Marie-Gaston.
If, after reading this letter, it had occurred to Monsieur de l’Estorade to look at himself in the glass, he would have seen, in the sudden convulsion and discoloration of his face, the outward and visible signs of the terrible blow which his unfortunate curiosity had brought down upon him. His heart, his mind, his self-respect staggered under one and the same shock; the madness evident in the sort of prediction made about him only added to his sense of its horror. Presently convincing himself, like a mussulman, that madmen have the gift of second sight, he believed he was a lost man, and instantly a stabbing pain began on his liver side, while in the direction of Sallenauve, his predicted successor, an awful hatred succeeded to his mild good-will. But at the same time, conscious of the total want of reason and even of the absurdity of the impression which had suddenly surged into his mind, he was afraid lest its existence should be suspected, and he looked about him to see in what way he could conceal from his wife his fatal indiscretion, the consequences of which must forever weigh upon his life. It was certain, he thought, that if she found the paper in his study she would deduce therefrom the fact that he had read it. Rising from his desk, he softly opened the door leading from the study to the salon, crossed the latter room on tiptoe, and dropped the letter at the farther end of it, as Madame de l’Estorade might suppose she had herself done in her hasty departure. Then returning to his study, he scattered his papers over his desk, like a school-boy up to mischief, who wants to mislead his master by a show of application, intending to appear absorbed in his accounts when his wife returned. Useless to add that he listened with keen anxiety lest some other person than she should come into the salon; in which case he determined to rush out and prevent other eyes from reading the dreadful secrets contained in that paper.
Presently, however, the voice of Madame de l’Estorade, speaking to some one at the door of the salon, reassured him as to the success of his trick, and a moment later she entered the study accompanied by Monsieur Octave de Camps. Going forward to receive his visitor, he was able to see through the half-opened door the place where he had thrown the letter. Not only had it disappeared, but he detected a movement which assured him that Madame de l’Estorade had tucked it away in that part of her gown where Louis XIV. did not dare to search for the secrets of Mademoiselle d’Hautefort.
“I have come, my dear friend,” said Monsieur de Camps, “to get you to go with me to Rastignac’s, as agreed on last night.”
“Very good,” said the peer, putting away his papers with a feverish haste that plainly indicated he was not in his usual state of mind.
“Don’t you feel well?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, who knew her husband by heart too well not to be struck by the singular stupefaction of his manner, while at the same time, looking in his face, she saw the signs of internal convulsion.
“True,” said Monsieur de Camps, “you certainly do not look so well as usual. If you prefer it, we will put off this visit.”
“No, not at all,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade. “I have tired myself with this work, and I need the air. But what was the matter with Rene?” he inquired of his wife, whose attention he felt was unpleasantly fixed upon him. “What made him cry like that?”
“Oh, a mere nothing!” she replied, not relaxing her attention.
“Well, my dear fellow,” said the peer, trying to take an easy tone, “just let me change my coat and I’ll be with you.”
When the countess was alone with Monsieur de Camps, she said, rather anxiously,—
“Don’t you think Monsieur de l’Estorade seems very much upset?”
“Yes; as I said just now, he does not look like himself. But the explanation he gave seems sufficient. This office life is bad for the health. I have never been as well as since I am actively engaged about my iron-works.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a heavy sigh; “he ought to have a more active life. It seems plain that there is something amiss with his liver.”
“What! because he is so yellow? He has been so ever since I have known him.”
“Oh, monsieur, I can’t be mistaken! There is something seriously the matter with him; and if you would kindly do me a service—”
“Madame, I am always at your orders.”
“When Monsieur de l’Estorade returns, speak of the injury to Rene’s finger, and tell me that little wounds like that sometimes have serious consequences if not attended to at once, and that will give me an excuse to send for Doctor Bianchon.”
“Certainly,” replied Monsieur de Camps; “but I really don’t think a physician is necessary. Still, if it reassures you—”
At this moment Monsieur de l’Estorade reappeared. He had almost recovered his usual expression of face, but he exhaled a strong odor of melisse des Carmes, which indicated that he had felt the need of that tonic. Monsieur de Camps played his part admirably, and as for Madame de l’Estorade it did not cost her much trouble to simulate maternal anxiety.
“My dear,” she said to her husband, when Monsieur de Camps had delivered himself of his medical opinion, “as you return from Monsieur de Rastignac’s, please call on Doctor Bianchon and ask him to come here.”
“Pooh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, shrugging his shoulders, “the idea of disturbing a busy man like him for what you yourself said was a mere nothing!”
“If you won’t go, I shall send Lucas; Monsieur de Camps’ opinion has completely upset me.”
“If it pleases you to be ridiculous,” said the peer of France, crossly, “I have no means of preventing it; but I beg you to remark one thing: if people disturb physicians for mere nonsense, they often can’t get them when they are really wanted.”
“Then you won’t go for the doctor?”
“Not I,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade; “and if I had the honor of being anything in my own house, I should forbid you to send anybody in my place.”
“My dear, you are the master here, and since you put so much feeling into your refusal, let us say no more; I will bear my anxiety as best I can.”
“Come, de Camps,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “for if this goes on, I shall be sent to order that child’s funeral.”
“But, my dear husband,” said the countess, taking his hand, “you must be ill, to say such dreadful things in that cool way. Where is your usual patience with my little maternal worries, or your exquisite politeness for every one, your wife included?”
“But,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, getting more excited instead of calmer, under this form of studied though friendly reproach, “your maternal feelings are turning into monomania, and you make life intolerable to every one but your children. The devil! suppose they are your children; I am their father, and, though I am not adored as they are, I have the right to request that my house be not made uninhabitable!”
While Monsieur de l’Estorade, striding about the room, delivered himself of this philippic, the countess made a despairing sign to Monsieur de Camps, as if to ask him whether he did not see most alarming symptoms in such a scene. In order to cut short the quarrel of which he had been the involuntary cause, the latter said, as if hurried,—
“Come, let us go!”
“Yes,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, passing out first and neglecting to say good-bye to his wife.
“Ah! stay; I have forgotten a message my wife gave me,” said Monsieur de Camps, turning back to Madame de l’Estorade. “She told me to say she would come for you at two o’clock to go and see the spring things at the ‘Jean de Paris,’ and she has arranged that after that we shall all four go to the flower-show. When we leave Rastignac, l’Estorade and I will come back here, and wait for you if you have not returned before us.”
Madame de l’Estorade paid little attention to this programme, for a flash of light had illumined her mind. As soon as she was alone, she took Marie-Gaston’s letter from her gown, and, finding it folded in the proper manner, she exclaimed,—
“Not a doubt of it! I remember perfectly that I folded it with the writing outside, as I put it back into the envelope; he must have read it!”
An hour later, Madame de l’Estorade and Madame de Camps met in the same salon where they had talked of Sallenauve a few days earlier.
“Good heavens! what is the matter with you?” cried Madame de Camps, seeing tears on the face of her friend, who was finishing a letter she had written.
Madame de l’Estorade told her all that had happened, and showed her Marie-Gaston’s letter.
“Are you very sure,” asked Madame de Camps, “that your husband has read the luckless scrawl?”
“How can I doubt it?” returned Madame de l’Estorade. “The paper can’t have turned of itself; besides, in recalling the circumstances, I have a dim recollection that at the moment when I started to run to Rene I felt something drop,—fate willed that I should not stop to pick it up.”
“Often, when people strain their memories in that way they fasten on some false indication.”
“But, my dear friend, the extraordinary change in the face and behavior of Monsieur de l’Estorade, coming so suddenly as it did, must have been the result of some sudden shock. He looked like a man struck by lightning.”
“But if you account for the change in his appearance in that way, why look for symptoms of something wrong with his liver?”
“Ah! this is not the first time I have seen symptoms of that,” replied Madame de l’Estorade. “But you know when sick people don’t complain, we forget about their illness. See,” and she pointed to a volume lying open beside her; “just before you came in, I found in this medical dictionary that persons who suffer from diseases of the liver are apt to be morose, irritable, impatient. Well, for some time past, I have noticed a great change in my husband’s disposition. You yourself mentioned it to me the other day. Besides, the scene Monsieur de Camps has just witnessed—which is, I may truly say, unprecedented in our household—is enough to prove it.”
“My dear love, you are like those unpleasant persons who are resolved to torture themselves. In the first place, you have looked into medical books, which is the very height of imprudence. I defy you to read a description of any sort of disease without fancying that either you or some friends of yours have the symptoms of it. In the next place, you are mixing up things; the effects of fear and of a chronic malady are totally different.”
“No, I am not mixing them up; I know what I am talking about. You don’t need to be told that if in our poor human machine some one part gets out of order, it is on that that any strong emotion will strike.”
“Well,” said Madame de Camps, not pursuing the medical discussion, “if the letter of that unhappy madman has really fallen into the hands of your husband, the peace of your home is seriously endangered; that is the point to be discussed.”
“There are not two ways to be followed as to that,” said Madame de l’Estorade. “Monsieur de Sallenauve must never set foot in this house again.”
“That is precisely what I came to speak about to-day. Do you know that last night I did not think you showed the composure which is so marked a trait in your character?”
“When?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.
“Why, when you expressed so effusively your gratitude to Monsieur de Sallenauve. When I advised you not to avoid him, for fear it would induce him to keep at your heels, I never intended that you should shower your regard upon his head in a way to turn it. The wife of so zealous a dynastic partisan as Monsieur de l’Estorade ought to know what the juste milieu is by this time.”
“Ah! my dear, I entreat you, don’t make fun of my poor husband.”
“I am not talking of your husband, I am talking of you. Last night you so surprised me that I have come here to take back my words. I like people to follow my advice, but I don’t like them to go beyond it.”
“At any other time I should make you explain what horrible impropriety I have committed under your counsel; but fate has interposed and settled everything. Monsieur de Sallenauve will, at any cost, disappear from our path, and therefore why discuss the degree of kindness one might have shown him?”
“But,” said Madame de Camps, “since I must tell you all, I have come to think him a dangerous acquaintance,—less for you than for some one else.”
“Who?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.
“Nais. That child, with her passion for her ‘preserver,’ makes me really uneasy.”
“Oh!” said the countess, smiling rather sadly, “are you not giving too much importance to childish nonsense?”
“Nais is, of course, a child, but a child who will ripen quickly into a woman. Did you not tell me yourself that you were sometimes frightened at the intuition she showed in matters beyond her years?”
“That is true. But what you call her passion for Monsieur de Sallenauve, besides being perfectly natural, is expressed by the dear little thing with such freedom and publicity that the sentiment is, it seems to me, obviously childlike.”
“Well, don’t trust to that; especially not after this troublesome being ceases to come to your house. Suppose that when the time comes to marry your daughter, this fancy should have smouldered in her heart and increased; imagine your difficulty!”
“Oh! between now and then, thank Heaven! there’s time enough,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, in a tone of incredulity.
“Between now and then,” said Madame de Camps, “Monsieur de Sallenauve may have reached a distinction which will put his name on every lip; and Nais, with her lively imagination, is more likely than other girls to be dazzled by it.”
“But, my dear love, look at the disproportion in their ages.”
“Monsieur de Sallenauve is thirty, and Nais will soon be fourteen; that is precisely the difference between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade.”
“Well, you may be right,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “and the sort of marriage I made from reason Nais may want to make from folly. But you needn’t be afraid; I will ruin that idol in her estimation.”
“But there again, as in the comedy of hatred you mean to play for Monsieur de l’Estorade’s benefit, you need moderation. If you do not manage it by careful transitions, you may miss your end. Never allow the influence of circumstances to appear when it is desirable than an impulse or an action should seem spontaneous.”
“But,” said Madame de l’Estorade, excitedly, “do you think that my hatred, as you call it, will be acted? I do hate him, that man; he is our evil genius!”
“Come, come, my dear, be calm! I don’t know you—you, you have always been Reason incarnate.”
At this moment Lucas entered the room and asked his mistress if she would receive a Monsieur Jacques Bricheteau. Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend, as if to consult her.
“He is that organist who was so useful to Monsieur de Sallenauve during the election. I don’t know what he can want of me.”
“Never mind,” said Madame de Camps, “receive him. Before beginning hostilities it is always well to know what is going on in the enemy’s camp.”
“Show him in,” said the countess.
Jacques Bricheteau entered. Expecting to be received in a friendly country, he had not taken any particular pains with his dress. An old maroon frock-coat to the cut of which it would have been difficult to assign a date, a plaid waistcoat buttoned to the throat, surmounted by a black cravat worn without a collar and twisted round the neck, yellowish trousers, gray stockings, and laced shoes,—such was the more than negligent costume in which the organist allowed himself to appear in a countess’s salon.
Requested briefly to sit down, he said,—
“Madame, I hope I am not indiscreet in thus presenting myself without having the honor of being known to you, but Monsieur Marie-Gaston told me of your desire that I should give music-lessons to your daughter. At first I replied that it was impossible, for all my time was occupied; but the prefect of police has just afforded me some leisure by dismissing me from a place I filled in his department; therefore I am now happy to place myself at your disposal.”
“Your dismissal, monsieur, was caused by your activity in Monsieur de Sallenauve’s election, was it not?” asked Madame de Camps.
“As no reason was assigned for it, I think your conjecture is probably correct; especially as in twenty years I have had no trouble whatever with my chiefs.”
“It can’t be denied,” said Madame de l’Estorade, sharply, “that you have opposed the views of the government by this proceeding.”
“Consequently, madame, I have accepted this dismissal as an expected evil. What interest, after all, had I in retaining my paltry post, compared to that of Monsieur de Sallenauve’s election?”
“I am very sorry,” resumed Madame de l’Estorade, “to be unable to accept the offer you are good enough to make me. But I have not yet considered the question of a music-master for my daughter; and, in any case, I fear that, in view of your great and recognized talent, your instruction would be too advanced for a little girl of fourteen.”
“Well,” said Jacques Bricheteau, smiling, “no one has recognized my talent, madame. Monsieur de Sallenauve and Monsieur Marie-Gaston have only heard me once or twice. Apart from that I am the most obscure of professors, and perhaps the dullest. But setting aside the question of your daughter’s master, I wish to speak of a far more important interest, which has, in fact, brought me here. I mean Monsieur de Sallenauve.”
“Has Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with marked coldness of manner, “sent you here with a message to my husband?”
“No, madame,” replied Jacques Bricheteau, “he has unfortunately given me no message. I cannot find him. I went to Ville d’Avray this morning, and was told that he had started on a journey with Monsieur Marie-Gaston. The servant having told me that the object and direction of this journey were probably known to you—”
“Not in any way,” interrupted Madame de l’Estorade.
Not as yet perceiving that his visit was unacceptable and that no explanation was desired, Jacques Bricheteau persisted in his statement:—
“This morning, I received a letter from the notary at Arcis-sur-Aube, who informs me that my aunt, Mother Marie-des-Anges, desires me to be told of a scandalous intrigue now being organized for the purpose of ousting Monsieur de Sallenauve from his post as deputy. The absence of our friend will seriously complicate the matter. We can take no steps without him; and I cannot understand why he should disappear without informing those who take the deepest interest in him.”
“That he has not informed you is certainly singular,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, in the same freezing tone; “but as for my husband or me, there is nothing to be surprised about.”
The meaning of this discourteous answer was too plain for Jacques Bricheteau not to perceive it. He looked straight at the countess, who lowered her eyes; but the whole expression of her countenance, due north, confirmed the meaning he could no longer mistake in her words.
“Pardon me, madame,” he said, rising. “I was not aware that the future and the reputation of Monsieur de Sallenauve had become indifferent to you. Only a moment ago, in your antechamber, when your servant hesitated to take in my name, Mademoiselle, your daughter, as soon as she heard I was the friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve, took my part warmly; and I had the stupidity to suppose that such friendliness was the tone of the family.”
After this remark, which gave Madame de l’Estorade the full change for her coin, Jacques Bricheteau bowed ceremoniously and was about to leave the room, when a sudden contradiction of the countess’s comedy of indifference appeared in the person of Nais, who rushed in exclaiming triumphantly,—
“Mamma, a letter from Monsieur de Sallenauve!”
The countess turned crimson.
“What do you mean by running in here like a crazy girl?” she said sternly; “and how do you know that this letter is from the person you mention?”
“Oh!” replied Nais, twisting the knife in the wound, “when he wrote you those letters from Arcis-sur-Aube, I saw his handwriting.”
“You are a silly, inquisitive little girl,” said her mother, driven by these aggravating circumstances quite outside of her usual habits of indulgence. “Go to your room.” Then she added to Jacques Bricheteau, who lingered after the arrival of the letter,—
“Permit me, monsieur.”
“It is for me, madame, to ask permission to remain until you have read that letter. If by chance Monsieur de Sallenauve gives you any particulars about his journey, you will, perhaps, allow me to profit by them.”
“Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said the countess, after reading the letter, “requests me to inform my husband that he has gone to Hanwell, county of Middlesex, England. You can address him there, monsieur, to the care of Doctor Ellis.”
Jacques Bricheteau made a second ceremonious bow and left the room.
“Nais has just given you a taste of her quality,” said Madame de Camps; “but you deserved it,—you really treated that poor man too harshly.”
“I could not help it,” replied Madame de l’Estorade; “the day began wrong, and all the rest follows suit.”
“Well, about the letter?”
“It is dreadful; read it yourself.”
As Madame de Camps finished reading the letter, the sound of a carriage entering the courtyard was heard.
“There are the gentlemen,” said the countess. “Now, had I better show this letter to my husband or not?”
“You can’t avoid doing so,” replied Madame de Camps. “In the first place, Nais will chatter about it. Besides, Monsieur de Sallenauve addresses you in a most respectful manner, and there is nothing in the letter to feed your husband’s notion.”
“Who is that common-looking man I met on the stairs talking with Nais?” said Monsieur de l’Estorade to his wife, as he entered the salon.
As Madame de l’Estorade did not seem to understand him, he added,—
“He is pitted with the small-pox, and wears a maroon coat and shabby hat.”
“Oh!” said Madame de Camps, addressing her friend; “it must be the man who was here just now. Nais has seized the occasion to inquire about her idol.”
“But who is he?” repeated Monsieur de l’Estorade.
“I think his name is Bricheteau; he is a friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve,” replied Madame de Camps.
Seeing the cloud on her husband’s brow, Madame de l’Estorade hastened to explain the double object of the organist’s visit, and she gave him the letter of the new deputy. While he was reading it, Madame de l’Estorade said, aside, to Monsieur de Camps,—
“He seems to me much better, don’t you think so?”
“Yes; there’s scarcely a trace left of what we saw this morning. He was too wrought up about his work. Going out did him good; and yet he met with a rather unpleasant surprise at Rastignac’s.”
“What was it?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, anxiously.
“It seems that the affairs of your friend Sallenauve are going wrong.”
“Thanks for the commission!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, returning the letter to his wife. “I shall take very good care not to guarantee his conduct in any respect.”
“Have you heard anything disagreeable about him?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, endeavoring to give a tone of indifference to her question.
“Yes; Rastignac has just told me of letters received from Arcis, where they have made the most compromising discoveries.”
“Well, what did I tell you?” cried Madame de l’Estorade.
“How do you mean? What did you tell me?”
“I told you some time ago that the acquaintance was one that had better be allowed to die out. I remember using that very expression.”
“But I didn’t draw him here.”
“Well, you can’t say that I did; and just now, before I knew of these discoveries you speak of, I was telling Madame de Camps of another reason why it was desirable to put an end to the acquaintance.”
“Yes,” said Madame de Camps, “your wife and I were just discussing, as you came in, the sort of frenzy Nais has taken for what she calls her ‘preserver.’ We agreed in thinking there might be future danger in that direction.”
“From all points of view,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “it is an unwholesome acquaintance.”
“It seems to me,” said Monsieur de Camps, who was not in the secret of these opinions, “that you go too fast. They may have made what they call compromising discoveries about Monsieur de Sallenauve; but what is the value of those discoveries? Don’t hang him till a verdict has been rendered.”
“My husband can do as he likes,” said Madame de l’Estorade; “but as for me, I shall drop the acquaintance at once. I want my friends to be, like Caesar’s wife, beyond suspicion.”
“Unfortunately,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “there’s that unfortunate obligation—”
“But, my dear,” cried Madame de l’Estorade, “if a galley-slave saved my life, must I admit him to my salon?”
“Oh! dearest,” exclaimed Madame de Camps, “you are going too far.”
“At any rate,” said the peer of France, “there is no need to make an open rupture; let things end quietly between us. The dear man is now in foreign parts, and who knows if he means to return?”
“What!” exclaimed Monsieur de Camps, “has he left the country for a mere rumor?”
“Not precisely for that reason,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “he found a pretext. But once out of France, you know—”
“I don’t believe in that conclusion,” said Madame de l’Estorade; “I think he will return, and if so, my dear, you really must take your courage in both hands and cut short his acquaintance.”
“Is that,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, looking attentively at his wife, “your actual desire?”
“Mine?” she replied; “if I had my way, I should write to him and say that he would do us a favor by not reappearing in our house. As that would be rather a difficult letter to write, let us write it together, if you are willing.”
“We will see about it,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, brightening up under this suggestion; “there’s no danger in going slow. The most pressing thing at this moment is the flower-show; I think it closes at four o’clock; if so, we have only an hour before us.”
Madame de l’Estorade, who had dressed before the arrival of Madame de Camps, rang for her maid to bring her a bonnet and shawl. While she was putting them on before a mirror, her husband came up behind her and whispered in her ear,—
“Then you really love me, Renee?”
“Are you crazy, to ask me such a question as that?” she answered, looking at him affectionately.
“Well, then, I must make a confession: that letter, which Philippe brought—I read it.”
“Then I am not surprised at the change in your looks and manner,” said his wife. “I, too, will make you a confession: that letter to Monsieur de Sallenauve, giving him his dismissal,—I have written it; you will find it in my blotting-book. If you think it will do, send it.”
Quite beside himself with delight at finding his proposed successor so readily sacrificed, Monsieur de l’Estorade did not control his joy; taking his wife in his arms, he kissed her effusively.
“Well done!” cried Monsieur de Camps, laughing; “you have improved since morning.”
“This morning I was a fool,” said the peer of France, hunting in the blotting-book for the letter, which he might have had the grace to believe in without seeing.
“Hush!” said Madame de Camps, in a low voice to her husband, to prevent further remarks. “I’ll explain this queer performance to you by and by.”
Rejuvenated by ten years at least, the peer of France offered his arm to Madame de Camps, while the amateur iron-master offered his to the countess.
“But Nais!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, noticing the melancholy face of his daughter, who was looking over the stairs at the party. “Isn’t she going too?”
“No,” said the countess; “I am displeased with her.”
“Ah, bah!” said the father, “I proclaim an amnesty. Get your hat,” he added, addressing his daughter.
Nais looked at her mother to obtain a ratification, which her knowledge of the hierarchy of power in that establishment made her judge to be necessary.
“You can come,” said her mother, “if your father wishes it.”
While they waited in the antechamber for the child, Monsieur de l’Estorade noticed that Lucas was standing up beside a half-finished letter.
“Whom are you writing to?” he said to his old servant.
“To my son,” replied Lucas, “who is very impatient to get his sergeant’s stripes. I am telling him that Monsieur le comte has promised to speak to his colonel for him.”
“True, true,” said the peer of France; “it slipped my memory. Remind me of it to-morrow morning, and I’ll do it the first thing after I am up.”
“Monsieur le comte is very good—”
“And here,” continued his master, feeling in his waistcoat pocket, and producing three gold pieces, “send that to the corporal, and tell him to drink a welcome to the stripes.”
Lucas was stupefied. Never had he seen his master so expansive or so generous.
When Nais returned, Madame de l’Estorade, who had been admiring herself for her courage in showing displeasure to her daughter for half an hour, embraced her as if they were meeting after an absence of two years; after which they started for the Luxembourg, where in those days the Horticultural Society held its exhibitions.
Toward the close of the audience given by the minister of Public Works to Monsieur Octave de Camps, who was presented by the Comte de l’Estorade, an usher entered the room, and gave the minister the card of the attorney-general, Monsieur Vinet, and that of Monsieur Maxime de Trailles.
“Very good,” said Rastignac; “say to those gentlemen that I will receive them in a few moments.”
Shortly after, Monsieur de l’Estorade and Monsieur de Camps rose to take leave; and it was then that Rastignac very succinctly let the peer know of the danger looming on the horizon of his friend Sallenauve. Monsieur de l’Estorade exclaimed against the word friend.
“I don’t know, my dear minister,” he said, “why you insist on giving that title to a man who is, really and truly, a mere acquaintance, and, I may add, a passing acquaintance, if the rumors you have just mentioned to us take actual shape.”
“I am glad to hear you say that,” said the minister, “because the friendly relations which I supposed you to hold towards him would have embarrassed me a good deal in the hostilities which I foresee must break out between him and the government.”
“Most grateful, I am sure, for that sentiment,” replied the peer of France; “but be kind enough to remember that I give you carte blanche. You are free to handle Monsieur de Sallenauve as your political enemy, without a moment’s fear of troubling me.”
Thereupon they parted, and Messieurs Vinet and de Trailles were introduced.
The attorney-general, Vinet, was the most devoted and the most consulted champion of the government among its various officials. In a possible reconstitution of the ministry he was obviously the candidate for the portfolio of justice. Being thoroughly initiated into all the business of that position, and versed in its secret dealings, nothing was hatched in that department on which he was not consulted, if not actually engaged. The electoral matters of Arcis-sur-Aube had a double claim to his interest, partly on account of his wife, a Chargeboeuf of Brie, and a relative of the Cinq-Cygnes, but chiefly because of the office held by his son in the local administration. So that when, earlier in the morning, Monsieur de Trailles carried to Rastignac a letter from Madame Beauvisage, wife of the defeated governmental candidate, full of statements injurious to the new deputy, the minister had replied, without listening to any explanations,—
“See Vinet about it; and tell him, from me, to come here with you.”
Notified by de Trailles, who offered to fetch him in his carriage, Vinet was ready enough to go to the minister; and now that we find the three together in Rastignac’s study, we shall be likely to obtain some better knowledge of the sort of danger hanging over Sallenauve’s head than we gained from Jacques Bricheteau’s or Monsieur de l’Estorade’s very insufficient information.
“You say, my dear friends,” said the minister, “that we can win a game against that puritan, who seemed to me, when I met him at l’Estorade’s last evening, to be an out-and-out enemy to the government?”
Admitted to this interview without official character, Maxime de Trailles knew life too well to take upon himself to answer this query. The attorney-general, on the contrary, having a most exalted sense of his own political importance, did not miss the opportunity to put himself forward.
“When Monsieur de Trailles communicated to me this morning a letter from Madame Beauvisage,” he hastened to say, “I had just received one from my son, conveying to me very much the same information. I am of Monsieur de Trailles’ opinion, that the affair may become very serious for our adversary, provided, however, that it is well managed.”
“I know, as yet, very little about the affair,” remarked the minister. “As I wished for your opinion in the first place, my dear Vinet, I requested Monsieur de Trailles to postpone his explanation of its details until you could be present at the discussion.”
This time Maxime was plainly authorized and even required to speak, but again Vinet stole the opportunity.
“Here is what my son Olivier writes me, and it is confirmed by the letter of Madame Beauvisage, in whom, be it said in passing, my dear minister, you have lost a most excellent deputy. It appears that on the last market-day Maitre Achille Pigoult, who is left in charge of the affairs of the new deputy, received a visit from a peasant-woman of Romilly, a large village in the neighborhood of Arcis. The mysterious father of the deputy, the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve, declared himself to be the last remaining scion of the family; but it seems that this woman produced papers in due form, which show her to be a Sallenauve in the direct line, and within the degree of parentage required to constitute her an heir.”
“Was she as ignorant of the existence of the Marquis de Sallenauve as the marquis seems to have been of hers?” asked Rastignac.
“That does not clearly appear from what she says,” replied the attorney-general; “but it might so happen among relations so curiously placed.”
“Go on, if you please,” said Rastignac; “before we draw conclusions we must know the facts, which, as you are aware, is not always done in the Chamber of deputies.”
“Fortunately, sometimes, for the ministers,” remarked Maxime, laughing.
“Monsieur is right,” said Vinet; “hail to the man who can muddle questions. But to return to our peasant-woman. Not being satisfied, naturally, with Maitre Pigoult’s reception of her news, she went into the market-square, and there by the help of a legal practitioner from her village, who seems to have accompanied her, she spread about reports which are very damaging to my worthy colleague in the Chamber. She said, for instance, that it was not true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was his father; that it was not even true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was still living; and moreover that the spurious Sallenauve was a man of no heart, who had repudiated his real parents,—adding that she could, by the help of the able man who accompanied her, compel him to disgorge the Sallenauve property and ‘clear out’ of the place.”
“I have no objection to that,” said Rastignac; “but this woman must, of course, have papers to prove her allegations?”
“That is the weak point of the matter,” replied Vinet. “But let me go on with my story. The government has at Arcis a most intelligent and devoted functionary in the commissary of police. Circulating among the groups, as he usually does on market days, he heard these statements of the peasant-woman, and reported them at once, not to the mayor, who might not have heeded them, but to Madame Beauvisage.”
“Ah ca!” said Rastignac, addressing Maxime; “was the candidate you gave us such a dolt as that?”
“Just the man you needed,” replied Maxime,—“silly to the last degree, and capable of being wound round anybody’s finger. I’ll go any lengths to repair that loss.”
“Madame Beauvisage,” continued Vinet, “wished to speak with the woman herself, and she ordered Groslier—that’s the commissary of police—to fetch her with a threatening air to the mayor’s office, so as to give her an idea that the authorities disapproved of her conduct.”
“Did Madame Beauvisage concoct that plan?” asked Rastignac.
“Yes,” replied Maxime, “she is a very clever woman.”
“Questioned closely by the mayoress,” continued Vinet, “who took care to have the mayor present, the peasant-woman was far from categorical. Her grounds for asserting that the new deputy could not be the son of the marquis, and the assurance with which she stated that the latter had long been dead were not, as it appears, very clearly established; vague rumors and the deductions drawn by the village practitioner seem to be all there was to them.”
“Then,” said Rastignac, “what does all this lead to?”
“Absolutely nothing from a legal point of view,” replied the attorney-general; “for supposing the woman were able to establish the fact that this recognition of the said Dorlange was a mere pretence, she has no status on which to proceed farther. By Article 339 of the Civil Code direct heirship alone has the right to attack the recognition of natural children.”
“Your balloon is collapsing fast,” said the minister.
“So that the woman,” continued Vinet, “has no object in proceeding, for she can’t inherit; it belongs to the government to pursue the case of supposition of person; she can do no more than denounce the fact.”
“From which you conclude?” said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is a warning to be concise.
“From which I conclude, judicially speaking, that the Romilly peasant-woman, so far as she is concerned, will have her trouble for her pains; but, speaking politically, the thing takes quite another aspect.”
“Let us see the political side,” said the minister; “up to this point, I see nothing.”
“In the first place,” replied the attorney-general, “you will admit that it is always possible to bring a bad case?”
“Certainly.”
“And I don’t suppose it would signify much to you if the woman did embark in a matter in which she can lose nothing but her costs?”
“No, I assure you I am wholly indifferent.”
“In any case, I should have advised you to let things take their course. The Beauvisage husband and wife have engaged to pay the costs and also the expense of keeping the peasant-woman and her counsel in Paris during the inquiry.”
“Then,” said Rastignac, still pressing for a conclusion, “the case is really begun. What will be the result?”
“What will be the result?” cried the attorney-general, getting excited; “why, anything you please if, before the case comes for trial, your newspapers comment upon it, and your friends spread reports and insinuations. What will result? why, an immense fall in public estimation for our adversary suspected of stealing a name which does not belong to him! What will result? why, the opportunity for a fierce challenge in the Chamber.”
“Which you will take upon yourself to make?” asked Rastignac.
“Ah! I don’t know about that. The matter would have to be rather more studied, and the turn the case might take more certain, if I had anything to do with it.”
“So, for the present,” remarked the minister, “the whole thing amounts to an application of Basile’s famous theory about calumny: ‘good to set a-going, because some of it will always stick.’”
“Calumny!” exclaimed Vinet, “that remains to be seen. Perhaps a good round of gossip is all that can be made of it. Monsieur de Trailles, here, knows better than I do the state of things down there. He can tell you that the disappearance of the father immediately after the recognition had a bad effect upon people’s minds; and every one in Arcis has a vague impression of secret plotting in this affair of the election. You don’t know, my dear minister, all that can be made in the provinces of a judicial affair when adroitly manipulated,—cooked, as I may say. In my long and laborious career at the bar I saw plenty of that kind of miracle. But a parliamentary debate is another thing. In that there’s no need of proof; one can kill one’s man with probabilities and assertions, if hotly maintained.”
“But, to come to the point,” said Rastignac, “how do you think the affair ought to be managed?”
“In the first place,” replied Vinet, “I should leave the Beauvisage people to pay all costs of whatever kind, inasmuch as they propose to do so.”
“Do I oppose that?” said the minister. “Have I the right or the means to do so?”
“The affair,” continued Vinet, “should be placed in the hands of some capable and wily solicitor, like Desroches, for example, Monsieur de Trailles’ lawyer. He’ll know how to put flesh on the bones of a case you justly consider rather thin.”
“Well, it is certainly not my place to say to Monsieur de Trailles or any other man, ‘I forbid you to employ whom you will as your solicitor.’”
“Then we need some pleader who can talk in a moving way about that sacred thing the Family, and put himself into a state of indignation about these surreptitious and furtive ways of entering its honored enclosure.”
“Desroches can point out some such person to you. The government cannot prevent a man from saying what he pleases.”
“But,” interposed Maxime, who was forced out of his passive role by the minister’s coldness, “is not preventing all the help we are to expect in this affair from the government?”
“You don’t expect us, I hope, to take this matter upon ourselves?”
“No, of course not; but we have certainly supposed that you would take some interest in the matter.”
“But how?—in what way?”
“Well, as Monsieur le procureur said just now, by giving a hint to the subsidized newspapers, by stirring up your friends to spread the news, by using a certain influence which power always exerts on the minds of magistrates.”
“Thank you, no!” replied Rastignac. “When you want the government for an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot than that. From your manner this morning I supposed there was really something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice. But really, your scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed to inevitable defeat. If I were not married, and could pretend to the hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of course you will do as you think best. I do not say that the government will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend to make it with you.”
“But see,” said Vinet, interposing to cut off Maxime’s reply, which would doubtless have been bitter; “suppose we send the affair to the criminal courts, and the peasant-woman, instigated by the Beauvisage couple, should denounce the man who had sworn before a notary, and offered himself for election falsely, as a Sallenauve: the question is one for the court of assizes.”
“But proofs? I return to that, you must have proof,” said Rastignac. “Have you even a shadow of it?”
“You said yourself, just now,” remarked Maxime, “that it was always possible to bring a bad case.”
“A civil case, yes; but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious matter. It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of non-lieu. You couldn’t find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as the column of July.”
“So,” said Maxime, “you see absolutely nothing that can be done?”
“For us, no. For you, my dear Maxime, who have no official character, and who, if need be, can support the attack on Monsieur de Sallenauve pistol in hand, as it were, nothing hinders you from proceeding in the matter.”
“Oh, yes!” said Maxime, bitterly, “I’m a sort of free lance.”
“Not at all; you are a man intuitively convinced of facts impossible to prove legally, and you do not give way before the judgment of God or man.”
Monsieur de Trailles rose angrily. Vinet rose also, and, shaking hands with Rastignac as he took leave of him, he said,—
“I don’t deny that your course is a prudent one, and I don’t say that in your place I should not do the same thing.”
“Adieu, Maxime; without bitterness, I hope,” said Rastignac to Monsieur de Trailles, who bowed coldly and with dignity.
When the two conspirators were alone in the antechamber, Maxime turned to his companion.
“Do you understand such squeamishness?” he asked.
“Perfectly,” replied Vinet, “and I wonder to see a clever man like you so duped.”
“Yes, duped to make you lose your time and I mine by coming here to listen to a lecture on virtue!”
“That’s not it; but I do think you guileless to be taken in by that refusal to co-operate.”
“What! do you think—”
“I think that this affair is risky; if it succeeds, the government, arms folded, will reap the benefit. But if on the contrary we fail, it will not take a share in the defeat. But you may be sure of this, for I know Rastignac well: without seeming to know anything, and without compromising himself in any way, he will help us, and perhaps more usefully than by open connivance. Think! did he say a single word on the morality of the affair? Didn’t he say, again and again, ‘I don’t oppose—I have no right to prevent’? And as to the venom of the case, the only fault he found was that it wasn’t sure to kill. But in truth, my dear monsieur, this is going to be a hard pull, and we shall want all the cleverness of that fellow Desroches to get us through.”
“Then you think I had better see him?”
“Better see him! why, my good friend, you ought to go to him at once.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if he talked with you?”
“Oh! no, no!” exclaimed Vinet. “I may be the man to put the question in the Chamber; and if Desroches were seen with me, I should lose my virginity.”
So saying, he took leave of Maxime with some haste, on the ground that he ought then to be at the Chamber.
“But I,” said Maxime, running after him,—“suppose I want to consult you in the matter?”
“I leave to-night for my district, to get things into order before the opening of the new session.”
“But about bringing up the question which you say may devolve on you?”
“I or another. I will hasten back as soon as I can; but you understand, I must put my department in order for a six months’ absence.”
“A good journey to you, then, Monsieur le procureur-general,” replied Maxime, sarcastically.
Left to himself, Monsieur de Trailles had a period of discouragement, resulting from the discovery that these two political Bertrands meant that his paw should pull the chestnuts from the fire. Rastignac’s behavior particularly galled him. His mind went back to their first interview at Madame Restaud’s, twenty years earlier, when he himself held the sceptre of fashion, and Rastignac, a poor student, neither knew how to come into a room nor how to leave it. [See “Pere Goriot.”] And now Rastignac was peer of France and minister, while he, Maxime, become his agent, was obliged with folded arms to hear himself told that his plot was weak and he must carry it out alone, if at all.
But this discouragement did not last.
“Yes!” he cried to himself, “I will carry it out; my instinct tells me there is something in it. What nonsense!—a Dorlange, a nobody, to attempt to checkmate Maxime de Trailles and make a stepping-stone of my defeat! To my solicitor’s,” he said to the coachman, opening the door of the carriage himself.
Desroches was at home; and Monsieur de Trailles was immediately admitted into his study.
Desroches was a lawyer who had had, like Raffaelle, several manners. First, possessor of a practice without clients, he had made fish of every case that came into his net; and he felt himself, in consequence, little respected by the court. But he was a hard worker, well versed in all the ins and outs of chicanery, a keen observer, and an intelligent reader of the movements of the human heart. Consequently he had made for himself, in course of time, a very good practice; he had married a rich woman, and the moment that he thought himself able to do without crooked ways he had seriously renounced them. In 1839 Desroches had become an honest and skilful solicitor: that is to say, he assumed the interests of his clients with warmth and ability; he never counselled an openly dishonorable proceeding, still less would he have lent a hand to it. As to that fine flower of delicacy to be met with in Derville and some others like him, besides the sad fact that it is difficult to keep its fragrance from evaporating in this business world of which Monsieur de Talleyrand says, “Business means getting the property of others,” it is certain that it can never be added to any second state of existence. The loss of that bloom of the soul, like that of other virginities, is irreparable. Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself. He no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very ready to undertake.
Desroches was moreover a man of parts and witty; loving the pleasures of the table, and like all men perpetually the slaves of imperious toil, he felt the need of vigorous amusement, taken on the wing and highly spiced. While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses, courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them. Their witty argot, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures, their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their greatness and their weakness,—he understood it all marvellously well; and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever they asked for it. But in order to conceal from his dignified and more valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the clientele he really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was husband and father, especially on Sundays. He appeared in the Bois de Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed the size of her dot), with three children on the front seat, who were luckless enough to resemble their mother. This family picture, these virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches, dining in cafes with all the male and female viveurs of renown, that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim, remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.
It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel, as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in life. Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting, to the long explanation of the case submitted to him. As Maxime hid nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber,—his hatred making him take the possibility for positive evidence.
In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his opinion that this pretended “case” was a mere intrigue. The number of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.
“In the first place,” said Desroches, when the matter was all explained, “a civil suit is not to be thought of. Your Romilly peasant-woman might have her hands full of proofs, but she has no ground herself to stand upon; she has no legal interest in contesting the rights of this recognized natural son.”
“Yes, that is what Vinet said just now.”
“As for the criminal case, you could, no doubt, compel it by giving information to the police authorities of this alleged imposture—”
“Vinet,” interrupted Maxime, “inclined to the criminal proceeding.”
“Yes, but there are a great many objections to it. In the first place, in order that the complaint be received at all, you must produce a certain amount of proof; then, supposing it is received, and the authorities are determined to pursue the case, you must have more evidence of criminality than you have now; and, moreover, supposing that you can show that the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve committed a fraud, how will you prove that the so-called son was privy to it? He might have been the dupe of some political schemer.”
“But what interest could such a schemer have in giving Dorlange the many advantages he has derived from the recognition?”
“Ah! my dear fellow, in political manners all queer proceedings are possible; there is no such fertile source for compilers of causes celebres and novelists. In the eyes of the law, you must remember, the counterfeiting of a person is not always a crime.”
“How so?” asked Maxime.
“Here,” said Desroches, taking up the Five Codes; “do me the favor to read Article 5 of the Penal Code, the only one which gives an opening to the case you have in mind.”
Maxime read aloud the article, which was as follows:—
“‘Any functionary or public officer who, in the exercise of his function, shall commit forgery—either by false signatures, by alterations of deeds, writings, or signatures, or by counterfeiting persons—’ There, you see,” said Maxime, interrupting himself,—“‘by counterfeiting persons—‘”
“Go on,” insisted Desroches.
“‘—by counterfeiting persons,’” resumed de Trailles, “‘either by writings made or intercalated in the public records or other documents, shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for life.’”
Maxime lingered lovingly over the last words, which gave his revenge a foretaste of the fate that awaited Sallenauve.
“My dear count,” said Desroches, “you do as the barristers do; they read to the jury only so much of a legal document as suits their point of view. You pay no attention to the fact that the only persons affected by this article are functionaries or public officers.”