Eve and David
by Honoré de Balzac · English · Gutenberg #1639 · 431,715 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Eve and David
Author: Honoré de Balzac
Translator: Ellen Marriage
Release date: August 11, 2004 [eBook #1639]
Most recently updated: February 16, 2025
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1639
Credits: Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVE AND DAVID ***
EVE AND DAVID
(Lost Illusions Part III)
By Honore De Balzac
Translated By Ellen Marriage
PREPARER’S NOTE
Eve and David is part three of a trilogy. Eve and David’s story
begins in part one, Two Poets. Part one also introduces Eve’s
brother, Lucien. Part two, A Distinguished Provincial at Paris,
centers on Lucien’s life in Paris. For part three the action once
more returns to Eve and David in Angoulême. In many référénces parts
one and three are combined under the title Lost Illusions and A
Distinguished Provincial at Paris is given its individual title.
Following this trilogy Lucien’s story is continued in another book,
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
EVE AND DAVID
Lucien had gone to Paris; and David Séchard, with the courage
and intelligence of the ox which painters give the Evangelist for
accompanying symbol, set himself to make the large fortune for which he
had wished that evening down by the Charente, when he sat with Eve by
the weir, and she gave him her hand and her heart. He wanted to make the
money quickly, and less for himself than for Eve’s sake and Lucien’s. He
would place his wife amid the elegant and comfortable surroundings that
were hers by right, and his strong arm should sustain her brother’s
ambitions--this was the programme that he saw before his eyes in letters
of fire.
Journalism and politics, the immense development of the book trade,
of literature and of the sciences; the increase of public interest in
matters touching the various industries in the country; in fact, the
whole social tendency of the epoch following the establishment of the
Restoration produced an enormous increase in the demand for paper. The
supply required was almost ten times as large as the quantity in which
the celebrated Ouvrard speculated at the outset of the Revolution.
Then Ouvrard could buy up first the entire stock of paper and then the
manufacturers; but in the year 1821 there were so many paper-mills in
France, that no one could hope to repeat his success; and David had
neither audacity enough nor capital enough for such speculation.
Machinery for producing paper in any length was just coming into use
in England. It was one of the most urgent needs of the time, therefore,
that the paper trade should keep pace with the requirements of the
French system of civil government, a system by which the right of
discussion was to be extended to every man, and the whole fabric based
upon continual expression of individual opinion; a grave misfortune, for
the nation that deliberates is but little wont to act.
So, strange coincidence! while Lucien was drawn into the great machinery
of journalism, where he was like to leave his honor and his intelligence
torn to shreds, David Séchard, at the back of his printing-house,
foresaw all the practical consequences of the increased activity of the
periodical press. He saw the direction in which the spirit of the age
was tending, and sought to find means to the required end. He saw also
that there was a fortune awaiting the discoverer of cheap paper, and the
event has justified his clearsightedness. Within the last fifteen years,
the Patent Office has received more than a hundred applications from
persons claiming to have discovered cheap substances to be employed in
the manufacture of paper. David felt more than ever convinced that this
would be no brilliant triumph, it is true, but a useful and immensely
profitable discovery; and after his brother-in-law went to Paris, he
became more and more absorbed in the problem which he had set himself to
solve.
The expenses of his marriage and of Lucien’s journey to Paris had
exhausted all his resources; he confronted the extreme of poverty at
the very outset of married life. He had kept one thousand francs for the
working expenses of the business, and owed a like sum, for which he had
given a bill to Postel the druggist. So here was a double problem for
this deep thinker; he must invent a method of making cheap paper, and
that quickly; he must make the discovery, in fact, in order to apply the
proceeds to the needs of the household and of the business. What words
can describe the brain that can forget the cruel preoccupations caused
by hidden want, by the daily needs of a family and the daily drudgery of
a printer’s business, which requires such minute, painstaking care; and
soar, with the enthusiasm and intoxication of the man of science, into
the regions of the unknown in quest of a secret which daily eludes the
most subtle experiment? And the inventor, alas! as will shortly be seen,
has plenty of woes to endure, besides the ingratitude of the many; idle
folk that can do nothing themselves tell them, “Such a one is a born
inventor; he could not do otherwise. He no more deserves credit for his
invention than a prince for being born to rule! He is simply exercising
his natural faculties, and his work is its own reward,” and the people
believe them.
Marriage brings profound mental and physical perturbations into a
girl’s life; and if she marries under the ordinary conditions of
lower middle-class life, she must moreover begin to study totally new
interests and initiate herself in the intricacies of business. With
marriage, therefore, she enters upon a phase of her existence when she
is necessarily on the watch before she can act. Unfortunately, David’s
love for his wife retarded this training; he dared not tell her the
real state of affairs on the day after their wedding, nor for some time
afterwards. His father’s avarice condemned him to the most grinding
poverty, but he could not bring himself to spoil the honeymoon by
beginning his wife’s commercial education and prosaic apprenticeship to
his laborious craft. So it came to pass that housekeeping, no less than
working expenses, ate up the thousand francs, his whole fortune. For
four months David gave no thought to the future, and his wife remained
in ignorance. The awakening was terrible! Postel’s bill fell due; there
was no money to meet it, and Eve knew enough of the debt and its cause
to give up her bridal trinkets and silver.
That evening Eve tried to induce David to talk of their affairs, for she
had noticed that he was giving less attention to the business and more
to the problem of which he had once spoken to her. Since the first few
weeks of married life, in fact, David spent most of his time in the
shed in the backyard, in the little room where he was wont to mould his
ink-rollers. Three months after his return to Angoulême, he had replaced
the old fashioned round ink-balls by rollers made of strong glue and
treacle, and an ink-table, on which the ink was evenly distributed, an
improvement so obvious that Cointet Brothers no sooner saw it than they
adopted the plan themselves.
By the partition wall of this kitchen, as it were, David had set up a
little furnace with a copper pan, ostensibly to save the cost of fuel
over the recasting of his rollers, though the moulds had not been used
twice, and hung there rusting upon the wall. Nor was this all; a solid
oak door had been put in by his orders, and the walls were lined with
sheet-iron; he even replaced the dirty window sash by panes of ribbed
glass, so that no one without could watch him at his work.
When Eve began to speak about the future, he looked uneasily at her,
and cut her short at the first word by saying, “I know all that you must
think, child, when you see that the workshop is left to itself, and
that I am dead, as it were, to all business interests; but see,” he
continued, bringing her to the window, and pointing to the mysterious
shed, “there lies our fortune. For some months yet we must endure our
lot, but let us bear it patiently; leave me to solve the problem of
which I told you, and all our troubles will be at an end.”
David was so good, his devotion was so thoroughly to be taken upon his
word, that the poor wife, with a wife’s anxiety as to daily expenses,
determined to spare her husband the household cares and to take the
burden upon herself. So she came down from the pretty blue-and-white
room, where she sewed and talked contentedly with her mother, took
possession of one of the two dens at the back of the printing-room,
and set herself to learn the business routine of typography. Was it not
heroism in a wife who expected ere long to be a mother?
During the past few months David’s workmen had left him one by one;
there was not enough work for them to do. Cointet Brothers, on the other
hand, were overwhelmed with orders; they were employing all the workmen
of the department; the alluring prospect of high wages even brought them
a few from Bordeaux, more especially apprentices, who thought themselves
sufficiently expert to cancel their articles and go elsewhere. When
Eve came to look into the affairs of Séchard’s printing works, she
discovered that he employed three persons in all.
First in order stood Cérizet, an apprentice of Didot’s, whom David had
chosen to train. Most foremen have some one favorite among the great
numbers of workers under them, and David had brought Cérizet to
Angoulême, where he had been learning more of the business. Marion, as
much attached to the house as a watch-dog, was the second; and the third
was Kolb, an Alsacien, at one time a porter in the employ of the Messrs.
Didot. Kolb had been drawn for military service, chance brought him to
Angoulême, and David recognized the man’s face at a review just as
his time was about to expire. Kolb came to see David, and was smitten
forthwith by the charms of the portly Marion; she possessed all the
qualities which a man of his class looks for in a wife--the robust
health that bronzes the cheeks, the strength of a man (Marion could lift
a form of type with ease), the scrupulous honesty on which an Alsacien
sets such store, the faithful service which bespeaks a sterling
character, and finally, the thrift which had saved a little sum of a
thousand francs, besides a stock of clothing and linen, neat and
clean, as country linen can be. Marion herself, a big, stout woman
of thirty-six, felt sufficiently flattered by the admiration of a
cuirassier, who stood five feet seven in his stockings, a well-built
warrior, strong as a bastion, and not unnaturally suggested that
he should become a printer. So, by the time Kolb received his full
discharge, Marion and David between them had transformed him into a
tolerably creditable “bear,” though their pupil could neither read nor
write.
Job printing, as it is called, was not so abundant at this season but
that Cérizet could manage it without help. Cérizet, compositor, clicker,
and foreman, realized in his person the “phenomenal triplicity” of Kant;
he set up type, read proof, took orders, and made out invoices; but the
most part of the time he had nothing to do, and used to read novels in
his den at the back of the workshop while he waited for an order for a
bill-head or a trade circular. Marion, trained by old Séchard, prepared
and wetted down the paper, helped Kolb with the printing, hung the
sheets to dry, and cut them to size; yet cooked the dinner, none the
less, and did her marketing very early of a morning.
Eve told Cérizet to draw out a balance-sheet for the last six months,
and found that the gross receipts amounted to eight hundred francs. On
the other hand, wages at the rate of three francs per day--two francs to
Cérizet, and one to Kolb--reached a total of six hundred francs; and as
the goods supplied for the work printed and delivered amounted to some
hundred odd francs, it was clear to Eve that David had been carrying
on business at a loss during the first half-year of their married life.
There was nothing to show for rent, nothing for Marion’s wages, nor for
the interest on capital represented by the plant, the license, and
the ink; nothing, finally, by way of allowance for the host of things
included in the technical expression “wear and tear,” a word which owes
its origin to the cloths and silks which are used to moderate the force
of the impression, and to save wear to the type; a square of stuff (the
_blanket_) being placed between the platen and the sheet of paper in the
press.
Eve made a rough calculation of the resources of the printing office and
of the output, and saw how little hope there was for a business drained
dry by the all-devouring activity of the brothers Cointet; for by this
time the Cointets were not only contract printers to the town and the
prefecture, and printers to the Diocese by special appointment--they
were paper-makers and proprietors of a newspaper to boot. That
newspaper, sold two years ago by the Séchards, father and son, for
twenty-two thousand francs, was now bringing in eighteen thousand francs
per annum. Eve began to understand the motives lurking beneath the
apparent generosity of the brothers Cointet; they were leaving the
Séchard establishment just sufficient work to gain a pittance, but not
enough to establish a rival house.
When Eve took the management of the business, she began by taking stock.
She set Kolb and Marion and Cérizet to work, and the workshop was put to
rights, cleaned out, and set in order. Then one evening when David came
in from a country excursion, followed by an old woman with a huge bundle
tied up in a cloth, Eve asked counsel of him as to the best way of
turning to profit the odds and ends left them by old Séchard, promising
that she herself would look after the business. Acting upon her
husband’s advice, Mme. Séchard sorted all the remnants of paper which
she found, and printed old popular legends in double columns upon a
single sheet, such as peasants paste on their walls, the histories
of _The Wandering Jew_, _Robert the Devil_, _La Belle Maguelonne_ and
sundry miracles. Eve sent Kolb out as a hawker.
Cérizet had not a moment to spare now; he was composing the naive pages,
with the rough cuts that adorned them, from morning to night; Marion
was able to manage the taking off; and all domestic cares fell to Mme.
Chardon, for Eve was busy coloring the prints. Thanks to Kolb’s activity
and honesty, Eve sold three thousand broad sheets at a penny apiece, and
made three hundred francs in all at a cost of thirty francs.
But when every peasant’s hut and every little wine-shop for twenty
leagues round was papered with these legends, a fresh speculation
must be discovered; the Alsacien could not go beyond the limits of the
department. Eve, turning over everything in the whole printing house,
had found a collection of figures for printing a “Shepherd’s Calendar,”
a kind of almanac meant for those who cannot read, letterpress being
replaced by symbols, signs, and pictures in colored inks, red, black and
blue. Old Séchard, who could neither read nor write himself, had made a
good deal of money at one time by bringing out an almanac in hieroglyph.
It was in book form, a single sheet folded to make one hundred and
twenty-eight pages.
Thoroughly satisfied with the success of the broad sheets, a piece
of business only undertaken by country printing offices, Mme. Séchard
invested all the proceeds in the _Shepherd’s Calendar_, and began it
upon a large scale. Millions of copies of this work are sold annually
in France. It is printed upon even coarser paper than the _Almanac of
Liege_, a ream (five hundred sheets) costing in the first instance about
four francs; while the printed sheets sell at the rate of a halfpenny
apiece--twenty-five francs per ream.
Mme. Séchard determined to use one hundred reams for the first
impression; fifty thousand copies would bring in two thousand francs. A
man so deeply absorbed in his work as David in his researches is seldom
observant; yet David, taking a look round his workshop, was astonished
to hear the groaning of a press and to see Cérizet always on his feet,
setting up type under Mme. Séchard’s direction. There was a pretty
triumph for Eve on the day when David came in to see what she was doing,
and praised the idea, and thought the calendar an excellent stroke of
business. Furthermore, David promised to give advice in the matter of
colored inks, for an almanac meant to appeal to the eye; and finally, he
resolved to recast the ink-rollers himself in his mysterious workshop,
so as to help his wife as far as he could in her important little
enterprise.
But just as the work began with strenuous industry, there came letters
from Lucien in Paris, heart-sinking letters that told his mother and
sister and brother-in-law of his failure and distress; and when Eve,
Mme. Chardon, and David each secretly sent money to their poet, it must
be plain to the reader that the three hundred francs they sent were like
their very blood. The overwhelming news, the disheartening sense that
work as bravely as she might, she made so little, left Eve looking
forward with a certain dread to an event which fills the cup of
happiness to the full. The time was coming very near now, and to herself
she said, “If my dear David has not reached the end of his researches
before my confinement, what will become of us? And who will look after
our poor printing office and the business that is growing up?”
The _Shepherd’s Calendar_ ought by rights to have been ready before the
1st of January, but Cérizet was working unaccountably slowly; all the
work of composing fell to him; and Mme. Séchard, knowing so little,
could not find fault, and was fain to content herself with watching the
young Parisian.
Cérizet came from the great Foundling Hospital in Paris. He had been
apprenticed to the MM. Didot, and between the ages of fourteen and
seventeen he was David Séchard’s fanatical worshiper. David put him
under one of the cleverest workmen, and took him for his copy-holder,
his page. Cérizet’s intelligence naturally interested David; he won
the lad’s affection by procuring amusements now and again for him,
and comforts from which he was cut off by poverty. Nature had endowed
Cérizet with an insignificant, rather pretty little countenance, red
hair, and a pair of dull blue eyes; he had come to Angoulême and brought
the manners of the Parisian street-boy with him. He was formidable by
reason of a quick, sarcastic turn and a spiteful disposition. Perhaps
David looked less strictly after him in Angoulême; or, perhaps, as the
lad grew older, his mentor put more trust in him, or in the sobering
influences of a country town; but be that as it may, Cérizet (all
unknown to his sponsor) was going completely to the bad, and the
printer’s apprentice was acting the part of a Don Juan among little work
girls. His morality, learned in Paris drinking-saloons, laid down the
law of self-interest as the sole rule of guidance; he knew, moreover,
that next year he would be “drawn for a soldier,” to use the popular
expression, saw that he had no prospects, and ran into debt, thinking
that soon he should be in the army, and none of his creditors would run
after him. David still possessed some ascendency over the young fellow,
due not to his position as master, nor yet to the interest that he
had taken in his pupil, but to the great intellectual power which the
sometime street-boy fully recognized.
Before long Cérizet began to fraternize with the Cointets’ workpeople,
drawn to them by the mutual attraction of blouse and jacket, and the
class feeling, which is, perhaps, strongest of all in the lowest ranks
of society. In their company Cérizet forgot the little good doctrine
which David had managed to instil into him; but, nevertheless, when the
others joked the boy about the presses in his workshop (“old sabots,” as
the “bears” contemptuously called them), and showed him the magnificent
machines, twelve in number, now at work in the Cointets’ great printing
office, where the single wooden press was only used for experiments,
Cérizet would stand up for David and fling out at the braggarts.
“My gaffer will go farther with his ‘sabots’ than yours with their
cast-iron contrivances that turn out mass books all day long,” he
would boast. “He is trying to find out a secret that will lick all the
printing offices in France and Navarre.”
“And meantime you take your orders from a washer-woman, you snip of a
foreman, on two francs a day.”
“She is pretty though,” retorted Cérizet; “it is better to have her to
look at than the phizes of your gaffers.”
“And do you live by looking at his wife?”
From the region of the wineshop, or from the door of the printing
office, where these bickerings took place, a dim light began to break in
upon the brothers Cointet as to the real state of things in the Séchard
establishment. They came to hear of Eve’s experiment, and held it
expedient to stop these flights at once, lest the business should begin
to prosper under the poor young wife’s management.
“Let us give her a rap over the knuckles, and disgust her with the
business,” said the brothers Cointet.
One of the pair, the practical printer, spoke to Cérizet, and asked him
to do the proof-reading for them by piecework, to relieve their reader,
who had more than he could manage. So it came to pass that Cérizet
earned more by a few hours’ work of an evening for the brothers Cointet
than by a whole day’s work for David Séchard. Other transactions
followed; the Cointets seeing no small aptitude in Cérizet, he was told
that it was a pity that he should be in a position so little favorable
to his interests.
“You might be foreman some day in a big printing office, making
six francs a day,” said one of the Cointets one day, “and with your
intelligence you might come to have a share in the business.”
“Where is the use of my being a good foreman?” returned Cérizet. “I am
an orphan, I shall be drawn for the army next year, and if I get a bad
number who is there to pay some one else to take my place?”
“If you make yourself useful,” said the well-to-do printer, “why should
not somebody advance the money?”
“It won’t be my gaffer in any case!” said Cérizet.
“Pooh! Perhaps by that time he will have found out the secret.”
The words were spoken in a way that could not but rouse the worst
thoughts in the listener; and Cérizet gave the papermaker and printer a
very searching look.
“I do not know what he is busy about,” he began prudently, as the master
said nothing, “but he is not the kind of man to look for capitals in the
lower case!”
“Look here, my friend,” said the printer, taking up half-a-dozen sheets
of the diocesan prayer-book and holding them out to Cérizet, “if you
can correct these for us by to-morrow, you shall have eighteen francs
to-morrow for them. We are not shabby here; we put our competitor’s
foreman in the way of making money. As a matter of fact, we might let
Mme. Séchard go too far to draw back with her _Shepherd’s Calendar_,
and ruin her; very well, we give you permission to tell her that we
are bringing out a _Shepherd’s Calendar_ of our own, and to call her
attention too to the fact that she will not be the first in the field.”
Cérizet’s motive for working so slowly on the composition of the almanac
should be clear enough by this time.
When Eve heard that the Cointets meant to spoil her poor little
speculation, dread seized upon her; at first she tried to see a proof of
attachment in Cérizet’s hypocritical warning of competition; but before
long she saw signs of an over-keen curiosity in her sole compositor--the
curiosity of youth, she tried to think.
“Cérizet,” she said one morning, “you stand about on the threshold, and
wait for M. Séchard in the passage, to pry into his private affairs;
when he comes out into the yard to melt down the rollers, you are there
looking at him, instead of getting on with the almanac. These things
are not right, especially when you see that I, his wife, respect his
secrets, and take so much trouble on myself to leave him free to give
himself up to his work. If you had not wasted time, the almanac would
be finished by now, and Kolb would be selling it, and the Cointets could
have done us no harm.”
“Eh! madame,” answered Cérizet. “Here am I doing five francs’ worth of
composing for two francs a day, and don’t you think that that is enough?
Why, if I did not read proofs of an evening for the Cointets, I might
feed myself on husks.”
“You are turning ungrateful early,” said Eve, deeply hurt, not so much
by Cérizet’s grumbling as by his coarse tone, threatening attitude, and
aggressive stare; “you will get on in life.”
“Not with a woman to order me about though, for it is not often that the
month has thirty days in it then.”
Feeling wounded in her womanly dignity, Eve gave Cérizet a withering
look and went upstairs again. At dinner-time she spoke to David.
“Are you sure, dear, of that little rogue Cérizet?”
“Cérizet!” said David. “Why, he was my youngster; I trained him, I took
him on as my copy-holder. I put him to composing; anything that he is he
owes to me, in fact! You might as well ask a father if he is sure of his
child.”
Upon this, Eve told her husband that Cérizet was reading proofs for the
Cointets.
“Poor fellow! he must live,” said David, humbled by the consciousness
that he had not done his duty as a master.
“Yes, but there is a difference, dear, between Kolb and Cérizet--Kolb
tramps about twenty leagues every day, spends fifteen or twenty sous,
and brings us back seven and eight and sometimes nine francs of sales;
and when his expenses are paid, he never asks for more than his wages.
Kolb would sooner cut off his hand than work a lever for the Cointets;
Kolb would not peer among the things that you throw out into the yard if
people offered him a thousand crowns to do it; but Cérizet picks them up
and looks at them.”
It is hard for noble natures to think evil, to believe in ingratitude;
only through rough experience do they learn the extent of human
corruption; and even when there is nothing left them to learn in this
kind, they rise to an indulgence which is the last degree of contempt.
“Pooh! pure Paris street-boy’s curiosity,” cried David.
“Very well, dear, do me the pleasure to step downstairs and look at the
work done by this boy of yours, and tell me then whether he ought not to
have finished our almanac this month.”
David went into the workshop after dinner, and saw that the calendar
should have been set up in a week. Then, when he heard that the Cointets
were bringing out a similar almanac, he came to the rescue. He took
command of the printing office, Kolb helped at home instead of selling
broadsheets. Kolb and Marion pulled off the impressions from one form,
while David worked another press with Cérizet, and superintended the
printing in various inks. Every sheet must be printed four separate
times, for which reason none but small houses will attempt to produce
a _Shepherd’s Calendar_, and that only in the country where labor is
cheap, and the amount of capital employed in the business is so small
that the interest amounts to little. Wherefore, a press which turns out
beautiful work cannot compete in the printing of such sheets, coarse
though they may be.
So, for the first time since old Séchard retired, two presses were at
work in the old house. The calendar was, in its way, a masterpiece; but
Eve was obliged to sell it for less than a halfpenny, for the Cointets
were supplying hawkers at the rate of three centimes per copy. Eve made
no loss on the copies sold to hawkers; on Kolb’s sales, made directly,
she gained; but her little speculation was spoiled. Cérizet saw that
his fair employer distrusted him; in his own conscience he posed as the
accuser, and said to himself, “You suspect me, do you? I will have
my revenge,” for the Paris street-boy is made on this wise. Cérizet
accordingly took pay out of all proportion to the work of proof-reading
done for the Cointets, going to their office every evening for the
sheets, and returning them in the morning. He came to be on familiar
terms with them through the daily chat, and at length saw a chance of
escaping the military service, a bait held out to him by the brothers.
So far from requiring prompting from the Cointets, he was the first to
propose the espionage and exploitation of David’s researches.
Eve saw how little she could depend upon Cérizet, and to find another
Kolb was simply impossible; she made up her mind to dismiss her one
compositor, for the insight of a woman who loves told her that Cérizet
was a traitor; but as this meant a deathblow to the business, she took
a man’s resolution. She wrote to M. Métivier, with whom David and the
Cointets and almost every papermaker in the department had business
relations, and asked him to put the following advertisement into a trade
paper:
“FOR SALE, as a going concern, a Printing Office, with License and
Plant; situated at Angoulême. Apply for particulars to M. Métivier, Rue
Serpente.”
The Cointets saw the advertisement. “That little woman has a head on her
shoulders,” they said. “It is time that we took her business under our
own control, by giving her enough work to live upon; we might find a
real competitor in David’s successor; it is in our interest to keep an
eye upon that workshop.”
The Cointets went to speak to David Séchard, moved thereto by this
thought. Eve saw them, knew that her stratagem had succeeded at once,
and felt a thrill of the keenest joy. They stated their proposal. They
had more work than they could undertake, their presses could not keep
pace with the work, would M. Séchard print for them? They had sent to
Bordeaux for workmen, and could find enough to give full employment to
David’s three presses.
“Gentlemen,” said Eve, while Cérizet went across to David’s workshop to
announce the two printers, “while my husband was with the MM. Didot he
came to know of excellent workers, honest and industrious men; he will
choose his successor, no doubt, from among the best of them. If he sold
his business outright for some twenty thousand francs, it might bring
us in a thousand francs per annum; that would be better than losing a
thousand yearly over such trade as you leave us. Why did you envy us the
poor little almanac speculation, especially as we have always brought it
out?”
“Oh, why did you not give us notice, madame? We would not have
interfered with you,” one of the brothers answered blandly (he was known
as the “tall Cointet”).
“Oh, come gentlemen! you only began your almanac after Cérizet told you
that I was bringing out mine.”
She spoke briskly, looking full at “the tall Cointet” as she spoke. He
lowered his eyes; Cérizet’s treachery was proven to her.
This brother managed the business and the paper-mill; he was by far the
cleverer man of business of the two. Jean showed no small ability in the
conduct of the printing establishment, but in intellectual capacity he
might be said to take colonel’s rank, while Boniface was a general. Jean
left the command to Boniface. This latter was thin and spare in person;
his face, sallow as an altar candle, was mottled with reddish patches;
his lips were pinched; there was something in his eyes that reminded you
of a cat’s eyes. Boniface Cointet never excited himself; he would listen
to the grossest insults with the serenity of a bigot, and reply in
a smooth voice. He went to mass, he went to confession, he took the
sacrament. Beneath his caressing manners, beneath an almost spiritless
look, lurked the tenacity and ambition of the priest, and the greed of
the man of business consumed with a thirst for riches and honors. In
the year 1820 “tall Cointet” wanted all that the _bourgeoisie_
finally obtained by the Revolution of 1830. In his heart he hated the
aristocrats, and in religion he was indifferent; he was as much or as
little of a bigot as Bonaparte was a member of the Mountain; yet his
vertebral column bent with a flexibility wonderful to behold before the
noblesse and the official hierarchy; for the powers that be, he humbled
himself, he was meek and obsequious. One final characteristic will
describe him for those who are accustomed to dealings with all kinds of
men, and can appreciate its value--Cointet concealed the expression of
his eyes by wearing colored glasses, ostensibly to preserve his sight
from the reflection of the sunlight on the white buildings in the
streets; for Angoulême, being set upon a hill, is exposed to the full
glare of the sun. Tall Cointet was really scarcely above middle height;
he looked much taller than he actually was by reason of the thinness,
which told of overwork and a brain in continual ferment. His lank, sleek
gray hair, cut in somewhat ecclesiastical fashion; the black trousers,
black stockings, black waistcoat, and long puce-colored greatcoat
(styled a _lévite_ in the south), all completed his resemblance to a
Jesuit.
Boniface was called “tall Cointet” to distinguish him from his brother,
“fat Cointet,” and the nicknames expressed a difference in character
as well as a physical difference between a pair of equally redoubtable
personages. As for Jean Cointet, a jolly, stout fellow, with a face from
a Flemish interior, colored by the southern sun of Angoulême, thick-set,
short and paunchy as Sancho Panza; with a smile on his lips and a pair
of sturdy shoulders, he was a striking contrast to his older brother.
Nor was the difference only physical and intellectual. Jean might almost
be called Liberal in politics; he belonged to the Left Centre, only went
to mass on Sundays, and lived on a remarkably good understanding with
the Liberal men of business. There were those in L’Houmeau who said that
this divergence between the brothers was more apparent than real. Tall
Cointet turned his brother’s seeming good nature to advantage very
skilfully. Jean was his bludgeon. It was Jean who gave all the hard
words; it was Jean who conducted the executions which little beseemed
the elder brother’s benevolence. Jean took the storms department; he
would fly into a rage, and propose terms that nobody would think
of accepting, to pave the way for his brother’s less unreasonable
propositions. And by such policy the pair attained their ends, sooner or
later.
Eve, with a woman’s tact, had soon divined the characters of the two
brothers; she was on her guard with foes so formidable. David, informed
beforehand of everything by his wife, lent a profoundly inattentive mind
to his enemies’ proposals.
“Come to an understanding with my wife,” he said, as he left the
Cointets in the office and went back to his laboratory. “Mme. Séchard
knows more about the business than I do myself. I am interested in
something that will pay better than this poor place; I hope to find a
way to retrieve the losses that I have made through you----”
“And how?” asked the fat Cointet, chuckling.
Eve gave her husband a look that meant, “Be careful!”
“You will be my tributaries,” said David, “and all other consumers of
papers besides.”
“Then what are you investigating?” asked the hypocritical Boniface
Cointet.
Boniface’s question slipped out smoothly and insinuatingly, and again
Eve’s eyes implored her husband to give an answer that was no answer, or
to say nothing at all.
“I am trying to produce paper at fifty per cent less than the present
cost price,” and he went. He did not see the glances exchanged between
the brothers. “That is an inventor, a man of his build cannot sit with
his hands before him.--Let us exploit him,” said Boniface’s eyes. “How
can we do it?” said Jean’s.
Mme. Séchard spoke. “David treats me just in the same way,” she said.
“If I show any curiosity, he feels suspicious of my name, no doubt, and
out comes that remark of his; it is only a formula, after all.”
“If your husband can work out the formula, he will certainly make a
fortune more quickly than by printing; I am not surprised that he
leaves the business to itself,” said Boniface, looking across the empty
workshop, where Kolb, seated upon a wetting-board, was rubbing his bread
with a clove of garlic; “but it would not suit our views to see this
place in the hands of an energetic, pushing, ambitious competitor,”
he continued, “and perhaps it might be possible to arrive at an
understanding. Suppose, for instance, that you consented for a
consideration to allow us to put in one of our own men to work your
presses for our benefit, but nominally for you; the thing is sometimes
done in Paris. We would find the fellow work enough to enable him to
rent your place and pay you well, and yet make a profit for himself.”
“It depends on the amount,” said Eve Séchard. “What is your offer?” she
added, looking at Boniface to let him see that she understood his scheme
perfectly well.
“What is your own idea?” Jean Cointet put in briskly.
“Three thousand francs for six months,” said she.
“Why, my dear young lady, you were proposing to sell the place outright
for twenty thousand francs,” said Boniface with much suavity. “The
interest on twenty thousand francs is only twelve hundred francs per
annum at six per cent.”
For a moment Eve was thrown into confusion; she saw the need for
discretion in matters of business.
“You wish to use our presses and our name as well,” she said; “and, as
I have already shown you, I can still do a little business. And then we
pay rent to M. Séchard senior, who does not load us with presents.”
After two hours of debate, Eve obtained two thousand francs for
six months, one thousand to be paid in advance. When everything was
concluded, the brothers informed her that they meant to put in Cérizet
as lessee of the premises. In spite of herself, Eve started with
surprise.
“Isn’t it better to have somebody who knows the workshop?” asked the fat
Cointet.
Eve made no reply; she took leave of the brothers, vowing inwardly to
look after Cérizet.
“Well, here are our enemies in the place!” laughed David, when Eve
brought out the papers for his signature at dinner-time.
“Pshaw!” said she, “I will answer for Kolb and Marion; they alone
would look after things. Besides, we shall be making an income of four
thousand francs from the workshop, which only costs us money as it is;
and looking forward, I see a year in which you may realize your hopes.”
“You were born to be the wife of a scientific worker, as you said by the
weir,” said David, grasping her hand tenderly.
But though the Séchard household had money sufficient that winter,
they were none the less subjected to Cérizet’s espionage, and all
unconsciously became dependent upon Boniface Cointet.
“We have them now!” the manager of the paper-mill had exclaimed as he
left the house with his brother the printer. “They will begin to regard
the rent as regular income; they will count upon it and run themselves
into debt. In six months’ time we will decline to renew the agreement,
and then we shall see what this man of genius has at the bottom of his
mind; we will offer to help him out of his difficulty by taking him into
partnership and exploiting his discovery.”
Any shrewd man of business who should have seen tall Cointet’s face as
he uttered those words, “taking him into partnership,” would have known
that it behooves a man to be even more careful in the selection of the
partner whom he takes before the Tribunal of Commerce than in the
choice of the wife whom he weds at the Mayor’s office. Was it not enough
already, and more than enough, that the ruthless hunters were on the
track of the quarry? How should David and his wife, with Kolb and Marion
to help them, escape the toils of a Boniface Cointet?
A draft for five hundred francs came from Lucien, and this, with
Cérizet’s second payment, enabled them to meet all the expenses of Mme.
Séchard’s confinement. Eve and the mother and David had thought that
Lucien had forgotten them, and rejoiced over this token of remembrance
as they rejoiced over his success, for his first exploits in journalism
made even more noise in Angoulême than in Paris.
But David, thus lulled into a false security, was to receive a
staggering blow, a cruel letter from Lucien:--
_Lucien to David._
“MY DEAR DAVID,--I have drawn three bills on you, and negotiated
them with Métivier; they fall due in one, two, and three months’
time. I took this hateful course, which I know will burden you
heavily, because the one alternative was suicide. I will explain
my necessity some time, and I will try besides to send the amounts
as the bills fall due.
“Burn this letter; say nothing to my mother and sister; for, I
confess it, I have counted upon you, upon the heroism known so
well to your despairing brother,
“LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE.”
By this time Eve had recovered from her confinement.
“Your brother, poor fellow, is in desperate straits,” David told her. “I
have sent him three bills for a thousand francs at one, two, and three
months; just make a note of them,” and he went out into the fields to
escape his wife’s questionings.
But Eve had felt very uneasy already. It was six months since Lucien
had written to them. She talked over the news with her mother till her
forebodings grew so dark that she made up her mind to dissipate them.
She would take a bold step in her despair.
Young M. de Rastignac had come to spend a few days with his family.
He had spoken of Lucien in terms that set Paris gossip circulating in
Angoulême, till at last it reached the journalist’s mother and sister.
Eve went to Mme. de Rastignac, asked the favor of an interview with her
son, spoke of all her fears, and asked him for the truth. In a moment
Eve heard of her brother’s connection with the actress Coralie, of his
duel with Michel Chrestien, arising out of his own treacherous behavior
to Daniel d’Arthez; she received, in short, a version of Lucien’s
history, colored by the personal feeling of a clever and envious dandy.
Rastignac expressed sincere admiration for the abilities so terribly
compromised, and a patriotic fear for the future of a native genius;
spite and jealousy masqueraded as pity and friendliness. He spoke of
Lucien’s blunders. It seemed that Lucien had forfeited the favor of a
very great person, and that a patent conferring the right to bear the
name and arms of Rubempré had actually been made out and subsequently
torn up.
“If your brother, madame, had been well advised, he would have been on
the way to honors, and Mme. de Bargeton’s husband by this time; but what
can you expect? He deserted her and insulted her. She is now Mme. la
Comtesse Sixte du Châtelet, to her own great regret, for she loved
Lucien.”
“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mme. Séchard.
“Your brother is like a young eagle, blinded by the first rays of glory
and luxury. When an eagle falls, who can tell how far he may sink before
he drops to the bottom of some precipice? The fall of a great man is
always proportionately great.”
Eve came away with a great dread in her heart; those last words pierced
her like an arrow. She had been wounded to the quick. She said not a
word to anybody, but again and again a tear rolled down her cheeks, and
fell upon the child at her breast. So hard is it to give up illusions
sanctioned by family feeling, illusions that have grown with our growth,
that Eve had doubted Eugène de Rastignac. She would rather hear a
true friend’s account of her brother. Lucien had given them d’Arthez’s
address in the days when he was full of enthusiasm for the brotherhood;
she wrote a pathetic letter to d’Arthez, and received the following
reply:--
_D’Arthez to Mme. Séchard._
“MADAME,--You ask me to tell you the truth about the life that
your brother is leading in Paris; you are anxious for
enlightenment as to his prospects; and to encourage a frank answer
on my part, you repeat certain things that M. de Rastignac has
told you, asking me if they are true. With regard to the purely
personal matter, madame, M. de Rastignac’s confidences must be
corrected in Lucien’s favor. Your brother wrote a criticism of my
book, and brought it to me in remorse, telling me that he could
not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders
of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him. Alas!
madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since
it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a
mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably
sacrificed. I smoothed your brother’s way; I corrected his
murderous article myself, and gave it my full approval.
“You ask whether Lucien has kept my friendship and esteem; to this
it is difficult to make an answer. Your brother is on a road that
leads him to ruin. At this moment I still feel sorry for him;
before long I shall have forgotten him, of set purpose, not so
much on account of what he has done already as for that which he
inevitably will do. Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic
temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in
emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact--permit me to say it
--a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman’s great
failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the
pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign
a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years
of luxurious and glorious life. Nay, has he not done worse
already? He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights
of living openly with an actress. So far, he has not seen the
dangers of his position; the girl’s youth and beauty and devotion
(for she worships him) have closed his eyes to the truth; he
cannot see that no glory or success or fortune can induce the
world to accept the position. Very well, as it is now, so it will
be with each new temptation--your brother will not look beyond the
enjoyment of the moment. Do not be alarmed: Lucien will never go
so far as a crime, he has not the strength of character; but he
would take the fruits of a crime, he would share the benefit but
not the risk--a thing that seems abhorrent to the whole world,
even to scoundrels. Oh, he would despise himself, he would repent;
but bring him once more to the test, and he would fail again; for
he is weak of will, he cannot resist the allurements of pleasure,
nor forego the least of his ambitions. He is indolent, like all
who would fain be poets; he thinks it clever to juggle with the
difficulties of life instead of facing and overcoming them. He
will be brave at one time, cowardly at another, and deserves
neither credit for his courage, nor blame for his cowardice.
Lucien is like a harp with strings that are slackened or tightened
by the atmosphere. He might write a great book in a glad or angry
mood, and care nothing for the success that he had desired for so
long.
“When he first came to Paris he fell under the influence of an
unprincipled young fellow, and was dazzled by his companion’s
adroitness and experience in the difficulties of a literary life.
This juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a
life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily
for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path. The admiration that
is given too readily is a sign of want of judgment; a poet ought
not to be paid in the same coin as a dancer on the tight-rope. We
all felt hurt when intrigue and literary rascality were preferred
to the courage and honor of those who counseled Lucien rather to
face the battle than to filch success, to spring down into the
arena rather than become a trumpet in the orchestra.
“Society, madame, oddly enough, shows plentiful indulgence to
young men of Lucien’s stamp; they are popular, the world is
fascinated by their external gifts and good looks. Nothing is
asked of them, all their sins are forgiven; they are treated like
perfect natures, others are blind to their defects, they are the
world’s spoiled children. And, on the other hand, the world is
stern beyond measure to strong and complete natures. Perhaps in
this apparently flagrant injustice society acts sublimely, taking
a harlequin at his just worth, asking nothing of him but
amusement, promptly forgetting him; and asking divine great deeds
of those before whom she bends the knee. Everything is judged by
laws of its being; the diamond must be flawless; the ephemeral
creation of fashion may be flimsy, bizarre, inconsequent. So
Lucien may perhaps succeed to admiration in spite of his mistakes;
he has only to profit by some happy vein or to be among good
companions; but if an evil angel crosses his path, he will go to
the very depths of hell. ‘Tis a brilliant assemblage of good
qualities embroidered upon too slight a tissue; time wears the
flowers away till nothing but the web is left; and if that is poor
stuff, you behold a rag at the last. So long as Lucien is young,
people will like him; but where will he be as a man of thirty?
That is the question which those who love him sincerely are bound
to ask themselves. If I alone had come to think in this way of
Lucien, I might perhaps have spared you the pain which my plain
speaking will give you; but to evade the questions put by your
anxiety, and to answer a cry of anguish like your letter with
commonplaces, seemed to me alike unworthy of you and of me, whom
you esteem too highly; and besides, those of my friends who knew
Lucien are unanimous in their judgment. So it appeared to me to be
a duty to put the truth before you, terrible though it may be.
Anything may be expected of Lucien, anything good or evil. That is
our opinion, and this letter is summed up in that sentence. If the
vicissitudes of his present way of life (a very wretched and
slippery one) should bring the poet back to you, use all your
influence to keep him among you; for until his character has
acquired stability, Paris will not be safe for him. He used to
speak of you, you and your husband, as his guardian angels; he has
forgotten you, no doubt; but he will remember you again when
tossed by tempest, with no refuge left to him but his home. Keep
your heart for him, madame; he will need it.
“Permit me, madame, to convey to you the expression of the sincere
respect of a man to whom your rare qualities are known, a man who
honors your mother’s fears so much, that he desires to style
himself your devoted servant,
“D’ARTHEZ.”
Two days after the letter came, Eve was obliged to find a wet-nurse; her
milk had dried up. She had made a god of her brother; now, in her eyes,
he was depraved through the exercise of his noblest faculties; he was
wallowing in the mire. She, noble creature that she was, was incapable
of swerving from honesty and scrupulous delicacy, from all the pious
traditions of the hearth, which still burns so clearly and sheds its
light abroad in quiet country homes. Then David had been right in his
forecasts! The leaden hues of grief overspread Eve’s white brow. She
told her husband her secret in one of the pellucid talks in which
married lovers tell everything to each other. The tones of David’s voice
brought comfort. Though the tears stood in his eyes when he knew that
grief had dried his wife’s fair breast, and knew Eve’s despair that she
could not fulfil a mother’s duties, he held out reassuring hopes.
“Your brother’s imagination has let him astray, you see, child. It is so
natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and hurry as
eagerly after festivals as he does. It is a bird that loves glitter and
luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him if man condemns
him for it.”
“But he is draining our lives!” exclaimed poor Eve.
“He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved
us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings,” said the good David.
He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going beyond
the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back. “Fifty
years ago, or thereabouts, Mercier said in his _Tableau de Paris_ that
a man cannot live by literature, poetry, letters, or science, by the
creatures of his brain, in short; and Lucien, poet that he is, would not
believe the experience of five centuries. The harvests that are watered
with ink are only reaped ten or twelve years after the sowing, if indeed
there is any harvest after all. Lucien has taken the green wheat for the
sheaves. He will have learned something of life, at any rate. He was the
dupe of a woman at the outset; he was sure to be duped afterwards by the
world and false friends. He has bought his experience dear, that is all.
Our ancestors used to say, ‘If the son of the house brings back his two
ears and his honor safe, all is well----’”
“Honor!” poor Eve broke in. “Oh, but Lucien has fallen in so many ways!
Writing against his conscience! Attacking his best friend! Living upon
an actress! Showing himself in public with her. Bringing us to lie on
straw----”
“Oh, that is nothing----!” cried David, and suddenly stopped short. The
secret of Lucien’s forgery had nearly escaped him, and, unluckily, his
start left a vague, uneasy impression on Eve.
“What do you mean by nothing?” she answered. “And where shall we find
the money to meet bills for three thousand francs?”
“We shall be obliged to renew the lease with Cérizet, to begin with,”
said David. “The Cointets have been allowing him fifteen per cent on
the work done for them, and in that way alone he has made six hundred
francs, besides contriving to make five hundred francs by job printing.”
“If the Cointets know that, perhaps they will not renew the lease. They
will be afraid of him, for Cérizet is a dangerous man.”
“Eh! what is that to me!” cried David, “we shall be rich in a very
little while. When Lucien is rich, dear angel, he will have nothing but
good qualities.”
“Oh! David, my dear, my dear; what is this that you have said
unthinkingly? Then Lucien fallen into the clutches of poverty would not
have the force of character to resist evil? And you think just as M.
d’Arthez thinks! No one is great unless he has strength of character,
and Lucien is weak. An angel who must not be tempted--what is that?”
“What but a nature that is noble only in its own region, its own sphere,
its heaven? I will spare him the struggle; Lucien is not meant for it.
Look here! I am so near the end now that I can talk to you about the
means.”
He drew several sheets of white paper from his pocket, brandished them
in triumph, and laid them on his wife’s lap.
“A ream of this paper, royal size, would cost five francs at the most,”
he added, while Eve handled the specimens with almost childish surprise.
“Why, how did you make these sample bits?” she asked.
“With an old kitchen sieve of Marion’s.”
“And are you not satisfied yet?” asked Eve.
“The problem does not lie in the manufacturing process; it is a question
of the first cost of the pulp. Alas, child, I am only a late comer in
a difficult path. As long ago as 1794, Mme. Masson tried to use printed
paper a second time; she succeeded, but what a price it cost! The
Marquis of Salisbury tried to use straw as a material in 1800, and the
same idea occurred to Seguin in France in 1801. Those sheets in your
hand are made from the common rush, the _arundo phragmites_, but I
shall try nettles and thistles; for if the material is to continue to be
cheap, one must look for something that will grow in marshes and waste
lands where nothing else can be grown. The whole secret lies in the
preparation of the stems. At present my method is not quite simple
enough. Still, in spite of this difficulty, I feel sure that I can give
the French paper trade the privilege of our literature; papermaking
will be for France what coal and iron and coarse potter’s clay are for
England--a monopoly. I mean to be the Jacquart of the trade.”
Eve rose to her feet. David’s simple-mindedness had roused her to
enthusiasm, to admiration; she held out her arms to him and held him
tightly to her, while she laid her head upon his shoulder.
“You give me my reward as if I had succeeded already,” he said.
For all answer, Eve held up her sweet face, wet with tears, to his, and
for a moment she could not speak.
“The kiss was not for the man of genius,” she said, “but for my
comforter. Here is a rising glory for the glory that has set; and,
in the midst of my grief for the brother that has fallen so low, my
husband’s greatness is revealed to me.--Yes, you will be great, great
like the Graindorges, the Rouvets, and Van Robais, and the Persian who
discovered madder, like all the men you have told me about; great men
whom nobody remembers, because their good deeds were obscure industrial
triumphs.”
“What are they doing just now?”
It was Boniface Cointet who spoke. He was walking up and down outside in
the Place du Mûrier with Cérizet watching the silhouettes of the husband
and wife on the blinds. He always came at midnight for a chat with
Cérizet, for the latter played the spy upon his former master’s every
movement.
“He is showing her the paper he made this morning, no doubt,” said
Cérizet.
“What is it made of?” asked the paper manufacturer.
“Impossible to guess,” answered Cérizet; “I made a hole in the roof and
scrambled up and watched the gaffer; he was boiling pulp in a copper pan
all last night. There was a heap of stuff in a corner, but I could make
nothing of it; it looked like a heap of tow, as near as I could make
out.”
“Go no farther,” said Boniface Cointet in unctuous tones; “it would not
be right. Mme. Séchard will offer to renew your lease; tell her that you
are thinking of setting up for yourself. Offer her half the value of the
plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me. In any case,
spin the matter out. . . . Have they no money?”
“Not a sou,” said Cérizet.
“Not a sou,” repeated tall Cointet.--“I have them now,” said he to
himself.
Métivier, paper manufacturers’ wholesale agent, and Cointet Brothers,
printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name.
This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the Inland
Revenue Department. Every banker is required to take out a license
which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto devised
method of controlling commerce can detect the delinquents, or compel
them to pay their due to the Government. And though Métivier and the
Cointets were “outside brokers,” in the language of the Stock Exchange,
none the less among them they could set some hundreds of thousands of
francs moving every three months in the markets of Paris, Bordeaux, and
Angoulême. Now it so fell out that that very evening Cointet Brothers
had received Lucien’s forged bills in the course of business. Upon this
debt, tall Cointet forthwith erected a formidable engine, pointed, as
will presently be seen, against the poor, patient inventor.
By seven o’clock next morning, Boniface Cointet was taking a walk by the
mill stream that turned the wheels in his big factory; the sound of the
water covered his talk, for he was talking with a companion, a young
man of nine-and-twenty, who had been appointed attorney to the Court of
First Instance in Angoulême some six weeks ago. The young man’s name was
Pierre Petit-Claud.
“You are a schoolfellow of David Séchard’s, are you not?” asked tall
Cointet by way of greeting to the young attorney. Petit-Claud had lost
no time in answering the wealthy manufacturer’s summons.
“Yes, sir,” said Petit-Claud, keeping step with tall Cointet.
“Have you renewed the acquaintance?”
“We have met once or twice at most since he came back. It could hardly
have been otherwise. In Paris I was buried away in the office or at
the courts on week-days, and on Sundays and holidays I was hard at
work studying, for I had only myself to look to.” (Tall Cointet nodded
approvingly.) “When we met again, David and I, he asked me what I
had done with myself. I told him that after I had finished my time at
Poitiers, I had risen to be Maître Olivet’s head-clerk, and that some
time or other I hoped to make a bid for his berth. I know a good deal
more of Lucien Chardon (de Rubempré he calls himself now), he was Mme.
de Bargeton’s lover, our great poet, David Séchard’s brother-in-law, in
fact.”
“Then you can go and tell David of your appointment, and offer him your
services,” said tall Cointet.
“One can’t do that,” said the young attorney.
“He has never had a lawsuit, and he has no attorney, so one can do
that,” said Cointet, scanning the other narrowly from behind his colored
spectacles.
A certain quantity of gall mingled with the blood in Pierre
Petit-Claud’s veins; his father was a tailor in L’Houmeau, and his
schoolfellows had looked down upon him. His complexion was of the muddy
and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and
penury, and almost always of a bad disposition. The best description of
him may be given in two familiar expressions--he was sharp and snappish.
His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of
no particular color. A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure
sign of dishonesty. “Look at So-and-so,” he said to Las Cases at Saint
Helena, alluding to a confidential servant whom he had been obliged to
dismiss for malversation. “I do not know how I could have been deceived
in him for so long; he has a magpie eye.” Tall Cointet, surveying the
weedy little lawyer, noted his face pitted with smallpox, the thin hair,
and the forehead, bald already, receding towards a bald cranium; saw,
too, the confession of weakness in his attitude with the hand on the
hip. “Here is my man,” said he to himself.
As a matter of fact, this Petit-Claud, who had drunk scorn like water,
was eaten up with a strong desire to succeed in life; he had no money,
but nevertheless he had the audacity to buy his employer’s connection
for thirty thousand francs, reckoning upon a rich marriage to clear off
the debt, and looking to his employer, after the usual custom, to find
him a wife, for an attorney always has an interest in marrying his
successor, because he is the sooner paid off. But if Petit-Claud counted
upon his employer, he counted yet more upon himself. He had more than
average ability, and that of a kind not often found in the provinces,
and rancor was the mainspring of his power. A mighty hatred makes a
mighty effort.
There is a great difference between a country attorney and an attorney
in Paris; tall Cointet was too clever not to know this, and to turn
the meaner passions that move a pettifogging lawyer to good account. An
eminent attorney in Paris, and there are many who may be so qualified,
is bound to possess to some extent the diplomate’s qualities; he had
so much business to transact, business in which large interests are
involved; questions of such wide interest are submitted to him that he
does not look upon procedure as machinery for bringing money into his
pocket, but as a weapon of attack and defence. A country attorney, on
the other hand, cultivates the science of costs, _broutille_, as it is
called in Paris, a host of small items that swell lawyers’ bills and
require stamped paper. These weighty matters of the law completely fill
the country attorney’s mind; he has a bill of costs always before his
eyes, whereas his brother of Paris thinks of nothing but his fees. The
fee is a honorarium paid by a client over and above the bill of costs,
for the more or less skilful conduct of his case. One-half of the bill
of costs goes to the Treasury, whereas the entire fee belongs to the
attorney. Let us admit frankly that the fees received are seldom as
large as the fees demanded and deserved by a clever lawyer. Wherefore,
in Paris, attorneys, doctors, and barristers, like courtesans with
a chance-come lover, take very considerable precautions against the
gratitude of clients. The client before and after the lawsuit would
furnish a subject worthy of Meissonier; there would be brisk bidding
among attorneys for the possession of two such admirable bits of genre.
There is yet another difference between the Parisian and the country
attorney. An attorney in Paris very seldom appears in court, though he
is sometimes called upon to act as arbitrator (_référé_). Barristers,
at the present day, swarm in the provinces; but in 1822 the country
attorney very often united the functions of solicitor and counsel. As
a result of this double life, the attorney acquired the peculiar
intellectual defects of the barrister, and retained the heavy
responsibilities of the attorney. He grew talkative and fluent, and
lost his lucidity of judgment, the first necessity for the conduct of
affairs. If a man of more than ordinary ability tries to do the work of
two men, he is apt to find that the two men are mediocrities. The Paris
attorney never spends himself in forensic eloquence; and as he seldom
attempts to argue for and against, he has some hope of preserving his
mental rectitude. It is true that he brings the balista of the law
to work, and looks for the weapons in the armory of judicial
contradictions, but he keeps his own convictions as to the case, while
he does his best to gain the day. In a word, a man loses his head not so
much by thinking as by uttering thoughts. The spoken word convinces the
utterer; but a man can act against his own bad judgment without warping
it, and contrive to win in a bad cause without maintaining that it is
a good one, like the barrister. Perhaps for this very reason an old
attorney is the more likely of the two to make a good judge.
A country attorney, as we have seen, has plenty of excuses for his
mediocrity; he takes up the cause of petty passions, he undertakes
pettifogging business, he lives by charging expenses, he strains the
Code of procedure and pleads in court. In a word, his weak points are
legion; and if by chance you come across a remarkable man practising as
a country attorney, he is indeed above the average level.
“I thought, sir, that you sent for me on your own affairs,” said
Petit-Claud, and a glance that put an edge on his words fell upon tall
Cointet’s impenetrable blue spectacles.
“Let us have no beating about the bush,” returned Boniface Cointet.
“Listen to me.”
After that beginning, big with mysterious import, Cointet set himself
down upon a bench, and beckoned Petit-Claud to do likewise.
“When M. du Hautoy came to Angoulême in 1804, on his way to his
consulship at Valence, he made the acquaintance of Mme. de Senonches,
then Mlle. Zéphirine, and had a daughter by her,” added Cointet for
the attorney’s ear----“Yes,” he continued, as Petit-Claud gave a start;
“yes, and Mlle. Zéphirine’s marriage with M. de Senoches soon followed
the birth of the child. The girl was brought up in my mother’s house;
she is the Mlle. Françoise de la Haye in whom Mme. de Senoches takes an
interest; she is her godmother in the usual style. Now, my mother farmed
land belonging to old Mme. de Cardanet, Mlle. Zéphirine’s grandmother;
and as she knew the secret of the sole heiress of the Cardanets and the
Senonches of the older branch, they made me trustee for the little sum
which M. François du Hautoy meant for the girl’s fortune. I made my own
fortune with those ten thousand francs, which amount to thirty thousand
at the present day. Mme. de Senonches is sure to give the wedding
clothes, and some plate and furniture to her goddaughter. Now, I can
put you in the way of marrying the girl, my lad,” said Cointet, slapping
Petit-Claud on the knee; “and when you marry Françoise de la Haye,
you will have a large number of the aristocracy of Angoulême as your
clients. This understanding between us (under the rose) will open up
magnificent prospects for you. Your position will be as much as any one
could want; in fact, they don’t ask better, I know.”
“What is to be done?” Petit-Claud asked eagerly. “You have an attorney,
Maître Cachan----”
“And, moreover, I shall not leave Cachan at once for you; I shall only
be your client later on,” said Cointet significantly. “What is to be
done, do you ask, my friend? Eh! why, David Séchard’s business. The poor
devil has three thousand francs’ worth of bills to meet; he will not
meet them; you will stave off legal proceedings in such a way as to
increase the expenses enormously. Don’t trouble yourself; go on, pile on
items. Doublon, my process-server, will act under Cachan’s directions,
and he will lay on like a blacksmith. A word to the wise is sufficient.
Now, young man?----”
An eloquent pause followed, and the two men looked at each other.
“We have never seen each other,” Cointet resumed; “I have not said
a syllable to you; you know nothing about M. du Hautoy, nor Mme. de
Senonches, nor Mlle. de la Haye; only, when the time comes, two months
hence, you will propose for the young lady. If we should want to see
each other, you will come here after dark. Let us have nothing in
writing.”
“Then you mean to ruin Séchard?” asked Petit-Claud.
“Not exactly; but he must be in jail for some time----”
“And what is the object?”
“Do you think that I am noodle enough to tell you that? If you have wit
enough to find out, you will have sense enough to hold your tongue.”
“Old Séchard has plenty of money,” said Petit-Claud. He was beginning
already to enter into Boniface Cointet’s notions, and foresaw a possible
cause of failure.
“So long as the father lives, he will not give his son a farthing; and
the old printer has no mind as yet to send in an order for his funeral
cards.”
“Agreed!” said Petit-Claud, promptly making up his mind. “I don’t ask
you for guarantees; I am an attorney. If any one plays me a trick, there
will be an account to settle between us.”
“The rogue will go far,” thought Cointet; he bade Petit-Claud
good-morning.
The day after this conference was the 30th of April, and the Cointets
presented the first of the three bills forged by Lucien. Unluckily, the
bill was brought to poor Mme. Séchard; and she, seeing at once that the
signature was not in her husband’s handwriting, sent for David and asked
him point-blank:
“You did not put your name to that bill, did you?”
“No,” said he; “your brother was so pressed for time that he signed for
me.”
Eve returned the bill to the bank messenger sent by the Cointets.
“We cannot meet it,” she said; then, feeling that her strength was
failing, she went up to her room. David followed her.
“Go quickly to the Cointets, dear,” Eve said faintly; “they will have
some consideration for you; beg them to wait; and call their attention
besides to the fact that when Cérizet’s lease is renewed, they will owe
you a thousand francs.”
David went forthwith to his enemies. Now, any foreman may become a
master printer, but there are not always the makings of a good man of
business in a skilled typographer; David knew very little of business;
when, therefore, with a heavily-beating heart and a sensation of
throttling, David had put his excuses badly enough and formulated his
request, the answer--“This is nothing to do with us; the bill has
been passed on to us by Métivier; Métivier will pay us. Apply to M.
Métivier”--cut him short at once.
“Oh!” cried Eve when she heard the result, “as soon as the bill is
returned to M. Métivier, we may be easy.”
At two o’clock the next day, Victor-Ange-Herménégilde Doublon, bailiff,
made protest for non-payment at two o’clock, a time when the Place du
Mûrier is full of people; so that though Doublon was careful to stand
and chat at the back door with Marion and Kolb, the news of the protest
was known all over the business world of Angoulême that evening. Tall
Cointet had enjoined it upon Master Doublon to show the Séchards the
greatest consideration; but when all was said and done, could the
bailiff’s hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and David from
the disgrace of a suspension of payment? Let each judge for himself.
A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too short;
and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with avidity upon
details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus establishing yet
once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that there is nothing so
little known as that which everybody is supposed to know--the Law of the
Land, to wit.
And of a truth, for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute
description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as
interesting as any chapter of foreign travel. When a tradesman living
in one town gives a bill to another tradesman elsewhere (as David was
supposed to have done for Lucien’s benefit), the transaction ceases
to be a simple promissory note, given in the way of business by one
tradesman to another in the same place, and becomes in some sort a
letter of exchange. When, therefore, Métivier accepted Lucien’s three
bills, he was obliged to send them for collection to his correspondents
in Angoulême--to Cointet Brothers, that is to say. Hence, likewise, a
certain initial loss for Lucien in exchange on Angoulême, taking the
practical shape of an abatement of so much per cent over and above the
discount. In this way Séchard’s bills had passed into circulation in the
bank. You would not believe how greatly the quality of banker, united
with the august title of creditor, changes the debtor’s position. For
instance, when a bill has been passed through the bank (please note
that expression), and transferred from the money market in Paris to
the financial world of Angoulême, if that bill is protested, then the
bankers in Angoulême must draw up a detailed account of the expenses
of protest and return; ‘tis a duty which they owe to themselves. Joking
apart, no account of the most romantic adventure could be more mildly
improbable than this of the journey made by a bill. Behold a certain
article in the Code of commerce authorizing the most ingenious
pleasantries after Mascarille’s manner, and the interpretation thereof
shall make apparent manifold atrocities lurking beneath the formidable
word “legal.”
Master Doublon registered the protest and went himself with it to MM.
Cointet Brothers. The firm had a standing account with their bailiff;
he gave them six months’ credit; and the lynxes of Angoulême practically
took a twelvemonth, though tall Cointet would say month by month to
the lynxes’ jackal, “Do you want any money, Doublon?” Nor was this all.
Doublon gave the influential house a rebate upon every transaction;
it was the merest trifle, one franc fifty centimes on a protest, for
instance.
Tall Cointet quietly sat himself down at his desk and took out a small
sheet of paper with a thirty-five centime stamp upon it, chatting as he
did so with Doublon as to the standing of some of the local tradesmen.
“Well, are you satisfied with young Gannerac?”
“He is not doing badly. Lord, a carrier drives a trade----”
“Drives a trade, yes; but, as a matter of fact, his expenses are a heavy
pull on him; his wife spends a good deal, so they tell me----”
“Of _his_ money?” asked Doublon, with a knowing look.
The lynx meanwhile had finished ruling his sheet of paper, and now
proceeded to trace the ominous words at the head of the following
account in bold characters:--
ACCOUNT OF EXPENSES OF PROTEST AND RETURN.
_To one bill for_ one thousand francs, _bearing date of February the
tenth, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, drawn by_ Séchard junior _of
Angoulême, to order of_ Lucien Chardon, _otherwise_ de Rubempré,
_endorsed to order of_ Métivier, _and finally to our order, matured
the thirtieth of April last, protested by_ Doublon, _process-server,
on the first of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two._
fr. c.
Principal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000 --
Expenses of Protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 35
Bank charges, one-half per cent. . . . . . . 5 --
Brokerage, one-quarter per cent. . . . . . . 2 50
Stamp on re-draft and present account. . . . 1 35
Interest and postage . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 --
____ ____
1024 20
Exchange at the rate of one and a quarter
per cent on 1024 fr. 20 c.. . . . . . . . 13 25
____ ____
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
_One thousand and thirty-seven francs forty-five centimes, for
which we repay ourselves by our draft at sight upon M. Métivier,
Rue Serpente, Paris, payable to order of M. Gannerac of L’Houmeau._
ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822 COINTET BROTHERS.
At the foot of this little memorandum, drafted with the ease that comes
of long practice (for the writer chatted with Doublon as he wrote),
there appeared the subjoined form of declaration:--
“We, the undersigned, Postel of L’Houmeau, pharmaceutical chemist,
and Gannerac, forwarding agent, merchant of this town, hereby
certify that the present rate of exchange on Paris is one and a
quarter per cent.
“ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822.”
“Here, Doublon, be so good as to step round and ask Postel and Gannerac
to put their names to this declaration, and bring it back with you
to-morrow morning.”
And Doublon, quite accustomed as he was to these instruments of torture,
forthwith went, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Evidently
the protest might have been sent in an envelope, as in Paris, and
even so all Angoulême was sure to hear of the poor Séchards’ unlucky
predicament. How they all blamed his want of business energy! His
excessive fondness for his wife had been the ruin of him, according
to some; others maintained that it was his affection for his
brother-in-law; and what shocking conclusions did they not draw from
these premises! A man ought never to embrace the interests of his kith
and kin. Old Séchard’s hard-hearted conduct met with approval, and
people admired him for his treatment of his son!
And now, all you who for any reason whatsoever should forget to “honor
your engagements,” look well into the methods of the banking business,
by which one thousand francs may be made to pay interest at the rate
of twenty-eight francs in ten minutes, without breaking the law of the
land.
The thousand francs, the one incontestable item in the account, comes
first.
The second item is shared between the bailiff and the Inland Revenue
Department. The six francs due to the State for providing a piece of
stamped paper, and putting the debtor’s mortification on record, will
probably ensure a long life to this abuse; and as you already know,
one franc fifty centimes from this item found its way into the banker’s
pockets in the shape of Doublon’s rebate.
“Bank charges one-half per cent,” runs the third item, which appears
upon the ingenious plea that if a banker has not received payment,
he has for all practical purposes discounted a bill. And although the
contrary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs,
it seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.
Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than
the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under
the humble title of “charges,” representing a premium on the financial
genius and skill with which the capitalist puts his money out to
interest. The more money he makes out of you, the more he asks.
Wherefore it would be undoubtedly cheaper to discount a bill with a
fool, if fools there be in the profession of bill-discounting.
The law requires the banker to obtain a stock-broker’s certificate for
the rate of exchange. When a place is so unlucky as to boast no stock
exchange, two merchants act instead. This is the significance of the
item “brokerage”; it is a fixed charge of a quarter per cent on the
amount of the protested bill. The custom is to consider the amount
as paid to the merchants who act for the stock-broker, and the banker
quietly puts the money into his cash-box. So much for the third item in
this delightful account.
The fourth includes the cost of the piece of stamped paper on which the
account itself appears, as well as the cost of the stamp for re-draft,
as it is ingeniously named, viz., the banker’s draft upon his colleague
in Paris.
The fifth is a charge for postage and the legal interest due upon the
amount for the time that it may happen to be absent from the banker’s
strong box.
The final item, the exchange, is the object for which the bank exists,
which is to say, for the transmission of sums of money from one place to
another.
Now, sift this account thoroughly, and what do you find? The method of
calculation closely resembles Polichinelle’s arithmetic in Lablache’s
Neapolitan song, “fifteen and five make twenty-two.” The signatures of
Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the way
of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as Gannerac
acted for the Cointets. It was a practical application of the well-known
proverb, “Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the senna.” Cointet
Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with Métivier; there was no
need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made. A returned bill between
the two firms simply meant a debit or credit entry and another line in a
ledger.
This highly-colored account, therefore, is reduced to the one thousand
francs, with an additional thirteen francs for expenses of protest, and
half per cent for a month’s delay, one thousand and eighteen francs it
may be in all.
Suppose that in a large banking-house a bill for a thousand francs is
daily protested on an average, then the banker receives twenty-eight
francs a day by the grace of God and the constitution of the banking
system, that all powerful invention due to the Jewish intellect of
the Middle Ages, which after six centuries still controls monarchs and
peoples. In other words, a thousand francs would bring such a house
twenty-eight francs per day, or ten thousand two hundred and twenty
francs per annum. Triple the average of protests, and consequently of
expenses, and you shall derive an income of thirty thousand francs
per annum, interest upon purely fictitious capital. For which reason,
nothing is more lovingly cultivated than these little “accounts of
expenses.”
If David Séchard had come to pay his bill on the 3rd of May, that is,
the day after it was protested, MM. Cointet Brothers would have met him
at once with, “We have returned your bill to M. Métivier,” although, as
a matter of fact, the document would have been lying upon the desk. A
banker has a right to make out the account of expenses on the evening of
the day when the bill is protested, and he uses the right to “sweat the
silver crowns,” in the country banker’s phrase.
The Kellers, with correspondents all over the world, make twenty
thousand francs per annum by charges for postage alone; accounts of
expenses of protest pay for Mme. la Baronne de Nucingen’s dresses, opera
box, and carriage. The charge for postage is a more shocking swindle,
because a house will settle ten matters of business in as many lines of
a single letter. And of the tithe wrung from misfortune, the Government,
strange to say! takes its share, and the national revenue is swelled by
a tax on commercial failure. And the Bank? from the august height of a
counting-house she flings an observation, full of commonsense, at the
debtor, “How is it?” asks she, “that you cannot meet your bill?” and,
unluckily, there is no reply to the question. Wherefore, the “account of
expenses” is an account bristling with dreadful fictions, fit to cause
any debtor, who henceforth shall reflect upon this instructive page, a
salutary shudder.
On the 4th of May, Métivier received the account from Cointet Brothers,
with instructions to proceed against M. Lucien Chardon, otherwise de
Rubempré, with the utmost rigor of the law.
Eve also wrote to M. Métivier, and a few days later received an answer
which reassured her completely:--
_To M. Séchard, Junior, Printer, Angoulême._
“I have duly received your esteemed favor of the 5th instant. From
your explanation of the bill due on April 30th, I understand that
you have obliged your brother-in-law, M. de Rubempré, who is
spending so much that it will be doing you a service to summons
him. His present position is such that he is likely to delay
payment for long. If your brother-in-law should refuse payment, I
shall rely upon the credit of your old-established house.--I sign
myself now, as ever, your obedient servant,
“Métivier.”
“Well,” said Eve, commenting upon the letter to David, “Lucien will know
when they summons him that we could not pay.”
What a change wrought in Eve those few words meant! The love that grew
deeper as she came to know her husband’s character better and better,
was taking the place of love for her brother in her heart. But to how
many illusions had she not bade farewell?
And now let us trace out the whole history of the bill and the account
of expenses in the business world of Paris. The law enacts that the
third holder, the technical expression for the third party into whose
hands the bill passes, is at liberty to proceed for the whole amount
against any one of the various endorsers who appears to him to be most
likely to make prompt payment. M. Métivier, using this discretion,
served a summons upon Lucien. Behold the successive stages of the
proceedings, all of them perfectly futile. Métivier, with the Cointets
behind him, knew that Lucien was not in a position to pay, but
insolvency in fact is not insolvency in law until it has been formally
proved.
Formal proof of Lucien’s inability to pay was obtained in the following
manner:
On the 5th of May, Métivier’s process-server gave Lucien notice of
the protest and an account of the expense thereof, and summoned him to
appear before the Tribunal of Commerce, or County Court, of Paris, to
hear a vast number of things: this, among others, that he was liable to
imprisonment as a merchant. By the time that Lucien, hard pressed
and hunted down on all sides, read this jargon, he received notice of
judgment against him by default. Coralie, his mistress, ignorant of the
whole matter, imagined that Lucien had obliged his brother-in-law, and
handed him all the documents together--too late. An actress sees so
much of bailiffs, duns, and writs, upon the stage, that she looks on all
stamped paper as a farce.
Tears filled Lucien’s eyes; he was unhappy on Séchard’s account, he
was ashamed of the forgery, he wished to pay, he desired to gain time.
Naturally he took counsel of his friends. But by the time Lousteau,
Blondet, Bixiou, and Nathan had told the poet to snap his fingers at a
court only established for tradesmen, Lucien was already in the clutches
of the law. He beheld upon his door the little yellow placard which
leaves its reflection on the porter’s countenance, and exercises a most
astringent influence upon credit; striking terror into the heart of
the smallest tradesman, and freezing the blood in the veins of a poet
susceptible enough to care about the bits of wood, silken rags, dyed
woolen stuffs, and multifarious gimcracks entitled furniture.
When the broker’s men came for Coralie’s furniture, the author of the
_Marguerites_ fled to a friend of Bixiou’s, one Desroches, a barrister,
who burst out laughing at the sight of Lucien in such a state about
nothing at all.
“That is nothing, my dear fellow. Do you want to gain time?”
“Yes, as much possible.”
“Very well, apply for stay of execution. Go and look up Masson, he is
a solicitor in the Commercial Court, and a friend of mine. Take your
documents to him. He will make a second application for you, and give
notice of objection to the jurisdiction of the court. There is not the
least difficulty; you are a journalist, your name is well known enough.
If they summons you before a civil court, come to me about it, that
will be my affair; I engage to send anybody who offers to annoy the fair
Coralie about his business.”
On the 28th of May, Lucien’s case came on in the civil court, and
judgment was given before Desroches expected it. Lucien’s creditor was
pushing on the proceedings against him. A second execution was put in,
and again Coralie’s pilasters were gilded with placards. Desroches felt
rather foolish; a colleague had “caught him napping,” to use his own
expression. He demurred, not without reason, that the furniture belonged
to Mlle. Coralie, with whom Lucien was living, and demanded an order for
inquiry. Thereupon the judge referred the matter to the registrar for
inquiry, the furniture was proved to belong to the actress, and judgment
was entered accordingly. Métivier appealed, and judgment was confirmed
on appeal on the 30th of June.
On the 7th of August, Maître Cachan received by the coach a bulky
package endorsed, “Métivier _versus_ Séchard and Lucien Chardon.”
The first document was a neat little bill, of which a copy (accuracy
guaranteed) is here given for the reader’s benefit:--
_To Bill due the last day of April, drawn by_
Séchard, junior, _to order of_ Lucien de
Rubempré, _together with expenses of fr. c.
protest and return_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
May 5th--Serving notice of protest and
summons to appear before the
Tribunal of Commerce in
Paris, May 7th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
“ 7th--Judgment by default and
warrant of arrest. . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 --
“ 10th--Notification of judgment . . . . . . . . . 8 50
“ 12th--Warrant of execution . . . . . . . . . . . 5 50
“ 14th--Inventory and appraisement
previous to execution. . . . . . . . . . . 16 --
“ 18th--Expenses of affixing placards. . . . . . . 15 25
“ 19th--Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 --
“ 24th--Verification of inventory, and
application for stay of execution
on the part of the said
Lucien de Rubempré, objecting
to the jurisdiction of the Court. . . . . . 12 --
“ 27th--Order of the Court upon application
duly repeated, and transfer of
of case to the Civil Court. . . . . . . . . 35 --
____ ____
Carried forward. . . . . . . . . . . . 1177 45
fr. c.
Brought forward 1177 45
May 28th--Notice of summary proceedings in
the Civil Court at the instance
of Métivier, represented by
counsel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 50
June 2nd--Judgment, after hearing both
parties, condemning Lucien for
expenses of protest and return;
the plaintiff to bear costs
of proceedings in the
Commercial Court. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 --
“ 6th--Notification of judgment. . . . . . . . . . 10 --
“ 15th--Warrant of execution. . . . . . . . . . . . 5 50
“ 19th--Inventory and appraisement preparatory
to execution; interpleader summons by
the Demoiselle Coralie, claiming goods
and chattels taken in execution; demand
for immediate special inquiry before
further proceedings be taken . . . . . . . 20 --
“ “ --Judge’s order referring matter to
registrar for immediate special inquiry. . 40 --
“ “ --Judgment in favor of the said
Mademoiselle Coralie . . . . . . . . . . . 250 --
“ 20th--Appeal by Métivier . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 --
“ 30th--Confirmation of judgment . . . . . . . . . 250 --
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926 45
__________
Bill matured May 31st, with expenses of fr. c.
protest and return. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
Serving notice of protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046 20
Bill matured June 30th, with expenses of
protest and return. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037 45
Serving notice of protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 75
____ ____
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046 20
__________
This document was accompanied by a letter from Métivier, instructing
Maître Cachan, notary of Angoulême, to prosecute David Séchard with
the utmost rigor of the law. Wherefore Maître Victor-Ange-Herménégilde
Doublon summoned David Séchard before the Tribunal of Commerce in
Angoulême for the sum-total of four thousand and eighteen francs
eighty-five centimes, the amount of the three bills and expenses already
incurred. On the morning of the very day when Doublon served the writ
upon Eve, requiring her to pay a sum so enormous in her eyes, there came
a letter like a thunderbolt from Métivier:--
_To Monsieur Séchard, Junior, Printer, Angoulême._
“SIR,--Your brother-in-law, M. Chardon, is so shamelessly
dishonest, that he declares his furniture to be the property of an
actress with whom he is living. You ought to have informed me
candidly of these circumstances, and not have allowed me to go to
useless expense over law proceedings. I have received no answer
to my letter of the 10th of May last. You must not, therefore,
take it amiss if I ask for immediate repayment of the three bills
and the expenses to which I have been put.--Yours, etc.,
“METIVIER.”
Eve had heard nothing during these months, and supposed, in her
ignorance of commercial law, that her brother had made reparation for
his sins by meeting the forged bills.
“Be quick, and go at once to Petit-Claud, dear,” she said; “tell him
about it, and ask his advice.”
David hurried to his schoolfellow’s office.
“When you came to tell me of your appointment and offered me your
services, I did not think that I should need them so soon,” he said.
Petit-Claud studied the fine face of this man who sat opposite him in
the office chair, and scarcely listened to the details of the case,
for he knew more of them already than the speaker. As soon as he saw
Séchard’s anxiety, he said to himself, “The trick has succeeded.”
This kind of comedy is often played in an attorney’s office. “Why are
the Cointets persecuting him?” Petit-Claud wondered within himself, for
the attorney can use his wit to read his clients’ thoughts as clearly as
the ideas of their opponents, and it is his business to see both sides
of the judicial web.
“You want to gain time,” he said at last, when Séchard had come to an
end. “How long do you want? Something like three or four months?”
“Oh! four months! that would be my salvation,” exclaimed David.
Petit-Claud appeared to him as an angel.
“Very well. No one shall lay hands on any of your furniture, and no one
shall arrest you for four months----But it will cost you a great deal,”
said Petit-Claud.
“Eh! what does that matter to me?” cried Séchard.
“You are expecting some money to come in; but are you sure of it?” asked
Petit-Claud, astonished at the way in which his client walked into the
toils.
“In three months’ time I shall have plenty of money,” said the inventor,
with an inventor’s hopeful confidence.
“Your father is still above ground,” suggested Petit-Claud; “he is in no
hurry to leave his vines.”
“Do you think that I am counting on my father’s death?” returned David.
“I am on the track of a trade secret, the secret of making a sheet of
paper as strong as Dutch paper, without a thread of cotton in it, and at
a cost of fifty per cent less than cotton pulp.”
“There is a fortune in that!” exclaimed Petit-Claud. He knew now what
the tall Cointet meant.
“A large fortune, my friend, for in ten years’ time the demand for paper
will be ten times larger than it is to-day. Journalism will be the craze
of our day.”
“Nobody knows your secret?”
“Nobody except my wife.”
“You have not told any one what you mean to do--the Cointets, for
example?”
“I did say something about it, but in general terms, I think.”
A sudden spark of generosity flashed through Petit-Claud’s rancorous
soul; he tried to reconcile Séchard’s interests with the Cointet’s
projects and his own.
“Listen, David, we are old schoolfellows, you and I; I will fight your
case; but understand this clearly--the defence, in the teeth of the
law, will cost you five or six thousand francs! Do not compromise your
prospects. I think you will be compelled to share the profits of your
invention with some one of our paper manufacturers. Let us see now. You
will think twice before you buy or build a paper mill; and there is
the cost of the patent besides. All this means time, and money too. The
servers of writs will be down upon you too soon, perhaps, although we
are going to give them the slip----”
“I have my secret,” said David, with the simplicity of the man of books.
“Well and good, your secret will be your plank of safety,” said
Petit-Claud; his first loyal intention of avoiding a lawsuit by a
compromise was frustrated. “I do not wish to know it; but mind this that
I tell you. Work in the bowels of the earth if you can, so that no one
may watch you and gain a hint from your ways of working, or your plank
will be stolen from under your feet. An inventor and a simpleton often
live in the same skin. Your mind runs so much on your secrets that you
cannot think of everything. People will begin to have their suspicions
at last, and the place is full of paper manufacturers. So many
manufacturers, so many enemies for you! You are like a beaver with the
hunters about you; do not give them your skin----”
“Thank you, dear fellow, I have told myself all this,” exclaimed
Séchard, “but I am obliged to you for showing so much concern for me and
for your forethought. It does not really matter to me myself. An income
of twelve hundred francs would be enough for me, and my father ought by
rights to leave me three times as much some day. Love and thought make
up my life--a divine life. I am working for Lucien’s sake and for my
wife’s.”
“Come, give me this power of attorney, and think of nothing but your
discovery. If there should be any danger of arrest, I will let you know
in time, for we must think of all possibilities. And let me tell you
again to allow no one of whom you are not so sure as you are of yourself
to come into your place.”
“Cérizet did not care to continue the lease of the plant and premises,
hence our little money difficulties. We have no one at home now but
Marion and Kolb, an Alsacien as trusty as a dog, and my wife and her
mother----”
“One word,” said Petit-Claud, “don’t trust that dog----”
“You do not know him,” exclaimed David; “he is like a second self.”
“May I try him?”
“Yes,” said Séchard.
“There, good-bye, but send Mme. Séchard to me; I must have a power of
attorney from your wife. And bear in mind, my friend, that there is a
fire burning in your affairs,” said Petit-Claud, by way of warning of
all the troubles gathering in the law courts to burst upon David’s head.
“Here am I with one foot in Burgundy and the other in Champagne,” he
added to himself as he closed the office door on David.
Harassed by money difficulties, beset with fears for his wife’s health,
stung to the quick by Lucien’s disgrace, David had worked on at his
problem. He had been trying to find a single process to replace the
various operations of pounding and maceration to which all flax or
cotton or rags, any vegetable fibre, in fact, must be subjected; and as
he went to Petit-Claud’s office, he abstractedly chewed a bit of nettle
stalk that had been steeping in water. On his way home, tolerably
satisfied with his interview, he felt a little pellet sticking between
his teeth. He laid it on his hand, flattened it out, and saw that the
pulp was far superior to any previous result. The want of cohesion is
the great drawback of all vegetable fibre; straw, for instance, yields
a very brittle paper, which may almost be called metallic and resonant.
These chances only befall bold inquirers into Nature’s methods!
“Now,” said he to himself, “I must contrive to do by machinery and some
chemical agency the thing that I myself have done unconsciously.”
When his wife saw him, his face was radiant with belief in victory.
There were traces of tears in Eve’s face.
“Oh! my darling, do not trouble yourself; Petit-Claud will guarantee
that we shall not be molested for several months to come. There will be
a good deal of expense over it; but, as Petit-Claud said when he came
to the door with me, ‘A Frenchman has a right to keep his creditors
waiting, provided he repays them capital, interest, and costs.’--Very
well, then, we shall do that----”
“And live meanwhile?” asked poor Eve, who thought of everything.
“Ah! that is true,” said David, carrying his hand to his ear after the
unaccountable fashion of most perplexed mortals.
“Mother will look after little Lucien, and I can go back to work again,”
said she.
“Eve! oh, my Eve!” cried David, holding his wife closely to him.--“At
Saintes, not very far from here, in the sixteenth century, there
lived one of the very greatest of Frenchmen, for he was not merely the
inventor of glaze, he was the glorious precursor of Buffon and Cuvier
besides; he was the first geologist, good, simple soul that he was.
Bernard Palissy endured the martyrdom appointed for all seekers into
secrets but his wife and children and all his neighbors were against
him. His wife used to sell his tools; nobody understood him, he wandered
about the countryside, he was hunted down, they jeered at him. But I--am
loved----”
“Dearly loved!” said Eve, with the quiet serenity of the love that is
sure of itself.
“And so may well endure all that poor Bernard Palissy suffered--Bernard
Palissy, the discoverer of Écouen ware, the Huguenot excepted by Charles
IX. on the day of Saint-Bartholomew. He lived to be rich and honored in
his old age, and lectured on the ‘Science of Earths,’ as he called it,
in the face of Europe.”
“So long as my fingers can hold an iron, you shall want for nothing,”
cried the poor wife, in tones that told of the deepest devotion. “When
I was Mme. Prieur’s forewoman I had a friend among the girls, Basine
Clerget, a cousin of Postel’s, a very good child; well, Basine told me
the other day when she brought back the linen, that she was taking Mme.
Prieur’s business; I will work for her.”
“Ah! you shall not work there for long,” said David; “I have found
out----”
Eve, watching his face, saw the sublime belief in success which sustains
the inventor, the belief that gives him courage to go forth into the
virgin forests of the country of Discovery; and, for the first time in
her life, she answered that confident look with a half-sad smile. David
bent his head mournfully.
“Oh! my dear! I am not laughing! I did not doubt! It was not a sneer!”
cried Eve, on her knees before her husband. “But I see plainly now that
you were right to tell me nothing about your experiments and your hopes.
Ah! yes, dear, an inventor should endure the long painful travail of a
great idea alone, he should not utter a word of it even to his wife
.... A woman is a woman still. This Eve of yours could not help smiling
when she heard you say, ‘I have found out,’ for the seventeenth time
this month.”
David burst out laughing so heartily at his own expense that Eve caught
his hand in hers and kissed it reverently. It was a delicious moment for
them both, one of those roses of love and tenderness that grow beside
the desert paths of the bitterest poverty, nay, at times in yet darker
depths.
As the storm of misfortune grew, Eve’s courage redoubled; the greatness
of her husband’s nature, his inventor’s simplicity, the tears that now
and again she saw in the eyes of this dreamer of dreams with the
tender heart,--all these things aroused in her an unsuspected energy
of resistance. Once again she tried the plan that had succeeded so
well already. She wrote to M. Métivier, reminding him that the printing
office was for sale, offered to pay him out of the proceeds, and begged
him not to ruin David with needless costs. Métivier received the heroic
letter, and shammed dead. His head-clerk replied that in the absence of
M. Métivier he could not take it upon himself to stay proceedings, for
his employer had made it a rule to let the law take its course. Eve
wrote again, offering this time to renew the bills and pay all the costs
hitherto incurred. To this the clerk consented, provided that Séchard
senior guaranteed payment. So Eve walked over to Marsac, taking Kolb and
her mother with her. She braved the old vinedresser, and so charming was
she, that the old man’s face relaxed, and the puckers smoothed out at
the sight of her; but when, with inward quakings, she came to speak of a
guarantee, she beheld a sudden and complete change of the tippleographic
countenance.
“If I allowed my son to put his hand to the lips of my cash box whenever
he had a mind, he would plunge it deep into the vitals, he would take
all I have!” cried old Séchard. “That is the way with children; they
eat up their parents’ purse. What did I do myself, eh? _I_ never cost my
parents a farthing. Your printing office is standing idle. The rats and
the mice do all the printing that is done in it. . . . You have a pretty
face; I am very fond of you; you are a careful, hard-working woman; but
that son of mine!--Do you know what David is? I’ll tell you--he is a
scholar that will never do a stroke of work! If I had reared him, as
I was reared myself, without knowing his letters, and if I had made a
‘bear’ of him, like his father before him, he would have money saved and
put out to interest by now. . . . Oh! he is my cross, that fellow is,
look you! And, unluckily, he is all the family I have, for there is
never like to be a later edition. And when he makes you unhappy----”
Eve protested with a vehement gesture of denial.
“Yes, he does,” affirmed old Séchard; “you had to find a wet-nurse for
the child. Come, come, I know all about it, you are in the county court,
and the whole town is talking about you. I was only a ‘bear,’ _I_ have
no book learning, _I_ was not foreman at the Didots’, the first printers
in the world; but yet I never set eyes on a bit of stamped paper. Do
you know what I say to myself as I go to and fro among my vines, looking
after them and getting in my vintage, and doing my bits of business?--I
say to myself, ‘You are taking a lot of trouble, poor old chap; working
to pile one silver crown on another, you will leave a fine property
behind you, and the bailiffs and the lawyers will get it all; . . . or
else it will go in nonsensical notions and crotchets.’--Look you here,
child; you are the mother of yonder little lad; it seemed to me as
I held him at the font with Mme. Chardon that I could see his old
grandfather’s copper nose on his face; very well, think less of Séchard
and more of that little rascal. I can trust no one but you; you will
prevent him from squandering my property--my poor property.”
“But, dear papa Séchard, your son will be a credit to you, you will see;
he will make money and be a rich man one of these days, and wear the
Cross of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole.”
“What is he going to do to get it?”
“You will see. But, meanwhile, would a thousand crowns ruin you? A
thousand crowns would put an end to the proceedings. Well, if you cannot
trust him, lend the money to me; I will pay it back; you could make it a
charge on my portion, on my earnings----”
“Then has some one brought David into a court of law?” cried the
vinedresser, amazed to find that the gossip was really true. “See what
comes of knowing how to write your name! And how about my rent! Oh!
little girl, I must go to Angoulême at once and ask Cachan’s advice, and
see that I am straight. You did right well to come over. Forewarned is
forearmed.”
After two hours of argument Eve was fain to go, defeated by the
unanswerable _dictum_, “Women never understand business.” She had come
with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached
home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Séchard must pay
Métivier in full. The appearance of a bailiff at a house door is an
event in a country town, and Doublon had come far too often of late. The
whole neighborhood was talking about the Séchards. Eve dared not leave
her house; she dreaded to hear the whispers as she passed.
“Oh! my brother, my brother!” cried poor Eve, as she hurried into the
passage and up the stairs, “I can never forgive you, unless it was----”
“Alas! it was that, or suicide,” said David, who had followed her.
“Let us say no more about it,” she said quietly. “The woman who dragged
him down into the depths of Paris has much to answer for; and your
father, my David, is quite inexorable! Let us bear it in silence.”
A discreet rapping at the door cut short some word of love on David’s
lips. Marion appeared, towing the big, burly Kolb after her across the
outer room.
“Madame,” said Marion, “we have known, Kolb and I, that you and the
master were very much put about; and as we have eleven hundred francs of
savings between us, we thought we could not do better than put them in
the mistress’ hands----”
“Die misdress,” echoed Kolb fervently.
“Kolb,” cried David, “you and I will never part. Pay a thousand francs
on account to Maître Cachan, and take a receipt for it; we will keep the
rest. And, Kolb, no power on earth must extract a word from you as to my
work, or my absences from home, or the things you may see me bring back;
and if I send you to look for plants for me, you know, no human being
must set eyes on you. They will try to corrupt you, my good Kolb;
they will offer you thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of francs, to
tell----”
“Dey may offer me millions,” cried Kolb, “but not ein vort from me shall
dey traw. Haf I not peen in der army, and know my orders?”
“Well, you are warned. March, and ask M. Petit-Claud to go with you as
witness.”
“Yes,” said the Alsacien. “Some tay I hope to be rich enough to dust der
chacket of dat man of law. I don’t like his gountenance.”
“Kolb is a good man, madame,” said Big Marion; “he is as strong as a
Turk, and as meek as a lamb. Just the one that would make a woman happy.
It was his notion, too, to invest our savings this way--‘safings,’ as he
calls them. Poor man, if he doesn’t speak right, he thinks right, and
I understand him all the same. He has a notion of working for somebody
else, so as to save us his keep----”
“Surely we shall be rich, if it is only to repay these good folk,” said
David, looking at his wife.
Eve thought it quite simple; it was no surprise to her to find
other natures on a level with her own. The dullest--nay, the most
indifferent--observer could have seen all the beauty of her nature in
her way of receiving this service.
“You will be rich some day, dear master,” said Marion; “your bread is
ready baked. Your father has just bought another farm, he is putting by
money for you; that he is.”
And under the circumstances, did not Marion show an exquisite delicacy
of feeling by belittling, as it were, her kindness in this way?
French procedure, like all things human, has its defects; nevertheless,
the sword of justice, being a two-edged weapon, is excellently adapted
alike for attack or defence. Procedure, moreover, has its amusing side;
for when opposed, lawyers arrive at an understanding, as they well may
do, without exchanging a word; through their manner of conducting their
case, a suit becomes a kind of war waged on the lines laid down by the
first Marshal Biron, who, at the siege of Rouen, it may be remembered,
received his son’s project for taking the city in two days with the
remark, “You must be in a great hurry to go and plant cabbages!” Let
two commanders-in-chief spare their troops as much as possible, let them
imitate the Austrian generals who give the men time to eat their soup
though they fail to effect a juncture, and escape reprimand from the
Aulic Council; let them avoid all decisive measures, and they shall
carry on a war for ever. Maître Cachan, Petit-Claud, and Doublon, did
better than the Austrian generals; they took for their example Quintus
Fabius Cunctator--the Austrian of antiquity.
Petit-Claud, malignant as a mule, was not long in finding out all the
advantages of his position. No sooner had Boniface Cointet guaranteed
his costs than he vowed to lead Cachan a dance, and to dazzle the paper
manufacturer with a brilliant display of genius in the creation of items
to be charged to Métivier. Unluckily for the fame of the young forensic
Figaro, the writer of this history is obliged to pass over the scene of
his exploits in as great a hurry as if he trod on burning coals; but a
single bill of costs, in the shape of the specimen sent from Paris, will
no doubt suffice for the student of contemporary manners. Let us follow
the example set us by the Bulletins of the Grande Armée, and give a
summary of Petit-Claud’s valiant feats and exploits in the province of
pure law; they will be the better appreciated for concise treatment.
David Séchard was summoned before the Tribunal of Commerce at Angoulême
for the 3rd of July, made default, and notice of judgment was served
on the 8th. On the 10th, Doublon obtained an execution warrant, and
attempted to put in an execution on the 12th. On this Petit-Claud
applied for an interpleader summons, and served notice on Métivier for
that day fortnight. Métivier made application for a hearing without
delay, and on the 19th, Séchard’s application was dismissed. Hard upon
this followed notice of judgment, authorizing the issue of an execution
warrant on the 22nd, a warrant of arrest on the 23rd, and bailiff’s
inventory previous to the execution on the 24th. Métivier, Doublon,
Cachan & Company were proceeding at this furious pace, when Petit-Claud
suddenly pulled them up, and stayed execution by lodging notice of
appeal on the Court-Royal. Notice of appeal, duly reiterated on the 25th
of July, drew Métivier off to Poitiers.
“Come!” said Petit-Claud to himself, “there we are likely to stop for
some time to come.”
No sooner was the storm passed over to Poitiers, and an attorney
practising in the Court-Royal instructed to defend the case, than
Petit-Claud, a champion facing both ways, made application in Mme.
Séchard’s name for the immediate separation of her estate from her
husband’s; using “all diligence” (in legal language) to such purpose,
that he obtained an order from the court on the 28th, and inserted
notice at once in the _Charente Courier_. Now David the lover had
settled ten thousand francs upon his wife in the marriage contract,
making over to her as security the fixtures of the printing office and
the household furniture; and Petit-Claud therefore constituted Mme.
Séchard her husband’s creditor for that small amount, drawing up a
statement of her claims on the estate in the presence of a notary on the
1st of August.
While Petit-Claud was busy securing the household property of his
clients, he gained the day at Poitiers on the point of law on which the
demurrer and appeals were based. He held that, as the court of the
Seine had ordered the plaintiff to pay costs of proceedings in the Paris
commercial court, David was so much the less liable for expenses of
litigation incurred upon Lucien’s account. The Court-Royal took this
view of the case, and judgment was entered accordingly. David Séchard
was ordered to pay the amount in dispute in the Angoulême Court, less
the law expenses incurred in Paris; these Métivier must pay, and each
side must bear its own costs in the appeal to the Court-Royal.
David Séchard was duly notified of the result on the 17th of August.
On the 18th the judgment took the practical shape of an order to pay
capital, interest, and costs, followed up by notice of an execution for
the morrow. Upon this Petit-Claud intervened and put in a claim for the
furniture as the wife’s property duly separated from her husband’s; and
what was more, Petit-Claud produced Séchard senior upon the scene of
action. The old vinegrower had become his client on this wise. He came
to Angoulême on the day after Eve’s visit, and went to Maître Cachan for
advice. His son owed him arrears of rent; how could he come by this rent
in the scrimmage in which his son was engaged?
“I am engaged by the other side,” pronounced Cachan, “and I cannot
appear for the father when I am suing the son; but go to Petit-Claud, he
is very clever, he may perhaps do even better for you than I should do.”
Cachan and Petit-Claud met at the Court.
“I have sent you Séchard senior,” said Cachan; “take the case for me in
exchange.” Lawyers do each other services of this kind in country towns
as well as in Paris.
The day after Séchard senior gave Petit-Claud his confidence, the tall
Cointet paid a visit to his confederate.
“Try to give old Séchard a lesson,” he said. “He is the kind of man that
will never forgive his son for costing him a thousand francs or so; the
outlay will dry up any generous thoughts in his mind, if he ever has
any.”
“Go back to your vines,” said Petit-Claud to his new client. “Your son
is not very well off; do not eat him out of house and home. I will send
for you when the time comes.”
On behalf of Séchard senior, therefore, Petit-Claud claimed that the
presses, being fixtures, were so much the more to be regarded as tools
and implements of trade, and the less liable to seizure, in that the
house had been a printing office since the reign of Louis XIV. Cachan,
on Métivier’s account, waxed indignant at this. In Paris Lucien’s
furniture had belonged to Coralie, and here again in Angoulême David’s
goods and chattels all belonged to his wife or his father; pretty things
were said in court. Father and son were summoned; such claims could not
be allowed to stand.
“We mean to unmask the frauds intrenched behind bad faith of the most
formidable kind; here is the defence of dishonesty bristling with the
plainest and most innocent articles of the Code, and why?--to avoid
repayment of three thousand francs; obtained how?--from poor Métivier’s
cash box! And yet there are those who dare to say a word against
bill-discounters! What times we live in! . . . Now, I put it to
you--what is this but taking your neighbor’s money? . . . You will
surely not sanction a claim which would bring immorality to the very
core of justice!”
Cachan’s eloquence produced an effect on the court. A divided judgment
was given in favor of Mme. Séchard, the house furniture being held to
be her property; and against Séchard senior, who was ordered to pay
costs--four hundred and thirty-four francs, sixty-five centimes.
“It is kind of old Séchard,” laughed the lawyers; “he would have a
finger in the pie, so let him pay!”
Notice of judgment was given on the 26th of August; the presses and
plant could be seized on the 28th. Placards were posted. Application was
made for an order empowering them to sell on the spot. Announcements of
the sale appeared in the papers, and Doublon flattered himself that the
inventory should be verified and the auction take place on the 2nd of
September.
By this time David Séchard owed Métivier five thousand two hundred and
seventy-five francs, twenty-five centimes (to say nothing of interest),
by formal judgment confirmed by appeal, the bill of costs having been
duly taxed. Likewise to Petit-Claud he owed twelve hundred francs,
exclusive of the fees, which were left to David’s generosity with the
generous confidence displayed by the hackney coachman who has driven you
so quickly over the road on which you desire to go.
Mme. Séchard owed Petit-Claud something like three hundred and fifty
francs and fees besides; and of old Séchard, besides four hundred and
thirty-four francs, sixty-five centimes, the little attorney demanded a
hundred crowns by way of fee. Altogether, the Séchard family owed about
ten thousand francs. This is what is called “putting fire into the bed
straw.”
Apart from the utility of these documents to other nations who thus may
behold the battery of French law in action, the French legislator ought
to know the lengths to which the abuse of procedure may be carried,
always supposing that the said legislator can find time for reading.
Surely some sort of regulation might be devised, some way of forbidding
lawyers to carry on a case until the sum in dispute is more than eaten
up in costs? Is there not something ludicrous in the idea of submitting
a square yard of soil and an estate of thousands of acres to the same
legal formalities? These bare outlines of the history of the various
stages of procedure should open the eyes of Frenchmen to the meaning of
the words “legal formalities, justice, and costs,” little as the immense
majority of the nations know about them.
Five thousand pounds’ weight of type in the printing office were worth
two thousand francs as old metal; the three presses were valued at six
hundred francs; the rest of the plant would fetch the price of old iron
and firewood. The household furniture would have brought in a thousand
francs at most. The whole personal property of Séchard junior therefore
represented the sum of four thousand francs; and Cachan and Petit-Claud
made claims for seven thousand francs in costs already incurred, to say
nothing of expenses to come, for the blossom gave promise of fine fruits
enough, as the reader will shortly see. Surely the lawyers of France and
Navarre, nay, even of Normandy herself, will not refuse Petit-Claud
his meed of admiration and respect? Surely, too, kind hearts will give
Marion and Kolb a tear of sympathy?
All through the war Kolb sat on a chair in the doorway, acting as
watch-dog, when David had nothing else for him to do. It was Kolb who
received all the notifications, and a clerk of Petit-Claud’s kept watch
over Kolb. No sooner were the placards announcing the auction put up on
the premises than Kolb tore them down; he hurried round the town after
the bill-poster, tearing the placards from the walls.
“Ah, scountrels!” he cried, “to dorment so goot a man; and they calls it
chustice!”
Marion made half a franc a day by working half time in a paper mill as
a machine tender, and her wages contributed to the support of the
household. Mme. Chardon went back uncomplainingly to her old occupation,
sitting up night after night, and bringing home her wages at the end
of the week. Poor Mme. Chardon! Twice already she had made a nine days’
prayer for those she loved, wondering that God should be deaf to her
petitions, and blind to the light of the candles on His altar.
On the 2nd of September, a letter came from Lucien, the first since
the letter of the winter, which David had kept from his wife’s
knowledge--the announcement of the three bills which bore David’s
signature. This time Lucien wrote to Eve.
“The third since he left us!” she said. Poor sister, she was afraid to
open the envelope that covered the fatal sheet.
She was feeding the little one when the post came in; they could not
afford a wet-nurse now, and the child was being brought up by hand. Her
state of mind may be imagined, and David’s also, when he had been roused
to read the letter, for David had been at work all night, and only lay
down at daybreak.
_Lucien to Eve._
“PARIS, August 29th.
“MY DEAR SISTER,--Two days ago, at five o’clock in the morning,
one of God’s noblest creatures breathed her last in my arms; she
was the one woman on earth capable of loving me as you and mother
and David love me, giving me besides that unselfish affection,
something that neither mother nor sister can give--the utmost
bliss of love. Poor Coralie, after giving up everything for my
sake, may perhaps have died for me--for me, who at this moment
have not the wherewithal to bury her. She could have solaced my
life; you, and you alone, my dear good angels, can console me for
her death. God has forgiven her, I think, the innocent girl, for
she died like a Christian. Oh, this Paris! Eve, Paris is the glory
and the shame of France. Many illusions I have lost here already,
and I have others yet to lose, when I begin to beg for the little
money needed before I can lay the body of my angel in consecrated
earth.
“Your unhappy brother,
“Lucien.”
“P. S. I must have given you much trouble by my heedlessness; some
day you will know all, and you will forgive me. You must be quite
easy now; a worthy merchant, a M. Camusot, to whom I once caused
cruel pangs, promised to arrange everything, seeing that Coralie
and I were so much distressed.”
“The sheet is still moist with his tears,” said Eve, looking at the
letter with a heart so full of sympathy that something of the old love
for Lucien shone in her eyes.
“Poor fellow, he must have suffered cruelly if he has been loved as he
says!” exclaimed Eve’s husband, happy in his love; and these two forgot
all their own troubles at this cry of a supreme sorrow. Just at that
moment Marion rushed in.
“Madame,” she panted, “here they are! Here they are!”
“Who is here?”
“Doublon and his men, bad luck to them! Kolb will not let them come in;
they have come to sell us up.”
“No, no, they are not going to sell you up, never fear,” cried a voice
in the next room, and Petit-Claud appeared upon the scene. “I have just
lodged notice of appeal. We ought not to sit down under a judgment that
attaches a stigma of bad faith to us. I did not think it worth while to
fight the case here. I let Cachan talk to gain time for you; I am sure
of gaining the day at Poitiers----”
“But how much will it cost to win the day?” asked Mme. Séchard.
“Fees if you win, one thousand francs if we lose our case.”
“Oh, dear!” cried poor Eve; “why, the remedy is worse than the disease!”
Petit-Claud was not a little confused at this cry of innocence
enlightened by the progress of the flames of litigation. It struck him
too that Eve was a very beautiful woman. In the middle of the discussion
old Séchard arrived, summoned by Petit-Claud. The old man’s presence
in the chamber where his little grandson in the cradle lay smiling at
misfortune completed the scene. The young attorney at once addressed the
newcomer with:
“You owe me seven hundred francs for the interpleader, Papa Séchard;
but you can charge the amount to your son in addition to the arrears of
rent.”
The vinedresser felt the sting of the sarcasm conveyed by Petit-Claud’s
tone and manner.
“It would have cost you less to give security for the debt at first,”
said Eve, leaving the cradle to greet her father-in-law with a kiss.
David, quite overcome by the sight of the crowd outside the house (for
Kolb’s resistance to Doublon’s men had collected a knot of people),
could only hold out a hand to his father; he did not say a word.
“And how, pray, do I come to owe you seven hundred francs?” the old man
asked, looking at Petit-Claud.
“Why, in the first place, I am engaged by you. Your rent is in question;
so, as far as I am concerned, you and our debtor are one and the same
person. If your son does not pay my costs in the case, you must pay
them yourself.--But this is nothing. In a few hours David will be put in
prison; will you allow him to go?”
“What does he owe?”
“Something like five or six thousand francs, besides the amounts owing
to you and to his wife.”
The speech roused all the old man’s suspicions at once. He looked round
the little blue-and-white bedroom at the touching scene before his
eyes--at a beautiful woman weeping over a cradle, at David bowed down by
anxieties, and then again at the lawyer. This was a trap set for him by
that lawyer; perhaps they wanted to work upon his paternal feelings, to
get money out of him? That was what it all meant. He took alarm. He went
over to the cradle and fondled the child, who held out both little arms
to him. No heir to an English peerage could be more tenderly cared for
than this little one in that house of trouble; his little embroidered
cap was lined with pale pink.
“Eh! let David get out of it as best he may. I am thinking of this child
here,” cried the old grandfather, “and the child’s mother will approve
of that. David that knows so much must know how to pay his debts.”
“Now I will just put your meaning into plain language,” said Petit-Claud
ironically. “Look here, Papa Séchard, you are jealous of your son.
Hear the truth! you put David into his present position by selling the
business to him for three times its value. You ruined him to make an
extortionate bargain! Yes, don’t you shake your head; you sold the
newspaper to the Cointets and pocketed all the proceeds, and that was
as much as the whole business was worth. You bear David a grudge, not
merely because you have plundered him, but because, also, your own son
is a man far above yourself. You profess to be prodigiously fond of
your grandson, to cloak your want of feeling for your son and his wife,
because you ought to pay down money _hic et nunc_ for them, while you
need only show a posthumous affection for your grandson. You pretend
to be fond of the little fellow, lest you should be taxed with want of
feeling for your own flesh and blood. That is the bottom of it, Papa
Séchard.”
“Did you fetch me over to hear this?” asked the old man, glowering at
his lawyer, his daughter-in-law, and his son in turn.
“Monsieur!” protested poor Eve, turning to Petit-Claud, “have you vowed
to ruin us? My husband had never uttered a word against his father.”
(Here the old man looked cunningly at her.) “David has told me scores
of times that you loved him in your way,” she added, looking at her
father-in-law, and understanding his suspicions.
Petit-Claud was only following out the tall Cointet’s instructions. He
was widening the breach between the father and son, lest Séchard senior
should extricate David from his intolerable position. “The day that
David Séchard goes to prison shall be the day of your introduction
to Mme. de Senonches,” the “tall Cointet” had said no longer ago than
yesterday.
Mme. Séchard, with the quick insight of love, had divined Petit-Claud’s
mercenary hostility, even as she had once before felt instinctively that
Cérizet was a traitor. As for David, his astonishment may be imagined;
he could not understand how Petit-Claud came to know so much of his
father’s nature and his own history. Upright and honorable as he was, he
did not dream of the relations between his lawyer and the Cointets;
nor, for that matter, did he know that the Cointets were at work behind
Métivier. Meanwhile old Séchard took his son’s silence as an insult,
and Petit-Claud, taking advantage of his client’s bewilderment, beat a
retreat.
“Good-bye, my dear David; you have had warning, notice of appeal doesn’t
invalidate the warrant for arrest. It is the only course left open to
your creditors, and it will not be long before they take it. So, go away
at once----Or, rather, if you will take my advice, go to the Cointets
and see them about it. They have capital. If your invention is perfected
and answers the purpose, go into partnership with them. After all, they
are very good fellows----”
“Your invention?” broke in old Séchard.
“Why, do you suppose that your son is fool enough to let his business
slip away from him without thinking of something else?” exclaimed the
attorney. “He is on the brink of the discovery of a way of making paper
at a cost of three francs per ream, instead of ten, he tells me.”
“One more dodge for taking me in! You are all as thick as thieves in a
fair. If David has found out such a plan, he has no need of me--he is a
millionaire! Good-bye, my dears, and a good-day to you all,” and the old
man disappeared down the staircase.
“Find some way of hiding yourself,” was Petit-Claud’s parting word to
David, and with that he hurried out to exasperate old Séchard still
further. He found the vinegrower growling to himself outside in the
Place du Mûrier, went with him as far as L’Houmeau, and there left him
with a threat of putting in an execution for the costs due to him unless
they were paid before the week was out.
“I will pay you if you will show me how to disinherit my son without
injuring my daughter-in-law or the boy,” said old Séchard, and they
parted forthwith.
“How well the ‘tall Cointet’ knows the folk he is dealing with! It is
just as he said; those seven hundred francs will prevent the father from
paying seven thousand,” the little lawyer thought within himself as
he climbed the path to Angoulême. “Still, that old slyboots of a
paper-maker must not overreach us; it is time to ask him for something
besides promises.”
“Well, David dear, what do you mean to do?” asked Eve, when the lawyer
had followed her father-in-law.
“Marion, put your biggest pot on the fire!” called David; “I have my
secret fast.”
At this Eve put on her bonnet and shawl and walking shoes with feverish
haste.
“Kolb, my friend, get ready to go out,” she said, “and come with me; if
there is any way out of this hell, I must find it.”
When Eve had gone out, Marion spoke to David. “Do be sensible, sir,” she
said, “or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money
to pay off your debts, and then you can try to find treasure at your
ease----”
“Don’t talk, Marion,” said David; “I am going to overcome my last
difficulty, and then I can apply for the patent and the improvement on
the patent at the same time.”
This “improvement on the patent” is the curse of the French patentee.
A man may spend ten years of his life in working out some obscure
industrial problem; and when he has invented some piece of machinery, or
made a discovery of some kind, he takes out a patent and imagines that
he has a right to his own invention; then there comes a competitor; and
unless the first inventor has foreseen all possible contingencies, the
second comer makes an “improvement on the patent” with a screw or a nut,
and takes the whole thing out of his hands. The discovery of a cheap
material for paper pulp, therefore, is by no means the conclusion of
the whole matter. David Séchard was anxiously looking ahead on all sides
lest the fortune sought in the teeth of such difficulties should be
snatched out of his hands at the last. Dutch paper, as flax paper is
still called, though it is no longer made in Holland, is slightly sized;
but every sheet is sized separately by hand, and this increases the cost
of production. If it were possible to discover some way of sizing the
paper in the pulping-trough, with some inexpensive glue, like that in
use to-day (though even now it is not quite perfect), there would be no
“improvement on the patent” to fear. For the past month, accordingly,
David had been making experiments in sizing pulp. He had two discoveries
before him.
Eve went to see her mother. Fortunately, it so happened that Mme.
Chardon was nursing the deputy-magistrate’s wife, who had just given the
Milauds of Nevers an heir presumptive; and Eve, in her distrust of all
attorneys and notaries, took into her head to apply for advice to the
legal guardian of widows and orphans. She wanted to know if she could
relieve David from his embarrassments by taking them upon herself and
selling her claims upon the estate, and besides, she had some hope of
discovering the truth as to Petit-Claud’s unaccountable conduct. The
official, struck with Mme. Séchard’s beauty, received her not only with
the respect due to a woman, but with a sort of courtesy to which Eve was
not accustomed. She saw in the magistrate’s face an expression which,
since her marriage, she had seen in no eyes but Kolb’s; and for a
beautiful woman like Eve, this expression is the criterion by which men
are judged. When passion, or self-interest, or age dims that spark of
unquestioning fealty that gleams in a young man’s eyes, a woman feels
a certain mistrust of him, and begins to observe him critically.
The Cointets, Cérizet, and Petit-Claud--all the men whom Eve felt
instinctively to be her enemies--had turned hard, indifferent eyes on
her; with the deputy-magistrate, therefore, she felt at ease, although,
in spite of his kindly courtesy, he swept all her hopes away by his
first words.
“It is not certain, madame, that the Court-Royal will reverse the
judgment of the court restricting your lien on your husband’s property,
for payment of moneys due to you by the terms of your marriage-contract,
to household goods and chattels. Your privilege ought not to be used
to defraud the other creditors. But in any case, you will be allowed
to take your share of the proceeds with the other creditors, and your
father-in-law likewise, as a privileged creditor, for arrears of rent.
When the court has given the order, other points may be raised as to the
‘contribution,’ as we call it, when a schedule of the debts is drawn up,
and the creditors are paid a dividend in proportion to their claims.
“Then M. Petit-Claud is bringing us to bankruptcy,” she cried.
“Petit-Claud is carrying out your husband’s instructions,” said the
magistrate; “he is anxious to gain time, so his attorney says. In my
opinion, you would perhaps do better to waive the appeal and buy in at
the sale the indispensable implements for carrying on the business; you
and your father-in-law together might do this, you to the extent of your
claim through your marriage contract, and he for his arrears of rent.
But that would be bringing the matter to an end too soon perhaps. The
lawyers are making a good thing out of your case.”
“But then I should be entirely in M. Séchard’s father’s hands. I should
owe him the hire of the machinery as well as the house-rent; and my
husband would still be open to further proceedings from M. Métivier, for
M. Métivier would have had almost nothing.”
“That is true, madame.”
“Very well, then we should be even worse off than we are.”
“The arm of the law, madame, is at the creditor’s disposal. You have
received three thousand francs, and you must of necessity repay the
money.”
“Oh, sir, can you think that we are capable----” Eve suddenly came to a
stop. She saw that her justification might injure her brother.
“Oh! I know quite well that it is an obscure affair, that the debtors on
the one side are honest, scrupulous, and even behaving handsomely; and
the creditor, on the other, is only a cat’s-paw----”
Eve, aghast, looked at him with bewildered eyes.
“You can understand,” he continued, with a look full of homely
shrewdness, “that we on the bench have plenty of time to think over all
that goes on under our eyes, while the gentlemen in court are arguing
with each other.”
Eve went home in despair over her useless effort. That evening at seven
o’clock, Doublon came with the notification of imprisonment for debt.
The proceedings had reached the acute stage.
“After this, I can only go out after nightfall,” said David.
Eve and Mme. Chardon burst into tears. To be in hiding was for them a
shameful thing. As for Kolb and Marion, they were more alarmed for David
because they had long since made up their minds that there was no guile
in their master’s nature; so frightened were they on his account,
that they came upstairs under pretence of asking whether they could do
anything, and found Eve and Mme. Chardon in tears; the three whose life
had been so straightforward hitherto were overcome by the thought that
David must go into hiding. And how, moreover, could they hope to escape
the invisible spies who henceforth would dog every least movement of a
man, unluckily so absent-minded?
“Gif montame vill vait ein liddle kvarter hour, she can regonnoitre
der enemy’s camp,” put in Kolb. “You shall see dot I oonderstand mein
pizness; for gif I look like ein German, I am ein drue Vrenchman, and
vat is more, I am ver’ conning.”
“Oh! madame, do let him go,” begged Marion. “He is only thinking of
saving his master; he hasn’t another thought in his head. Kolb is not
an Alsacien, he is--eh! well--a regular Newfoundland dog for rescuing
folk.”
“Go, my good Kolb,” said David; “we have still time to do something.”
Kolb hurried off to pay a visit to the bailiff; and it so fell out that
David’s enemies were in Doublon’s office, holding a council as to the
best way of securing him.
The arrest of a debtor is an unheard-of thing in the country, an
abnormal proceeding if ever there was one. Everybody, in the first
place, knows everybody else, and creditor and debtor being bound to meet
each other daily all their lives long, nobody likes to take this odious
course. When a defaulter--to use the provincial term for a debtor, for
they do not mince their words in the provinces when speaking of this
legalized method of helping yourself to another man’s goods--when a
defaulter plans a failure on a large scale, he takes sanctuary in Paris.
Paris is a kind of City of Refuge for provincial bankrupts, an almost
impenetrable retreat; the writ of the pursuing bailiff has no force
beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, and there are other obstacles
rendering it almost invalid. Wherefore the Paris bailiff is empowered
to enter the house of a third party to seize the person of the debtor,
while for the bailiff of the provinces the domicile is absolutely
inviolable. The law probably makes this exception as to Paris, because
there it is the rule for two or more families to live under the same
roof; but in the provinces the bailiff who wishes to make forcible
entry must have an order from the Justice of the Peace; and so wide a
discretion is allowed the Justice of the Peace, that he is practically
able to give or withhold assistance to the bailiffs. To the honor of the
Justices, it should be said, that they dislike the office, and are by no
means anxious to assist blind passions or revenge.
There are, besides, other and no less serious difficulties in the way
of arrest for debt--difficulties which tend to temper the severity of
legislation, and public opinion not infrequently makes a dead letter
of the law. In great cities there are poor or degraded wretches enough;
poverty and vice know no scruples, and consent to play the spy, but in
a little country town, people know each other too well to earn wages of
the bailiff; the meanest creature who should lend himself to dirty
work of this kind would be forced to leave the place. In the absence
of recognized machinery, therefore, the arrest of a debtor is a problem
presenting no small difficulty; it becomes a kind of strife of ingenuity
between the bailiff and the debtor, and matter for many pleasant stories
in the newspapers.
Cointet the elder did not choose to appear in the affair; but the
fat Cointet openly said that he was acting for Métivier, and went to
Doublon, taking Cérizet with him. Cérizet was his foreman now, and had
promised his co-operation in return for a thousand-franc note. Doublon
could reckon upon two of his understrappers, and thus the Cointets had
four bloodhounds already on the victim’s track. At the actual time of
arrest, Doublon could furthermore count upon the police force, who are
bound, if required, to assist a bailiff in the performance of his
duty. The two men, Doublon himself, and the visitors were all closeted
together in the private office, beyond the public office, on the ground
floor.
A tolerably wide-paved lobby, a kind of passage-way, led to the public
office. The gilded scutcheons of the court, with the word “Bailiff”
printed thereon in large black letters, hung outside on the house wall
on either side the door. Both office windows gave upon the street, and
were protected by heavy iron bars; but the private office looked into
the garden at the back, wherein Doublon, an adorer of Pomona, grew
espaliers with marked success. Opposite the office door you beheld
the door of the kitchen, and, beyond the kitchen, the staircase that
ascended to the first story. The house was situated in a narrow street
at the back of the new Law Courts, then in process of construction,
and only finished after 1830.--These details are necessary if Kolb’s
adventures are to be intelligible to the reader.
It was Kolb’s idea to go to the bailiff, to pretend to be willing to
betray his master, and in this way to discover the traps which would be
laid for David. Kolb told the servant who opened the door that he wanted
to speak to M. Doublon on business. The servant was busy washing up her
plates and dishes, and not very well pleased at Kolb’s interruption; she
pushed open the door of the outer office, and bade him wait there till
her master was at liberty; then, as he was a stranger to her, she told
the master in the private office that “a man” wanted to speak to him.
Now, “a man” so invariably means “a peasant,” that Doublon said, “Tell
him to wait,” and Kolb took a seat close to the door of the private
office. There were voices talking within.
“Ah, by the by, how do you mean to set about it? For, if we can catch
him to-morrow, it will be so much time saved.” It was the fat Cointet
who spoke.
“Nothing easier; the gaffer has come fairly by his nickname,” said
Cérizet.
At the sound of the fat Cointet’s voice, Kolb guessed at once that they
were talking about his master, especially as the sense of the words
began to dawn upon him; but, when he recognized Cérizet’s tones, his
astonishment grew more and more.
“Und dat fellow haf eaten his pread!” he thought, horror-stricken.
“We must do it in this way, boys,” said Doublon. “We will post our
men, at good long intervals, about the Rue de Beaulieu and the Place du
Mûrier in every direction, so that we can follow the gaffer (I like that
word) without his knowledge. We will not lose sight of him until he is
safe inside the house where he means to lie in hiding (as he thinks);
there we will leave him in peace for awhile; then some fine day we will
come across him before sunrise or sunset.”
“But what is he doing now, at this moment? He may be slipping through
our fingers,” said the fat Cointet.
“He is in his house,” answered Doublon; “if he left it, I should know. I
have one witness posted in the Place du Mûrier, another at the corner of
the Law Courts, and another thirty paces from the house. If our man came
out, they would whistle; he could not make three paces from his door but
I should know of it at once from the signal.”
(Bailiffs speak of their understrappers by the polite title of
“witnesses.”)
Here was better hap than Kolb had expected! He went noiselessly out of
the office, and spoke to the maid in the kitchen.
“Meestair Touplon ees encaged for som time to kom,” he said; “I vill kom
back early to-morrow morning.”
A sudden idea had struck the Alsacien, and he proceeded to put it into
execution. Kolb had served in a cavalry regiment; he hurried off to see
a livery stable-keeper, an acquaintance of his, picked out a horse, had
it saddled, and rushed back to the Place du Mûrier. He found Madame Eve
in the lowest depths of despondency.
“What is it, Kolb?” asked David, when the Alsacien’s face looked in upon
them, scared but radiant.
“You have scountrels all arount you. De safest way ees to hide de
master. Haf montame thought of hiding the master anywheres?”
When Kolb, honest fellow, had explained the whole history of Cérizet’s
treachery, of the circle traced about the house, and of the fat
Cointet’s interest in the affair, and given the family some inkling
of the schemes set on foot by the Cointets against the master,--then
David’s real position gradually became fatally clear.
“It is the Cointet’s doing!” cried poor Eve, aghast at the news; “_they_
are proceeding against you! that accounts for Métivier’s hardness. . . .
They are paper-makers--David! they want your secret!”
“But what can we do to escape them?” exclaimed Mme. Chardon.
“If de misdress had some liddle blace vere the master could pe hidden,”
said Kolb; “I bromise to take him dere so dot nopody shall know.”
“Wait till nightfall, and go to Basine Clerget,” said Eve. “I will
go now and arrange it all with her. In this case, Basine will be like
another self to me.”
“Spies will follow you,” David said at last, recovering some presence of
mind. “How can we find a way of communicating with Basine if none of us
can go to her?”
“Montame kan go,” said Kolb. “Here ees my scheme--I go out mit der
master, ve draws der vischtlers on our drack. Montame kan go to
Montemoiselle Clerchet; nopody vill vollow her. I haf a horse; I take de
master oop behint; und der teufel is in it if they katches us.”
“Very well; good-bye, dear,” said poor Eve, springing to her husband’s
arms; “none of us can go to see you, the risk is too great. We must say
good-bye for the whole time that your imprisonment lasts. We will write
to each other; Basine will post your letters, and I will write under
cover to her.”
No sooner did David and Kolb come out of the house than they heard a
sharp whistle, and were followed to the livery stable. Once there, Kolb
took his master up behind him, with a caution to keep tight hold.
“Veestle avay, mind goot vriends! I care not von rap,” cried Kolb. “You
vill not katch an old trooper,” and the old cavalry man clapped both
spurs to his horse, and was out into the country and the darkness
not merely before the spies could follow, but before they had time to
discover the direction that he took.
Eve meanwhile went out on the tolerably ingenious pretext of asking
advise of Postel, sat awhile enduring the insulting pity that spends
itself in words, left the Postel family, and stole away unseen to Basine
Clerget, told her troubles, and asked for help and shelter. Basine, for
greater safety, had brought Eve into her bedroom, and now she opened the
door of a little closet, lighted only by a skylight in such a way that
prying eyes could not see into it. The two friends unstopped the flue
which opened into the chimney of the stove in the workroom, where the
girls heated their irons. Eve and Basine spread ragged coverlets over
the brick floor to deaden any sound that David might make, put in a
truckle bed, a stove for his experiments, and a table and a chair.
Basine promised to bring food in the night; and as no one had occasion
to enter her room, David might defy his enemies one and all, or even
detectives.
“At last!” Eve said, with her arms about her friend, “at last he is in
safety.”
Eve went back to Postel to submit a fresh doubt that had occurred to
her, she said. She would like the opinion of such an experienced member
of the Chamber of Commerce; she so managed that he escorted her home,
and listened patiently to his commiseration.
“Would this have happened if you had married me?”--all the little
druggist’s remarks were pitched in this key.
Then he went home again to find Mme. Postel jealous of Mme. Séchard,
and furious with her spouse for his polite attention to that beautiful
woman. The apothecary advanced the opinion that little red-haired women
were preferable to tall, dark women, who, like fine horses, were always
in the stable, he said. He gave proofs of his sincerity, no doubt, for
Mme. Postel was very sweet to him next day.
“We may be easy,” Eve said to her mother and Marion, whom she found
still “in a taking,” in the latter’s phrase.
“Oh! they are gone,” said Marion, when Eve looked unthinkingly round the
room.
One league out of Angoulême on the main road to Paris, Kolb stopped.
“Vere shall we go?”
“To Marsac,” said David; “since we are on the way already, I will try
once more to soften my father’s heart.”
“I would rader mount to der assault of a pattery,” said Kolb, “your
resbected fader haf no heart whatefer.”
The ex-pressman had no belief in his son; he judged him from the outside
point of view, and waited for results. He had no idea, to begin with,
that he had plundered David, nor did he make allowance for the very
different circumstances under which they had begun life; he said to
himself, “I set him up with a printing-house, just as I found it myself;
and he, knowing a thousand times more than I did, cannot keep it going.”
He was mentally incapable of understanding his son; he laid the blame of
failure upon him, and even prided himself, as it were, on his superiority
to a far greater intellect than his own, with the thought, “I am
securing his bread for him.”
Moralists will never succeed in making us comprehend the full extent of
the influence of sentiment upon self-interest, an influence every whit
as strong as the action of interest upon our sentiments; for every law
of our nature works in two ways, and acts and reacts upon us.
David, on his side, understood his father, and in his sublime charity
forgave him. Kolb and David reached Marsac at eight o’clock, and
suddenly came in upon the old man as he was finishing his dinner, which,
by force of circumstances, came very near bedtime.
“I see you because there is no help for it,” said old Séchard with a
sour smile.
“Und how should you and mein master meet? He soars in der shkies, and
you are always mit your vines! You bay for him, that’s vot you are a
fader for----”
“Come, Kolb, off with you. Put up the horse at Mme. Courtois’ so as
to save inconvenience here; fathers are always in the right, remember
that.”
Kolb went off, growling like a chidden dog, obedient but protesting; and
David proposed to give his father indisputable proof of his discovery,
while reserving his secret. He offered to give him an interest in the
affair in return for money paid down; a sufficient sum to release him
from his present difficulties, with or without a further amount of
capital to be employed in developing the invention.
“And how are you going to prove to me that you can make good paper that
costs nothing out of nothing, eh?” asked the ex-printer, giving his son
a glance, vinous, it may be, but keen, inquisitive, and covetous; a
look like a flash of lightning from a sodden cloud; for the old “bear,”
faithful to his traditions, never went to bed without a nightcap,
consisting of a couple of bottles of excellent old wine, which he
“tippled down” of an evening, to use his own expression.
“Nothing simpler,” said David; “I have none of the paper about me, for I
came here to be out of Doublon’s way; and having come so far, I thought
I might as well come to you at Marsac as borrow of a money-lender. I
have nothing on me but my clothes. Shut me up somewhere on the premises,
so that nobody can come in and see me at work, and----”
“What? you will not let me see you at your work then?” asked the old
man, with an ugly look at his son.
“You have given me to understand plainly, father, that in matters of
business there is no question of father and son----”
“Ah! you distrust the father that gave you life!”
“No; the other father who took away the means of earning a livelihood.”
“Each for himself, you are right!” said the old man. “Very good, I will
put you in the cellar.”
“I will go down there with Kolb. You must let me have a large pot for
my pulp,” said David; then he continued, without noticing the quick look
his father gave him,--“and you must find artichoke and asparagus stalks
for me, and nettles, and the reeds that you cut by the stream side,
and to-morrow morning I will come out of your cellar with some splendid
paper.”
“If you can do that,” hiccoughed the “bear,” “I will let you have,
perhaps--I will see, that is, if I can let you have--pshaw! twenty-five
thousand francs. On condition, mind, that you make as much for me every
year.”
“Put me to the proof, I am quite willing,” cried David. “Kolb! take
the horse and go to Mansle, quick, buy a large hair sieve for me of a
cooper, and some glue of the grocer, and come back again as soon as you
can.”
“There! drink,” said old Séchard, putting down a bottle of wine, a loaf,
and the cold remains of the dinner. “You will need your strength. I will
go and look for your bits of green stuff; green rags you use for your
pulp, and a trifle too green, I am afraid.”
Two hours later, towards eleven o’clock that night, David and Kolb took
up their quarters in a little out-house against the cellar wall; they
found the floor paved with runnel tiles, and all the apparatus used in
Angoumois for the manufacture of Cognac brandy.
“Pans and firewood! Why, it is as good as a factory made on purpose!”
cried David.
“Very well, good-night,” said old Séchard; “I shall lock you in, and
let both the dogs loose; nobody will bring you any paper, I am sure. You
show me those sheets to-morrow, and I give you my word I will be your
partner and the business will be straightforward and properly managed.”
David and Kolb, locked into the distillery, spent nearly two hours
in macerating the stems, using a couple of logs for mallets. The fire
blazed up, the water boiled. About two o’clock in the morning, Kolb
heard a sound which David was too busy to notice, a kind of deep breath
like a suppressed hiccough. Snatching up one of the two lighted dips, he
looked round the walls, and beheld old Séchard’s empurpled countenance
filling up a square opening above a door hitherto hidden by a pile of
empty casks in the cellar itself. The cunning old man had brought David
and Kolb into his underground distillery by the outer door, through
which the casks were rolled when full. The inner door had been made
so that he could roll his puncheons straight from the cellar into the
distillery, instead of taking them round through the yard.
“Aha! thees eies not fair blay, you vant to shvindle your son!” cried
the Alsacien. “Do you kow vot you do ven you trink ein pottle of vine?
You gif goot trink to ein bad scountrel.”
“Oh, father!” cried David.
“I came to see if you wanted anything,” said old Séchard, half sobered
by this time.
“Und it was for de inderest vot you take in us dot you brought der
liddle ladder!” commented Kolb, as he pushed the casks aside and flung
open the door; and there, in fact, on a short step-ladder, the old man
stood in his shirt.
“Risking your health!” said David.
“I think I must be walking in my sleep,” said old Séchard, coming down
in confusion. “Your want of confidence in your father set me dreaming; I
dreamed you were making a pact with the Devil to do impossible things.”
“Der teufel,” said Kolb; “dot is your own bassion for de liddle
goldfinches.”
“Go back to bed again, father,” said David; “lock us in if you will, but
you may save yourself the trouble of coming down again. Kolb will mount
guard.”
At four o’clock in the morning David came out of the distillery; he
had been careful to leave no sign of his occupation behind him; but he
brought out some thirty sheets of paper that left nothing to be desired
in fineness, whiteness, toughness, and strength, all of them bearing by
way of water-mark the impress of the uneven hairs of the sieve. The old
man took up the samples and put his tongue to them, the lifelong habit
of the pressman, who tests papers in this way. He felt it between his
thumb and finger, crumpled and creased it, put it through all the trials
by which a printer assays the quality of a sample submitted to him, and
when it was found wanting in no respect, he still would not allow that
he was beaten.
“We have yet to know how it takes an impression,” he said, to avoid
praising his son.
“Funny man!” exclaimed Kolb.
The old man was cool enough now. He cloaked his feigned hesitation with
paternal dignity.
“I wish to tell you in fairness, father, that even now it seems to me
that paper costs more than it ought to do; I want to solve the problem
of sizing it in the pulping-trough. I have just that one improvement to
make.”
“Oho! so you are trying to trick me!”
“Well, shall I tell you? I can size the pulp as it is, but so far I
cannot do it evenly, and the surface is as rough as a burr!”
“Very good, size your pulp in the trough, and you shall have my money.”
“Mein master will nefer see de golor of your money,” declared Kolb.
Plainly, the old man meant to punish David for last night’s
humiliation, for he treated him more than coldly. David sent away Kolb.
“Father,” he began, “I have never borne you any grudge for making over
the business to me at such an exorbitant valuation; I have seen the
father through it all. I have said to myself--‘The old man has worked
very hard, and he certainly gave me a better bringing up than I had a
right to expect; let him enjoy the fruits of his toil in peace, and
in his own way.--I even gave up my mother’s money to you. I began
encumbered with debt, and bore all the burdens that you put upon me
without a murmur. Well, harassed for debts that were not of my making,
with no bread in the house, and my feet held to the flames, I have
found out the secret. I have struggled on patiently till my strength is
exhausted. It is perhaps your duty to help me, but do not give _me_ a
thought; think of a woman and a little one” (David could not keep
back the tears at this); “think of them, and give them help and
protection.--Kolb and Marion have given me their savings; will you
do less?” he cried at last, seeing that his father was as cold as the
impression-stone.
“And that was not enough for you,” said the old man, without the
slightest sense of shame; “why, you would waste the wealth of the
Indies! Good-night! I am too ignorant to lend a hand in schemes got
up on purpose to exploit me. A monkey will never gobble down a bear”
(alluding to the workshop nicknames); “I am a vinegrower, I am not a
banker. And what is more, look you, business between father and son
never turns out well. Stay and eat your dinner here; you shan’t say that
you came for nothing.”
There are some deep-hearted natures that can force their own pain down
into inner depths unsuspected by those dearest to them; and with them,
when anguish forces its way to the surface and is visible, it is only
after a mighty upheaval. David’s nature was one of these. Eve had
thoroughly understood the noble character of the man. But now that the
depths had been stirred, David’s father took the wave of anguish that
passed over his son’s features for a child’s trick, an attempt to “get
round” his father, and his bitter grief for mortification over the
failure of the attempt. Father and son parted in anger.
David and Kolb reached Angoulême on the stroke of midnight. They came
back on foot, and steathily, like burglars. Before one o’clock in the
morning David was installed in the impenetrable hiding-place prepared
by his wife in Basine Clerget’s house. No one saw him enter it, and the
pity that henceforth should shelter David was the most resourceful pity
of all--the pity of a work-girl.
Kolb bragged that day that he had saved his master on horseback,
and only left him in a carrier’s van well on the way to Limoges. A
sufficient provision of raw material had been laid up in Basine’s
cellar, and Kolb, Marion, Mme. Séchard, and her mother had no
communication with the house.
Two days after the scene at Marsac, old Séchard came hurrying to
Angoulême and his daughter-in-law. Covetousness had brought him. There
were three clear weeks ahead before the vintage began, and he thought he
would be on the look-out for squalls, to use his own expression. To this
end he took up his quarters in one of the attics which he had reserved
by the terms of the lease, wilfully shutting his eyes to the bareness
and want that made his son’s home desolate. If they owed him rent, they
could well afford to keep him. He ate his food from a tinned iron
plate, and made no marvel at it. “I began in the same way,” he told his
daughter-in-law, when she apologized for the absence of silver spoons.
Marion was obliged to run into debt for necessaries for them all. Kolb
was earning a franc for daily wage as a brick-layer’s laborer; and
at last poor Eve, who, for the sake of her husband and child, had
sacrificed her last resources to entertain David’s father, saw that she
had only ten francs left. She had hoped to the last to soften the old
miser’s heart by her affectionate respect, and patience, and pretty
attentions; but old Séchard was obdurate as ever. When she saw him turn
the same cold eyes on her, the same look that the Cointets had given
her, and Petit-Claud and Cérizet, she tried to watch and guess old
Séchard’s intentions. Trouble thrown away! Old Séchard, never sober,
never drunk, was inscrutable; intoxication is a double veil. If the old
man’s tipsiness was sometimes real, it was quite often feigned for the
purpose of extracting David’s secret from his wife. Sometimes he coaxed,
sometimes he frightened his daughter-in-law.
“I will drink up my property; _I will buy an annuity_,” he would
threaten when Eve told him that she knew nothing.
The humiliating struggle was wearing her out; she kept silence at last,
lest she should show disrespect to her husband’s father.
“But, father,” she said one day when driven to extremity, “there is a
very simple way of finding out everything. Pay David’s debts; he will
come home, and you can settle it between you.”
“Ha! that is what you want to get out of me, is it?” he cried. “It is as
well to know!”
But if Séchard had no belief in his son, he had plenty of faith in the
Cointets. He went to consult them, and the Cointets dazzled him of set
purpose, telling him that his son’s experiments might mean millions of
francs.
“If David can prove that he has succeeded, I shall not hesitate to
go into partnership with him, and reckon his discovery as half the
capital,” the tall Cointet told him.
The suspicious old man learned a good deal over nips of brandy with the
work-people, and something more by questioning Petit-Claud and feigning
stupidity; and at length he felt convinced that the Cointets were
the real movers behind Métivier; they were plotting to ruin Séchard’s
printing establishment, and to lure him (Séchard) on to pay his son’s
debts by holding out the discovery as a bait. The old man of the people
did not suspect that Petit-Claud was in the plot, nor had he any idea of
the toils woven to ensnare the great secret. A day came at last when he
grew angry and out of patience with the daughter-in-law who would not
so much as tell him where David was hiding; he determined to force the
laboratory door, for he had discovered that David was wont to make his
experiments in the workshop where the rollers were melted down.
He came downstairs very early one morning and set to work upon the lock.
“Hey! Papa Séchard, what are you doing there?” Marion called out. (She
had risen at daybreak to go to her papermill, and now she sprang across
to the workshop.)
“I am in my own house, am I not?” said the old man, in some confusion.
“Oh, indeed, are you turning thief in your old age? You are not drunk
this time either----I shall go straight to the mistress and tell her.”
“Hold your tongue, Marion,” said Séchard, drawing two crowns of six
francs each from his pocket. “There----”
“I will hold my tongue, but don’t you do it again,” said Marion, shaking
her finger at him, “or all Angoulême shall hear of it.”
The old man had scarcely gone out, however, when Marion went up to her
mistress.
“Look, madame,” she said, “I have had twelve francs out of your
father-in-law, and here they are----”
“How did you do it?”
“What was he wanting to do but to take a look at the master’s pots and
pans and stuff, to find out the secret, forsooth. I knew quite well that
there was nothing in the little place, but I frightened him and talked
as if he were setting about robbing his son, and he gave me twelve
francs to say nothing about it.”
Just at that moment Basine came in radiant, and with a letter for her
friend, a letter from David written on magnificent paper, which she
handed over when they were alone.
“MY ADORED EVE,--I am writing to you the first letter on my first
sheet of paper made by the new process. I have solved the problem
of sizing the pulp in the trough at last. A pound of pulp costs
five sous, even supposing that the raw material is grown on good
soil with special culture; three francs’ worth of sized pulp will
make a ream of paper, at twelve pounds to the ream. I am quite
sure that I can lessen the weight of books by one-half. The
envelope, the letter, and samples enclosed are all manufactured in
different ways. I kiss you; you shall have wealth now to add to
our happiness, everything else we had before.”
“There!” said Eve, handing the samples to her father-in-law, “when the
vintage is over let your son have the money, give him a chance to make
his fortune, and you shall be repaid ten times over; he has succeeded at
last!”
Old Séchard hurried at once to the Cointets. Every sample was tested and
minutely examined; the prices, from three to ten francs per ream, were
noted on each separate slip; some were sized, others unsized; some were
of almost metallic purity, others soft as Japanese paper; in color there
was every possible shade of white. If old Séchard and the two Cointets
had been Jews examining diamonds, their eyes could not have glistened
more eagerly.
“Your son is on the right track,” the fat Cointet said at length.
“Very well, pay his debts,” returned old Séchard.
“By all means, if he will take us into partnership,” said the tall
Cointet.
“You are extortioners!” cried old Séchard. “You have been suing him
under Métivier’s name, and you mean me to buy you off; that is the long
and the short of it. Not such a fool, gentlemen----”
The brothers looked at one another, but they contrived to hide their
surprise at the old miser’s shrewdness.
“We are not millionaires,” said fat Cointet; “we do not discount bills
for amusement. We should think ourselves well off if we could pay ready
money for our bits of accounts for rags, and we still give bills to our
dealer.”
“The experiment ought to be tried first on a much larger scale,” the
tall Cointet said coldly; “sometimes you try a thing with a saucepan and
succeed, and fail utterly when you experiment with bulk. You should help
your son out of difficulties.”
“Yes; but when my son is at liberty, would he take me as his partner?”
“That is no business of ours,” said the fat Cointet. “My good man, do
you suppose that when you have paid some ten thousand francs for your
son, that there is an end of it? It will cost two thousand francs to
take out a patent; there will be journeys to Paris; and before going to
any expense, it would be prudent to do as my brother suggests, and make
a thousand reams or so; to try several whole batches to make sure. You
see, there is nothing you must be so much on your guard against as an
inventor.”
“I have a liking for bread ready buttered myself,” added the tall
Cointet.
All through that night the old man ruminated over this dilemma--“If I
pay David’s debts, he will be set at liberty, and once set at liberty,
he need not share his fortune with me unless he chooses. He knows very
well that I cheated him over the first partnership, and he will not
care to try a second; so it is to my interest to keep him shut up, the
wretched boy.”
The Cointets knew enough of Séchard senior to see that they should hunt
in couples. All three said to themselves--“Experiments must be tried
before the discovery can take any practical shape. David Séchard must be
set at liberty before those experiments can be made; and David Séchard,
set at liberty, will slip through our fingers.”
Everybody involved, moreover, had his own little afterthought.
Petit-Claud, for instance, said, “As soon as I am married, I will slip
my neck out of the Cointets’ yoke; but till then I shall hold on.”
The tall Cointet thought, “I would rather have David under lock and key,
and then I should be master of the situation.”
Old Séchard, too, thought, “If I pay my son’s debts, he will repay me
with a ‘Thank you!’”
Eve, hard pressed (for the old man threatened now to turn her out of the
house), would neither reveal her husband’s hiding-place, nor even send
proposals of a safe-conduct. She could not feel sure of finding so safe
a refuge a second time.
“Set your son at liberty,” she told her father-in-law, “and then you
shall know everything.”
The four interested persons sat, as it were, with a banquet spread
before them, none of them daring to begin, each one suspicious and
watchful of his neighbor. A few days after David went into hiding,
Petit-Claud went to the mill to see the tall Cointet.
“I have done my best,” he said; “David has gone into prison of his own
accord somewhere or other; he is working out some improvement there in
peace. It is no fault of mine if you have not gained your end; are you
going to keep your promise?”
“Yes, if we succeed,” said the tall Cointet. “Old Séchard was here only
a day or two ago; he came to ask us some questions as to paper-making.
The old miser has got wind of his son’s invention; he wants to turn it
to his own account, so there is some hope of a partnership. You are with
the father and the son----”
“Be the third person in the trinity and give them up,” smiled
Petit-Claud.
“Yes,” said Cointet. “When you have David in prison, or bound to us by a
deed of partnership, you shall marry Mlle. de la Haye.”
“Is that your _ultimatum_?”
“My _sine qua non_,” said Cointet, “since we are speaking in foreign
languages.”
“Then here is mine in plain language,” Petit-Claud said drily.
“Ah! let us have it,” answered Cointet, with some curiosity.
“You will present me to-morrow to Mme. de Sononches, and do something
definite for me; you will keep your word, in short; or I will clear off
Séchard’s debts myself, sell my practice, and go into partnership with
him. I will not be duped. You have spoken out, and I am doing the same.
I have given proof, give me proof of your sincerity. You have all, and
I have nothing. If you won’t do fairly by me, I know your cards, and I
shall play for my own hand.”
The tall Cointet took his hat and umbrella, his face at the same time
taking its Jesuitical expression, and out he went, bidding Petit-Claud
come with him.
“You shall see, my friend, whether I have prepared your way for you,”
said he.
The shrewd paper-manufacturer saw his danger at a glance; and saw, too,
that with a man like Petit-Claud it was better to play above board.
Partly to be prepared for contingencies, partly to satisfy his
conscience, he had dropped a word or two to the point in the ear of
the ex-consul-general, under the pretext of putting Mlle. de la Haye’s
financial position before that gentleman.
“I have the man for Françoise,” he had said; “for with thirty thousand
francs of _dot_, a girl must not expect too much nowadays.”
“We will talk it over later on,” answered Francis du Hautoy,
ex-consul-general. “Mme. de Senonches’ positon has altered very much
since Mme. de Bargeton went away; we very likely might marry Françoise
to some elderly country gentleman.”
“She would disgrace herself if you did,” Cointet returned in his dry
way. “Better marry her to some capable, ambitious young man; you could
help him with your influence, and he would make a good position for his
wife.”
“We shall see,” said Francis du Hautoy; “her godmother ought to be
consulted first, in any case.”
When M. de Bargeton died, his wife sold the great house in the Rue du
Minage. Mme. de Senonches, finding her own house scarcely large enough,
persuaded M. de Senonches to buy the Hôtel de Bargeton, the cradle of
Lucien Chardon’s ambitions, the scene of the earliest events in his
career. Zéphirine de Senonches had it in mind to succeed to Mme. de
Bargeton; she, too, would be a kind of queen in Angoulême; she would
have “a salon,” and be a great lady, in short. There was a schism in
Angoulême, a strife dating from the late M. de Bargeton’s duel with M.
de Chandour. Some maintained that Louise de Nègrepelisse was blameless,
others believed in Stanislas de Chandour’s scandals. Mme. de Senonches
declared for the Bargetons, and began by winning over that faction. Many
frequenters of the Hôtel de Bargeton had been so accustomed for years to
their nightly game of cards in the house that they could not leave it,
and Mme. de Senonches turned this fact to account. She received every
evening, and certainly gained all the ground lost by Amélie de Chandour,
who set up for a rival.
Francis du Hautoy, living in the inmost circle of nobility in Angoulême,
went so far as to think of marrying Françoise to old M. de Séverac,
Mme. du Brossard having totally failed to capture that gentleman for her
daughter; and when Mme. de Bargeton reappeared as the prefect’s wife,
Zéphirine’s hopes for her dear goddaughter waxed high, indeed. The
Comtesse du Châtelet, so she argued, would be sure to use her influence
for her champion.
Boniface Cointet had Angoulême at his fingers’ ends; he saw all the
difficulties at a glance, and resolved to sweep them out of the way by
a bold stroke that only a Tartuffe’s brain could invent. The puny lawyer
was not a little amazed to find his fellow-conspirator keeping his word
with him; not a word did Petit-Claud utter; he respected the musings of
his companion, and they walked the whole way from the paper-mill to the
Rue du Minage in silence.
“Monsieur and madame are at breakfast”--this announcement met the
ill-timed visitors on the steps.
“Take in our names, all the same,” said the tall Cointet; and feeling
sure of his position, he followed immediately behind the servant and
introduced his companion to the elaborately-affected Zéphirine, who was
breakfasting in company with M. Francis du Hautoy and Mlle. de la Haye.
M. de Senonches had gone, as usual, for a day’s shooting over M. de
Pimentel’s land.
“M. Petit-Claud is the young lawyer of whom I spoke to you, madame; he
will go through the trust accounts when your fair ward comes of age.”
The ex-diplomatist made a quick scrutiny of Petit-Claud, who, for his
part, was looking furtively at the “fair ward.” As for Zéphirine, who
heard of the matter for the first time, her surprise was so great that
she dropped her fork.
Mlle. de la Haye, a shrewish young woman with an ill-tempered face,
a waist that could scarcely be called slender, a thin figure, and
colorless, fair hair, in spite of a certain little air that she had,
was by no means easy to marry. The “parentage unknown” on her birth
certificate was the real bar to her entrance into the sphere where her
godmother’s affection stove to establish her. Mlle. de la Haye, ignorant
of her real position, was very hard to please; the richest merchant in
L’Houmeau had found no favor in her sight. Cointet saw the sufficiently
significant expression of the young lady’s face at the sight of the
little lawyer, and turning, beheld a precisely similar grimace on
Petit-Claud’s countenance. Mme. de Senonches and Francis looked at each
other, as if in search of an excuse for getting rid of the visitors. All
this Cointet saw. He asked M. du Hautoy for the favor of a few minutes’
speech with him, and the pair went together into the drawing-room.
“Fatherly affection is blinding you, sir,” he said bluntly. “You will
not find it an easy thing to marry your daughter; and, acting in your
interest throughout, I have put you in a position from which you cannot
draw back; for I am fond of Françoise, she is my ward. Now--Petit-Claud
knows _everything_! His overweening ambition is a guarantee for our dear
child’s happiness; for, in the first place, Françoise will do as she
likes with her husband; and, in the second, he wants your influence. You
can ask the new prefect for the post of crown attorney for him in the
court here. M. Milaud is definitely appointed to Nevers, Petit-Claud
will sell his practice, you will have no difficulty in obtaining a
deputy public prosecutor’s place for him; and it will not be long before
he becomes attorney for the crown, president of the court, deputy, what
you will.”
Francis went back to the dining-room and behaved charmingly to his
daughter’s suitor. He gave Mme. de Senonches a look, and brought the
scene to a close with an invitation to dine with them on the morrow;
Petit-Claud must come and discuss the business in hand. He even
went downstairs and as far as the corner with the visitors, telling
Petit-Claud that after Cointet’s recommendation, both he and Mme. de
Senonches were disposed to approve all that Mlle. de la Haye’s trustee
had arranged for the welfare of that little angel.
“Oh!” cried Petit-Claud, as they came away, “what a plain girl! I have
been taken in----”
“She looks a lady-like girl,” returned Cointet, “and besides, if she
were a beauty, would they give her to you? Eh! my dear fellow, thirty
thousand francs and the influence of Mme. de Senonches and the Comtesse
du Châtelet! Many a small landowner would be wonderfully glad of the
chance, and all the more so since M. Francis du Hautoy is never likely
to marry, and all that he has will go to the girl. Your marriage is as
good as settled.”
“How?”
“That is what I am just going to tell you,” returned Cointet, and he
gave his companion an account of his recent bold stroke. “M. Milaud is
just about to be appointed attorney for the crown at Nevers, my dear
fellow,” he continued; “sell your practice, and in ten years’ time you
will be Keeper of the Seals. You are not the kind of a man to draw back
from any service required of you by the Court.”
“Very well,” said Petit-Claud, his zeal stirred by the prospect of such
a career, “very well, be in the Place du Mûrier to-morrow at half-past
four; I will see old Séchard in the meantime; we will have a deed of
partnership drawn up, and the father and the son shall be bound thereby,
and delivered to the third person of the trinity--Cointet, to wit.”
To return to Lucien in Paris. On the morrow of the loss announced in
his letter, he obtained a _visa_ for his passport, bought a stout holly
stick, and went to the Rue d’Enfer to take a place in the little market
van, which took him as far as Longjumeau for half a franc. He was going
home to Angoulême. At the end of the first day’s tramp he slept in a
cowshed, two leagues from Arpajon. He had come no farther than Orléans
before he was very weary, and almost ready to break down, but there he
found a boatman willing to bring him as far as Tours for three francs,
and food during the journey cost him but forty sous. Five days of
walking brought him from Tours to Poitiers, and left him with but five
francs in his pockets, but he summoned up all his remaining strength for
the journey before him.
He was overtaken by night in the open country, and had made up his
mind to sleep out of doors, when a traveling carriage passed by, slowly
climbing the hillside, and, all unknown to the postilion, the occupants,
and the servant, he managed to slip in among the luggage, crouching in
between two trunks lest he should be shaken off by the jolting of the
carriage--and so he slept.
He awoke with the sun shining into his eyes, and the sound of voices in
his ears. The carriage had come to a standstill. Looking about him, he
knew that he was at Mansle, the little town where he had waited for Mme.
de Bargeton eighteen months before, when his heart was full of hope and
love and joy. A group of post-boys eyed him curiously and suspiciously,
covered with dust as he was, wedged in among the luggage. Lucien
jumped down, but before he could speak two travelers stepped out of the
calèche, and the words died away on his lips; for there stood the new
Prefect of the Charente, Sixte du Châtelet, and his wife, Louise de
Nègrepelisse.
“Chance gave us a traveling-companion, if we had but known!” said the
Countess. “Come in with us, monsieur.”
Lucien gave the couple a distant bow and a half-humbled half-defiant
glance; then he turned away into a cross-country road in search of some
farmhouse, where he might make a breakfast on milk and bread, and rest
awhile, and think quietly over the future. He still had three francs
left. On and on he walked with the hurrying pace of fever, noticing
as he went, down by the riverside, that the country grew more and more
picturesque. It was near mid-day when he came upon a sheet of water with
willows growing about the margin, and stopped for awhile to rest his
eyes on the cool, thick-growing leaves; and something of the grace of
the fields entered into his soul.
In among the crests of the willows, he caught a glimpse of a mill
near-by on a branch stream, and of the thatched roof of the mill-house
where the house-leeks were growing. For all ornament, the quaint cottage
was covered with jessamine and honeysuckle and climbing hops, and the
garden about it was gay with phloxes and tall, juicy-leaved plants. Nets
lay drying in the sun along a paved causeway raised above the highest
flood level, and secured by massive piles. Ducks were swimming in the
clear mill-pond below the currents of water roaring over the wheel.
As the poet came nearer he heard the clack of the mill, and saw the
good-natured, homely woman of the house knitting on a garden bench, and
keeping an eye upon a little one who was chasing the hens about.
Lucien came forward. “My good woman,” he said, “I am tired out; I have a
fever on me, and I have only three francs; will you undertake to give me
brown bread and milk, and let me sleep in the barn for a week? I shall
have time to write to my people, and they will either come to fetch me
or send me money.”
“I am quite willing, always supposing that my husband has no
objection.--Hey! little man!”
The miller came up, gave Lucien a look over, and took his pipe out of
his mouth to remark, “Three francs for a week’s board? You might as well
pay nothing at all.”
“Perhaps I shall end as a miller’s man,” thought the poet, as his eyes
wandered over the lovely country. Then the miller’s wife made a bed
ready for him, and Lucien lay down and slept so long that his hostess
was frightened.
“Courtois,” she said, next day at noon, “just go in and see whether
that young man is dead or alive; he has been lying there these fourteen
hours.”
The miller was busy spreading out his fishing-nets and lines. “It is
my belief,” he said, “that the pretty fellow yonder is some starveling
play-actor without a brass farthing to bless himself with.”
“What makes you think that, little man?” asked the mistress of the mill.
“Lord, he is not a prince, nor a lord, nor a member of parliament, nor a
bishop; why are his hands as white as if he did nothing?”
“Then it is very strange that he does not feel hungry and wake up,”
retorted the miller’s wife; she had just prepared breakfast for
yesterday’s chance guest. “A play-actor, is he?” she continued. “Where
will he be going? It is too early yet for the fair at Angoulême.”
But neither the miller nor his wife suspected that (actors, princes, and
bishops apart) there is a kind of being who is both prince and actor,
and invested besides with a magnificent order of priesthood--that the
Poet seems to do nothing, yet reigns over all humanity when he can paint
humanity.
“What can he be?” Courtois asked of his wife.
“Suppose it should be dangerous to take him in?” queried she.
“Pooh! thieves look more alive than that; we should have been robbed by
this time,” returned her spouse.
“I am neither a prince nor a thief, nor a bishop nor an actor,” Lucien
said wearily; he must have overheard the colloquy through the window,
and now he suddenly appeared. “I am poor, I am tired out, I have come
on foot from Paris. My name is Lucien de Rubempré, and my father was
M. Chardon, who used to have Postel’s business in L’Houmeau. My sister
married David Séchard, the printer in the Place du Mûrier at Angoulême.”
“Stop a bit,” said the miller, “that printer is the son of the old
skinflint who farms his own land at Marsac, isn’t he?”
“The very same,” said Lucien.
“He is a queer kind of father, he is!” Courtois continued. “He is worth
two hundred thousand francs and more, without counting his money-box,
and he has sold his son up, they say.”
When body and soul have been broken by a prolonged painful struggle,
there comes a crisis when a strong nature braces itself for greater
effort; but those who give way under the strain either die or sink into
unconsciousness like death. That hour of crisis had struck for Lucien;
at the vague rumor of the catastrophe that had befallen David he seemed
almost ready to succumb. “Oh! my sister!” he cried. “Oh, God! what have
I done? Base wretch that I am!”
He dropped down on the wooden bench, looking white and powerless as a
dying man; the miller’s wife brought out a bowl of milk and made him
drink, but he begged the miller to help him back to his bed, and asked
to be forgiven for bringing a dying man into their house. He thought
his last hour had come. With the shadow of death, thoughts of religion
crossed a brain so quick to conceive picturesque fancies; he would see
the curé, he would confess and receive the last sacraments. The moan,
uttered in the faint voice by a young man with such a comely face and
figure, went to Mme. Courtois’ heart.
“I say, little man, just take the horse and go to Marsac and ask Dr.
Marron to come and see this young man; he is in a very bad way, it seems
to me, and you might bring the curé as well. Perhaps they may know
more about that printer in the Place du Mûrier than you do, for Postel
married M. Marron’s daughter.”
Courtois departed. The miller’s wife tried to make Lucien take food;
like all country-bred folk, she was full of the idea that sick folk
must be made to eat. He took no notice of her, but gave way to a
violent storm of remorseful grief, a kind of mental process of
counter-irritation, which relieved him.
The Courtois’ mill lies a league away from Marsac, the town of the
district, and the half-way halt between Mansle and Angoulême; so it was not
long before the good miller came back with the doctor and the curé. Both
functionaries had heard rumors coupling Lucien’s name with the name of
Mme. de Bargeton; and now when the whole department was talking of the
lady’s marriage to the new Prefect and her return to Angoulême as the
Comtesse du Châtelet, both curé and doctor were consumed with a violent
curiosity to know why M. de Bargeton’s widow had not married the young
poet with whom she had left Angoulême. And when they heard, furthermore,
that Lucien was at the mill, they were eager to know whether the poet
had come to the rescue of his brother-in-law. Curiosity and humanity
alike prompted them to go at once to the dying man. Two hours after
Courtois set out, Lucien heard the rattle of old iron over the stony
causeway, the country doctor’s ramshackle chaise came up to the door,
and out stepped MM. Marron, for the curé was the doctor’s uncle.
Lucien’s bedside visitors were as intimate with David’s father as
country neighbors usually are in a small vine-growing township. The
doctor looked at the dying man, felt his pulse, and examined his tongue;
then he looked at the miller’s wife, and smiled reassuringly.
“Mme. Courtois,” said he, “if, as I do not doubt, you have a bottle of
good wine somewhere in the cellar, and a fat eel in your fish-pond, put
them before your patient, it is only exhaustion; there is nothing the
matter with him. Our great man will be on his feet again directly.”
“Ah! monsieur,” said Lucien, “it is not the body, it is the mind that
ails. These good people have told me tidings that nearly killed me; I
have just heard the bad news of my sister, Mme. Séchard. Mme. Courtois
says that your daughter is married to Postel, monsieur, so you must know
something of David Séchard’s affairs; oh, for heaven’s sake, monsieur,
tell me what you know!”
“Why, he must be in prison,” began the doctor; “his father would not
help him----”
“_In prison_!” repeated Lucien, “and why?”
“Because some bills came from Paris; he had overlooked them, no doubt,
for he does not pay much attention to his business, they say,” said Dr.
Marron.
“Pray leave me with M. le Curé,” said the poet, with a visible change
of countenance. The doctor and the miller and his wife went out of the
room, and Lucien was left alone with the old priest.
“Sir,” he said, “I feel that death is near, and I deserve to die. I am a
very miserable wretch; I can only cast myself into the arms of religion.
I, sir, _I_ have brought all these troubles on my sister and brother,
for David Séchard has been a brother to me. I drew those bills that
David could not meet! . . . I have ruined him. In my terrible misery,
I forgot the crime. A millionaire put an end to the proceedings, and I
quite believed that he had met the bills; but nothing of the kind has
been done, it seems.” And Lucien told the tale of his sorrows. The
story, as he told it in his feverish excitement, was worthy of the poet.
He besought the curé to go to Angoulême and to ask for news of Eve and
his mother, Mme. Chardon, and to let him know the truth, and whether it
was still possible to repair the evil.
“I shall live till you come back, sir,” he added, as the hot tears fell.
“If my mother, and sister, and David do not cast me off, I shall not
die.”
Lucien’s remorse was terrible to see, the tears, the eloquence, the
young white face with the heartbroken, despairing look, the tales of
sorrow upon sorrow till human strength could no more endure, all these
things aroused the curé’s pity and interest.
“In the provinces, as in Paris,” he said, “you must believe only half
of all that you hear. Do not alarm yourself; a piece of hearsay, three
leagues away from Angoulême, is sure to be far from the truth. Old
Séchard, our neighbor, left Marsac some days ago; very likely he is busy
settling his son’s difficulties. I am going to Angoulême; I will come
back and tell you whether you can return home; your confessions and
repentance will help to plead your cause.”
The curé did not know that Lucien had repented so many times during the
last eighteen months, that penitence, however impassioned, had come to
be a kind of drama with him, played to perfection, played so far in all
good faith, but none the less a drama. To the curé succeeded the doctor.
He saw that the patient was passing through a nervous crisis, and the
danger was beginning to subside. The doctor-nephew spoke as comfortably
as the curé-uncle, and at length the patient was persuaded to take
nourishment.
Meanwhile the curé, knowing the manners and customs of the countryside,
had gone to Mansle; the coach from Ruffec to Angoulême was due to pass
about that time, and he found a vacant place in it. He would go to
his grand-nephew Postel in L’Houmeau (David’s former rival) and make
inquiries of him. From the assiduity with which the little druggist
assisted his venerable relative to alight from the abominable cage which
did duty as a coach between Ruffec and Angoulême, it was apparent to
the meanest understanding that M. and Mme. Postel founded their hopes of
future ease upon the old curé’s will.
“Have you breakfasted? Will you take something? We did not in the least
expect you! This is a pleasant surprise!” Out came questions innumerable
in a breath.
Mme. Postel might have been born to be the wife of an apothecary in
L’Houmeau. She was a common-looking woman, about the same height as
little Postel himself, such good looks as she possessed being entirely
due to youth and health. Her florid auburn hair grew very low upon
her forehead. Her demeanor and language were in keeping with homely
features, a round countenance, the red cheeks of a country damsel, and
eyes that might almost be described as yellow. Everything about her
said plainly enough that she had been married for expectations of
money. After a year of married life, therefore, she ruled the house; and
Postel, only too happy to have discovered the heiress, meekly submitted
to his wife. Mme. Léonie Postel, _née_ Marron, was nursing her first
child, the darling of the old curé, the doctor, and Postel, a repulsive
infant, with a strong likeness to both parents.
“Well, uncle,” said Léonie, “what has brought you to Angoulême, since
you will not take anything, and no sooner come in than you talk of
going?”
But when the venerable ecclesiastic brought out the names of David
Séchard and Eve, little Postel grew very red, and Léonie, his wife, felt
it incumbent upon her to give him a jealous glance--the glance that a
wife never fails to give when she is perfectly sure of her husband, and
gives a look into the past by way of a caution for the future.
“What have yonder folk done to you, uncle, that you should mix yourself
up in their affairs?” inquired Léonie, with very perceptible tartness.
“They are in trouble, my girl,” said the curé, and he told the Postels
about Lucien at the Courtois’ mill.
“Oh! so that is the way he came back from Paris, is it?” exclaimed
Postel. “Yet he had some brains, poor fellow, and he was ambitious, too.
He went out to look for wool, and comes home shorn. But what does he
want here? His sister is frightfully poor; for all these geniuses, David
and Lucien alike, know very little about business. There was some talk
of him at the Tribunal, and, as judge, I was obliged to sign the warrant
of execution. It was a painful duty. I do not know whether the sister’s
circumstances are such that Lucien can go to her; but in any case the
little room that he used to occupy here is at liberty, and I shall be
pleased to offer it to him.”
“That is right, Postel,” said the priest; he bestowed a kiss on the
infant slumbering in Léonie’s arms, and, adjusting his cocked hat,
prepared to walk out of the shop.
“You will dine with us, uncle, of course,” said Mme. Postel; “if once
you meddle in these people’s affairs, it will be some time before
you have done. My husband will drive you back again in his little
pony-cart.”
Husband and wife stood watching their valued, aged relative on his way
into Angoulême. “He carries himself well for his age, all the same,”
remarked the druggist.
By this time David had been in hiding for eleven days in a house only
two doors away from the druggist’s shop, which the worthy ecclesiastic
had just quitted to climb the steep path into Angoulême with the news of
Lucien’s present condition.
When the Abbé Marron debouched upon the Place du Mûrier he found three
men, each one remarkable in his own way, and all of them bearing with
their whole weight upon the present and future of the hapless
voluntary prisoner. There stood old Séchard, the tall Cointet
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