth, an aristocratic nature, who 
 wants to get back into the high road to honors and recover his 
 social birthright, his blighted position. You, at this moment, 
 are playing both parts. You are suffering from the pangs of 
 having lost your position, and think yourself justified in 
 throwing over a hapless lover whose misfortune it has been that 
 he fancied you so far superior as to understand that, though a 
 man's heart ought to be true, his sex may be allowed to in- 
 dulge its caprices." 
 
 "And do you suppose that I shall not make it my business 
 to restore to you all you have lost by me? Be quite easy," 
 said Madame de La Baudraye, astounded by this attack. 
 " Your Ellenore is not dying ; and, if God gives her life, if 
 you amend your ways, if you give up courtesans and actresses, 
 we will find you a better match than a Felicie Cardot." 
 
 The two lovers were sullen ; Lousteau affected dejection, he
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 183 
 
 aimed at appearing hard and cold ; while Dinah, really dis- 
 tressed, listened to the reproaches of her heart. 
 
 "Why," said Lousteau presently, "why not end as we 
 ought to have begun — hide our love from all eyes, and see 
 each other in secret ? " 
 
 " Never ! " cried the new-made countess, with an icy look, 
 " Do you not comprehend that we are, after all, but finite 
 creatures? Our feelings seem infinite by reason of our antici- 
 pation of heaven, but here on earth they are limited by the 
 strength of our physical being. There are some feeble, mean 
 natures which may receive an endless number of wounds and 
 live on ; but there are some more highly tempered souls which 
 snap at last under repeated blows. You have " 
 
 " Oh ! enough ! " cried he. " No more copy ! Your dis- 
 sertation is unnecessary, since you can justify yourself by merely 
 saying — ' I have ceased to love.' " 
 
 " What ! " she exclaimed in bewilderment. "Is it I who 
 have ceased to love?" 
 
 "Certainly. You have calculated that I gave you more 
 trouble, more vexation than pleasure, and you desert your 
 partner " 
 
 " I desert ! " cried she, clasping her hands. 
 
 " Have not you yourself just said ' Never ? ' " 
 
 "Well, then, yes. Never,'' she repeated vehemently. 
 
 This final Never, spoken in the fear of falling once more 
 under Lousteau's influence, was interpreted by him as the 
 death-warrant of his power, since Dinah remained insensible 
 to his sarcastic scorn. 
 
 The journalist could not suppress a tear. He was losing a 
 sincere and unbounded affection. He had found in Dinah the 
 gentlest la Valliere, the most delightful Pompadour that any 
 egoist short of a king could hope for ; and, like a boy who has 
 discovered that by dint of tormenting a cockchafer he has 
 killed it, Lousteau shed a tear. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye rushed out of the private room
 
 184 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 where they had been dining, paid the bill, and fled home to 
 the Rue de I'Arcade, scolding herself and thinking herself a 
 brute. 
 
 Dinah, who had made her house a model of comfort, now 
 metamorphosed herself. This double metamorphosis cost 
 thirty thousand francs more than her husband had antici- 
 pated. 
 
 The fatal accident which in 1842 deprived the House of 
 Orleans of the heir-presumptive having necessitated a meeting 
 of the Chambers in August of that year, little La Baudraye 
 came to present his titles to the Upper House sooner than he 
 had expected, and then saw what his wife had done. He was 
 so much delighted that he paid the thirty thousand francs 
 without a word, just as he had formerly paid eight thousand 
 for decorating La Baudraye. 
 
 On his return from the Luxembourg, where he had been 
 presented according to custom by two of his peers — the Baron 
 de Nucingen and the Marquis de Montriveau — the new count 
 met the old Due de Chaulieu, a former creditor, walking 
 along, umbrella in hand, while he himself sat perched in a 
 low chaise on which his coat-of-arms was resplendent, with 
 the motto, Deo sic patei Jides et hemtmbus. This contrast filled 
 his heart with a large draught of the balm on which the mid- 
 dle-class has been getting drunk ever since 1840. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye was shocked to see her husband 
 improved and looking better than on the day of his marriage. 
 The little dwarf, full of rapturous delight, at sixty-four tri- 
 umphed in the life which had so long been denied him ; in 
 the family, which his handsome Cousin Milaud of Nevers had 
 declared he would never have ; and in his wife — who had 
 asked Monsieur and Madame de Clagny to dinner to meet the 
 cure of the parish and his two sponsors to the Chamber of 
 Peers. He petted the children with fatuous delight. 
 
 The handsome display on the table met with his approval.
 
 THE MUSE OE THE DEPARTMENT. 185 
 
 "These arc the fleeces of the Berry sheep," said he, show- 
 ing Monsieur de Nucingen the dish-covers surmounted by his 
 newly won coronet. " They arc of silver, you see ! " 
 
 Though consumed by melancholy, which she concealed 
 with the determination of a really superior woman, Dinah was 
 charming, witty, and, above all, young again in her Court 
 mourning. 
 
 "You might declare," cried La Baudraye to Monsieur de 
 Nucingen, with a wave of his hand to his wife, " that the 
 countess was not yet thirty." 
 
 "Ah, ha! Matame is a voman of dirty!" replied the 
 baron, who was prone to time-honored remarks, which he 
 took to be the small change of conversation. 
 
 " In every sense of the words," replied the countess. " I 
 am, in fact, five-and-thirty, and mean to set up a little pas- 
 sion " 
 
 " Oh, yes, my wife ruins me in curiosities and china images 
 that " 
 
 " She started that mania at an early age," said the Marquis 
 de Montriveau with a smile. 
 
 " Yes," said La Baudraye, with a cold stare at the marquis, 
 whom he had known at Bourges, "you know that in -25, 
 -26, and -27 she picked up a million francs' worth of treas- 
 ures. Anzy is a perfect museum." 
 
 "What a cool hand ! " thought Monsieur de Clagny, as he 
 saw this little country miser quite on the level of his new 
 position. 
 
 But misers have savings of all kinds ready for use. 
 
 On the day after the vote on the Regency had passed the 
 Chambers, the little count went back to Sancerre for the vin- 
 tage, and resumed his old habits. 
 
 In the course of that winter, the Comtesse de La Baudraye, 
 with the support of the attorney-general to the Court of Ap- 
 peals, tried to form a little circle. Of course, she had an 
 "at home" day, she made a selection among men of mark, 
 
 G
 
 186 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 receiving none but those of serious purpose and ripe years. 
 She tried to amuse herself by going to the opera, French and 
 Italian. Twice a week she appeared there with her mother 
 and Madame de Clagny, who was made by her husband to 
 visit Dinah. Still, in spite of her cleverness, her charming 
 manners, her fashionable stylishness, she was never really 
 happy but with her children, on whom she lavished all her 
 disappointed affection. 
 
 Worthy Monsieur de Clagny tried to recruit women for the 
 countess' circle, and he succeeded ; but he was more success- 
 ful among the advoc. i of piety than the women of fashion. 
 
 " And they bore hei ' " said he to himself with horror, as 
 he saw his idol matured oy grief, pale from remorse, and then, 
 in all the splendor of recovered beauty, restored by a life of 
 luxury and care for her boys. This devoted friend, encour- 
 aged in his efforts by her mother and by the cure, was full of 
 expedient. Every Wednesday he introduced some celebrity 
 from Germany, England, Italy, or Prussia to his dear countess ; 
 he spoke of her as a quite exceptional woman to people to 
 whom she hardly addressed two words ; but she listened to 
 them with such deep attention that they went away fully con- 
 vinced of her superiority. In Paris, Dinah conquered by 
 silence, as at Sancerre she had conquered by loquacity. Now 
 and then, some smart saying about affairs, or sarcasm on an 
 absurdity, betrayed a woman accustomed to deal with ideas — 
 the woman, who four years since, had given new life to Lous- 
 teau's articles. 
 
 This phase was to the poor lawyer's hapless passion like the 
 late season known as the Indian summer after a sunless year. 
 He affected to be older than he was, to have the right to be- 
 friend Dinah without doing her an injury, and kept himself at 
 a distance as though he were young, handsome, and com- 
 promising, like a man who has happiness to conceal. He 
 tried to keep his little attentions a profound secret, and the 
 trifling gifts which Dinah showed to every one ; and he en-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 187 
 
 deavored to suggest a dangerous meaning for his little ser- 
 vices. 
 
 "He plays at passion," said the countess, laughing. She 
 made fun of Monsieur de Clagny to his face, and the lawyer 
 said : " She notices me." 
 
 "I impress that poor man so deeply," said she to her 
 mother, laughing, <* that if I would say Yes, I believe he 
 would say No." 
 
 One evening Monsieur de Clagny and his wife were taking 
 his dear countess home from the theatre, and she was deeply 
 pensive. They had been to the first performance of Leon 
 Gozlan's first play, "La Main Droite et la Main Gauche" 
 (Tlie Right Hand and the Left). 
 
 " What are you thinking about ? " asked the lawyer, alarmed 
 at his idol's dejection. 
 
 This deep and persistent melancholy, though disguised by 
 the countess, was a perilous malady for which Monsieur de 
 Clagny knew no remedy ; for true love is often clumsy, espe- 
 cially when it is not reciprocated. True love takes its expres- 
 sion from the character. Now, this good man loved after the 
 fashion of Alceste, when Madame de La Baudraye wanted to 
 be loved after the manner of Philinte. The meaner side of 
 love can never get on with the misanthrope's loyalty. Thus, 
 Dinah had taken care never to open her heart to this man. 
 How could she confess to him that she sometimes regretted 
 the slough she had left ? 
 
 She felt a void in this fashionable life; she had no one for 
 whom to dress, or whom to tell of her successes and triumphs. 
 Sometimes the memory of her wretchedness came to her, 
 mingled with memories of consuming joys. She would hate 
 Lousteau for not taking any pains to follow her ; she would 
 have liked to get tender or furious letters from him. 
 
 Dinah made no reply, so Monsieur de Clagny repeated the 
 question, taking the countess' hand and pressing it between 
 his own with devout respect.
 
 188 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 ''Will you have the right hand or the left?" said she, 
 smiling. 
 
 "The left," said he, "for I suppose you mean the truth or 
 a fib." 
 
 "Well, then, I saw him," she said, speaking into the law- 
 yer's ear. " And as I saw him looking so sad, so out of heart, 
 I said to myself: ' Has he a cigar? Has he any money?' " 
 
 "If you wish for the truth, I can tell it you," said the 
 lawyer. " He Is living as a husband with Fanny Beaupre. 
 You have forced me to tell you this secret ; I should never 
 have told you, for you might have suspected me perhaps of an 
 ungenerous motive." 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye grasped his hand. 
 
 " Your husband," said she to her chaperon, " is one of the 
 rarest souls ! Ah! Why " 
 
 She shrank into her corner, looking out of the window, but 
 she did not finish her sentence, of which the lawyer could 
 guess the end : "Why had not Lousteau a little of your hus- 
 band's generosity of heart? " 
 
 This information served, however, to cure Dinah of her 
 melancholy; she threw herself into the whirl of fashion. She 
 wished for success, and she achieved it ; still, she did not 
 make much way with women and found it difficult to get 
 introductions. 
 
 In the month of March, Madame Piedefer's friends the 
 priests and Monsieur de Clagny made a fine stroke by getting 
 Madame de La Baudraye appointed receiver of subscriptions 
 for the great charitable work founded by Madame de Carcado. 
 Then she was commissioned to collect from the royal family 
 their donations for the benefit of the sufferers from the earth- 
 quake at Guadeloupe. The Marquise d'Espard, to whom 
 Monsieur de Canalis read the list of ladies thus appointed, 
 one evening at the Italian opera, said, on hearing that of the 
 countess — 
 
 "I have lived a long time in the world, and I can remem-
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 189 
 
 ber nothing finer than the manoeuvres undertaken for the 
 rehabilitation of Madame de La Baudraye." 
 
 In the early spring, which, by some whim of our planets, 
 smiled on Paris in the first week of March in 1843, making 
 the Champs-Elysees green and leafy before Longchamp, Fanny 
 Beaupre's attache had seen Madame de La Baudraye several 
 times without being seen by her. More than once he was 
 stung to the heart by one of those promptings of jealousy and 
 envy, familiar to those who are born and bred provincials, 
 when he beheld his former mistress comfortably ensconced in 
 a handsome carriage, well dressed, with dreamy eyes, and his 
 two little boys, one at each window. He accused himself 
 with all the more virulence because he was waging war with 
 the sharpest poverty of all — poverty unconfessed. Like all 
 essentially light and frivolous natures, he cherished the singu- 
 lar point of honor, which consists in never derogating in the 
 eyes of one's own little public, which makes men on the 
 Bourse commit crimes to escape expulsion from the temple of 
 the goddess Per-cent., and has given some criminals courage 
 enough to perform acts of virtue. 
 
 Lousteau dined and breakfasted and smoked as if he were a 
 rich man. Not for an inheritance would he have bought anv 
 but the dearest cigars, for himself as well as for the playwright 
 or author with whom he went into the store. The journalist 
 took his walks abroad in patent-leather shoes; but he was 
 constantly afraid of an execution on goods which, to use the 
 bailiff's slang, had already received the "last sacrament." 
 Fanny Beaupre had nothing left to pawn, and her salary was 
 pledged to pay her debts. After exhausting every possible 
 advance of pay from newspapers, magazines, and ptiblishers, 
 Etienne knew not of what ink he could churn gold. Gamblins;- 
 houses, so ruthlessly suppressed, could no longer, as of old, 
 cash I O U's drawn over the green table by beggary in despair. 
 In short, the journalist was reduced to such extremity that he
 
 190 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 had just borrowed a hundred francs of the poorest of his 
 friends, Bixiou, from whom he had never yet asked for a 
 franc. What distressed Lousteau was not the fact of owing 
 five thousand francs, but seeing himself bereft of his elegance, 
 and of the furniture purchased at tlie cost of so many priva- 
 tions, and added to by Madame de La Baudraye. 
 
 On April the 3d, a yellow poster, torn down by the porter 
 after being displayed on the wall, announced the sale of a 
 handsome suite of furniture on the following Saturday, the 
 day fixed for sales under legal authority. Lousteau was taking 
 a walk, smoking cigars, and seeking ideas — for, in Paris, ideas 
 are in the air, they smile on you from a street corner, they 
 splash up with a spurt of mud from under the wheels of a cab ! 
 Thus loafing, he had been seeking ideas for articles and 
 subjects for novels for a month past, and had found nothing 
 but friends who carried him off to dinner or to the play, and 
 who intoxicated his woes, telling him that champagne would 
 inspire him. 
 
 "Beware," said the virulent Bixiou one night, the man 
 who would at the same moment give a comrade a hundred 
 francs and stab him to the heart with a sarcasm, '' if you go 
 to sleep drunk every night, you are certain one day to wake 
 up mad." 
 
 On the day before, the Friday, the unhappy wretch, although 
 he was accustomed to poverty, felt like a man condemned to 
 death. Of old he would have said : 
 
 " Well, the furniture is very old ; I will buy new." 
 
 But he was incapable now of literary legerdemain. Pub- 
 lishers, undermined by piracy, paid badly ; the newspapers 
 made close bargains with hard-driven writers, as the opera 
 managers did with tenors that sang flat. 
 
 He walked on, his eye on the crowd, though seeing noth- 
 ing, a cigar in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, every 
 feature of his face twitching, and an affected smile on his lips. 
 Then he saw Madame de La Baudraye go by in a carriage \
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 191 
 
 she was going to the boulevard by the Rue de la Chaussee 
 d'Antin to drive in the Bois. 
 
 "There is nothing else left ! " said he to himself, and he 
 went home to smarten himself up. 
 
 That evening, at seven, he arrived in a hackney-coach at 
 Madame de La Baudraye's door, and begged the porter to 
 send a note up to the countess — a few lines, as follows : 
 
 "Would Madame la Comtesse do Monsieur Lousteau the 
 favor of receiving him for a moment, and at once ! " 
 
 This note was sealed with a seal which as lovers they had 
 both used. Madame de La Baudraye had had the word 
 Parceqiie (because) engraved on a genuine Oriental carnelian 
 — a potent word — a woman's word — the word that accounts 
 for everything, even for the Creation. 
 
 The countess had just finished dressing to go to the opera; 
 Friday was her night in turn for her box. At the sight of 
 this seal she turned pale. 
 
 "I will come," she said, tucking the note into her dress. 
 
 She was firm enough to conceal her agitation, and begged 
 her mother to see the children put to bed. She then sent for 
 Lousteau, and received him in a boudoir, next to the great 
 drawing-room, with open doors. She was going to a ball 
 after the opera, and was wearing a beautiful dress of brocade 
 in stripes alternately plain and flowered with pale blue. Her 
 gloves, trimmed with tassels, showed off her beautiful white 
 arms. She was shimmering with lace and all the dainty trifles 
 required by fashion. Her hair dressed, in the style of Mme. 
 de Sevigne, gave her a look of elegance ; a necklace of pearls 
 lay on her bosom like bubbles on snow. 
 
 "What is the matter, monsieur?" said the countess, put- 
 ting out her foot from below her skirt to rest it on a velvet 
 cushion. "I thought, I hoped, I was quite forgotten." 
 
 " If I should reply Never, you would refuse to believe me,"
 
 192 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 said Lousteau, who remained standing, or walked about the 
 room, chewing the flowers he plucked from the flower-stands 
 full of plants that scented the room. 
 
 For a moment silence reigned. Madame de La Baudraye, 
 studvins: Lousteau, saw that he was dressed as the most fas- 
 tidious dandy might have been. 
 
 "You are the only person in the world who can help me, 
 or hold out a plank to me — for I am drowning, and have 
 
 already swallowed more than one mouthful " said he, 
 
 standing still in front of Dinah, and seeming to yield to an 
 overpowering impulse. " Since you see me here, it is because 
 my affairs are going to the devil." 
 
 " That is enough," said she ; " I understand." 
 
 There was another pause, during which Lousteau turned 
 away, took out his handkerchief, and seemed to wipe away a 
 tear. 
 
 "How much do you want, Etienne?" she went on in 
 motherly tones. "We are at this moment old comrades; 
 speak to me as you would to — to Bixiou." 
 
 " To save my furniture from vanishing into thin air to- 
 morrow morning at the auction mart, eighteen hundred francs ! 
 To repay my friends, as much again ! Three quarters' rent 
 to the landlord — whom you know. My * uncle ' wants five 
 hundred francs " 
 
 " And you — to live on ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I have my pen- 
 
 " It is heavier to lift than any one could believe who reads 
 your articles," said she, with a subtle smile. "I have not 
 such a sum as you need, but come to-morrow at eight ; the 
 bailiff will surely wait till nine, especially if you bring him 
 away to pay him," 
 
 She must, she felt, dismiss Lousteau, who affected to be 
 unable to look at her ; she herself felt such pity as might cut 
 every social Gordian knot. 
 
 "Thank you," she added, rising and offering her hand to
 
 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 198 
 
 Lousteau. " Your confidence has done me good ! It is long 
 indeed since my heart has known such joy " 
 
 Lousteau took her hand and pressed it tenderly to his heart. 
 
 "A drop of water in the desert — and sent by the hand of 
 an angel ! God always does things handsomely ! " 
 
 He spoke half in jest and half pathetically ; but, believe 
 me, as a piece of acting it was as fine as Talma's in his famous 
 part of Leicester, which was played throughout with touches 
 of this kind. Dinah felt his heart beating through his coat; 
 it was throbbing with satisfaction, for the journalist had had 
 a narrow escape from the hawks of justice ; but it also beat 
 with a very natural fire at seeing Dinah rejuvenescent and re- 
 stored by wealth. 
 
 Madame de La Baudraye, stealing an examining glance at 
 Etienne, saw that his expression was in harmony with the 
 flowers of love, which, as she thought, had blossomed again 
 in that throbbing heart ; she tried to look once into the eyes 
 of the man she had loved so well, but the seething blood 
 rushed through her veins and mounted to her brain. Their 
 eyes met with the same fiery glow as had encouraged Lousteau 
 on the quay by the Loire to crumple Dinah's India muslin 
 gown. The Bohemian put his arm round her waist, she 
 yielded, and their cheeks were touching. 
 
 " Here comes my mother, hide ! " cried Dinah in alarm. 
 And she hurried forward to intercept Madame Piedefer. 
 
 " Mamma," said she — this word was to the stern old lady 
 a coaxing expression which never failed of its effect — "will 
 you do me a great favor ? Take the carriage and go yourself 
 to my banker, Monsieur Mongenod, with a note I will give 
 you, and bring back six thousand francs. Come, come, it is 
 an act of charity; come into my room." 
 
 And she dragged away her mother, who seemed very anxious 
 to see whom it was that her daughter had been talking with in 
 the boudoir. 
 
 Two days afterward, Madame Piedefer held a conference 
 13
 
 194 THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 with the cure of the parish. After listening to the lamenta- 
 tions of the old mother, the priest said very gravely : 
 
 "Any moral regeneration which is not based on a strong 
 religious sentiment, and carried out in the bosom of the 
 church, is built on sand. The many means of grace enjoined 
 by the Catholic religion, small as they are, and not under- 
 stood, are so many dams necessary to restrain the violence of 
 evil promptings. Persuade your daughter to perform all her 
 religious duties, and we shall save her yet." 
 
 Within ten days of this meeting the Hotel de La Baudraye 
 was shut up. The countess, the children, and her mother, in 
 short, the whole household, including a tutor, had gone away 
 to Sancerre, where Dinah intended to spend the summer. 
 She was everything that was nice to the count, people said. 
 
 And so the Muse of Sancerre had simply come back to 
 family and married life ; but certain evil tongues declared 
 that she had been compelled to come back, as the little peer's 
 wishes would no doubt be fulfilled — he hoped for a little girl. 
 
 Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every 
 servile attention, on the handsome countess. Gatien, who 
 during Madame de La Baudraye's long absence had been to 
 Paris to learn the arts of lionnerie or dandyism, was supposed 
 to have a good chance of finding favor in the eyes of the dis- 
 enchanted Superior Woman. Others bet on the tutor; Mad- 
 ame Pi^defer urged the claims of religion. 
 
 In 1844, about the middle of June, as the Comte de La 
 Baudraye was taking a walk on the mall at Sancerre with the 
 two fine little boys, he met Monsieur Milaud, the public pros- 
 ecutor, who was at Sancerre on business, and said to him — 
 
 "These are my children, cousin." 
 
 " Ah, ha ! so these are our children ! " replied the lawyer, 
 with a mischievous twinkle. 
 
 Vkrxs,, June, 1843 — August, 1844.
 
 LKS EMPLOYES. 
 
 Translated by Ellbn Marriage. 
 
 To the Contessa Serafina San Severino, nde 
 Porcia. 
 
 Beirig obliged to read everything, in the endeavor 
 to repeat nothiftg, I chanced the other day to 
 turn over the pages of a collection of three hundred 
 more or less broadly humorous tales written by II 
 Bandello, a sixteenth- century writer, but little knoiun 
 in France, whose works have only lately been re- 
 tuhlished in extenso in the compact Florentine edition 
 entitled Raccolta di Novellieri Italiani. As I 
 glanced for the first time through II Bandello' s origi- 
 nal text, your name, madame, and the name of the 
 count, suddenly caught my eyes, and made so vivid an 
 impression upon my mind that it seemed that I had 
 actually seen you. Then I discovered, not without 
 surprise, that every story, were it but five pages long, 
 was prefaced by a familiar letter of dedication to a 
 king or queen, or to one of the most illustrious per- 
 sonages of the time. I saw the names of noble houses 
 of Genoa, Florence, Milan, and II Bandello' s native 
 Piedmont. Sforze, Dorie, Fregosi, and Frascatort ; 
 the Dolcini of Mantua, the San Severini of Crema, 
 the Visconti of Milan, and the Guidoboni of Tortona, 
 all appear in his pages ; there is a Dante Alighieri 
 {some one of that name was then, it seems, in exist- 
 ence), stories are inscribed to Queen Margaret of 
 France, to the Emperor of Germany, the King of Bo- 
 hemia, the Archduke Maximilian. There are Sauli, 
 Medici, Soderini, Pallavicini, and a Bentivoglio of 
 
 (195)
 
 196 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Bologna ; there are Scaligeri and Colonne ; there is a 
 Spanish Car dona ; and, as for France, Anne de Po- 
 lignac, Frincesse de Marcillac, and Comtesse de la 
 Rochefoucauld, the Marignys, Cardinal d' Armagnac, 
 and the Bishop of Cahors — all the great cotnpany 
 of the time in short — are delighted and flattered by a 
 correspondence with Boccaccio s successor. I saw, 
 likewise, how much nobility there was in II Bandello' s 
 own character ; for while he adorns his pages with 
 such illustrious names as these, he is true to his per- 
 sonal friendships. After the Signora Gallerana, 
 Countess of Bergamo, comes the tiame of a doctor to 
 whom he inscribes his tale of 'Komto e Giulietta; after 
 the signora, molto magnifica, Hipolita Visconti ed 
 Attellana follows the name of Livio Liviana, a simple 
 captain of light cavalry ; a preacher succeeds the Duke 
 of Orleans, and next in order after one Riario you 
 find Messer magnifico, Girolamo Ungaro, mercante 
 Lucchese, a virtuous personage for whose benefit it is 
 narrated how un gentiluomo navarese sposa una che 
 era sua sorella e figliuola, non lo sapendo ; the subject 
 being furnished by the Queen of Navarre. 
 
 Then I thought that I, like II Batidello, might put 
 one of my stories under the protection of una virtuosa, 
 gentilissima illustrissima Contessa Serafina San Seve- 
 rino, telling her truths that might be taken for flat- 
 teries. Why should I not confess that I am proud to 
 bear my testimony here and elsewhere to the fact that 
 fair and noble friendships, now as in the sixteenth 
 century, are and have been the solace of men of 
 letters wherever the fashiofi of the day tnay rank 
 them ? that in those friendships they have ever found 
 consolation for slander, insult, and harsh criticism, 
 while the app?'oval of such an audience enables them 
 to rise above the cares and vexations of the literary
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 197 
 
 life ? And because you found such pleasure in the 
 menial activity of Paris, that brain of the world ; 
 because, with your Venetian subtlety of intellect, you 
 understood it so well ; because you loved Gerard' s 
 sutnptuous salon {jiow closed to us), in which all the 
 European celebrities of our quarter of the century 
 might be seen, as we see them in II Bandello^ s pages ; 
 because the great and dangerous Siren's fetes and 
 magical ceremonies struck you with wonder, and you 
 gave me your itnpressions of Paris so siniply^^or all 
 these reasons, surely, you will extend your protection 
 to this picture of a sphere of life which you cannot have 
 known, albeit it is not lacking in character. 
 
 I could wish that I had some great poem to offer 
 instead to you whose outzvard form is the visible ex- 
 pression of all the poetry in your heart and soul ; but 
 since a poor writer of prose can only give what he has, 
 the inadequacy of the offering may perhaps be re- 
 deemed, in your eyes, by the respectful ho?nage paid by 
 a deep and sincere adtniratio?i, such as you can in- 
 spire. 
 
 De Balzac. 
 
 In Paris, where there is a certain family likeness among 
 students and thinkers who live under similar conditions, you 
 must have seen many faces not unlike M. Rabourdin's at the 
 point at which this history takes up his career. M. Rabourdin 
 at that time was a chief clerk in a most important Government 
 department. He was a man of forty, with hair of so pretty a 
 shade of gray, that women really migiit love to have it so ; it 
 was just the tint that softens the expression of a melancholy 
 face. There was plenty of light in the blue eyes ; his com- 
 plexion, though still fair, was sanguine, and there were little 
 patches of bright red in it ; his mouth was grave ; his nose and 
 forehead resembled those features in portraits of Louis XV.
 
 198 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 In person he was tall and spare, as thin, indeed, as if he had 
 but recently recovered from an illness; his gait suggested some- 
 thing of a lounger's indolence, something, too, of the medi- 
 tative mood of a busy man. 
 
 If this portrait gives the man's character by anticipation, 
 his costume may contribute to set it further in relief; Rabour- 
 din invariably wore a long, blue overcoat, a black stock, a 
 double-breasted vest a la Robespierre, black trousers without 
 straps, gray silk stockings, and low shoes. At eight every 
 morning, punctual as the clock, he sallied forth duly shaven 
 and ballasted with a cup of coffee, and went, always along the 
 same streets, to the office, looking so prim and tidy that you 
 might have taken him for an Englishman on the way to his 
 embassy. By these tokens you discern the father of a family, 
 a man that has little of his own way in his own house, and 
 plenty of business cares to worry him at the office ; and yet 
 withal sufficient of a philosopher to take life as it is; an honest 
 man, loving and serving his country without blinking the 
 difficulties in the way of getting the right thing done; a pru- 
 dent man, since he knows something of human nature; a man 
 whose manner to women is exquisitely polite because he ex- 
 pects nothing of them. Lastly, he was a man of very con- 
 siderable attainments, kindly to his inferiors, apt to keep his 
 equals at a distance, and to stand on his dignity with his 
 chiefs. 
 
 At this period of his life you would have noticed that he 
 wore a certain resigned, indifferent air ; he seemed to have 
 buried his youthful illusions, and renounced personal ambi- 
 tions ; certain signs indicated that though discouraged he had 
 not yet given up his early projects in disgust, but he persisted 
 in his work rather for the sake of employing his faculties than 
 from any hope of a doubtful triumph. He wore no "decora- 
 tions," and occasionally blamed himself for the weakness of 
 wearing the order of the Lily in the early days of the Restora- 
 tion.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 199 
 
 There were certain mysterious elements in Rabourdin's life. 
 His father he had never known. His mother had lived in 
 luxury and splendor ; she had a fine carriage, she was always 
 beautifully dressed, her life was a round of gayety; her son 
 remembered her as a marvelously beautiful and seldom-seen 
 vision. She left him scarcely anything when she died ; but 
 she had given him the ordinary imperfect school education 
 which develops great ambitions and little capacity for realizing 
 them. Then he left the Lycee Napoleon only a few days 
 before her death to enter a Government office as a supernu- 
 merary at the age of sixteen. Some unknown influence 
 promptly obtained the position for him. At twenty-two 
 Rabourdin became senior clerk; he was chief clerk at twenty- 
 five. After this, the patronage which had brought the young 
 fellow thus far on in life showed itself in but one more in- 
 stance. It procured him an entrance to the house of one M. 
 Leprince, a retired auctioneer, reputed to be wealthy. M. 
 Leprince was a widower with an only daughter. Xavier 
 Rabourdin fell over head and ears in love with Mile. Celestine 
 Leprince, then aged seventeen, and endowed (so it was said) 
 with two hundred thousand francs for her portion. Men in 
 the highest position might well turn their eyes in the direction 
 of this young lady. A tall, handsome girl with an admirable 
 figure, she had inherited the gifts of an artist mother, who 
 brought her up carefully. Mile. Leprince spoke several lan- 
 guages, and had acquired some smatterings of learning — a 
 dangerous advantage, which compels a woman to be very care- 
 ful if she would avoid any appearance of pedantry. And 
 Celestine's mother, blinded by unwise tenderness, had held 
 out hopes that could not be realized ; to hear her talk, nobody 
 short of a duke, an ambassador, a marshal of France, or a 
 cabinet minister could give her Celestine her rightful social 
 position. And, indeed. Mile. Leprince's manners, language, 
 and ways were fitted for the best society. Her dress was too 
 handsome and elegant for a girl of her age ; a husband could
 
 200 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 give Celestine nothing but happiness. And, what was more, 
 the mother (who died a year after her marriage) had spoiled 
 her with such continual indulgence, that a lover had a toler- 
 ably difficult part to play. 
 
 A man had need have plenty of courage to undertake such a 
 wife ! Middle-class suitors took fright and retired. Xavier, 
 an orphan with nothing but his salary as chief clerk in a 
 Government office, was brought forward by M. Leprince, but 
 for a long time Celestine would not hear of him. Not that 
 Mile. Leprince had any objection to her suitor himself; he 
 was young, handsome, and very much in love, but she had no 
 mind to be called Mme. Rabourdin. 
 
 In vain M. Leprince told his daughter that Rabourdin was 
 of the stuff of which cabinet ministers are made. Celestine 
 retorted that a man of the name of Rabourdin would never 
 rise to be anything under the Bourbons, with much more to 
 the same purpose. Driven thus from his intrenchments, her 
 parent was guilty of a grave indiscretion ; he hinted to Celes- 
 tine that her suitor would be Rabourdin de somewhere or other 
 before he could reach the age that qualifies for the Chamber. 
 Xavier was sure to be a master of requests before very long, 
 and secretary-general of his department. After those two 
 steps, the young fellow would be launched into the upper re- 
 gions of the administration some day; beside, Rabourdin 
 would inherit a fortune and a name by a certain will, as he 
 (Leprince) knew of his own knowledge. The marriage took 
 place. 
 
 Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious power 
 discovered to them by the old auctioneer. Hope and the im- 
 providence counseled by love in the early days of married life 
 led the young couple into expense ; and in five years M. and 
 Mme. Rabourdin had spent nearly a hundred thousand francs 
 of their principal. Celestine not unreasonably took alarm when 
 promotion did not come, and it was by her wish that the re- 
 maining hundred thousand francs of her portion were put into
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 201 
 
 land. The investment only paid a very low interest ; but 
 then some day or other old M. Leprince would leave his 
 money to them, and their prudent self-denial would receive 
 the reward of a pleasant competence. 
 
 But old M. Leprince saw that his son-in-law had lost his 
 interest, and tried, for his daughter's sake, to repair the secret 
 check. He risked a part of his capital in a very promising 
 speculation ; but the poor man became involved in one of the 
 liquidations of the firm of Nucingen, and worried over his 
 losses until he died, leaving nothing behind him but some ten 
 fine pictures which adorned his daughter's drawing-room, and 
 a little old-fashioned furniture which she consigned to the 
 attics. 
 
 After eight years of vain expectation, Mme. Rabourdin at 
 last grasped the idea that her husband's fatherly providence 
 must have died suddenly, and that the will had been mislaid 
 or suppressed. Two years before Leprince's death, when the 
 place of the head of the division fell vacant, it was given to 
 one M, de la Billardi^re, a relative of a deputy of the Right, 
 who became a member of the Government in 1823. It was 
 enough to drive a man to resign. But how could Rabourdin 
 give up a salary of eight thousand francs (to say nothing of an 
 occasional bonus) when he was living up to his income, and 
 three-fourths of it came from this source ? Beside, would he 
 not have a right to a pension after a few years of patience ? 
 But what a fall was this for a woman whose high pretensions 
 at the outset were almost justifiable, a woman who was sup- 
 l)Osed to be destined for great things ! 
 
 Mme. Rabourdin fulfilled the promise of Mile. Leprince. 
 She possessed the elements of an apparent superiority which 
 pleases in society ; her great acquirements enabled her to 
 speak to every one in his own language. And her ability was 
 genuine ; she had an independent mind of no common order ; 
 her conversation was as charming for its variety as for the 
 originality of her ideas. Such qualities would have shone to
 
 202 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 axlvantage and profit in a queen or an ambassadress ; they 
 were worth little in the inevitably humdrum routine of 
 domestic life. If people talk well, they are apt to want an 
 audience ; they like to talk at length, and sometimes they 
 grow wearisome. To satisfy her intellectual cravings, Mme. 
 Rabourdin received her friends one day in the week, and went 
 a good deal into society, for the sake of the admiration to 
 which she was accustomed. 
 
 Those who know life in Paris will understand what a woman 
 of this stamp must suffer when she continually feels the pinch 
 of straitened means at home. In spite of all the senseless 
 rhetorical abuse of money, you must take your stand, if you 
 live in Paris, at the foot of a column of figures ; you must 
 bow down before arithmetic, and kiss the cloven foot of the 
 Golden Calf. 
 
 Given an income of twelve thousand francs a year, to meet 
 all the expenses of a household consisting of father, mother, 
 and two children, with a housemaid and a cook, and to live 
 on a second-floor flat in the Rue Duphot at a rent of a hundred 
 louis — what a problem was this ! Before you begin to estimate 
 the gross expenditure of the house, you must deduct the wife's 
 expenses for dress and hired carriages (for dress is the first 
 thing to consider); then see how much remains to pay for the 
 education of two children (a girl of seven and a boy of 
 nine, who already cost two thousand francs, in spite of a free 
 scholarship), and you will find that Mme. Rabourdin could 
 barely allow her husband thirty francs a month. Most mar- 
 ried men in Paris are, in fact, in the same predicament if they 
 do not wish to be thought monsters of cruelty. 
 
 And so it had come to pass that the woman who believed 
 that she was born to shine as one of the queens of society was 
 obliged to exert her intellect and all her powers in a sordid 
 struggle for which she was quite unprepared — a daily wrestling- 
 match with account books. And even so there had been 
 bitter mortifications to suffer. She had dismissed her man-
 
 LES LMPLOY&S. 203 
 
 servant after her father's death. Most women grow weary of 
 the daily strain. They grumble for a while, and then yield 
 to their fate ; but Celestine's ambition, so far from declining, 
 was only increased by the difficulties. If she could not over- 
 come obstacles, she would clear them from her path. Such 
 complications in the machinery of existence ought to be 
 abolished; and if the Gordian knot could not be untied, 
 genius should cut it. So far from accepting the shabby lot of 
 the lower middle-class housewife, Celestine grew impatient 
 because her great future career was delayed. Fate had not 
 done fairly by her, she thought. 
 
 For Celestine honestly believed that she was meant for 
 great things. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps in great 
 circumstances she might have shown herself great. Perhaps 
 she was not in her place. Let us admit that among women, 
 as among men, there are certain types that can mould society 
 to their own wish. But as, in the natural world, not every 
 young sapling shoots up into a tree, and small fry are more 
 numerous than full-grown fish, so, in the artificial world called 
 society, many a human creature who might have done great 
 things, many an Athanase Granson,* is doomed to perish un- 
 developed like the seeds that fall on stony ground. Of course 
 there are domesticated women, agreeable women, and costly 
 feminine works of art ; there are women born to be mothers, 
 wives, or mistresses ; there are wholly intellectual and wholly 
 material women ; even as among men there are soldiers, artists, 
 craftsmen, mathematicians, merchants, poets, and men who 
 understand nothing beyond money-making, agriculture, or 
 public business. And then the irony of fate comes in and 
 works strange contradictions ; many are called, but few chosen, 
 and the law of spiritual election holds equally good in worldly 
 concerns. 
 
 Mme. Rabourdin, in her own opinion, was eminently fitted 
 to counsel a statesman, to kindle an artist's soul, to further 
 * See " Jealousies of a Country Town."
 
 204 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the interests of an inventor and to help him in his struggles, 
 or to devote herself to the half-political, half-financial schemes 
 of a Nucingen, and to make a brilliant figure with a large 
 fortune. Perhaps this was how she tried to account to her- 
 self for the disgust that she felt for laundress' bills, for the 
 daily schemes of kitchen expenditure and the little economies 
 and cares of a small establishment. In the life that she liked 
 she took a high place. And since she was keenly sensitive to 
 the prickings of the thorns in a lot which might be compared 
 with the position of St. Lawrence upon a gridiron, some out- 
 cry surely was only to be expected of her. And so it befell 
 that in paroxysms of thwarted ambition, during sharp throbs 
 of pain, given by wounded vanity, Celestine threw the blame 
 upon Xavier Rabourdin. Was it not incumbent upon her 
 husband to give her a suitable position? If she had been a 
 man, she certainly would have had energy enough to realize a 
 fortune quickly and make a much-loved wife happy. He was 
 "too honest," she said; and this reproach in the mouths of 
 some women is a good as a certificate of idiocy. 
 
 Celestine would sketch out magnificent plans for him, ignor- 
 ing all the practical difficulties put in the way by men and 
 circumstances ; and, after the manner of women when under 
 the influence of intense feeling, she became, in theory, more 
 Machiavellian than a Gondreville, and Maxime de Trailles 
 himself was hardly such a scoundrel. At such times Celes- 
 tine's imagination conceived all possibilities; she saw herself 
 in the whole extent of her ideas. Rabourdin, meanwhile, 
 with his practical experience, was unmoved from the outset 
 by these glorious dreams. And Celestine, somewhat dashed, 
 came to the conclusion that her husband was a narrow-minded 
 man, whose views were neither bold enough nor comprehon- 
 sive enough. Unconsciously she began to form an utterly 
 false idea of her companion in life. She snuffed him out con- 
 tinually, to begin with, by her brilliant arguments; and when 
 he began to explain matters to her, she was apt to cut him
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 205 
 
 short. Her own ideas were wont to occur to her in flashes, 
 and she was afraid to lose the spark of wit. 
 
 She had known from the very first days of their married 
 life that Rabourdin admired and loved her; and therefore 
 she treated him with careless security. She set herself above 
 all the laws of married life and the courtesies of familiarity, 
 leaving all her little shortcomings to be pardoned in the name 
 of Love ; and as she never corrected herself, she always had 
 her way. A man in this position is, as it were, confronting 
 a schoolmaster who cannot or will not believe that the boy 
 whom he used to keep in order has grown up. As Mme. de 
 Stael once received a remark made by a ''greater man " than 
 herself, by exclaiming before a whole roomful of people : 
 " Do you know that you have just said something very pro- 
 found ? " so Mme. Rabourdin would say of her husband: 
 "There is sometimes sense in wliat he says!" Gradually 
 her opinion of Xavier began to show itself in little ways. 
 There was a lack of respect in her manner and attitude toward 
 him. And all unconsciously she lowered him in the eyes of 
 others, for everybody all the world over takes a wife's estimate 
 into account in forming an opinion of a man ; it is the uni- 
 versal rule in taking a precognition of character; un preavis, 
 as the Genevese say, or, to be more accurate, un preavisse. 
 
 When Rabourdin saw the mistake that he had made through 
 love, it was too late. The bent had been taken ; he suffered 
 in silence. In some rare natures the power to feel is as great 
 as the power of thought, a great soul supplements a highly 
 organized brain ; and, after the manner of these, Rabourdin 
 was his wife's advocate at the bar of his judgment. Nature 
 (he told liimself) had given her a role to play; it was entirely 
 by his fault that she had been cheated of her part. She was 
 like a thorouglibred racer harnessed to a cart full of flints — 
 she was not happy. He took the blame upon himself, in short. 
 His wife had inoculated him with her belief in herself by dint 
 of repeating the same things over and over again. Ideas are
 
 206 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 infectious in family life. The 9th Thermidor, like many 
 other portentous events, was brought about by feminine in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Urged on in this way by Celestine's ambition, Rabourdin 
 had long been meditating how to satisfy it ; but he hid his 
 hopes from her to save her the torment of suspense. He had 
 made up his mind, good man that he was, to make his way 
 upward in the administration by knocking a very considerable 
 hole in it. He wanted, in the first place, to bring about a 
 revolution in the civil service, a radical reform of a kind that 
 puts a man at the head of some section of society ; but as he 
 was incapable of scheming a general overturn for his {^articular 
 benefit, he was revolving projects of reform in his own mind 
 and dreaming of a triumph to be nobly won. The idea was 
 both generous and ambitious. Perhaps few employes have 
 not thought of such plans ; but among officials, as among 
 artists, there are many abortive designs for one that sees the 
 light. Which saying brings us back to Buffon's apophthegm : 
 " Genius is patience." 
 
 Rabourdin's position enabled him to study the French ad- 
 ministrative system and to watch its working. Chance set his 
 speculative faculties moving in the sphere of his practical 
 experience (this, by the way, is the secret of many a man's 
 achievements), and Rabourdin invented a new system of ad- 
 ministration. Knowing the men with whom he had to do, 
 he respected the machinery then in existence, still in exist- 
 ence, and likely to remain in existence for a long while to 
 come, every generation being scared by the thought of recon- 
 struction ; but while Rabourdin respected the mechanism as 
 a whole, nobody, he thought, could refuse to simplify it. 
 
 How to employ the same energy to better purpose — here, 
 to his thinking, lay the problem. Reduced to its simplest 
 expression, his plan consisted in redistributing the burden of 
 taxation in such a way that it should fall less heavily on the 
 nation, while there should be no falling off" in the revenues of
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 207 
 
 the State ; and, furthermore, in those days when the budget 
 provoked such frantic discussion, he meant to make the un- 
 diminished national income go twice as far as before. 
 
 Long practical experience had made it clear to Rabourdin 
 that perfection is gradually attained by a succession of simple 
 modifications. Economy is simplification. If you simplify, 
 you dispense with a superfluous wheel ; and, consequently, 
 something must go. His system, therefore, involved changes 
 which found expression in a new administrative nomenclature. 
 Herein, probably, you may find the reason of the unpopularity 
 of the innovator. Necessary suppressions are taken amiss 
 from the outset ; they threaten a class which does not readily 
 adapt itself to a change of environment. Rabourdin's real 
 greatness lay in this — he restrained the inventor's enthusiasm, 
 while he sought patiently to gear one measure into another so 
 as to avoid unnecessary friction, and left time and experience 
 to demonstrate the excellence of each successive modification. 
 This idea of the gradual nature of the change must not be lost 
 sight of in a rapid survey of the system, or it will seem impos- 
 sible to bring about so great a result. It is worth while, 
 therefore, incomplete as Rabourdin's disclosures were, to 
 indicate the starting-point from which he meant to embrace 
 the whole administrative horizon. The account of his scheme, 
 moreover, brings us to the very core of the intrigues of which 
 it was the cause, and may throw a light beside upon some 
 present-day evils. 
 
 Rabourdin had been deeply impressed by the hardships of 
 the lives of subordinate officials. He asked himself why they 
 were falling into discredit. He searched into the causes of 
 their decline, and found them in the little semi-revolutions, 
 the back eddies, as it were, of the great storm of 1789. His- 
 torians of great social movements have never examined into 
 these, though, as a matter of fact, they made our manners and 
 customs what they are. 
 
 In former times, under the monarchy, armies of officials did
 
 208 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 not exist. They were then few in nunaber and under the 
 direct control of a prime minister, who was always in com- 
 munication with the crown. In this way the official staff 
 might be said to serve the King almost directly. The chiefs 
 of these zealous servitors were simply plain premiers commis — 
 first clerks. In all departments not under his majesty's direct 
 control — such as the taxes, for instance — the staff were to 
 their chiefs pretty much as the clerks in a counting-house are 
 to their employer ; they were receiving a training which was 
 to put them in the way of getting on in life. In this way 
 every point in the official circumference was in close connec- 
 tion with the centre, and received its impetus therefrom. 
 Consequently, there was devotion on one side and trust on 
 the other in those days. 
 
 Since 1789 the State, or, if you like to have it so, the 
 Country, has taken the place of the sovereign. The clerks no 
 longer take their instructions directly from one of the first 
 magistrates in the realm. In our day, in spite of our fine ideas 
 of La Patrie, they are government employes, while their chiefs 
 are drifted hither and thither by every wind that blows from 
 a quarter known as the ministry, and the ministry cannot tell 
 to-day whether to-morrow will find it in existence. As rou- 
 tine business must always be dispatched, there is always a 
 fluctuating number of supernumeraries who cannot be dis- 
 pensed with, and yet are liable to dismissal at a moment's 
 notice. All of these naturally are anxious to be " established 
 clerks." And thus bureaucracy, the giant power wielded by 
 pigmies, came into the world. Possibly Napoleon retarded 
 its influence for a time, for all things and all men were forced 
 to bend to his will ; but none the less the heavy curtain of 
 bureaucracy was drawn between the right thing to be done 
 and the right man to do it. Bureaucracy was definitely or- 
 ganized, however, under a constitutional government with a 
 natural kindness for mediocrity, a predilection for categorical 
 statements and reports, a government as fussy and meddle-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 209 
 
 some, in short, as a small storekeeper's wife. Cabinet minis- 
 ters' lives became a continual struggle with some four hundred 
 petty minds led by a dozen or so of restless and intriguing 
 spirits. It was a delightful spectacle for the rank and file of 
 the service. They hastened to make themselves indispensable, 
 hampering energy with documents, thereby creating a vis in- 
 €rti(z, styled the Report. Let us explain the Report : 
 
 When kings had ministers, and they only began this prac- 
 tice under Louis XV., they were wont to have a report drawn 
 up on all important questions, instead of taking counsel as 
 before with the great men of the realm. Imperceptibly, 
 ministers were compelled by their understrappers to follow 
 the royal example. They were so busy holding their own 
 in the two Chambers or at Court, that they allowed them- 
 selves to be guided by the leading-string of the Report. If 
 anything of consequence came up in the administration, the 
 minister had but one answer to the most pressing question — 
 " I have asked for a report." In this way the Report became 
 for men in office, and in public business generally, pretty much 
 what it is for the Chamber of Deputies and the Legislature, a 
 sort of consultation, in the course of which the reasons for and 
 against a measure are set forth with more or less impartiality. 
 The minister, like the Chamber, after reading it, is very much 
 where he was before. 
 
 Any kind of decision must need be made instantaneously. 
 Whatever the preliminary process, the moment comes when 
 you must make up your mind, and the bigger the array of argu- 
 ments, the harder it is to come by a wise decision. The 
 greatest deeds were done in France before reports were in- 
 vented and decisions were made out of hand. The supreme 
 rule for statesman, lawyer, or physician is the same — he must 
 adopt a definite formula to suit each individual case. Ra- 
 bourdin, who thought within himself that " a minister is there 
 to give decisions, to understand public business, and to dis- 
 patch it," beheld the report carrying all before it, from the 
 14
 
 210 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 colonel to the marshal, from the commissary of police to the 
 King, from the prefect to the cabinet minister, from the 
 Chamber to the police courts. 
 
 Since 1808 everything had been on its trial; everything 
 was weighed and pondered in conversation, books, and news- 
 papers, and every discussion took literary shape. France was 
 making dissertations instead of acting, and came to the brink 
 of ruin in spite of these fine reports. A million of them would 
 be drawn up in a year in those days ! Wherefore bureau- 
 cracy got the upper hand. Portfolios, letter-files, waste-paper 
 documents, and vouchers, without which France would be lost, 
 and circulars which she could not do without, increased and 
 multiplied and waxed imposing. Bureaucracy for its own ends 
 fomented the ill-feeling between the receipts and expenditure, 
 and calumniated the administration for the benefit of the ad- 
 ministrator. Bureaucracy devised the Lilliputian threads 
 which chain France to Parisian centralization ; as if from 1500 
 to iSoo France had managed to do nothing without thirty 
 thousand government clerks ! And no sooner had the official 
 fastened on the government as mistletoe takes root on a pear- 
 tree, than he ceased to take any interest in his work, and for 
 the following reasons : 
 
 The princes and the Chambers compelled the ministers to 
 take their share of responsibility in the budget, by insisting 
 that their names and the amounts of salaries paid by and to 
 them should appear in detail therein. They were likewise 
 obliged to keep a staff of clerks. Therefore, they decreased 
 the salaries, while they increased the number of clerks, in the 
 behef that a government is so much the stronger for the number 
 of people in its employ. The exact converse of this is an 
 axiom written large for all eyes to see. The amount of energy 
 secured varies inversely with the number of agents. The 
 Ministerialism of the Restoration made a mistake, as tlie event 
 proved, in July, 1830. If a government is to be firmly rooted 
 in the heart of the nation, it must be, not by attaching indi-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 211 
 
 viduals, but by identifying itself with the interests of the 
 country. 
 
 The official class was led to despise the government which 
 curtailed their salaries and lowered their social position ; in 
 retaliation they behaved as a courtesan behaves with an elderly 
 adorer. They gave the crown an adequate return for their 
 salaries. If the government and those in its employ had 
 dared to feel each other's pulses; if the big salaries had not 
 stifled the voices of the little ones, the situation would have 
 been recognized as equally intolerable on either side. An 
 official gave his whole mind to making a living; to draw a 
 salary till he could reach a pension was his one object j and to 
 attain that great result, anything (in his opinion) was permis- 
 sible. Such a state of things made a serf of a clerk ; it was a 
 source of never-ending intrigues in the departments; and, to 
 make matters worse, a degenerate aristocracy tried to find 
 pasture on the bourgeois common lands, using all its influence 
 to get the best places for spendthrift sons ; and with these the 
 poor civil servant was obliged to compete. A really able man 
 is hardly likely to try to make his way in these tortuous mazes ; 
 he will not cringe and wriggle and crawl through muddy by- 
 paths, where the appearance of a man of brains creates a gen- 
 eral scare. An ambitious man of genius may grow old in the 
 efl"ort to reach the triple tiara, but he will not follow in the 
 footsteps of a Sixtus V., to be a chief clerk for his pains. If a 
 man came into the department and stopped there, he was 
 either indolent or incompetent, or excessively simple. 
 
 And so, by degrees, the administration was reduced to a 
 dead-level of mediocrity, and an official hierarchy of petty 
 minds became a standing obstruction in the way of national 
 prosperity. A project for a canal, which would have de- 
 veloped the industries of a province, might lie in a pigeon- 
 hole for seven years. Bureaucracy shirked every question, 
 protracted delays, and perpetuated abuses the better to pro- 
 tract and perpetuate its own existence. Every one, even to
 
 212 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the minister in office, was kept in leading strings; and if any 
 man of ability was rash enough to try to do without bureau- 
 cracy, or to turn the light upon its blunders, he was inconti- 
 nently snuffed out. The list of pensions had just been pub- 
 lished, Rabourdin discovered that a retired office messenger 
 was drawing a larger sum from the Government than many a 
 disabled colonel. The history of bureaucracy might be read 
 at large in the pension list. 
 
 Rabourdin attributed the lurking demoralization in part to 
 another evil, which has its roots in our modern manners ; 
 there is no real subordination in the service. A complete 
 equality prevails from the head of the division to the lowest 
 copying clerk; and one man is as good as another in the 
 arena, though when he leaves it, he takes a high place outside. 
 A poet, an artist, and an ordinary clerk are all alike employes ; 
 they make no distinctions among themselves. Education dis- 
 pensed indiscriminately brings about the natural results. Does 
 not the son of a minister's hall-porter decide the fate of a 
 great man or some landed proprietor for whom his father used to 
 open the door? The latest comer therefore can compete with 
 the oldest. A wealthy supernumerary driving to Longchamp 
 in his tilbury, with a pretty woman by his side, points out the 
 head of his office to his companion with his whip: ''There 
 goes my chief! " he says, and his wheels splash the poor 
 father of a family who must go on foot through the streets. 
 
 The Liberals call this sort of thing Progress ; Rabourdin 
 looked upon it as Anarchy in the core of the administration. 
 Did he not see the results of it ? — the restless intriguing as of 
 women and eunuchs in the harem of an effete sultan, the pet- 
 tiness of bigots, the underhand spite, the schoolboy tyranny, 
 the feats on a level with the tricks of performing fleas, the 
 slave's petty revenges taken on the minister himself, the toil 
 and diplomacy from which an ambassador would shrink dis- 
 mayed — and all undertaken to gain a bonus or an increase of 
 salary ? And meanwhile the men who really did the work,
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 213 
 
 the few whose devotion to their country stood out in strong 
 contrast against the background of incompetence — these were 
 the victims of parasites, these were forced out of the field by 
 sordid trickery. As all high places were no longer in the gift 
 of the crown, but went by interest in parliament, officials were 
 certain, sooner or later, to become wheels in the machinery 
 of government ; they would be kept more or less abundantly 
 greased, and that was all they cared about. This fatal con- 
 viction had already been brought home to many a good 
 worker ; it had suppressed many a memorial conscientiously 
 undertaken from a sense of deep-seated evils ; it was disheart- 
 ening many a brave man and corroding the most vigorous 
 honesty; the better sort were growing weary of injustice; 
 drudgery left them listless, and they ceased to care. 
 
 A single one of Rothschild's clerks manages the whole of 
 the English correspondence of the firm ; a single man in a 
 government ofiice could undertake the whole of the corre- 
 spondence with the prefectures. But whereas the first man is 
 learning the rudiments of the art of getting on in the world, 
 the latter is wasting his time, health, and life. Here, again, 
 the ground rang hollow. 
 
 Of course, a nation is not threatened with extinction be- 
 cause a capable clerk retires and a third-rate man takes his 
 place. Unluckily for nations, it would seem that no man is in- 
 dispensable to their existence ; but when all men have come 
 down to a low level, the nation disappears. If any one wants 
 an instructive example, he can go to Venice, Madrid, Amster- 
 dam, Stockholm, and Rome : the places where men of immense 
 power used to shine conspicuous arc crumbling ruins, destroyed 
 by pettiness which corroded its way till it reached high places 
 that it could not fill. When the day of struggle came, every- 
 thing collapsed at the first threat of attack. 
 
 But what a difficult problem was this ! To rehabilitate the 
 official at a time when the Liberal press was clamoring through 
 every workshop that the nation was being robbed year by year
 
 214 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 to pay official salaries, and every heading in the budget was 
 represented as a horse-leech. " What was the good of paying 
 a milliard of taxes every year? " cried the Liberals. 
 
 To M. Rabourdin's thinking, the government employe was 
 to the national expenditure what the gambler is to the gam- 
 bling saloon — whatever he takes away in his pocket he brings 
 back again. A good salary, in his opinion, was a good in- 
 vestment. If you only pay a man a thousand francs a year, 
 and ask for his whole time, do you not as good as organize 
 theft and misery ? A convict costs you very nearly as much, 
 and does rather less work. But if the Government pays a 
 man a salary of twelve thousand francs, and expects him to 
 devote himself in return to the service, the contract would 
 pay both sides, and the prospect ought to attract really capable 
 men. 
 
 These reflections thereupon led Rabourdin to reconstitute 
 the staff; to have fewer clerks, salaries trebled or doubled, 
 and pensions suppressed. The Government should follow 
 the example set by Napoleon, Louis XIV., Richelieu, and 
 Ximenes, and employ young men ; but the young men should 
 grow old in the service. The higher posts and distinctions 
 should be the rewards of their career. These were the capital 
 points of a reform by which the government and the official 
 staff would alike be benefited. 
 
 It is not easy to enter into details, to take heading by head- 
 ing, and go through a scheme of reform which embraced the 
 whole of the budget and descended into all the smallest rami- 
 fications of the administration, so that the whole might be 
 brought into harmony. Perhaps, too, an indication of the 
 principal reforms will be enough for those who know the ad- 
 ministrative system — and for those who do not. But though 
 the historian ventures upon dangerous ground when he gives 
 an account of a scheme that has very much the look of armchair 
 policy, he is none the less bound to give a rough idea of Ra- 
 bourdin's projects for the sake of the light which a man's work
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 215 
 
 throws on his character. If all account of Rabourdin's labors 
 were omitted, if this historian contented himself with the 
 simple statement that the chief clerk in a government office 
 possessed talent or audacity, you would scarcely feel prepared 
 to take his word for it. 
 
 Rabourdin divided up the administration into three prin- 
 cipal departments. He thought that if in former times there 
 were heads capable of controlling the whole policy of the 
 government at home and abroad, the France of to-day surely 
 would not lack a Mazarin, a Suger, a Sully, a Choiseul, a 
 Colbert, to direct far larger departments than those of the 
 actual system. From a constitutional point of view, more- 
 over, three ministers would work better together than seven, 
 and the chances of going wrong in the choice are reduced ; 
 while, as a last consideration, the crown would be spared the 
 jolts of those perpetual changes of ministry which make it 
 impossible to adhere to any consistent course of foreign policy, 
 or to carry through reforms at home. In Austria, where dif- 
 ferent nationalities present a problem of different interests to 
 be reconciled and furthered by the crown, two statesmen carry 
 the weight of public business without being overburdened. 
 Was France poorer in political capacity than Germany? The 
 sufficiently silly farce, entitled " Constitutional Institutions," 
 has since been carried to an unreasonable extent ; and the 
 end of it, as everybody knows, has been a multiplication of 
 ministerial portfolios to satisfy the widespread ambition of the 
 bourgeoisie. 
 
 In the first place, it seemed natural to Rabourdin to reunite 
 the Admiralty and the War Office. The navy, like the artil- 
 lery, cavalry, infantry, and ordnance, was a spending depart- 
 ment of the War Office. It was surely an anomaly to keep 
 admirals and marshals on a separate footing, when all worked 
 together for a common end — to wit, the defense of the country, 
 the protection of national property, and wars of aggression. 
 The Minister of the Interior was to preside over the Board of
 
 216 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Trade, the Police, and the Exchequer, the better to deserve 
 his name ; while the Minister of Foreign Affairs controlled 
 the administration of justice, the royal household, and every- 
 thing in the interior which concerned arts, letters, or the 
 graces. All patronage was to flow directly from the crown. 
 The last-named minister, by virtue of his office, was also 
 president of the Council of State. The work of each of these 
 departments would require a staff of two hundred clerks at 
 most at headquarters ; and Rabourdin proposed to house them 
 all in one building, as in former days under the monarchy. 
 Reckoning the salaries at an average of twelve thousand francs, 
 the expense of this item in the budget would a little exceed 
 seven millions, as against twenty millions on the actual system. 
 
 By reducing the number of the departments to three, Ra- 
 bourdin suppressed whole divisions, and saved the enormous 
 expense of their maintenance in Paris. He proved that an 
 arrondissement ought to be worked by ten men, and a prefec- 
 ture by a dozen at most ; on which computation the total 
 number of government officials employed all over France (the 
 army and courts of law excepted) would only amount to about 
 five thousand — a number then exceeded by the staff in Paris 
 alone. On this plan, however, mortgages became the province 
 of the clerks of the various courts ; the staff of counsel for the 
 crown {jninisi'ere public) in each court would undertake the 
 registration of titles and the superintendence of the crown 
 lands. 
 
 In this way Rabourdin concentrated sim.ilar functions. 
 Mortgages, death-dues, and registration of titles remained 
 within judicial spheres, while three supernumeraries in each 
 court, and three in the Court-Royal, sufficed for the extra 
 work. 
 
 By the consistent application of the same principle, Ra- 
 bourdin proceeded to financial reform. He had amalgamated 
 all Imperial taxes in one single tax, levied, not upon property, 
 but upon commodities consumed. An assessed tax upon con-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 217 
 
 sumption, in his opinion, was the only way of raising the 
 national revenue in times of peace, the land-tax being reserved 
 for times of war. Then, and then alone, the State might 
 demand sacrifices of the owners of the soil for the defense of 
 the soil ; at other times it was a gross political blunder to vex 
 the land with burdens beyond a certain limit ; something 
 should be left to fall back upon in great crises. On the same 
 principle, loans were to be negotiated in time of peace, be- 
 cause they can then be issued at par, and not (as in hard 
 times) at fifty per cent, discount. If war broke out, the land- 
 tax remained as a resource. 
 
 "The invasion of 1814 and 1815 did what neither Mon- 
 sieur Law nor Napoleon could do," Rabourdin used to say to 
 his friends; " it proved the necessity of a National Debt, and 
 created it." 
 
 Rabourdin held that the true principles of this wonderful 
 mechanism were, unfortunately, not sufficiently understood at 
 the time when he began his work, which is to say, in 1820. 
 He proposed to lay a direct tax upon commodities consumed 
 by the nation, and in this way to make a clean sweep of the 
 whole apparatus for the collection of indirect taxes. He would 
 do away with the vexatious barricades at town gates, securing 
 at the same time a far larger return by simplifying the ex- 
 tremely costly system of collection in actual use. The receipts 
 from the one Imperial tax should be regulated by a tariff com- 
 prising various articles of consumption, and the amount fixed 
 in each case by assessment. To diminish the burdensomeness 
 of a tax does not necessarily mean in matters financial that 
 you diminish the tax itself; it is only more conveniently 
 assessed. If you lighten the burden, business is transacted 
 more freely, and while the individual pays less, the State gets 
 more. 
 
 Tremendous as this reform may seem, it was carried out in 
 a very simple fashion. Rabourdin took for a basis the assess- 
 ments made by the Internal Revenue Department and the 
 
 H
 
 218 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 licenses, as the fairest way of computing consumption. House 
 rent in France is a remarkably accurate guide in the matter of 
 the incomes of private individuals ; and servants, horses, and 
 carriages lend themselves to estimates for the Exchequer. 
 Houses and their contents vary very little in yearly value, and 
 do not easily disappear. Rabourdin pointed out a method of 
 obtaining more veracious returns than those given by the 
 system in use ; then he took the total revenue derived by the 
 Exchequer from (so-called) indirect taxation, divided it up, 
 and assessed his single tax at so much per cent, on each indi- 
 vidual taxpayer. 
 
 An Imperial tax is a preliminary charge paid on things or 
 persons, and paid under more or less specious disguises. Such 
 disguises were well enough for purposes of extortion ; but surely 
 they are absurd in these days when the classes which bear the 
 burden of taxation know perfectly well why the money is 
 wanted and how it is raised. As a matter of fact, the budget is 
 not a strong-box, rather it is a watering-pot ; as it is filled and the 
 water distributed, the country prospers. Suppose, for instance, 
 that tliere were six millions of taxpayers in easy circumstances 
 — and Rabourdin was prepared to show that so many existed, 
 if the rich taxpayers were included in the number — would it 
 not be better, instead of putting a vexatious tax on wine by 
 the gallon, to ask the consumer to pay a fixed sum per annum 
 to the Government? Such " wine-dues" would not be more 
 odious than the door and window tax, while they would bring 
 in a hundred millions to the Exchequer. If other taxes on 
 consumption were likewise assessed in proportion to the house 
 rent, each individual would actually pay less; the Govern- 
 ment would save in the costs of collection ; and the consumer 
 would benefit by an immense reduction in the prices of com- 
 modities which no longer would be subjected to endless vexa- 
 tious regulations. 
 
 Rabourdin reserved a tax on vineyards, by way of a safe- 
 guard against over-production. And, the better to reach the
 
 LES EMPLOY&S. 219 
 
 poor consumer, the charge for retailers' licenses was made in 
 proportion to the population of the district. In these three 
 ways the Exchequer would raise an enormous sum without 
 heavy expense, and do away with a tax which was not only 
 vexatious and burdensome, but also very expensive to collect. 
 The burden would fall on the rich instead of tormenting the 
 poor. 
 
 Take another instance : Suppose that the duty on salt took 
 the form of one or two francs levied on each taxpayer ; the 
 modern gabelle would be abolished, the poor population and 
 agriculture generally would feel the relief, the revenue would 
 not be diminished, and no taxpayer would complain. Every 
 taxpayer indeed, whether farmer or manufacturer, would be 
 quick to recognize the improvement if the conditions of living 
 grew easier in country places, and trade increased. And, in 
 fact, the State would see an increase in the number of tax- 
 payers in easy circumstances. The Exchequer would save 
 enormously by sweeping away the extremely costly apparatus 
 for the collection of indirect taxation (a government within a 
 government) ; and both the Treasury and private individuals 
 would benefit by the economy. Tobacco and gunpowder were 
 to be put under a regie, beneath State superintendence. The 
 regie system, developed not by Rabourdin, but by others, 
 after the renewal of the legislation on tobacco, was so con- 
 vincing that that law would have had no chance of passing 
 the Chamber if the Government of the day had not driven 
 them to it. But, then, it was a question of finance rather than 
 of government. 
 
 The State should own no property ; there should be no 
 Crown domains, no woods and forests, no State mines, no 
 State enterprises. The State as a landowner was an adminis- 
 trative anomaly, in Rabourdin's opinion. The State farms at 
 a disadvantage, and receives no taxes ; there is a double loss. 
 The same anomaly reappeared in the commercial world in the 
 shape of State manufactures. No government could work as
 
 220 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 economically as private enterprise; the processes were slower; 
 and, beside, the State took a certain proportion of raw mate- 
 rials off the market, and left so much the less for other manu- 
 facturers who pay taxes. Is it the duty of a government to 
 manufacture or to encourage manufactures? to accumulate 
 wealth, or to see instead that as many different kinds of wealth 
 as possible are created ? 
 
 On Rabourdin's system, officials were no longer to pay 
 caution-money in cash ; they should give security instead. 
 And for this reason : the State either keeps the money in 
 specie (withdrawing it needlessly from circulation), or puts it 
 out to interest at a rate either higher or lower than the rate of 
 interest paid to the official ; making an ignoble profit out of 
 its servants in the former case, or paying more than the 
 market price for a loan in the latter, which is folly. Lastly, 
 if at any time the State disposes of the mass of caution-money, 
 it prepares the way, in certain contingencies, for a terrible 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 The land-tax was not to be done away with altogether. 
 Rabourdin allowed a very small amount to remain for the 
 sake of keeping the machinery in working order in case of a 
 war. But clearly produce would be free, and manufacturers, 
 finding cheap raw materials, could compete with the foreigner 
 without the insidious aid of protection. 
 
 The administration of the departments would be undertaken 
 gratuitously by the well-to-do, a possible peerage being held 
 out as an inducement. Magistrates, and their subalterns, and 
 the learned professions, should receive honors as a recompense. 
 The consideration in which government officials were held 
 would be immensely increased by the importance of their 
 posts and considerable salaries. Each would be thinking of 
 his career, and France would no longer suffer from the pension 
 cancer. 
 
 As the outcome of all this, Rabourdin estimated that the 
 expenditure would be reduced to seven hundred millions,
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 221 
 
 while the receipts would amount, as before, to twelve hundred 
 millions of francs. An annual surplus of five millions could 
 be made to tell more effectually on the Debt than the paltry 
 Sinking Fund, of which the fallacy had been clearly shown. 
 By establishing a Sinking Fund, the State became a fund- 
 holder, as well as a landowner and manufacturer. Lastly, to 
 carry out his project without undue friction, and to avoid a 
 St. Bartholomew of employes, Rabourdin asked for twenty 
 years. 
 
 These were the matured ideas of the man whose place had 
 been given to the incompetent M. de la Billardiere. A 
 scheme so vast in appearance, yet so simple in the working, 
 a project which swept away more than one great official staff, 
 and suppressed many an equally useless little place, required 
 continual calculation, accurate statistics, and the clearest proofs 
 to substantiate it. For a long while Rabourdin had studied 
 the budget in its double aspect, that of ways and means on 
 the one side, and expenditure on the other. His wife did not 
 know how many nights he gave to these thoughts. 
 
 And yet to have conceived the project and superimposed 
 it on the dead body of the administration was as nothing ; 
 Rabourdin had still to find a minister capable of appreciating 
 his reforms. His success clearly depended upon a quiet poli- 
 tical outlook, and the times were still unsettled. He only 
 considered that the Government was finally secure when three 
 hundred deputies had the courage to form themselves into a 
 solid systematic ministerialist majority. An administration 
 established on that basis had been inaugurated since Rabourdin 
 completed his scheme. Tiie splendor of the time of peace, 
 due to the Bourbons, eclipsed the military splendors of the 
 brilliant days when France was one vast camp and victories 
 abroad were followed by expenditure and display at home. 
 After the Spanish campaign, the Government seemed as if it 
 were surely entering upon a peaceful era in which good might 
 be done ; and, indeed, but three months before, a new reign
 
 222 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 had begun unhampered by any obstacles, and the Liberals of 
 the Left hailed Charles X. with as much enthusiasm as the 
 party of the Right. It was enough to deceive the most clear- 
 sighted. Consequently, the moment seemed propitious to 
 Rabourdin ; for if an administration took up so great a scheme 
 of reform, and undertook to carry it through, it must of neces- 
 sity insure its own continuance in office. 
 
 Never before had Rabourdin seemed more thoughtful and 
 preoccupied as he walked to his office of a morning, and came 
 back again at half-past four in the afternoon. And Mme. 
 Rabourdin, on her side, despairing over her spoilt life, and 
 weary of working in private for some few luxuries of dress, 
 had never seemed so sourly discontent. Still she was attached 
 to her husband ; and the shameful intrigues by which the 
 wives of other officials supplemented an inadequate salary 
 were, in her opinion, unworthy of a woman so much above 
 the ordinary level. For this reason she refused to have any- 
 thing to do with Mme. Colleville, who was intimate with 
 Francois Keller, and gave entertainments which eclipsed the 
 parties in the Rue Duphot. Celestine took the impassive 
 manner of the political thinker, the mental preoccupation of 
 a hard worker, for the listless apathy of an official drudge 
 whose spirit has been broken by routine ; she thought her 
 husband was submitting to the yoke of the most hateful 
 poverty of all — the poverty of straitened means that just 
 enables a man to live. She sighed to think that she should 
 have married a man of so little energy. And so, about this 
 time, she determined that she would make her husband's 
 fortune for him ; at all costs, she would launch him into a 
 higher sphere, and she would hide all the springs of action 
 from him. She set about this task with the originality of 
 conception which distinguished her from other women ; she 
 prided herself on rising above their level, on totally disregard- 
 ing their little prejudices ; the barriers that society raises about 
 her sex should not impede her. She would fight fools with
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 223 
 
 their own weapon, so she vowed in her frenzy ; she would 
 stake herself upon the issue if there was no other way. In 
 short, she saw things from a height. 
 
 The moment was favorable. M. de la Billardiere was hope- 
 lessly ill, and must die in a few days. If Rabourdin succeeded 
 to the place, his talents (Celestine admitted his administrative 
 ability) would be so well appreciated that the post of master 
 of requests (promised before) would be given to him. Then 
 he would be royal commissary, and bring forward the measures 
 of the government in the Chamber. How she would help 
 him then! She would be his secretary; if necessary, she 
 would work all night. All this that she might drive a charm- 
 ing caliche in the Bois de Boulogne, and stand on a footing 
 of equality with Mme. Delphine Nucingen, and raise her salon 
 to a level with Mme. Colleville's, and be invited to high 
 ministerial solemnities, and gain an appreciative audience. 
 People should call her " Madame Rabourdin de Something-or- 
 other " (she did not know yet where her estate should be), just 
 as they said Mme. d'Espard, Mme. d'Aiglemont, or Mme. de 
 Carigliano. In short, of all things she would put the odious- 
 sounding name of Rabourdin out of sight. 
 
 These secret aspirations produced certain corresponding 
 changes in the house. Mme. Rabourdin began by walking 
 resolutely into debt. She engaged a manservant and put him 
 into an inconspicuous livery, brown with red pipings. Slie 
 renewed some of the furniture; papered her rooms afresh, 
 decorated them with a constant succession of flowers, and 
 strewed them with trinkets then in fashion ; while she herself, 
 who used to feel occasional conscientious qualms as to her 
 expenses, no longer hesitated to dress in a manner worthy of 
 her ambitions. The various tradesmen who supplied her with 
 the munitions of war discounted her expectations. She gave 
 a dinner-party regularly every Friday, the guests being ex- 
 pected to call to take a cup of tea on the following Wednesday. 
 And her dinner guests were carefully chosen from among in-
 
 224 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 fluential deputies and personages who might directly or indi- 
 rectly promote her interests. People enjoyed those evenings 
 very much ; or they professed to do so at any rate, and that is 
 enough to attract guests in Paris. As for Rabourdin, he was 
 so intently occupied with the conclusion of his great labors 
 that he never noticed the outbreak of luxury in his house. 
 
 And so it came to pass that the husband and wife, all un- 
 known to each other, were laying siege to the same place and 
 working on parallel lines. 
 
 Now there flourished in those days a certain secretary- 
 general, by name Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, a personage 
 of a kind that is sometimes brought much into evidence for a 
 few years at a time by the tide of political events. Subse- 
 quently, if a storm arises, he and his like are swept away again ; 
 you may find them stranded on the shore heaven knows how 
 far away. But even so the hulk has a certain air of import- 
 ance. The traveler wonders whether the wrecked vessel con- 
 tained valuable merchandise, whether it played a part on 
 some great occasion, took a share in a great sea-fight, or carried 
 the velvet canopy of a throne, or the dead body of a king. 
 At this precise juncture Clement des Lupeaulx (the Lupeaulx 
 had absorbed the Chardin) had reached his apogee. In every 
 life, however illustrious or obscure, in the careers of dumb 
 animals as of secretaries-general, is there not a zenith and a 
 nadir? — a period when glossiness and sleekness reach a climax, 
 and prosperity reaches its utmost radiance of glory ? In the 
 nomenclature of the fabulist, des Lupeaulx belonged to the 
 Bertrand genus, and his whole occupation consisted in dis- 
 covering Ratons. As he happens to be one of the principal 
 characters in this drama, he deserves to be described therein, 
 and so much the more fully because the Revolution of July 
 abolished his place; and a secretary-genera] was an eminently 
 useful institution for a constitutional minister. 
 
 It is the wont of the moralist to pour forth his indignation
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 225 
 
 upon transcendent abominations. Crimes for him are deeds 
 that bring a man into the police-courts, social subtleties escape 
 his analysis; the ingenuity which gains its ends with the Code 
 for a weapon is either too high or too low, he has neither 
 magnifying glass nor telescope ; he must have good, strong- 
 colored horrors, abundantly visible to the naked eye. And 
 as he is always occupied, as one may say, with the carnivora, 
 he has no attention to spare for reptiles ; so, luckily for the 
 satirists, the fine shades of a Chardin des Lupeaulx are left to 
 them. 
 
 Selfish and vain ; supple and proud ; sensual and gluttonous ; 
 rapacious (for he had debts) ; discreet as a tomb which keeps 
 its own secrets and allows nothing to issue forth to give the 
 lie to the inscription meant to edify the passing traveler; 
 undaunted and fearless in asking favors ; amiable and witty in 
 every sense of the latter word ; tactful and ironical at need ; 
 — the secretary-general was one among the crowd of medioc- 
 rities which form the kernel of the political world. As 
 politician, he was ready to leap gracefully over any stream, 
 however broad ; he was the kind of man that can do you more 
 harm with a kiss than by a thrust with the elbow; he was a 
 brazen-fronted skeptic that would go to mass at Saint-Thomas 
 d'Aquin's if there was a fashionable congregation there. 
 Des Lupeaulx's knowledge consisted in knowing what other 
 people knew ; he had chosen the profession of eavesdropper, 
 and never did any of the confraternity pay a more strict 
 attention to business. In his care not to arouse suspicion he 
 was nauseatingly fulsome ; subtle as a perfume, caressing as a 
 woman in his manners. 
 
 Chardin des Lupeaulx had just completed his fortieth year. 
 His youth had long been a source of affliction to him, for he 
 felt instinctively that only as a deputy could he lay a sure 
 foundation for his fortune. Does any one ask how he had 
 made his way? In a very simple manner. Des Lupeaulx 
 was a political Bonneau. He undertook commissions of the 
 15
 
 226 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 delicate kind which can neither be given to a man that 
 respects himself, nor yet to a man that has lost his self-respect. 
 Errands of that sort are usually undertaken by serious persons 
 of somewhat doubtful authority, whom it is easy to disavow 
 should occasion require it. He was continually compromised, 
 that was his calling ; and whether he failed or succeeded, he 
 got on equally fast. 
 
 The Restoration was a time of compromise ; compromise 
 between man and man, and between accomplished facts and 
 coming events. In all public business, in short, there was a 
 perpetual process of give and take. Des Lupeaulx grasped 
 the idea that authority stood in need of a charwoman. 
 
 Let an old woman once get a footing in a house ; let her 
 learn how to make the beds and turn them down to satis- 
 faction ; let her know where the spoons are kept, where to 
 sweep refuse, where to put the soiled linen, and where to find 
 it; let her acquire the arts of pacifying duns and distinguish- 
 ing the right kind of person to admit ; let her once gain her 
 footing, I repeat, and such a woman may have her faults, yet 
 were she toothless, crooked, uncleanly in her person and habits 
 — nay, were she addicted to the lottery and in the habit of 
 appropriating thirty sous daily for her stakes therein — her 
 employers are used to her ways, and do not care to part with 
 her. They will hold counsel on the most delicate family 
 affairs in her presence ; she is on hand to remind them of 
 resources and to scent out secrets ; she brings the rouge-pot 
 and the shawl at the psychological moment ; she allows them 
 to scold her, to bundle her downstairs ; but, lo ! next morn- 
 ing, at their awakening, she enters gaily with an excellent 
 cup of broth. However great a statesman may be, he too 
 needs a charwoman, a factotum with whom he can show him- 
 self weak and irresolute ; somebody in whose presence he can 
 carp at his destiny, put questions to himself, and answer them, 
 and screw his courage up to the sticking-point. Does not the 
 savage get sparks by rubbing a bit of hard wood against a
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 227 
 
 softer piece ? Many a bright genius is kindled on the same 
 principle. Napoleon found such a partner of his joys and 
 cares in Berthier, Richelieu in Pere Joseph ; des Lupeaulx 
 took up with anybody and everybody. Did a minister fall 
 from power ? Des Lupeaulx kept on good terms with him, 
 acting as intermediary between the outgoing and incoming 
 member of the government, soothing the former with a parting 
 piece of flattery, and perfuming a first compliment for the 
 latter. Des Lupeaulx, moreover, understood to admiration 
 those little trifles of which a statesman has no leisure to think. 
 He could recognize a necessity ; he was apt in obedience. 
 He enhanced the value of his knavery by being the first to 
 laugh at it, the better to gain its full price ; and he was always 
 particularly careful to perform services of a kind which were 
 not likely to be forgotten. When, for instance, people were 
 obliged to cross the gulf fixed between the Empire and the 
 Restoration ; when everybody was looking about for a plank ; 
 while all the curs in the Imperial service were rushing over to 
 the other side with voluble professions of devotion, des Lu- 
 peaulx had raised large sums of the money-lenders, and was 
 crossing the frontier. He staked all to win all. He bought 
 up the most pressing minor debts contracted in exile by his 
 majesty Louis XVIH.; and being the first in the field, he 
 contrived to discharge nearly three millions at twenty per 
 cent., for he had the good luck to operate in the thick of the 
 events of 1814 and 181 5. The profits were swallowed down 
 by Messieurs Gobseck, Werbrust, and Gigonnet, the croupiers 
 of the enterprise ; but des Lupeaulx had promised as much to 
 them. He was not playing a stake, he was venturing the 
 whole bank, knowing well that Louis XVIIL was not the 
 man to forget such a whitewashing. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx received the appointment of master of re- 
 quests; he was made a chevalier of St. Louis and an officer of 
 the Legion of Honor. Having once gained a footing, the 
 adroit climber cast about for a way of maintaining himself on
 
 228 LES EMPLOY As. 
 
 the ladder. He had gained an entrance into the stronghold, 
 but generals are not wont to keep any useless mouths for long. 
 And then it was thai to his professions of useful help and go- 
 between he added a third — he gave gratuitous advice on the 
 internal diseases of power. 
 
 He discovered that the so-called great men of the Restora- 
 tion were profoundly unequal to the occasion. Events were 
 ruling them. He overawed mediocre politicians by going to 
 them in the height of a crisis and selling them those watch- 
 words which men of talent hear as they listen to the future. 
 You are by no means to suppose that such watchwords origi- 
 nated with des Lupeaulx himself; if they had, he would have 
 been a genius, whereas he was simply a clever men. Bertrand 
 Clement des Lupeaulx went everywhere, collecting opinions, 
 fathoming men's inner consciousness, and catching the sounds 
 they gave forth. Like a genuine and indefatigable political 
 bee, he gathered knowledge from all sources. He was a 
 '' Bayle's Dictionary " in flesh and blood, but he improved 
 upon his famous prototype ; he gathered all opinions, but he 
 did not leave others to draw their own conclusions, and he had 
 the instinct of the bluebottle fly ; he dropped down straight- 
 way upon the most succulent morsels of meat in the kitchen. 
 
 For which reasons des Lupeaulx was supposed to be indis- 
 pensable to statesmen. Indeed, the idea took so deep a root 
 in people's minds that ambitious and successful men judged 
 it expedient to compromise des Lupeaulx, lest he should rise 
 too high, and indemnified him for his lack of importance in 
 public by using their interest for him in private. 
 
 Nevertheless, as soon as this fisher of ideas felt that he was 
 generally supported, he had insisted upon earnest-money. 
 He drew his pay as a staff officer of the National Guard, in 
 which he held a sinecure at the expense of the city of Paris ; he 
 was a government commissioner for the superintendence of a 
 joint-stock company, and an inspector in the royal household. 
 His name appeared twice beside in the civil list as a secretary-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 229 
 
 general and master of requests. At this moment it was his 
 ambition to be a commander of the Legion of Honor, a gen- 
 tleman of the bedchamber, a count, and a deputy ; but for 
 this last position he had not the necessary qualifications. A 
 deputy in those days was bound to pay a thousand francs in 
 taxes, and des Lupeaulx's miserable place in the country was 
 scarcely worth five hundred francs a year. Where was he to 
 find the money to build a country-house ; to surround it with 
 respectable estates, and throw dust in the eyes of his con- 
 stituents? 
 
 At the opening of this Scene he had scarce anything to call 
 his own save a round thirty thousand francs' worth of debts, to 
 which nobody disputed his title. Des Lupeaulx dined out 
 everyday. For nine years he had been housed at the expense 
 of the State, and the ministers' carriages were at his disposal. 
 Marriage might set him afloat again, if he could bale out the 
 waters that threatened to submerge him ; but a good match 
 depended upon advancement, and advancement depended 
 upon a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Casting about for 
 some way of breaking through this vicious circle, he saw but 
 one expedient — to wit, some great service to be rendered to 
 the government, or some profitable bit of jobbery. But con- 
 spiracies (alas !) were played out. The Bourbons, to all ap- 
 pearance, had triumphed over faction. And as for jobbery ! — 
 the Left benches, unluckily, were doing all that in them lay 
 to make any government impossible in France ; for several 
 years past their absurd discussions had thrown such a searching 
 light upon the doings of the government that good bits of 
 business were out of the question. The last had been done in 
 Spain, and what a fuss they had made about it ! To crown 
 all, des Lupeaulx had multiplied difficulties for himself. Be- 
 lieving in the ministers' friendship for him, he imprudently 
 expressed his desire to be seated on the ministerial benches. 
 The Ministry was not slow to perceive the origin of this desire. 
 Pes Lupeaulx meant to strengthen a precarious position, and
 
 230 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 to be no longer dependent upon them. It was the revolt of 
 the hound against the hunter. Wherefore, the Ministry gave 
 him now a cut or two with the whip, and now a caress. They 
 raised up rivals unto him. But des Lupeaulx behaved toward 
 these as a clever courtesan treats new-comers in her profes- 
 sion : he spread snares, they fell into them, and he made them 
 feel the consequences pretty promptly. The more he felt that 
 his position was unsafe, the more he coveted a permanent 
 berth ; but clearly he must not show his hand. In one moment 
 he might lose everything. A single stroke of the pen would 
 clip away his colonel's epaulettes, his controller's place, his 
 sinecure with the joint-stock company, and his two posts 
 beside, with their advantages — six salaries in all, cunningly 
 preserved in the teeth of the law against cumulative holdings ! 
 Not infrequently des Lupeaulx would hold out a threat 
 over his minister, as a mistress frightens her lover ; he was 
 "about to marry a rich widow," and then the minister would 
 coax the dear des Lupeaulx. It was during one of these re- 
 newals of love that the secretary-general received a promise of 
 the first vacancy at the Academic des Inscriptions et Belles 
 Lettres. It was enough to keep a horse upon, he said. 
 Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished like a tree set in 
 congenial soil. He found satisfaction for his vices and virtues, 
 his fancies and defects. 
 
 Now for the burdens of his day. First of all, out of half a 
 dozen invitations to select the best dinner. This being de- 
 cided, he went the first thing in the morning to amuse the 
 minister and his wife, and fondle and play with the children. 
 Then he usually worked for an hour or two ; which is to say, 
 he spread himself out in a comfortable armchair to read the 
 papers, dictate the gist of a letter, receive all comers in the 
 minister's absence, lay down the rough outline of the day's 
 routine, receive and give promises that meant nothing, and 
 run over petitions with his eyeglass. To these he sometimes 
 affixed his signature, which, being intrepreted, meant: "Do
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 231 
 
 as you like about this ; I don't care." Everybody knew th-^t 
 if des Lupeaulx were really interested in a matter, he would 
 interfere in person. Some confidential chat on delicate topics 
 was vouchsafed to the upper clerks, and he listened to their 
 gossip in return. Every now and again he went to the 
 Tuileries to take orders; then he waited till the minister 
 came back from the Chamber to see if there was any new 
 manoeuvre to invent and superintend. Tlien this ministerial 
 sybarite dressed and dined, and made the round of twelve or 
 fifteen salons between eight in the evening and three in the 
 morning. He talked with journalists at the opera, for with 
 them he was on the best of terms. There had been a con- 
 tinual exchange of small services. He gave out his false news 
 and swallowed down theirs ; he prevented them from attack- 
 ing such and such a minister on such and such a point — it 
 would give real pain, he said, to their wives or mistresses. 
 
 "Say that the proposed measure is no good, and prove it 
 if you can ; but you must not say that Mariette danced badly. 
 Put the worst construction, if you like, upon our love of our 
 neighbor in petticoats, but do not expose the pranks we 
 played in our salad days. Hang it all ! we have all cut our 
 capers, and we never know what we may come to as times 
 go. You that are spicing your paragraphs in the * Constitu- 
 
 tionnel ' may be a minister yourself some of these days " 
 
 And des Lupeaulx did the journalists a good turn at a 
 pinch ; he withdrew obstacles put in the way of producing a 
 piece ; presents or a good dinner were forthcoming at the 
 right moment, and he would promise to facilitate the con- 
 clusion of a piece of business. He had a liking for literature 
 and patronized the arts. He had autographs and splendid 
 albums and sketches and pictures, gratis. And he did artists 
 much service by refraining from doing harm, and supporting 
 them on occasions when their vanitv demanded a satisfaction 
 which cost him little or nothing. Wherefore he was popuLir 
 in the world of journalists, artists, and actors. Both he and
 
 232 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 they, to begin with, were infected by the same vices and the 
 same indolence ; and they cut jokes so merrily at other peo- 
 ple's expense over their cups or between two opera dancers — 
 how they should not have been friends? If des Lupeaulx had 
 not been a secretary-general, he would have been a journalist ; 
 for which reason des Lupeaulx never received so much as a 
 scratch through those fifteen years, while epigram was batter- 
 ing the breach through which insurrection would enter. 
 
 The small fry of the department used to see him playing 
 at ball in the garden with his lordship's children, and would 
 rack their brains to discover what he did and the secret of his 
 influence ; while the talons rouges,'^ the courtiers of men in 
 office, looked upon les Lupeaulx as the most dangerous kind 
 of Mephistopheles, and bowed the knee to him, and paid him 
 back with usury the flatteries that he himself was wont to lavish 
 on his betters. Indecipherable as a hieroglyph though he 
 might be for small men, the secretary-general's uses were as 
 plain as a proportion sum to those who had any interest in dis- 
 covering them. A Prince of Wagram on a small scale to a min- 
 isterial Napoleon, he knew all the secrets of party politics ; it 
 was his business to sift advice and ideas and make preliminary 
 reports ; he also confirmed weak-kneed supporters ; he brought 
 in propositions and carried them out and buried them ; he 
 uttered the "Yes" or " No" which the minister was afraid 
 to pronounce. He bore the brunt of the first explosion of 
 despair or anger; he laughed and mourned with his chief. A 
 mysterious link in a chain that connected many peoples' in- 
 terests with the Tuileries, he was discreet as the confessional; 
 sometimes he knew everything, sometimes he knew nothing ; 
 sometimes he said for the minister what the minister could not 
 say for himself. 
 
 With this Hephaestion, in short, the minister might dare to 
 show himself as he was ; he could lay aside his wig and false 
 teeth, state his scruples, put on dressing-gown and slippers, 
 
 * Lit.: Red heels.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 233 
 
 unbosom himself of his sins, and lay bare the ministerial con- 
 science. 
 
 Not that des Lupeaulx lay exactly on a bed of roses. It 
 was his duty to flatter and advise, to give advice in the guise 
 of flattery, and flattery in the form of advice. Politicians in 
 his profession were apt to look yellow enough ; and the con- 
 stant habit of nodding to signify approval, or to appear to do 
 so, gives a peculiar air to the head. Such men would approve 
 indifl'crently all that was said before them. Their language 
 bristled with "buts," "howevers," and "nevertheless," and 
 formulas such as "for my own part" and "in your place," 
 which pave the way to a contrary opinion ; they were particu- 
 larly fond, be it noted, of the expression "in your place." 
 
 In person, Clement des Lupeaulx might be described as the 
 remains of a fine man : five feet four inches in height, not 
 unconscionably fat, with a complexion warmed by good liv- 
 ing, a jaded air, a powdered "Titus," small eyeglasses set in a 
 slender frame. He was preeminently a blonde, as his hand 
 indicated ; it was a plump hand like an old woman's, a little 
 too blunt perhaps, and short in the nails — a satrap's hand. 
 His feet were not wanting in distinction. 
 
 After five o'clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx always wore 
 black-silk open-work stockings, low shoes, black trousers, a 
 kerseymere vest, an unscented cambric handkerchief, a coat 
 of royal blue, with engraved buttons, and a bunch of orders at 
 his button-hole. In the morning he appeared in a short closely 
 buttoned jacket (not inappropriate to an intriguer), and a pair 
 of creaking boots hidden by gray trousers. In this costume 
 his bearing suggested a crafty attorney rather than the de- 
 meanor of a minister. His eyes had grown glassy with the 
 use of spectacles, till he looked uglier than he really was, if by 
 accident he removed those aids to weak sight. Shrewd judges 
 of human nature and straightforward men who only feel at ease 
 when truth is spoken found des Lupeaulx intolerable. His 
 gracious manners skimmed the surface of falsehood ; his
 
 284 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 friendly protestations, and the stale pretty speeches which 
 always seemed fresh for imbeciles, were growing threadbare. 
 Any clear-sighted man could see that this was a rotten plank 
 on which it was most desirable not to set foot. And when 
 the fair Celestine Rabourdin deigned to turn her thoughts to 
 making her husband's fortune, she gauged Clement des Lu- 
 peaulx pretty accurately, and fell to studying him. Was there 
 still a little sound fibre left ? Would the thin lath bear if one 
 crossed ever so lightly over it, from the office to the division, 
 from eight thousand to twelve thousand francs a year? She 
 was no ordinary woman. She fancied that she could hold a 
 blackguard politician in play. And so it came to pass that 
 M. des Lupeaulx was to some extent a cause of the extravagant 
 expenditure of the Rabourdin household. 
 
 The Rue Duphot, built in the time of the Empire, is re- 
 markable for a good many houses of elegant appearance, and, 
 as a rule, their interiors are convenient. Mme. Rabourdin's 
 flat was excellently arranged, an advantage which does much 
 to raise the dignity of household life. From a pretty and 
 sufficiently spacious antechamber, lighted from the courtyard, 
 you entered the large drawing-room which looked upon the 
 street. Rabourdin's room and his study lay at the farther end 
 of this room to the right, and beyond at a right angle was the 
 dining-room which lay to your left as you entered the ante- 
 chamber. A door to the left of the great drawing-room gave 
 admittance to Mme. Rabourdin's bedroom and dressing-room, 
 and behind, at a right angle, was a little room in which her 
 daughter slept. When Mme. Rabourdin was At Home, her 
 bedroom and Rabourdin's cabinet were thrown open. The 
 space enabled her to receive visitors without drawing down 
 ridicule upon herself; her receptions were not like certain un- 
 fortunate attempts at evening parties, when the luxury is too 
 evidently assumed for the occasion, and involves a sacrifice of 
 daily habits. 
 
 The drawing-room had been newly hung with yellow silk
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 236 
 
 and brown ornaments. Mme. Rabourdin's room was deco- 
 rated with real Eastern chintz, and the furniture was in the 
 rococo style. Rabourdin's study inherited the discarded 
 drawing-room hangings, which had been cleaned, and Le- 
 prince's fine pictures adorned the walls. The late auctioneer 
 had picked up some enchanting Eastern carpets for trifling 
 sumsj his daughter now turned them to account in the dining- 
 room, framing them in priceless old ebony. Wonderful Boule 
 sideboards, also purchased by the late auctioneer, surrounded 
 the walls, and in the midst stood a tortoise-shell clock-case 
 inlaid with gleaming brass scroll-work ; the first example of a. 
 square-shaped clock which reappeared to do honor to the 
 seventeenth century. The air was fragrant with the scent of 
 flowers; the rooms were tasteful and full of beautiful things; 
 every little thing in them was a work of art in itself; every- 
 thing was placed to advantage, and in appropriate surround- 
 ings. And Mme. Rabourdin herself, dressed with the sim- 
 plicity and originality which artists can devise, looked as 
 though all these pleasant things were a part of her life ; she 
 never spoke of them, she left the charm of her conversation to 
 complete the effect produced by the whole. Thanks to her 
 father, since rococo came into fashion, Celestine had acquired 
 celebrity. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx was accustomed to all sorts of splendor, sham 
 and real, but Mme. Rabourdin's house was a surprise to him. 
 An illustration may explain the nature of the charm that 
 worked upon this Parisian Asmodeus. Suppose that a traveler 
 had seen all the best beauty of Italy, Brazil, and India, till he 
 was weary ; suppose that on his return to France his way 
 brought him past some lovely littk lake, the Lake of Orta., 
 under Monte Rosa, for instance, with its island set in the 
 midst of quiet waters — a spot coyly hidden and left to nature. 
 a wild garden, a lonely but not solitary island with its sliapely 
 groves of trees and picturesquely placed statues. The shores 
 all round about it are half-wild, half-cultivated ; grandeur and
 
 236 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 unrest encircle it; but within everything takes human propor- 
 tions. Here in miniature is the world that our traveler has 
 seen already ; but that world has grown modest and pure ; its 
 influences soothe his soul ; the delicate charm of the place 
 affects him as music might ; it awakens all kinds of associa- 
 tions and harmonious echoes. It is a hermitage, and yet it is 
 life. 
 
 It had happened a few days previously that Mme. Firmiani 
 had spoken to des Lupeaulx of Mme. Rabourdin. Mme. 
 Firmiani, one of the most charming women of the Faubourg 
 Saint-Germain, liked Mme. Rabourdin, and used to receive 
 her at her house, and on this occasion she had asked des 
 Lupeaulx simply for the purpose of saying: "Why do you 
 not call on Mme. Rabourdin?" (indicating Celestine). 
 "Her evening parties are delightful ; and, what is more, her 
 dinners are — better than mine." Des Lupeaulx accordingly 
 allowed a promise to be exacted from him by the fair Mme. 
 Rabourdin (who raised her eyes to his face for the first time 
 as she spoke), and went to the Rue Duphot. Is there any 
 need to say more ? Women have but one stratagem, as Figaro 
 cries; but it never fails. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx dined with this mere chief clerk, and regis- 
 tered a vow to go again. Thanks to the decorous and lady- 
 like strategy of the charming woman whom Mme. Colleville 
 dubbed "the Celimene of the Rue Duphot," he had dined 
 there regularly every Friday for a month past, and went of 
 his own accord for a cup of tea on Wednesdays. Only dur- 
 ing the last few days, after much delicate and skillful trying of 
 the ground, Mme. Rabourdin had come to the conclusion that 
 she had found the safe and solid spot in the plank. She was 
 sure now of success. The joy she felt in the depths of her 
 soul can only be understood in households that know what it 
 is to wait three or four years for promotion, and to plan out 
 an increase of comfort when the fondly cherished hope shall 
 be realized. What hardships that hope makes bearable ! What
 
 LES EMPLOYJ^S. 237 
 
 prayers are put up to the powers that be I What visits paid to 
 gain the desired end ! At last, thanks to her spirited policy, 
 Mme. Rabourdin was to have an income of twenty thousand 
 francs instead of eight. The hour had struck. 
 
 "And I shall have managed it very well," she told herself. 
 " I have gone to some little expense, but people are not on 
 the lookout for hidden merits in these days ; on the contrary, 
 if a man puts himself in evidence by going into society, keep- 
 ing up his connections and making new ones, he is sure to get 
 on. After all, the ministers and their friends only take an 
 interest in people whom they see, and Rabourdin knows noth- 
 ing of the world. If I had not got hold of these three depu- 
 ties, they might very likely have wanted La Billardiere's 
 place ; but now that they come here, they would feel ashamed 
 to try to take it. They will be our supporters, not our rivals. 
 I have had to flirt a little ; it is lucky for me that there was 
 no need to go further than the first stage with the sort of folly 
 that amuses men." 
 
 But a contest, as yet unforeseen, was about to begm for the 
 place; and its actual commencement may be dated from a 
 ministerial dinner, followed by an evening party of a kind 
 which ministers regard as public. The minister's wife was 
 standing by the fire, and des Lupeaulx was at her side. As 
 he took his cup of cofi'ee, it occurred to him to include Mme. 
 Rabourdin among the seven or eight really remarkable women 
 in Paris. He had done this before; Mme. Rabourdin, like 
 Corporal Trim's Montero cap, was always coming up in con- 
 versation. 
 
 "Don't say too much about her, my dear friend, or you 
 will spoil it all," the minister's wife returned, half-laugh- 
 ingly. 
 
 No woman likes to listen to another woman's praises; they 
 one and all keep a word in reserve, so as to put a little vinegar 
 to the panegyric.
 
 238 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "Poor La Billardiere won't last long," remarked his excel- 
 lency; " Rabourdin is the next in succession, he is one of 
 our cleverest men. Our predecessors did not behave well to 
 him, although one of them owed his prefecture of police under 
 the Empire to a certain personage who was paid to use his 
 influence for Rabourdin. Frankly, my dear fellow, you are 
 still young enough yet to be loved for your own sake " 
 
 " If La Billardiere's place is Rabourdin's for a certainty, I 
 may be believed if I hold up his wife as a remarkable woman," 
 returned des Lupeaulx, the irony in his excellency's tones had 
 not escaped him ; " still, if Madame la Comtesse cares to judge 
 for herself " 
 
 " I can ask her to my next ball, that is it, is it not ? Your 
 remarkable woman would come when certain ladies will be 
 here to quiz us ; they will hear ' Madame Rabourdin ' an- 
 nounced." 
 
 " But do not they announce Madame Firraiani at the house 
 of the Minister of Foreign Affairs ? " 
 
 " A born Cadignan ! " the newly made count broke in 
 
 quickly, with a withering glance at his secretary-general. 
 Neither his excellency nor his wife was noble. A good many 
 persons thought that something important was going forward. 
 Those who had come to ask favors kept to the other end of 
 the room. When des Lupeaulx came out, the new-made 
 countess turned to her husband with: "Des Lupeaulx must be 
 in love, I think." 
 
 " Then it will be for the first time in his life," returned the 
 minister, shrugging his shoulders, as who should say that des 
 Lupeaulx was not taken up with such trifles. 
 
 Then the minister beheld a deputy of the Right Centre en- 
 tering the room, and left his wife to coax over a faltering vote. 
 But it so happened that the deputy was overwhelmed by an 
 unforeseen disaster, and wanted to secure the minister's influ- 
 ence by coming to announce in strict confidence that he would 
 be forced to send in his resignation in a few days' time. And
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 239 
 
 his excellency, warned in time, could get his batteries into 
 play before the Opposition had a chance. 
 
 The minister (which is to say, des Lupeaulx) had included 
 among the dinner guests a personage who is practically ap- 
 pointed for life in every government department. This indi- 
 vidual, being not a little puzzled to know what to do with 
 himself, and anxious to give himself a countenance, happened 
 to stand planted on both feet with his legs close together, very 
 much after the manner of an Egyptian terminal. He was wait- 
 ing, near the hearth, for an opportunity of expressing his thanks 
 to the secretary-general ; indeed, the abrupt retreat made by 
 that worthy took him by surprise just as he was about to 
 formulate his little compliment. The functionary in question 
 was, in fact, none other than the cashier of the department, 
 the one employe who never shook in his shoes over a change 
 of government. In those days the Chamber did not higgle 
 over the budget as it is wont to do in the present degenerate 
 times ; it did not cut down the emoluments of ofifice to effect 
 what maybe called "cheese-paring economies" in kitchen 
 phraseology. Every minister on coming into ofifice received 
 a fixed sum for ''expenses of removal." It costs as much, 
 alas ! to come in as to go out of office ; and the installation 
 entails expenses of every sort and description which need not 
 be recorded here. The allowance for expenses used to consist 
 of twenty-five pretty little thousand-franc notes. 
 
 When the ordinance appeared in the " Moniteur," while 
 all officials, great and small, were grouped about their stoves 
 or open hearths, as the case might be, revolving the questions : 
 " What is this one going to do ? Will he increase the number 
 
 of clerks ? Or will he dismiss two and take on three? " 
 
 while all this was going forward, I say, the placid cashier 
 used to bring out twenty-five bills and pin them together, 
 engraving a joyful expression meanwhile upon his beadle's 
 countenance. This done, he skipped up the staircase to 
 the residence, and was admitted to his excellency's pres-
 
 240 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 ence the first thing in the morning ; for servants are wont 
 to confuse the notions of the power of money with the 
 custodian thereof, the cash-box with its contents, the idea and 
 its outward and visible manifestation. The cashier, therefore, 
 always came upon the ministerial couple in that first blush of 
 rapture when a statesman is in a benign humor, and a good 
 fellow for the nonce. 
 
 In reply to the minister's inquiry : " What do you want ? " 
 the cashier produced his bits of paper, with a speech to the 
 effect that he had hastened to bring his excellency the cus- 
 tomary indemnity ; he then explained the why and wherefore 
 of the allowance to the astonished and delighted lady, who 
 never failed to take some portion, and not infrequently took 
 the whole. An indemnity for expenses of removal comes 
 within the province of housekeeping. The cashier turned 
 his compliment, slipping in a few phrases for the minister's 
 benefit. " If his excellency vouchsafed to confirm him in 
 his appointment, if he was satisfied with the purely mechanical 
 service which, etc., etc." And as the man who brings twenty- 
 five thousand francs is always a good public servant, the 
 cashier never failed to receive the desired confirmation in a 
 post whence he watched ministers come and go and come 
 again for a quarter of a century. Then he would put himself 
 at madame's disposal ; he would bring the thirteen thousand 
 francs every month at the convenient time, a little earlier or 
 later as required, and thus, to use the ancient monastic ex- 
 pression, " he kept a vote in the chapter." 
 
 The Sieur Saillard had been a book-keeper at the Treasury 
 while the Treasury kept books on a system of double-entry ; 
 but the plan was afterward given up, and they gave him a 
 cashier's place by way of compensation. Book-keeping was his 
 one strong point ; he was little good at anything else. He 
 was a burly, fat old gentleman, round as a figure o, and 
 simple in the extreme ; he walked like an elephant at a 
 measured pace to and from the Place Royale, where he lived
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 241 
 
 in a house of his own. He had a companion on his daily way, 
 in the shape of his son-in-law, M. Isidore Baudoyer, the chief 
 clerk in M. de la Billardiere's division, and in consequence 
 Rabourdin's colleague. Baudoyer had married Saillard's only 
 daughter, Elizabeth, and, naturally, took up his abode on a 
 floor above his father-in-law. Nobody in the whole depart- 
 ment doubted Saillard's stupidity, but nobody at the same 
 time knew how far his stupidity would go ; it was so dense 
 that no one could insinuate a question into it ; it had no 
 hollow sounding spots: it absorded everything, and gave 
 nothing out. Bixiou (a clerk of whom mention will presently 
 be made) had drawn a caricature of the cashier, a bewigged 
 head surmounting an egg, with two tiny legs beneath, and 
 the inscription — "Born to pay and receive money without 
 making a mistake. A little less luck, and he would have been 
 a porter at the Bank of France ; a little more ambition, and 
 the Government would have thanked him for his services." 
 
 To return to the minister. At this present moment he 
 was looking fixedly at his cashier, much as he might have 
 gazed at a hat-peg or at the ceiling, without imagining, that 
 is to say, that the peg could hear what he said or understand 
 a single word. 
 
 "I am so much the more anxious that everything should 
 be arranged with the prefect with the utmost secrecy," his 
 excellency was saying to the retiring deputy, "because des 
 Lupeaulx has some idea of the kind. His bit of a place is 
 somewhere in your part of the country, and we don't want 
 him in the House." 
 
 " He has not the electoral qualifications, and he is not old 
 enough," said the deputy. 
 
 "That is so, but you know how Casimir Perier decided 
 with regard to the age limit. As to annual income, des Lu- 
 peaulx has something, though it doesn't amount to much ; but 
 the law made no provision for increase of landed property, 
 and he might buy more. Committees give a good foothold 
 16
 
 242 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 to a deputy of the Centre, and we could not openly oppose 
 the good-will that the people would show to serve our dear 
 friend." 
 
 " But where would he find the money to buy land?" 
 
 " How did Manuel become the possessor of a house in 
 Paris?" retorted the minister. 
 
 The hat-peg meanwhile was listening, and listening very 
 reluctantly. The two men had lowered their voices and spoke 
 rapidly , but every sound, by some as yet unexplained law of 
 acoustics, reached Saillard's ears. And what were the feel- 
 ings of that worthy, do you suppose, while he listened to these 
 political confidences? He experienced the most poignant 
 alarm. There are guileless people who are reduced to despair 
 if they appear to be listening to remarks that they are not 
 intended to hear, if they intrude where they are not wanted, 
 or seem to be inquisitive when they are really discreet ; and 
 Saillard was one of them. He glided over the carpet in such 
 a sort that when the minister became aware of his existence, 
 he was half-way across the room. Saillard was a fanatical 
 official. He was incapable of the slightest indiscretion. If 
 his excellency had but known that the cashier was in his 
 counsel, he would have had no need to do more than say 
 " Mum." Saillard saw that the rooms were beginning to fill 
 with courtiers of office, went down to a coach hired by the 
 hour for such costly occasions as this, and returned to the 
 Place Rovale. 
 
 While old Saillard was making his way across Paris, his 
 beloved Elizabeth and his son-in-law were engaged in playing 
 a virtuous game of boston with the Abbe Gaudron, their 
 director, and a neighbor or two. Another visitor was also 
 
 present. This was a certain Martin Falleix, a brass-founder of 
 the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, whom Saillard had set up in 
 business. Falleix, an honest Auvcrgnat, had come to Paris 
 with his caldron on his back, and promptly found work with 
 the Brezacs, a firm that bought old chateaux to pull down.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 243 
 
 At the age of twenty-seven, Martin Falleix, being eager, like 
 every one else, to get on in life, had the good fortune to be 
 taken, into partnership by M. Saillard. He was to be the 
 active partner, he was to exploit a patent invention in brass- 
 founding (gold medal awarded at the Exhibition in 1825). 
 
 Mme. Baudoyer, whose only daughter was just at the tail- 
 end of her twelfth year (to quote old Saillard), had views of 
 her own upon Falleix, a thick-set, swarthy young fellow, 
 active, sharp-witted, and honest. She was forming him. Ac- 
 cording to her ideas, the education consisted in teaching the 
 good Auvergnat to play boston, to hold his cards properly, to 
 allow no one to see his hand ; to shave, to wash his hands with 
 coarse common soap before he came to them ; to refrain from 
 swearing, to speak French as they spoke it, to brush his hair 
 erect instead of flattening it down, and to discard shoes for 
 boots, and sackcloth shirts for calico. Only a week since, 
 Elizabeth Baudoyer succeeded in persuading Falleix to give 
 up two huge flat earrings like cask-hoops. 
 
 "You are going too far, Madame Baudoyer," said he, as 
 she rejoiced over this sacrifice; "you are getting too much 
 ascendency over me. You make me brush my teeth (which 
 loosens them) ; before long you will make me brush my nails 
 and curl my hair, and that will never do. They don't like 
 foppery in our line of business." 
 
 Elizabeth Baudoyer, 7iee Saillard, was a type that always 
 escapes the artist by the very fact that it is so commonplace. 
 Yet, nevertheless, such figures ought to be sketched, for they 
 represent the lower middle class in Paris, the rank just above 
 the well-to-do artisan. Their merits are almost defects, and 
 there is nothing lovable about their faults ; but their way of 
 life, humdrum and uninteresting though it is, does not lack a 
 certain character of its own. 
 
 Elizabeth had a peculiar, puny, unwholesome look, which 
 was not good to see. She was barely four feet high, and so thin 
 that her waist measured scarcely half an ell. Ilcr thin features
 
 244 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 were crowded into the middle of her face ; a certain vague 
 resemblance to a weasel was the result. She was tliirty years 
 old and more, but she looked more like a girl of sixteen or 
 seventeen. There was little brightness in the china-blue eyes 
 under heavy eyelids and lashes that met the arch of eyebrows. 
 Everything about Elizabeth was insignificant ; she had pale 
 flax-colored hair ; the flat shiny surfaces of her forehead seemed 
 to catch the light ; her complexion was gray, almost livid in 
 hue. The lower part of her face was triangular rather than 
 oval in shape, but her features, generally speaking, were 
 crooked, and the outlines irregular. Lastly, she had a sub- 
 acid voice, with a pretty enough range of intonations. Eliza- 
 beth Baudoyer was the very type of the lower middle-class 
 housewife who counsels her husband at night from her pillow ; 
 there is no merit in her virtues, no motive in her ambition, it 
 is simply a development of domestic egoism. If Elizabeth 
 had lived in the provinces, she would have tried to round out 
 the property ; as her husband happened to be in a Govern- 
 ment office, she wanted advancement. The story of Eliza- 
 beth's childhood and girlhood will bring the whole woman 
 before you ; it is the history of the Saillard couple. 
 
 M. Saillard had married the daughter of a second-hand 
 furniture dealer, one Bidault, who set up business under the 
 arcades of the Great Market. M. and Mme. Saillard had a 
 hard struggle in those early days ; but now, after thirty-three 
 years of married life and twenty-nine of work at the office, the 
 fortune of "the Saillards " (as they were called by their ac- 
 quaintances) consisted of sixty thousand francs in Falleix's 
 business; the big house in the Place Royale, purchased for 
 forty thousand francs in 1804; and thirty-six thousand livres 
 paid down as their daughter's marriage-portion. About fifty 
 thousand francs of their capital had come to them on the 
 death of Widow Bidault, Mme. Saillard's mother. Saillard's 
 post had brought in a steady income of four thousand five 
 hundred francs; no one coveted his place for a long while.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 245 
 
 because there were no prospects of promotion. This money 
 had been saved up, sou by sou, by sordid frugality, and very 
 carefully put out to interest. As a matter of fact, the Sail- 
 lard's knew of but one way of investing money ; they used to 
 take their savings, five thousand francs at a time, to their 
 notary, M. Sorbier, Cardot's predecessor, and he arranged to 
 lend it on mortgages. They were always careful to take the 
 first mortgage, with a further guarantee secured on the wife's 
 property if the borrower were a married man. 
 
 At this point of their history their big house was worth a 
 hundred thousand francs, and brought them in eight thousand. 
 Falleix paid seven per cent, on his capital before reckoning 
 up the profits, which were equally divided. Altogether, the 
 Saillards possessed an income of seventeen thousand francs at 
 the least. To have the cross and retire on a pension was old 
 Saillard's one ambition. 
 
 Elizabeth's youth had been spent in continual drudgery in 
 a family with just such laborious habits and narrow ideas. 
 Great was the discussion before the purchase of a new hat for 
 Saillard ; the career of a coat was reckoned by years ; um- 
 brellas were carefully hung up from a brass ring. 
 
 No repairs had been made in the house since 1804. The 
 Saillards' first-floor flat was precisely in the condition in which 
 the previous owners left it ; but the gilding had departed from 
 the frames of the pier-glasses, and the painted friezes over the 
 doors were almost invisible beneath the accumulated grime of 
 years. The great spacious rooms, with carved marble chimney- 
 pieces and ceilings worthy of Versailles, were filled with the 
 furniture left by the Widow Bidault. This consisted of easy- 
 chairs of walnut-wood, covered with tapestry, rosewood sets . 
 of drawers, old-fashioned stands with brass rims and cracked, 
 white marble-tops ; and a chaos of bargains, in short, picked 
 up by the furniture-dealer in the Great Market. Among these 
 was a superb Boule bureau, to which fashion had not yet re- 
 stored its proper value. The pictures had been selected en-
 
 246 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 tirely for their handsome frames; the chinaware was distinctly 
 heterogeneous; a set of splendid Oriental china dessert plates, 
 for instance, was eked out with porcelain from every possible 
 factory ; the silver was a collection of odd lots ; the cut-glass 
 old-fashioned ; the table linen fine damask. They slept in 
 a tomb-shaped bedstead with chintz curtains hung from a 
 coronal. 
 
 Amid all these relics of the past, Mme. Saillard used to live 
 in her low, modern mahogany armchair with her feet on a 
 foot-warmer, every hole in the latter article of furniture charred 
 and blackened. Her chair was drawn up to the grate, where 
 a heap of dead ashes took the place of a fire. On the mantel 
 there stood a clock-case, one or two old-fashioned bronze or- 
 naments, and some flowered candle-sconces. These last were 
 empty, however. Mme. Saillard had a martinet for her own 
 use, a small, flat brass candlestick with a long handle ; and the 
 candles she used were long tallow dips that guttered as they 
 burned. In Mme. Saillard's countenance, in spite of wrinkles, 
 you could read willfulness, severity, and narrow-mindedness ; 
 together with a fair and square honesty, a pitiless creed, an 
 undisguised stinginess, and the quiet of a clear conscience. 
 You may see faces thus composed by nature among portraits 
 of the wives of Flemish burgomasters ; but these latter are clad 
 in splendid velvets and precious stuffs. Mme. Saillard wore 
 no such robes. She adhered to the old-fashioned garments 
 known as cottes in Picardv and Touraines, and as cotillons o\tx 
 the rest of France — a petticoat gathered in thick overlying 
 pleats at the back and sides. The upper part of her person 
 was buttoned into a short jacket, another bit of old-time cos- 
 tume, like the butterfly caps and high-heeled shoes which she 
 still continued to wear. She knitted stockings for herself and 
 her husband and for an uncle as well. And, although she was 
 fifty-seven years old and fairly entitled to live at ease after 
 her laborious struggles with domestic economy, she used to 
 knit, after the manner of countrywomen, as she talked or went
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 247 
 
 about the house, or strolled round the garden, or took a peep 
 into the kitchen to see how things were going there. 
 
 Niggardliness, at first compelled by painful necessity, had 
 become a habit with the Saillards. When old Saillard came 
 home from the office he took off his coat and worked in his 
 garden. It was a pretty garden divided off from the yard by 
 an iron railing ; he had reserved it and kept it in order him- 
 self. Elizabeth had gone marketing with her mother in the 
 morning ; and, indeed, the two women did all the work of the 
 house. The mother could cook a duck with turnips to admi- 
 ration ; but old Saillard maintained that for serving up the 
 remains of a leg of mutton with onions, Elizabeth had not her 
 equal. " You could eat your uncle that way and never find it 
 out." 
 
 As soon as Elizabeth could hold a needle, her mother made 
 her mend her father's clothes and the house linen. The girl was 
 always busy as a servant over a servant's work ; she never went 
 out alone. They lived but a few paces away from the Boule- 
 vard du Temple ; consequently the Galte, the Ambigu-Com- 
 ique, and Franconi's were close at hand, and the Porte 
 Saint-Martin not very far away, yet Elizabeth had never been 
 " to the play." When the fancy took her "to see what it 
 was like," M. Baudoyer, by way of doing things handsomely, 
 took her to the opera, so that she might see the finest play of 
 all (M. Gaudron having, of course, given permission). They 
 were giving " Le Laboureur Chinois " at that time. Elizabeth 
 thought '' the play " as dull as ditch-water. She did not want 
 to go again. On Sundays, after she had gone four times to 
 and fro between the Place Royale and the Church of St. Paul 
 (for her mother saw that she was punctual in the practice of 
 religious duties and precepts), her father and mother took her 
 to the Cafe Turc, where they seated themselves on chairs 
 placed between a barrier and the wall. The Cafe Turc at that 
 time was the resort of all the beauty and fashion of the Marais, 
 the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and adjacent neighborhoods ; the
 
 248 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Saillards always went early to secure their favorite place, and 
 then amused themselves by watching the passers-by. 
 
 Elizabeth had never worn anything but print gowns in 
 summer, and merino in winter. She made her own dresses. 
 Her mother only allowed her twenty francs a month ; but her 
 father was very fond of her, and tempered this rigor with 
 occasional presents. Of "profane literature," as the Abbe 
 Gaudron (curate of St. Paul's and the family oracle) was 
 pleased to qualify it, Elizabeth knew nothing whatsoever. 
 The system had borne its fruits. Compelled to find an outlet 
 for her feelings in some passion, Elizabeth grew greedy of 
 gain ; not that she was lacking in intelligence or perspicacity, 
 but ignorance and her creed had shut her in with a circle of 
 brass. She had nothing on which to exercise her faculties, 
 save the most trivial affairs of daily life ; and as she had few 
 things to think about, the whole force of her nature was 
 brought to bear on the matter in hand. Her natural intelli- 
 gence, being shackled by her religious opinions, could only 
 exert itself within the limits imposed by casuistry, and casu- 
 istry becomes a very storehouse of subtleties from which self- 
 interest selects shifts and evasions. Elizabeth was quite capa- 
 ble of asking her neighbor to do evil that she herself might 
 reap the full benefit thereof; resembling in this respect 
 various saintly personages in whom religion has not altogether 
 extinguished ambition — with these, indeed, she had other 
 points in common ; she was relentless in pursuit of her end, 
 underhand in her measures. When offended, she watched 
 her antagonists with feline patience till she had accomplished 
 a complete and cold-blooded revenge to be put down to the 
 account of Providence. 
 
 Until the time of Elizabeth's marriage, the Saillards saw 
 no visitors except the Abbe Gaudron, the Auvergnat priest, 
 nominated to the curacy of St. Paul's since the reestablish- 
 ment of religious worship. This churchman had been friendly 
 with the late Mme. Bidault. Mme. Saillard's paternal uncle
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 249 
 
 was also an occasional visitor. He had been a paper mer- 
 chant, but he had retired in the year 11. of the Republic, at 
 the age of sixty-nine. He never came except on Sundays, 
 because no business could be done on that day. 
 
 As for Bidault's personal appearance, there was not much 
 room in the little old man's olive-hued visage for anything 
 but a red bibulous nose and two little vulture-like slits of eyes. 
 His grizzled locks were allowed to hang loose under the brim 
 of his cocked hat. The tabs of his knee-breeches projected 
 grotesquely beyond the buckles. He wore cotton stockings 
 knitted by his niece (/<2 petite Saillard he used to call her), 
 thick shoes with silver buckles, and a greatcoat of many 
 colors. Altogether he looked very much like the sexton- 
 beadle-bellringer-gravedigger-chanter of some village church ; 
 a sort of person whom you might take for some freak of the 
 caricaturist, until you met him in real life. Even at this day 
 he used to come on foot to dine with them, and walk back 
 afterward to the Rue Grenetat, where he lived on a fourth 
 floor. Bidault was a bill-discounter. The Quartier Saint- 
 Martin, the scene of his professional activity, had nicknamed 
 him Gigonnet, from his peculiar jerky, feverish manner of 
 picking his way in the streets. M. Bidault went into the bill- 
 discounting line in the year H. of the Republic with a Dutch- 
 man, the Sieur Werbrust, a crony of Gobseck's, for his partner. 
 
 These, it has been said, were at one time the Saillards' only 
 visitors; but afterward, old Saillard struck up an acquaint- 
 ance with M. and Mme. Transon in the church-warden's pew 
 at St. Paul's. The Transons, wholesale earthenware dealers 
 in the Rue de Lesdiguieres, took an interest in Elizabeth, and 
 it was with a view to finding a husband for her that they 
 introduced young Isidore Baudoyer to the Saillards. The 
 good understanding between M. and Mme. Baudoyer and 
 the Saillard family was confirmed by Gigonnet's approbation. 
 He had employed Mme. Baudoyer's brother, the Sieur Mitral, 
 as his bailiff for many years; and about this time Mitral was 
 
 X
 
 250 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 thinking of retiring to a pretty house at Ile-Adam. M. and 
 Mmc. Baudoyer, Isidore's father and mother, respectable 
 leatlicr-drcssers in the Rue Censier, had put by a little money 
 year by year in a jog-trot business. When they had married 
 their only son and made over to him fifty thousand francs, 
 they also thought of going to live in the country ; it was they, 
 indeed, who had fixed upon Ile-Adam, and attracted Mitral 
 to that spot ; but they still came frequently to Paris, where 
 they had kept a. pied-a-terre^ in the house in the Rue Censier 
 which Isidore received on his marriage. The Baudoyers had 
 an income of a thousand crowns after providing for their son. 
 
 M. Mitral, owner of a sinister-looking wig, and a visage the 
 color of Seine water, illuminated by eyes of the hue of Spanish 
 snuff", was as cool as a well-rope ; he was a secretive, mouse- 
 like creature ; no one knew about his money ; but he probably 
 did in his corner as Gigonnet did in the Quartier Saint-Martin. 
 
 But if the family circle grew wider, their ideas and habits 
 underwent no corresponding change. They kept all the 
 family festivals ; birthdays and wedding-days ; all the saints' 
 days of father and mother, son-in-law, daughter, and grand- 
 daughter ; Easter, Christmas, New Year's Day, and Twelfth 
 Night. And as these occasions always demanded a great 
 sweeping and general cleaning of the house, they might be 
 said to combine practical utility with the joys of domestic 
 life. Then out came the presents ; useful gifts produced with 
 much pomp and circumstance and accompaniment of bouquets ; 
 a pair of silk stockings or a velvet skull-cap for Saillard ; gold 
 earrings or plate for Elizabeth or her husband (for whom 
 they were making up a complete service by degrees), or a new 
 silk petticoat for Mme. Saillard, who kept the stuff" laid by in 
 the piece. And before the presents were given, the recipient 
 was always made to sit in an armchair, while the rest bade 
 him — 
 
 " Guess what we are going to give you ! " 
 * A temporary domicile.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 251 
 
 Finally, they sat down to a grand dinner, which lasted for 
 five hours. M. Gaudron* was invited, and Falleix and Ra- 
 bourdin and M. Gothard (formerly M. Baudoyer's deputy), 
 and M. Bataille, captain of the company in which Baudoyerand 
 his father-in-law were enrolled. M. Cardot had a standing 
 invitation, but, like Rabourdin, he only appeared one time in 
 six. They used to sing over the dessert, and embrace each 
 other with enthusiasm amid wishes for all possible good luck ; 
 and then the presents were on view, and all the guests must 
 give their opinion of them. On the day of the velvet skull- 
 cap, Saillard wore the article in question on his head during 
 the dessert, to the general satisfaction. In the evening more 
 acquaintances came in, and a dance followed. A single violin 
 did duty for a band for a long while ; but for the last six years, 
 M. Godard, a great amateur of the flute, had contributed the 
 shrill sounds of a piccolo to the festivity. The cook, Mme. 
 Baudoyer's general servant, and old Catherine, Mme. Sail- 
 lard's maid, stood looking on in the doorway with the porter 
 and his wife ; and a crown of three livres was given to them 
 to buy wine and coffee. 
 
 The whole family circle regarded Baudoyer and Saillard 
 as men of transcendent ability ; they were in the employ of 
 the Government ; they had made their way by sheer merit ; 
 they worked in concert with the minister, so it was said ; they 
 owed their success entirely to their talents. Baudoyer was 
 generally considered to be the more capable man of the two, 
 because his work as chief clerk was allowed to be more ardu- 
 ous and complex than book-keeping. And beside, Isidore had 
 had the genius to study, although he was the son of a leather- 
 dresser in the Rue Censier ; he had the audacity also to give 
 up his father's business to enter a Government office, and had 
 reached a high position. As he was a man of few words, he 
 was supposed to be a deep thinker ; " he would perhaps rep- 
 resent the eighth arrondissement some day," said the Tran- 
 * See " Ilonorine " and "A Start in Life."
 
 262 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 sons. And as often as Gigonnet heard this kind of talk, he 
 would purse up lips that were sufficiently pinched already, and 
 glance at his grand-niece, Elizabeth. 
 
 As to physique, Isidore was a big heavy man of seven-and- 
 thirty ; he perspired easily ; his head suggested hydrocephalus. 
 It was an enormous head covered with closely cropped chest- 
 nut hair, and joined to the neck by a thick fleshy roll that 
 filled up his coat collar. He had the arms of a Hercules, the 
 hands of a Domitian, and a waist girth which sober living 
 kept "within the limits of the majestic," to quote Brillat- 
 Savarin. In face he was very much like the Emperor Alex- 
 ander. You recognized the Tartar type in the little eyes, in 
 a nose depressed in the middle and raised at the tip, in the 
 chilly lips and short chin. His forehead was narrow and low. 
 Isidore was of lymphatic temperament, but time had no whit 
 abated an excessive conjugal attachment. In spite of his like- 
 ness to the handsome Russian Emperor and the terrific Domi- 
 tian, Isidore Baudoyer was nothing but a slave of red-tape ; he 
 was not very fit for the post of chief clerk, but he was thor- 
 oughly accustomed to the routine work, and his vacuity lay 
 beneath such a thick covering that no scalpel as yet had probed 
 it. He had displayed the patience and sagacity of the ox 
 during those days of hard study ; and this fact, together with 
 his square head, had deceived his relatives. They took him 
 for a man of extraordinary abilities. 
 
 At the office he was punctilious, pedantic, pompous, and 
 fussy; a perfect terror to his clerks. He was always making 
 observations for their benefit, always insisting upon commas 
 and full stops, always a stickler for rules and regulations, and 
 so terribly punctual that not one of the clerks failed to be in 
 his place before he came in. 
 
 Baudoyer used to wear a coat of cornflower-blue with yellow 
 buttons, a buff" waistcoat, gray trousers, and a colored stock. 
 He had big feet, and his boots fitted him badly. His watch- 
 chain was adorned with a huge bunch of seals and trinkets.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 253 
 
 among which he still retained the "American seeds" which 
 used to be the fashion in the year VII.; and this in 1824 ! 
 
 The restraints of religion and rigid habits of life were forces 
 that bound this family together; they had, moreover, one 
 common aim to unite them — the thought of making money 
 was the compass which guided their course. Elizabeth Bau- 
 doyer was obliged to commune with herself for lack of any 
 one to comprehend her ideas; for she felt that she was not 
 among equals who could understand them. Facts had com- 
 pelled her to form her own conclusions of her husband, but as 
 a woman of rigid principle she did her best to keep up M. 
 Baudoyer's reputation ; she showed profound respect for him, 
 honoring in him the father of her child and her husband ; the 
 ''temporal power," in short, as the Abbe Gaudron put it. 
 For which reason she would have thought it a deadly sin to 
 allow a stranger to read her real opinion of her vapid mate in 
 any glance, or gesture, or word. She even professed a passive 
 obedience to his will in all things. Rumors of the outer world 
 reached her ears, she noted them and made her own compari- 
 sons ; and so sound was her judgment of men and affairs, that 
 she became an oracle in private for the two functionaries. 
 Indeed, at the time when this history begins, they had uncon- 
 sciously reached the point of doing nothing without consulting 
 her. 
 
 "She is a sharp one, is Elizabeth!" old Saillard used to 
 say ingenuously. But Baudoyer was too much of a fool not 
 to be puffed up by his ill-founded reputation in the Quartier 
 Saint-Antoine. He would not allow that his wife was clever, 
 while he turned her cleverness to account. Elizabeth felt 
 convinced that her Uncle Bidault, alias Gigonnet, must be a 
 rich man, a capitalist with an enormous turnover. By the 
 light of self-interest, she read M. Baudoyer better than the 
 minister read him. She saw that she was mated with a fool ; 
 she shrewdly suspected that life might have been something 
 very different for her ; but she preferred to leave that might-
 
 264 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 have-been unexplored. All the gentle affections of Elizabeth's 
 nature found satisfaction in her daughter; she spared her little 
 girl the drudgery that she had known ; she loved her child, and 
 thought that this was all that could be expected of her. It 
 was for that daughter's sake that she had persuaded her father 
 to take the extraordinary step of going into partnership with 
 Falleix. Falleix had been introduced to the family by old 
 Bidault, who lent him money on pledges. But Falleix found 
 his old fellow-countryman too dear ; he complained with much 
 candor before the Saillards that Gigonnet was asking eighteen 
 per cent, of an Auvergnat. Old Mme. Saillard went so far 
 as to reproach her relative. 
 
 "It is just because he is an Auvergnat that I only ask eighteen 
 per cent. ! " retorted Gigonnet. It was about that time that 
 Falleix, aged twenty-eight, had hit upon a new invention. It 
 seemed to Saillard, to whom he explained it, that the young 
 man "talked straight" (to use an expression from Saillard's 
 dictionary), and that there was a fortune to be made out of 
 his idea. Elizabeth at once conceived the notion of keeping 
 Falleix to "simmer" for her daughter, and forming her son- 
 in-law herself. She was looking seven years ahead. Martin 
 Falleix's respect for Mme. Baudoyer knew no bounds ; he 
 recognized her intellectual superiority. If he had made mil- 
 lions, he would still have been devoted to the house, where he 
 was made one of the family circle. Elizabeth's little girl had 
 been taught already to fill his glass prettily and to take his hat 
 when he came. 
 
 When M. Saillard came home after the minister's dinner- 
 party, the game of boston was in full swing. Elizabeth was 
 advising Falleix ; old Mme. Saillard, knitting in the fireside 
 corner, was looking over the curate's hand ; and M. Baudoyer, 
 impassive as a milestone, was exerting his intelligence to dis- 
 cover where the cards were. Mitral sat opposite. He had 
 come up from Ile-Adam for Christmas. Nobody moved when
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 255 
 
 Saillard came in. For several minutes he walked up and down 
 the room, his broad countenance puckered by unwonted mental 
 exercise. 
 
 "It is always the way when he dines with the minister ; 
 luckily, it only happens twice a year or they would just kill 
 him outright," remarked Mme. Saillard. " Saillard was not 
 
 made to be in the government " Aloud she added, 
 
 " Saillard, I say, I hope you are not going to keep your best 
 clothes on, your silk breeches and Elbeuf cloth coat? Just 
 go and take your things off; don't wear them out here for 
 nothing ; ma merey 
 
 "There is something the matter with your father," Bau- 
 doyer remarked to his wife, when the cashier had gone to 
 change his clothes in his fireless room. 
 
 "Perhaps Monsieur de la Billardiere is dead," Elizabeth 
 returned simply ; "he is anxious that you should have the 
 place, and that worries him." 
 
 " If I can be of service to you in any way, command me," 
 said the curate of Saint Paul's, with a bow; "I have the 
 honor to be known to Madame la Dauphine. In our times 
 all offices should be filled by devoted subjects and men of 
 stanch religious principle." 
 
 " Oh come ! " said Falleix ; " do men of merit want patron- 
 age if they are to get on in your line? I did the right thing 
 when I turned brass-founder ; custom comes to find you out if 
 you make a good article." 
 
 "The Government, sir, is the Government," interrupted 
 Baudoyer; "never attack it here." 
 
 "You are talking like the ' Constitutionnel,* in fact," said 
 the curate. 
 
 " Just the sort of thing the ' Constitutionnel ' always says," 
 assented Baudoyer, who never saw the paper. 
 
 The cashier fully believed that his son-in-law was as much 
 Rabourdin's superior in intellect "as God was above St. Cris- 
 pin " (to use his own expression) ; still, the good soul's desire
 
 256 LES EMPLOYAS. 
 
 for the step was a guileless wish. He wanted success ; he 
 wanted it as all employes want their step, with a vehement, 
 intense, unreflecting, brutal desire to get on ; but, at the same 
 time, he must have it, as he wished to have the cross of the 
 Legion of Honor, to wit, entirely through his own merits, 
 and with a clear conscience. To his way of thinking, if a 
 man had sat for twenty-five years behind a grating in a public 
 office, he might be said to have given his life for his country, 
 and had fairly earned tb.e cross. He could think of no way 
 of serving the interests of his son-in-law, save by putting in 
 a word for him with the minister's wife when he took her the 
 monthly stipend. 
 
 " Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your rela- 
 tives ! Speak out, my boy; pray tell us something," cried 
 Mme. Saillard when he came in again. 
 
 Saillard turned on his heel, with a sign to his daughter, 
 intimating that politics were forbidden while visitors were 
 present. 
 
 When M. Mitral and the curate had taken their departure, 
 Saillard pushed back the table, and sat down in his arm- 
 chair. He had a way of seating himself which meant that a 
 piece of office gossip was about to be communicated; a se- 
 quence of movements as unmistakable as the three raps on the 
 stage at the Comedie-Franq:aise. First of all, he pledged his 
 wife and daughter and son-in-law to the most profound secrecy 
 (for however mild the gossip might be, their places, so he was 
 wont to say, depended upon their discretion) ; then he brought 
 out his incomprehensible riddle. How a deputy was about to 
 resign ; how the secretary-general, very reasonably, wanted to 
 be nominated to succeed him ; how the minister was privately 
 thwarting the wish of one of his firmest supporters and most 
 zealous servants; and lastly, how the age limit and pecuniary 
 qualifications had been discussed. Then came an avalanche 
 of conjectures, washed away by a torrent of arguments on the 
 part of the two officials, who kept up an exchange of ponder-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 257 
 
 ous banalities. As for Elizabeth, she asked but three ques- 
 tions. 
 
 "If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is for us, can he carry Bau- 
 doyer's nomination ? " 
 
 ^'Qutenf begad, he could ! " cried the cashier. 
 
 Elizabeth pondered this. "In 1814, Uncle Bidault and 
 his friend Gobseck obliged him," she thought. Aloud she 
 asked : " Is he still in debt ? " 
 
 " Yes-s-s," said the cashier, with a doleful prolongation of 
 the final sibilant. "They tried to attach his salary, but they 
 were stopped by an order from headquarters, an injunction at 
 sight." 
 
 " Then, where is his estate of the Lupeaulx ? " 
 
 " Quien! begad ! Your grandfather and Great-uncle Bidault 
 came from the place, so did Falleix ; it is not far from the 
 arrondissement of this deputy that is coming off guard " 
 
 When her colossus of a husband was in bed, Elizabeth bent 
 over him, and though he had sneered at her questions for 
 " crotchets," she said — 
 
 " Dear, perhaps you are going to have Monsieur de la Bil- 
 lardiere's place." 
 
 " There you are again with your fancies ! " cried Baudoyer. 
 "Just leave Monsieur Gaudron to speak to the Dauphiness, 
 and don't meddle with the office." 
 
 At eleven o'clock, just as all was quiet in the Place Royale, 
 M. des Lupeaulx left the opera to go to the Rue Duphot. It 
 chanced to be one of Mme. Rabourdin's most brilliant Wed- 
 nesdays. A good many frequenters of her house had come in 
 after the theatre to swell the groups already assembled in her 
 rooms, and many celebrities were there : Canalis the poet, the 
 painter Schinner, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de Rubempre, Octave 
 de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, 
 du Bruel, writer of vaudevilles, Andoche Finot, the journalist, 
 Derville, one of the longest-headed lawyers of the day ; the 
 17
 
 258 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Comte du Chatelet and du Tillet, the banker, were all present, 
 with several young men of fashion like Paul de Manerville 
 and the young Vicomte de Portendufere. 
 
 Celestine was dispensing tea when the secretary-general 
 came in. Her dress suited her well that evening. She wore a 
 perfectly plain black velvet gown and a black gauze scarf; her 
 hair was carefully smoothed beneath a high coronet of plaits, 
 ringlets in the English fashion fell on each side of her face. 
 Her chief distinction was an artist's Italian negligence, the 
 ease with which she understood everything, and her gracious 
 way of welcoming her friends' least wishes. Nature had given 
 her a slender figure, so that she could turn swifty at the first 
 questioning word ; her eyes were Oriental in shape, and 
 obliquely set in Chinese fashion, so that they could glance 
 sideward. Her soft, insinuating voice was so well under con- 
 trol that she could throw a caressing charm into every word, 
 even her most spontaneous utterances ; her feet were such as 
 you only see in portraits, for in this one respect painters may 
 flatter their sitters without sinning against the laws of anat- 
 omy. Like most brunettes, she looked a little sallow by day- 
 light, but at night her complexion was dazzling, setting off 
 her dark eyes and hair. Lastly, the firm, slender outlines 
 of her form put an artist in mind of the Venus of the Middle 
 Ages discovered by Jean Goujon,* the great sculptor favored 
 by Diane de Poitiers. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned his 
 shoulder against the frame. He was accustomed to spy out 
 men's ideas; he could not refuse himself the pleasure of spying 
 a woman's feelings ; for Celestine interested him far more 
 than any woman had done before. And des Lupeaulx had 
 reached an age when men claim much from women. The 
 first white hairs are the signal for the last passions ; and these 
 are the most tumultuous of all, for they are stimulated by the 
 last heat of youth and the sense of exhaustion. The fortieth 
 * A protestant, slain in Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 259 
 
 year is the age for follies, the age when a man desires to be 
 loved for his own sake. To love at forty is no longer suffi- 
 cient in itself, as it used to be when he was young, and could 
 be happy in falling in love at random in Cherubino's fashion. 
 At forty nothing less than all will satisfy a man, and he is 
 afraid lest he should obtain nothing ; whereas, at five-and- 
 twenty, he has so much that it is not worth while to exert his 
 will. There is so much strength to spare at five-and-twenty 
 that it may be squandered with impunity ; but at forty a man 
 takes abuse of strength for vigor. The thoughts that filled 
 des Lupeaulx's mind at this moment were surely melancholy 
 ones, for the elderly beau's countenance had visibly length- 
 ened ; the agreeable smile which lent expression to his face, 
 and did duty as a mask, had ceased to contract his features ; 
 the real man was visible ; it was not a pleasant sight. Ra- 
 bourdin noticed it. 
 
 "What has rome to him?" he wondered. "Is he in dis- 
 grace? " But the secretary-general was merely reflecting that 
 he had been dropped once before somewhat too promptly by 
 pretty Mme. Colleville, whose intentions had been precisely 
 the same as Celestine's own. Rabourdin also saw that the 
 would-be statesman's eyes were fixed upon his wife ; and he 
 made a note of their expression in his memory. Rabourdin 
 was too clear-sighted an observer not to see through des Lu- 
 peaulx ; indeed, he felt the most thorough contempt for the 
 secretary-general ; but if a man is much engrossed by some 
 pursuit, his feelings are less apt to rise to the surface, and 
 mental absorption in the work that he loves is equivalent to 
 the cleverest dissimulation of his attitude of mind. For this 
 reason, Rabourdin's opinions were like a sealed book to des 
 Lupeaulx. The chief clerk was displeased by the upstart poli- 
 tician's presence in his house ; but he had not cared to cross 
 Celestine's will. He happened to be chatting confidentially 
 at the moment with a supernumerary, a young clerk destined 
 to play a part in the intrigue set on foot by La Billardidrc's
 
 260 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 approaching death, so that it was but a wandering attention 
 that he gave to Celestine and des Lupeaulx. 
 
 Some account of the supernumerary ought, perhaps, to be 
 given here for the benefit of our nephews, and, at the same 
 time, for the edification of foreign readers. 
 
 The supernumerary is to the administration what the chorister 
 boy is to the church ; what the child of the company is to the 
 regiment or the " rat " to the theatre — an ingenuous, innocent 
 being, a creature blinded by illusions. How far should we go 
 without illusions? On the strength of illusions we struggle 
 with the difficulties of art while we scarce keep the wolf from 
 the door, we digest the rudiments of the sciences with faith 
 drawn from the same source. Illusions mean unbounded 
 faith, and the supernumerary has faith in the administration. 
 He does not take it for the unfeeling, cold-blooded, hard- 
 hearted system that it is. 
 
 Of supernumeraries, there are but two kinds — the well-to-do 
 and the poor. The poor supernumerary is rich in hope, and 
 needs a berth ; the well-to-do supernumerary is poor in spirit, 
 and has need of nothing. No v/ell-to-do family is so simple 
 as to put a man of brains into the administration. The well- 
 to-do supernumerary is usually committed to the care of a 
 senior clerk, or placed under the eye of a director-general, to 
 undergo his initiation into the "pure comedy" of the civil 
 service, as it would be styled by that profound philosopher 
 Bilboquet. The horrors of probation are mitigated for him 
 until he receives a definite appointment. Government offices 
 are never afraid of the well-to-do supernumerary. The clerks 
 all know that he is not at all dangerous ; he aims at nothing 
 short of the highest places in the service. 
 
 At this time many families were asking: "What shall we 
 do with our boys?" There were no chances of getting on in 
 the army. Special careers, such as the navy, the mines, civil 
 and military engineering, and professorships, are either hedged 
 about with regulations or closed by competition; whereas the
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 261 
 
 rotatory movement which metamorphoses clerks in a govern- 
 ment office into prefects, sub-prefects, or receivers and control- 
 lers of taxes and the like (in much the same way as the little 
 figures revolve in a magic-lantern), this movement, to repeat, is 
 subject to no rules, and there are no terms to keep. Through 
 this hole in the administrative system, therefore, behold the 
 well-to-do supernumeraries emerge ; these are young men who 
 drive gigs about town, and wear good clothes and mustaches, 
 and behave, one and all of them, as insolently as any self-made 
 upstart. The well-to-do supernumerary was almost invariably 
 a nephew or a cousin or a relative of some minister, or civil 
 servant, or of a very influential peer. Journalists used to be 
 pretty hard upon him ; not so the established clerks ; they 
 aided and abetted the young gentleman, and made interest 
 with him. 
 
 But the poor supernumerary (the only genuine kind) is, in 
 nearly every case, a widow's son. His father before him 
 probably was a clerk in a government office ; his mother 
 lives on a meagre pension, and starves herself to support her 
 boy till he can get a permanent post as copying clerk ; she 
 dies while he is within sight of that marshal's baton of the 
 profession — the post of draughting clerk, with a prospect of 
 drawing up reports and formulating orders for the term of his 
 natural life, or even a problematical chance of becoming a 
 senior clerk. This kind of supernumerary always lives in 
 some neighborhood where rents are low, and leaves it an early 
 liour. For him the state of the weather is the real Eastern 
 Question. He must walk the whole way to the office, and 
 keep his boots clean, and take care of his clothes; he must 
 make allowance for the time that he is like to lose if a heavy 
 shower forces him to take shelter. The supernumerary has 
 plenty to think about ! Pavements in the streets and flag- 
 stones along the quays and boulevards were boons indeed for 
 him. If any strange chance should bring you out into the 
 streets of Paris between half-past seven and eight o'clock of a
 
 262 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 a winter morning, when there is a sharp frost, or the weather 
 is generally unpleasant ; and if, furthermore, you happen to 
 see a pallid, timorous youth walking along without a cigar in 
 his mouth — look at his pocket ; you are pretty sure to dis- 
 cover the outlines of the roll which his mother gave him when 
 he left home, so that he might hold out, without damage to 
 his internal economy, through the nine long hours that separate 
 breakfast from dinner. The period of unsophisticated inno- 
 cence is, however, but short. By the light of a very little 
 knowledge of life in Paris a lad soon acquires a notion of the 
 awful distance between a supernumerary and a copying clerk ; 
 a distance which neither Archimedes, nor Newton, nor Pascal, 
 nor Leibnitz, nor Kepler, nor Laplace, nor any other mathe- 
 matician can compute. It is the difference between zero and 
 the unit, between a problematical bonus and a regularly paid 
 salary. The supernumerary accordingly is pretty quick to see 
 the impossibilities of the career ; he hears the talk of the 
 clerks ; they explain to him how So-and-so was promoted over 
 their heads. By and by he discovers the intrigues of govern- 
 ment offices ; he finds out how his superiors were promoted, 
 and the extraordinary circumstances that led to their success. 
 One, for instance, married a young lady with a past ; another 
 took to wife the natural daughter of a minister ; yet another 
 took a heavy responsibility upon his shoulders ; while a fourth, 
 an extremely able man, imperiled his health with working 
 like a galley-slave ; but this last employe had the perseverance 
 of a mole, and not every man feels himself capable of perform- 
 ing such feats. Everything is known in the office. Some- 
 times an incompetent man has a wife with plenty of brains ; 
 she brought him thus far; it was she who secured his nomina- 
 tion as a deputy ; and though he has no capacity for work, he 
 can intrigue in a small way in the Chamber. So-and-so has 
 an intimate friend in a statesman's wife. Such-a-one is in 
 league with a formidable journalist. 
 
 Then the supernumerary is disgusted and hands in his
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 263 
 
 resignation. Three- fourths of the supernumeraries leave be- 
 fore they secure permanent berths. Those that remain are 
 either dogged young men or simpletons that say to themselves : 
 " I have been here for three years, I shall get a berth if I stay 
 on long enough ! " or those that feel conscious of a vocation. 
 Clearly the supernumerary is, in the administration, pretty 
 much what the novice is in religious orders. He is passing 
 through his probation, and the trial is severe. In the course 
 of it the State discovers the men that can bear hunger and thirst 
 and want without giving way under the strain ; men whom 
 drudgery does not disgust ; the temperament that will accept 
 the horrible life, the disease, if you prefer it, of a Government 
 office. The supernumerary system from this point of view, so 
 far from being a scandalous attempt on the part of the Govern- 
 ment to get work done for nothing, might fairly be regarded 
 as a beneficent institution. 
 
 The young fellow with whom Rabourdin was speaking was 
 a poor supernumerary, by name Sebasticn de la Roche. He 
 had walked on tiptoe from the Rue du Roi Dore, in the 
 Marias, but there was not the slightest speck of mud on his 
 clothes. He spoke of his "mamma," and dared not lift his 
 eyes to look at Mme. Rabourdin. Her house seemed to him 
 to be a second Louvre. His poor mother had given him a 
 five-franc piece in case it should be absolutely necessary to 
 play; admonishing him, at the same time, to take nothing, 
 to stand the whole time, and to be very careful not to upset 
 a lamp or any of the pretty trifles on the whatnots. He 
 was dressed entirely in black ; his gloves had been cleaned 
 with india-rubber, and he exhibited them as little as possible. 
 His fair complexion and bright hazel eyes, with gleams of 
 gold in them, suited well with his thick red-brown hair. Now 
 and again the poor boy would steal a glance at Mme. Rabour- 
 din. "What a beautiful woman ! " he said to himself; and 
 when he went home that night he thought of the fairy till 
 sleep closed his eyes.
 
 264 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Rabourdin saw that Sebastien had the making of a good 
 clerk in him ; and as he took his position of supernumerary 
 seriously, the chief clerk was very much interested in the poor 
 boy. And not only so, he had made a pretty correct guess at 
 the poverty in the home of a poor widow with a pension of 
 seven hundred francs ; Sebastien had not long left school, his 
 education must necessarily have eaten into her savings. So 
 Rabourdin had been quite like a father to the supernumerary ; 
 he had often gone out of his way at the board to get a bonus for 
 him ; sometimes, indeed, he had paid the money out of his 
 own pocket when the argument had grown too warm with the 
 distributors of favors. 
 
 Then he heaped work upon Sebastien ; he was training 
 him ; he made him fill du Bruel's place ; and du Bruel, a 
 playwright known to the dramatic world and the public by 
 the pseudonym of de Cursy, paid Sebastien a hundred crowns 
 out of his salary. Mme. de la Roche and her son regarded 
 Rabourdin as a great man, a guardian angel and a tyrant 
 blended in one ; all their hopes depended on him. Sebastien 
 always looked forward to the time when he should be an 
 established clerk. Ah ! it is a great day for the supernumerary 
 when he signs his receipt for his salary for the first time. 
 Many a time he has fingered the money for the first month, 
 and the whole of it is not paid over to the mother. Venus 
 smiles upon these first payments from the ministerial cash-box. 
 This hope could only be realized for Sebastien by M. Rabour- 
 din, his only protector; and, accordingly, the lad's devotion 
 to his chief was unbounded. Twice a month he dined in the 
 Rue Duphot ; but only with the family, and Rabourdin always 
 brought him home. Madame never gave him an invitation 
 except to balls, when dancing young men were wanted. At 
 the sight of the awful des Lupeaulx his heart beat fast. • One 
 of the minister's carriages used to come for des Lupeaulx at 
 half.past four, just as he himself was opening his umbrella 
 under the archway before setting off for the Marias. His fate
 
 ONE OF THE MINISTER'S CARRIAGES USED TO COME FOR 
 
 DES LUPEAULX AT HALF PAST FOUR, JUST AS HE 
 
 HIMSELF WAS OPENING HIS UMBRELLA.
 
 4Jik. .^1
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 265 
 
 depended upon the secretary-general ; one word from the man 
 in the doorway could give him a berth and a salary of twelve 
 hundred francs. (Twelve hundred francs ! It was the height 
 of his ambition ; he and liis mother could live in comfort on 
 such a stipend.) And yet the secretary-general did not know 
 him. Des Lupeaulx was scarcely aware there was such a person 
 as Sebastien de la Roche. If La Billardiere's son, a well-to- 
 do supernumerary in Baudoyer's office, chanced to be under 
 the archway at the same time, des Lupeaulx never failed to 
 give him a friendly nod ; but then M. Benjamin dc la Billar- 
 diere was the son of a minister's cousin. 
 
 At this particular moment Rabourdin was giving poor little 
 S6bastien a scolding. Sebastien was the only person wholly 
 in the secret of Rabourdin's vast labors ; Sebastien had copied 
 and recopied the famous memorial on a hundred and fifty 
 sheets of foolscap, to say nothing of tabulated statistics in sup- 
 port of the argument, abstracts on loose leaves, whole columns 
 of bracketed calculations, headings in capital letters, and sub- 
 headings in round hand. The mechanical part that he played 
 in a great design had kindled enthusiasm in the lad of twenty; 
 he would copy out a whole table again after a single erasure ; 
 he took a pride in the handwriting that counted for something 
 in so great an enterprise. 
 
 Sebastien had been so thoughtless as to take the most dan- 
 gerous rough draft of all to the office in order to finish the 
 fair copy. This was a list of all the men in the head offices 
 in Paris, with notes of their prospects, their present circum- 
 stances, and private occupations after hours. 
 
 Most civil servants in Paris eke out their salaries by some 
 supplementary method of gaining a livelihood ; unless, like 
 Rabourdin, they possess patriotic ambition or mental superi- 
 ority. Like M. Saillard, they become sleeping partners in a 
 business, and go through the books at night. A good many 
 clerks, again, marry seamstresses, or manageresses of lottery 
 offices, or their wives keep tobacconists' shops or reading-
 
 266 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 rooms. Some, like Mme. Colleville's husband (Mme. Colle- 
 ville, it may be remembered, was C^lestine's rival), have a 
 place in a theatre orchestra. Yet others, like du Bruel, for 
 instance, write plays, comic operas, and melodramas, or take 
 to stage-management. Witness Messrs. Sewrin, Pixer6court, 
 Planard, and others as instances in point. Pigault-Lebrun, 
 Piis, and Duvicquet held posts in the civil service in their 
 time ; and M. Scribe's first publisher was a Treasury clerk. 
 
 Rabourdin's inventory contained other details. It was an 
 inquiry into the personal characteristics of individuals. Some 
 statement of their mental and physical capacities must of ne- 
 cessity be included in the survey if the Government was to 
 recognize those who combined intelligence and aptitude for 
 work with good health, for these are three indispensable 
 qualifications in men who must bear the burden of public 
 business and do everything well and quickly. The inventory 
 was a great piece of work ; it was the outcome of ten years of 
 labor, and a long experience of men and affairs acquired in 
 the course of intimacies with the heads of other departments; 
 but still it would savor somewhat of espionage, if it fell into 
 the hands of those who did not understand the drift of it. If 
 other eyes saw a single sheet, M. Rabourdin might be ruined. 
 Sebastien's admiration for his chief was unbounded, and he 
 knew nothing as yet of the petty spite of bureaucracy. He had 
 all the disadvantages of simplicity as well as its charm. So, 
 although he had just been scolded for taking the sheet to the 
 office, he had the courage to make a full confession. The 
 rough draft and the fair copy were at the office at that moment ; 
 he had put them away in a case where no one could possibly 
 find them. But as he saw the gravity of his mistake, the tears 
 came into his eyes. 
 
 "Come, come, sir," Rabourdin added good-naturedly, 
 "let us have no more imprudence; but do not distress your- 
 self. Go down to the office very early to-morrow morning. 
 Here is the key of a box in my cylinder desk ; it has a letter
 
 LES LMPLOYAS. 267 
 
 lock ; open it with the word del, and put the rough draft and 
 the copy safely away." 
 
 This piece of confidence dried the lad's tears. His chief 
 tried to induce him to take tea and cake. 
 
 " Mamma told me not to take tea because of my digestion," 
 said Sebastien. 
 
 " Very well, my dear boy, here are some sandwiches and 
 cream ; come and sit beside me," said the awe-inspiring Mme. 
 Rabourdin, ostentatiously gracious. She made Sebastien sit 
 by her at the table ; and the light touch of the goddess' dress 
 as it brushed his coat brought the poor boy's heart into his 
 mouth. But at this moment the fair lady saw des Lupeaulx, 
 and, instead of waiting till he came to her, she went smiling 
 toward him. 
 
 " Why do you stay there as if you were sulking with us ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 "I was not sulking," he replied. "But when I came to 
 bring you a bit of good news, I could not help thinking to 
 myself that you would be more cruel now than ever. I foresaw 
 that six months hence I should be almost a stranger to you. 
 No ; we cannot dupe each other — you have too much intel- 
 ligence, and I on my side have had too much experience — I 
 have been taken in too often, if you like it better. Your end 
 is attained ; it has cost you nothing but smiles and a few 
 gracious words " 
 
 "Dupe each other!" she repeated, apparently half- 
 offended ; " what do you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes. Monsieur de la Billardi^re is worse again to-day ; 
 and from what the minister said to me, your husband is 
 certain to be head of the division." 
 
 He gave her the history of his "scene" with the minister 
 (for so he was pleased to call it), of the countess' jealousy, 
 and what she had said with regard to the curiously granted 
 invitation. 
 
 "Monsieur des Lupeaulx," the lady returned with dignity,
 
 268 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "permit me to point out to you that my husband is the most 
 capable chief clerk ; that he stands first in seniority; that old 
 La Billardiere's appointment over his head made a sensation 
 all through the service ; that he has done the work of the 
 head of the division for the past twelve months ; and that we 
 have neither competitor nor rival," 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 "Well," she continued, with a smile that displayed the 
 prettiest teeth in the world, "can my friendship for you be 
 spotted with any thought of self-interest ? Can you think 
 me capable of it?" 
 
 Des Lupeaulx signified his admiring incredulity. 
 
 "Ah!" cried she, "a woman's heart will always be a 
 secret for the cleverest of you men. Yes, I have seen your 
 visits here with the greatest pleasure, and there was a thought 
 of self interest at the back of the pleasure." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "You have an unbounded future before you," sne con- 
 tinued, lowering her voice for his ear ; " you will be a deputy 
 and a minister some day ! " (How pleasant it is to an ambi- 
 tious man to have such words as these murmured in his ear by 
 a pretty woman with a charming voice !) " Ah ! I know you 
 better than you know yourself ! Rabourdin will be immensely 
 useful to you in your career ; he will do the work while you 
 are at the Chamber. And while you are dreaming of taking 
 office, I want Rabourdin to be a councilor of State and a 
 director-general. Here were two men who might be very use- 
 ful to one another, while their interests could never clash, so 
 I took it into my head to bring them together. That is a 
 woman's part, is it not ? You will both get on faster as 
 friends, and it is time that you both should sail ahead. I 
 have burnt my boats," she added, smiling at him. "You 
 are not as frank with me as I am with you." 
 
 "You will not listen to me," he returned in a melancholy 
 tone, in spite of the satisfaction that her words gave him in
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 269 
 
 the depths of his heart. " What good will your promises of 
 promotion do me if you dismiss me here ? " 
 
 She turned on him with a Parisienne's quickness. 
 
 ** Before I listen to you, we must be in a position to under- 
 stand each other," she said. And she left the elderly cox- 
 comb and went to talk to Mme. de Chessel, a provincial 
 countess, who made as though she meant to go. 
 
 ''She is no ordinary woman!" thought des Lupeaulx. 
 " I am not myself when I am with her." 
 
 And it is a fact that this reprobate who had kept an opera- 
 dancer six years ago, and since then, thanks to his position, 
 had made a seraglio of pretty women for himself among the 
 wives of the employes, and lived in the world of actresses and 
 journalists — this jaded man of forty, I repeat, was charming 
 with Celestine all that evening, and the very last to leave her 
 salon. 
 
 "At last ! " thought Mme. Rabourdin, as she went to bed. 
 "At last we shall have the place. Twelve thousand francs a 
 year, beside extras and the rent of the farm at Grajeux ; 
 twenty-five thousand francs altogether. It is not comfort, 
 but still it is not poverty." 
 
 Celestine thought of her debts till she fell asleep. They 
 could be paid off in three years by putting aside six thousand 
 francs a year. She was far from imagining, as she took Ra- 
 bourdin's promotion for granted, that somewhere in the Marais 
 a little shrewish, self-seeking, bigoted bourgeoise that had 
 never set foot in a salon, a woman without influence or con- 
 nections, was thinking of carrying the place by storm. And 
 if Mme. Rabourdin could have seen Mme. Baudoyer, she 
 would have despised her antagonist ; she did not know the 
 power of pettiness, the penetrating force of the grub that 
 brings down the elm-tree by tracing a ring under the bark. 
 
 If it were possible in literature to make use of the micro- 
 scope of a Leuwenhoek, a Malpighi, or a Raspail,. as Hoff"mann 
 of Berlin attempted to do; if, furthermore, you could magnify
 
 270 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 and draw the teredo that brought Holland within a finger's 
 breadth of extinction by gnawing through the dykes, perhaps 
 you might see sometiiing within a little resembling the coun- 
 tenances of Messieurs Gigonnet, Mitral, Baudoyer, Saillard, 
 Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and Company. These 
 human teredos, at any rate, showed what they could do in the 
 thirtieth year of this nineteenth century. And now is the time 
 for displaying the official teredo, as he burrows in the public 
 offices where most of the scenes in this history will take place. 
 
 At Paris all public offices are alike. No matter to what 
 department you may betake yourself to ask for the redress of 
 a grievance or for the smallest favor, you will find the same 
 gloomy corridors, the same dimly lighted backways, the same 
 rows of doors each with an enigmatical inscription, and an 
 oval, glazed aperture like an eye ; and if you look through 
 those windows, you may see fantastic scenes worthy of Callot. 
 When you discover the object of your search, you pass first of 
 all through an outer room, where the office messenger sits, 
 into a second, the general office ; the senior clerk's sanctum 
 lies to the right or left at the farther end of it, and either 
 beyond, or up above, you find the room appropriated to the 
 use of the chief clerk himself. As for the immense personage 
 styled the head of the division under the Empire, the director 
 under the Restoration, and the head of the division once 
 more in our day, he is housed either up above or down below 
 his two or three suites of offices ; but occasionally his room 
 lies beyond that of one of the chief clerks. As a rule, it is 
 remarkable for its spaciousness, an advantage not a little 
 prized in these curious honeycomb cells of the big hive known 
 as a government department, or a director-general's depart- 
 ment, if there can be said to be such a thing as a director- 
 general. 
 
 At the present day almost every department has absorbed all 
 the lesser administration which used to be separate. By this
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 271 
 
 concentration the directors-general have been shorn of all their 
 splendor in the shape of hotels, servants, spacious rooms, and 
 little courtyards. Who would recognize the commissioner of 
 woods and forests, or the comptroller of excise, in a man that 
 comes to the Treasury on foot and climbs the stairs to a second 
 floor? Once these dignitaries were councilors, or ministers, 
 or peers of France, they were housed in a splendid hotel in 
 the Rue Sainte-Avoye or the Rue Saint-Augustin. Messieurs 
 Pasquier and Mole, among others, were content with a comp- 
 troller-general's post after they had been in office, thus illus- 
 trating the remark made by the Due d'Antin to Louis XIV, : 
 " Sire, when Jesus Christ died on a Friday, He was sure that 
 on Sunday He should rise from tlie dead." If the comptroller- 
 general's sphere of activities had increased in extent when his 
 splendor was curtailed, perhaps no great harm would have 
 been done ; but nowadays it is with great difficulty that this 
 personage becomes a master of requests with a paltry twenty 
 thousand francs a year. He is suffered to retain a symbol of 
 his vanished power in the shape of an usher in small clothes, 
 silk stockings, and a cut-away coat, if, indeed, the usher has 
 not latterly been reformed out of existence. 
 
 The staff of an office consists, in administrative style, of a 
 messenger, a number of supernumeraries who work for nothing 
 for so many years, and the established clerks ; to wit, the 
 writers or copying clerks, the draughting clerks, and first or 
 senior clerks, under a chief and his assistant, the sub-chief. 
 A division usually comprises two or three such offices, and 
 sometimes more. The names of the functionaries vary with 
 the different departments ; in some the senior clerk may be 
 replaced by a head book-keeper or an auditor. 
 
 The floor of the outer room, inhabited by the office messen- 
 ger, is tiled like the passage, the walls are covered with a cheap 
 paper ; the furniture consists of a stove, a big black table, an 
 inkstand and pens, with sundry bare benches for the accom- 
 modation of the public that dances attendance there (the office
 
 272 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 messenger sits in a comfortable armchair and rests his feet on 
 a hassock). Sometimes, in addition, there is a water-cistern 
 and a tap. The general office is a large and more or less well- 
 lighted apartment. Wooden floors are very rare ; parquetry 
 and open fireplaces, like mahogany cupboards, tables, and 
 desks, red and green leather-covered chairs, silken curtains, 
 and other departmental luxuries are appropriated to the use of 
 chief clerks and heads of divisions. The general office is 
 supplied with a stove, the pipe enters the chimney-opening, if 
 there happens to be a flue. The wall-paper is usually plain 
 green or brown. The tables are of black wood. 
 
 A clerk's industry may be pretty accurately gauged by his 
 manner of installing himself. A chilly subject will have a kind 
 of wooden foot-rest : the man of bilious-sanguine temperament 
 is content with a straw mat ; the lymphatic man that lives in 
 fear of draughts, open doors, or other causes of a fall in the 
 temperature will intrench himself behind a little screen of paste- 
 board cases. There is a closet {armoire) somewhere in which 
 office-coats, over-sleeves, eye-shades, caps, fezs, and other gear 
 of the craft are kept. The chimney-piece is almost always 
 loaded with water-bottles and glasses and the remains of 
 luncheons; a lamp may be found in some dark corners. The 
 door of the assistant's sanctum usually stands ajar, so that that 
 gentleman may keep an eye on the general office, prevent too 
 much talk, and come out to confer with the clerks in great 
 
 emergencies. 
 
 You can tell the quality of the official at a pinch from the 
 furniture of the room. The curtains vary, some are of white 
 or colored stuff, some are cotton, some silk; the chairs are of 
 cherry-wood or mahogany, and straw-seated, or upholstered or 
 cushioned with leather ; the wall-papers are more or less clean. 
 But to whatever department this kind of public property may 
 chance to belong, nothing can look more strange, when re- 
 moved from its surroundings, than a collection of furniture 
 that has seen so many changes of government and come
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 273 
 
 through so much rough treatment. Of all removals in Paris, 
 the migration of a public office is the most grotesque to wit- 
 ness. The genius of Hoffmann, that hight priest of the im- 
 possible, could not invent anything more whimsical. Some 
 unaccountable change is wrought in the pushcarts. The 
 yawning pasteboard cases leave a track of dust along the 
 street ; the tables appear with their castors in the air. There 
 is something dismaying in the aspect of the ramshackle arm- 
 chairs and inconceivably odd gear with which the administra- 
 tion of France is carried on. In some ways it reminds you 
 of a turnout of the properties of a theatre, in others of the 
 stock-in-trade of an acrobat. Even so, upon some obelisk 
 you may behold traces of intelligent purpose in the shadowy 
 lettering which troubles your imagination, after the wont of 
 most things of which you cannot discern the end. And lastly, 
 these utensils from the administrative kitchen are all so old, 
 so battered, so faded, that the dirtiest array of pots and pans 
 would be an infinitely more pleasing spectacle. 
 
 If foreign and provincial readers would form an accurate 
 idea of the inner life of a public office at Paris, it may, per- 
 haps, suffice to describe M. de la Billardiere's division, for its 
 chief characteristics are common, no doubt, to all European 
 administrations. 
 
 First and foremost, picture, to suit your fancy, the person- 
 age thus set forth in large type in the " Annuaire : " 
 
 " Head of the Division: M. le Baron Flamet de la Bil- 
 LARDiERE (Athanase-Jean-Franyois-Michcl), formerly Grand 
 Provost of the Department of the Correze ; Gentleman in 
 Ordinary of the Chamber ; Master of Requests Extraordinary, 
 President of the Electoral College of the Department of the 
 Dordogne, officer of the Legion of Honor ; Chevalier of St. 
 Louis, and of the foreign orders of Christ, of Isabella, of St. 
 Vladimir, etc., etc.; Member of the Academic of Gers and of 
 many other learned Societies, Vice-President of the Socieie 
 18
 
 274 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 des Bonnes-Lettres ; Member of the Association of St. Joseph, 
 and of the Prisoners' Aid Society ; one of the Mayors of Paris, 
 and so forth, and so forth." 
 
 The man that took up so much space in print was occupy- 
 ing at that moment some five feet and a half by two feet six 
 inches on the bed whereon he lay, his head adorned with 
 a cotton nightcap tied with flame-colored ribbons; with Des- 
 plein, the King's surgeon, and young Dr. Bianchon to visit 
 him, and two elderly kinswomen to mount guard over him on 
 either side; a host of phials, bandages, syringes, and other 
 instruments of death encompassing him about, and the cure 
 of Saint-Roch ever on the watch to insinuate a word or two as 
 to the salvation of his soul. 
 
 Every morning his son, Benjamin de la Billardi^re, would 
 meet the two doctors with the formula : " Do you think that I 
 shall be so fortunate as to keep my father?" It was only 
 that very day that, by a slip of the tongue, he had brought 
 out the word ''unfortunate" instead. 
 
 La BillardiSre's division was situated below the latitude of 
 the attics by seventy-one degrees of longitude, measured by 
 the steps of the staircase, in the departmental ocean of a great 
 and imposing pile of buildings. It lay on the northeast side 
 of a courtyard, a space formerly taken up by the stables, and 
 now occupied by Clergeot's division. The two distinct sets 
 of olifices were divided by the breadth of the stairhead. All 
 the doors were labeled along a spacious corridor illuminated 
 by borrowed lights. The offices and antechambers belonging 
 to the two chief clerks, Messrs. Rabourdin and Baudoyer, 
 were below on the second floor ; and M. de la Billardiere's 
 antechamber, sitting-room, and two private offices lay imme- 
 diately beyond M. Rabourdin's rooms. 
 
 The second floor was divided in two by an entresol, and here 
 M. Ernest de la Briere was established. M. Ernest de la 
 Briere was an occult power which shall be described in a few
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 275 
 
 words, for he certainly deserves a parenthetic mention. So 
 long as the minister was in office, this young man was his 
 private secretary. For which reason his room communicated 
 by a secret door with his excellency's sanctum. His excel- 
 lency, be it said, had two private cabinets; one of these was 
 in keeping with the state apartments in which he received 
 visitors, and here he conferred with great personages in the 
 absence of his secretary ; the other was the study in which he 
 retired to work with his private secretary and without wit- 
 nesses. Now a private secretary is to a single minister what 
 des Lupeaulx was to a whole government. Between young La 
 Briere and des Lupeaulx there was just the difference that 
 separates the aide-de-camp from the chief of the staff. Tlie 
 private secretary is a minister's apprentice ; he takes himself 
 off and reappears with his patron. If the minister is still in 
 favor, or if he has hopes when he goes out of office, he takes 
 his secretary with him, only to bring him back again. If it 
 is otherwise, he puts his protege out to grass in some adminis- 
 trative pasture — in the Audit Department, for example, that 
 hostelry where secretaries wait till the storm passes over. A 
 young gentleman in this position is not precisely a statesman ; 
 he is a man of politics ; sometimes, too, he represents the 
 politics of a man. When you come to think of the quantity 
 of letters which he must open and read, to say nothing of his 
 other occupations, is it not evident that such a commodity 
 would be extremely expensive under an absolute monarchy? 
 At Paris a victim of this sort can be had for an annual sum 
 varying from ten to twenty thousand francs ; but the young 
 man has the benefit of the minister's carriages, boxes at the 
 theatre, and invitations. The Emperor of Russia would be 
 very glad to give fifty thousand francs a year for such a mar- 
 velously groomed and carefully curled Constitutional poodle ; 
 it is such a good guard ; such an amiable, sweet-tempered, 
 docile animal ; so fond and— faithful ! But, alas ! the private 
 secretary is not to be grown, found, discovered, or developed
 
 276 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 anywhere save in the hotbeds of a representative government. 
 Under an absolute monarch you can only have courtiers and 
 servitors ; whereas with a Charter, free men will serve you, 
 and flatter you, and fawn upon you. Wherefore ministers in 
 France are more fortunate than women or crowned kings ; 
 they have somebody to understand them. Perhaps, at the 
 same time, private secretaries are as much to be pitied as 
 women or white paper — they must take all that is put upon 
 them. Like a virtuous wife, a private secretary is bound to 
 display his talents in private only, and for his minister. If he 
 exhibits his abilities in public, he is ruined. Therefore a 
 private secretary is a friend given by the Government. But 
 to return to our Government offices. 
 
 Three office messengers lived in harmony in La Billardi&re's 
 division, to wit, one messenger for the two offices ; another 
 shared by the two chief clerks ; and a third for the head of 
 the division exclusively. All three were clothed and warmed 
 at the public expense ; all three wore the well-known livery — 
 royal blue with a scarlet piping for an undress uniform, and a 
 wide red-white-and-blue galoon for state occasions. La.Billar- 
 diere's man had been put into an usher's uniform. The 
 secretary-general, willing to flatter the self-love of a minister's 
 cousin, permitted an encroachment which reflected glory 
 upon the administration. These three messengers were verit- 
 able pillars of the department and experts in bureaucratic 
 customs. They wanted for nothing ; they were well warmed 
 and clothed at the expense of the State ; and well-to-do, 
 because they were frugal. They probed every man in the 
 department to the quick ; for the one interest in their lives 
 consisted in watching the clerks and studying their hobbies. 
 Wherefore they knew exactly how far it was safe to go in 
 the matter of loans, performing their commissions with the 
 utmost discretion, undertaking errands to the pawnbroker, 
 buying pawntickets, lending money without interest. No one, 
 however, borrowed any sum however trifling without giving
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 277 
 
 a gratuity; and as the loans were usually very small, the 
 practice was equivalent to the payment of a usurious interest. 
 
 The three masterless servants had a salary of nine hundred 
 francs ; New Year's tips and perquisites raised the income to 
 twelve hundred; and they were in a position to make almost 
 as much again out of the clerks, for all the breakfasts of those 
 who breakfasted passed through their hands. In some Govern- 
 ment offices the doorkeeper actually provides the breakfasts. 
 The doorkeeper's place in the finance department had been 
 worth something like four thousand francs to fat old Thuillier 
 senior, whose son was now a clerk in La Billardiere's division. 
 Sometimes attendants feel a five-franc piece slipped into the 
 palm of their right hands if a petitioner is in a hurry, an occur- 
 rence which they take with rare impassibility. The seniors 
 only wear their uniform when on duty, and go out in plain 
 clothes. 
 
 The messenger of the general office was the best off", for he 
 exploited the staff" of clerks. He was a thick-set, corpulent man 
 of sixty, with bristling white hair, an apoplectic neck, a com- 
 , mon pimpled countenance, gray eyes, and a mouth like a 
 stove-door; here you have a sketch of Antoine, the oldest 
 messenger in the department. Antoine had sent for his 
 nephews from Echelles in Savoy, and found places for them ; 
 Laurent with the chief clerks, Gabriel with the head of the 
 division. The two Savoyards were dressed like their uncle, 
 in broadcloth. As to appearance, they were simply ordinary 
 servants in uniform. At night they took checks at a subsidized 
 theatre (La Billardiere had obtained the places for them). 
 Both had married skilled lace-cleaners, who also undertook 
 fine darning and repairs of cashmere shawls. As the uncle 
 was a bachelor, the whole family lived together, and lived 
 very much more comfortably than most chief clerks. Gabriel 
 and Laurent, having only been a matter of ten years in the 
 service, had not yet learned to look down upon the govern- 
 ment costume; they went abroad in uniform, proud as
 
 278 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 dramatic authors after a success from a pecuniary point of 
 view. The uncle, whom they took for a very astute person, 
 and served with blind devotion, gradually initiated them into 
 the mysteries of the craft. 
 
 The three had just opened the offices. Between seven and 
 eight they used to sweep out the offices, read the newspapers, 
 or discuss the politics of the division with other porters, after 
 the manner of their kind, with due exchange of information. 
 Modern domestic servants are perfectly acquainted with the 
 affairs of the family ; and the servants of the department, like 
 spiders in the middle of a web, could feel the slightest dis- 
 turbance in any part of it. 
 
 It was a Thursday morning, the day after the minister's 
 reception and Mme. Rabourdin's At Home. Uncle Antoine, 
 with the assistance of his nephews, was shaving in the ante- 
 chamber on the third floor, when the arrival of one of the 
 clerks took them all by surprise. 
 
 "That is Monsieur Dutocq," remarked Antoine; "I know 
 him by the way he comes sneaking in. He always goes about 
 as if he were skating, he does. He drops down upon you* 
 before you can tell which way he came. Yesterday, he was 
 the last to leave the office, a thing that hasn't happened three 
 times since he has been here." 
 
 A man of thirty-eight, with a long visage of a bilious hue, 
 and close-cropped woolly gray hair ; a low forehead, thick 
 eyebrows that met in the middle, a crooked nose, compressed 
 lips, light green eyes that never looked you in the face ; a 
 tall figure, one shoulder slightly larger than the other ; a 
 brown coat, black waistcoat, a silk handkerchief round the 
 throat, buff trousers, black woolen stockings, and shoes with 
 mud-bedraggled laces ; here you have M. Dutocq, senior clerk 
 in Rabourdin's office. Dutocq was incompetent and indolent. 
 He detested his chief. Nothing could be more natural. Ra- 
 bourdin had no weakness to flatter, no vice to which Dutocq 
 could pander. The chief was far too high-minded to injure a
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 279 
 
 subordinate ; but, at the same time, he was too clear-sighted 
 to be duped by appearances. Dutocq only remained on suf- 
 ferance, through Rabourdin's generosity ; there was no pros- 
 pect of advancement unless there was a change of chief. 
 Dutocq was well aware that he himself was not fit to fill a 
 higher post, but he knew enough of Government offices to 
 understand that incompetence does not prevent a man from 
 affixing his signature to the work of others. He would get 
 out of the difficulty by finding a Rabourdin among the 
 draughting clerks, for La Billardiere's promotion had been a 
 striking and disastrous object lesson to the department. Spite 
 when combined with self-interest is a very fair substitute for 
 intelligence ; and Dutocq was very spiteful, and very much 
 bent on his own interests. Wherefore he had set himself to 
 consolidate his position by taking the office of spy upon him- 
 self. After 1816 he became a bigot of the deepest dye; he 
 foresaw that persons then indiscriminately labeled ''Jesuits," 
 by fools that knew no better, would shortly be in favor. He 
 belonged to the congregation, though he was not admitted to 
 its inner circles. He went from office to office, sounded con- 
 sciences with coarse jokes, and returned to paraphrase his 
 "reports" for des Lupeaulx's benefit. Dcs Lupeaulx was 
 kept informed in this way of everything that went on ; and, 
 indeed, the secretary-general's profound knowledge of the ins 
 and outs of affairs often astonished the minister. Dutocq in 
 good earnest was the Bonneau of a political Bonneau ; he was 
 intriguing for the honor of taking des Lupeaulx's secret mes- 
 sages, and des Lupeaulx tolerated the unclean creature, think- 
 ing that he might sometime make him useful, were it only to 
 get himself or some great person out of a scrape by soma 
 shameful marriage. On some such good fortune indeed 
 Dutocq was reckoning, for he remained a bachelor. The pair 
 understood one another. Dutocq had succeeded M, Poiret 
 senior, who retired to a boarding-house, and was put on a 
 pension in 18 14, at which time there had been a grand general
 
 280 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 reform of the staff. Dutocq lived on a fifth floor, in a house 
 with a passage entry in the Rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore. 
 As an enthusiastic amateur of old prints, it was his ambition 
 to possess complete collections of the works of Rembrandt, 
 Charlet, Sylvestre, Audran, Callot, Albrecht Diirer, and 
 others ; and, like most collectors v/ho live by themselves, he 
 aspired to pick these things up cheaply. Dutocq took his 
 meals in a boarding-house in the Rue de Beaune, and spent 
 his evenings at the Palais Royal. Sometimes he went to the 
 play, thanks to du Bruel, who would give him an author's 
 ticket every week. A word as to du Bruel. 
 
 Du Bruel came to the office simply for the sake of drawing 
 his salary and believing and saying that he was the chief 
 clerk's assistant ; but Sebastien did his work, as has been 
 seen, and received a very inadequate return for it. Du Bruel 
 did the minor theatres for a ministerial paper, for which he 
 also wrote articles to order. His position was known, defined, 
 and unassailable. Nor did he fail in any of the little diplo- 
 matic shifts that gain a man the good-will of his fellow-creatures. 
 He always offered Mme. Rabourdin a box on a first night, for 
 instance, and called for her and took her back in a carriage, 
 an attention of which she was very sensible. Rabourdin was 
 very easy with his subordinates, very little given to torment- 
 ing them ; so he allowed du Bruel to attend rehearsals and to 
 come and go and work at his vaudevilles pretty much as he 
 pleased. M. le Due de Chaulieu was aware that du Bruel was 
 writing a novel, and meant to dedicate the book to him. Du 
 Bruel accordingly dressed as carelessly as a vaudevilliste ; in 
 the morning he appeared in footed trousers and thin-soled 
 shoes, a superannuated waistcoat, a greenish black greatcoat 
 and a black cravat, but at night he was fashionably arrayed, 
 for he aimed at being a gentleman. 
 
 Du Bruel lived, for sufficient reasons, with Florine, the 
 actress for whom he wrote parts ; and Florine at that time 
 lodged with TuUia, a dancer more remarkable for beauty than
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 281 
 
 for talent. This arrangement permitted him to see a good 
 deal of the Due de Rhetore, oldest son of the Due de Chau- 
 lieu, a favorite with the King. The Due de Chaulieu had 
 obtained the cross of the Legion of Honor for du Bruel after 
 his eleventh play on a topic of the hour. Du Bruel — or de 
 Cursv, if vou prefer it — was at work at the moment on a 
 drama in five acts for the Frangais. Sebastien had a strong 
 liking for the assistant, who sometimes gave him an order for 
 the pit. Du Bruel used to point out any doubtful passages 
 beforehand, and Sebastien, with the sincerity of youth, would 
 applaud with all his might ; he regarded du Bruel as a great 
 man of letters. Once it happened that a vaudeville written, 
 as usual, with two collaborators had been hissed in several 
 places. 
 
 "The public find out the parts written in collaboration," 
 du Bruel remarked next day to Sebastien. 
 
 " Why don't you write it all yourself? " Sebastien answered 
 in the simplicity of his heart. 
 
 There were excellent reasons why du Bruel sliould not 
 write the whole himself. He was the third part of a dramatic 
 author. Few people are aware that a dramatic author is a 
 composite being. First, there is the Man of Ideas ; it is his 
 duty to find the subject and construct the framework or 
 scenario of the vaudeville ; the Plodder works out the dia- 
 logue, while the Man of Details sets the couplets to music, 
 arranges the choruses and the accompaniments, and grafts the 
 songs into the plot. The same personage also looks after the 
 practical aspects of the play ; he sees after the drawing up of 
 the placards, and never leaves the manager until he has defi- 
 nitely secured the representation of a piece written by the 
 three partners for the following day. 
 
 Du Bruel, a born plodder, was in the habit of reading new 
 books at the office, and picking out the clever bits ; he made 
 a note of these, and embroidered his dialogues with them. 
 Cursy (that was his nom de guerre^ was held in esteem by his 
 
 K
 
 282 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 collaborators on account of his impeccable accuracy; the 
 Man of Ideas could feel sure that Cursy would comprehend 
 him, and might fold his arms. His popularity among the 
 clerks was sufficient to bring them out in a body to applaud 
 his pieces, for he had the reputation of a " good-fellow," and 
 he deserved it. He was free-handed ; it was never very diffi- 
 cult to screw a bowl of punch or ices out of him, and he 
 would lend fifty francs and never ask for the money. Du 
 Bruel was a man of regular habits ; he had a house in the 
 country at Aulnay, and found investments for his money. 
 Beside his salary of four thousand five hundred francs, he had 
 a pension of twelve hundred from the civil list, and eight 
 hundred francs out of the hundred thousand crowns voted by 
 the Chamber for the encouragement of the arts. Add to these 
 various sources of income some nine thousand francs brought 
 in by the "thirds," "fourths," and "halves" of vaudevilles 
 at three different theatres, and you will understand at once 
 that du Bruel was broad, rotund, and fat, and looked like a 
 man of substance. As to his morals, he was Tullia's lover ; 
 and, as usual, believed that he was preferred to her protector, 
 the brilliant Due de Rhetore. 
 
 Dutocq beheld, not without dismay, the liaison{z.% he called 
 it) between des Lupeaulx and Mme. Rabourdin. His smoth- 
 ered fury was increased. What was more, his prying eyes 
 could not fail to detect that Rabourdin was throwing himself 
 into some great work outside his official duties, and he de- 
 spaired of finding out anything about it, whereas little Sebas- 
 tien was either wholly or partly in the secret. Dutocq had 
 tried successfully to make an ally of M. Godard, Baudoyer's 
 assistant, du Bruel's colleague ; the high esteem in which 
 Dutocq held Baudoyer had led to an acquaintance. Not that 
 Dutocq was sincere ; but by crying up Baudoyer and saying 
 nothing of Rabourdin, he satisfied his spleen, after the fashion 
 of petty minds. 
 
 Joseph Godard was Mitral's cousin by the mother's side.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 28S 
 
 His relationship to Baudoyer, therefore, was distant enough, 
 but he had founded hopes upon it ; he meant to marry Mile. 
 Baudoyer, and consequently Isidore was a brilliant genius in 
 his eyes. He professed a high respect for Elizabeth and Mme. 
 Saillard, failing to perceive that Mme. Baudoyer was "sim- 
 mering" Fallcix for her daughter; and he used to bring little 
 presents for Mile. Baudoyer — artificial flowers, sugar-plums on 
 New Year's Day, and pretty boxes on her birthday. Godard 
 was a man of six-and-twenty, a dull plodder, well-conducted 
 as a young lady, humdrum and apathetic. Cafes, cigars, and 
 horse exercise he held, in abhorrence ; he went to bed regu- 
 larly at ten, and rose at seven. His various social talents 
 brought him into high favor with the Saillards and Baudoyers ; 
 he could play dance music on the flageolet ; and in the Na- 
 tional Guard he took a fife in the band to avoid night-duty. 
 Natural history was Godard's special hobby. He collected 
 minerals and shells ; he could stuff birds \ his rooms were 
 warehouses of curiosities picked up for small sums ; he had 
 landscape-stones, models of palaces in cork, various petrified 
 objects from the springs of Saint-AUyre at Clermont (Au- 
 vergne), and the like. Godard used to buy up scent-bottles 
 to hold his specimens of baryta, his sulphates, salts, magnesia, 
 coral, and the like. He kept collections of butterflies in 
 frames ; he covered the walls with dried fish-skins and Chinese 
 umbrellas. 
 
 Godard lived with his sister, a flower-maker, in the Rue de 
 Richelieu. But though this model young man was much ad- 
 mired by mothers of daughters, it is a fact that he was held in 
 much contempt by his sister's work-girls, and more particularly 
 by the young lady at the desk, who had long hoped to entangle 
 him. He was thin and slim, and of average lieight ; there 
 were dark circles about his eyes ; his beard was scanty ; his 
 breath was bad (according to Bixiou). Joseph Godard took 
 little pains with himself; his clothes did not fit him, his 
 trousers were large and baggy ; he wore white stockings all
 
 284 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the year round, a narrow-brimmed hat, and laced shoes. At 
 the office he sat in a cane chair with the seat broken through, 
 and a round leather cushion on the top of it. He complained a 
 good deal of indigestion. His principal failing was a tendency 
 to propose picnics and Sunday excursions in the summer to 
 Montmorency, or a walk to a dairy on the Boulevard Mont 
 Parnasse. 
 
 After the acquaintance between Dutocq and Godard had 
 lasted for some six months, Dutocq began to go now and 
 again to Mile. Godard's, hoping to do a piece of business in 
 the house, or to discover some feminine treasure. 
 
 And so it came to pass that in Dutocq and Godard Bau- 
 doyer had two men to sing his praises in the office. M. 
 Saillard was incapable of discovering Dutocq's real character ; 
 sometimes he would drop in to speak to him at his desk. 
 Young La Billardidre, one of Baudoyer's supernumeraries, 
 belonged to this set. Cleverer men laughed not a little at 
 the alliance of Godard, Dutocq, and Baudoyer. Bixiou 
 dubbed it la Triniie sans Esprit, and christened little La 
 Billardiere "the Paschal Lamb." 
 
 '■' You are up early," said Antoine, with a laugh, as Dutocq 
 came in. 
 
 "And as for you, Antoine," returned Dutocq, "it is plain 
 that the newspapers sometimes come before you give them out 
 to us." 
 
 "It happens so to-day," said Antoine, not a whit discon- 
 certed ; " they never come in at the same time for two days 
 together." 
 
 The nephews looked furtively at one another, as if to say 
 admiringly : " What a cool hand ! " 
 
 "He brings me in two sous on his breakfasts," muttered 
 Antoine as Dutocq shut the door, " but I would as soon be 
 without it to have him out of the department." 
 
 "Ah ! you are not the first to-day, Monsieur Sebastien," he 
 remarked, a quarter of an hour afterward.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 286 
 
 " Who ever can have come ! " the poor boy asked, and his 
 face turned white. 
 
 " Monsieur Dutocq," said Laurent. 
 
 Virgin natures possess an unusual degree of that inexplicable 
 power of second-sight which perhaps depends upon an unjaded 
 nervous system, upon the sensibility of an organization that 
 may be called new. Sebastien had guessed that Dutocq hated 
 the venerated Rabourdin. So Laurent had scarcely pro- 
 nounced the name before an ugly presentiment flashed upon 
 the supernumerary. 
 
 " I suspected as much," he exclaimed, and he was off like 
 an arrow down the corridor. 
 
 "There will be a row in the offices," remarked Antoine, 
 shaking his white head as he put on his uniform. " It is 
 easy to see that Monsieur le Baron is going to his last account. 
 Yes, Madame Gruget, his nurse, told me that he would not 
 live the day out. What a stir there will be here, to be sure ! 
 Go and see if the stoves are burning up, some of you. Sabre 
 de boisf^ all of them will come tumbling in upon us in a 
 minute." 
 
 "The poor little youngster was in a fine taking when he 
 heard that that Jesuit of a Monsieur Dutocq was in before 
 him, and that's a fact," commented Laurent. 
 
 " Well, I for one have told him (for, after all, one can't do 
 less than tell a good clerk the truth, and what I call a good 
 clerk is a clerk like this youngster, that pays up his ten francs 
 sharp on New Year's Day), I have told him, I say : ' The more 
 you do, the more they will want you to do, and they will leave 
 you where you are.' But it is no good. He will not listen 
 to me. He kills himself with stopping till five o'clock, an 
 hour after everybody else" (Antoine shrugged his shoulders). 
 "All nonsense; that's not the way to get on! And here's 
 proof of it — nothing has been said yet of taking on the poor 
 boy as an established clerk, and an excellent one he would 
 
 * Wooden sword.
 
 286 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 make. After two years too ! It sets your back up, upon my 
 
 word!" 
 
 *' Monsieur Rabourdin has a liking for Monsieur Sebas- 
 tien," said Laurent. 
 
 " But Monsieur Rabourdin is not a minister," retorted An- 
 toine, " It will be a hot day when he is a minister ; the fowls 
 will cut their teeth. He is much too — never mind what ! 
 When I think that I take round the muster-roll of salaries, to 
 be receipted by humbugs that stop away and do what they 
 please, while little La Roche is working himself to death, I 
 wonder whether God gives a thought to Government offices. 
 And as for these pets of Monsieur le Marechal and Monsieur 
 le Due ; what do they give you ? They thank you " (Antoine 
 made a patronizing nod). " ' Thanks, my dear Antoine.' A 
 pack of do-nothings ; let them work, or they will bring on 
 another Revolution ! You should have seen whether they 
 came it over us like this in Monsieur Robert Lindet's time j 
 for, such as you see me, I came to this shop under Monsieur 
 Robert Lindet. The clerks used to work when he was here ! 
 You ought to have seen those quill-drivers scratching away till 
 midnight, all the stoves gone out, and nobody so much as 
 noticing it ; but for one thing, the guillotine was there too ; 
 and no need to say it was a very different thing from 
 simply taking down their names as we do now when they 
 come late." 
 
 "Daddy Antoine," began Gabriel, "since you are in a 
 talking humor this morning, what do you make out that a 
 clerk is?" 
 
 "A clerk ! " Antoine returned gravely. "A clerk is a man 
 that sits in an office and writes. What am I saying? Where 
 should we be without clerks? Just go and look after your 
 stoves and never say a word against the clerks. The stove in 
 the large room draws like fury, Gabriel ; you must shut off 
 some of the draught." 
 
 Antoine took up his position at the stairhead, so that he
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 287 
 
 could see all the clerks as they came in under the arched gate- 
 way. He knew everybody in every office in the department, 
 and used to watch their ways and notice the differences in 
 their dress. And here, before entering upon the drama, it is 
 necessary to give portraits in outline of the principal actors in 
 La Billardidre's division ; for not merely will the reader make 
 the acquaintance of the various types of the genus clerk, but 
 he will find in them the justification of Rabourdin's observa- 
 tions, and likewise of the title of this essentially Parisian 
 Study. 
 
 And on this head, let there be no misapprehensions : from 
 the point of view of poverty and eccentricity there are clerks 
 and clerks, just as there are fagots and fagots. In the first 
 place, you must distinguish between the clerk in Paris and his 
 provincial brother. The provincial clerk is well off. He is 
 spaciously housed ; he has a garden ; he is comfortable, as a 
 rule, in his office. Sound wine is not dear ; he does not dine 
 off horse-steaks ; he is acquainted with the luxury of dessert. 
 People may not know precisely what he cats, but every one 
 will tell you that he does not "eat up his salary." So far 
 from running into debt, he positively saves on his income. 
 If he is a bachelor, mothers of daughters greet him as he 
 passes; if he is married, he and his wife go to balls at the 
 receiver-general's, at the prefecture, at the sub-prefecture. 
 People take an interest in his character ; he rriakes conquests ; 
 he has a reputation for intelligence ; his loss would probably 
 be felt ; the whole town knows him, and takes an interest in 
 his wife and family. He gives evening parties ; he may be- 
 come a deputy if he has private means, and his father-in-law 
 is in easy circumstances. His wife is always under the minute 
 and inquisitive spy system of a small town ; if he is unfortunate 
 in his married life, he knows it, whereas a clerk at Paris is 
 not bound to hear of his misfortune. Lastly, the provincial 
 clerk is " somebody," while the Parisian is almost " nobody." 
 
 The next comer was a draughting clerk, Phellion by name,
 
 288 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 a respectable father of a family. He was in Rabourdin's 
 office. His chief's influence had obtained education for each 
 of his two boys at half-cost at the College Henri IV., a well- 
 timed favor ; for Phellion had a third child, a girl, who was 
 being educated free of expense in a boarding-school where her 
 mother gave music lessons, and her father taught history and 
 geography of an evening. Phellion was a man of forty-five, 
 and a sergeant-major in the National Guard. He was very 
 ready to give sympathy ; but he never had a centime to spare. 
 He lived, not very far from the Sourds-Muet, in the Rue du 
 Faubourg Saint-Jacques, on a floor of a house, with a garden 
 attached. " His place," to use his own expression, only cost 
 four hundred francs. The draughting clerk was proud of his 
 position, and rejoiced in his lot ; he worked industriously for 
 the Government, believed that he was serving his country, 
 and boasted of his indifference to party politics ; he looked 
 at nothing but Authority. Sometimes, to his delight, M. 
 Rabourdin would ask him to stay for half an hour to finish some 
 piece of work. Then Phellion would go to the boarding- 
 school in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, where his wife 
 taught music, and say to the Demoiselles La Grave with whom 
 he dined — 
 
 " Affairs compelled me to stay late at the office, mesdemoi- 
 selles. When a man is in the service of the Government, he 
 is not his own master." 
 
 Phellion had compiled various school-books in the form of 
 question and answer for the use of ladies' schools. These 
 "small but condensed treatises," as he called them, were on 
 sale at the University booksellers' under the name of " His- 
 torical and Geographical Catechisms." He felt it incumbent 
 upon him to present Mme. Rabourdin with each of these 
 works as they came out, taking a copy printed on hand-made 
 paper and bound in crimson morocco. On these occasions he 
 appeared in the Rue Duphot in full dress : silk small clothes, 
 silk stockings, shoes with gold buckles, and so forth. M.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 289 
 
 Phellion gave beer and patty soirees on Thursday evenings 
 after the boarders had gone to bed. They played bouillotte, 
 with five sous in the pool ; and in spite of the slenderness of 
 the stakes, it once fell out that M. Laudigeois, a registrar's 
 clerk, lost ten francs in an evening by reckless gambling. 
 
 The walls of the sitting-room were covered with a green 
 American paper with a red border, and adorned with portraits 
 of the Royal family. The visitor might behold his majesty 
 the King, the Dauphiness, and Madame ; with a pair of 
 framed engravings, to wit, Mazeppa, after Horace Vernet, 
 and The Pauper's Funeral, after Vigneron. This last-named 
 work of art, according to Phellion, was " sublime in its con- 
 ception. It ought to console the lower classes by reminding 
 them that they had more devoted friends than men, friends 
 whose affections go beyond the grave." From those words 
 you can guess that Phellion was the sort of man to take his 
 children to the Cimetiere de I'Ouest on All-Souls' Day, and 
 point out the twenty square yards of earth (purchased " in 
 perpetuity") where his father and his mother-in-law lay buried. 
 "We sliall come here some day," he used to say, to familiar- 
 ize his offspring with the idea of death. 
 
 It was one of Phellion's great amusements to explore Paris. 
 He had treated himself to a map. Antony, Arcueil, Bi6vre, 
 Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, all of them famous as the 
 abode of more than one great writer, he knew already by 
 heart, and he hoped in time to know all the suburbs on the 
 West side. His eldest son he destined for the service of the 
 Government ; the second was to go to the Polytechnic. He 
 often used to say to his eldest: " When you have the honor to 
 be employed by the Government ! " but, at the same time, 
 he suspected the boy of a turn for the exact sciences, and 
 strove to repress the tendency, holding in reserve the extremity 
 of leaving him to shift for himself if he persisted in his ways. 
 
 Phellion had never ventured to ask M. Rabourdin to dine 
 with him, though he would have regarded such a day as one 
 19
 
 290 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 of the greatest in his life. He used to say that if he could 
 leave one of his sons to walk in the footsteps of M. Rabourdin, 
 he should die the happiest father in the world. He dinned 
 the praises of the worthy and much-respected chief into tlie 
 ears of the Demoiselles La Grave, till those ladies longed to 
 see M. Rabourdin, as a lad might crave a glimpse of M. de 
 Chateaubriand. They would have been very glad, they said, 
 to be intrusted with the education of his " young lady." If 
 the minister's carriage chanced to come in or out, Phellion 
 took off his hat very respectfully whether there was anybody 
 in it or not, and said that it would be well for France if every- 
 body held authority in sufficient honor to revere it even in its 
 insignia. 
 
 When Rabourdin sent for him "downstairs" to explain 
 his work, Phellion summoned up all his intelligence, and 
 listened to his chief's lightest words as a dilettante listens to 
 an air at the Italiens. He sat silent in the office, his feet 
 perched aloft on his wooden foot-rest ; he never stirred from 
 his place; he conscientiously gave his mind to his work. In 
 administrative correspondence he expressed himself with 
 solemnity ; he took everything seriously ; he emphasized the 
 minister's orders by translating them into pompous phra- 
 seology. Yet, great as he was upon propriety, a disastrous 
 thing had happened once in his career — a disaster indeed. 
 In spite of the minute care with which he drafted his letters, 
 he once allowed a phrase thus conceived to escape him : 
 
 "You will therefore repair to the closet with the necessary 
 paper." 
 
 The copying-clerks, delighted at the chance of a laugh at 
 tlie expense of the harmless creature, went to consult Ra- 
 bourdin behind Phellion's back. Rabourdin, knowing his 
 draughting clerk's character, could not help smiling as he 
 indorsed the margin with a note : 
 
 "You will appear at the private office with the documents 
 indicated."
 
 LES, EMPLOYES. 291 
 
 The alteration was shown to Phellion j he studied it, 
 pondered and weighed the difference between the expressions, 
 and candidly admitted that it would have taken him a couple 
 of hours to find the equivalents. " Monsieur Rabourdin is a 
 man of genius!" he cried. He always thought that his 
 colleagues had shown a want of consideration for him by 
 referring the matter so promptly to the chief; but he had too 
 much respect for the established order of things not to admit 
 that they had acted within their right, and so much the more 
 so since he, Phellion, was absent at the time. Still, in their 
 place, he himself would have waited — there was no pressing 
 need for the circular. This affair cost him several nights' 
 rest. If any one wished to make him angry, they had only 
 to remind him of the accursed phrase by asking as he went 
 out, " Have you the necessary paper ? " At which question 
 the worthy draughting clerk would turn and give the clerks a 
 withering glance. " It seems to me, gentlemen, that your 
 remark is extremely unbecoming." One day, however, he 
 waxed so wroth that Rabourdin was obliged to interfere, and 
 the clerks were forbidden to afterward make any allusions to 
 the affair. 
 
 M. Phellion looked rather like a meditative ram. His face 
 was somewhat colorless and marked with smallpox, his lips 
 were thick and underhung, his eyes were pale blue, and in 
 figure he was rather above average height. Neat in his person 
 he was bound to be, as a master of history and geography in 
 a ladies' school \ he wore good linen, a pleated shirt-front, an 
 open black kerseymere waistcoat that afforded glimpses of the 
 braces which his daughter embroidered for him, a diamond 
 pin, a black coat, and blue trousers. In winter he adopted a 
 nut-brown box-coat with three capes, and it was his wont to 
 carry a loaded cane — " a precaution rendered necessary by the 
 extreme loneliness of some pans of tlie neighborhood." He 
 had given up the habit of taking snuff, a reform which he was 
 wont to cite as a striking instance of the command that a man
 
 292 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 may gain over himself. Having what he called a " fat chest," 
 it was his wont to ascend staircases slowly for fear of con- 
 tracting an asthma. 
 
 He saluted Antoine with dignity. 
 
 A copying clerk, an odd contrast to this exemplary worthy, 
 immediately followed. Vimeux was a young fellow of five- 
 and-twenty, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs. He was 
 well made and slim-waisted ; his eyes, eyebrows, and beard 
 were as black as jet ; he had good teeth and sweetly pretty 
 hands, while his mustache was so luxuriant and well-cared 
 for that its cultivation might have been his principal occupa- 
 tion in life. Vimeux's aptitude for his work was so great that 
 he had always finished it long before anybody else. 
 
 " He is a gifted young man ! " Phellion would exclaim, as 
 he saw Vimeux cross his legs, at a loss to know what to do 
 with the rest of his time. 
 
 "And look, now ! " he would say to du Bruel, "how ex- 
 quisitely neat it is ! " 
 
 Vimeux breakfasted off a roll of bread and a glass of water, 
 dined at Katcomb's for twenty sous, and lived in furnished 
 lodgings at twelve francs a month. Dress was his one joy 
 and pleasure in life. He ruined himself with wonderful 
 waistcoats, tight-fitting or semi-fitting trousers, thin boots, 
 carefully cut coats that outlined his figure, bewitching collars, 
 fresh gloves, and hats. His hand was adorned by a signet- 
 ring, which he wore outside his glove; he carried an elegant 
 walking-cane, and did his best to look and behave like a 
 wealthy young man. Toothpick in hand, he would repair to 
 the main alley in the Tuileries gardens, and stroll about, 
 looking for all the world like a millionaire just arisen from 
 table. He had studied the art of twirling a cane and ogling 
 with an eye to business, a V americaine, as Bixiou said ; for 
 Vimeux lived in the hope that some widow, Englishwoman or 
 foreign lady, might be smitten with his charms; he used to 
 laugh to show his fine set of teeth ; he went without socks to
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 293 
 
 have his hair curled every day. Vimeux laid it down as a 
 fixed principle that an eligible hunchbacked girl must have 
 six thousand livres a year ; he would take a woman of five- 
 and-forty with an income of eight thousand, or an English- 
 woman with a thousand crowns. 
 
 Phellion took compassion on the young man. He was so 
 much pleased with Vimeux's penmanship that he lectured 
 him, and tried to persuade him to turn writing-master; it 
 was, he said, a respectable profession which might ameliorate 
 his existence and even render it agreeable. He promised him 
 the school kept by the Demoiselles La Grave. But Vimeux's 
 belief in his star was not to be shaken — it was too firmly fixed 
 in his head. He continued, therefore, to exhibit himself like 
 one of Chevet's sturgeons ; albeit his luxuriant mustache had 
 been displayed in vain for three years. Vimeux lowered his 
 eyes every time that he passed Antoine; he owed the porter 
 thirty francs for his breakfasts, and yet toward noon he always 
 asked him to bring him a roll. 
 
 Rabourdin had tried several times to put a little sound 
 sense into the young fellow's foolish head, but he gave up at 
 last. Vimeux's father was a clerk to a justice of the peace in 
 the department of the Nord. Adolphe Vimeux had given up 
 dinners at Katcomb's lately, and lived entirely on bread. He 
 was saving up to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-switch. In 
 the office they jeered at his matrimonial calculations, calling 
 him the Villiaume pigeon ; but any scoff at this vacuous Ama- 
 dis could only be attributed to the mocking spirit that creates 
 the vaudeville, for Vimeux was a friendly creature, and no- 
 body's enemy but his own. The great joke in both offices 
 was to bet that he wore corsets. 
 
 Vimeux began his career under Baudoyer, and intrigued to 
 be transferred to Rabourdin, because Baudoyer was inexorable 
 on the matter of "Englishmen," for so the clerks called 
 duns. The "Englishmen's" day is the day on which the 
 public are admitted; and creditors, being sure of finding
 
 294 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 their debtors, flock thither to worry them, asking when they 
 will be paid, threatening to attach their salaries. Baudoyer 
 the inexorable compelled his clerks to face it out. "It was 
 their affair," he said, "not to get into debt;" and he re- 
 garded his severity as a thing necessary for the public welfare. 
 Rabourdin, on the other hand, stood between his clerks and 
 their creditors; duns were put out at the door. "Govern- 
 ment offices," he said, "were not meant for the transaction 
 of private business." Loud was the scoffing when Vimeux 
 clanked up the stairs and along the corridors with spurs on his 
 boots. Bixiou, practical joker to the department, drew a cari- 
 cature of Vimeux mounted on a pasteboard hobby-horse, and 
 sent the drawing circulating through Clcrgeot's and Billar- 
 diere's divisions. A subscription list was attached. M. Bau- 
 doyer's name was put down for a hundredweight of hay from 
 the stock supplied for his own private consumption, and all 
 the clerks cut gibes at their neighbor's expense. Vimeux 
 himself, like the good-natured fellow that he was, subscribed 
 under the name of " Miss Fairfax." 
 
 The handsome clerk of Vimeux's stamp has his post for a 
 living and his face for his fortune. He is a faithful supporter 
 of masked balls at carnival-tide, though sometimes even there 
 he fails in his quest. A good many of his kind give up the 
 search, and end by marrying milliners or old women ; some- 
 times some young lady is charmed with his fine person, and 
 with her he spins out a clandestine romance that ends in mar- 
 riage, a love story diversified by tedious letters, which, how- 
 ever, produce their effect. Occasionally one here and there 
 waxes bolder. He sees a woman drive past in the Charap- 
 Elysees, procures her address, hurls impassioned letters at 
 her, finds a bargain which, unfortunately, encourages ignoble 
 speculation of this kind. 
 
 The Bixiou (pronounced Bisiou) mentioned above was a 
 caricaturist; Dutocq and Rabourdin, whom he dubbed La 
 vertueuse Rabourdin, were alike fair game to him; Baudoyer
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 295 
 
 he called la Place- Baudoyer, by way of summing up his 
 chief's commonplace character; du Bruel was christened 
 Flonflon. Bixiou was beyond question the wittiest and clev- 
 erest man in the division, or, indeed, in the department ; but 
 his was a monkey's cleverness, desultory and aimless. Bau- 
 doyer and Godard protected him in spite of his malicious 
 ways, because he was extremely useful to them ; he did their 
 work for them out of hand. He wanted du Bruel's or Godard's 
 place, but he stood in his own light. Sometimes — this was 
 when he had done some good stroke of business, such as the 
 portraits in the Fualdes case (which he drew out of his own 
 head), or pictures of the Castaing trial — he turned the service 
 to ridicule. Sometimes he would be very industrious in a 
 sudden fit of desire to get on ; and then again he would neg- 
 lect the work for a vaudeville, which he never by any chance 
 finished. He was, moreover, selfish, close-fisted, and yet 
 extravagant ; or, in other words, he lavished money only upon 
 himself; he was fractious, aggressive, and indiscreet, making 
 mischief for pure love of mischief. 
 
 Bixiou was specially given to attacking the weak ; he re- 
 spected nothing and no one ; he believed neither in France, 
 nor God, nor Art, in neither Greek nor Turk, nor Champ- 
 d'Asile, nor in the Monarchy ; and he made a point of jeering 
 at everything which he did not understand. He was the very 
 first to put a priest's black cap on Charles X.'s head on five- 
 franc pieces. He took off Dr. Gall at his lectures till the 
 most closely buttoned diplomat must have choked with 
 laughter. It was a standing joke with this formidable wag 
 to heat the office stoves so hot that if any one imprudently 
 ventured out of the sudatory he was pretty certain to catch 
 cold ; while Bixiou enjoyed the further satisfaction of wasting 
 the fuel supplied by the Government. Bixiou was not an or- 
 dinary man in his hoaxes; he varied them with so much in- 
 genuity that somebody was invariably taken in. He guessed 
 every one's wishes; this was the secret of his success in this
 
 296 L2£S EldPLOY&S. 
 
 line ; he knew the way to every castle in Spain ; and a man 
 is easy to hoax through his day-dreams, because he is a willing 
 accomplice. Bixiou would draw you out for hours together. 
 And yet, though Bixiou was a profound observer, though he 
 displayed extraordinary tact for purposes of quizzing, he could 
 not apply his aptitude to the purpose of making other men 
 useful to him, nor to the art of getting on in life. He liked 
 best of all to torment La Billardiere junior, his pet aversion 
 and nightmare ; but nevertheless he coaxed and flattered the 
 young fellow the better to quiz him. He used to send him 
 
 love letters signed " Comtesse de M " or "Marquise tie 
 
 B ," making an appointment under the clock in the green- 
 room of the opera at Shrovetide, and then after making a 
 public exhibition of the young man he would let loose a gri- 
 sette upon him. He made common cause with Dutocq (whom 
 he regarded as a serious hoaxer) ; he made it a labor of love 
 to support him in his detestation of Rabourdin and his praises 
 of Baudoycr. 
 
 Jean Jacques Bixiou was the grandson of a Paris grocer. 
 His father died as a colonel in the army, leaving the boy to 
 the care of his grandmother, who had lost her husband and 
 married one Descoings, her clerk. Descoings died in 1822. 
 When Bixiou left school and looked about for some means of 
 earning a livelihood, he tried art for a while ; but in spite of 
 his friendship for Joseph Bridau, a friend of childhood, he 
 gave up painting for caricatures, and vignettes, and the kind 
 of work known twenty years afterward as book illustration. 
 The influence of the Dues de Maufrigneuse and de Rhetore 
 (whose acquaintance he made through opera-dancers) procured 
 him his place in 1819. He was on the best of terms with des 
 Lupeaulx, whom he met in society as an equal; he talked 
 familiarly to du Bruel ; he was a living proof of Rabourdin's 
 observations on the continual process of destruction at work 
 in the administrative hierarchy of Paris, when a man acquired 
 personal importance outside the office. Short but well made,
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 297 
 
 small of feature, remarkable for a vague resemblance to Napo- 
 leon ; a young man of twenty-seven, with thin lips, a flat, per- 
 pendicular chin, fair hair, auburn whiskers, sparkling eyes, 
 and a caustic voice — here you have Bixiou. All senses and 
 intellect, he spoiled his career by an unbridled love of plea- 
 sure, which plunged him into continual dissipation. He was 
 an intrepid man of pleasure ; he ran about after grisettes ; 
 smoked, dined, and supped, and told good stories, everywhere 
 adapting himself to his company, and shining behind the 
 scenes at a grisettes' ball or the Allee des Veuves. At table 
 or as one of a pleasure party Bixiou was equally astonishing ; 
 he was equally alert and in spirits at midnight in the street, or 
 at his first waking in the morning; but, like most great comic 
 actors, he was gloomy and depressed when by himself. 
 Launched forth into a world of actors, actresses, writers, 
 artists, and a certain kind of woman whose riches are apt to 
 take wings, he lived well, he went to the theatre without pay- 
 ment, he played at Frascati's, and often won. He was, in 
 truth, profoundly an artist, but only by flashes ; life for him 
 was a sort of swing on which he swayed to and fro without 
 troubling himself about the moment when the cord would 
 break. Among people accustomed to a brilliant display of in- 
 tellect, Bixiou was in great request for the sake of his liveliness 
 and prodigality of ideas ; but none of his friends liked him. 
 He could not resist the temptation of an epigram ; he sacrificed 
 his neighbor on either hand at dinner before the first course 
 was over. In spite of his superficial gayety, a certain secret 
 discontent with his social position crept into his conversation ; 
 he aspired to something better, and the fatal lurking imp in 
 his character would not permit him to assume the gravity 
 which makes so muc'. impression on fools. He lived in 
 chambers in the Rue de Ponthicu; it was a regular bivouac ; 
 the three rooms were given up to the disorder of a bachelor 
 establishment. Often he would talk of leaving France to try 
 a violent assault on fortune in America. No fortune-teller
 
 298 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 could have predicted his future, for all his talents were incom- 
 plete ; he could not work hard and steadily ; he was always 
 intoxicated with pleasure, ahva3's behaving as if the world were 
 to come to an end on the morrow. 
 
 As to dress, his claim was that he was not ridiculous on 
 that score ; and, perhaps, he was the one man in the depart- 
 ment of whom it would not be said : " There goes a Govern- 
 ment clerk ! " He wore elegant boots, black trousers with 
 straps to them, a fancy vest, a cravat (the eternal gift of the 
 grisette), a hat from Bandoni's, and dark kid gloves. His 
 bearing was not ungraceful, being both easy and unaffected. 
 So it came to pass that when summoned to hear a reprimand 
 from des Lupeaulx, after carrying his insolence toward the 
 Baron de la Billardiere a little too far, he was content to 
 rejoin: "You would take me on again for the sake of my 
 clothes." And des I.upeaulx could not help laughing. 
 
 The most pleasing hoax ever perpetrated by Bixiou in the 
 offices was devised for Godard's benefit. To him Bixiou 
 presented a Chinese butterfly, which the senior clerk put in 
 his collection, and exhibits to this day ; he has not yet found 
 out that it is a piece of painted paper. Bixiou had the patience 
 to elaborate a masterpiece for the sake of playing a trick upon 
 the chief clerk's assistant. 
 
 The devil always provides a Bixiou with a victim. Bau- 
 doyer's office accordingly contained a butt, a poor copying 
 clerk, aged two-and-twenty. Auguste-Jean-Frangois Minard, 
 for that was his name, was in receipt of a salary of fifteen 
 hundred francs. He had married for love. His wife was a 
 doorkeeper's daughter, an artificial flower-maker, who worked 
 at home for Mile. Godard. Minard had seen the girl in the 
 store in the Rue de Richelieu. Zelie Lorain, in the davs 
 before her marriage, had many dreams of changing her station 
 in life. She had been trained at the Conservatoire as dancer, 
 singer, and actress by turns ; and often she had thought of 
 doing as many other girls did, but the fear that things might
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 299 
 
 turn out badly for her, and she might sink to unspeakable 
 depths, had kept Zelie in the paths of virtue. She was re- 
 volving all kinds of hazy projects in her mind when Minard 
 came forward with his offer of marriage and gave them a 
 definite shape. Z6lie was earning five hundred francs a year; 
 Minard had fifteen hundred. In the belief that two persons 
 can live on two thousand francs, they were married without 
 settlements and in the most economical fashion. The pair 
 of turtle-doves found a nest on a fourth floor near the Barriere 
 de Courcelles, at a rent of a hundred crowns. There was a 
 very neat little kitchen, with a cheap plaid paper at fifteen 
 sous the piece upon the walls, a brick floor assiduously bees- 
 waxed and polished, walnut-wood furniture, and white India 
 muslin curtains in the windows ; there was a room in which 
 Zelie made her flowers ; a parlor beyond, with a round table 
 in the middle, a looking-glass on the wall, a clock representing 
 a revolving crystal fountain, dark haircloth chairs, and gilt 
 candlesticks in gauze covers ; and a blue-and-white bedroom, 
 with a mahogany bedstead, a bureau, a bit of striped carpet at 
 the bedfoot, half a dozen easy-chairs, four small chairs, and a 
 little cherry-wood cot in the corner where the little ones, a 
 boy and girl, used to sleep. Zelie nursed her children herself, 
 did the cooking and the work of the house, and made her 
 flowers. There was something touching in their happy, hard- 
 working, unpretending comfort. As soon as Zelie felt that 
 Minard loved her, she loved him with all her heart. I^ove 
 draws love; it is the "deep calling unto the deep" of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Minard, poor fellow, used to leave his wife asleep in bed in 
 the morning and do her marketing for her. He took the 
 finished flowers to the store on his way to the oflice of a 
 morning, and bought the materials as he came home in the 
 afternoon. Then, as he waited for dinner, he cut or stamped 
 out the petals, made the stalks, and mixed the colors for her. 
 The little, thin, slight, nervous man, with the curled chestnut
 
 300 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 hair, clear hazel eyes, and dazziiigly fair but freckled com- 
 plexion, possessed a quiet and unboasting courage below the 
 surface. He could write as well as Vimeux. At the ofifice he 
 kept himself to himself, did his work, and maintained the 
 reserve of a thoughtful man whose life is hard. Bixiou, the 
 pitiless, nicknamed him "the white rabbit," on account of 
 liis white eyelashes and scanty eyebrows. Minard was a 
 Rabourdin on a lower level. He was burning with a desire 
 to put his Zelie in a good position ; he wanted to make a for- 
 tune quickly, and to this end he was trying to hit upon an 
 idea, a discovery, or an improvement in the ocean of Parisian 
 industries and cravings for new luxury. Minard's seeming 
 stupidity was the result of mental tension ; he went from the 
 Double Pate des Sultanes to Cephalic Oil ; from phosphorus 
 boxes to portable gas ; from hinged clogs to hydrostatic lamps, 
 making the entire round of the infinitesimally small details of 
 material civilization. He bore Bixiou's jests as a busy man bears 
 with the buzzing of a fly ; he never even lost his temper. And 
 Bixiou, quickwitted though he was, never suspected the depth 
 of contempt that Minard felt for him. Minard regarded a 
 quarrel with Bixiou as a waste of time, and so at length he had 
 tired out his persecutor. 
 
 Minard was very plainly dressed at the office ; he wore 
 trousers of duck till October, shoes and gaiters, a mohair vest, 
 a beaver-cloth coat in winter and twill in summer, and a straw 
 or silk hat according to the season, for Zelie was his pride. 
 He would have gone without food to buy a new dress for her. 
 He breakfasted at home with his wife, and ate nothing till he 
 returned. Once a month he took Zelie to the theatre with a 
 ticket given by du Bruel or Bixiou, for Bixiou did all sorts of 
 tilings, even a kindness now and again. On these occasions 
 Zdlie's mother left her porter's room to look after the baby. 
 Minard had succeeded to Vimeux's place in Baudoyer's office. 
 
 Mme. and M. Minard paid their calls in person on New 
 Year's Day. People used to wonder how the wife of a poor
 
 LES EMFLOYES. 301 
 
 clerk on fifteen hundred francs a year could manage to keep 
 her husband in a suit of black, and afford to drive in a hack, 
 and to wear embroidered lawn dresses and silk petticoats, a 
 Tuscan straw bonnet with flowers in it, prunella shoes, mag- 
 nificent fichus, and a Chinese parasol ; and yet be virtuous ; 
 while Mme. Colleville or such and such a "lady" could 
 scarcely make both ends meet on two thousand four hun- 
 dred francs. 
 
 Two of the clerks were friends to a ridiculous degree, for 
 anything is matter for a joke in a Government office. One of 
 these was the senior draughting clerk in Baudoyer's office; he 
 had been chief clerk's assistant, and even chief clerk, for some 
 considerable time during the Restoration. Colleville, for that 
 was his name, had in Mme. Colleville a wife as much above 
 the ordinary level in her way as Mme. Rabourdin in another. 
 Colleville, the son of a first violin at the opera, had been 
 smitten with the daughter of a well-known opera-dancer. 
 Some clever and charming Parisiennes can make their hus- 
 bands happy without losing their liberty ; Mme. Colleville was 
 one of these. She made CoUcville's house a meeting-place 
 for orators of the Chamber and the best artists of the day. 
 People were apt to forget how humble a place Colleville occu- 
 pied in his own house. Flavie was a little too prolific ; her 
 conduct offered such a handle to gossip that Mme. Rabourdin 
 had refused all her invitations. 
 
 Colleville's friend, one Thuillier, was senior draughting 
 clerk in Rabourdin's office; and while he occupied precisely 
 the same position, his career in the service had been cut short 
 for the same reasons. If any one knew Colleville, he knew 
 Thuillier, and vice versa. It had so fallen out that they both 
 entered the office at the same lime, and their friendship arose 
 out of this coincidence. Pretty Mme. Colleville (so it was 
 said among the clerks) had not repulsed Thuillier's assiduities. 
 Thuillier's wife had brought him no children. Thuillier, 
 otherwise "Beau Thuillier," had been a lady-killer in his
 
 302 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 youth, and now was as idle as Colleville was industrious. 
 Colleville not only played the first clarionet at the Opera- 
 Comique — he kept tradesmen's books in the morning before 
 he went to the office, and worked very hard to bring up his 
 family, although he did not lack influence. Others regarded 
 him as a very shrewd individual, and so much the more so 
 because he hid his ambitions under a semblance of indifference. 
 To all appearance he was satisfied with his lot ; he liked work; 
 he found everybody, even to the chiefs themselves, inclined 
 to aid so brave a struggle for a livelihood. Only recently, 
 within the last few days in fact, Mme. Colleville had reformed 
 her ways, and seemed to be tending toward religion ; where- 
 upon a rumor went abroad through the offices that the lady 
 meant to betake herself to the Congregation in search of some 
 more certain support than the famous orator Francois Keller, 
 for his influence hitherto had failed to procure a good place 
 for Colleville. Flavie had previously addressed herself (it 
 was one of the mistakes of her life) to des Lupeaulx. 
 
 Colleville had a mania for reading the fortunes of famous 
 men in anagrams made of their names. He would spend 
 whole months in arranging and rearranging the letters to dis- 
 cover some significance in them. In Revolution francaise, he 
 discovered Un Corse la finira ; — Vierge de son martin Marie 
 de Vigneros, Cardinal de Richelieu's niece; — Henrici met 
 casta dea in Catharina de' Medicis; — Eh! c' est large nez in 
 Charles Genest, the abbe whose big nose amused the Due de 
 Bourgogne so much at the Court of Louis XIV. All anagrams 
 known to history had set Colleville wondering. He raised 
 the play on words into a science ; a man's fate (according to 
 him) was written in a phrase composed of the letters of his 
 name, style, and titles. Ever since Charles X. came to the 
 throne he had been busy with that monarch's anagram. 
 Thuillier maintained that an anagram was a pun in letters; 
 but Thuillier was rather given to puns. Colleville, a man of 
 generous nature, was bound by a well-nigh indissoluble friend-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 303 
 
 ship to Thuillier, a pattern of an egoist ! It was an insoluble 
 problem, though many of the clerks explained it by the obser- 
 vation that " Thuillier is well to do, and CoUeville's family is 
 a heavy burden ! " 
 
 And, truth to say, Thuillier was supposed to supplement his 
 salary by lending money out at interest. Men in business 
 often sent to ask to speak with him, and Thuillier would go 
 down for a few minutes' talk with them in the courtyard ; but 
 these interviews were undertaken on account of his sister, 
 Mile. Thuillier. The friendship thus consolidated by time 
 was based upon events and attachments that came about natu- 
 rally enough ; but the story has been given elsewhere,* and 
 critics might complain of the tedious length of it if it were 
 repeated. Still, it is perhaps worth while to point out that 
 while a great deal was known in the offices as to Mme. CoUe- 
 ville, the clerks scarcely knew that there was a Mme. Thuillier. 
 Colleville, the active man with a burdensome family of chil- 
 dren, was fat, flourishing, and jolly ; while Thuillier, the 
 " buck of the Empire," with his idle ways and no apparent 
 cares, was slender in figure, haggard, and almost melancholy 
 to behold. 
 
 " We do not know whether our friendships spring from our 
 unlikeness or likeness to each other," Rabourdin would say, 
 in allusion to the pair. 
 
 Chazelle and Paulmier, in direct contrast to the Siamese 
 twins, were always at war with each other. One of them 
 smoked, the other took snuff, and the pair quarreled inces- 
 santly as to the best way of using tobacco. One failing com- 
 mon to both made them equally tiresome to their fellow-clerks 
 — they were perpetually squabbling over the cost of com- 
 modities, the price of green peas or mackerel, the amounts 
 paid by their colleagues for hats, boots, coats, umbrellas, ties, 
 and gloves. Each bragged of his new discoveries, and 
 always kept them to himself. Chazelle collected booksellers' 
 * In " Les Petits Bourgeois.''
 
 304 LES EMFLOYAS. 
 
 prospectuses and pictorial placards and designs ; but he never 
 subscribed to anything. Paulmier, Chazelle's fellow-chatter- 
 box, went once to the great Dauriat to congratulate him on 
 bringing out books printed on hot-pressed paper with printed 
 covers, and bade him persevere in the path of improvements 
 — and Paulmier had not a book in his possession ! Chazelle, 
 being henpecked at home, tried to give himself independent 
 airs abroad, and supplied Paulmier with endless gibes, while 
 Paulmier, a bachelor, fasted as frequently as Vimeux himself, 
 and his threadbare clothes and thinly disguised poverty fur- 
 nished Chazelle with an inexhaustible text. Chazelle and Paul- 
 mier were both visibly increasing in waist girth ; Chazelle's 
 small, rotund, pointed stomach had the impudence, according 
 to Bixiou, to be always first ; Paulmier's fluctuated from right 
 to left ; Bixiou had them measured once or so in a quarter. 
 Both were between thirty and forty, and both were sufficiently 
 vapid ; they did nothing after hours. They were specimens 
 of your thoroughbred Government clerk — their brains had 
 been addled with scribbling and long continuance in the ser- 
 vice. Chazelle used to doze over his work, while the pen 
 which he still held in his hand marked his breathings with 
 little dots on the paper. Then Paulmier would say that 
 Chazelle's wife gave him no rest at night. And Chazelle 
 would retort that Paulmier had taken drugs for four months 
 out of the twelve, and prophesy that a grisette would be the 
 death of him. Whereupon Paulmier would demonstrate that 
 Chazelle was in the habit of marking the almanac when Mme. 
 Chazelle showed herself complaisant. By dint of washing 
 their dirty linen in public, and flinging particulars of their 
 domestic life at one another, the pair had won a fairly merited 
 and general contempt. " Do you take me for a Chazelle?" 
 was a remark that put an end to a wearisome discussion. 
 
 M. Poiret junior was so called to distinguish him from an 
 elder brother who had left the service. Poiret senior had 
 retired to th.e Maison Vauquer, at which boarding-house
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 305 
 
 Poiret junior occasionally dined, meaning likewise to retire 
 thither some day for good. Poiret junior had been thirty 
 years in the department. Every action in the poor creature's 
 life was part of a routine; Nature herself is more variable 
 in her revolutions. He always put his things in the same 
 place, laid his pen on the same mark in the grain of the wood, 
 sat down in his place at the same hour, and went to warm 
 himself at the stove at the same minute j for his one vanity 
 consisted in wearing an infallible watch, though he always set 
 it daily by the clock of the Hotel de Ville, which he passed 
 on his way from the Rue du Martroi. 
 
 Between six and eight o'clock in the morning Poiret made 
 up the books of a large dry goods store in the Rue Saint- 
 Antoine; from six to eight in the evening he again acted as 
 book-keeper to the firm of Camusot in the Rue des Bour- 
 donnais. In this way he made an income of a thousand 
 crowns a year, including his salary. By this time he was 
 within a few months of his retirement upon a pension, and 
 therefore treated the office intrigues with much indifference. 
 Retirement had already dealt Poiret senior his death-blow ; 
 and probably when Poiret junior should no longer be obliged 
 to walk daily from the Rue du Martroi to the office, to sit on 
 his chair at a table and copy out documents daily, he too 
 would age very quickly. Poiret junior collected back numbers 
 of the " Moniteur " and of the newspaper to which the clerks 
 subscribed. He achieved this with a collector's enthusiasm. 
 If a number was mislaid, or if one of the clerks took away a 
 copy and forgot to bring it back again, Poiret junior went 
 forthwith to the newspaper office to ask for another copy, and 
 returned delighted with the cashier's politeness. He always 
 came in contact with a charming young fellow; journalists, 
 according to him, were pleasant and little known people. 
 Poiret junior was a man of average height, with dull eyes, a 
 feeble, colorless expression, a tanned skin puckered into gray 
 wrinkles with small bluish spots scattered over them, a snub 
 20
 
 306 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 nose, and a sunken mouth, in which one or two bad teeth still 
 lingered on. Thuillier used to say that it was useless for 
 Poiret to look in the mirror, because he had lost his eye- 
 teeth.* 
 
 His long, thin arms terminated in big hands without any 
 pretension to whiteness ; his gray hair, flattened down on his 
 head by the pressure of his hat, gave him something of a 
 clerical appearance ; a resemblance the less welcome to him, 
 because though he was not able to give an account of his re- 
 ligious opinions, he hated priests and ecclesiastics of every 
 sort and description. This antipathy, however, did not pre- 
 vent him from feeling an extreme attachment for the Govern- 
 ment, whatever it might happen to be. Even in the very 
 coldest weather, Poiret never buttoned his old-fashioned great- 
 coat or wore any but laced shoes or black trousers. He had 
 gone to the same stores for thirty years. When his tailor 
 died, he asked for leave to go to the funeral, shook hands at 
 the graveside with the man's son, and assured him of his 
 custom. Poiret was on friendly terms with all his tradesmen ; 
 he took an interest in their affairs, chatted with them, listened 
 to the tale of their grievances, and paid promptly. If he had 
 occasion to write to make a change in an order, he observed 
 the utmost ceremony, dating the letter, and beginning with 
 " Monsieur" on a separate line; then he took a rough copy, 
 and kept it in a pasteboard case, labeled " My Corre- 
 spondence." 
 
 No life could be more methodical. Poiret kept every re- 
 ceipted bill, however small the amount ; and all his private 
 account books, year by year, since he came into the office, 
 were put away in paper covers. He dined for a fixed sum per 
 month at the same eating-house (the sign of the Sucking Calf, 
 in the Place du Chatelet), and at the same table (the waiters 
 
 * Parce quHl ne se voyait pas dedans {de dents). Here, as in mmiy 
 other instances, it is only possil)le to suggest in the English version that 
 a pun has been made in the French. — Tr.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 307 
 
 used to keep his place for him) ; and as he never gave The 
 Golden Cocoon, the famous silk-mercer's establishment, so 
 much as five minutes more than the due time, he always 
 reached the Cafe David, the most famous cafe in the Quarter, 
 at half-past eight, and stayed there till eleven o'clock. He 
 had frequented that cafe likewise for thirty years, and punctu- 
 ally took his bavaroise at half-past ten ; listening to political 
 discussions with his arms crossed on his walking-stick, and his 
 chin on his right hand, but he never took part in them. The 
 lady at the desk was the one woman with whom he liked to 
 converse ; to her ears he confided all the little events of his 
 daily existence, for he sat at a table close beside her. Some- 
 times he would play at dominoes, the one game that he had 
 managed to learn ; but if his partners failed to appear, Poiret 
 was occasionally seen to doze, with his back against the 
 panels, while the newspaper frame in his hand sank down on 
 the slab of marble before him. 
 
 Pciret took an interest in all that went on in Paris. He 
 spent Sunday in looking round at buildings in course of con- 
 struction ; he would talk to the veteran who sees that no one 
 goes inside the hoardings, and fret over the delays, the lack 
 of money or of building materials, and other obstacles in the 
 way of the architect. He was heard to say: "I have seen 
 the Louvre rise from its ruins ; I saw the first beginnings of 
 the Place du Chatelet, the Quai aux Fleurs, and the Markets." 
 He and his brother were born at Troyes ; their father, a clerk 
 of a farmer of taxes, had sent them both to Paris to learn their 
 business in a Government office. Their mother brought a 
 notorious life to a disastrous close ; for the brothers learned 
 to their sorrow that she died in the hospital at Troyes, in 
 spite of frequent remittances. And not merely did they vow 
 tlien and there never to marry, but they held children in ab- 
 horrence : they could not feel at ease with them ; they feared 
 them much as others might fear lunatics, and scrutinized them 
 with haggard eyes. Drudgery had crushed all the life out of
 
 308 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 them both in Robert Lindet's time. The Government had 
 not treated them justly, but they thought themselves lucky to 
 keep their heads on their shoulders, and only grumbled be- 
 tween themselves at the ingratitude of the administration — for 
 they had " organized " the " Maximum ! " When the before- 
 mentioned trick was played upon Phellion, and his famous 
 sentence was taken to Rabourdin for correction, Poiret took 
 the draughting clerk aside into the rear corridor to say: 
 "You may be sure, monsieur, that I opposed it with all my 
 might." 
 
 Poiret had never been outside of Paris since he came into 
 the city. He began from the first to keep a diary, in which 
 he set out the principal events of the day. Du Bruel told him 
 that Byron had done the same ; the comparison overwhelmed 
 Poiret with joy, and induced him to buy a copy of Chas- 
 topalli's translation of Byron's works, of which he understood 
 not a word. At the office he was often seen in a melancholy 
 attitude ; he looked as if he were meditating deeply, but his 
 mind was a blank. He did not know a single one of his 
 fellow-lodgers ; he went about with the key of his room in his 
 pockets. On New Year's Day he left a card himself on every 
 clerk in the division, and paid no visits. 
 
 Once, it was in the dog-days, Bixiou took it into his head 
 to grease the inside of Poiret's hat with lard. Poiret junior 
 (he was then fifty-two years of age) had worn the hat for nine 
 whole years ; Bixiou had never seen him in any other. Bix- 
 iou had dreamed of the hat of nights ; it was before his eyes 
 while he ate ; and in the interests of his digestion, he made 
 up his mind to rid the office of the unclean thing. Poiret 
 junior went out toward four o'clock. He went his way through 
 the streets of Paris, in a tropical heat, for the sun's rays were 
 reflected back again from the walls and the pavement. Sud- 
 denly he felt that his head was streaming with perspiration ; 
 and he seldom perspired. Deeming that he was ill, or on the 
 verge of an illness, he went home instead of repairing to the
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 309 
 
 Sucking Calf, took out his diary, and made the following 
 entry : 
 
 "This day, July 3d, 1823, surprised by an unaccountable 
 perspiration, possibly a symptom of the sweating sickness, a 
 malady peculiar to Champagne. Incline to consult Dr. Hau- 
 dry. First felt the attack by the Quai d'Ecole." 
 
 Suddenly, as he wrote bareheaded, it struck him that the 
 supposed sweat arose from some external cause. He wiped 
 his countenance and examined his hat ; but he did not venture 
 to undo the lining, and could make nothing of it. Subse- 
 quently he made another entry in the diary : 
 
 "Took the hat to the Sieur Tournan, hatter in the Rue 
 Saint- Martin ; seeing that I suspect that something else caused 
 the sweat, which in that case would not be a sweat at all, but 
 simply the effect of an addition of some kind, more or less 
 recently made." 
 
 M. Tournan immediately detected the presence ol a fatty 
 substance obtained by distillation from a hog or sow, and 
 pointed it out to his customer, Poiret departed in a hat lent 
 by M. Tournan till the new one should be ready for him ; but 
 before he went to bed he added another sentence to his diary: 
 
 " It has been ascertained that my hat contained lard, other- 
 wise hos's fat." 
 
 'o 
 
 The inexplicable fact occupied Poiret's mind for a fortnight ; 
 he never could understand how the phenomenon had been 
 brought about. There was talk at the office of showers of frogs 
 and other canicular portents ; a portrait of Napoleon had been 
 found in an elm-tree root ; all kinds of grotesque freaks of nat- 
 ural history cropped up. Vimeux told him one day that he,
 
 310 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Vimeux, had had his face dyed black by his hat, and added 
 that hatters sold terrible trash. Poiret went several times after 
 that to Sieur Tournan's to reassure his mind as to the pro- 
 cesses of manufacture. 
 
 There was yet another clerk in Rabourdin's office. This 
 personage avowedly had the courage of his opinions, professed 
 the politics of the Left Centre, and worked himself into indig- 
 nation over the unlucky white slaves in Baudoyer's office, and 
 against that gentleman's tyranny. Fleury openly took in an 
 Opposition sheet, wore a wide-brimmed gray felt hat, blue 
 trousers with red stripes, a blue vest adorned with gilt buttons, 
 and a double-breasted overcoat that made him look like a 
 quartermaster in the gendarmes. His principles remained 
 unshaken, and the administration nevertheless continued to 
 employ him. Yet he prophesied evil of the Government if it 
 persisted in mixing politics and religion. He made no secret 
 of his predilection for Napoleon, especially since the great 
 man's death made a dead letter of the law against all partisans 
 of the "usurper." Fleury, ex-captain of a regiment of the 
 line under the Emperor, a tall, fine, dark-haired fellow, was 
 a money-taker at the Cirque-Olympique. Bixiou had never 
 indulged in a caricature of him ; for the rough trooper was not 
 only a very good shot and a first-rate swordsman, but he ap- 
 peared capable of going to brutal extremities upon occasion. 
 Fleury was a zealous subscriber to " Victoires et Conquetes; " 
 but he declined to pay, and kept the issues as they appeared, 
 basing his refusal upon the fact that the number stated in the 
 prospectus had been exceeded. 
 
 He worshiped M. Rabourdin, for M. Rabourdin had inter- 
 fered to save him from dismissal. A remark once escaped the 
 ex-warrior, to the effect that if anything should come to M. 
 Rabourdin through anybody else, he, Fleury, would kill that 
 some one else ; and Dutocq ever since went in such fear of 
 Fleury, that he fawned upon him. 
 
 Fleury was overburdened with debts. He played his cred-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 311 
 
 itors all kinds of tricks. Being expert in the law, he never 
 by any chance put his name to a bill ; and as he himself had 
 attached his salary in the names of fictitious creditors, he drew 
 pretty nearly the whole of it. He had formed a very intimate 
 connection with a super at the Porte Saint-Martin, and his 
 furniture was removed to her house. So he played ecarte 
 joyously, and charmed social gatherings with his talents ; he 
 could drink off a glass of champagne at a draught without 
 moistening his lips, and he knew all Beranger's songs by heart. 
 His voice was still fine and sonorous ; he allowed it to be seen 
 that he was proud of it. His three great men were Napoleon, 
 Bolivar, and Beranger. Foy, Lafitte, and Casimir Delavigne 
 only enjoyed his esteem. Fleury, as you guess, was a man of 
 the South ; he was pretty sure to end as the responsible editor 
 of some Liberal paper. 
 
 Desroys was the mysterious man of the division. He rubbed 
 shoulders with no one, talked little, and hid his life so success- 
 fully that no one knew where he lived, nor how he lived, nor 
 whom his protectors were. Seeking a reason for this silence, 
 some held that Desroys was one of the Carbonari, and some 
 that he was an Orleanist ; some said that he was a spy, others 
 that he was a deep individual. But Desroys was simply the 
 son of a member of the Convention who had not voted for 
 the King's death. Reserved and cold by temperament, he 
 had formed his own conclusions of the world, and looked to 
 no one but himself. As a Republican in secret, an admirer 
 of Paul-Louis Courier, and a friend of Michel Chrestien's, he 
 was waiting till time and the commonsense of the majority 
 should bring about the triumph of his political opinions in 
 Europe. Wherefore his dreams were of Young Germany and 
 Young Italy. His heart swelled high with that unintelligent 
 collective affection for the species, which must be called 
 *' humanitarianism," eldest child of a defunct philosophy, an 
 affection which is to the divine charity of the Catholic re- 
 ligion as system is to art, as reasoning is to effort. This
 
 312 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 conscientious political puritan, this apostle of an impossible 
 Equality, regretted that penury forced him into the service of 
 the Government ; he was trying to get employment in some 
 coach office. L»an and lank, prosy and serious, as a man 
 may be expected to be if he feels that he may be called upon 
 some day to give his head for the great object of his life, 
 Desroys lived on a page of Volney, studied St. Just, and was 
 engaged upon a rehabilitation of Robespierre, considered as a 
 continuer of the work of Jesus Christ. 
 
 One more among these personages deserves a stroke or two 
 of the pencil. This is little La Billardiere. For his mis- 
 fortune he had lost his mother. He had interest with the 
 minister; he was exempt from the rough-and-ready treatment 
 that he should have received from " la Place-Baudoyer ; " and 
 all the ministerial salons were open to him. Everybody de- 
 tested the youth for his insolence and conceit. Heads of de- 
 partments were civil to him, but the clerks had put him 
 beyond the pale of good-fellowship with a grotesque polite- 
 ness invented for his benefit. Little La Billardiere was a tall, 
 slim, weazened youth of two-and-twenty, with the manners of 
 an Englishman ; his dandy's airs were an affront to the office ; 
 he came to it scented and curled with impeccable collars and 
 primrose-colored gloves, and a constantly renewed hat lining ; 
 he carried an eyeglass ; he breakfasted at the Palais-Royal. 
 A veneer of manner which did not seem altogether to belong 
 to him covered his natural stupidity. Benjamin de la Bil- 
 lardiere had an excellent opinion of himself; he had every 
 aristocratic defect, and no corresponding graces. He felt 
 quite sure of being "somebody," and had thoughts of writing 
 a book ; he would gain the cross as an author and set it down 
 to his administrative talents. So he cajoled Bixiou with a 
 view to exploiting him, but as yet he had not ventured to 
 broach the subject. This noble heart was waiting impatiently 
 for the death of the father who had but lately been made a 
 baron. " The Chevalier de la Billardiere " (so his name ap-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 313 
 
 peared on his cards) had his armorial bearings framed and 
 hung up at the office, to wit, sable, two swords saltire-wise, 
 on a chief azure, three stars, and the motto : a toujours 
 FiDELE. He had a craze for talking heraldry. Once he 
 asked the young Vicomte de Portendu6re why his arms were 
 blazoned thus, and drew down upon himself the neat reply, 
 "It was none of my doing." Little La Billardiere talked 
 much of his devotion to the Monarchy, and of the Dauph- 
 iness' graciousness to him. He was on very good terms with 
 des Lupeaulx, often breakfasted with him, and believed that 
 des Lupeaulx was his friend. Bixiou, posing as his Mentor, 
 had hopes of ridding the division, and France likewise, of the 
 young coxcomb by plunging him into dissipation ; and he 
 made no secret of his intentions. 
 
 Such were the principal figures in La Billardiere's division. 
 Some others there were beside which more or less approached 
 these types in habits of life or appearance. Baudoyer's office 
 boasted various examples of the genus clerk in diverse, bald- 
 fronted, chilly mortals, with frames well wadded round with 
 flannel. These individuals carried thorn-sticks, wore thread- 
 bare clothes, and were never seen without an umbrella. They 
 perched, as a rule, on sixth floors, and cultivated flowers at 
 that height. Clerks of this type rank half-way between the 
 piosperous janitor and the needy artisan; tliey are too far 
 from the administrative centre to hope for any promotion 
 whatsoever ; they are pawns upon the bureaucratic chessboard. 
 When their turn comes to go on guard, they rejoice to get a 
 day away from the office. There is nothing that they will 
 not do for extras. How they exist at all their very employers 
 would be puzzled to say; their lives are an indictment against 
 the State that assuredly causes the misery by accepting such a 
 condition of things. 
 
 At sight of their strange faces it is hard to decide whether 
 these quill-bearing mammals become cretinous at their task, 
 or whether, on the other hand, they would never have under- 
 
 L
 
 314 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 taken it if they had not been, to some extent, cretins from 
 birth. Perhaps Nature and the Government may divide the 
 responsibility between them. "Villagers," according to an 
 unknown writer, "are submitted to the influences of atmos- 
 pheric conditions and surrounding circumstances. They do 
 not seek to explain the fact to themselves. They are in a 
 manner identified with their natural surroundings. Slowly 
 and imperceptibly the ideas and ways of feeling awakened by 
 those surroundings will permeate their being and come to the 
 surface of their lives, in their personal appearance and in their 
 actions, with variations for each individual organization and 
 temperament. And thus, if any student feels attracted to the 
 little known and fruitful field of physiological inquiry, which 
 includes the effects produced by external natural agents upon 
 human character, for him the villager becomes a most inter- 
 esting and trustworthy book." But for the employe, Nature 
 is replaced by the office ; his horizon is bounded upon all sides 
 by green pasteboard cases. For him atmospheric influences 
 mean the air of the corridors, the stuffy atmosphere of unventi- 
 lated rooms where men are crowded together; and the odor of 
 paper and quills. A floor of bare bricks or parquetry, be- 
 strewn with strange litter, and besprinkled from the messen- 
 ger's watering-can, is the scene of his labors; his sky is the 
 ceiling, to which his yawns are addressed ; his element is dust. 
 The above remarks on the villager might have been meant for 
 the clerk ; he too is " identified " with his surroundings. The 
 sun scarcely shines into the horrid dens known as public 
 offices; the thinking powers of their occupants are strictly 
 confined to a monotonous round. Their prototype, the mill- 
 horse, yawns hideously over such work, and cannot stand it 
 for long. And since several learned doctors see reason to 
 dread the effects of such half-barbarous, half-civilized sur- 
 roundings upon the mental constitution of human beings pent 
 up among them, Rabourdin surely was profoundly right wlien 
 he proposed to cut down the number of the staff, and asked
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 315 
 
 for heavy salaries and hard work for them. Men are not 
 bored when they have great things to do. 
 
 As government offices are at present constituted, four hours 
 out of the nine which the clerks are supposed to give to the 
 State are wasted, as will presently be seen, over talk, anec- 
 dotes, and squabbles, and, more than all, over office intrigues. 
 You do not know, unless you frequent government offices, 
 how much the clerk's little world resembles the world of 
 school ; the similarity strikes you wherever men live together ; 
 and in the army or the law-courts you find the school again on 
 a rather larger scale. The body of clerks, thus pent up for 
 eight hours at a stretch, looked upon the offices as class- 
 rooms in which a certain amount of lessons must be done. 
 The master on duty was called the head of the division ; extra 
 pay took the place of good-conduct prizes, and always fell to 
 favorites. They teased and disliked each other, and yet there 
 was a sort of good-fellowship among them — though, even so, 
 it was cooler than the same feeling in a regiment ; and in the 
 regiment, again, it is not so strong as it is among schoolboys. 
 As a man advances in life, egoism develops with his growth 
 and slackens the secondary ties of affection. What is an office, 
 in short, but a world in miniature? — a world with its unac- 
 countable freaks, its friendships and hatreds, its envy and 
 greed, its continual movement to the front ? There, too, is 
 the light talk that makes many a wound, and espionage that 
 never ceases. 
 
 At this particular moment the whole division, headed by 
 M. le Baron de la Billardiere, was shaken by an extraordinary 
 commotion ; and, indeed, coming events fully justified the 
 excitement, for heads of divisions do not die every day; and 
 no tontine insurance association can calculate the probabilities 
 of life and death with more sagacity than a government office. 
 In government clerks, as in children, self-interest leaves no 
 room for pity; but the clerk has hypocrisy in addition. 
 
 Toward eight o'clock Baudoyer's staff were taking their
 
 316 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 places, whefeas Rabourdin's clerks had scarcely begun to put 
 in an appearance at nine ; and yet the work was done much 
 more quickly in the latter office. Dutocq had weighty reasons 
 of his own for arriving early. He had stolen into the private 
 office the night before, and detected Sebastien in the act of 
 copying out papers for Rabourdin. He had hidden himself, 
 and watched Sdbastien go out without the papers; and then, 
 feeling sure of finding a tolerably bulky rough draft and the fair 
 copy, he had hunted through one pasteboard case after an- 
 other, till at last he found the terrible list. Hurrying away to 
 a lithographer's establishment, he had two impressions of the 
 sheet taken off with a copying-press, and in this way became 
 possessed of Rabourdin's own handwriting. Then, to prevent 
 suspicion, he went to the office the first thing in the morning 
 and put the rough draft back in the case. Sebastien had 
 stayed till midnight in the Rue Duphot. In spite of his dili- 
 gence, hatred was beforehand with him. Hatred dwelt in the 
 Rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honor6, whereas devotion lived in the 
 Rue du Roi Dore in the Marais. Rabourdin was to feel the 
 effect of that trivial delay through the rest of his life. Sebas- 
 tien hurried to open the case, found all in order, and locked 
 up the rough draft and unfinished copy in his chief's desk. 
 
 On a morning toward the end of December the light is 
 usually dim ; in our offices, indeed, they often work by lamp- 
 light until ten o'clock. So Sebastien did not notice the mark 
 of the stone on the paper ; but at half-past nine, when Ra- 
 bourdin looked closely at his draft, he saw that it had been 
 submitted to some copying process ; he was the more likely to 
 see the traces of the slab, because of late he had been much 
 interested in experiments in lithography, for he thought that 
 a press might do the work of a copying clerk. 
 
 Rabourdin seated himself in his chair. So deeply was he 
 absorbed in his reflections that he took the tongs and began 
 to build up the fire. Then curious to know into what hands 
 his secret had fallen, he sent for Sebastien.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 317 
 
 " Did any one come to the office before you? " 
 
 ' ' Yes ; Monsieur Dutocq. ' ' 
 
 "Good. He is punctual. Send Antoine to me," 
 
 Rabourdin was too magnanimous to cause Sebastien need- 
 less distress by reproaching him now that the mischief was 
 done. He said no more about it. Antoine came. Rabour- 
 din asked if any of the clerks had stayed after four o'clock on 
 the previous day. Antoine said that Monsieur Dutocq had 
 stayed even later than Monsieur de la Roche. Rabourdiii 
 nodded, and resumed the course of his reflections. 
 
 "Twice I have prevented his dismissal," he said to himself, 
 " and this is my reward ! " 
 
 For Rabourdin that morning was to be the solemn crisis 
 when great captains decide upon a battle after weighing all 
 possible consequences. No one better knew the temper of 
 the offices; he was perfectly aware that anything resembling 
 espionage or tale-telling is no more pardoned by clerks than 
 by schoolboys. The man that can tell tales of his comrades 
 is disgraced, ruined, and traduced ; ministers in such a case 
 will drop their instrument. Any man in the service, under 
 these circumstances, sends in his resignation — no other course 
 is open to him ; upon his honor there lies a stain that can 
 never be wiped out. Explanations are useless — nobody wants 
 them, nobody will listen to them. A cabinet minister in the 
 like case is a great man ; it is his business to choose men ; 
 but a mere subordinate is taken for a spy, no matter what his 
 motives may be. Even while Rabourdin measured the emptiness 
 of this folly, he saw the depths of it — saw, too, that he must 
 sink. He was not so much overwhelmed as taken by surprise ; 
 so he sat pondering his best course of action in the matter, 
 and knew nothing of the commotion caused in the offices by the 
 news of the death of M. de la Billardiere till he heard of it 
 through young de la Bri6re, who could appreciate the immense 
 value of the chief clerk. 
 
 Meanwhile in the Baudoyers' office (for the clerks were
 
 318 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 respectively knoAvn as ihe Baudoyers and the Rabourdins) 
 Bixiou was giving the details of La Billardiere's last moments 
 for the benefit of Minard, Desroys, M. Godaid (whom he had 
 fetched out of his sanctum), and Dutocq. A double motive 
 had sent the last-named individual hurrying over to the 
 Baudoyers. 
 
 Bixiou {standing before the stove, holding first one boot and 
 then the other to the fire to dry the soles). " This morning at 
 half-past seven I went to inquire after our worthy and revered 
 director, Chevalier of Christ, et csetera. Et csetera? My 
 goodness, I should think so, gentlemen; only yesterday the 
 baron was a score of et caleras, and now to-day he is nothing, 
 not even a government clerk. I asked what sort of a night 
 he had had. His nurse who does not die, but surrenders, 
 told me that toward five o'clock this morning he had felt 
 uneasy about the royal family. He got somebody to read 
 over the names of those that had sent to make inquiries. 
 Then he said, ' Fill my snuff-box, give me the newspaper, 
 bring me my glasses, and change my ribbon of the Legion of 
 Honor, for it is getting very dirty.' (He wears his orders in 
 bed, you know.) So he was fully conscious, you see, quite in 
 the possession of all his faculties and habitual ideas. But, 
 pooh ! ten minutes afterward the water had gone up, up, up ; 
 up to his heart and into his lungs. He knew he was dying 
 when he felt the cysts break. At that supreme moment he 
 showed what he was — how strong his character, his intellect 
 how vast ! Ah ! some of us did not appreciate him. We 
 used to laugh at him; we took him for a dunce; for the 
 veriest dunce, did we not M. Godard?" 
 
 GoDARD. " For my own part, nobody could have a higher 
 opinion of Monsieur de la Billardiere's talents than L" 
 
 Bixiou. " You understood each other." 
 
 Godard. "After all, 'twas not a spiteful man. He never 
 did anybody harm." 
 
 Bixiou. " A man must do something if he is to do harm,
 
 LES EMFLOYAS. 319 
 
 and he never did anything. Then if it was not you that 
 thought him hopelessly inept, it must have been Minard." 
 
 MiNARD {shrugging his shoulders). *•' I ? " 
 
 Bixiou. "Well, then, it was you, Dutocq." {As Dutocq 
 makes signs of vehement protest.) " What ! you none of you 
 thought so ? Good ! Everybody here, it seems, took him 
 for an intellectual Hercules ? Very well, you were right ; he 
 made an end like a man of talent, an intelligent man, a great 
 man, as he was, in fact." 
 
 Desroys (^growing impatient). "Gracious me! what has 
 he done that is so extraordinary? Did he make confes- 
 sion?" 
 
 Bixiou. "Yes, sir, and expressed a wish to receive the 
 sacraments. But do you know how he received them ? He 
 had himself put into a Court suit as gentleman in ordinary, 
 he had all his orders, he even had his hair powdered ; they 
 tied up his queue (poor queue) with a new ribbon (and it is 
 only a man of some character, I can tell you, that can mind 
 his p's and queues when he lies a-dying ; there are eight of us 
 here, and not a single one of us could do it). And that is 
 not all ; you know that celebrated men always make a last 
 * speech ' — that is the English word for a parliamentary gag — 
 well, he said — what did he say now ? — ah ! yes j he said, ' I 
 ought surely to put on my best to receive the King of Heaven, 
 when I have so many times dressed within an inch of my life 
 to pay my respects to an earthly sovereign ! ' Thus ended 
 Monsieur de la Billardi^re ; he might have done it on pur- 
 pose to justify the saying of Pythagoras that ' we never know 
 men until they are dead.' " 
 
 CoLLEViLLE {comijig in). "At last, gentlemen, I have a 
 famous piece of news for you " 
 
 Omnes. " We know it." 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " I defy you to guess it ! I have been at this 
 ever since his majesty's accession to the thrones of France 
 and Navarre; and I finished it last night. It bothered me so
 
 320 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 much that Madame CoUeville wanted to know what it was 
 that worried me so much." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Do you suppose that anybody has time to think 
 of your anagrams when the highly respected Monsieur de la 
 Billardierc has just died?" 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " I recognizc Bixiou's hand. I have only just 
 been to Monsieur de la Billardiere's ; he was still alive, but 
 he is not expected to last long." {Godard discovers thai he 
 has been hoaxed, and goes back in disgust to his sanctum.^ 
 "But, gentlemen, you would never guess the events that lie 
 in that sacramental phrase" {holds out a paper), "■Charles 
 Dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de Navarre.'''''^ 
 
 GoDARD {coming back). " Out with it at once, and do not 
 waste their time." 
 
 CoLLEViLLE {triumphantly, displays the folded end of the 
 sheet). 
 
 A. H. V. il cedera 
 De S. C. I. d. partira 
 En nauf errera 
 Decede a Gorix. 
 
 "All the letters are there: 'To H. V.' (Henri V.) 'he 
 will yield' (his crown, that is); 'From S. C. 1. d.' (Saint 
 Cloud) 'he will set forth; On a bark' (that means a boat, 
 skiff, vessel, whatever you like, it is an old French word), 'on 
 a bark he will wander abroad ' " 
 
 DuTOCQ. "What a tissue of absurdities! How do you 
 make it out that the King will resign his crown to Henri V., 
 who, on your showing, would be his grandson, when there is 
 his highness the Dauph'n in between ? You are prophesying 
 the Dauphin's death anyhow." 
 
 Bixiou. "What is Gorix ? A cat's name ? " 
 
 CoLLEViLLE {nettled). " It is a lapidary's abbreviation of 
 the name of a town, my dear friend ; I looked it up in Malte- 
 
 * Charles X., by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 321 
 
 Brun. Gorix, the Latin Gorixia, is situated somewhere in 
 
 Bohemia or Hungary ; it is in Austria any way " 
 
 Bixiou {tnierrupiing). "Tyrol, Basque provinces, or South 
 America. You ought to have looked out an air at the same 
 time so as to play it on the clarionet." 
 
 GoDARD {shrugging his shoulders as he goes). " What rub- 
 bish ! " 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " Rubbish ! rubbish ! I should be very glad 
 if you would take the trouble to study fatalism, the religion 
 of the Emperor Napoleon." 
 
 GoDARD {nettled by Colleville^s tone). "Monsieur Colle- 
 ville, Bonaparte may be styled ' Emperor ' by historians, but 
 in a Government office he ought not to be recognized in that 
 character." 
 
 Bixiou {smiling). " Find an anagram in that, my good 
 friend. There ! as for anagrams, I like your wife better. 
 {soito voce) She is easier to turn round. Flavie really ought 
 to make you chief clerk at some odd moment when she has 
 time to spare, if it were only to put you out of reach of a 
 
 Godard's stupidity " 
 
 DuTOCQ {coming to Godard's support). "If it wasn't all 
 rubbish, you might lose your place, for the things you prophesy 
 are not exactly pleasant for the King; every good Royalist is 
 bound to assume that when he has been twice in exile he has 
 seen enough of foreign parts." 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " If they took away my post, Francois Keller 
 would walk into your minister" {deep silence). "Know, 
 Master Dutocq, that every known anagram has been fulfilled. 
 Look here ! don't you marry, there is coqu"^ in your name ! " 
 Bixiou. "And D T left over for 'detestable.' " 
 Dutocq {not apparently put out). " I would rather it went 
 no further than my name." 
 
 Paulmier {aside to Desroys). " Had you there, Master 
 Colleville! " 
 
 * Cocu — cuckold. 
 21
 
 322 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 DuTOCQ {to Colleville). " Have you done. Xavier Rabour- 
 din, chef de bureau " 
 
 Colleville. " Egad I have. " 
 
 Bixiou {cutting a pen). "And what did you make out? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Colleville. "It makes this: D' abord riva bureaux, E. 
 U. Do you take it ? Et il eui fin riche. Which means 
 that after beginning in the civil service he chucked it over to 
 make his fortune somewhere else." 
 
 DuTOCQ. "It is funny, anyhow." 
 
 Bixiou. "And Isidore Baudoyer / " 
 
 Colleville {mysteriously). "I would rather not tell any- 
 body but Thullier." 
 
 Bixiou. " Bet you a breakfast I will tell you what it is ! " 
 
 Colleville. " I will pay if you find out." 
 
 Bixiou. "Then you are going to stand treat; but don't 
 be vexed, two artists such as you and I will die of laughing. 
 Isidore Baudoyer gives Ris d^aboyeur d^oie, he laughs at the 
 fellow that barks at a goose." 
 
 Colleville {thunderstruck). " You stole it ! " 
 
 Bixiou (i//^). "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor 
 to believe that I am so rich in folly that I have no need to 
 steal from my neighbors." 
 
 BxuDoyER {a letter-fiie in his hand). "Talk just a little 
 louder, gentlemen, I beg ; you will bring the office into good 
 odor. The estimable Monsieur Clergeot, who did me the 
 honor to come to ask for some information, has had the bene- 
 fit of your conversation" {goes to Godard^ s office). 
 
 DuTOCQ {aside to Bixiou). "I have something to say to 
 you." 
 
 Bixiou {fingering Dutocq' s waistcoat). " You are wearing 
 a neat waistcoat which cost you next to nothing, no doubt. 
 Is that the secret?" 
 
 DuTOCQ. "What? Next to nothing? I never gave so 
 much for a waistcoat before. The stuff costs six francs a yard
 
 LES EMPLOY As. 323 
 
 at the big store in the Rue de la Paix ; it is a fine dull silk, 
 just the thing for deep mourning." 
 
 Bixiou. "You understand prints, but you do not know 
 the rules of etiquette. One cannot know everything. Silk 
 is not the proper thing to wear in deep mourning. That is 
 why I only wear wool myself. Monsieur Rabourdin, Mon- 
 sieur Clergeot, and the minister are all-wool ; the Faubourg 
 Saint-Germain is all-wool. Every one goes about in wool 
 except Minard ; he is afraid that people will take him for a 
 sheep, styled laniger in rustical Latin ; and on that pretext he 
 dispensed with mourning for King Louis XVIIL, a great 
 legislator, a witty man, the author of the Charter, a king that 
 will hold his own in history, as he held it everywhere else ; 
 for — do you know the finest touch of character in his life? 
 No? Well, then, when he received all the allied sovereigns 
 at his second entry, he walked out first to table." 
 
 Paulmier (^looking at Duiocq). " I do not see " 
 
 DuTOCQ {^looking at Paulmier). " No more do L" 
 Bixiou. "You do not understand? Well, then; he did 
 not regard himself as at home in his own house. It was in- 
 genious, great, epigrammatic ! The allied sovereigns under- 
 stood it no more than you do, even when they put their heads 
 together to make it out. It is true that they were pretty 
 
 nearly all of them strangers " 
 
 Baudover (in his assistant clerk" s sanctum, where he has 
 been conversing in an undertone beside the fire, while the talk 
 went on outside'). "Yes, our worthy chief is breathing his 
 last. Both ministers are there to receive his latest sigh ; my 
 father-in-law has just been informed of the event. If you wish 
 to do me a signal service, take a cabriolet and go to Madame 
 Baudoyer with the news ; Saillard cannot leave his desk, 
 and I dare not leave the office to look after itself. Put your- 
 self at Madame Baudoyer's disposal ; she has her own views, I 
 believe, and might possibly wish to take several steps simul- 
 taneously " {they go out together).
 
 324 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 GoDARD. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am leaving the office for 
 the day, so will you take my place?" 
 
 Baudoyer {^looking benignly at Bixiou). " You might con- 
 sult me should occasion require it." 
 
 Bixiou. " This time, La Billardiere is really dead ! " 
 
 DuTOCQ {whispers to Bixiou). " Look here ! Now is the 
 time for coming to an understanding about getting on. Sup- 
 pose that you are chief clerk and I assistant ; what do you 
 say?" 
 
 Bixiou {shrugging his shoulders). " Come, no nonsense ! " 
 
 DuTOCQ. " If Baudoyer gets the appointment, Rabourdin 
 will not stay on ; he will send in his resignation. Between 
 ourselves, Baudoyer is so incompetent that if you and du 
 Bruel will not help him he will be cashiered in two months' 
 time. If I can put two and two together, we have three 
 vacant places ahead of us." 
 
 Bixiou. " Three places that will be given away under our 
 noses; they will go to swag-bellied toadies, flunkeys, spies, 
 and men of the ' Congregation ; ' to Colleville here, whose 
 wife has gone the way of all pretty women, to — a devout 
 ending." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " It will go to you, my dear fellow, if for once 
 in your life you care to employ your wits consistently'' {stop- 
 ping short to note the effect of the adverb upon his listener). 
 " Let us be open and aboveboard." 
 
 Bixiou {itnperturbably). " What is your game? " 
 
 DuTOCQ. "For my own part, I want to be chief clerk's 
 assistant and nothing else. I know myself; I know that I 
 have not the ability to be chief, and that you have. Du Bruel 
 may get La Ballardi^re's place, and then you would be chief 
 clerk under him. He will leave you his berth when he has 
 feathered his nest ; and as for me, with you to protect me, I 
 shall potter along till I get my pension." 
 
 Bixiou. " Sly dog. But how do you mean to bring this 
 through ? It is a matter of forcing a minister's hand and
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 32a 
 
 spitting out a man of talent. Between ourselves, Rabourdin 
 is the only man that is fit to take the division — the depart- 
 ment, who knows ? And you propose to put that square block 
 of stupidity, that cube of incompetence. La Place-Baudoyer, 
 in his stead? " 
 
 DuTOCQ {bridling up). "My dear fellow, I can set the 
 whole place against* Rabourdin ! You know how Fleury loves 
 him? Well and good, Fleury shall look down upon him." 
 
 Bixiou. "To be despised by Fleury ! " 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Nobody will stand by him. The clerks will go 
 in a body to the minister to complain of him ; and not our 
 division only, but Clergeot's division and the Bois-Levants, 
 all the departments in a mass." 
 
 Bixiou. "Just so; cavalry, infantry, artillery, and horse- 
 marines, all to the front ! You are off your head, my dear 
 fellow ! And what have I, for one, to do in this? " 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Draw a cutting caricature, a thing, that a man 
 cannot get over." 
 
 Bixiou. "Are you going to pay for it ?" 
 
 DuTOCQ. "A hundred francs." 
 
 Bixiou {to himself). " There is something in it, then." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Rabourdin might be dressed as a butcher; but 
 the likeness must be unmistakable. Find out points of re- 
 semblance between an office and a kitchen ; put a larding-knife 
 in Rabourdin's hand ; draw a lot of poultry, give them the 
 heads of the principal clerks in the department, and put them 
 in a huge coop with ' Dispatcli Department ' written over it, 
 and Rabourdin must be supposed to be cutting their throats 
 one after another. There should be geese, you know, and 
 ducks with faces like ours; just a sort of a likeness, you under- 
 stand ! Rabourdin ought to have a fowl in his hand — Bau- 
 doyer, for example, got up as a turkey." 
 
 Bixiou. " ' Laughs at those that bark at a goose ' " 
 (stares a long while at Dutocq). " Did you think of this your- 
 self?"
 
 326 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 DuTOCQ. "Yes." 
 
 Bixiou {io himself). " Violent hatred and talent, it seems, 
 reach the same end ! " (To Dutocq) " My dear fellow, I will 
 do it " {^Dutocq starts with Joy in spite of himself) "if" — 
 (pause) — " if I know whom I can look, to to back me up; for 
 if you do not succeed, I shall lose my berth, and I must live. 
 And what is more, your good-nature is somewhat singular, my 
 dear colleague. ' ' 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Well, do not make the drawing until success 
 is plain to you " 
 
 Bixiou. " Why not make a clean breast of it at once, and 
 tell me all?" 
 
 DuTOCQ. "I must scent out how things are in the offices 
 first. We will talk of this again afterward " (goes). 
 
 Bixiou (le/t standino by himself in the corridor). "That 
 stock-fish (for he is more like a fish than a man), that Dutocq 
 has got hold of a good idea, I do not know where he found it. 
 It would be funny if La Place-Baudoyer got La Billardidre's 
 place ; it would be better than funny ; we should get some- 
 thing by it." (Goes back to the office.) "Gentlemen, some 
 famous changes will be seen here directly ; Daddy La Billar- 
 didre is really dead this time. No humbug ! Word of honor ! 
 There goes Godard post-haste on an errand for our revered 
 chief, Baudoyer, heir-presumptive to the late lamented ! " 
 (Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads and drop 
 their pens in astonishment ; Colleville blows his nose.) " Some 
 of us will get a step ; Colleville is going to be assistant clerk at 
 least; Minard, perhaps, will be first draughting clerk ; why 
 not ? He is every bit as great a fool as I am. If you were 
 raised to two thousand five hundred francs — eh, Minard ! — 
 your little wife would be finely pleased, and you might buy 
 yourself a pair of boots." 
 
 Colleville. "But you have not two thousand five hundred 
 francs yet." 
 
 Bixiou. "Monsieur Dutocq gets as much as that in the
 
 LES EMFLOYAS. 327 
 
 Rabourdins'. Why should not I within the year? So had 
 Monsieur Baudoyer " 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. ''That was through the Saillards' influence. 
 Not a single draughting clerk gets so much in Clergeot's di- 
 vision." 
 
 Paulmier. " By the way! Monsieur Cochin, may be, has 
 not three thousand ? He succeeded Monsieur Vavasseur, and 
 Monsieur Vavasseur was here for ten years under the Empire 
 on four thousand, he was cut down to three thousand on the 
 first return of the Bourbons, and died on two thousand five 
 hundred. But Monsieur Cochin's brother's influence raised 
 it, and so he gets three." 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " Monsieur Cochin signs himself E. L. L. E. 
 Cochin; his name is Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel, and his 
 anagram gives Cochenille. Well, and he became a partner in 
 a drug business in the Rue dcs Lombards, and the firm of 
 Matifat made money by speculating in that particular colonial 
 product." 
 
 Bixiou. " Matifat, poor man, he had a year of Florine." 
 
 COLLEVILLE. " Cochin sometimes comes to our parties, 
 for he is a first-rate performer on the violin." {To Bixiou, 
 who has not begun to work.^ "You ought to come to our 
 concert next Tuesday. They will play a quartette by Reicha." 
 
 Bixiou. " Thanks, I would rather look at the score." 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " Do you Say that for a joke ? For an artist 
 of your attainments ought surely to be fond of music." 
 
 Bixiou. " I am going, but it is for madame's sake." 
 
 Baudoyer {returning). " Monsieur Chazelle not here yet? 
 Give him my compliments, gentlemen." 
 
 Bixiou {who had put a hat on Chazelle^ s place as soon as 
 he heard Baudoyer' s footstep). " Begging your pardon, mon- 
 sieur, he has gone to make an inquiry of the Rabourdins for 
 you." 
 
 Chazelle {coming in with his hat on his head, misses seeing 
 Baudoyer). " Old La Billardiere has gone out, gentlemen !
 
 328 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Rabourdin is head of the division and master of requests ! He 
 has fairly earned his step, he has ! " 
 
 Baudoyer (Jo Chazelle). "You found the appointment in 
 your second hat, sir, did you not?" (^pointing io the hat on 
 ChazelW s desk.) " This is the third time this month that 
 you have come in after nine o'clock ; if you keep it up, you 
 will get on, but in what sense remains to be seen." (To 
 Bixiou, who is reading a fiewspaper.) " My dear Monsieur 
 Bixiou, for pity's sake, leave the paper to these gentlemen 
 (they are just going to take their breakfasts), and come and set 
 about to-day's business. I do not know what Monsieur Ra- 
 bourdin does with Gabriel ; he keeps him for his own private 
 use, I suppose, for I have rung three times" (disappears with 
 Bixiou into Godard's office^ 
 
 Chazelle. " Cursed luck ! " 
 
 Paulmier {delighted to tease Chazelle). " So they did not 
 tell you downstairs that he had gone up? Anyhow, could 
 you not use your eyes when you came in, and see the hat on 
 your desk, and that elephant " 
 
 Colleville (laughing) " — in the menagerie." 
 
 Paulmier. "You ought to have seen him — he is big 
 enough." 
 
 Chazelle (desperately). "Egad ! even if the Government 
 pays us four francs seventy-five centimes per day, I do not see 
 that we are slaves in consequence." 
 
 Fleury (coming in at the door). "Down with Baudoyer! 
 Long live Rabourdin ! That is the cry all through the 
 division." 
 
 Chazelle (lashing himself into fury). "Baudoyer is wel- 
 come to cashier me if he has a mind ; I shall be no worse 
 off than before. There are a thousand ways of earning five 
 francs a day in Paris ; you can make that at the Palais by 
 copying for the lawyers " 
 
 Paulmier. " So you say, but a berth is a berth ; and 
 Colleville, that courageous fellow who works like a galley.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 329 
 
 slave after hours, and might make more than his salary if he 
 lost his post by giving music lessons — he will keep his berth. 
 Hang it all, a man does not throw up his chances." 
 
 Chazelle {continuing his philippic). " He may, not I. 
 We haven't any chance to lose. Confound it ! There was a 
 time when nothing was more tempting than a career in the 
 civil service ; there were so many men in the army that they 
 were wanted in the administration. The maimed and the 
 halt, toothless old men, unhealthy fellows like Paulmier, and 
 short-sighted people got on rapidly. The lycees swarmed 
 with boys, and families were dazzled with the brilliant pros- 
 pect. A young fellow in spectacles wore a blue coat and a 
 red ribbon blazing at his button-hole, and drew a thousand or 
 so of francs every month for spending a few hours every day 
 at some office looking after something or other. He went 
 late and came away early ; he had hours of leisure, like Lord 
 Byron, and wrote novels ; he strolled in the Tuileries gardens 
 with a bit of a swagger; he was on exhibition at balls and 
 theatres and everywhere else ; he was admitted into the best 
 society; he spent his salary, returning to France all that 
 France gave him, and even doing something in return. In 
 those days, in fact, employes (like Thuillier) were petted by 
 pretty women; they were supposed to be intelligent, and by 
 no means overworked themselves at the office. Empresses, 
 queens, and princesses had their fancies in those happy days. 
 All those noble ladies had the passion of noble natures — they 
 loved to play the protector. So there was a chance of filling 
 a high position in twenty-five years or so ; you might be aud- 
 itor to the Council of State ; or a master of requests, and 
 draw up reports for the Emperor, while you amused yourself 
 with his august family. People used to work and play at the 
 same time. Everything was done quickly. But nowadays, 
 since the Chamber bethought itself of entering the expendi- 
 ture under separate items, and the heading 'Staff,' we are 
 not even like private soldiers. It is a thousand to one if
 
 330 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 you get the smallest appointment, for there are a thousand 
 
 sovereigns- 
 
 Bixiou {reiurning). " Chazclle must be crazy. Where 
 does he discover a thousand sovereigns ? Are they by any 
 chance in his pocket? " 
 
 Chazelle. " Let us reckon them up ! Four hundred at 
 the farther end of the Pont de la Concorde (so called because 
 it leads to perpetual discord between the Right and the Left 
 in the Chamber); three hundred more at the top of the Rue 
 de Tournon. So the Court, which ought to count for three 
 hundred, is obliged to have seven hundred times the Em- 
 peror's strength of will, if it means to give any place whatso- 
 ever by patronage " 
 
 Fleury. " Which all means that, if a clerk has no interest 
 and no one to help him but himself in a country where there 
 are three centres of power, the betting is a thousand to one 
 that he will never get any further." 
 
 Bixiou {looking from Fleury to Chazelle). " Aha ! my chil- 
 dren, you have yet to learn that to be in the service of the 
 State is to be in the worst state of all " 
 
 Fleury. " Because there is a properly instituted constitu- 
 tional Government." 
 
 CoLLEviLLE. " Gentlemen I let us not talk politics." 
 
 Bixiou. " Fleury is right. If you serve the State in these 
 days, gentlemen, you do not serve a prince who rewards and 
 punishes. The State is Anybody and Everybody. Now, 
 Everybody cares for Nobody. If you serve Everybody, you 
 serve Nobody; and Nobody cares about Anybody. A civil 
 servant lives between these two negatives. The world is piti- 
 less, heartless, brainless, and thoughtless; Everybody is sel- 
 fish. Everybody forgets the services of yesterday. You are 
 (like Monsieur Baudoyer) an administrative genius from a 
 most tender age ; you are the Chateaubriand of reports, the 
 Bossuct of circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the ' sublime 
 child ' of the dispatch — in vain ! There is a disheartening
 
 LES EMPLOYis. 331 
 
 law against administrative genius; the law of advancement on 
 the average. 
 
 "That fatal average is worked out from the tables of the 
 law of promotion and the tables of mortality. It is certain 
 that if you enter any department whatsoever at the age of 
 eighteen, you will not have a salary of eighteen hundred 
 francs till you are thirty years old ; if you are to get six thou- 
 sand by the time you are fifty, CoUeville's career proves that 
 though you have a genius for a wife, and the support of vari- 
 ous peers of France, and of divers influential deputies to 
 boot, it profiteth you nothing. Let a young man have studied 
 the humanities, let him be vaccinated, exempt from military 
 service, and in full possession of his wits; well, there is no 
 free and independent career in which, without a transcendent 
 intellect, such a man could not put by a capital of forty-five 
 thousand francs of centimes in the time. That sum would 
 bring in a yearly interest equal to our salary, and it would be 
 a perpetual income ; whereas our salaries are by their nature 
 transitory, we have not even our berths, such as they are, for 
 life. In the same time, a tradesman would have money put 
 out to interest, and an independent income of ten thousand 
 francs; he would have filed his schedule, or he would be a 
 president of the Commercial Court. A painter would have 
 covered a square mile of canvas with paint ; he would either 
 wear the cross of the Legion of Honor or set up for a neg- 
 lected genius. A man of letters would be a professor of 
 something or other ; or a journalist, paid at the rate of a 
 hundred francs for a thousand lines; or he is 2ifeuilletonniste, 
 or some fine day he is landed in Saint-Pelagie for writing a 
 luminous pamphlet which displeased the Jesuits; his value 
 incontinently goes up tremendously, and the pamphlet makes 
 a political personage of him. Indeed, your idler that never 
 did anything in his life (for there are idlers that do some- 
 thing and idlers that do nothing), your idler has made debts 
 and found a widow to pay them. A priest has had time to
 
 332 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 become a bishop in partibus. A vaudevilliste is a landed 
 proprietor, even if, like du Bruel, he never wrote a whole 
 vaudeville by himself. If a steady, intelligent young fellow 
 starts in the money-lending line with a very small capital (like 
 Mademoiselle Thuillier, for instance), he can buy a fourth of 
 a stockbroker's connection in twelve years. Let us go lower 
 down ! A petty clerk becomes a notary ; the ragpicker has a 
 thousand crowns of independent income; the workingman 
 at worst has managed to set up for himself; whereas, in the 
 midst of the rotatory movement of that civilization which 
 takes infinite subdivision for progress, a Chazelle has been ex- 
 isting on twenty-two sous per head. He argues with his tailor 
 and shoemaker, he is in debt ; that's nothing — he is creiinized ! 
 Come, gentlemen, one glorious movement ; let us send in 
 our resignations in a body, hey? Fleury and Chazelle, make 
 a plunge into a new line, and become great men in it ! " 
 
 Chazelle {calming down under Bixiotis discourse). 
 "Thanks" {general laughter). 
 
 Bixiou. "You are wrong. In your position I would be 
 beforehand with the secretary-general." 
 
 Chazelle {^uneasily). " Why, what has he to say to me? " 
 
 Bixiou. " Odry would tell you, Chazelle, with more 
 charm in the manner of the telling than des Lupeaulx will 
 put into the observation, that the one place open to you is 
 the Place de la Concorde." 
 
 Paulmier {clasping the stove-pipe). "Egad! Baudoyer 
 will not have pity on you, that is certain ! " 
 
 Fleury. " Another thing to put up with from Baudoyer. 
 Now, there's a queer fish for you ! Talk of Monsieur Rabour- 
 din — there is a man ! The work he put on my table to-day 
 would take three days in thi-s office, but he will have it by 
 four o'clock this afternoon. But he is not always at my heels 
 to stop my chat with friends." 
 
 Baudoyer {returning). " Gentlemen, if anybody has a 
 right to find fault with the parliamentary system or the proceed-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 333 
 
 ings of the administration, you must admit that this is not the 
 proper place for such talk." {To Fleury.) "Why are you 
 here, sir ? " 
 
 Fleury {insolently). " To advise these gentlemen of a 
 general move ! The secretary-general has sent for du Briiel ; 
 Dutocq has gone too. Everybody is wondering about the 
 appointment." 
 
 Baudoyer {returning). " That, sir, is no business of yours. 
 Go back to your office, and do not upset mine." 
 
 Fleury {/rom the doorway). " It would be tremendously 
 unfair if Rabourdin were to be done out of it. My word ! I 
 would leave the service." {Comes back.) "Did you make 
 out your anagram, Daddy Colleville ? " 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " Yes, here it is." 
 
 Fleury {leaning over Colleville' s desk). " Famous ! famous ! 
 It will be sure to happen if the Government keeps to its hypo- 
 critical line." {Gives warning to the others that Baudoyer is 
 listening.) " If the Government openly stated its intentions 
 without an afterthought, then the Liberals would see what 
 they would have to do. But when a Government sets its best 
 friends against it, and sends such men as Chateaubriand and 
 Royer-Collard and the ' Debats ' into opposition, it makes you 
 sorry to see it." 
 
 Colleville {after a look round at his fellow-clerks). " Look 
 here, Fleury, you are a good fellow, but you must not talk 
 politics here. You do us more harm than you know." 
 
 Fleury {drily). "Good-day, gentlemen. I will go to my 
 copying." {Comes back and speaks to Bixiou in an undertone.) 
 " They say that Madame Colleville is making allies among 
 the Congregation." 
 
 Bixiou. "In what way? " 
 
 Fleury {breaking into a laugh). "You are never to be 
 caught napping ! " 
 
 Colleville (uneasily). " What are you saying ? " 
 
 Fleury. " Our theatre took a thousand crowns yesterday
 
 334 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 with the new piece, though this is its fortieth representation. 
 You ought to come and see it. The scenery is something 
 superb." 
 
 Meanwhile, des Lupeaulx was giving du Bruel audience in 
 the secretary's rooms ; and Dutocq had followed du Bruel. 
 Des Lupeaulx's man brought the news of M. de la Billardiere's 
 death, and the secretary-general intended to please both min- 
 isters by inserting an obituary notice in that evening's paper. 
 "Good-day, my dear du Bruel," was the semi-minister's 
 greeting, as he saw the clerk enter, and left him to stand. 
 *' You know the news ? La Billardiere is dead ; the two min- 
 isters were present when he took the sacrament. The old 
 man strongly recommended Rabourdin ; said that he could 
 not die easy unless he knew that his successor was to be the 
 man who had filled his place all along. It would seem that 
 the death-agony is like the 'question,' and everything comes 
 out. The minister is so much the more pledged to this course 
 because it is his intention, and the intention of the Board 
 likewise, to reward Monsieur Rabourdin's numerous services " 
 (wagging his head) — " the Council of State desires the benefit 
 of his lights. They say that Monsieur de la Billardiere is to 
 be transferred to the Seals, which is as good as if the King 
 had made him a present of a hundred thousand francs— the 
 place is like a notary's connection, and may be sold. That 
 piece of news will be received with joy in your division, for 
 they might imagine that Benjamin would be put in there. 
 Du Bruel, some one ought to knock off ten or a dozen lines 
 about the old boy, by way of a news item. It will come under 
 the notice of their excellencies. 
 
 "Do you know all about old La Billardiere?" he added, 
 taking up the papers. 
 
 Du Bruel made a gesture to signify that he knew nothing. 
 
 " No ? " returned des Lupeaulx. " Oh, well, he was mixed 
 up in the La Vendee business ; he was in the late King's con- 
 fidence. Like Monsieur le Comte de la Fontaine, he never
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 335 
 
 would come to terms with the First Consul. He did a little 
 in Chouannerie. He was born in Brittany of a parliamentary 
 family ; but their dignities were so recent that he was ennobled 
 by Louis XVHI. See — how old was he now? Never mind. 
 Just put it properly something this way: 'A loyalty that never 
 swerved, an enlightened piety ' — (the poor old boy had a craze 
 for never setting foot in a church). Give him out for a pious 
 servant of the Crown. Lead up nicely to the remark that he 
 might have sung the Song of Simeon over the accession of 
 Charles X. The Comte d'Artois had a great esteem for him, 
 for La Billardidre unfortunately cooperated with him in the 
 Quiberon affair, and took all the blame upon himself; you 
 know, of course. La Billardierc justified the King in a pam- 
 phlet which he wrote to refute an impertinent History of the 
 Revolution gotten up by some journalist- So you can lay stress 
 on the devotion. Finally, weigh your words well, so that the 
 other papers may not laugh at us, and bring me the article. 
 Were you at Rabourdin's yesterday?" 
 
 •* Yes, my lord," said du Bruel, "that is — I beg par- 
 don " 
 
 "There is no harm done," des Lupeaulx answered, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " His wife is delightfully pretty," continued du Bruel, 
 "There are not two such women in Paris. There are women 
 as clever, but they are not so charming in their cleverness; 
 and there may be a woman as handsome as Celestine, but 
 scarcely one so various in her beauty. Madame Rabourdin is 
 far superior to Madame CoUeville ! " added du Bruel, for he 
 remembered an old story about des Lupeaulx. " Flavie is 
 what she is, thanks to her intercourse with men, while Ma- 
 dame Rabourdin owes everything to herself; she knows every- 
 thing ; you could not tell a secret in Latin before her. I 
 should think that nothing was beyond my reach if I had such 
 a wife." 
 
 " You have more brains than an author's allowance," re-
 
 336 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 turned des Lupeaulx in a thrill of gratified vanity. And, 
 turning his head, he saw Dutocq. 
 
 " Oh ! good-day, Dutocq. I sent to ask if you would lend 
 me your Charlet, if it is complete. The countess knows 
 nothing of Charlet." 
 
 Du Bruel withdrew. 
 
 " Why do you come when you are not called? " des Lu- 
 peaulx asked in a hard voice, when they were alone. " Why 
 do you come to me at ten o'clock, just as I am about to 
 breakfast with his excellency? Is the Government in 
 danger? " 
 
 " Perhaps, sir. If I had had the honor of an interview with 
 you this morning, you certainly would not have pronounced 
 the Sieur Rabourdin's panegyric after you had read what he 
 has written of you." 
 
 Dutocq unbuttoned his greatcoat and took out a quire of 
 paper, with an impression on the side of the sheets. He laid 
 them down on des Lupeaulx's desk and pointed to a para- 
 graph. Then he bolted the door, as though he feared an ex- 
 plosion. This was what the secretary-general read against his 
 name : 
 
 " M. DES Lupeaulx. — A Government lowers itself by em- 
 ploying such a man openly. His proper place is in the 
 diplomatic police. Such a person may be pitted with success 
 against the political buccaneers of other cabinets. It would 
 be a pity to put him into the ordinary police. He stands 
 above the level of the common spy ; he can grasp a scheme, 
 he could carry out a necessary bit of dirty work successfully, 
 and cover his retreat with skill," and so forth and so forth. 
 Des Lupeaulx's character was succinctly analyzed in five or 
 six sentences. Rabourdin gave the gist of the biographical 
 sketch at the beginning of this history. 
 
 At the first words the secretary-general knew that he had 
 been weighed and found wanting by an abler man ; but he 
 determined to reserve himself for a further examination into
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 337 
 
 a piece of work which went both high and far, without admit- 
 ting such a man as Dutocq into his confidence. The secre- 
 tary-general, like barristers, magistrates, diplomatists, and 
 others, was obliged to explore the human heart ; like them, 
 too, he was astonished at nothing. He was accustomed to 
 treachery, to the snares set by hate, to traps of all kinds. 
 He could receive a stab in the back without a change of 
 countenance. So it was a calm and grave face that des 
 Lupeaulx turned upon the otfice spy. 
 
 " How did you get hold of this document? " he asked. 
 
 Dutocq gave the history of his good luck ; but dcs Lu- 
 peaulx's face showed no sign of approval while he listened. 
 Consequently the story begun in high triumph was ended in 
 fear and trembling. 
 
 "You have put your finger between the tree and the bark, 
 Dutocq," was the secretary-general's dry comment. " Observe 
 the utmost secrecy as to this affair, unless you want to make 
 very powerful enemies ; it is a work of the greatest import- 
 ance, and I have cognizance of it." 
 
 And des Lupeaulx dismissed Dutocq with a glance of that 
 kind which speaks more than words. 
 
 Dutocq was dismayed to find a rival in his chief. " Aha ! " 
 he said to himself, "so that scoundrel of a Rabourdin is in it 
 too. He is a staflF-officer, while I am a private soldier. I 
 would not have believed it." 
 
 So to all his previous motives for detesting Rabourdin was 
 added another and most cogent reason for hate — the jealousy 
 that one workman feels of another in the same trade. 
 
 When des Lupeaulx was left alone his meditations took a 
 singular turn. Rabourdin was an instrument in the hands of 
 some power; what power was it? Should he profit by this 
 surprising document to ruin the man ? Or should he use it 
 the better to succeed with the man's wife ? The mystery was 
 perfectly obscure. Des Lupeaulx turned the pages in dismay. 
 The men whom he knew were summed up with unheard-of 
 22
 
 338 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 sagacity. He admired Rabourdin, while he felt the stab to 
 the heart. He was still reading when breakfast was announced. 
 
 "You will keep his excellency waiting if you do not go 
 down at once," the minister's footman came to say. 
 
 The minister breakfasted with his wife and children and des 
 Lupeaulx. There were no servants in the room. The morn- 
 ing meal is the one moment of home life that a statesman can 
 snatch from the all-absorbing demands of public business ; 
 but in spite of the barriers raised with ingenious care, so that 
 one hour may be given up entirely to the family and the affec- 
 tions, many intruders, great and small, find ways of breaking 
 in upon it. Public business, as at this moment, often comes 
 athwart their enjoyment. 
 
 "I thought Rabourdin was above the ordinary level of 
 clerks ; and lo and behold ! ten minutes after La Billardiere's 
 death, he takes it into his head to send me a regular stage 
 billet through La Bridre," said the minister, and he held out 
 the sheet of paper which he was twisting in his fingers. 
 
 Rabourdin had written the note before he heard of M. de la 
 Billardiere's death through La Bridre ; he was too noble- 
 minded to think of the base construction that might be put 
 upon it, and allowed La Bridre to retain and deliver the 
 missive. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx read as follows : 
 
 " MoNSEiGNEUR : — If twenty-three years of irreproachable 
 service may merit a favor, I entreat your excellency to grant 
 me an audience this very day. It is a matter in which my 
 honor is involved," and the note ended with the usual re- 
 spectful formulas. 
 
 " Poor man ! " said des Lupeaulx, in a pitying tone, which 
 left the minister still under a misapprehension ; "we are by 
 ourselves, let him come. You go to the Council after the 
 House rises, and your excellency is bound to give an answer
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 339 
 
 to the Opposition to-day ; this is the only time that you can 
 give him " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx rose, sent for the usher, said a word to him, 
 and came back to the table. 
 
 " I am adjourning him to the dessert," said he. 
 
 His excellency, like most other ministers under the Resto- 
 ration, was past his youth. The Charter granted by Louis 
 XVIII., unluckily, tied the King's hands; he was forced to 
 give the destinies of the country over to quadragenarians of 
 the Chamber of Deputies and peers of seventy. A king had 
 not power to look wheresoever he would for an able political 
 leader, and to put him forward in spite of his youth or pov- 
 erty. Napoleon, and Napoleon alone, might employ young 
 men if he chose ; no considerations led him to pause. And so 
 it fell out that since the fall of that mighty Will, energy had 
 deserted authority. And in France, of all countries in the 
 world, the contrast between slackness and vigor is a dangerous 
 one. As a rule, the minister who comes into power late in 
 life, is a mediocrity ; while young ministers have been the 
 glory of European kingdoms and Republics. The world is 
 ringing yet with the contest between Pitt and Napoleon ; and 
 they, like Henri IV., like Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, Lou- 
 vois, the Prince of Orange, the Due de Guise, Francesco della 
 Rovere, and Machiavelli, like all great statesmen, in short, 
 whether they come of low orgin or are born to a throne, began 
 to govern at an early age. The Convention, that model of 
 energy, was in great part composed of young heads ; and no 
 sovereign can afford to forget that the Convention brought 
 fourteen armies into the field against Europe ; the policy that 
 brought about such disastrous results for absolute power (as it 
 is called) was none the less dictated by true monarchical prin- 
 ciples, and the Convention bore itself as a great king. 
 
 After ten or twelve years of parliamentary strife, after going 
 again and again over the same ground till he grew jaded, this 
 particular minister had been, in truth, put in office by a party
 
 340 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 which regarded him as its man of business. Fortunately for 
 him, he was nearer sixty than fifty years old ; if he had shown 
 any signs of youthful energy, he would have come promptly 
 to grief. But being accustomed to give way, to beat a re- 
 treat, and return to the charge, he could stand against the 
 blows dealt him by all and sundry, by the Opposition or by 
 his own side, by the Court or the clergy ; opposing to it all 
 the vis inertice. of a soft but unyielding substance. In short, 
 he enjoyed the advantages of his misfortune. Like some old 
 barrister that has pleaded every conceivable cause, he had 
 passed through the fire on countless questions of Government, 
 till his mind no longer retained the keen edge preserved by 
 the solitary thinker ; and he lacked that faculty of making 
 prompt decisions, which is acquired early in a life of action, 
 and more especially in a military career. How should he 
 have been other than he was ? All his life long he had jug- 
 gled with questions instead of using his own judgment upon 
 them; he had criticised effects without going into the causes; 
 and beside, and above all this, his head was full of the endless 
 reforms which a party thrusts upon its leader ; he was burdened 
 with programmes designed to gain the private ends of various 
 personages ; for if an orator has a future before him, he is sure 
 to be embarrassed with all kinds of impracticable schemes and 
 unpractical advice. So far from starting fresh, the minister 
 was jaded and tired with marches and counter-marches. And 
 when at last he reached the long-desired heights, he found his 
 paths beset with thorns on every side, and a thousand contrary 
 dispositions to be reconciled. If the statesmen of the Resto- 
 ration could but have followed out their own ideas, their 
 capacities would no doubt be less exposed to criticism ; but 
 while their wills were overruled, their age was the salvation 
 of them ; they were physically incapable of contending, as 
 younger men would have done, with low intrigue in high 
 places, intrigues which sometimes proved too much even for 
 the strength of a Richelieu. To such knavery in a lower
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 341 
 
 sphere Rabourdin was about to fall a victim. To the throes 
 of early struggles succeeded the throes of office, for men not 
 so much old as aged before the time. And so, just as they 
 needed the keen sight of the eagle, their eyes were growing 
 dim ; and their faculties were exhausted when their work 
 called for redoubled vigor. 
 
 The minister to whom Rabourdin meant to confide his 
 scheme was accustomed to hear the most ingenious theories 
 propounded to him daily by men of unquestioned ability ; 
 schemes more or less applicable, or inapplicable, to public 
 business in France were brought continually before his eyes. 
 Their promoters had not the remotest conception of the diffi- 
 culties of general policy; they used to waylay the minister 
 on his return from a pitched battle in the House, or a struggle 
 with folly behind the scenes at Court ; they assailed him on 
 the eve of a wrestling-bout with public opinion, or on the 
 morrow of some diplomatic question on which the Cabinet 
 had split in three. A statesman thus situated naturally has a 
 gag ready to apply at the first hint of an improvement in the 
 established order of things. Daring speculators and men from 
 behind the scenes in politics or finance were not wont to meet 
 round a dinner-table in those days to sum up the opinions of 
 the Stock Exchange and the Money Market, together with 
 some utterance let fall by Dii)lomacy, in one profound saying. 
 The minister had, however, a sort of privy council in his 
 privy secretary and secretary-general ; they chewed the cud 
 of reflection, and controlled and analyzed the interests that 
 spoke through so many insinuating voices. 
 
 It was the minister's unfortunate habit (the invariable habit 
 of sexagenarian ministers) to shiifile out of difficulties. No 
 question was fairly faced ; the Government was quietly try- 
 ing to gag journalism instead of striking openly ; it was 
 evading the financial question ; temporizing with the clergy 
 as with the National Property difficulty, with Liberalism as 
 with the control of the Chamber. Now as the minister in
 
 342 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 seven years had outflanked the powers that be, he considered 
 that he could come round every question in the same way. 
 It was natural that a man should try to keep his position by 
 continuing to use the methods by which he rose ; so natural, 
 that nobody ventured to criticise a system devised by medi- 
 ocrity to please mediocrity. The Restoration (like the revol- 
 ution in Poland) clearly showed how much a great man is 
 worth to a nation, and what happens if he is not forthcoming. 
 The last and greatest defect of the Restoration statesmen was 
 their honesty, for their opponents availed themselves of slan- 
 der and lies and all the resources of political rascality, until, 
 by the most subversi/e methods, they let loose the unintelli- 
 gent masses ; and the large body of the people are quick to 
 grasp but one idea — the idea of riot. 
 
 All this Rabourdin had told himself. Still, he had decided 
 to hazard all to win all, much as a jaded gamester agrees with 
 himself to try but one more throw ; and fate, meanwhile, 
 sent him a trickster for his opponent in the shape of des Lu- 
 peaulx. And yet, however sagacious Rabourdin might be, he 
 was better skilled in administrative work than in parliamentary 
 perspective. He did not imagine the whole truth ; it had not 
 occurred to him that the great practical work of his life was 
 about to become a theory for the minister, or that a statesman 
 would inevitably class him with after-dinner innovators and 
 armchair reformers. 
 
 His excellency had just risen from the table. He was 
 thinking not of Rabourdin, but of Francois Keller. His wife 
 detained him by offering him a bunch of grapes, when the 
 chief clerk was announced. Des Lupeaulx had reckoned 
 upon this preoccupied mood ; he knew that his excellency's 
 mind would be taken up by his "extempore" speeches; so, 
 seeing that the minister was engaged in a discussion with his 
 wife, the secretary-general came forward. Rabourdin was 
 thunderstruck by the first words. 
 
 " We, his excellency and I, have been informed of the
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 34S 
 
 work in which you are engaged," said des Lupeaulx, lowering 
 his voice; "you have nothing to fear from Dutocq, or from 
 any one whatever," he added, speaking the last few words 
 aloud. 
 
 "Do not worry yourself in any way, Rabourdin," his ex- 
 cellency said kindly, but he made as though he would re- 
 treat, 
 
 Rabourdin came forward respectfully, and the minister could 
 not choose but remain. 
 
 " Will your excellency condescend to permit me to say 
 a few words in private?" said Rabourdin, with a significant 
 glance. 
 
 The minister looked at the clock, then he went toward a 
 window, and Rabourdin followed him. 
 
 "When may I have the honor of submitting the affair to 
 your excellency, so that I may explain the scheme of ad- 
 ministration to which that paper relates ! It is sure to be 
 used to sully " 
 
 "A scheme of administration," the minister broke in, knit- 
 ting his brows as he spoke. "If you have anything of the 
 kind to lay before me, wait till the day when we work to- 
 gether. I have to attend the Council to-day, and I must make 
 a reply to a question raised by the Opposition yesterday just 
 before the House rose. Next Friday is your day ; we did no 
 work yesterday, for I had no time to attend to the business of 
 the department. Political affairs stood in the way of purely 
 administrative business." 
 
 " I leave my honor with confidence in your excellency's 
 hands," Rabourdin answered gravely, "and I beg of you to 
 remember that I was not permitted to offer an explanation of 
 the missing document at once " 
 
 "Why, you need fear nothing," broke in des Lupeaulx, as 
 he came between them ; " you are sure of your nomination in 
 a week's time " 
 
 The minister began to laugh ; he remembered des Lupeaulx's
 
 344 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 enthusiasm over Mme. Rabourdin, and lookea slyly at his 
 wife. The countess smiled. This by-play surprised Rabour- 
 din ; he wondered what it meant ; for a moment he ceased to 
 hold the minister with his eye, and his excellency took the 
 opportunity of escape. 
 
 "We will have a chat together over all this," said des 
 Lupeaulx, when Rabourdin, not without bewilderment, found 
 himself alone with the secretary-general. "But do not bear 
 malice against Dutocq; I will answer for him." 
 
 "Madame Rabourdin is a charming woman," put in the 
 countess, for the sake of saying something. 
 
 The children gazed curiously at the visitor. Rabourdin 
 had been prepared for a great ordeal ; now he felt as if he 
 were a big fish taken in the toils of a fine net. He struggled 
 with himself. 
 
 " Madame la Comtesse is very kind," he said. 
 
 " May I not have the pleasure of seeing you on one of my 
 Fridays?" continued the lady; " bring your wife to us, you 
 will do me a favor " 
 
 "That is Madame Rabourdin's night," put in des Lu- 
 peaulx, knowing what official Fridays were like ; " but since 
 you are so good, you are giving a small evening party soon, 
 I believe " 
 
 The minister's wife seemed annoyed. 
 
 "You are the master of the ceremonies," she said, address- 
 ing des Lupeaulx as she rose. 
 
 In those ambiguous words she expressed her vexation ; des 
 Lupeaulx was intruding guests upon one of her small parties, 
 to which none but a select few were admitted. Then, with a 
 curtsey to Rabourdin, she went, and des Lupeaulx and the chief 
 clerk were left alone in the little breakfast-room. Des Lu- 
 peaulx was crumpling a bit of paper between his fingers ; 
 Rabourdin recognized his own confidential note. 
 
 "You do not really know me," the secretary-general began 
 ^ith a smile. " On Friday evening we will come to a thor-
 
 LES EMFLOYAS. 345 
 
 ough understanding. I am bound to give audience now ; the 
 minister is putting everything on my shoulders to-day, for he 
 is preparing for the Chamber. But, Rabourdin, you have 
 nothing to fear, I repeat." 
 
 Slowly Rabourdin made his way downstairs. He was be- 
 wildered by the unexpected turn that things were taking. He 
 believed that Dutocq had denounced him ; he was not mis- 
 taken ; the list in which des Lupeaulx was so severely criti- 
 cised was now in the hands of that worthy, and yet des 
 Lupeaulx was flattering his judge. It was hopelessly bewilder- 
 ing. Straightforward people find it hard to see their way 
 through a maze of intrigue, and Rabourdin lost himself in a 
 labyrinth of conjecture, but failed to understand the secretary- 
 general's game. 
 
 " Either he has not read the article upon himself or he is 
 in love with my wife ! " 
 
 These were the thoughts that brought him to a stand as he 
 crossed the courtyard ; and the glance exchanged between 
 Celestine and des Lupeaulx, and intercepted last night, flashed 
 like lightning upon his memory. 
 
 During Rabourdin's absence his ofiice had, of course, suf- 
 fered from a sudden accession of vehement excitement ; the 
 relations between the upper powers and subordinates are very 
 much laid down by rule ; and great, therefore, was the com- 
 ment when an usher appeared from his excellency to ask for 
 the chief clerk, especially as he came at an hour when minis- 
 ters are invisible. As this extraordinary communication coin- 
 cided, moreover, with the death of M. de la Billardiere, it 
 seemed peculiarly significant to M. Saillard when he heard of 
 it through M. Clergeot. He went to confer with his son-in- 
 law. Bixiou happened to be working with liis chief at the 
 time ; he left Baudoyer with his relative and betook himself 
 to the Rabourdins. 
 
 Work was suspended. 
 
 '&iyiiO\5 (coming in.) "You are taking things coolly here^
 
 346 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 gentlemen ! You don't know what is going on downstairs. 
 La Vertueuse Raboiirdin is in for it ; yes, cashiered ! A 
 painful scene with the minister." 
 
 DuTOCQ {looking at Bixiou). " Is that a fact ? " 
 
 Bixiou. " Who will be any the worse ? Not you for one ; 
 du Bruel will be chief clerk, and you his assistant. Monsieur 
 Baudoyer will be head of the division." 
 
 Fleury. " I'll bet a hundred francs that Baudoyer will 
 never be head of the division." 
 
 ViMEUX. "Will you join us. Monsieur Poiret, and take 
 the bet?" 
 
 Poiret. "I get my pension on the ist of January." 
 
 Bixiou. "What, shall we never more behold your shoe- 
 laces ! What will the department do without you ? Who 
 will take my bet? " 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Not I ; I should be betting on a certainty. 
 Monsieur Rabourdin is nominated. Monsieur de la Billar- 
 diere on his death-bed recommended him to the two ministers, 
 and said that he had drawn the pay while Rabourdin did all 
 the work. He had scruples of conscience : so, subject to 
 orders from above, they promised to nominate Rabourdin to 
 ease his mind." 
 
 Bixiou. "Gentlemen, all of you take my wager; there 
 are seven of you, for you will be one, Monsieur Phellion. I 
 bet you a dinner of five hundred francs at the Rocher de 
 Cancale that Rabourdin will not get La Billardidrc's place. 
 It won't cost you a hundred francs apiece, whereas I risk five 
 hundred. I'll take you single-handed, in short. Does that 
 suit? Will you go in, du Bruel?" 
 
 Phellion (flaying down his pen). " On what, m6sieur, 
 does your contingent proposition depend? for contingent it 
 is; but I err in using the word 'proposition,' I mean to say 
 'contract.' A wager constitutes a contract." 
 
 Fleury. " No, you can't call it a contract, the Code does 
 not recognize a wager; you can't take action to enforce it."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 347 
 
 DuTOCQ. "The Code recognizes it if it makes provision 
 against it." 
 
 Bixiou. "Well put, Dutocq, my boy." 
 
 PoiRET. "Indeed ! " 
 
 Fleury. "That is right. It is as if you refuse to pay 
 your debts, you admit them." 
 
 Thuillier. " Famous jurisconsults you would make ! " 
 
 PoiRET. '"lam as curious as Monsieur Phellion to know 
 what Monsieur Bixiou's bet is about " 
 
 Bixiou {shouts across the office). " Du Bruel ! are you 
 going in ? " 
 
 Du Bruel {showing himself). " Fiddle-de-dee ! gentle- 
 men, I have something difficult to do ; I have to draw up 
 the announcement of Monsieur de la Billardiere's death. For 
 mercy's sake, a little quiet j you had better laugh and bet 
 afterward." 
 
 ThuillIer. "Better bet! your are infringing on my 
 puns." 
 
 Bixiou {going into du BrueV s office). "The old boy's 
 panegyric is a very hard thing to write, du Bruel, and that is 
 a fact ; I would sooner have made a caricature of him." 
 
 Du Bruel. " Do help me, Bixiou." 
 
 Bixiou. "I am quite willing, though this sort of thing is 
 easier to do after dinner." 
 
 Du Bruel. "We will dine together." {Reads.) "'Every 
 day religion and the Monarchy lose some one of those who 
 fought for them in the time of the Revolution ' " 
 
 'to' 
 
 Bixiou. " Bad. I should put — ' Death is particularly busy 
 among the oldest champions of the Monarchy and the most 
 faithful servants of a King, whose heart bleeds at each fresh 
 blow.' " {Du Bruel writes hastily.) " ' Monsieur le Baron 
 Flamet de la Billardiere died this morning of dropsy on the 
 
 chest, brought on by heart complaint ' You see, it is of 
 
 some consequence to prove that a man in a government office 
 has a heart; you might slip in a little padding about the
 
 S48 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 emotions of Royalists during the Terror, eh ? It would not 
 be amiss. Yet — no. The minor newspapers would be saying 
 that the emotion struck not the heart, but regions lower 
 down. We won't mention it. What have you put ? " 
 
 Du Bruel {reads). "*A scion of an old parliamentary 
 stock ' " 
 
 Bixiou. "Very good! That is poetical, and stock is 
 profoundly true." 
 
 Du Bruel {continues'). " ' — in whom devotion to the 
 throne, no less than attachment to the faith of our fathers, 
 was handed down from generation to generation ; Monsieur 
 de la BiUardierc '" 
 
 Bixiou. " 1 should put ' Monsieur le Baron.' " 
 
 Du Bruel. " But he wasn't a baron in 1793." 
 
 Bixiou. "It is all one. Don't you know that Fouch^, in 
 the time of the Empire, was once telling an anecdote of the 
 Convention and Robespierre; and in the course of it he said: 
 'Robespierre said to me, ^^ Due (f Otrante, go to the Hotel 
 de Ville " ' — so there is a precedent." 
 
 Du Bruel. " Just let me jot that down ! But we must not 
 put ' the baron ' here ; I am keeping all the favors the King 
 showered upon him for the end." 
 
 Bixiou. " Ah ! right — it is the dramatic effect, the curtain 
 picture of the article." 
 
 Du Bruel. "It comes here, do you see? 'By raising 
 Monsieur de la Billardiere to the rank of baron, by appoint- 
 ing him gentleman in ordinary ' " 
 
 Bixiou {aside). " Very ordinary." 
 
 Du Bruel. " ' — of the bedchamber, etc., his majesty re- 
 warded the services of the provost who tempered a rigorous 
 performance of his duty with the habitual mildness of the 
 Bourbons, and the courage of a Vendean who did not bow the 
 knee to the Imperial idol. Monsieur de la Billardiere leaves a 
 son who inherits his devotion and his talents,' and so on and 
 
 so on."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 349 
 
 Bixiou. "Aren't you coming it rather too strong? Isn't 
 the coloring too rich ? There is that poetical flight ' the Im- 
 perial idol ' and ' bowing the knee ; ' I should tone it down a 
 bit. Hang it all ! Vaudevilles spoil your hand, till you can- 
 not write pedestrian prose. / should put — ' He belonged to 
 the small number of those who,' etc. Simplify ; you have a 
 simpleton to deal with." 
 
 Du Bruel. "There is another joke for a vaudeville. 
 You would make your fortune at writing for the stage, 
 Bixiou!" 
 
 Bixiou. " What have you put about Quiberon ! " (Reads.') 
 "That is not the thing ! This is how I should draft it — 'In 
 a work recently published, he took all the responsibility of the 
 misfortunes of the Quiberon expedition upon himself, thus 
 givin? the measure of a devotion which shrank from no sacri- 
 fice.' That is neat and ingenious, and you save La Billar- 
 diere's character." 
 
 Du Bruel. "But at the expense of whom ? " 
 
 Bixiou {serious as a priest in a pulpif). " Of Hoche and 
 Tallien, of course. Why, don't you know your history?" 
 
 Du Bruel. "No. I have subscribed to the Baudoins' 
 collection, but I have not had time to look into it : there are 
 no subjects for vaudevilles." 
 
 Phellion (iti the doorway). " Monsieur Bixiou, we should 
 all like to know what it is that can induce you to believe that 
 Monsieur Rabourdin will not be nominated as head of the 
 division, when the virtuous and worthy Monsieur Rabourdin 
 has taken the responsibility of the division for nine months, 
 and stands first in order of seniority in the department ; and 
 the minister no sooner comes back from Monsieur de la Bil- 
 lardiere's than he sends the usher to fetch him." 
 
 Bixiou. " Daddy Phellion, do you know geography? " 
 
 VuKiAAOti {swelling visilfiy). "So I flatter myself, sir." 
 
 Bixiou. " History?" 
 
 Phellion {modestly). "Perhaps."
 
 360 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Bixiou {looking at him). " Your diamond is not properly- 
 set ; it will drop out directly. Well, you know nothing of 
 human nature ; you have gone no further in that study than 
 in your explorations of the suburbs of Paris." 
 
 PoiRET (Jn a low voice to Vimeux). " Suburbs of Paris ! I 
 thought that we were talking about Monsieur Rabourdin." 
 
 Bixiou. " Does Rabourdin's office in a body take my 
 bet?" 
 
 Omnes. ''Yes." 
 
 Bixiou. " Du Bruel, are you going in ? " 
 
 Du Bruel. " I should think so ! It is to our interest that 
 our chief clerk should be head of the division, for all the rest 
 of us go up a step." 
 
 Thuillier. "We 2\\ go a-head !^^ {Aside to Phellion.') 
 " That was neat." 
 
 Bixiou. "I bet he won't, and for this reason. You will 
 hardly understand it ; but I will tell you why, all the same. 
 It is right and fair that Monsieur Rabourdin should get the 
 appointment {looks at Dutocq) ; for seniority, ability, and 
 probity are recognized, appreciated, and rewarded in his per- 
 son. Beside, it is, of course, to the interest of the adminis- 
 tration to appoint him," {Phellion, Foiret, and Thuillier, 
 listening without comprehending a word, look as though they 
 were trying to see through darkness.) "Well, because the 
 appointment is deserved and so suitable in all these ways, I 
 (knowing all the while how wise and just the measure is) will 
 bet that it will not be taken. No ; it will end in failure, like 
 the Boulogne and Russian expeditions, though genius had left 
 nothing undone to insure success. I am playing the devil's 
 game." 
 
 Du Bruel. " But whom else can they appoint ? " 
 Bixiou. " The more I think of Baudoyer, the more plainly 
 it appears that in the matter of qualifications for the post he is 
 the exact opposite of Rabourdin. Consequently, he will be 
 head of the division."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 351 
 
 DuTOCQ {driven to extremities). "But Monsieur des Lu- 
 peaulx sent for me this morning to ask for my Charlet ; and 
 he told me that Monsieur Rabourdin had just been nominated, 
 and young La Billardiere was to be transferred to the Audit 
 Office." 
 
 Bixiou. "Appointed ! appointed ! The nomination will 
 not be so much as signed for ten days to come. They will 
 make the appointment for New Year's Day. There, look at 
 your chief down there in the courtyard, and tell me if La 
 Veriueuse Rabourdin looks like a man in favor ! Any one 
 would think he had been cashiered." {Fleury rushes to the 
 window.') " Good-day, gentlemen. I am just going to an- 
 nounce the nomination to Monsieur Baudoyer ; it will infuriate 
 him, at any rate, the holy man ! And then I will tell him 
 about our bet, to hearten him up again. That is what we call 
 a peripateia on the stage, is it not, du Bruel ? What does it 
 matter to me ? If I win, he will surely take me for assistant 
 clerk ? ' ' {goes out. ) 
 
 PoiRET. '•' Everybody says that that gentleman is clever ; 
 well, for my own part, I never can make anything out of his 
 talk" {writing as he speaks). "I listen and listen, I hear 
 words, and cannot grasp any sense in them. He brings in 
 the suburbs of Paris when he is talking about human nature ; 
 then he begins with the Boulogne and Russian expeditions, 
 and says that he is playing the devil's game." {Lays down 
 his pen and goes to the stove.) " First of all, you must assume 
 that the devil gambles, then find out what game he plays ! 
 
 First of all, there is the game of dominoes " {blows his 
 
 nose. ) 
 
 Fleury {interrupting him). " Old Poiret is blowing his 
 nose; it is eleven o'clock." 
 
 Du Bruel. " So it is ! Already ! I am off to the secre- 
 tary's office." 
 
 Poiret. " Where was I ? " 
 
 Thuillif.r. "Domino, which is 'to the Lord?' for you
 
 352 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 were talking of the devil, and the devil is a suzerain without 
 a charter. But this is not so much a pun as a play on 
 words. Anyhow, I see no difference between a play on words 
 
 and ' ' {Sebastien comes in to collect circulars to be checked 
 
 and signed.^ 
 
 ViMEUx. "Here you are, my fine fellow! Your time of 
 trial is over; you will be established ! Monsieur Rabourdin 
 will get the appointment. You were at Madame Rabourdin's 
 party yesterday. " How lucky you are to go to that house ! 
 They say that very handsome women go there." 
 
 Sebastien. " I do not know." 
 
 Fleury. "Are you blind ? " 
 
 SEBASTIEN. "I am not at all fond of looking at things 
 when I cannot have them ! " 
 
 Phellion {delighted). " Well said, young man." 
 
 Vimeux. "You surely look at Madame Rabourdin. Why, 
 hang it all ! a charming woman." 
 
 Fleury. "Pooh! a thin figure. I have seen her at the 
 Tuileries gardens. Percilliee, Ballet's mistress and Castaing's 
 victim, is much more to my taste." 
 
 Phellion. "But what has an actress to do with a chief 
 clerk's wife?" 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Both are playing a comedy." 
 
 Fleury (^looking aska?ice at Duiocq). "The physical has 
 nothing to do with the moral ; and if by that you under- 
 stand " 
 
 DuTOCQ. "For my own part, I understand nothing." 
 
 Fleury. "Which of us will be chief clerk? who wants 
 to know ? " 
 
 Omnes. "Tell us!" 
 
 Fleury. '^t will be CoUeville." 
 
 Thuillier. "Why?" 
 
 Fleury. " Madame CoUeville has finally taken the short- 
 est way — through the sacristy." 
 
 Thuillier {drily). " I am too much Monsieur Colleville's
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 353 
 
 friend, Monsieur Fleury, not to beg of you to refrain from 
 speaking lightly of his wife." 
 
 Phellion. " Women, who have no way of defending 
 themselves, should never be the subject of our conversa- 
 tions " 
 
 ViMEUX. "And so much the less, since pretty Madame 
 CoUeville would not ask Fleury to her house ; so he blackens 
 her character by way of revenge." 
 
 Fleury. "■ She would not receive me on the same footing 
 as Thuillier, but I went " 
 
 Thuillier. "When? Where? Under her windows ? " 
 
 Fleury's swagger made him so formidable a person in the 
 office that every one was surprised when he took Thuillier's 
 last word. His resignation had its source in a bill for two 
 hundred francs with a tolerably doubtful signature, which doc- 
 ument Thuillier was to present to his sister. .\ deep silence 
 succeeded to the skirmish. Everybody worked from one 
 o'clock till three. Du Bruel did not come back. 
 
 Toward half-past three preparations for departure were 
 made — brushing of hats and changing of coats went on simul- 
 taneously all through the department. The cherished half- 
 hour thus spent on small domestic cares shortened the work- 
 ing day by precisely thirty minutes. The temperature of 
 overheated rooms fell several degrees ; the odor peculiar to 
 offices evaporated ; silence settled down once more ; and by 
 four o'clock none were left but the real workers, the clerks 
 who took their duties in earnest. A minister may know the 
 men that do the work of the department by making a round 
 thereof punctually at four o'clock; but such great and serious 
 persons never by any chance indulge in espionage of this kind. 
 
 At that hour divers chief clerks met each other in the 
 courtyard and exchanged their ideas on the day's events. 
 Generally speaking, as they walked off by twos and threes, 
 the opinion was in favor of Rabourdin ; but a few old stagers, 
 such as M, Clergeot, would shake their heads with a ^' Habcfii 
 23
 
 354 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 sua sidera /tles.^' Saillard and Baudoyer were courteously 
 avoided. Nobody knew quite what to say to them about 
 Billardiere's death, and everybody felt that Baudoyer might 
 want the berth, though he had no right to it. 
 
 When the last-named pair had left the buildings some dis- 
 tance behind, Saillard broke silence with : " This is not going 
 well for you, my poor Baudoyer." 
 
 "I fail to understand what Elizabeth is thinking about," 
 returned his son-in-law. " She sent Godard post-haste for a 
 passport for Fallcix. Godard said that, acting on Uncle 
 Mitral's advice, she hired a post-chaise, and Falleix is on the 
 way back to his own country at this moment." 
 
 " Something connected with the business, no doubt," said 
 Saillard. 
 
 " The most urgent business for us just now is to find a way 
 of getting Monsieur de la Billardiere's place." 
 
 They had come along the Rue Saint-Honorc, till by this 
 time they had reached the Palais Royal. Dutocq came up 
 and raised his hat. 
 
 " If I can be of any use to you, sir, under the circum- 
 stances, pray command me," he said, addressing Baudoyer. 
 *' I am not less devoted than Monsieur Godard to your in- 
 terests." 
 
 "Such an overture is, at any rate, a consolation," returned 
 Baudoyer; "one has the esteem of honest people." 
 
 " If you will condescend to use your influence to procure 
 the place of assistant clerk under you, and the chief clerk's 
 place for Monsieur Bixiou, you will make the fortunes of two 
 men, and both of them arc capable of doing anything to 
 secure your elevation." 
 
 "Are you laughing at us, sir?" asked Saillard, opening 
 wide foolish eyes. 
 
 "Far be the thought from me," said Dutocq. "I have 
 just been to take the obituary notice of Monsieur de la Billar- 
 difere to the newspapers; Monsieur des Lupeaulx sent me. I
 
 LES £AIPLOY£s. 355 
 
 have the highest respect for your talents after reading the 
 article in the paper. When the time comes for making an 
 end of Rabourdin, it is in my power to strike the final blow; 
 condescend to recollect that." 
 
 Dutocq disappeared. 
 
 "I'll be hanged if I understand a word of this," said Sail- 
 lard, as he stared at Baudoyer, whose little eyes expressed no 
 common degree of bewilderment. " We must send out for 
 the paper this evening." 
 
 When the pair entered the sitting-room on the first floor 
 they found Mme. Saillard, Elizabeth, M. Gaudron, and the 
 vicar of St. Paul's, all seated by a large fire. The vicar turned 
 as they came in ; and Elizabeth, looking at her husband, 
 made a sign of intelligence, but, owing to his denseness, to 
 little purpose. 
 
 " Sir," the cure was saying, " I was unwilling to delay my 
 thanks for the magnificent gift with which you haVe adorned 
 my poor church ; I could not venture into debt to buy that 
 splendid monstrance. It is fit for a cathedral. As one of 
 the most regular and pious of our parishioners, you must have 
 been particularly impressed by the bareness of the high altar. 
 I am just going to see Monsieur le Coadjuteur ; he will shortly 
 express his satisfaction." 
 
 "I have done nothing as yet " began Baudoyer, but 
 
 his wife broke in upon him. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure," said she, "I may betray the whole 
 of his secret now. Monsieur Baudoyer counts upon com- 
 pleting what he has begun by giving you a canopy against 
 corpus Domini. But the purchase depends, to some extent, 
 upon the state of our finances, and our finances depend upon 
 our advancement." 
 
 "God rewards those who honor Him," said M. Gaudron, 
 as he followed the cure. 
 
 "Why do you not do us the honor to take pot-luck with 
 us?" asked Saillard.
 
 366 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "Don't go, my dear Gaudron," said the cure. "I have 
 an invitation to dine with the cure of Saint-Roch, you know; 
 he will take Monsieur de la Billardiere's funeral service to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Monsieur le Cure dc Saint-Roch might say a word for us, 
 perhaps? " began Baudoyer, but his wife gave a sharp tug at 
 his coat-tails. 
 
 " Do be quiet, Baudoyer ! " she whispered, as she drew him 
 into a corner. " You have given a monstrance worth five 
 thousand francs to our parish church. I will explain it all 
 by-and-by." 
 
 Baudoyer, the close-fisted, made a hideous grimace, and 
 appeared pensive throughout dinner. 
 
 "Whatever made you take so much trouble to get a pass- 
 port for Falleix? What is this that you are meddling in?" 
 he asked at length. 
 
 " It seems to me that Falleix's business is, to some extent, 
 ours," Elizabeth answered drily, warning her husband with a 
 glance not to speak before M. Gaudron. 
 
 "Certainly it is," said old Saillard, thinking of the part- 
 nership. 
 
 " You reached the newspaper offices in time, I hope," con- 
 tinued Elizabeth, addressing M. Gaudron, as she handed him 
 a plate of soup. 
 
 "Yes, my dear madame," the cure replied. "One editor 
 made not the slightest difficulty when he read the few words 
 from the grand almoner's secretary. Through his good offices 
 the little paragraph was put in the most suitable position. I 
 should never have thought of that, but the young man at the 
 newspaper office was very wide awake. The champions of re- 
 ligion may now combat infidelity with equal forces, for there 
 is much talent shown in the Royalist newspapers. I have 
 every reason to believe that success will crown your hopes. 
 But you must remember, my dear Baudoyer, to use your in- 
 fluence for Monsieur Colleville. It is in him that his emi-
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 357 
 
 nence is interested, and I received an injunction to mention 
 Monsieur CoUeville to you." 
 
 " If I am head of the division, he shall be one of my 
 chief clerks if they like," said Baudoyer. 
 
 The clue to the riddle was discovered after dinner when 
 the porter came in with the ministerial paper. The two 
 following paragraphs (called enh-e-fikts in journalistic lan- 
 guage) appeared therein among the items of news: 
 
 " M. LE Baron de la Billardiere died this morning 
 after a long and painful illness. In him the King loses a 
 devoted servant, and the church one of the most pious among 
 her children. M. de la Billardi^re's end was a worthy crown 
 of a great career, a fitting termination of a life that was 
 wholly devoted to perilous missions in perilous times, and sub- 
 sequently to the fulfillment of very difificult duties. As grand 
 provost of a department, M. de la Billardidre's force of char- 
 acter triumphed over all obstacles raised by rebellion ; and 
 later, when he accepted an arduous post as the head of a de- 
 partment, his insight was not less useful than his Frenchman's 
 urbanity in the conduct of the weighty affairs transacted in 
 his province. No rewards were ever better deserved than 
 those by which his majesty was pleased to crown a loyalty 
 that never wavered under the usurper. The ancient family 
 will live again in a younger scion, who inherits the talent 
 and devotion of the excellent man whose loss is mourned by 
 so many friends. His majesty, with a gracious word, has 
 already given out that M. Benjamin de la Billardidre is to be 
 one of the gentlemen in ordinary of the bedchamber. 
 
 "Any of the late M. de la Billardiere's numerous friends 
 who have not yet received cards, and may not receive them 
 in time, are informed that the funeral will take place to- 
 morrow at Saint-Roch at four o'clock. The funeral sermon 
 will be preached by M. I'Abbe Fontanon."
 
 358 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 " M. Isidore Baudoyer, representative of one of the 
 oldest burglicr families in Paris, and chief clerk in the La 
 Billardicre division, has just revived memories of the old 
 traditions of piety which distinguished the great burgher 
 houses of olden times, when citizens were so jealous of the 
 pomp of religion and such lovers of her monuments. The 
 church of St. Paul, a basilica which we owe to the Society of 
 Jesus, lacked a monstrance in keeping with its architectural 
 splendors. Neither the vestry nor the incumbent could afford 
 to give such an adornment to the altar. M, Baudoyer has 
 just presented the parish with the monstrance that many 
 persons have admired at the establishment of M. Gohier, the 
 King's goldsmith ; and, thanks to piety that did not shrink 
 from so large a sum, the church of St. Paul now possesses a 
 masterpiece of the goldsmith's craft, executed from M. de 
 Sommervicux's* designs. We are glad to give publicity to a 
 fact which shows the absurdity of Liberal bombast as to the 
 state of feeling among the Parisian bourgeoisie. The upper 
 middle classes have been Royalist through all time, and 
 always will prove themselves Royalists at need." 
 
 "The price was five thousand francs," said the Abbe 
 Gaudron, "but for ready money the Court goldsmith lowered 
 his demands." 
 
 "Representative of one of the oldest burgher families in 
 Paris!'" repeated Saillard. "There it is in print, and in 
 the official paper too ! " 
 
 " Dear Monsieur Gaudron, do help my father to think of 
 something to slip into the countess' ear when he takes her the 
 monthly allowance — ^just a few words that say everything. 
 I will leave you now. I must go out with Uncle Mitral. 
 Would you believe it? I could not find Uncle Bidault. 
 What dog-hole can he be living in ! Monsieur Mitral, know- 
 ing his ways, said that all his business is done between eight 
 * See "At the Sign of the Cat and Racket."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 359 
 
 o'clock and noon ; after that hour he is only to be found at a 
 place called the Cafe Themis — a queer-sounding name " 
 
 " Do they do justice there? " the abbe asked, laughing. 
 
 " How does he get to a cafe at the corner of the Quai des 
 Augustins and the Rue Dauphine? He plays a game of 
 dominoes there with his friend Monsieur Gobscck every night, 
 they say. I don't want to go all by myself, but uncle will 
 take me and bring me back again." 
 
 As she spoke, Mitral showed his yellow countenance be- 
 neath a wig that might have been made of twitch-grass and 
 plastered down on the top of his head. This worthy made a 
 sign, which, being interpreted, meant that his niece had better 
 come at once, without further waste of time which was paid 
 at the rate of two francs an hour ; and Mme. Baudoyer went 
 accordingly, without a word of explanation to her father or 
 husband. 
 
 When Elizabeth had gone, M. Gaudron turned to Baudoyer. 
 
 '* Heaven," observed he, " has bestowed on you a treasure of 
 prudence and virtue in your wife; she is a pattern of wisdom, 
 a Christian woman with a divine gift of understanding. Re- 
 ligion alone can form a character so complete. To-morrow I 
 will say the mass for the success of the good cause. In the in- 
 terests of the monarchy and religion you must be appointed. 
 Monsieur Rabourdin is a Liberal; he subscribes to the 'Jour- 
 nal des Dcbats,' a disastrous publication that levies war on 
 Monsieur Ic Comte dc Villelc to serve the interests of Mon- 
 sieur de Chateaubriand. His eminence is sure to see the 
 paper this evening, if it is only on account of his poor friend 
 Monsieur de la Billardi^re ; and Monseigneur le Coadjuteur will 
 be sure to mention you and Rabourdin. I know Monsieur le 
 Cure ; if any one thinks of his dear church, he does not forget 
 them in his sermon ; and now, at this moment, he has the 
 honor to dine with the coadjuteur at the house of Monsieur le 
 Curi dc Saint-Roch." 
 
 At these words it began to dawn upon Saillard and Ban-
 
 360 l-ES EMPLOYES. 
 
 doyer that Elizabeth had not been idle since Godard brought 
 her the news. 
 
 "She is a sharp one, is Elizabeth!" cried Saillard. He 
 could appreciate his daughter's quick, mole-like progress more 
 fully than the abbe could. 
 
 "She sent Godard to Monsieur Rabourdin's to find out 
 what newspaper he takes," continued Gaudron, "and I gave 
 his eminence's secretary a hint ; for as things are at this mo- 
 ment, the church and the crown are bound to know their 
 friends and their enemies." 
 
 "These five days I have been trying to think of something 
 to say to his excellency's wife," said Saillard. 
 
 Baudoyer could not take his eyes off the paper. "All Paris 
 is reading that," he said. 
 
 " Your praise costs us four thousand eight hundred francs, 
 sonny ! " said Mme. Saillard. 
 
 "You have nobly adorned the house of God," put in the 
 Abbe Gaudron. 
 
 "We might have saved our souls without that, though," 
 returned she. "But the place, if Baudoyer gets it, is worth an 
 extra eight thousand francs, so the sacrifice will not be great. 
 And if he doesn't? Eh! ma mere?'" she continued, as she 
 looked at her husband. " If he doesn't — what a drain on us! " 
 
 "Oh! well," cried Saillard, in the enthusiasm of the mo- 
 ment, " then we should make it up out of the business. Falleix 
 is going to expand his business. He made his brother a stock- 
 jobber on purpose to make him useful. Elizabeth might as 
 well have told us why Falleix had flown off. But let us think 
 of something to say. This is what I thought of: ' Madame, 
 if you would only say a word to his excellency ' " 
 
 " ' Would only ! ' " broke in Gaudron. " ' If you would 
 condescend ' is more resp>ectful. Beside, you must first make 
 sure that Madame la Dauphine will use her influence for you, 
 for in that case you might insinuate the notion of falling in 
 with her royal highness' wishes."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 361 
 
 ** The vacant post ought to be expressly named," said Bau- 
 doyer. 
 
 " ' Madame la Comtesse,' " began Saillard, as he rose to his 
 feet, with an ingratiating smile directed at his wife. 
 
 " Good gracious, Saillard, how funny you look ! Do take 
 care, my boy, or you will make her laugh." 
 
 " ' Madame la Comtesse ! ' (Is that better ?) " he asked of 
 his wife. 
 
 "Yes, ducky." 
 
 "'The late Monsieur de la Billardi^re's place is vacant ; 
 my son-in-law. Monsieur Baudoyer ' " 
 
 " 'A man of talent and lofty piety,' " prompted Gaudron. 
 
 "Put it down, Baudoyer," cried old Saillard; "put it 
 down ! " 
 
 Baudoyer, in all simplicity, took up a pen and wrote his 
 own panegyric without a blush, precisely as Nathan or Canalis 
 might review one of his own books. 
 
 " ' Madame la Comtesse,' " repeated Saillard, for the third 
 time, then he broke off; "you see, mother, I am making 
 believe that vou are the minister's wife." 
 
 " Do you take me for a fool ? " retorted she. "I see that 
 quite well." 
 
 "'The late worthy Monsieur de la Billardi^re's place is 
 vacant ; my son-in-law. Monsieur Baudoyer, a man of con- 
 summate talent and lofty piety ' " 
 
 He paused for a moment, looked at M. Gaudron, who 
 seemed to be pondering something, and then added — 
 
 "'Would be very glad to get it.' Ha! not bad, it is 
 short, and says all we want to say." 
 
 " But just wait a bit, Saillard ! You surely can see tiiat 
 Monsieur I'Abbe is turning things over in his mind," cried 
 his wife, "so don't disturb him." 
 
 "'Would be very happy if you would deign to interest 
 yourself on his behalf,' " resumed Gaudron ; " ' and by saying 
 a few words to his excellency you would be doing Madame la
 
 362 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Dauphine a particular pleasure, for it has been his good for- 
 tune to find a protectress in her.' " 
 
 "Ah ! Monsieur Gaudron, that last remark was well worth 
 the monstrance ; I am not so sorry now about the four thou- 
 sand eight hundred francs. Beside, Baudoyer, I say, you are 
 going to pay for it, my boy. Have you put that down ? " 
 
 " I will hear you say that over, night and morning, ma 
 mere,'' said Mme. Saillard. "Yes, it is very well hit off, is 
 that speech. How fortunate you are to be so learned, Mon- 
 sieur Gaudron ! That is what comes of studying in these 
 seminaries; you are taught how to speak to God and the 
 saints." 
 
 " He is as kind as he is learned," said Baudoyer, grasping 
 the abbe's hands as he spoke. " Did you write that article?" 
 he continued, pointing to the paper. 
 
 "No," returned Gaudron. "It was written by his emi- 
 nence's secretary, a young fellow who lies under great obliga- 
 tions to me, and takes an interest in Monsieur CoUeville. I 
 paid for his education at the seminary." 
 
 "A good deed never loses its reward," commented Bau- 
 doyer. 
 
 When these four personages seated themselves down at their 
 game of boston, Elizabeth and Uncle Mitral had reached the 
 Cafe Themis, talking by the way of the business on hand. 
 Elizabeth's tact had discovered the most powerful lever to 
 force the minister's hand. Uncle Mitral, a retired bailiff, 
 was an expert in chicanery, in legal expedients, and precau- 
 tions. He considered that the honor of the family was in- 
 volved in his nephew's success. Avarice had led him to cast 
 an eye into Gigonnet's strong box ; he knew that all the 
 money would go to his nephew, Baudoyer ; and therefore he 
 wished to see Baudoyer in a position that befitted the fortunes 
 of the Saillards and Gigonnet, for all would come some day 
 to Elizabeth's little daughter. What may not a girl look for 
 when she has more than a hundred thousand francs a year ?
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 363 
 
 Mitral had taken up his niece's ideas and grasped them thor- 
 oughly. So he had hastened Falleix's journey by explaining 
 that you can travel quicker by post. Since then he had re- 
 flected, over his dinner, upon the proper curve to be given to 
 a spring of Elizabeth's designing. 
 
 Arrived at the Cafe Themis, he told his niece that he had 
 better go in alone to arrange with Gigonnet, and left her out- 
 side in tlie hack till the time should come for her intervention. 
 Elizabeth could see Gobseck and Bidault through the window- 
 panes; their heads were thrown into relief by the bright 
 yellow-painted panels of the old-fashioned coffee-house; they 
 looked like two cameos ; it seemed as if the cold, unchanging 
 expression on their countenances had been caught and fixed 
 there by the carver's art. The misers were surrounded by 
 aged faces, each one furrowed with curving wrinkles that 
 started from the nose and brought the glazed cheek-bones 
 into prominence — wrinkles in which thirty per cent, discount 
 seemed to be written. All the faces brightened up at sight 
 of Mitral; a tigerish curiosity glittered in all eyes. 
 
 "Hey! hey! it is Daddy Mitral!" cried Chaboisseau, a 
 little old bill-discounter, who did his business among pub- 
 lishers and booksellers. 
 
 " My word ! so it is," replied the paper-merchant, by name 
 Mdtivier. "Ah ! 'tis an old monkey, you can't teach him any 
 tricks!" 
 
 "And you are an old raven, a good judge of corpses." 
 
 "Precisely so," said the stern Gobseck. 
 
 '•Why liave you come here, my boy ! To nab our friend 
 Metivier?"* asked Gigonnet, pointing out a man who looked 
 like a retired porter. 
 
 " Your Grandniece Elizabeth is outside, Daddy Gigonnet," 
 whispered Mitral. 
 
 "What? Anything wrong? " queried Bidault. The old 
 man scowled as he spoke, and his air was about as tender as 
 * See " Lost Illusions " and " The Middle Classes."
 
 364 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the expression of a headsman on a scaffold ; but, in spite of 
 his Roman manhood, he must have felt perturbed, for his deep 
 carmine countenance lost a trifle of its color. 
 
 " Well, and if something had gone wrong, wouldn't you 
 help Saillard's child, a little thing that has knitted stockings 
 for you these thirty years?" cried Mitral. 
 
 " If security is forthcoming, I do not say no," returned 
 Gigonnet. " Falleix is in this. Your Falleix has set up his 
 brother as a stockbroker ; he does as much business as the 
 Brczacs ; with what? His brains, no doubt. After all, Sail- 
 lard is not a baby." 
 
 " He knows the value of money," remarked Chaboisseau. 
 And one and all the old men wagged their heads. A man of 
 imagination would have shuddered if he had heard those words 
 as they were uttered. 
 
 " Beside, if anything happens to my kith or kin, it is no 
 affair of mine," began Bidault-Gigonnet. " I make it a 
 principle," continued he, " never to be let in with my friends 
 or relatives ; for you only get your death through your weakest 
 spot. Ask Gobseck ; he is soft." 
 
 All the bill-discounters applauded this doctrine, nodding 
 their metallic heads, till you might have listened for the 
 creaking of ill-greased machinery. 
 
 " Oh, come now, Gigonnet," put in Chaboisseau, ''a little 
 tenderness when your stockings have been knitted for you for 
 thirty years." 
 
 "Ah ! that counts for something," commented Gobseck. 
 
 ''There are no outsiders here," pursued Mitral, who had 
 been taking a look round, " so we can speak freely. I have 
 come here with a bit of good business " 
 
 "If it is good, what makes you come to us?" Gigonnet 
 interrupted sourly. 
 
 " A chap that was a gentleman of the bedchamber, an old 
 Chouan, what's his name — La Billardiere — is dead." 
 
 " Really ? " asked Gobseck.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 365 
 
 " And here is my nephew giving monstrances to churches ! " 
 said Gigonnet. 
 
 "He is not such a fool as to give, he is selling them, 
 daddy," Mitral retorted proudly. "It is a question of get- 
 ting Monsieur de la Billardiere's place ; and to reach it, one 
 must seize " 
 
 '^ Seize ! Always a bailiff ! " cried Metivier, clapping Mitral 
 on the shoulder. " I like that, I do I " 
 
 "Seizingthe SieurChardin des Lupeaulx between our claws," 
 continued Mitral. "Now, Elizabeth has found out how to 
 do it, and it is " 
 
 "Elizabeth!" Gigonnet broke in again. "Dear little 
 creature ! She takes after her grandfather, my poor brother, 
 Bidault had not his like. Ah ! if you liad only seen him at 
 old furniture sales. Such an instinct ! Up to everytliing ! 
 What does she want ? " 
 
 "Oh, come now! Daddy Gigonnet, you find your family 
 affections very quickly. There must be some cause for this 
 phenomenon." 
 
 "You child!" said Gobseck, addressing Gigonnet, "al- 
 ways too impetuous." 
 
 "Come, my masters, Gobseck and Gigonnet both, you 
 need des Lupeaulx ; you recollect how you plucked him, and 
 you are afraid that he may ask for a little of his down again," 
 said Mitral. 
 
 " Can we talk of this business with him ? " Gobseck asked, 
 indicating Mitral. 
 
 "Mitral is one of us; he would not play a trick on old 
 customers," returned Gigonnet. "Very well, Mitral. Be- 
 tween ourselves," he continued, lowering his voice lor the 
 retired bailiff's ear, "we three have just been buying up cer- 
 tain debts, and the admission of them lies with the Committee 
 of Liquidation." 
 
 " What can you concede ? " asked Mitral. 
 
 "Nothing," said Gobseck.
 
 366 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "Our names don't appear in it," added Gigonnet. " Sa- 
 manon is acting as our fence." 
 
 "Look here, Gigonnet," began Mitral. "It is cold, and 
 your grandniece is waiting. I'll put the whole thing in a 
 word or two, and you will understand. You two between 
 you must lend Falleix two hundred and fifty thousand francs, 
 without interest. At this present moment he is tearing along 
 the road thirty leagues away from Paris, with a courier riding 
 ahead." 
 
 "Is it possible ? " asked Gobseck. 
 
 " Where is he going ? " cried Gigonnet. 
 
 "Why, he is going down to des Lupeaulx's fine estate in 
 the country. He knows the neighborhood ; and with the 
 aforesaid two hundred and fifty thousand francs he is going to 
 buy up some of the excellent land round about the secretary- 
 general's hovel. The land will always fetch what was given 
 for it. And a deed signed in the presence of a notary need 
 not be registered for nine days — bear that in mind ! With 
 these trifling additions, des Lupeaulx's ' estate ' will pay a 
 thousand francs per annum in taxes. Ergo, des Lupeaulx will 
 be an elector of the 'grand college,^ qualified for election, a 
 count and anything that he likes. Do you know the deputy 
 that backed out of it?" 
 
 The two usurers nodded. 
 
 " Des Lupeaulx would cut off a leg to be a deputy," con- 
 tinued Mitral. " But when we show him the contracts, he 
 will be for having them made out in his name ; our loan to be 
 charged, of course, as a mortgage on tlie land, reserving the 
 right to sell, (Aha ! do you take me ?) First of all, we want 
 the place for Baudoyer ; afterward we hand over des Lupeaulx 
 to you. Falleix is stopping down there, getting ready for the 
 election ; so through Falleix you will have a pistol held to des 
 Lupeaulx's head all through the election, for Falleix's friends 
 are in the majority. Do you see Falleix's hand in this, Daddy 
 Gigonnet ? "
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 367 
 
 " I see Mitral's too," remarked Metivier. "The trick is 
 neatly done." 
 
 "It is a bargain," said Gigonnet. "That is so, isn't it, 
 Gobseck? Falleix must sign counter-deeds for us, and have 
 the mortgage made out in his own name ; and we will pay des 
 Lupeaulx a visit in the nick of time." 
 
 "And we arc being robbed," put in Gobseck. 
 
 " Ah 1 I should very much like to know the man that robs 
 you, daddy," retorted Mural. 
 
 " Why, no one can rob us but ourselves," returned Gigon- 
 net. " We thought we were doing a good thing v/hen we 
 bought up all des Lupeaulx' s debts at a discount of sixty per 
 cent." 
 
 "You can add them to the mortgage on his place, and 
 have yet another hold on him through the interest," returned 
 Mitral. 
 
 "That is possible," said Gobseck. 
 
 Bidault, alias Gigonnet, exchanged a quick glance with 
 Gobseck, and went to the door. 
 
 "Go ahead, Elizabeth!" he said, addressing his niece. 
 "We have your man fast, but look after details. You have 
 made a good beginning, sly girl ! Go through with it, you 
 have your uncle's esteem " and he struck his hand play- 
 fully in hers. 
 
 "But Metivier and Chaboisseau may try a sudden stroke," 
 said Mitral; "they might go to-niglu to some Opposition 
 paper, catch the ball at a rebound, and pay us back for the 
 Ministerialist article. Go back by yourself, child ; I will not 
 let those two cormorants go out of sight." 
 
 And he returned to the cafe. 
 
 " To-morrow the money shall go to its destination through 
 a word to tlie receiver-general. We will raise a hundred thou- 
 sand crowns' worth of his paper among friends, ^^ said Gigon- 
 net, when Mitral came to speak to him.
 
 368 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Next day the readers of a Liberal paper in wide circulation 
 beheld the following paragraph among the items of news. It 
 had been inserted by command of Messrs. Chaboisseau and 
 Metivier, to whom no editor could refuse anything; for were 
 they not shareholders in two newspapers, and did they not 
 also discount the bills of publishers, printers, and paper- 
 merchants ? 
 
 ''Yesterday," so ran the paragraph, "a Ministerialist paper 
 evidently pointed out M. le Baron de la Billardiere's suc- 
 cessor. M. Baudoyer is one of the most eligible citizens of a 
 thickly populated district, where his beneficence is not less 
 known than the piety upon which the Ministerialist sheet lays 
 so much stress. But mention might have been made of M. 
 Baudoyer's abilities. Did our contemporary remember that 
 even in vaunting the antiquity of M. Baudoyer's burgher de- 
 scent (and an ancient burgher ancestry is as much a noblesse 
 as any other), in the matter of that very burgher descent she 
 touched upon the reason of the probable exclusion of her 
 candidate? Gratuitous treachery! The good lady, accord- 
 ing to her wont, flatters those whom she destroys. M. Bau- 
 doyer's appointment would be a tribute to the virtue and ca- 
 pacity of the middle classes, and of the middle class we shall 
 always be the advocates, though we may sec that often we are 
 only defending a lost cause. It would be a piece of good 
 policy and an act of justice to nominate M. Baudoyer to the 
 vacant post ; so the ministry will not permit it. The religious 
 sheet for once showed more sense than its masters ; it will get 
 into trouble." 
 
 The next day was Friday, the day of Mme. Rabourdin's 
 dinner-party. At midnight on Thursday des Lupeaulx had 
 left her on the staircase at the Bouffons, where she stood, in 
 her radiant beautv, her hand on Mme. de Camps' arm (for 
 Mme. Firmiani had recently married); and when the old
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 369 
 
 libertine came to himself again, his ideas of revenge had 
 calmed down, or rather they had grown cooler — he could 
 think of nothing but that last glance exchanged witli Mme. 
 Rabourdin. 
 
 " I will make sure of Rabourdin," he thought, "by forgiv- 
 ing him in the first instance ; I will be even with him later on. 
 At present, if he does not get his step, I must give up a woman 
 who might be an invaluable aid to a great political success, 
 for she understands everything ; she shrinks back from no 
 idea. What is more, in that case I should not find out this 
 administrative scheme of Rabourdin's until it was laid before 
 the minister. Come, dear des Lupeaulx ; it is a question of 
 overcoming all obstacles for your Celestine. You may gri- 
 mace, Madame la Comtesse, but you are going to invite Ma- 
 dame Rabourdin to your next small select party." 
 
 Some men can put revenge into a corner of their hearts till 
 they gratify their passions ; des Lupeaulx was one of these. 
 His mind was fully made up; he determined to carry Rabour- 
 din's nomination. 
 
 '*I am going to prove to you, dear chief clerk, that I de- 
 serve a high place in your diplomatic galleys," he said to 
 himself, as he took his seat in his private office and opened 
 his newspapers. 
 
 He had known the contents of the Ministerial sheet only 
 too well at five o'clock on the previous day, so he did not 
 care to amuse himself by reading it through ; but he opened 
 it to glance at the obituary notice of La Billardidre, thinking 
 as he did so of the predicament in which du Bruel had put 
 him, when he brought in the satirical performance composed 
 under Bixiou's editorship. He could not help laughing as 
 he perused the biography of i\\t late Comte de la Fontaine, 
 adapted and reprinted, after a few months' interval, for M. de 
 la Billardiere, Then, all of a sudden, his eyes were dazzled 
 by the name of Baudoyer ! With fury he read the specious 
 article which compromised the department. He rang the bell 
 24
 
 370 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 vigorously and sent for Dutocq, meaning to send him to the 
 newspaper office. But what was his astonishment when he 
 read the reply in the Opposition paper, for it so happened 
 that the Liberal sheet was the first to come to hand. The 
 thing was getting serious. He knew the dodge ; it seemed 
 to him that the master hand was making a mess of his cards, 
 and he took his opponent for a Greek of the first order. To 
 dispose so adroitly of two papers of opposite politics, and that 
 at once, and on the same evening ; to begin the game, more- 
 over, by guessing at the minister's intentions ! He fancied 
 that he recognized the hand of an acquaintance, a Liberal 
 editor, and vowed to question him that night at the opera. 
 Dutocq appeared. 
 
 "Read that," said des Lupeaulx, holding out the two 
 papers while he ran his eyes over the rest of the batch to see 
 whether Baudoyer had pulled other wires "Just go and find 
 out who it was that took it into his head to compromise the 
 department in this way." 
 
 *' It was not Monsieur Baudoyer anyhow," replied Dutocq. 
 "He did not leave the office yesterday. There is no need to 
 go to the office. When I took your article yesterday, I saw the 
 abb6 there. He came provided with a letter from the grand 
 almoner ; you yourself would have given way if you had seen 
 it." 
 
 " Dutocq, you have some grudge against Monsieur Rabour- 
 din, and it is not right of you, for he prevented your dismissal 
 twice. Still we cannot help our feelings ; and one may hap- 
 pen to dislike a man who does one a kindness. Only, bear 
 in mind that if you permit yourself the smallest attempt at 
 treachery against him until I give the word, it will be your 
 ruin \ you can count me as your enemy. As for my friend 
 and his newspaper, let the grand almonry subscribe for our 
 number of copies, if its columns are to be devoted to their 
 exclusive use. The year is almost at an end, the question of 
 subscriptions will be raised directly, and then we shall see.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 371 
 
 As for La Billardicre's post, there is one way of putting a stop 
 to this sort of thing, and that is, to make the appointment 
 this very day." 
 
 Dutocq went back to the office. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he remarked, "I do not know whether 
 Bixiou has the gift of reading the future ; but if you have not 
 seen the Ministerial paper, I recommend the paragraph on 
 Baudoyer to your careful attention ; and then as Monsieur 
 Fleury takes the Opposition paper, you may see the double of 
 it. Certainly, Monsieur Rabourdin is a clever man ; but a 
 man who gives a monstrance worth six thousand francs to a 
 church is deucedly clever too, as times go." 
 
 Bixiou {coming in). " What do you say to the first chapter 
 of an epistle to the Corinthians in our religious paper, and the 
 epistle to the ministers in the Liberal sheet ? How is Mon- 
 sieur Rabourdin, du Bruel ? " 
 
 Du Bruel {coming in^ "I do not know." {Draws 
 Bixiou into his sanctum and lowers his voice.) " My dear 
 fellow, your way of helping a man is uncommonly like the 
 hangman's way, when he hoists you on his shoulders the better 
 to break your neck. You let me in for a whipping from des 
 Lupeaulx, and I deserved it for my stupidity. A nice thing 
 that article on La Billardiere ! It is a trick that I shall not 
 forget ! The very first sentence as good as told the King 
 that it was time to die. And the account of the Quiberon 
 
 affair clearly meant that his majesty was a The whole 
 
 thing was ironical, in fact." 
 
 Bixiou {bursting into a laugh). "Oh, come! are you 
 getting cross ? Cannot one have a joke ? " 
 
 Du Bruel. *•' A joke ! a joke ! When you want to be 
 chief clerk's assistant they will put you off with jokes, my 
 dear fellow." 
 
 Bixiou {with a threat in his tones). " Are we getting 
 cross ? ' ' 
 
 Du Bruel. "Yes."
 
 372 LES EMPLOY i:S. 
 
 Bixiou {drily). "Very well, so much the worse for you," 
 
 Du Bruel {refleciiftg uneasily). " Could you get over it 
 yourself? " 
 
 Bixiou (insinuatingly). " From a friend? I should think 
 I could." (Fleurf s voice is heard in the office.) " There is 
 Fleury cursing Baudoyer. It was a neat trick, eh? Baudoyer 
 will get the step." (^Confidentially.) "After all, so much 
 the better. Follow up the consequences carefully, du Bruel. 
 Rabourdin would show a poor spirit if he stopped on under 
 Baudoyer ; he will resign, and that will leave two vacant 
 places. You will be chief clerk, and you will take me with 
 you as assistant. We will write vaudevilles in collaboration, 
 and I will fag for you at the office." 
 
 Du Bruel {brightening). " I say, I did not think of that. 
 Poor Rabourdin ! Still, I should be sorry." 
 
 Bixiou. " Ah ! so that is how you love him ! " {Chang- 
 ing his tone.) "Oh, well, I do not pity him either. After 
 all, he is well to do ; his wife gives parties, and does not ask 
 me, when I go everywhere ! Come, adieu, no malice, du 
 Bruel ; there is a good fellow ! " {Goes out into the general 
 office.) "Good-da/, gentlemen ! Did I not tell you yester- 
 day that if a man has nothing but principles and ability, he 
 will always be very badly off, even with a pretty wife ? " 
 
 Fleury. "You are rich yourself! " 
 
 Bixiou. " Not bad, dear Cincinnatus ! But you are going 
 to give me a dinner at the Rocher de Cancale." 
 
 PoiRET. " I never know what to make of Monsieur 
 Bixiou! " 
 
 Phellion {ruefully^. "Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom 
 reads the papers, that it may be worth while to take them in 
 for him, and to do without them ourselves for a bit." {Fleury 
 hands over his sheet; Vitneux passes the newspaper taken by the 
 office; and Phellion goes out with them.) 
 
 At that moment des Lupeaulx was going downstairs to
 
 A WORD OR TWO WITH YOU, MY LORD."
 
 LES EMPLOYilS. 373 
 
 breakfast with the minister. As he went, he was wondering 
 within himself whether prudence did not dictate that he 
 should fathom the wife's heart before displaying the fine 
 flower of scoundrelism for the husband, and make sure, first 
 of all, that his devotion would be rewarded. He was feeling 
 the little pulse that still throbbed in his heart, when he met 
 his attorney on the staircase, and was greeted with : "A word 
 or two with you, my lord ! " uttered with the smiling famil- 
 iarity of a nun who knows that he is indispensable. 
 
 "What, my dear Desroches ! " exclaimed the politician. 
 "What has happened? These people lose their tempers; 
 they cannot do as I do, and wait." 
 
 " I came at once to give you warning that your bills are in 
 the hands of Messrs. Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name 
 of one Samanon." 
 
 " Men that I put in the way of making enormous amounts 
 of money ! " 
 
 "Look here!" continued Desroches in lowered tones; 
 " Gigonnet's name is Bidault ; Saillard your cashier is his 
 nephew ; and Saillard is beside the father-in-law of a certain 
 Baudoyer who thinks he has a right to the vacant post in your 
 department. I had cause to give you warning, had I not? " 
 
 "Thanks," said des Lupeaulx, with a nod of farewell and 
 a knowing glance. 
 
 " One stroke of the pen and you get a receipt in full," said 
 Desroches, as he went. 
 
 "That is the way with these immense sacrifices, you can't 
 speak of them to a woman," thought des Lupeaulx. " Is 
 Celestine worth the riddance of all my debts? I will go and 
 see her this morning." 
 
 And so, in a few hours' time, the fair Mme. Rabourdin was 
 to be the arbiter of her husband's destinies; and no power on 
 earth could warn her of the importance of her replies, no 
 danger signal bid her compose lier voice and manner. And, 
 unluckily, she was confident of success ; she did not know that
 
 374 LES EMPLOY As. 
 
 the ground beneath Rabourdin was undermined in all direc- 
 tions with the burrowings of teredos. 
 
 " Well, my lord," said des Lupeaulx, as he entered the 
 breakfast-room, " have you seen the paragraphs on Baudoyer? " 
 
 " For heaven's sake, my dear fellow, let nominations alone 
 for a minute," returned the minister. " I had that monstrance 
 flung at my head yesterday. To secure Rabourdin, the nomi- 
 nation must go before the board at once; I will not have my 
 hand forced. It is enough so make one sick of public life. 
 If we are to keep Rabourdin, we must promote one Colleville 
 who " 
 
 " Will you leave me to manage this farce and think no more 
 about it ? I will amuse you every morning with an account 
 of the moves in a game of chess with the grand almonry," 
 said des Lupeaulx. 
 
 "Very well," replied the minister, ''work with the chief 
 of the staff. Don't you know that an argument in an Oppo- 
 sition paper is the most likely thing of all to strike the King's 
 mind ? A minister overruled by a Baudoyer ; just think of it ! " 
 
 "A bigot and a driveler," said des Lupeaulx; ''he is as 
 incompetent as " 
 
 "La Billardi^re," put in his excellency. 
 
 " La Billardiere at least behaved like a gentleman in ordi- 
 nary of the bedchamber," said des Lupeaulx. "Madame," 
 he continued, turning to the countess, "it will be absolutely 
 necessary now to invite Madame Rabourdin to your next small 
 party. I must point out that Madame de Camps is a friend 
 of hers; they were at the Italiens together yesterday, and she 
 has been to my knowledge at the Hotel Firmiani ; so you can 
 see whether she is likely to commit any solecism in a salon." 
 
 " Send an invitation to Madame Rabourdin, dear, and let 
 us change the subject," said the minister. 
 
 " So C^lestine is in my clutches ! " des Lupeaulx said to 
 himself, as he went up to his rooms for a morning toilette.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 875 
 
 Parisian households are eaten up with a desire to be in har- 
 mony with the luxury which surrounds them on all sides ; 
 those who are wise enough to live as their income prescribes 
 are in a small minority. Perhaps this failing is akin to a very 
 French patriotism, an effort to preserve supremacy in matters 
 of costume for France. France lays down the law to all 
 Europe in fashions, and everybody in the country regards it 
 as a duty to preserve her commercial sceptre, for France rules 
 the fashions if Britain rules the waves. The patriotic fervor 
 which leads the Frenchman to sacrifice everything to " seem- 
 liness " (as d'Aubigne* said of Henri III.) causes an immense 
 amount of hard work behind the scenes ; work that absorbs a 
 Parisienne's whole morning, especially if, like Mme. Rabour- 
 din, she tries to live on an income of twelve thousand livres 
 in a style which many wealthier people would not attempt on 
 thirty thousand. 
 
 So, every Friday, the day of the weekly dinner-party, Mme. 
 Rabourdin used to assist the housemaid who swept and dusted 
 the rooms, for the cook was dispatched to the market at an 
 early hour, and the manservant was busy cleaning the silver, 
 polishing the glasses, and arranging the table napkins. If 
 any ill-advised caller had escaped the porter's vigilance and 
 climbed the stairs to Mme. Rabourdin's abode, he would have 
 found her in a most unpicturesque disorder. Arrayed in a 
 loose morning-gown, with her feet thrust into a pair of old 
 slippers, and her hair in a careless knot, she was engaged in 
 trimming lamps or arranging flowers, or hastily preparing an 
 unromantic breakfast. If the visitor had not been previously 
 initiated into the mysteries of Paris life, he would certainly 
 learn there and then that it is inexpedient to set foot behind the 
 scenes thereof; before very long he would be held up as an 
 example, he would be capable of the blackest deeds. A 
 woman surprised in her morning mysteries will talk of his 
 stupidity and indiscretion, till she ruins the intruder. Indul- 
 * Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigne, Historian and Theologian.
 
 376 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 gent as the Parisienne may be to curiosity that turns to her 
 profit, she is implacable to indiscretion which finds her at a 
 disadvantage. Such a domiciliary visit is not so much an 
 indecent assault, to use the language of the police-courts, as 
 flat burglary, and theft of the dearest treasure of all, to wit, 
 Credit. A woman may have no objection to be discovered 
 half-dressed with her hair about her shoulders ; if all her hair 
 is her own, she is a gainer by the incident ; but no woman 
 cares to be seen sweeping out her rooms, there is a loss of 
 " seemliness " in it. 
 
 Mme. Rabourdin was in the thick of her Friday prepara- 
 tions, and surrounded by provisions fished up from that ocean, 
 the Great Market, when M. des Lupeaulx made his surrepti- 
 tious call. Truly, the secretary-general was the last person 
 whom the fair Rabourdin expected to see ; so hearing his 
 boots creak on the stairs, she cried: "The hairdresser al- 
 ready!" If the sound of the words struck unpleasantly in 
 des Lupeaulx's ears, the sight of des Lupeaulx was not a whit 
 more agreeable to the lady. She took refuge in her bedroom 
 amid a terrible muddle, a perfect Shrovetide assemblage of 
 motley furniture and heterogeneous elegance, which had been 
 pent thither to be out of sight ; but the negligent morning- 
 dress proved so alluring that the bold des Lupeaulx followed 
 the frightened fair one. A vague, indescribable something 
 tantalized him ; glimpses caught through a half-fastened slip 
 seemed a thousand times more enticing than a full display of 
 every graceful curve, from the line traced round the shoulders 
 by a low velvet bodice to the vanishing point of the prettiest 
 rounded swan-like throat that ever lover kissed before a ball. 
 If your eyes rest on a splendidly developed bust set off by full 
 dress, it suggests a comparison with the elaborate dessert of 
 a great dinner ; but the glance that steals under cambrics 
 crumpled by slumber will find dainties there on which to 
 feast, sweets to be relished like the stolen fruit that reddens 
 among the leaves upon the trellis.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. ZTl 
 
 "Wait! wait!" cried the fair lady, bolting herself in 
 with iier disorder. 
 
 She rang for Therese, for the cook, for the manservant, for 
 her daughter, imploring a shawl. She longed for stage 
 machinery to shift the scene at the manager's whistle. And 
 the whistle was given and the transformation worked in a 
 hand's turn after all. And behold a new phenomenon ! 
 The room took on a piquant air of morning which harmonized 
 with an impromptu toilette, all devised for the great glory of 
 a woman who, in this instance, clearly rose superior to her 
 sex. 
 
 "You!" she exclaimed, "and at this hour! Whatever 
 can it be ? " 
 
 "The most serious thing in the world," returned des 
 Lupeaulx. " To-day we must arrive at a clear understanding 
 with each other." 
 
 Celestine looked straight through the eyeglasses into the 
 man's thoughts, and understood. 
 
 "It is my chief weakness," said she, " to be prodigiously 
 fanciful ; I do not mingle politics and affection, for instance; 
 let us talk of politics and business, and afterward we shall 
 see. And beside, this is not a mere whim ; it is one conse- 
 quence of my artistic taste ; I cannot put discordant colors 
 or incongruous things together; I shun jarring contrasts. 
 We women have a policy of our own." 
 
 Even as she spoke, her pretty ways and the tones of her 
 voice produced their effect ; the secretary-general's brutality 
 was giving place to sentimental courtesy. She had recalled 
 him to a sense of what was due from him as a lover. A 
 clever, pretty woman creates her own atmosphere, as it were ; 
 nerves are relaxed and sentiments softened in her presence. 
 
 "You do not know what is going on," des Lupeaulx 
 returned abruptly, for he tried to persevere in his brutality. 
 "Read that! " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx had previously marked the paragraphs in red 
 
 N
 
 878 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 ink ; he now held out the newspapers to the graceful woman 
 before him. As Celestine read, her shawl slipped open ; but 
 she was either unconscious of this or successfully feigned 
 unconsciousness. Des Lupeaulx had reached the age when 
 fancies are the more potent because they pass so swiftly ; but 
 if he found it difficult to keep self-control, Celestine also was 
 equally hard put to it. 
 
 "What!" said she. ''Why, this is dreadful! Who is 
 this Baudoyer?" 
 
 "A jackass," returned des Lupeaulx; ''but, as you see, 
 he carries the relics, and with a clever hand on the bridle he 
 will reach his goal." 
 
 Mme. Rabourdin's debts rose up before her eyes and 
 dazzled her ; she seemed to see one lightning flash after 
 another ; the blood surged through her veins till her ears 
 rang with the heavy pulse beats ; she sat in a stupor, staring 
 with unseeing eyes at a bracket on the wall. Then she 
 turned to des Lupeaulx. 
 
 "But you are true to us?" she said, with a glance like a 
 caress, a glance that was meant to bind him to herself. 
 
 "That depends," he answered, returning her look with an 
 inquisitive glance that brought the red into the poor woman's 
 face. 
 
 " If you insist upon earnest-money, you will lose the full 
 payment," she said with a laugh. " I imagined that you were 
 greater than you are. And as for you, you think I am very 
 small, a mere schoolgirl." 
 
 " You did not understand," he said meaningly. " I meant 
 that I cannot serve a man who is going against me, as 
 I'Etourdi thwarts Mascarille." 
 
 " What does this mean ? " 
 
 "This will show you that I am great," he said. And he 
 gave her Dutocq's stolen list, pointing as he did so to her 
 husband's shrewd analysis of his character. 
 
 "Read that!"
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 379 
 
 Celestine recognized the handwriting, read, and turned pale 
 at this bludgeon blow. 
 
 "All the departments are in it," added des Lupeaulx, 
 
 " But, fortunately, no one but you possesses a copy. I cannot 
 explain it." 
 
 "The thief that stole it is not so simple that he would not 
 take a duplicate; he is too great a liar to confess to the copy, 
 and too intelligent in his trade to give it up. I have not even 
 asked him about it." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 "Your first draughting clerk." 
 
 " Dutocq. You are never punished except for doing a 
 kindness. But he is a dog that wants a bone," she added. 
 
 " Do you know what a tentative offer has been held out to 
 me, poor devil of a secretary-general that I am? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I owe a miserable thirty thousand odd francs. You will 
 at once form a very poor opinion of me when you know that 
 I am not more in debt ; but, indeed, in this respect, I am 
 small ! Well and good. Baudoyer's uncle has just bought 
 up my debts, and is ready, no doubt, to give up my bills to 
 me. 
 
 "But all this is infernal." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; it is monarchical and religious, for the 
 grand almonry is mixed up in it " 
 
 " What are you going to do? " 
 
 "What are your orders?" he asked, holding out a hand 
 with an adorable charm of manner. 
 
 To Celestine he was no longer plain, nor old, nor frosted 
 with powder, nor a secretary-general, nor anything unclean ; 
 but she did not give him her hand. In her drawing-room she 
 would have allowed him to take it a hundred times in the 
 course of an evening; but such a proceeding in the morning, 
 when they were alone, was as good as a promise ; it was rather 
 too decisive — it might lead her further than she meant to go.
 
 380 LES EMPLOYi.S. 
 
 "And people say that statesmen have no hearts ! " she cried, 
 trying to soften the refusal with a gracious speech. " That 
 frightened me," she added, with the most innocent air in the 
 world. 
 
 " What a slander ! " returned des Lupeaulx. " One of the 
 most impassive of diplomatists, a man that has kept power ever 
 since he was born, has just married an actress' daughter, and 
 imposed her upon the most rigorous of all Courts in the matter 
 of quarterings." 
 
 "And you will support us?" 
 
 " I work the nominations. But no trickery." 
 
 She held out her hand for him to kiss, and gave him a 
 light tap on the cheek. 
 
 " You are mine," she said. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx admired that speech. (Indeed, the coxcomb 
 told the story that evening at the opera, after his own fashion, 
 as follows : ".\ woman did not wish to tell a man that she was 
 his, an admission that a well-bred woman never makes, so 
 she said : ' You are mine ! ' What do you think of the eva- 
 sion?") 
 
 "But you must be my ally," he began. "Your husband 
 said something to the minister about a scheme of adminis- 
 tration, and this list, in which I am handled so gently, is 
 connected with it. Find out, and let me know this even- 
 ing." 
 
 " It shall be done," said she. She saw no great importance 
 in the matter that had brought des Lupeaulx to her house at 
 such an early hour. 
 
 "The hairdresser, madame," announced the housemaid. 
 
 "He has kept me waiting a very long time!" she said. 
 "I do not know how I should have come through if he had 
 been any later," she thought within herself. 
 
 "You do not know liow far my devotion goes," said des 
 Lupeaulx, rising to his feet. "You are going to be invited to 
 the countess' next special and intimate party "
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 381 
 
 " Oh ! you are an angel," she said ; " and I see how much 
 
 you love me. You love me intelligently." 
 
 "This evening, dear child, I am going to the opera to find 
 out who these journalists are that are conspiring for Baudoyer ; 
 and we will measure weapons." 
 
 " Yes, but you will dine here, will you not ? I have ordered 
 the things you like." 
 
 "All this is so much like love," des Lupeaulx said to him- 
 self as he went downstairs, "so much like love, that it would 
 be pleasant to be deceived in such a way for a long while. 
 But if she is laughing at me, I shall find it out. 1 have the 
 most ingenious of snares ready for her, so that I may read her 
 very heart before I sign. Ah ! you kittens, we know you ; 
 for, after all, women are just as we are. Twenty-eight years 
 old and virtuous, and here in the Rue Duphot ! It is a rare 
 piece of luck which is well worth all the trouble of its culti- 
 vation." 
 
 And this eligible butterfly fluttered away down the stair- 
 case. 
 
 "Oh dear ! that man yonder without his spectacles must look 
 very funny in his dressing-gown when his hair is powdered ! " 
 Celestine was saying to herself meanwhile. '• He has ihe 
 harpoon in his back ; he is going to tow me at last to my 
 goal — the minister's house. He has played his part in my 
 comedy." 
 
 When Rabourdin at five o'clock came home to dress, his 
 wife went into the room and brought him the list. It seemed 
 like the slipper in the Arabian Nights — the unlucky man was 
 fated to meet it everywhere. 
 
 " Who put that in your hands? " Rabourdin asked in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Monsieur des Lupeaulx." 
 
 " Has lie been here ? " asked Rabourdin, A guilty woman 
 would surely have turned pale beneath the look that he
 
 382 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 gave her, but his wife met it with marble brows and laughing 
 eyes. 
 
 "Yes, and he is coming here again to dinner," said she. 
 " Why do you look so horrified ? " 
 
 "Dear," said Rabourdin, "I have given des Lupeaulx 
 mortal offense. Men of that sort never forgive ; and he is 
 caressing me ! Do you think that I cannot see why ? " 
 
 "It seems to me that he has a very discriminating taste," 
 she said. " I cannot blame him for it. After all, I know of 
 nothing more flattering to a woman's vanity than the knowl- 
 edge that she stimulates a jaded palate." 
 
 **A truce to jesting, Celestine ! Spare an overburdened 
 man. I cannot speak with the minister, and my honor is at 
 stake." 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! Dutocq shall have the promise of a place, 
 and you will be head of the division." 
 
 "I see what you mean, darling," said Rabourdin; "but 
 you are playing a game that is quite as dishonoring as if you 
 meant it in earnest. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman 
 cannot " 
 
 " Pray let me make use of the weapons that they turn 
 against us." 
 
 " Celestine, when that man sees how foolishly he has fallen 
 into the snare set for him, he will be all the more furious 
 against me." 
 
 " And how if I upset him? " 
 
 Rabourdin stared at his wife in amazement. 
 
 "I am only thinking of your advancement," continued 
 Celestine, " and it is time I did so, my poor love. But you 
 are taking the sporting-dog for the game," she added after a 
 pause. " In a few days' time des Lupeaulx will have fulfilled 
 his mission very sufficiently. While you are trying to say a 
 word to the minister, and before you can do so much as see 
 him, / shall have had a talk with him. You have strained 
 every nerve to bring out this scheme that you have kept from
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 383 
 
 me ; and in three months your wife will have done more than 
 you have done in six years. Tell me about this great project 
 of yours." 
 
 So Rabourdin, as he shaved himself, began to explain his 
 scheme, first obtaining a promise that his wife would not say 
 a single word of his work ; warning her, at the same time, 
 that to give des Lupeaulx any idea of it would be to give the 
 cream-jug to the cat. But at the fifth sentence Celcstine 
 interrupted him. 
 
 "Rabourdin, why did you not speak to me about it?" 
 she said. "Why, you would have saved yourself useless 
 trouble. I can imagine that one may be blinded by an idea 
 for a minute ; but for six or seven years ! — that I cannot con- 
 ceive. You want to reduce the estimates ? It is a common- 
 place, penny-wise economy ! Rather we should aim at rais- 
 ing the income to two milliards. France would be twice as 
 great. A new system would be this plan cried up by Mon- 
 sieur de Nucingen, a loan that would send an impulse through 
 trade throughout the whole country. The poorest exchequer is 
 the one that has most francs lying idle. It is the finance 
 minister's mission to fling money out of the windows, and it 
 comes in at his cellars. And you would have him accumulate 
 specie ! Why, instead of reducing the number of posts 
 under Government, you ought to increase them ! Instead of 
 paying off the national debt, you should increase the number 
 of fund-holders. If the Bourbons mean to reign in peace, 
 they ought to have fund-holders in every township ; and, of 
 all things, they should beware of raising foreign loans, for 
 foreigners will be sure some day to require the repayment of the 
 capital, whereas if none but Frenchmen have money invested 
 in the Funds, neitlier France nor national credit will perish. 
 That saved England. This plan of yours is a little store- 
 keeper's scheme. An ambitious man should only present 
 himself in the character of a second Law, without Law's ill- 
 luck ; he should explain the resources of credit 3 he should
 
 384 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 show that we ought not to sink money in extinguishing prin- 
 cipal, but in payment of interest, as the English do " 
 
 " Come, Celestine," said Rabourdin, "jumble up ideas 
 together, make playthings of them, and contradict yourself! 
 I am used to it. But do not criticise a piece of work before 
 you know what it is." 
 
 " Is there any need to know what it is, when the gist of the 
 matter is to carry on the administration in France with six 
 thousand ofificials instead of twenty thousand ? Why, my 
 dear, even if the scheme were invented by a man of genius, a 
 King of France would lose his crown if he attempted to carry 
 it into effect. You may subjugate an aristocracy by striking 
 off a few heads, but you cannot quell a hydra with a thousand 
 claws. No, no ; insignificant folk cannot be crushed, they 
 lie too flat beneath the foot. And do you mean to move all 
 these men through the ministers ? Between ourselves, they 
 are very poor creatures. You may shift men's interests, you 
 cannot shift men ; they make too much outcry, whereas the 
 francs are dumb." 
 
 "But, Celestine, if you talk all the time, and if you aim 
 your wit wide of the mark, we shall never arrive at an under- 
 standing " 
 
 "Ah ! I see the drift of that analysis of men's administra- 
 tive ability," she went on, without listening to her husband. 
 "Goodness, you have been sharpening the axe for yourself. 
 Sainte-Vierge ! why did you not consult me? I would at any 
 rate have prevented you from putting a single line on paper ; 
 or at the worst, if you wished to have the memorandum, I 
 would have copied it myself, and it should never have left 
 this house. Oh ! dear, why did you say nothing to me about 
 it? Just like a man ! A man can sleep beside his wife and 
 keep a secret for seven years ! He can hide himself from her, 
 poor thing, for seven years and doubt her devotion." 
 
 "But," protested Rabourdin, "whenever I have tried to 
 discuss anything with you, for these eleven years, you have
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 385 
 
 cut me short, and immediately brought out your own ideas 
 instead. You know nothing of my work." 
 
 "Nothing? I know all about it. 
 
 >) 
 
 "Then, pray, tell me about it," cried Rabourdin, losing 
 his temper for the first time since his marriage. 
 
 "There ! it is half-past six; shave yourself and dress," she 
 retorted, answering him after the wont of women when pressed 
 upon a point on which they are bound to be silent; " I will 
 finish dressing, and we will postpone the argument, for I do 
 not want to be worried on my reception day. Oh, dear me, 
 poor man," she said to herself as she went, " to think that he 
 should toil for seven years to bring about his own ruin ! And 
 put no trust in his wife ! " 
 
 She turned back. 
 
 " If you had listened to me in time," she said^ " you would 
 not have interfered on behalf of your first clerk ; he, no doubt, 
 took the copies of that unlucky list. Farewell, clever man ! " 
 
 But seeing her husband's pain in his tragic attitude, she felt 
 that she had gone too far; she sprang to him, and put her 
 handsome arms about him lovingly, all covered with soap as 
 he was. 
 
 " Dear Xavier, do not be vexed," she said, " this evening 
 we will go through your scheme ; you shall talk at your ease, 
 and I am going to listen as long and as attentively as you 
 please ! Is that nice of me? There, I do not ask better than 
 to be Mahomet's wife." 
 
 She began to laugh, and Rabourdin could not help laugh- 
 ing too, for Celestine's mouth was white with soap, while 
 there was a wealth of the truest and most perdurable affection 
 in the tones of her voice. 
 
 "Go and dress, little one; and of all things, not a word 
 of this to des Lupeaulx ! Give me your promise. That is the 
 only penance I require " 
 
 ^^ Require ? Then I won't make any promise at all." 
 
 " Come, Celestine, I spoke seriously though I was joking." 
 25
 
 386 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "To-night your secretary-general will know the foes with 
 whom we must fight; and I know whom to attack." 
 
 " Whom? " asked Rabourdin. 
 
 " The minister," she said, growing two feet taller for her 
 words. 
 
 But in spite of Celestine's winning charm, a few painful 
 thoughts occurred to Rabourdin in spite of himself, and dark- 
 ened his forehead. 
 
 "When will she learn to appreciate me?" he thought. 
 " She did not even understand that all this work was done for 
 her sake. What waywardness ! and how intelligent she is ! 
 If I were not married, I should be yery well off and in a high 
 position by this time. I should have put by five thousand 
 francs a year out of my salary ; and by investing the money 
 carefully, I should have an independent income of ten thou- 
 sand francs at this day. I should be a bachelor ; I should 
 
 stand a chance to become somebody, through a marriage 
 
 Yes" (he interrupted himself), "but I have Celestine and 
 the two children." 
 
 He fell back upon his happiness. Even in the happiest 
 married life, there must always be some moments of regret. 
 
 He went to the drawing-room and looked round. 
 
 "There are not two women in Paris who can manage as 
 she does. All this on twelve thousand livres a year!" he 
 thought, as he glanced at the jars full of flowers, and thought 
 of the coming pleasure of gratified vanity. " She was meant 
 to be a minister's wife. And when I think that my minister's 
 wife is of no use to him — she looks like a stout, homely house- 
 wife — and when she goes to the Tuileries, to other people's 
 houses, she " 
 
 He compressed his lips. A very busy man's ideas of 
 housekeeping are so vague that it is easy to persuade him 
 to believe that a hundred thousand francs will do everything 
 or nothing. 
 
 But though des Lupeaulx was impatiently expected, though
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 387 
 
 the dinner had been designed to tickle the palate of a professed 
 epicure, he only came in at midnight, at which hour con- 
 versation is wont to grow more personal and confidential. 
 Andoche Finot, journalist, was there likewise. 
 
 "I know all about it," began des Lupeaulx, when he was 
 comfortably settled on the settee by the fireside, with a cup 
 of tea in his hand ; and Mme. Rabourdin stood before him 
 holding out a plate full of sandwiches and slices of the weighty 
 substance not inappropriately known as pound-cake. " Finot, 
 my dear and intelligent friend, you may do our gracious Queen 
 a service by letting loose some of your pack on some men 
 whom I am going to mention." Then turning to M. Rabour- 
 din, and lowering his voice so that the words should not 
 travel beyond the three persons to whom they were addressed, 
 he continued — " You have the money-lenders and the clergy, 
 capital and the church, against you. The paragraph in the 
 Liberal paper was inserted at the instance of an old bill-dis- 
 counter; the proprietors lay under some obligation to him, 
 and the little fellow that actually did it did not think that it 
 mattered very much. The whole staff of the paper is to be 
 reconstituted in three days ; we shall get over that. The 
 Royalist Opposition (for, thanks to Monsieur de Chateau- 
 briand, we now have a Royalist Opposition, which is to say, 
 that there are Royalists half-way over to the Liberals ; but do 
 not let us talk of mighty matters in politics) — the Royal 
 Opposition, I say, hating Charles X. with a deadly hate, have 
 promised their support to you if we will pass one of their 
 amendments. All my batteries are in the field. If they try 
 to force Baudoyer upon us, we will say to the grand almonry : 
 ' Such and such newspapers and Messrs. So-and-So will attack 
 this law that you want to pass, and you will have the whole press 
 against you ' (for the Ministerial papers under my control shall 
 be deaf and dumb ; and as they are pretty much deaf and 
 dumb already — eh, Finot? — that will give them no difficulty). 
 ' Nominate Rabourdin, and you will have public opinion with
 
 388 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 you.' To think of the poor simple provincials that intrench 
 themselves in their armchairs by the fireside and rejoice over 
 the independence of the spirited organs of public opinion ! 
 Ha! ha!" 
 
 "He! he! he!" chuckled Finot. 
 
 "So be quite easy," continued des Lupeaulx. "I ar- 
 ranged it all this evening. The grand almonry will give 
 way." 
 
 "I would rather have given up all hope and have had 
 you here at dinner," Celestine whispered, and the look of 
 reproach in her eyes might easily have been taken for a love- 
 distraught glance. 
 
 " Here is something that will obtain my pardon," returned 
 he, and he gave her the invitation for the party on Tuesday. 
 Celestine's face lighted up with the reddest glow of pleasure, 
 as she opened the envelope. No delight can be compared 
 with the joy of vanity triumphant. 
 
 "Do you know what a Tuesday is?" continued des Lu- 
 peaulx, with an air of mystery ; " it is an inner circle ; it is to 
 our department what the petit-chateau is to the Court. You 
 will be in the very centre. The Comtesse Feraud will be there 
 (she is still in favor in spite of the death of Louis XVIIL); 
 Delphine de Nucingen, Mme. de Listom^re, and the Marquise 
 d'Espard are invited, so is your dear de Camps; I sent the 
 invitation myself, so that you might find a supporter in her 
 in case the other women should * black-ball ' you. I should 
 like to see you among them." 
 
 Celestine tossed her head ; she looked like a thoroughbred 
 before the race. Again she read the card, as Baudoyer and 
 Saillard had read their paragraphs in the paper ; and, like 
 them, she could not grasp the meaning of the words. 
 
 " This first, and some day the Tuileries ! " she said, turning 
 to des Lupeaulx with such ambition and confidence in her 
 tone and manner that she struck dismay into him as he looked 
 at her.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 389 
 
 "How if I should only be a stepping-stone for her?" he 
 asked himself. 
 
 He rose to his feet and went to her bedroom ; she followed, 
 for she understood by his sign that he wished to speak with 
 her in private. 
 
 " Well, and the scheme?" he began. 
 
 " Pooh ! an honest man's folly ! He wants to put down 
 fifteen thousand employes and keep a staff of five or six thou- 
 sand. You could not imagine a more monstrous absurdity ; 
 I will give you his memoranda to read when they are copied 
 out. He is quite in earnest. He made his analytical cata- 
 logue with the best of motives. The poor, dear man ! " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx felt the more reassured because genuine 
 laughter accompanied the light contemptuous words; a lie 
 would not have deceived him, he was too old a hand, but 
 Celestine was sincere while she thus spoke. 
 
 " But, after all, there is something at the bottom of it all," 
 he rejoined. 
 
 " Oh, well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and re- 
 place it by a tax upon articles of consumption," 
 
 " Why, Francois Keller and Nucingen brought forward an 
 almost identical plan a year ago ; and the minister is thinking 
 of removing the burden from the land." 
 
 "There! I told him that there was nothing new in the 
 idea," laughed Celestine. 
 
 "Yes; but if he and the great financier of the age, the 
 Napoleon of finance (I can say so between ourselves), if he 
 and Nucingen have hit upon the same idea, he must at any 
 rate have some notion of the way of carrying it out." 
 
 "The whole thing is commonplace," slie said, pursing up 
 her lips disdainfully. " He wants to govern France (just 
 think of it !) with five or six thousand employes ; when, on 
 the contrary, it ought to be to the interest of every person in 
 the country to maintain the present government." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx seemed relieved to find that the chief clerk,
 
 S90 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 whom he took for a man of extraordinary ability, was a medi- 
 ocrity after all. 
 
 "Are you quite sure of the appointment? Do you care to 
 take a piece of woman's advice? " asked she. 
 
 " You women understand the art of polite treachery better 
 than we do," said des Lupeaulx, shaking his head. 
 
 "Very well; say ' Baudoyer ' at Court and at the Grand 
 Almonry, so as to lull suspicion ; but at the last moment write 
 'Rabourdin.' " 
 
 " Some women say ' Yes ' so long as they need a man, and 
 ' No' when he has served their turn," remarked des Lupeaulx. 
 
 "I know them," Celestine answered, laughing. "But 
 they are very silly, for in politics you must come across the 
 same people again and again. It is all very well with fools, 
 but you are a clever man. In my opinion, it is the greatest 
 possible mistake in life to quarrel with a really clever man." 
 
 "No," said des Lupeaulx, "for he will forgive. There is 
 no danger except with petty rancorous minds that have 
 nothing to do but plan revenge, and I spend my life on 
 that." 
 
 When every one had gone, Rabourdin stayed in his wife's 
 room, begged her to listen to him for once, and took the 
 opportunity of explaining his scheme. He made her under- 
 stand that he had no intention of diminishing the estimates; 
 on the contrary, he gave a list of public enterprises to be 
 carried out with the public money ; private enterprise or 
 local improvements should be subsidized by a government 
 grant of one-third or one-fourth of the total outlay, and 
 these grants would set money in circulation. In short, he 
 made it plain to his wife that his scheme was not so much a 
 theory on paper as a practicable plan to be worked out in 
 hundreds of ways. Celestine's enthusiasm grew ; she sprang 
 to her husband and put her arms about him, and sat on his 
 knee beside the fire. 
 
 "And so, after all," she said, "I have found the husband
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 391 
 
 of whom I dreamed. My ignorance of your worth saved you 
 from des Lupeaulx's clutches. I slandered you to him amaz- 
 ingly, and in good earnest too." 
 
 There were happy tears in Rabourdin's eyes. And so at 
 last he had his day of triumph. He had undertaken it all to 
 please his wife ; he was a great man in the eyes of his public ! 
 
 "And for any one who knows how good and kind and 
 loving and equable you are, you are ten times greater ! But 
 a man of genius is always more or less of a child, and you 
 are a child," she said, "a dearly loved child." 
 
 She drew out her invitation card from its hiding-place and 
 showed it to him — 
 
 " This is what I wanted," she continued. " Des Lupeaulx 
 has brought me in contact with his excellency, and his ex- 
 cellency shall be my servant for a while, even if he is made 
 of bronze." 
 
 Next day Celestine was absorbed in preparation for her in- 
 troduction into the inner circle. It was to be her great day, 
 her success. Never did courtesan take more pains with her- 
 self than this matron took. Never was dressmaker more tor- 
 mented, more sensible how much depends upon her art, 
 Mme. Rabourdin overlooked nothing, in short. She went 
 herself to choose a carriage for the occasion, so that her 
 carriage should be neither old-fashioned, nor insolent, nor 
 suggestive of the city madame. Her servant, as became the 
 servant of a good house, was to look like a gentleman. 
 
 Then, about ten o'clock on the great Tuesday evening, 
 Mme. Rabourdin emerged in an exquisite mourning toilet. In 
 her hair she wore bunches of jet grapes, of the finest work- 
 manship, part of a complete set of ornaments ordered at 
 Fossin's by an Englishwoman who went away without taking 
 them. The leaves were thin flakes of stamped iron, light as 
 real vine-leaves, and the artist had not forgotten the little 
 graceful tendrils that clung among her curls, as the vine- 
 tendrils cling to every branch. The bracelets and earrings
 
 392 LES employe's. 
 
 were of "Berlin iron," as it is called; but the delicate 
 arabesques from Vienna might have been made by the hands 
 of fairies for some task-mistress, some Carabosse with a passion 
 for collecting ants' eyes, or for spinning pieces of stuff to 
 pack into a hazelnut. Celestine's dress had been carefully 
 cut to bring out all the grace of a slender figure, which 
 looked yet more slender in black. The curves all stopped short 
 at the line round the neck, for she wore no shoulder-straps ; 
 at every movement she seemed about to emerge like a butter- 
 fly from the sheath ; yet, through the dressmaker's skill, the 
 gown clung to the lines of her figure. The material was not 
 yet known in Paris; it was a mousseline de laine, an " adora- 
 ble " stuff that afterward became the rage. Indeed, the suc- 
 cess outlasted the fashion in France ; for the practical advan- 
 tages of a thin woolen material, which saves the expense of 
 washing, injured the cotton-spinning industry and revolution- 
 ized the Rouen trade. Celestine's feet were daintily shod in 
 Turkey satin slippers (for bright satin could not be worn in 
 mourning) and fine thin stockings. 
 
 Celestine looked very lovely thus dressed. Her complex- 
 ion was brilliant and softly colored, thanks to tlie reviving 
 influence of a bran bath. Hope had flooded her eyes, her 
 quick intelligence sparkled in them ; she looked like the 
 woman of a superior order, of whom des Lupeaulx spoke with 
 such pride and pleasure. She knew how to enter a room ; all 
 women will appreciate the meaning of that phrase. She bowed 
 gracefully to the minister's wife, deference and dignity blended 
 in the right proportion in her manner; and wore her air of 
 majesty without giving off'ense, for every fair woman is a 
 queen. With the minister she used the pretty insolence that 
 women are wont to assume with any male creature, were he a 
 grand-duke. And as she took her seat, she reconnoitred the 
 ground. She found herself in a small, carefully chosen circle 
 in which women can measure each other and form accurate 
 judgments ; the lightest word reverberates in all ears, every
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 393 
 
 glance makes an impression, and conversation becomes a duel 
 before witnesses. Any remark pitched in the ordinary key 
 sounds flat ; and good talk is quietly accepted as a matter of 
 course at that intellectual level. Rabourdin betook himself 
 to an adjoining card-room, and there remained, planted on 
 both feet, to watch the play, which proves that he was not 
 wanting in sense. 
 
 " My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard, turning to the 
 Comtesse Feraud,* Louis XVlII.'s last mistress, " Paris is 
 unique. Such women as these start up in it quite unexpectedly 
 from no one knows where, and seemingly they have the will 
 and the power to do anything " 
 
 "And she has the will and the power to do anything," 
 said des Lupeaulx, bridling as he spoke. 
 
 The crafty Celestine, meanwhile, was paying court to the 
 minister's wife. Drilled by des Lupeaulx on the previous 
 day, she knew all the countess' weaknesses and flattered them, 
 without seeming to touch upon them. And she was silent too 
 at the right moment ; for des Lupeaulx, in spite of his in- 
 fatuation, had noticed Celestine's shortcomings, and warned 
 her against them. " Of all things, do not talk too much ! " 
 he had said the evening before. 'Twas an extraordinary proof 
 of attachment. Bertrand Barrdre left behind him the sublime 
 maxim: " Never interrupt a woman with advice while she is 
 dancing;" which, with the supplementary apophthegm here 
 subjoined : " Do not find fault with a woman for scattering 
 her pearls," may be said to complete this article of the code 
 feminine. The conversation became general. From time to 
 time Mme. Rabourdin put in a word, much as a well-trained 
 cat touches her mistress' lace with sheathed claws. The min- 
 ister's heart was not very susceptible ; in the matter of gal- 
 lantry, no statesman of the Restoration was more accomjjlished; 
 the Opposition " Miroir," the " Pandore," and the " Figaro " 
 could not reproach him with the faintest acceleration of the 
 
 * Wife of " Colonel Chabert," whicli see.
 
 394 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 pulse. His mistress was " L'Etoile; " strange to say, she had 
 been faithful in adversity, and probably was reaping the bene- 
 fit even at that moment. This Mme. Rabourdin knew, but 
 she knew also that people change their minds in old castles, 
 so she set herself to make the minister jealous of such good 
 fortune as des Lupeaulx appeared to enjoy. At that moment 
 des Lupeaulx was expatiating upon Celestine, for the benefit 
 of the Marquise d'Espard, Mme. de Nucingen, and the coun- 
 tess ; he was trying to make them understand that Mme. Ra- 
 bourdin must be admitted into their coalition ; and Mme. de 
 Camps, the fourth in the quartette of listeners, was supporting 
 him. At the end of an hour the minister had been well 
 stroked down \ he was pleased with Mme. Rabourdin's wit, 
 and she had charmed his wife ; indeed, the countess was so 
 enchanted with this siren that she had just asked her to come 
 whenever she pleased. 
 
 "For your husband will very soon be head of the division, 
 my dear," she had said, "and the minister intends to bring 
 both the divisions under one head, and then you will be one 
 of us." 
 
 His excellency took Mme. Rabourdin to see one of the 
 rooms. His suite of apartments was famous in those days, for 
 Opposition journalism had made itself ridiculous by de- 
 nouncing the lavish display therein. He gave his arm to the 
 lady. 
 
 " Indeed, madame, you really ought to favor us, the 
 countess and myself, by coming frequently " and his ex- 
 cellency brought out his ministerial pretty but meaningless 
 speeches. 
 
 "But, raonseigneur," demurred Celestine, with one of the 
 glances that women keep for emergencies ; " but, monseigneur, 
 that depends upon you, it seems to me." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Why, you can give me the right to do so." 
 
 "Explain yourself."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 395 
 
 IC 
 
 No. When I came here, I said to myself that I would 
 not have the bad taste to solicit your interest." 
 
 " Pray, speak ! Placets of this sort are never out of place," 
 the minister answered, laughing. "And," he added, "noth- 
 ing amuses your seriously minded men so much as this kind 
 of nonsense." 
 
 "Very well; it is rather absurd of a chief clerk's wife to 
 come here often, but a director's wife would not be * out of 
 place.' " 
 
 "Never mind that," said the minister, "we cannot do 
 without your husband; he has been nominated." 
 
 "Really and truly?" 
 
 " Will you come to my study and see his name for yourself? 
 The thing is done." 
 
 It seemed to her that there was something suspicious in the 
 minister's eagerness and alacrity. 
 
 " Well," she said, as they stood apart in a corner, " let me 
 tell you that I can repay you " 
 
 She was on the point of unfolding her husband's scheme, 
 when des Lupeaulx came forward on tiptoe with an angry little 
 cough, which, being interpreted, meant that he had been 
 listening to their conversation, and did not wish to be found 
 out. The minister looked in no pleasant humor at the elderly 
 coxcomb thus caught in a trap. Des Lupeaulx had hurried 
 on the work of the staff beyond all reason, in his impatience 
 for his conquest ; he had put it in the minister's hands, and 
 next day he intended to bring the nomination to her who 
 passed for his mistress. 
 
 Just at that moment the minister's footman came, and with 
 a mysterious air informed des Lupeaulx that his own man had 
 brought a letter to be delivered to him immediately, adding 
 that it was of great importance. 
 
 The secretary-general went to a lamp and read a missive thus 
 conceived :
 
 396 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 " Contrary to my habit, I am waiting in an antechamber; 
 there is not a moment to lose if you mean to arrange with your 
 servant ^ *" "^''*^ »>. 
 
 The secretary-general shuddered at the sight of that signa- 
 ture. It would be a pity not to give a facsimile of it, for it is rare 
 on the market, and should be valuable to those persons who 
 discover character in handwriting. If ever hieroglyph repre- 
 sented an animal, surely this name, with its initial and final 
 letter, suggests the voracious insatiable jaws of a shark, jaws 
 that are always agape, always catching hold of the strong and 
 the weak alike, and gobbling them down. It has been found 
 impossible to reproduce the whole note in facsimile, for the 
 handwriting, though clear, is too small and close and fine ; the 
 whole sentence, indeed, only fills one line. The spirit of bill- 
 discounting alone could inspire so insolently imperative, so cru- 
 elly irreproachable a sentence ; an explicit yet non-committal 
 statement, which told all yet revealed nothing. If you had 
 never heard of Gobseck before, you might have guessed what 
 manner of man it was that wrote that line ; and seen the im- 
 placable money-lender of the Rue des Gres, who could sum- 
 mons you into his presence without sending an order. Ac- 
 cordingly, des Lupeaulx straightway disappeared, like a dog 
 when the sportsman calls him off the scent ; and went to his 
 own abode, pondering by the way. His whole position seemed 
 to be compromised. Picture to yourself the sensations of a 
 general-in-chief when his aide-de-camp announces that "the 
 enemy with thirty thousand men, all fresh troops, is taking us 
 in flank." A word will explain the arrival of Messieurs Gi- 
 gonnet and Gobseck upon the field ; for both those worthies 
 were waiting upon des Lupeaulx. 
 
 At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix had arrived 
 on the wings of the wind (thanks to three francs per stage and
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 397 
 
 a postillion sent on ahead). He had brought the contracts, 
 which all bore yesterday's date. Mitral took the documents 
 at once to the Cafe Themis ; they were duly handed over, and 
 the two money-lenders hurried over to des Lupeaulx. They 
 went on foot, however. The clock struck eleven. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx shuddered as he watched the two sinister- 
 looking faces light up with a gleeful expression, and saw a 
 look that shot out straight as a bullet and blazed like the flash 
 of powder. 
 
 " Well, my masters, what is the matter? " 
 
 The two money-lenders sat motionless and impassive. Gi- 
 gonnet glanced from his bundle of papers to the manservant. 
 
 "Let us go into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing 
 the man with a sign. 
 
 "You understand French admirably," remarked Gigonnet. 
 
 " Have you come to torment a man that put you in the way 
 of making two hundred thousand francs apiece?" asked des 
 Lupeaulx, and in spite of himself his gesture was disdainful. 
 
 "And will put us in the way of making more, I hope," said 
 Gigonnet. 
 
 " Is it a bit of business? If you want me, I have a memory." 
 
 "And we have memoranda of yours," riposted Gigonnet. 
 
 "My debts will be paid," des Lupeaulx returned loftily. 
 He did not wish to be led into a discussion on the subject. 
 
 "Truly?" asked Gobseck. 
 
 " Let us go to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. " Don't 
 you draw yourself up in your stock like that ; it won't do with 
 us. Take these contracts and read them through." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx read with surprise and amazement ; angels 
 might have flung those contracts down from the clouds for 
 him ; and meanwhile the pair took stock of his room. 
 
 "You have a couple of intelligent men of business in us, 
 haven't you?" asked Gigonnet. 
 
 " But to what do I owe such ingenious cooperation?" des 
 Lupeaulx inquired uneasily.
 
 398 LES EMFLOYj^S. 
 
 " We knew a week ago, what you will not know till to- 
 morrow unless we tell you : the president of the Commercial 
 Court finds that he is obliged to resign his seat in the Chamber. ' ' 
 
 Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated till they grew as large as 
 meadow daisies. 
 
 "Your minister was playing this trick upon you," added ^ 
 
 Gobseck, the curt-spoken. 
 
 "You are my masters," said des Lupeaulx, saluting the 
 pair with a profound respect in which there was a certain 
 tinge of irony. 
 
 "Precisely," said Gobseck. 
 
 " But are you about to strangle me ? " 
 
 " That is possible." 
 
 "Very well, then; set about it, you executioners!" re- 
 turned the secretary-general with a smile. 
 
 " Your debts," began Gigonnet, " are inscribed along with 
 the loan of the purchase-money, you see." 
 
 "Here are the deeds," added Gobseck, as he drew a 
 bundle of documents from the pocket of his faded greatcoat. 
 
 "And you have three years to pay the lot," said Gigonnet. 
 
 "But what do you want ?" asked des Lupeaulx, much 
 alarmed by so much readiness to oblige, and such a fancy 
 settlement. 
 
 "La Billardidre's place for Baudoyer," Gigonnet answered 
 quickly. 
 
 " It is a very small thing," returned des Lupeaulx, " though 
 I should have to do the impossible. I myself have tied my 
 hands." 
 
 " You are going to gnaw the cords with your teeth," said 
 Gigonnet. 
 
 " They are sharp enough ! " added Gobseck. 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "We shall keep the contracts until these claims are ad- 
 mitted," said Gigonnet, laying a statement under the secre- 
 tary-general's eyes as he spoke ; "if these are not recognized
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 399 
 
 within six days by the committee, my name will be written 
 instead of yours on the deeds," 
 
 "You are clever," exclaimed des Lupeaulx. 
 
 "Precisely," said Gobseck. 
 
 "And that is all?" 
 
 "True," replied Gobseck. 
 
 " Is it a bargain ? " demanded Gigonnet. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx nodded. 
 
 "Very well, then, sign this power of attorney," said 
 Gigonnet " Baudoyer's nomination in two days; the admis- 
 sion of the claims in six; and " 
 
 "And what?" 
 
 " We guarantee you " 
 
 " What ? " cried des Lupeaulx, more and more astonished. 
 
 " K7«r nomination," replied Gigonnet, swelling with pride. 
 " We are secure of a majority ; fifty-two tenant-farmers and 
 tradesmen are ready to vote at the election as the lender of 
 money may direct." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx grasped Gobseck's hand. 
 
 " We are the only people among whom misapprehensions 
 are impossible. This is what you may call business. So I 
 will throw in a make-weight." 
 
 " Precisely " (from Gobseck). 
 
 " What is it to be ? " asked Gigonnet. 
 
 " The cross for your oaf of a nephew." 
 
 " Good ! " said Gigonnet, " You know him," 
 
 With that the pair took their leave, Des Lupeaulx went 
 with them to the stairs, 
 
 " Those are secret envoys from some foreign power ! " said 
 the footmen among themselves. 
 
 Out in the street the money-lenders looked in each other's 
 faces by the light of a lamp and laughed. 
 
 "He will have to pay us nine thousand francs per annum 
 in the shape of interest, and the land scarcely brings in five 
 thousand net," cried Gigonnet.
 
 400 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 " He will be in our hands for a long while to come," said 
 Gobseck. 
 
 "He will begin to build; he will do foolish things," re- 
 turned Gigonnet. "Falleix will buy the land." 
 
 " He wants to be a deputy ; the wolf* laughs at the rest." 
 
 "Eh! eh!" 
 
 "Eh! eh!" 
 
 The dry chirping exclamations did duty for laughter. The 
 usurers returned on foot to the Cafe Themis. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx went back to the drawing-room and found 
 Mme. Rabourdin in all her glory. She was charming. The 
 minister's countenance, usually so melancholy, had relaxed 
 and grown gracious. 
 
 "She is working miracles," des Lupeaulx said to himself. 
 " What an invaluable woman ! One must probe to the bottom 
 of her heart." 
 
 " Your little lady will decidedly do very well indeed," said 
 the marquise; "she wants nothing but your name." 
 
 "Yes, she is an auctioneer's daughter, it is the one thing 
 against her; her want of birth will be the ruin of her." Des 
 Lupeaulx's air of cool indifference contrasted strangely with 
 his warmth of a few minutes ago. 
 
 The Marquise d'Espard looked steadily back at him. 
 
 "The glance you gave them just now was not lost upon 
 me," she said, indicating the minister and Mme. Rabourdin ; 
 "it pierced through the mist of your eyeglasses. You are 
 amusing, you two, to quarrel over that bone." 
 
 As the marquise made her way past the door, the minister 
 hurried across the room to her. 
 
 "Well," said des Lupeaulx, addressing Mme. Rabourdin, 
 " what do you think of our minister ? " 
 
 " He is charming. Really," she added, raising her voice 
 for the benefit of his excellency's wife, " really, the poor 
 ministers must be known to be appreciated. The minor news- 
 
 * Le loup.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 401 
 
 papers and the slanders of the Opposition give one such dis- 
 torted ideas of politicians, and in the end one is influenced. 
 But the prejudice turns in their favor when you meet them." 
 
 '• He is very pleasant," 
 
 "Well, I can assure you that one could be very fond of 
 him," she returned good-humoredly. 
 
 "Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, assuming a good-natured 
 and ingratiating air, "you have achieved the impossible." 
 
 "What?" asked she. 
 
 "You have raised the dead to life, I did not think that he 
 had a heart ; ask his wife ! He has just enough to defray a 
 passing fancy, but take advantage of it. Come this way : do 
 not be surprised." 
 
 He led the way to the boudoir and sat down beside her on 
 a sofa. 
 
 "You are crafty," he said, "and I like you the better for 
 it. Between ourselves, you are no ordinary woman. Des 
 Lupeaulx introduced you here, and there is an end of him ; 
 is it not so ? And beside, when we decide to love for interest, 
 a minister of seventy is to be preferred to a secretary-general 
 of forty ; it pays better, and is less irksome. I wear eye- 
 glasses, and my hair is powdered, and I am the worse for a 
 life of pleasure ; a romantic love affair it would be ! Oh ! 
 I have told myself all this. If one absolutely must, one makes 
 some concession to the useful, but I shall never be the agree- 
 able, shall I ? A man in my position would be mad if he did 
 not look at it from all sides. You can confess the truth, and 
 show me the bottom of your heart. We arc two partners, 
 not two lovers; are we not? If there is some fancy on my 
 side, you rise superior to such trifles j you will pass it over in 
 me ; you are not a little boarding-school miss, nor a trades- 
 man's wife from the Rue Saint-Denis. Pooh ! we are above 
 that, you and I. There is the Marquise d'Espard, now leav- 
 ing; the room, do you suppose that she thinks otherwise? We 
 came to an understanding two years ago " (the coxcomb ! ), 
 2G
 
 402 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "and now she has only to write me a line, and not a very 
 long one — ' My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by 
 doing so-and-so ' — and the thing is done forthwith. We are 
 thinking of bringing a petition for a commission in lunacy on 
 her husband. You women can have anything that you will 
 at the cost of pleasure. Well, then, dear child, take his ex- 
 cellency with your wiles; I will help you, it is to my interest 
 so to do. Yes, I should like to have him under a woman's 
 influence; he would never slip through my fingers then, as he 
 sometimes does, and naturally, for I only keep a hold on his 
 commonsense, but with a pretty woman to help me, I should 
 have him on his weak side, and that is the surest. So let us 
 be good friends as before, and divide the credit that you will 
 gain." Mme. Rabourdin heard this singular profession of 
 rascality with the utmost astonishment. The barefaced sim- 
 plicity of the political business transaction put any idea of 
 expressing surprise quite out of the question. She fell into 
 the snare. 
 
 " Do you think that I have made an impression upon him ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I know you have, I am sure of it." 
 
 "Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?" 
 asked Celestine. 
 
 " I put the report before him this morning. But it is 
 nothing to be the head of the division ; he must be master of 
 requests." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Very well, go in again and flirt with his excellency." 
 
 " Indeed," she said, " I never really knew you till to-night. 
 There is nothing commonplace about you." 
 
 "And so, we are two old friends, and there is an end of 
 tender airs and tiresome love-making ; we understand things 
 as they used to do under the Regency ; they had plenty of 
 sense in those davs." 
 
 "You are in truth a great man, I admire you," she said, 
 
 I
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 403 
 
 smiling at him as she held out her hand. " You shall know 
 that a woman does more for her friend than for her " 
 
 She left the sentence unfinished and went. 
 
 "Dear little thing! Des Lupeaulx need feel no remorse 
 over turning against you," said her companion, as he watched 
 her cross the room to the minister. "To-morrow evening 
 when you hand me a cup of tea, you will offer me something 
 else which I shall not care to take. There is no more to be 
 said. Ah ! when you come to your fortieth year, women take 
 you in ; it is too late to be loved." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx also went back to the drawing-room, scanned 
 himself in a mirror, and knew that he was a very fine fellow 
 for political purposes, but unmistakably superannuated for the 
 court of Cytherea. Mme. Rabourdin meanwhile was work- 
 ing up her climax; she meditated taking her departure, and 
 did her best to leave a last pleasing impression upon every 
 one present. She succeeded. An unwonted exclamation of 
 "Charming woman ! " broke from every one as soon as she 
 had gone, and the fascinated minister went with her to the 
 farthest door. 
 
 " I am quite sure that you will think of me to-morrow," he 
 said, alluding to the nomination. "I am quite satisfied with 
 our acquisition, not many high officials have such charming 
 wives," he added, as he came back to the room. 
 
 " Do you not think that she is inclined to encroach a 
 little?" des Lupeaulx began. He seemed rather put out. 
 
 The women exchanged meaning glances ; the rivalry between 
 the secretary-general and the minister amused them. And 
 forthwith they began one of those charming mystifications in 
 which the Parisienne excels. They all began to talk about 
 Mme. Rabourdin ; they stirred up the minister and des Lu- 
 jjcaulx. One lady thought Mme. Rabourdin too studied, slie 
 aimed too much at wit ; another began to compare the graces 
 of the bourgeoisie with the manners of persons of fashion, criti- 
 cising Celestine by implication ; and des Lupeaulx defended
 
 404 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the mistress attributed to him, but his defense was of a kind 
 reserved exclusively in polite society for absent enemies. 
 
 " Pray be fair to her, mesdames. Is it not an extraordinary 
 thing that an auctioneer's daughter should be so charming? 
 You see where she comes from, and where she is; and she 
 will go to the Tuileries, she is aiming at that, she told me 
 so." 
 
 "And if she is an auctioneer's daughter," said Mme. d'Es- 
 pard, smiling over her words, ''how should that injure her 
 husband's prospects? " 
 
 "As times are, you mean?" asked the minister's wife, 
 pursing up her lips. 
 
 " Madame," the minister said sternly, turning on the mar- 
 quise, "such language brings on revolutions, and, unfortu- 
 nately, the Court spares no one. You would not believe how 
 much the heedlessness of the upper classes displeases certain 
 clear-sighted persons at the chateau. If I were a great lord, 
 instead of a little provincial of good family, set here, as it 
 would seem, to do your business for you, the Monarchy should 
 rest on a firmer basis than it does at present. What will be 
 the end if the throne cannot shed its lustre upon its represen- 
 ' tatives? We are far, indeed, from the times when the King's 
 will ennobled a Louvois, a Colbert, a Richelieu, a Jeannin, a 
 Villeroy, or a Sully. Yes, Sully in the beginning was nothing 
 more than I. I speak in this way because we are among our- 
 selves, and I should be small, indeed, if I took offense at such 
 trifles. It rests with us, and not with others, to make a great 
 name for ourselves." 
 
 "You have the appointment, dear," said Celestine, squeezing 
 her husband's hand. " If it had not been for des Lupeaulx, I 
 would have explained your project to the minister; but that 
 must be left till next Tuesday now, and you will be master of 
 requests all the sooner." 
 
 There is one day in every woman's life in which she shines
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 406 
 
 in all her glory — a day that she remembers, and loves to re- 
 member, as long as she lives. As Mme. Rabourdin undid her 
 artfully adjusted ornaments one by one, she went over that 
 evening again, and reckoned it among the glorious days of her 
 life. All her beauty had been jealously noted ; the minister's 
 wife had paid her compliments (she was not ill-pleased to 
 praise the new-comer at the expense of her friends) ; and more 
 than all, satisfied vanity had redounded to her husband's ad- 
 vantage. Xavier's appointment had been made ! 
 
 " Did I not look well to-night ? " she asked her husband, as 
 though there were any need to kindle his admiration. 
 
 At that very moment Mitral at the Cafe Themis saw the 
 two usurers come in. Their impassive faces gave no sign. 
 
 " How are we getting on? " he asked when they sat down 
 to the table. 
 
 *' Oh, well, as usual," said Gigonnet, rubbing his hands; 
 "victory is on the side of the francs." 
 
 "That is so," remarked Gobseck. 
 
 Mitral lost no time. He took a coach and drove away with 
 the news. The game of boston had been long drawn out that 
 night at the Saillards, but every one had left except the Abbe 
 Gaudron. Falleix had gone to bed ; he was tired out. 
 
 "You will get the appointment, nephew, and there is a 
 surprise in store for you." 
 
 "What?" asked Saillard. 
 
 " The cross ! " cried Mitral. 
 
 " God is with those that care for His altars ! " commented 
 Gaudron. 
 
 And thus was the Te Deum chanted with equal joy in either 
 camp. 
 
 Next day was Friday. M. Rabourdin was to go to the 
 minister, for he had done the work of the head of the division 
 ever since the late La Billardiere fell ill. On these occasions 
 the clerks were remarkably, punctual, the office-messengers
 
 406 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 zealous and attentive, for on signature days the offices are 
 all in a flurry. Why and wherefore? Nobody knows. The 
 three messengers accordingly were all at their posts; they 
 flattered themselves that fees of some sort would come their 
 way, for rumors of M. Rabourdin's appointment had been 
 ^ spread abroad on the previous day by des Lupeaulx. So 
 ' Uncle Antoine and Laurent were in full dress at a quarter to 
 eight when the secretary's messenger came over with a note, 
 asking Antoine to give it, in private to M. Dutocq. The 
 secretary-general had bidden him take it round to the first 
 clerk's house at seven o'clock. ''And I don't know how it 
 happened, old man, but I slept on and on, and I am only 
 just awake now. He would give me an infernal blowing up 
 if he knew that the note had not gone to the private address ; 
 'stead of which I shall tell him as how I took it to Monsieur 
 Dutocq's. It is a great secret. Daddy Antoine. Don't say 
 anything to the clerks; or, my word, he would turn me 
 away. I should lose my place if I said a word about it, he 
 said." 
 
 "Why, what is there inside it?" 
 " Nothing; for I looked into it, like this — there ! " 
 He pressed open the folded sheet, but they could only see 
 white paper inside. 
 
 "To-day is a great day for you, Laurent," continued the 
 secretary's messenger. "You are going to have a new direc- 
 tor. They will retrench beyond a doubt, and put both divi- 
 sions under one director; messengers may look out ! " 
 
 "Yes ! nine clerks pensioned off," said Dutocq, coming up 
 at the moment. " How came you fellows to know that ? " 
 
 Antoine handed over the letter, Dutocq opened it, and 
 rushed headlong down the staircase to the secretary's rooms. 
 Since the day of M. de la Billardiere's death, the Rabour- 
 dins and Baudoyers had settled down by degrees into their 
 wonted ways and the dolce-far-niente habits of administrative 
 routine. There had been plenty of gossip at first ; but an
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 407 
 
 access of industry usually sets in among the clerks toward the 
 end of the year, and the doorkeepers and messengers become 
 more unctuously obsequious about the same time. Everybody 
 was punctual of a morning, and more faces might be seen in 
 the office after four o'clock; for the bonus at the New Year is 
 apt to depend upon the final impression left on the mind of 
 your chief. Then rumor said that the La Billardifere and 
 Clergeot divisions were to be brought under one head. The 
 news had caused a flutter in the department on the previous 
 day. The number of clerks to be dismissed was known, but 
 no one knew their names as yet. It was pretty certain that 
 Poiret would not be replaced — they would effect an economy 
 over his salary. Young La Billardiere had gone. Two new 
 supernumeraries were coming, and both were sons of deputies 
 — an appalling circumstance. These tidings had arrived just 
 as they were going away. It struck terror into every con- 
 science. And so for the first half-hour, as the clerks were 
 dropping in, there was talk round about the stoves. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx was shaving when Dutocq appeared ; he did 
 not put down his razor as he gave the clerk a glance with the 
 air of a general that issues an order. 
 
 "Are we by ourselves? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Very well. Go for Rabourdin ; walk ahead, and — hold 
 on. You must have kept a copy of that list." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ^'Inde ircz — you understand. We must have a general hue 
 and cry. Try to invent something to raise a clamor." 
 
 " I can have a caricature drawn, but I have not five hundred 
 francs to pay for it." 
 
 "Who will draw it?" 
 
 "Bixiou." 
 
 "He shall have a thousand francs and the assistant's place 
 under Colleville. Colleville will come to an understanding 
 with him."
 
 408 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 " But he will not believe me." 
 
 "You want to mix me up in it, perhaps? It is that or 
 nothing — do you understand ? " 
 
 " If Monsieur Baudoyer is director, he might possibly lend 
 the money " 
 
 " Yes, he is going to be director. Leave me, and be quick 
 about it. Don't seem as if you had been to see me. Go 
 down by the back stairs." 
 
 Dutocq went back to the office, his heart throbbing with 
 joy. He was wondering how to raise an outcry against his 
 chief without committing himself, when Bixiou looked in just 
 to wish his friends the Rabourdins good-day. Having given 
 up his wager for lost, it pleased that practical joker to pose as 
 though he had won. 
 
 Bixiou {tnimicking PhelliorH s voice). "Gentlemen, I pre- 
 sent my compliments to you, and wish you collectively a good- 
 day. I appoint the coming Sunday for the dinner at the 
 Rocher de Cancale. But a serious dilemma presents itself: 
 are the retiring clerks to come or not ? " 
 
 PoiRET. "Yes ; even those that are pensioned off." 
 
 Bixiou. "It is all one to me ; I shall not have to pay for 
 it" ^general amazement). "Baudoyer has been appointed. 
 I should love to hear him calling Laurent at this moment." 
 (^Mimics Baudoyer.) " ' Laurent, look up my hair-shirt, and 
 my scourge along with it!'" (^Feais of laughter from the 
 clerks.) "Fi's d'' aboyeur d^oie / There is sense in Colleville's 
 anagrams, for Xavier Rabourdin's name vc\zkt% U abord riva 
 bureaux e u fin riche, you know. If my name happened to 
 be 'Charles X., by the grace of God, King of France and 
 Navarre,' I should quake for fear lest my anagram might come 
 true likewise." 
 
 Thuillier. " Oh, come now, you want to make fun of it ! " 
 
 Bixiou {laughing in his face). ' * Ris-au-laid ! {riz-au-lait).^ 
 That is neat, Daddy Thuillier, for you are not good-looking. 
 * A hideous smile like rice and milk. Untranslatable pun.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 409 
 
 Rabourdin is sending in his resignation in a fury because Bau- 
 doyer is director." 
 
 ViMEUX {coining 171). " Wiiat stuff! I have just been re- 
 paying Antoine thirty or forty francs, and he tells me that 
 Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin were at the minister's private 
 party last night, and stopped till a quarter to twelve. His 
 excellency came as far as the stairs with Madame Rabourdin. 
 She was divinely dressed, it seems. He is director in fact, and 
 no mistake. Rifle, the confidential copying-clerk, stopped 
 late to finish the report sooner. There is no mystery about it 
 now. Monsieur Clergeot is retiring. After thirty years of 
 service, it is no disgrace. Monsieur Cochin, who is well-to- 
 do " 
 
 Bixiou. " He makes cochineal (cochenille), according to 
 ColleviUe." 
 
 ViMEux. "Why, he is in the cochineal trade; he is a 
 partner in Matifat's business in the Rue des Lombards. Well, 
 he is to go, and Poiret is to go. Nobody else is coming on 
 instead. That much is positive, no more is known. Mon- 
 sieur Rabourdin's appointment came this morning. They are 
 afraid of intrigues." 
 
 Bixiou. " What sort of intrigues ? " 
 
 Fleury. " Baudoyer, begad! The clericals are backing 
 him up. There is something new here in the Liberal paper ; 
 it is only a couple of lines, but it is funny " — {reads) — " ' In 
 the green-room of the Italiens yesterday there was some talk 
 of M. de Chateaubriand's return to office. This belief was 
 founded upon the appointment of M. Rabourdin to fill the 
 post originally intended for M. Baudoyer — M. Rabourdin 
 being a protege of the vicomte's friends. The clerical party 
 would never have withdrawn except to make a compromise 
 with the great man of letters.' Scum of the earth ! " 
 
 DuTOCQ (comes in after listening outside). " Scum ! Who? 
 Rabourdin. Then you have heard the news?" 
 
 Fleury {rolling his eyes fiercely). "Rabourdin! — scum I 
 
 O
 
 410 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Have you taken leave of your wits, Dutocq? And do you 
 want a bullet for ballast in your brains? " 
 
 Dutocq. " I did not say a word against Monsieur Ra- 
 bourdin ; only just now, out in the courtyard, it was told me 
 as a secret that he had been informing against a good many 
 of the staff, and had given notes ; in short, I was told that he 
 had sent in a report of the departments, and we are all done 
 for; that is why he is in favor " 
 
 Phellion {shouts). " Monsieur Rabourdin is inca- 
 pable " 
 
 Bixiou. "Here is a nice state of things! I say, Du- 
 tocq ? " ( They exchange a word or two, and go out into the 
 corridor.) 
 
 Bixiou. *' What ever can have happened ? " 
 
 Dutocq. " Do you remember the caricature? " 
 
 Bixiou. "Yes; what about it ? " 
 
 Dutocq. " Draw it, and you will be chief clerk's assistant, 
 and you will get something handsome beside. You. see, my 
 dear fellow, dissension has been sown in the upper regions. 
 The minister is pledged to Rabourdin ; but if he does not ap- 
 point Baudoyer, he will get into trouble with the clergy. 
 Don't you know? The King, the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, 
 the grand almoner, the whole Court, in fact, are for Baudoyer ; 
 the minister wants Rabourdin." 
 
 Bixiou. "Good! " 
 
 Dutocq. "The minister has begun to see that he must 
 give way, but he must get quit of the difficulty before he can 
 go over. He wants a reason for ridding himself of Rabourdin. 
 So somebody has unearthed an old report that he made with a 
 view of reforming the service, and some of it is getting about. 
 That is how I try to explain the thing to myself, at least. Do 
 the drawing ; you come on in a match played among great 
 folk ; you will do a service to the minister, the Court, and 
 all others concerned, and get your step. Do you properly 
 understand?"
 
 LES EMPLOYES. • 411 
 
 BixTOU. " I do not understand how you can know all this, 
 or whether you are just making it up." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Would you like me to show you your para- 
 graph?" 
 
 Bixiou. "Yes." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Very well, come round to my place, for I want 
 to put the report in sure hands." 
 
 Bixiou. " Go by yourself " {goes back to the Rabourdins). 
 " People are talking of nothing but this news that Dutocq has 
 brought ; upon my honor. Monsieur Rabourdin's notes on 
 the men that he m.eant to reform out of the service can't have 
 been very complimentary. That is the secret of his promo- 
 tion. Nothing astonishes us in these days" {strikes an atti- 
 tude, after "Talma"). 
 
 " * Illustrious heads have fallen before your eyes, 
 And yet, oh, senseless men ! ye show surprise ' — 
 
 — if somebody points out a reason of this sort when a man 
 gets into favor ! Our Baudoyer is too stupid to make his way 
 by such methods. Accept my congratulations, gentlemen, 
 you are under an illustrious chief" {goes'). 
 
 PoiRET. " I shall retire from the service without under- 
 standing a single thing that that gentleman has said since he 
 came here. What does he mean with his falling heads?" 
 
 Fleury. "The four sergeants of La Rochelle, egad! 
 Berton, Ney, Caron, the brothers Faucher, and all the mas- 
 sacres." 
 
 Phellion. "He says risky things in a flippant manner." 
 
 Fleury. "Why don't you say at once that he lies; that 
 he humbugs you ; that the truth turns to verdegris in his 
 throat?" 
 
 Phellion. "Your remarks transgress the limits of polite- 
 ness and the consideration due to a colleague." 
 
 ViMEUx. " It seems to me that if what he says is false,
 
 412 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 such remarks are called slander and defamation of character, 
 and the man who utters them deserves, and is like to get, a 
 horsewhipping." 
 
 Fleury {waxing wrafh/ul). "And if a government office 
 were a public place, it would be an indictable offense, and go 
 straight to a court of law." 
 
 Phellion {anxious to avoid a quarrel, endeavors to change 
 the subject). " Calm yourselves, gentlemen, I am at work 
 upon a little treatise on morality, and have just come to the 
 soul " 
 
 Fleurv {interrupting^. " What do you say to it. Monsieur 
 Phellion?" 
 
 Phellion {reading aloud). " 'Question. What is the soul 
 of man ? 
 
 " 'Answer. A spiritual substance which thinks and 
 reasons.' " 
 
 Thuillier, '^A spiritual substance! You might as well 
 say an ethereal block of stone." 
 
 PoiRET. "Just let him go on " 
 
 Phellion {continues'). " 'Q. Whence comes the soul ? 
 
 " 'A. It comes from God, by whom it was created ; God 
 made it simple and indivisible, consequently its destructibility 
 is inconceivable, and He has said ' " 
 
 )> 
 
 PoiRET {bewildered). "God? 
 
 Phellion. "Yes, mosieur, tradition says so." 
 
 Fleurv {to Poiret). " Don't you interrupt ! " 
 
 Phellion {resumes). " ' — has said that He created it im- 
 mortal, which means that it will never die. 
 
 " 'Q. To what end does the soul exist ? 
 
 " 'A. To comprehend, to will, and to remember; it com- 
 prises the understanding, the will, and the memory. 
 
 " 'Q. To what end have we understanding? 
 
 " 'A. That we may know. The understanding is the eye 
 of the soul.' " 
 
 Fleury. " And the soul is the eye of what ? 
 
 >i
 
 "A. 
 "A 
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 413 
 
 Fhellioh (conti'nui'ng). "'Q. What is the understanding 
 bound to know? 
 
 " 'A. The truth. 
 
 Why has man a will ? 
 
 In order that he may love good and eschew evil. 
 
 What is good ? 
 
 The source of man's happiness.' " 
 
 ViMEUX. "And are you writing this for young ladies?" 
 
 Phellion. ''Yt%'' {continues). " ' Q. How many kinds 
 of good are there? ' " 
 
 Fleury. " This is prodigiously improper ! " 
 
 Phellion (indignantly). "Oh! mosieur" {cooling down). 
 " Here is the answer, anyhow. I have come to it " — (reads) 
 — " 'A. There are two kinds of good — temporal good and 
 eternal good.' " 
 
 Poiret (jjvith a contemptuous countenance). " And will 
 there be a great sale for that?'' 
 
 Phellion. " I venture to hope so. It takes a lot of 
 mental exercise to keep up a system of questions and answers ; 
 that was why I asked you to allow me to think, for the 
 answers " 
 
 Thuillier. " The answers might be sold separately 
 though." 
 
 Poiret. "Is it a pun?" 
 
 Thuillier. "Yes. They will sell the gammon without 
 spinach." 
 
 Phellion, " It was very wrong, indeed, of me to interrupt 
 you." (Dives in among his pasteboard cases. To himself.) 
 "But they have forgotten Monsieur Rabourdin." 
 
 Meanwhile a scene that took place between the minister 
 and des Lupcaulx decided Rabourdin's fate. The secretary- 
 general went to find his chief in his study before break- 
 fast. 
 
 "Your excellency is not playing aboveboard with me," he
 
 414 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 began, when he had made sure that La Briere could hear 
 nothing. 
 
 " Here, he is going to quarrel with me," thought the min- 
 ister, " because his mistress flirted with me yesterday." Aloud 
 he said, " I did not think that you were such a boy, my dear 
 friend." 
 
 "Friend," repeated the secretary-general; "I shall soon 
 know about that." 
 
 The minister looked haughtily at des Lupeaulx. 
 
 "We are by ourselves, so we can have an explanation. 
 The deputy for the district in which my estate of des Lupeaulx- 
 is situated " 
 
 "Then it really is an estate?" laughed the minister, to 
 hide his surprise. 
 
 " Enlarged by purchases to the extent of two hundred thou- 
 sand francs," des Lupeaulx added carelessly. "You knew 
 ten days ago that the deputy was going to resign his seat, and 
 you said nothing to me — you were not bound to do so ; still, 
 you knew very well that it is my wish to sit on the Centre 
 benches. Did you not think that I might throw in my lot 
 with the doctrinaires, the party that will eat you up, Monarchy 
 and all, if they are allowed to recruit all the able men that 
 you slight ? Do you not know that there are not more than 
 fifty or sixty dangerous heads at a time in a nation, and that 
 in those fifty or sixty the intellect is on a level with the ambi- 
 tion ? The whole art of government consists in finding out 
 those heads, so that you may buy them or cut them off. I 
 do not know whether I have talent, but I have ambition ; and 
 you make a blunder when you do not come to an understand- 
 ing with a man who means nothing but good to you. The 
 coronation dazzled you for a minute, but what follows? The 
 war of words and arguments will begin again and grow more 
 acrimonious. Well, so far as you are concerned, you don't 
 find me in the Left Centre, believe me ! Your prefect has 
 had confidential instructions, no doubt ; but, in spite of his
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 415 
 
 manoeuvres, I am sure of a majority. It is time that we came 
 to a thorough understanding. Sometimes people are better 
 friends after a little coup de Jarnac.'^ I shall be a count, and 
 the grand cross of the Legion will not be refused after my 
 services; but I insist not so much on these two points as upon 
 a third which your influence can decide. You have not yet 
 appointed Rabourdin ; I have had news this morning; you 
 will give general satisfaction by nominating Baudoyer " 
 
 " Baudoyer/'^ exclaimed the minister; " you know him ! " 
 
 "Yes," said des Lupeaulx ; "but when he gives proof of 
 his incompetence, you can get rid of him by asking his patrons 
 to take him into their employ. Then you will have an im- 
 portant post in your gift, and that may facilitate a compromise 
 with some ambitious man." 
 
 "I have given my word to Rabourdin ! " 
 
 "Yes, but I do not ask you to change your mind at once. 
 I know that it is dangerous to say ' Yes ' and 'No * on the 
 same day. Wait, and you can sign the day after to-morrow. 
 Well, in two days' time you will see that it is impossible to 
 keep Rabourdin ; and beside, he will have sent in his resigna- 
 tion, plump and plain." 
 
 " Resignation ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " He has been at work for some power unknown, playing 
 the spy on a large scale all through the departments. This 
 was found out by accident ; it has got about, and the clerks 
 are furious. For mercy's sake, do not work with him to-day ; 
 let me find an excuse. Go to the King, I am sure you will 
 find that certain persons will be pleased by your concession as 
 to Baudoyer, and you will get something in exchange. Then 
 you will strengthen your position later on by getting rid of 
 the fool, seeing that he has been forced upon you, as one may 
 say." 
 
 * Hamstringing by a stroke of the sword; used by Jarnac, 1547.
 
 416 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "What made you change your mind about Rabourdin in 
 this way? " 
 
 ** Would you assist Monsieur de Chateaubriand to write an 
 article against the Government ? Well, this is how Rabourdin 
 treats me in his report," said des Lupeaulx, handing his note 
 to the minister. " He is reorganizing the whole system, no 
 doubt, for the benefit of a confederation which we do not know. 
 I shall keep on friendly terms with him, so as to watch over 
 him. I think I will do some great service to the Government, 
 so as to reach the peerage ; a peerage is the one thing that I 
 care about. I do not want office, nor anything else that can 
 cross your path. I am aiming at the peerage ; then I shall be 
 in a position to marry some banker's daughter with two hun- 
 dred thousand livres a year. So let me do you some great 
 service, so that the King can say that I have saved the throne. 
 This long time past I have said : ' Liberalism no longer meets 
 us in the field ; Liberalism has given up conspiracy, the Car- 
 bonari, and violent methods ; ' it is undermining us and pre- 
 paring to say once for all : ' Get thee hence that I may take 
 thy place ! ' Do you think that I pay court to a Rabourdin's 
 wife for my pleasure? No; I had information! So for to- 
 day there are two things — the adjournment of the nominations 
 and your sincere support at my election. At the end of the 
 session you shall see whether I have not paid my debt with 
 interest." 
 
 For all answer the minister handed over the report. 
 
 "And I will tell Rabourdin that you postpone him till Sat' 
 urday?" 
 
 The minister nodded. In a few minutes the messenger had 
 crossed the building and informed Rabourdin that he must go 
 to the minister on Saturday ; for that then the Chamber would 
 be engaged with petitions, and the minister would have the 
 whole day at liberty. 
 
 Meanwhile Saillard went on his errand to the minister's 
 wife and slipped in his speech, to which the lady replied, with
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 417 
 
 dignity, that she never meddled in State affairs, and beside, 
 she had heard that Rabourdin was appointed. Saillard in 
 alarm went up to Baudoyer's office, and there found Dutocq, 
 Godard, and Bixiou in a state of exasperation which words 
 fail to describe; for they were reading the rough draft of 
 Rabourdin's terrible report. 
 
 Bixiou (^pointing to a passage). " Here you are, Saillard : 
 ' Saillard. — Cashiers to be suppressed throughout. The de- 
 partments should keep accounts current with the Treasury. 
 Saillard is well-to-do, and does not need a pension.' Would 
 you like to see your son-in-law ? " (turns over the leaf.) "Here 
 he is : •' Baudoyer. — Utterly incompetent. Dismiss without 
 pension; he is well-to-do.' And our friend Godard" {turns 
 over another leaf). "'Godard. — Dismiss. Pension one-third 
 of present salary.' In short, we are all here. Here am I — 
 'An artist to be employed at the opera, the Menus-Plaisirs, 
 or the Museum, witli a salary from the Civil List. Plenty of 
 ability, not very steady, incapable of application, a restless 
 disposition.' Oh! I will most truly give you enough of the 
 artist." 
 
 Saillard. " Cashiers to be suppressed? Why, the man is 
 a monster ! " 
 
 Bixiou. " What has he to say about our mysterious Des- 
 roys? " (Turns the leaf and reads.) '* ' Desroys. — A dan- 
 gerous man, in that he holds subversive principles that can- 
 not be shaken. As a son of a member of the Convention 
 he admires that institution; he may become a pernicious pub- 
 licist.' " 
 
 Baudoyer. "A detective is not so clever." 
 
 Godard. "I shall go at once to the secretary-general and 
 lodge a complaint in form. If that man is nominated, we 
 ought all to resign in a body." 
 
 Dutocq. "Listen, gentlemen, let us be prudent. If you 
 revolt at once, we should be accused of personal motives and 
 a desire for revenge. No, let the rumor spread ; and when 
 27
 
 418 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 the whole service rises in protest, your proceedings will meet 
 with general support." 
 
 Bixiou. " Dutocq works on the principles of the sublime 
 Rossini's great aria in ' Basilio,' which proves that the 
 mighty composer is a politic man. This seems to me to be 
 fair and reasonable. I think of leaving my card on Monsieur 
 Rabourdin to-morrow morning; I shall have the name en- 
 graved upon it, and the titles underneath: ' Bixiou : Not 
 very steady, incapable of application, restless disposition.'" 
 
 GoDARD. " A good idea, gentlemen. Let us all have our 
 cards printed, and Rabourdin shall have them to-morrow 
 
 morning." 
 
 Baudoyer. "Monsieur Bixiou, will you undertake these 
 little details, and see that the plates are destroyed after a 
 single card has been printed from each?" 
 
 DuTOCQ (^faking Bixiou aside). "Well, will you draw that 
 caricature now ? " 
 
 Bixiou. " I see, my dear fellow, that you have been in 
 the secret for ten days." {Looks him full in the face.) "Am 
 I going to be chief clerk's assistant ?" 
 
 DuTOCQ. "Yes, upon my word of honor, and a thousand 
 francs beside, as I told you. You do not know what a service 
 you are doing to powerful personages." 
 
 Bixiou. " Do you know them ? " 
 
 DuTOCQ. "Yes." 
 
 Bixiou. "Very well, then, I want to speak with them." 
 
 DuTOCQ {drily). " Do the caricature or let it alone; you 
 vill be chief clerk's assistant or you will not." 
 
 Bixiou. "Well, then, let us see those thousand francs." 
 
 DuTOCQ. " You shall have them against the drawing." 
 
 Bixiou. " Go ahead ! The caricature shall go the round 
 of the offices to-morrow. So let us make fools of the Rabour- 
 dins ! " {To Saillard, Godard, and Baudoyer, who are con- 
 ferring in whispers.) "We are going to set our neighbors 
 in a ferment." {Goes out with Dutocq, and crosses over to
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 419 
 
 Rabourdin' s office. At sight of him, Fieury and Thuillier show 
 signs of excitement.') " Well, gentlemen, what is the matter? 
 All that I told you just now is so true that you may have ocular 
 demonstration at this moment of the most shameful delation. 
 Go to the office of the virtuous, honest, estimable, upright, 
 and pious Baudoyer ; he is 'incompetent,' at any rate, in 
 such a business as this ! Your chief has invented a sort of 
 guillotine for clerks, tliat is certain. Go and look at it, fol- 
 low the crowd, there is nothing to pay if you are not satisfied, 
 you shall have the full benefit of your misfortune gratis. What 
 is more, the appointments have been postponed. The offices 
 are in an uproar ; and Rabourdin has just heard that he is not 
 to work with the minister to-day. Just go ! " 
 
 Phellion and Poiret stayed behind. Phellion was too much 
 attached to Rabourdin to go in search of proof that might 
 injure a man whom he had no wish to judge, and Poiret was 
 to retire in five days' time. Just at that moment Sebastien 
 came downstairs to collect some papers to be included with 
 the documents for signature. He was sufficiently astonished 
 to find the office empty, but he showed no sign of surprise. 
 
 Phellion {rising to his feet, a rare event). "My young 
 friend, do you know what is going on ? what rumors are cur- 
 rent with respect to Mosieur Rabourdin, to whom you are 
 attached ; for whom " {lojvering his voice for Sebastien' s ear), 
 " for whom my affection is as great as my esteem ? It is said 
 that he has been so imprudent as to leave a report of the clerks 
 lying about somewhere " {stops suddenly short, for Sebas- 
 tien turns as pale as a white rose, and sinks into a chair. 
 Phellion is obliged to hold him in his inuscular arms.) " Put a 
 key down his back ; Mosieur Poiret ! have you a key ? " 
 
 Poiret. "I always carry my door-key." {Old Poiret, 
 
 junior, pushes his key down Sebastien' s collar ; Phellion brings 
 
 a glass of cold water. The poor boy opens his eyes, only to shed 
 
 a torrent of tears ; he lays his head on Phellion' s desk, flings 
 
 himself down in a heap as if stricken by lightning, and sobs in
 
 420 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 such a heart-rending fashion, with such a genuine outpouring of 
 grief, that Poiret, for the first time in his life, is touched by the 
 sorrow of a fellow-creature. ) 
 
 Phellion (raising his voice). " Come, come, my young 
 friend, bear up ! One must have courage in a great crisis ! 
 You are a man. Wliat is the matter ! What is there to upset 
 you so in this affair? it is out of all reason." 
 
 Sebastien {through his sobs). "/ have ruined M. Rabour- 
 din ! I left the paper about ; I had been copying it ; I have 
 ruined my benefactor. This will kill me ! Such a great 
 man ! A man that might have been a minister ! " 
 
 Poiret {blowing his nose). " Then he really made the re- 
 port?" 
 
 Sebastien (through his sobs). " But it was for There ! 
 
 I am telling his secrets now ! Oh ! that miserable Dutocq, he 
 took it." 
 
 At that the tears and sobs began afresh, and grew so violent 
 that Rabourdin came out of his office, recognized the voice, 
 and went upstairs. He found Sebastien, half-swooning, like 
 a figure of Christ, in the arms of Phellion and Poiret ; and 
 the two clerks, with countenances distorted by compassion, 
 grotesquely playing the parts of the Maries in the composi- 
 tion. 
 
 Rabourdin. " What is the matter, gentlemen ? " 
 
 Sebastien (starting up, falls on his knees before Rabourdin). 
 "Oh, sir, I have ruined you ! That list ! Dutocq is showing 
 it about. He found it out, no doubt ! " 
 
 Rabourdin (composedly'). " I knew it." (Raises Sebastien 
 and draws him away.) " My friend, you are a child ! " (To 
 Fhellion.) " Where are they all ? " 
 
 Phellion. "They have gone to Monsieur Baudoyer's 
 study, sir, to look at a list which is said " 
 
 Rabourdin. "That will do" {goes out with Sebastien. 
 Poiret and Phellion, overcome with astotiishment, look at one 
 another, cotnpletely at a loss).
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 421 
 
 1 > 
 
 PoiRET {Jo PheUiofi). " Monsieur Rabourdin 
 
 Phellion ijo Poiret) " Monsieur Rabourdin ! 
 
 PoiRET. "Well, if ever ! Monsieur Rabourdin ! " 
 
 Phellion. *• Did you see how he looked — quite calm and 
 dignified in spite of everything? " 
 
 Poiret (ufif/i a grimace intended for a knowing air). "I 
 should not be at all surprised if there were something at the 
 bottom of all this." 
 
 Phellion. "A man of honor, blameless and stainless " 
 
 Poiret. "And how about Dutocq? " 
 
 Phellion. " Mosieur Poiret, you think as I think about 
 Dutocq; do you not understand me?" 
 
 Poiret (with two or three little knowing nods). " Yes." 
 
 The others come back. 
 
 Fleury. " This is coming it strong ! I have seen it with 
 my own eyes, and yet I can't believe it ! M. Rabourdin, the 
 best of men ! Upon my word, if such as he can play the 
 sneak, it is enough to sicken you with virtue. I used to put 
 Rabourdin among Plutarch's heroes." 
 
 Vimeux. "Oh ! it is true." 
 
 Poiret {bethinking himself that he has but five days to stay). 
 " But, gentlemen, what do you say about the man that lay 
 in wait for Monsieur Rabourdin and stole the papers?" 
 
 Dutocq slips out of the room. 
 
 Fleury. "A Judas Iscariot ! Who is he?" 
 
 Phellion (adroitly). " He is not among us, that is cer- 
 tain." 
 
 Vimeux (an idea beginning to dawn upoti him). "It is 
 Dutocq!" 
 
 Phellion. "I have seen no proof whatever, mosieur. 
 While you were out of the room, that young fellow, Monsieur 
 de la Roche, came in and was nearly heart-broken over it. 
 Look, you see his tears on my desk." 
 
 Poiret. " He swooned in our arms Oh ! my door- 
 key ; dear, dear ! it is still down his back ! " (goes out.)
 
 422 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 ViMEUx. " The minister would not work to-day with 
 Monsieur Rabourdin ; the head of the staff came to say a 
 word or two to Monsieur Saillard \ Monsieur Baudoyer was 
 advised to make application for the cross of the Legion of 
 Honor , one will be granted to the division at New Year, and 
 it is to go to Monsieur Baudoyer. Is that clear? Monsieur 
 Rabourdin is sacrificed by the very people for whom he 
 worked. That is what Bixiou says. We were all dismissed 
 except Phellion and Sebastien." 
 
 Du Bruel {comes hi). " Well, gentlemen, is it true?" 
 
 Thuillier. " Strictly true." 
 
 Du Bruel. " Good-day, gentlemen " (j>ufs on his hat and 
 goes ouf). 
 
 Thuillier. "That vaudevilliste does not waste time on 
 file-firing; he is off to the Due de Rhetore and the Due de 
 Maufrigneuse, but he may run ! Colleville is to be our chief, 
 they say." 
 
 Phellion. "Yet he seemed to be attached to Monsieur 
 Rabourdin." 
 
 PoiRET (returns'). " I had all the trouble in the world to 
 get back my door-key. The youngster, is crying, and Mon- 
 sieur Rabourdin has completely disappeared." {Dutocq and 
 Bixiou come in together.') 
 
 Bixiou. "Well, gentlemen, queer things are happening in 
 your office! Du Bruel! — " (Jooks into du Bruel' s cabinet.) 
 "Gone?" 
 
 Thuillier. "Out." 
 
 Bixiou. " And Rabourdin ? " 
 
 Fleury. "Melted away, evaporated, vanished in smoke! 
 To think that such a man, the best of men ! " 
 
 PoiRET (Jo Dutocq). " That youngster Sebastien, in his 
 grief, accused you of taking the work, Monsieur Dutocq, ten 
 days ago " 
 
 Bixiou {looking at Dutocq). "My dear fellow, you must 
 clear yourself" (all the clerks stare at Dutocq).
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 423 
 
 DuTOCQ. " Where is the little viper that was copying it ? " 
 
 Bixiou. "How do you know that he was copying it? 
 Nothing but a diamond can cut a diamond, my dear fellow ! " 
 (^Dutocq goes out.^ 
 
 PoiRET. "Look here, Monsieur Bixiou; I have only five 
 days and a half to stay in the office, and I should like for once 
 — just for once — to have the pleasure of understanding you. 
 Do me the honor to explain where the diamond comes in 
 under the circumstances." 
 
 Bixiou. "It means, old man (for I am quite willing to 
 descend to your level for once), it means that as the diamond 
 alone can polish the diamond, so none but a pry is a match 
 for his like." 
 
 Fleury. "' 'Pry ' in this case being put for ' spy.' " 
 
 PoiRET. " I do not understand " 
 
 Bixiou. " Oh, well, another time you will." 
 
 M. Rabourdin had hurried away to the minister. His ex- 
 cellency was at the Chamber. Thither, accordingly, Rabour- 
 din went and wrote a few lines, but the minister was on his 
 legs in the midst of a hot discussion. Rabourdin waited, not 
 in the Salle des Conferences, but outside in the courtyard ; he 
 decided in spite of the cold to take up his post by his excel- 
 lency's carriage, and to speak with him as he came out. The 
 sergeant-at-arms told him that a storm had been brewed by 
 the nineteen members of the Extreme Left, and there had 
 been a scene in the House. Rabourdin meanwliile, in feverish 
 excitement, paced up and down in the courtyard. He waited 
 for five mortal hours. At half-past six the House rose, and the 
 minister's chasseur came out with a message for the coacliman. 
 
 " Hey, Jean ! His excellency has gone to the Palace with 
 the minister of war ; they will dine together afterward. We 
 are to fetch them at ten o'clock. There is to be a meeting of 
 the council." 
 
 Slowly Rabourdin walked home again in a state of exhaus-
 
 424 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 tion easy to imagine. It was seven o'clock. He had bareljr 
 time to dress. 
 
 "Well!" his wife cried joyously, as he came into the 
 drawing-room. " You have the appointment now." 
 
 Rabourdin raised his head in melancholy anguish. "I am 
 very much afraid that I shall never set foot in tlie office again." 
 
 "What ! " cried his wife, trembling with cruel anxiety. 
 
 "That memorandum of mine on the staff has been the 
 round of the department ; I tried to speak with the minister, 
 and could not." 
 
 A vision flashed before Celestine's eyes ; some demon flung 
 a sudden lurid light upon her last conversation with des 
 Lupeaulx. 
 
 "If I had behaved like a vulgar woman," she thought, 
 " we should have had the place." 
 
 She gazed at Rabourdin with something like anguish. 
 There was a dreary silence, and at dinner both were absorbed 
 in musings. 
 
 " And it is our Wednesday ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "All is not lost, dear Celestine," he answered, putting a 
 kiss upon her forehead ; "I may perhaps see the minister to- 
 morrow morning, and all will be cleared up. Sebastien sat 
 up late last night, all the fair copies are made and in order. 
 I will put the whole thing on the minister's desk, and beg 
 him to go through it with me. La Briere will help me. A 
 man is never condemned without a hearing." 
 
 "I am curious to see whether Monsieur des Ivupeaulx will 
 come to us to-day." 
 
 " He ! Of course he will come, he will not fail. There is 
 something of the tiger in him — he loves to lick the blood 
 after he has given the wound." 
 
 " My poor love, I do not know how a man that could think 
 of so grand a reform should not see, at the same time, that 
 no one must hear of it. Some ideas a man must keep within 
 himself, because he, and he alone, can carry them out. Vou,
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 425 
 
 in your sphere, should have done as Napoleon did in his ; he 
 bent and twisted and crawled — yes, crawled ! — for Bonaparte 
 married Barras' mistress to gain a command. You should 
 have waited ; you should have been elected as a deputy ; you 
 should have watched the political changes, now in the trough 
 of the sea, now on the crest of a wave ; you should have 
 adopted Monsieur de Villele's Italian motto Col tempo, other- 
 wise rendered, ' All things come round to him that will but 
 wait.' For seven years it has been Monsieur de Villele's 
 aim to be in office; he took the first step in 1814, when he 
 was just your present age, with a protest against the Charter. 
 That is your mistake; you have been ready to act under 
 orders : you were made to issue them." 
 
 The arrival of Schinncr the painter put an end to this talk, 
 but Rabourdin grew thoughtful over his wife's words. 
 
 Schinner grasped his hand. "An artist's devotion is of 
 very little use, my dear fellow; but at such times as these we 
 are stanch, we artists. I got an evening paper. Baudoyer is 
 to be director, I see, and he is to have the cross of the Legion 
 of Honor." 
 
 " I am first in order of seniority, and I have been twenty- 
 four years in the service," smiled Rabourdin. 
 
 " I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizv, the minister of 
 State, pretty well ; if you like to make use of him, I can see 
 hirn," said Schinner. 
 
 The rooms were filled with persons who knew nothing of 
 the movements of the administration. Du Bruel did not 
 appear. Mme. Rabourdin was more charming and in higher 
 spirits than usual ; the horse, wounded on the battlefield, will 
 summon up all its strength to carry its master. 
 
 The women behaved charmingly to her, now that she was 
 defeated. 
 
 " She is very brave," said some. 
 
 "And yet she was very attentive to des Lupeaulx," the 
 Baronne du CliStelet remarked to the Vicomtesse de Fontaine.
 
 426 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 "Then do you think- 
 
 " If so, Monsieur Rabourdin would at least have had the 
 cross," said Mnie. de Camps, defending her friend. 
 
 Toward ten o'clock des Lupeaulx appeared. To give an 
 idea of his appearance, it can only be said that his spectacles 
 looked melancholy, while there was laughter in his eyes ; the 
 glass veiled their expression so completely that no one but a 
 physiognomist could have seen the diabolical gleam in them. 
 He grasped Rabourdin's hand, and Rabourdin could only 
 submit to the pressure. 
 
 "We must have some talk together by-and-by," he said, as 
 he seated himself beside the fair Rabourdin, who behaved to 
 admiration. "Ah ! you are great," he said, with a side- 
 glance at her; "I find you as I imagined you — sublime in 
 defeat. Do you kijow how very seldom people respond to 
 our expectations of them ! And so you are not overwhelmed 
 by defeat. You are riglit, we shall triumph," he continued, 
 lowering his voice. "Your fate will always be in your own 
 hands so long as you have an ally in a man who worships you. 
 We will hold a council." 
 
 "But Baudoyer is appointed, is he not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And the cross?" 
 
 " Not yet, but he is going to have it." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You do not understand policy." 
 
 To Mme. Rabourdin it seemed as if that evening would 
 never come to an end. Meanwhile, in the Place Royale a 
 comedy was being played, a comedy that is always repeated 
 in seven different salons after every change of government. 
 The Saillards' sitting-room was full. M. and Mme. Transon 
 came at eight o'clock. Mme. Transon kissed Mme. Baudoyer 
 nee Saillard. M. Bataille, the captain of the National Guard, 
 came with his wife and the cure of Saint-Paul's. 
 
 " Monsieur Baudoyer, I want to be the first to congratulate
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 427 
 
 you," said Mme. Transon ; "your talents have met with their 
 deserts. Well, you have fairly earned your advancement." 
 
 "So now you are a director," added M. Transon, rubbing 
 his hands; "it is a great honor for the Quarter." 
 
 "And without scheming for it, one may say indeed," cried 
 old Saillard. '■'We are not intriguers; we Ao not go to the 
 minister's parties.'' 
 
 Uncle Mitral rubbed his nose, and smiled and looked at his 
 niece. Elizabeth was talking with Gigonnet. Falleix did 
 not know what to think of the blindness of Saillard and Bau- 
 doyer. Dutocq, Bixiou, du Bruel, and Godard came in, fol- 
 lowed by Colleville, now chief clerk. 
 
 "What chumps!" said Bixiou, in an undertone for du 
 Bruel's benefit. "What a fine caricature one might make of 
 them — a lot of flat-fish, stock-fish, and winkles all dancing a 
 saraband." 
 
 "Monsieur le Directeur, " began Colleville, "I have come 
 to congratulate you, or rather we all congratulate ourselves 
 upon your appointment, and we have come to assure you of 
 our zealous cooperation." 
 
 M. and Mme. Baudoyer, Isidore's father and mother, were 
 there to enjoy the triumph of their son and his wife. Uncle 
 Bidault had dined at home; his little twinkling eyes dismayed 
 Bixiou. 
 
 "There is a character that would do for a vaudeville," he 
 said, pointing him out to du Bruel. " What does that fellow 
 sell ? Such an odd fish ought to be hung out for a sign at the 
 door of an old curiosity shop. What a greatcoat ! I thought 
 that no one but Poiret could keep such a thing on exhibition 
 after ten years of exposure to the inclemencies of the seasons." 
 
 " Baudoyer is magnificent," said du Bruel. 
 
 " Stunning ! " returned Bixiou. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Baudoyer, "this is my own uncle, 
 Monsieur Mitral ; and this is my wife's great-uncle. Monsieur 
 Bidault !"
 
 428 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Gigonnet and Mitral looked keenly at the clerks; the 
 metallic gleam of gold seemed to glitter in the old men's 
 eyes ; it impressed the two scoffers. 
 
 "Did you take a good look at that pair of uncles, eh?" 
 asked Bixiou, as they walked under the arcades of the Palais 
 Royal. "Two specimens of the genus Shylock. They go 
 the market, I will be bound, and lend money at a hundred 
 per cent, per week. They lend on pledges, traffic in clothes, 
 gold lace, cheese, women and children ; they be Arabs, they 
 be Greeks, they be Genoese-Genevese-Lombard Jews; brought 
 forth by a Tartar and suckled by a she- wolf." 
 
 "Uncle Mitral was a bailiff once, I am certain," said 
 Godard. 
 
 " There you see ! " said du Bruel. 
 
 "I must just go and see the sheets pulled off," continued 
 Bixiou ; " but I should dearly like to make a careful study of 
 Monsieur Rabourdin's salon ; you are very lucky, du Bruel, 
 you can go there." 
 
 " I ? " said du Bruel ; " what should I do there ? My face 
 does not lend itself to the expression of condolence. And 
 beside, it is very vulgar nowadays to dance attendance on 
 persons out of office." 
 
 At midnight Mine. Rabourdin's drawing-room was empty ; 
 three persons only remained — des Lupeaulx and the master 
 and mistress of the house. When Schinner went, and M. 
 and Mme. Octave de Camps* had taken their leave, des Lu- 
 peaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back to the 
 clock, and looked at the husband and wife in turn. 
 
 " Nothing is lost, my friends," he said, " for we remain to 
 you — the minister and I. Dutocq, put between two powers, 
 chose the stronger, as it seemed to him. He served the grand 
 almoner and the Court and played me false ; it is all in the 
 day's work, a man in politics never complains of treachery. 
 Still, Baudoyer is sure to be cashiered in a few months' time 
 * Vide " Madame Firmiani."
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 429 
 
 and transferred to the prefecture of police, for the grand 
 ahnonry will not desert him." 
 
 With that, des Lupeaulx broke out into a long tirade over 
 the grand almonry, and expatiated on the risks run by a 
 Government that looked to the church and the Jesuits for 
 support. Still, it is worth while to point out that, though the 
 Liberal papers laid such stress upon the influence of Court 
 patronage and the grand almonry, neither of these counted 
 for much in Baudoyer's promotion. Petty intrigue died away 
 in the higher spheres because greater questions were at stake. 
 Perhaps M. Gaudron's importunities extorted a few words in 
 Baudoyer's favor, but at the minister's first remark the matter 
 was allowed to drop. Passion in itself did the work of a very 
 efficient spy among the members of the congregation ; they 
 used to denounce each other. And surely it was permissible 
 to oppose that society to the brazen-fronted fraternity of the 
 doctrine summed up by the formula : " Heaven helps him who 
 helps himself." As for the occult power exercised by the 
 congregation, it was for the most part wielded by subordinates 
 who used the name of that body to conjure with for their 
 private ends. Liberal rancor, in fact, delighted to represent 
 the grand almonry as a giant ; in politics, in the administra- 
 tion, in the armv or the civil service. Fear alwavs makes 
 idols for itself. At this moment Baudoyer believed in the 
 grand almonry, and all the while the only almonry that be- 
 friended him held its session at the Cafe Themis. There are 
 times in the history of the world when everything that happens 
 amiss is set down to the account of some one institution, or 
 man in power; nobody will give them credit for their abili- 
 ties, they serve as synonyms and equivalent terms for crass 
 stupidity. As M. de Talleyrand was supposed to hail every 
 political event with an epigram, so in the same manner the 
 grand almonry did and undid everything at this period. Un- 
 luckily, it did and undid nothing whatever. Its inflr.cnce 
 was not in the hands of a Cardinal Richelieu or a Cardinal
 
 430 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Mazarin ; it fell, on the contrary, to a sort of Cardinal Fleury, 
 the kind of man that is timid for five years and rash for a day. 
 At Saint-Merri, at a later day, the doctrine above mentioned 
 did with impunity what Charles X. only attempted to do in 
 July, 1830. If the proviso as to the censorship had not been 
 so stupidly inserted in the new Charter, journalism also would 
 have seen its Saint-Merri. The Orleans Branch would have 
 carried out the scheme of Charles X., with the law at its 
 back. 
 
 " Stop on under Baudoyer, summon up courage for that," 
 continued des Lupeaulx, " be a true politician, put generous 
 thoughts and impulses aside, confine yourself to you duty, say 
 not a word to your director, never give him advice, and act 
 only upon his orders. In three months' time Baudoyer will 
 leave the department ; they will either dismiss him or transfer 
 him to some other sphere of activity. Perhaps he may go to 
 the Household. Twice in my life I have been buried under 
 an avalanclie of folly in this way; I let it go by." 
 
 "Yes," said Rabourdin, "but you were not slandered, 
 your honor was not involved, you were not compromised " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx interrupted him with a peal of Homeric 
 laughter. " Why, that is the daily bread of every man of 
 mark in the whole fair realm of France ! There are two ways 
 of taking it ; you can go under, which means you pack your- 
 self oflf and plant cabbages somewhere or other ; or you rise 
 above it, and walk fearlessly on without so much as turning 
 your head." 
 
 " In my own case," said Rabourdin, " there is but one way 
 of untying the slip-knot which espionage and treachery have 
 tightened about my neck ; it is this — I must have an explana- 
 tion with the minister at once ; and if you are as sincerely 
 attached to me as you say, it is in your power to bring me 
 face to face with him to-morrow." 
 
 " Do you wish to lay your plan of administrative reform 
 before him ?"
 
 LES EMPLOYES. -131 
 
 Rabourdin bowed. 
 
 "Very well then, intrust your projects and memoranda to 
 me, and he shall spend the night over them, I will engage." 
 
 "Then let us go together," Rabourdin answered quickly; 
 " for after six years of work, at least I may expect the gratifi- 
 cation of explaining it for an hour or two to a member of his 
 majesty's Government, for the minister cannot choose but 
 commend my perseverance." 
 
 Des Lupeauix hesitated for a moment ; Rabourdin's tena- 
 city of purpose had put him on a road in which there was 
 no cover for duplicity, so he looked at Mme. Rabourdin. 
 " Which shall turn the scale? " he asked himself; " my hatred 
 of him, my liking for her ? " 
 
 "If you cannot trust me," he returned after a pause, "I 
 can see that, as far as I am concerned, you will always be the 
 writer of that 'secret note.' Farewell, madame." 
 
 Mme. Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier went 
 to their own rooms without a word, so heavily their misfortune 
 lay upon them. The wife thought of her own unpleasant 
 position. The chief clerk was making up his mind never to 
 set foot in the office again ; he was lost in far-reaching thouglits. 
 This step was to change the course of his life ; he must strike 
 out a new path. He sat all night before his fire ; Celestine, 
 in her night-dress, stole in on tip-toe now and again, but he 
 did not see her. 
 
 "Since I must go back for the last time to take away my 
 papers and to put Baudoyer in possession, let us try the effect 
 of my resignation." 
 
 He drafted his resignation, meditated over his expressions, 
 and wrote the following letter : 
 
 " MoNSEiGNEUR : — I have the honor to inclose my resigna- 
 tion in tlie same cover; but I venture to believe that your 
 excellency will recollect that I said that I had placed my 
 honor in your hands, and that an immediate explanation was
 
 432 LES EMPLOY&S. 
 
 necessary. The explanation which I implored in vain would 
 probably now be useless, for a fragment of my work has been 
 surreptitiously taken and distorted and misinterpreted by 
 malevolence, and I am compelled to withdraw before the 
 tacit censure of those in authority. Your excellency may 
 have thought, when I tried to obtain an interview that morn- 
 ing, that I wished to speak of my own advancement, whereas 
 I was thinking only of the honor of your excellency's depart- 
 ment and the public good; it is of some consequence to me 
 that your excellency should lie under no misapprehension on 
 this head," and the letter ended with the usual formulas. 
 
 By half-past seven o'clock the sacrifice had been made, the 
 whole manuscript had been burnt. Tired out with thought 
 and overcome by moral suffering, Rabourdin fell into a doze, 
 with his head resting on the back of the armchair. A strange 
 sensation awakened him ; he felt hot tears falling on his hands, 
 and saw his wife kneeling beside him. Celestine had come in 
 and read the letter. She understood the full extent of their 
 ruin. They were reduced to live upon four thousand livres; 
 and, reckoning up her debts, she found that they amounted to 
 thirty-two thousand francs. It was the most sordid poverty 
 of all. And the noble man that had put such trust in her had 
 no suspicion of the way in which she had abused his confi- 
 dence. Celestine, fair as the Magdalen, was sobbing at his 
 feet. 
 
 "The misfortune is complete," Xavier exclaimed in his 
 dismay; "dishonored in the department, dishonored " 
 
 A gleam of stainless honor flashed from Celestine's eyes ; 
 she sprang up like a frightened horse, her eyes flashed light- 
 nings. 
 
 "I, // " she cried in sublime tones. "Am I, too, an or- 
 dinary wife ? If I had faltered, would you not have had your 
 appointment? But it is easier to believe that than to believe 
 the truth." 
 
 1
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 433 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Rabourdin. 
 
 " You shall have it all in a few words," said she ; " we owe 
 thirty thousand francs." 
 
 Rabourdin caught her to him in a frenzy of joy, and made 
 her sit on his knee. 
 
 '• Never mind, darling," he said, and a great kindness that 
 slid into the tones of his voice changed the bitterness of her 
 tears into something vaguely and strangely sweet. "I, too, 
 have made mistakes. I worked for my country to very little 
 purpose; when I thought, at any rate, I might have done 
 something worth the doing. Now I will start out on a new 
 path. If I had sold spices all this while, we should be mil- 
 lionaires by now. Very well, let us sell spices. You are only 
 twenty-eight years old, my darling. In ten years' time, hard 
 work will give you back the luxury that you love, though we 
 mubt give it up now for a little while. I, too, darling, am not 
 an ordinary husband. We will sell the farm ; the value of the 
 land has been going up for seven years ; the surplus and the 
 furniture will pay my debts." 
 
 In Celestine's kiss there was love given back a thousandfold 
 for that generous word. 
 
 "And then we shall have a hundred thousand francs to put 
 into some business or other. In a month's time I shall find 
 an investment. If Saillard happened upon a Martin Falleix, 
 chance cannot fail us. Wait breakfast for me. I will come 
 back from the minister with my neck free of that miserable 
 yoke." 
 
 Cclcstine held her husband in a tight clasp, with super- 
 human force ; for the might of love gives a woman more than 
 a mian's strength, more power than the utmost transports of 
 rage give to the strong. 
 
 She was hysterically laughing and crying, talking and sob- 
 bing all at once. 
 
 When Rabourdin went out at eight o'clock, the porter 
 handed him the burlesque visiting cards sent in by Baudoyer, 
 28
 
 484 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Bixiou, Godard, and the rest. Nevertheless, he went to the 
 office, and found Sebastien waiting for him at the door ; the 
 lad begged him not to attempt to enter the place, a scurrilous 
 caricature was being handed about. 
 
 " If you wish to alleviate the bitterness of my fall, bring me 
 that drawing ; for I am just taking my resignation myself to 
 Ernest de la Bridre, so that it may not be twisted out of all 
 knowledge on its way to headquarters, I have my reasons for 
 asking to see the caricature." 
 
 Rabourdin waited till he was sure that his letter was in the 
 minister's hands; then he went down to the courtyard. Se- 
 bastien gave him the lithographed drawing. There were 
 tears in the boy's eyes. 
 
 "It is very clever," said Rabourdin, and the face that he 
 turned upon the supernumerary was as serene as the Saviour's 
 brow beneath the crown of thorns. 
 
 He walked in quietly as usual, and went straight to Bau- 
 doyer's general office to give the necessary explanations be- 
 fore that slave of red-tape entered upon his new duties as 
 director. 
 
 "Tell Monsieur Baudoyer there is no time to lose," he 
 added before Godard and the clerks. "My resignation is 
 now in the minister's hands, and I do not choose to stay in 
 the office five minutes longer than I can help." 
 
 Then, catching sight of Bixiou, Rabourdin walked up to 
 him, held out the drawing, and said, to the astonishment of 
 the clerks — 
 
 '•Was I not right when I said that you were an artist? 
 Only it is a pity that you used your pencil against a man whom 
 it was impossible to judge in such a maniier, or in the offices. 
 But people ridicule everything in France — even God Him- 
 self." 
 
 With that he drew Baudoyer into the late La Billardierc's 
 rooms. At the door he met Phellion and Sebastien. Tiiey 
 alone dared to show that they were faithful to the accused.
 
 LES EMPLOY&S. 435 
 
 even in this great shipwreck. Rabourdin saw the tears in 
 Phellion's eyes, and in spite of himself he wrung the clerk's 
 hand. 
 
 " Mosieur," the good fellow said, " if we can be of any use 
 whatever, command us " 
 
 " Come in, my friends," Rabourdin said with a gracious 
 dignity. " Sebastien, my boy, send in your resignation by 
 Laurent ; you are sure to be implicated in the slander that has 
 driven me from my place, but I will take care of your future. 
 We will go together." 
 
 Sebastien burst into tears. 
 
 M. Rabourdin closeted himself with M. Baudoyer in the 
 late La Billardiere's room, and Phellion assisted him to ex- 
 plain the diflficulties of the position to the new head of the 
 division. With each new file of papers displayed by Rabour- 
 din, with the opening of every pasteboard case, Baudoyer's 
 little eyes grew large as saucers, 
 
 "Farewell, monsieur," concluded Rabourdin, with ironical 
 gravity. 
 
 Sebastien meantime made up a packet of papers belonging 
 to the chief clerk and took them away in a cab. Rabourdin 
 crossed the great courtyard to wait on the minister. All the 
 clerks in the building were at the windows. Rabourdin. 
 waited for a few minutes, but the minister made no sign. 
 Then, accompanied by Phellion and Sebastien, he went out. 
 Phellion bravely went as far as the Rue Duphot with the fallen 
 official, by way of expressing his admiration and respect ; then 
 he returned to his desk, quite satisfied with himself. He had 
 paid funeral honors to a great unappreciated talent for admin- 
 istration. 
 
 Bixiou {as Phellion comes in). " Victrix causa diis placuit, 
 sed vicia Catoni. ' ' 
 
 Phellion. " Yes, monsieur." 
 
 PoiRET. " What does that mean ? " 
 
 Fleurv. "It means that the clericals rejoice, and that
 
 436 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Monsieur Rabourdin goes out with the esteem of all men of 
 honor." 
 
 DuTOCQ (nettled'). ' ' You talked very differently yesterday. ' ' 
 
 Fleury. " Say another word to me, and you shall feel my 
 fist in your face. You sneaked Monsieur Rabourdin's work, 
 that is certain ! " (^Dutocq goes out.') " Now go and com- 
 plain to your Monsieur des Lupeaulx, you spy ! " 
 
 Bixiou i^gritining and grimacing like a monkey). " I am 
 curious to see how the division will get on. Monsieur Ra- 
 bourdin was such a remarkable man that he must have had 
 something in view when he made that list. The department 
 is losing an uncommonly clever head " (rubbing his hands). 
 
 Laurent. "Monsieur Fleurv is wanted in the secretary's 
 office." 
 
 Omnes. "Sacked!" 
 
 Fleury (from the door). "It is all one to me ; I have got 
 a berth as a responsible editor. I can lounge about all day, or 
 find something amusing to do in the newspaper office." 
 
 Bixiou. " Dutocq has had poor old Desroys dismissed 
 already; he was accused of wanting to cut off people's 
 heads " 
 
 Thuillier. '^ Les tites des rois ? '' (Desroys.) 
 
 Bixiou. " Accept my congratulations. That is neat." 
 
 Enter Colleville (exultant). " Gentlemen, I am your 
 chief clerk ! " 
 
 Thuillier (embracing him). " Oh, my friend, if I were 
 chief myself, I should not be so pleased ! " 
 
 Bixiou. " His wife did that stroke of business, so it is 
 not a master-stroke." 
 
 Poiret. " I should like to know the meaning of all this." 
 
 Bixiou. " You want to know? There it is. The Cham- 
 ber is, and always will be, the antechamber of the Adminis- 
 tration, the Court is the boudoir, the ordinary way is the 
 cellar, the bed is made now more than ever in the little 
 b}-ways thereof."
 
 LES EMPLOY&S. 437 
 
 PoiRET. "Monsieur Bixiou, explain yourself, I beg." 
 Bixiou. " I will give you a paraphrase of ray opinion. 
 If you mean to be anything at last, you must be everything at 
 first. Obviously, administrative reforms must be made ; for, 
 upon my word and honor, if the employes rob the Govern- 
 ment of the time they ought to give to it, the Government 
 robs them in return to make matters even. We do little be- 
 cause we get next to nothing ; there are far too many of us 
 for the work to be done, and La Vertueuse Rabourdin saw all 
 that ! That great man among the scribes foresaw the inevita- 
 ble result, gentlemen, the * working ' (as simpletons are pleased 
 to call it) of our admirable Liberal institutions. The 
 Chamber will soon want to meddle with the Administration, 
 and officials will want to be legislators. The Government 
 will try to administer the laws, and the Administration will 
 try to govern the country. Laws, accordingly, will be trans- 
 formed into rules ana ivigulations, and regulations will be 
 treated as laws. God made this epoch for those that can 
 enjoy a joke. I am looking on in admiration at the spectacle 
 set forth for us by Louis XVIIL, the greatest wag of modern 
 times " {general amazement). "And if France, gentlemen, the 
 best administered country in Europe, is in such a way, think 
 what a state the others must be in. Poor countries ! I won- 
 der how they get on at all without the two Chambers, the 
 Liberty of the Press, the Report, the Memorial, and the 
 Circular, and a whole army of clerks ! Think, now, how do 
 they contrive to have an army or a navy ? How can they exist 
 when there is no one to weigh the pros and cons of every 
 breath they draw and every mouthful that they eat ? Can 
 that sort of thing be called a government or a country ? 
 These funny fellows that travel about have stood me out that 
 foreigners pretend to have a policy of their own, and that 
 they enjoy a certain influence ; but, there — I pity them \ 
 They know nothing of ' the spread of enlightenment ; ' they 
 cannot ' set ideas in circulation ; ' they have no free and
 
 488 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 independent tribunes ; they are sunk in barbarism. There 
 is no nation like the French for intelligence ! Do you grasp 
 that, Monsieur Poiret ? " (JPoiret looks as if he had received 
 a sudden shock.') " Can you understand how a country can 
 do without heads of divisions, directors-general, and dis- 
 pense with a great staff of officials that is, and has been, the 
 pride of France and of the Emperor Napoleon, who had his 
 very sufficient reasons for creating places to fill ? But, there 
 — since these countries have the impudence to exist ; since 
 the War Office at Vienna employs scarcely a hundred clerks 
 all told (whereas with us, little as they expected it before the 
 Revolution, salaries and pensions now eat up one-third of the 
 revenue), I will sum up by suggesting that as the Academic 
 des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres has very little to do, it 
 might as well offer a prize for the solution of the following 
 problem: 'Which is the better constituted — the State that 
 does a great deal with a few officials, or the State that does 
 little and keeps plenty of officials to do it ?' " 
 
 Poiret. " Is that your last word ? " 
 
 Bixiou. "J^a, mein Herr.' Oui, monsieur! Si, signor ! 
 Da / I spare you the other languages." 
 
 Poiret iraisifig his hands to heaven). "Good Lord! and 
 they tell me that you are clever ! " 
 
 Bixiou. " Then did you not understand after all ? " 
 
 Phellion. "Anyhow, there is plenty of sense in that last 
 remark " 
 
 Bixiou. "It is like the budget, as complicated as it seems 
 to be simple ; and thus I set it for you, like an illuminating 
 lamp upon the edge of that break-neck precipice, that hole, 
 that abyss, volcano, or what not, which the ' Constitutionnel ' 
 calls * the political horizon.' " 
 
 Poiret. " I would rather have an explanation that I can 
 understand." 
 
 Bixiou. "Long live Rabourdin ! that is my opinion. 
 Are you satisfied ? "
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 439 
 
 CoLLEViLLE {gravely). " Tiiere is only one thing to be 
 said ay:ainst Monsieur Rabourdin." 
 
 PoiRET. " Wiiat is it ?" 
 
 CoLLEViLLE. " He was not a chief clerk ; he was a states- 
 man." 
 
 Phellion (^planting himself in front of Bixiou). " Mosieur, 
 if you appreciated. Monsieur Rabourdin so well, what made 
 you draw that disgus — that inf — that shocking caricature?" 
 
 Bixiou. " How about that wager? Do you forget that I 
 was playing the devil's game, and that your office owes me a 
 dinner at the Rocher de Cancale ? " 
 
 PoiRET {tnuch ruffled). " It seems to be written that 1 am 
 to leave this place without comprehending a single idea in 
 anything that Monsieur Bixiou says." 
 
 Bixiou. "It is your own fault. Ask these gentlemen ! 
 Gentlemen, did you understand the gist of my observations ? 
 Were they just ? Were they luminous ? " 
 
 Omnes. " Yes, alas ! " 
 
 MiNARD, " Here is proof of it : I have just sent in my 
 resignation. Good-day, gentlemen ; I am going into busi- 
 ness " 
 
 Bixiou. " Have you invented a mechanical corset or a 
 feeding-bottle, a fire-pump or pattens, a stove that gives heat 
 without fuel, or cooks a cutlet with three sheets of paper ? " 
 
 MiNARD {going). " I shall keep my secret to myself." 
 
 Bixiou. "Ah, well, young Poirct, junior, these gentle- 
 men all understand me, you see ! " 
 
 PoiRET {rtiortified). " Monsieur Bixiou, will you do me the 
 honor to descend to my level just for once " 
 
 Bixiou {winking at the others). " By all means. Before 
 you go, you may perhaps be glad to know what you are " 
 
 PoiRET {quickly). "An honest man, sir." 
 
 Bixiou {shrugging his shoulders). "To define, explain, 
 explore, and analyze the employe. Do you know how?" 
 
 PoiRET. " I think so."
 
 440 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 Bixiou {twisting one of Poirei' s buttons). "I most cer- 
 tainly doubt it." 
 
 PoiRET. "An employe is a man paid to work for the 
 Government." 
 
 Bixiou. " Obviously. Then a soldier is an employe?" 
 
 Yox^YTi: {perplexed). "Why, no." 
 
 Bixiou, "At any rate, he is paid by the Government to 
 go on guard and to be passed in review. You will tell me 
 that he is too anxious to leave his post, that he is not long 
 enough at his post, that he works too hard, and touches metal 
 too seldom (the barrel of his gun always excepted)." 
 
 PoiRET {opening wide eyes). "Well, then, sir, an employe, 
 more strictly speaking, is a man who must draw his salary if 
 he is to live ; he is not free to leave his post, and he can do 
 nothing but copy and dispatch documents." 
 
 Bixiou. " Ah, now we are arriving at a solution ! So the 
 government office is the employe's shell ? You cannot have 
 the one without the other. Now, what are we to say about 
 the tide-waiter?" {Poiret tries to stamp in vexation and es- 
 cape ; but Bixiou, having pulled off one button, holds him by 
 another.) "Bah ! in the bureaucratic world he probably is a 
 neuter. The customs-house official is a semi-employe ; he is 
 on the frontier just as he is on the borderland between the 
 civil service and the army ; he is not exactly a soldier, and 
 not precisely an employe either. But look here, daddy, where 
 are we going?" {twists the button.) "Where does the em- 
 ploye end ? It is an important question. Is a prefect an 
 employe ? " 
 
 Poiret {nervously). "He is a functionary." 
 
 Bixiou, "Oh! you are coming to a contradiction in 
 terms ! So a functionary is not an employe ! " 
 
 Poiret {looks round exhausted). " Monsieur Godard looks 
 as though he had something to say." 
 
 GoDARD. "The employe represents the order, the func- 
 tionary the genus."
 
 LES EMFLOVAs. 441 
 
 Bixiou. " Clever j«^-ordinate ! I should not have thought 
 you capable of so ingenious a distinction." 
 
 PoiRET. " Where are wc going? " 
 
 Bixiou. "There, daddy, let us not trip ourselves up with 
 words. Listen, and wc shall come to an understanding in the 
 end. Look here, we will establish an axiom, which I be- 
 queath to the office — The functionary begins where the em- 
 ploye ends, and the functionary leaves off where the statesman 
 begins. There are very few statesmen, however, among pre- 
 fects. So the prefect would seem to be a kind of neuter 
 among superior orders of being; he is half-way between the 
 statesman and the employe, much as the tide-waiter is not 
 exactly a soldier or a civilian, but something of both. Let us 
 continue to unravel these lofty questions." {^Poiret grows red 
 in the face^. " Can we not state the matter in a theorem 
 worthy of La Rochefoucauld ? When salaries reach the limit 
 line of twenty thousand francs, the employe ceases. Hence 
 we may logically deduce the first corollary — The statesman 
 reveals himself in the sphere of high salaries. Likewise this 
 second and no less important corollary — It is possible for a 
 director-general to be a statesman. Perhaps deputies mean 
 something of this kind when they think within themselves 
 that ' it is a fine thing to be a director-general.' Still, in the 
 interests of the French language and the Academy " 
 
 PoiRET {completely fascinated by Bixioii s fixity of gaze). 
 "The French language ! — the Academy ! " 
 
 Bixiou (twisting off a second button, and seizing upon the one 
 above it). "■ Yes, in the interests of our noble language, your 
 attention must be called to the fact that if a chief clerk, 
 .strictly speaking, may still be an employe, a head of the 
 division is of necessity a bureaucrat. These gentlemen " — 
 (turning to the clerks, and holding up Poire t' s third button for 
 their inspection) — " these gentkmen will appreciate all the 
 delicacy of that subtle shade of distinction. And so, Papa 
 Poiret, the employe ends absolutely at the head of a division. 
 
 P
 
 442 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 So here is the question settled once for all — there is no more 
 doubt about it ; the employe, who might seem to be inde- 
 finable, is defined." 
 
 PoiRET. "Beyond a doubt, as it seems to me." 
 
 Bixiou. " And yet, be so far my friend as to solve me this 
 problem : A judge is permanently appointed, consequently, 
 according to your subtle distinction, he cannot be a func- 
 tionary ; and as his salary and the amount of work do not 
 correspond, ought he to be included among employes? " 
 
 PoiRET {gazing at the ceiling). "-Monsieur, I cannot fol- 
 low you now " 
 
 Bixiou {nipping off a fourth button). "I wanted to show 
 you, monsieur, in the first place, that nothing is simple; but 
 more particularly — and what I am about to remark is meant 
 for the benefit of philosophists (if you will permit me to twist 
 a saying attributed to Louis XVIII.) — I wish to point out 
 that, side by side with the need of a definition, lies the peril 
 of getting mixed." 
 
 PoiRET {wiping his forehead). "I beg your pardon, mon- 
 sieur, I feel queasy" {tries to button his overcoat). "Oh! 
 you have cut off all my buttons ! " 
 
 Bixiou. " Well, «(?w do you understand ? " 
 
 YoYi(.^T {vexed). " Yes, sir. Yes. I understand that you 
 meant to play me a very nasty trick by cutting off my buttons 
 while I was not looking." 
 
 ^\y.\o\5 {solemnly). "Old man, you err. I was trying to 
 engrave upon your mind as lively an image of the Govern- 
 ment as is possible " {all eyes are turned on Bixiou. Poiret, in 
 his amazement, looks round at the others with vague uneasiness). 
 " That is how I kept my word. I took the parabolic method 
 known to savages. (Now listen /) While the ministers are 
 at the Chambers, starting discussions just about as profitable 
 and conclusive as ours, the Administration is cutting off the 
 taxpayers' buttons." 
 
 Omnes. " Bravo, Bixiou ! "
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 448 
 
 PoiRET {as he begins to comprehend^. " I do not grudge my 
 buttons now." 
 
 Bixiou. "And I shall do as Minard does. I do not care 
 to sign receipts for such trifling sums any longer ; I deprive 
 the department of my cooperation" {goes out amid general 
 laughter^. 
 
 Meanwhile another and more instructive scene was taking 
 place in the minister's reception-room ; more instructive, be 
 it said, because it may give some idea of the way in which 
 great ideas come to nothing in lofty regions, and how the in- 
 habitants thereof find consolation in misfortune. At this par- 
 ticular moment des Lupeaulx was introducing M. Baudoyer, 
 the new director. Two or three Ministerialist deputies were 
 present beside M. Clergeot, to whom his excellency gave as- 
 surance of an honorable retiring pension. After various com- 
 monplace remarks, the event of the day came up in conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 A Deputy. " So Rabourdin has gone for good ? " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx. " He has sent in his resignation." 
 
 Clergeot. "He wanted to reform the civil service, they 
 said." 
 
 The Minister {looking at the deputies'). ** Perhaps the 
 salaries are not proportionate to the services required." 
 
 De la Bri£re. "According to Monsieur Rabourdin, a 
 hundred men, with salaries of twelve thousand francs apiece, 
 will do the same work better and more expeditiously than a 
 thousand at twelve hundred francs." 
 
 Clergeot. " Perhaps he is right." 
 
 The Minister. "There is no help for it ! The machine 
 is made that way ; the whole thing would have to be taken to 
 pieces and reconstructed \ and who would have the courage to 
 do that in front of the tribune and under the fire of stupid 
 declamation from the Opposition or terrific articles in the 
 press? Still, some day or other there will be a disastrous
 
 444 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 hitch somewhere between the Government and the Adminis- 
 tration." 
 
 The Deputy. '' What will happen ? " 
 
 The Minister. " Some minister will see a good thing to 
 be done, and will be unable to do it. You will have created 
 interminable delays between legislation and carrying the law 
 into effect. You may make it impossible to steal a five-franc 
 piece, but you cannot prevent collusion to gain private ends. 
 Some things will never be done until clandestine stipulations 
 have been made, and it is very difficult to detect such things. 
 And, then, every man on the staff, from the chief down to the 
 lowest clerk, will soon have his own opinion on this matter 
 and that; they will no longer be hands directed by a brain, 
 they will not carry out the intentions of the Government. 
 The Opposition is gradually giving them a right to speak and 
 vote against the Government, and to condemn it." 
 
 Baudoyer {in a low voice, but not so low as to be inaudible). 
 " His excellency is sublime ! " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx. " Bureaucracy certainly has its bad side; 
 it is slow and insolent, I think ; it hampers the action of the 
 department overmuch ; it snuffs out many a project ; it stops 
 progress ; but, still, the French administration is wonderfully 
 useful " 
 
 Baudoyer. " Certainly." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx. " — if only as a support to the trade in 
 stationery and stamps. And if, like many excellent house- 
 wives, the civil service is apt to be a little bit fussy, she can 
 give an account of her expenditure at any moment. Where is 
 the clever man in business that would not be only too glad to 
 drop five per cent, on his turnover if some insurance agent 
 would undertake to guarantee him against ' leakage?' " 
 
 The Deputy (a manufacturer). "Manufacturers on both 
 sides of the Atlantic would be delighted to make a bargain 
 with the imp known as ' leakage ' on such terms as those." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx. "Well, statistics may be the weakness of
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 445 
 
 the modern statesman ; he is apt to take figures for calculation, 
 but we must use figures to make calculations ; therefore, let us 
 calculate. If a society is based on money and self-interest, it 
 takes its stand on figures, and society has been thus based since 
 the Charter* was drawn up ; so I think, at least. And, then, 
 there is nothing like a column of figures for carrying convic- 
 tion to the 'intelligent masses.' Everything, in fact, so say 
 our statesmen of the Left, can be resolved into figures. So to 
 figures let us betake ourselves ' ' {the minister takes one of the 
 deputies aside and begins to talk in a low voice.) "Here, in 
 France, there are about forty thousand men in the employ of 
 the Government ; not counting road-menders, crossing-sweep- 
 ers, and cigarette-makers. Fifteen hundred francs is the 
 average amount of a salary. Multiply fifteen hundred francs 
 by forty thousand, and you get sixty millions. And before 
 we go any further, a publicist might call the attention of 
 China, Austria, Russia (where civil servants rob the govern- 
 ment), and divers American republics to the fact that for 
 this sum France obtains the fussiest, most fidgety, interfering, 
 inquisitive, meddlesome, painstaking, categorical set of scrib- 
 blers and hoarders of wastepaper, the veriest old wife among 
 all known administrations. Not one sou can be paid or 
 received in France but a written order must be made out, 
 checked off by a counterfoil, produced again and again at 
 every stage of the business, and duly receipted at the end. 
 And afterward the demand and receipt must be filed, entered, 
 posted, and checked by a set of men in spectacles. The 
 official understrapper takes fright at the least sign of an infor- 
 mality, for he lives by such minutice. Well, plenty of coun- 
 tries would be satisfied with that ; but Napoleon went further. 
 He, great organizer as he was, reestablished supreme magis- 
 trates in one court, a unique court in the world. These 
 
 * The Charter here mentioned was the one £;ranted by Louis XVIII. 
 at the time of the Restoration ; it also embraced the Code-Napoleon, but 
 slightly modified.
 
 446 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 functionaries spent their days in checking off all the bills, 
 pay-sheets, muster-rolls, deposit certificates, receipts, and 
 statements of expenditure, and all the files and bundles of 
 wastepapcr which the staff first covered with writing. Those 
 austere judges possessed a talent for minutice, a genius for 
 investigation, and a lynx-eyed perspicacity in book-keeping, 
 which reached such an extreme that they went through every 
 column of additions in their quest of frauds. They were sub- 
 lime martyrs of arithmetic ; they would send back a statement 
 of accounts to a superintendent of army stores because they had 
 detected an error of two centimes made two years previously. 
 So the French administration is the most incorruptible service 
 that ever accumulated wastepaper on the surface of the globe ; 
 theft, as his excellency observed just now, is all but impossible 
 in France, and the talk of malversation a figment of the imag- 
 ination. 
 
 "Well, where is the objection? France draws an annual 
 revenue of twelve hundred millions, and she spends it ; that 
 is all. Twelve hundred millions come into her cash-box, and 
 twelve hundred millions go out. She actually handles two 
 milliards four hundred millions, and only pays two and a half 
 per cent, to guarantee herself against leakage. Our political \ 
 
 kitchen account only amounts to sixty millions ; the gendar- i 
 
 merie, the law-courts, the prisons, and detectives cost us more 
 and do nothing in return. And we find employment for a 
 class of men who are fit for nothing else, you may be very 
 sure. The waste, if waste there is, could not be better regu- 
 lated ; the Chambers are art and part in it ; the public 
 money is squandered in strictly legal fashion. The real leak- 
 age consists in ordering public works that are not needed, or 
 not immediately needed ; in altering soldiers' uniforms; in 
 ordering men-of-war without ascertaining whether timber is 
 dear or not at the time ; in unnecessary preparations for war ; 
 in paying the debts of a State without demanding repayment 
 or security, and so forth, and so forth." 
 
 t
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 447 
 
 Baudoyer. "But the employe has nothing to do with 
 leakage in high quarters. Mismanagement of national affairs 
 concerns the statesman at the helm." 
 
 The 'b^liaiST'E.R (^his conversation being concluded). "There 
 is truth in what des Lupeaulx was saying just now; but" 
 {turning to Baudoyer) "you must bear in mind that no one 
 is looking at the matter from a statesman's point of view. It 
 does not follow that because such and such a piece of expen- 
 diture was unwise or even useless that it was a case of mal- 
 administration. In any case, it sets money circulating; and 
 in France, of all countries, stagnation in trade is fatal, be- 
 cause the profoundly illogical habit of hoarding coin is so 
 prevalent in the provinces, and so much gold is kept out of 
 circulation as it is " 
 
 The Deputy {who has been listening to des Lupeaulx.) 
 "But it seems to me that if your excellency is right, and if 
 our witty friend here " {taking des Lupeaulx by the arm), " if 
 our friend is not wrong, what are we to think? " 
 
 Des Lupeaulx {after exchanging a glance with the minister). 
 "Something must be done, no doubt." 
 
 De la Briere {diffidently). " Then Monsieur Rabourdin 
 is right?" 
 
 The Minister. " I am going to see Rabourdin." 
 
 Des Lupeaulx. " Tlie poor man was so misguided as to 
 constitute himself supreme judge of the administration and 
 the staff; he wants to have no more than three departments 
 in the service." 
 
 The Minister {interrupting). "Why, the man is evi- 
 dently mad ! " 
 
 The Deputy. " How is he going to represent the different 
 parties in the Chamber?" 
 
 Baudoyer {with an air that is meant to be knowing). " Per- 
 haps, at the same time Monsieur Rabourdin is changing the 
 Constitution of this great country which we owe to the King- 
 Legislator."
 
 445 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 The Minister (^growing thoughtful, takes de la Bri'ere by 
 the arm and steps aside). " I should like to look at Rabour- 
 din's scheme ; and since you know about it " 
 
 De la Briere {in the cabinet). " He has burnt it all. 
 You allowed him to be dishonored ; he has resigned. You 
 must not suppose, my lord, that he entertained the preposter- 
 ous idea, attributed to him by des Lupeaulx, of making any 
 change in the admirable centralization of authority." 
 
 The Minister {to himself). "I have made a mistake." 
 {A moment' s pause). " Bah ! there will never be any scarcity 
 of schemes of reform " 
 
 Da la Briere. "We have ideas in plenty; we lack the 
 men that can carry them out." 
 
 Just then Lupeaulx, insinuating advocate of abuses, entered 
 the cabinet. 
 
 " I am going down to address my constituents, your excel- 
 lency." 
 
 "Wait!" returned his excellency, and, turning from his 
 private secretary, he drew des Lupeaulx to a window. " Give 
 up that arrondissement to me, my dear fellow ; you shall have 
 the title of count, and I will pay your debts. And — and if I 
 am still in office after next election, I will find a way of put- 
 ting you in with a batch of other personages to be made a 
 peer of France." 
 
 " You are a man of honor; I accept." 
 
 And so it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, 
 whose father was ennobled by Louis XV., and bore quarterly ; 
 of the first, argent, a wolf sable, ravissant, carrying a lamb, 
 gules ; of the second, purpjir, three buckles argent, two and one ; 
 of the third, barry of six, gules and argent ; of the fourth, 
 gules, a caduceus 7vinged and wreathed with serpents, vert ; 
 with four griffins' claws for supporters ; and en lupus in 
 historia for a motto, managed to surmount his half-burlesque 
 escutcheon with a count's coronet.
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 449 
 
 Toward the end of December, 1S30, business brought Ra- 
 bourdin back to his old office. The whole department had 
 been shaken by changes from top to bottom ; and the revolu- 
 tion affected the messengers more than anybody else — they are 
 never very fond of new faces. Knowing all the people in the 
 place, Rabourdin had come early in the morning, and so 
 chanced to overhear a conversation between Laurent's nephews, 
 for Antoinc had been pensioned. 
 
 ■' Well, how is your chief? " 
 
 " Don't speak of him ; I can make nothing of him. He 
 rings to ask whether I have seen his pocket-handkerchief or 
 his snuff-box. He does not keep people waiting, but has 
 them shown in at once ; he has not the least dignity, in fact. 
 I myself am obliged to say : * Why, sir, the count, your pred- 
 ecessor, in the interests of authority, used to whittle his arm- 
 chair with a penknife to make people believe that he worked.' 
 In short, he makes a regular muddle of it ; the place does not 
 know itself, to my thinking ; he is a very poor creature. 
 How is yours ? ' ' 
 
 "Mine? Oh, I have trained him at last; he knows 
 where his paper and envelopes are kept, and where the 
 firewood is, and all his things. My other used to swear ; 
 this one is good-tempered. But he is not the big style of 
 thing ; he has no order at his button-hole. I like a chief to 
 have an order ; if he hasn't, they may take him for one of us, 
 and that is so mortifying. He takes home office stationery, 
 and asked me if I could go to his house to wait at evening 
 parties." 
 
 " Ah ! what a Government, my dear fellow." 
 
 " Yes, a set of swindlers." 
 
 " 1 wish they may not nibble at our poor salaries." 
 
 " I am afraid they will. The Chambers keep a sharp look- 
 out on you. Tlicy haggle over the firewood." 
 
 ''Oh, well, if that is the style of them, it will not last 
 long." 
 
 " Wc are in for it ! Somebody is listening," 
 29
 
 450 
 
 LES EMPLOYES. 
 
 \ 
 
 " Oh ! it is Monsieur Rabourdin that used to be. Ah ! sir, 
 I knew you by your way of coming in. If you want any- 
 thing here, there is nobody that will know the respect that is 
 owing to you ; there is nobody of your time left now but us. 
 Monsieur Colleville and Monsieur Baudoyer did not wear out 
 the leather on their chairs after you went. Lord ! six months 
 afterward they got appointments as receivers of taxes at 
 Paris." 
 
 Paris, y«/F, 1836. 
 
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