The Lesser Bourgeoisie

She was alone, in a dazzling toilet scarcely authorized by the place and her isolation; before her, mounted on a chair, trembled a tiny lap-dog, which she stroked from time to time with her beautiful hands. After convincing himself that he was not mistaken, la Peyrade was about to dart upon that celestial vision, when he was forestalled by a dandy of the most triumphant type. Without throwing aside his cigar, without even touching his hat, this handsome young man began to converse with the barrister’s ideal; but when she saw la Peyrade making towards her the siren must have felt afraid, for she rose quickly, and taking the arm of the man who was talking to her, she said aloud: —

“Is your carriage here, Emile? Mabille closes to-night, and I should like to go there.”

The name of that disreputable place thus thrown in the face of the unhappy barrister, was a charity, for it saved him from a foolish action, that of addressing, on the arm of the man who had suddenly made himself her cavalier, the unworthy creature of whom he was thinking a few seconds earlier with so much tenderness.

“She is not worth insulting,” he said to himself.

But, as lovers are beings who will not allow their foothold to be taken from them easily, the Provencal was neither convinced nor resigned as yet. Not far from the place which his countess had left, sat another woman, also alone; but this one was ripe with years, with feathers on her head, and beneath the folds of a cashmere shawl she concealed the plaintive remains of tarnished elegance and long past luxury. There was nothing imposing about this sight, nor did it command respect, but the contrary. La Peyrade went up to the woman without ceremony and addressed her.

“Madame,” he said, “do you know that woman who has just gone away on the arm of a gentleman?”

“Certainly, monsieur; I know nearly all the women who come here.”

“And her name is? – ”

“Madame Komorn.”

“Is she as impregnable as the fortress of that name?”

Our readers will doubtless remember that at the time of the insurrection in Hungary our ears were battered by the press and by novelists about the famous citadel of Komorn; and la Peyrade knew that by assuming a tone of indifference or flippancy he was more likely to succeed with his inquiries.

“Has monsieur any idea of making her acquaintance?”

“I don’t know,” replied la Peyrade, “but she is a woman who makes people think of her.”

“And a very dangerous woman, monsieur,” added his companion; “a fearful spendthrift, but with no inclination to return generously what is done for her. I can speak knowingly of that; when she first arrived here from Berlin, six months ago, she was very warmly recommended to me.”

“Ah!” exclaimed la Peyrade.

“Yes, at that time I had in the environs of Ville d’Avray a very beautiful place, with park and coverts and a stream for fishing; but as I was alone I found it dull, and several of these ladies and gentlemen said to me, ‘Madame Louchard, why don’t you organize parties in the style of picnics?’”

“Madame Louchard!” repeated la Peyrade, “are you any relation to Monsieur Louchard of the commercial police?”

“His wife, monsieur, but legally separated from him. A horrid man who wants me to go back to him; but I, though I’m ready to forgive most things, I can’t forgive a want of respect; just imagine that he dared to raise his hand against me!”

“Well,” said la Peyrade, trying to bring her back to the matter in hand; “you organized those picnics, and Madame de Godo – I mean Madame Komorn – ”

“Was one of my first lodgers. It was there she made acquaintance with an Italian, a handsome man, and rich, a political refugee, but one of the lofty kind. You understand it didn’t suit my purposes to have intrigues going on in my house; still the man was so lovable, and so unhappy because he couldn’t make Madame Komorn like him, that at last I took an interest in this particular love affair; which produced a pot of money for madame, for she managed to get immense sums out of that Italian. Well, would you believe that when – being just then in great need – I asked her to assist me with a trifling little sum, she refused me point-blank, and left my house, taking her lover with her, who, poor man, can’t be thankful for the acquaintance now.”

“Why not? What happened to him?” asked la Peyrade.

“It happened to him that this serpent knows every language in Europe; she is witty and clever to the tips of her fingers, but more manoeuvring than either; so, being, as it appears, in close relations to the police, she gave the government a lot of papers the Italian left about carelessly, on which they expelled him from France.”

“Well, after his departure, Madame Komorn – ”

“Since then, she has had a good many adventures and upset several fortunes, and I thought she had left Paris. For the last two months she was nowhere to be seen, but three days ago she reappeared, more brilliant than ever. My advice to monsieur is not to trust himself in that direction; and yet, monsieur looks to me a Southerner, and Southerners have passions; perhaps what I have told him will only serve to spur them up. However, being warned, there’s not so much danger, and she is a most fascinating creature – oh! very fascinating. She used to love me very much, though we parted such ill-friends; and just now, seeing me here, she came over and asked my address, and said she should come and see me.”

“Well, madame, I’ll think about it,” said la Peyrade, rising and bowing to her.

The bow was returned with extreme coldness; his abrupt departure did not show him to be a man of serious intentions.

It might be supposed from the lively manner in which la Peyrade made these inquiries that his cure though sudden was complete; but this surface of indifference and cool self-possession was only the stillness of the atmosphere that precedes a storm. On leaving Madame Louchard, la Peyrade flung himself into a street-cab and there gave way to a passion of tears like that Madame Colleville had witnessed on the day he believed that Cerizet had got the better of him in the sale of the house.

What was his position now? The investment of the Thuilliers, prepared with so much care, all useless; Flavie well avenged for the odious comedy he had played with her; his affairs in a worse state than they were when Cerizet and Dutocq had sent him, like a devouring wolf, into the sheepfold from which he had allowed the stupid sheep to drive him; his heart full of revengeful projects against the woman who had so easily got the better of what he thought his cleverness; and the memory, still vivid, of the seductions to which he had succumbed, – such were the thoughts and emotions of his sleepless night, sleepless except for moments shaken by agitated dreams.

The next day la Peyrade could think no more; he was a prey to fever, the violence of which became sufficiently alarming for the physician who attended him to take all precautions against the symptoms now appearing of brain fever: bleeding, cupping, leeches, and ice to his head; these were the agreeable finale to his dream of love. We must hasten to add, however, that this violent crisis in the physical led to a perfect cure of the mental being. The barrister came out of his illness with no other sentiment than cold contempt for the treacherous Hungarian, a sentiment which did not even rise to a desire for vengeance.

CHAPTER IX. GIVE AND TAKE

Once more afoot, and reckoning with his future, on which he had lost so much ground, la Peyrade asked himself if he had not better try to renew his relations with the Thuilliers, or whether he should be compelled to fall back on the rich crazy woman who had bullion where others have brains. But everything that reminded him of his disastrous campaign was repulsive to him; besides, what safety was there in dealing with this du Portail, a man who could use such instruments for his means of action?

Great commotions of the soul are like those storms which purify the atmosphere; they induce reflection, they counsel good and strong resolutions. La Peyrade, as the result of the cruel disappointment he had just endured, examined his own soul. He asked himself what sort of existence was this, of base and ignoble intrigue, which he had led for the past year? Was there for him no better, no nobler use to make of the faculties he felt within him? The bar was open to him as to others; that was a broad, straight path which could lead him to all the satisfaction of legitimate ambition. Like Figaro, who displayed more science and calculation in merely getting a living than statesmen had shown in governing Spain for a hundred years, he, la Peyrade, in order to install and maintain himself in the Thuillier household and marry the daughter of a clarionet and a smirched coquette, had spent more mind, more art, and – it should also be said, because in a corrupt society it is an element that must be reckoned – more dishonesty than was needed to advance him in some fine career.

“Enough of such connections as Dutocq and Cerizet,” he said to himself; “enough of the nauseating atmosphere of the Minards and Phellions and Collevilles and Barniols and all the rest of them. I’ll shake off this province ‘intra muros,’ a thousand times more absurd and petty than the true provinces; they at least, side by side with their pettiness, have habits and customs that are characteristic, a ‘sui generis’ dignity; they are frankly what they are, the antipodes of Parisian life; this other is but a parody of it. I will fling myself upon Paris.”

In consequence of these reflections, la Peyrade went to see two or three barristers who had offered to introduce him at the Palais in secondary cases. He accepted those that presented themselves at once, and three weeks after his rupture with the Thuilliers he was no longer the “advocate of the poor,” but a barrister pleading before the Royal court.

He had already pleaded several cases successfully when he received, one morning, a letter which greatly disturbed him. The president of the order of barristers requested him to come to his office at the Palais in the course of the day, as he had something of importance to say to him. La Peyrade instantly thought of the transaction relating to the purchase of the house on the boulevard de la Madeleine; it must have come, he thought, to the ears of the Council of Discipline; if so he was accountable to that tribunal and he knew its severity.

Now this du Portail, whom he had never yet been to see, in spite of his conditional promise to Cerizet, was likely to have heard the whole story of that transaction from Cerizet himself. Evidently all means were thought good by that man, judging by the use he had made of the Hungarian woman. In his savage determination to bring about the marriage with the crazy girl, had this virulent old man denounced him? On seeing him courageously and with some appearance of success entering a career in which he might find fame and independence, had his persecutor taken a step to make that career impossible? Certainly there was enough likelihood in this suggestion to make the barrister wait in cruel anxiety for the hour when he might learn the true nature of the alarming summons.

While breakfasting rather meagrely, his mind full of these painful conjectures, Madame Coffinet, who had the honor to take charge of his housekeeping, came up to ask if he would see Monsieur Etienne Lousteau. [See “The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris.”]

Etienne Lousteau! la Peyrade had an idea that he had heard the name before.

“Show him into my office,” he said to the portress.

A moment later he met his visitor, whose face did not seem utterly unknown to him.

“Monsieur,” said this new-comer, “I had the honor of breakfasting with you not long ago at Vefour’s; I was invited to that meeting, afterwards rather disturbed, by Monsieur Thuillier.”

“Ah, very good!” said the barrister, offering a chair; “you are attached to the staff of a newspaper?”

“Editor-in-chief of the ‘Echo de la Bievre,’ and it is on the subject of that paper that I have now called to see you. You know what has happened?”

“No,” said la Peyrade.

“Is it possible you are not aware that the ministry met with terrible defeat last night? But instead of resigning, as every one expected, they have dissolved the Chamber and appeal to the people.”

“I knew nothing of all that,” said la Peyrade. “I have not read the morning papers.”

“So,” continued Lousteau, “all parliamentary ambitions will take the field, and, if I am well informed, Monsieur Thuillier, already member of the Council-general, intends to present himself as candidate for election in the 12th arrondissement.”

“Yes,” said la Peyrade, “that is likely to be his intention.”

“Well, monsieur, I desire to place at his disposition an instrument the value of which I am confident you will not underestimate. The ‘Echo de la Bievre,’ a specialist paper, can have a decisive influence on the election in that quarter.”

“And you would be disposed,” asked la Peyrade, “to make that paper support Monsieur Thuillier’s candidacy?”

“Better than that,” replied Lousteau. “I have come to propose to Monsieur Thuillier that he purchase the paper itself. Once the proprietor of it he can use it as he pleases.”

“But in the first place,” said la Peyrade, “what is the present condition of the enterprise? In its character as a specialist journal – as you called it just now – it is a sheet I have seldom met with; in fact, it would be entirely unknown to me were it not for the remarkable article you were so good as to devote to Thuillier’s defence at the time his pamphlet was seized.”

Etienne Lousteau bowed his thanks, and then said:

“The position of the paper is excellent; we can give it to you on easy terms, for we were intending shortly to stop the publication.”

“That is strange for a prosperous journal.”

“On the contrary, it happens to be quite natural. The founders, who were all representatives of the great leather interest, started this paper for a special object. That object has been attained. The ‘Echo de la Bievre’ has therefore become an effect without a cause. In such a case, stockholders who don’t like the tail end of matters, and are not eager after small profits, very naturally prefer to sell out.”

“But,” asked la Peyrade, “does the paper pay its costs?”

“That,” replied Lousteau, “is a point we did not consider; we were not very anxious to have subscribers; the mainspring of the whole affair was direct and immediate action on the ministry of commerce to obtain a higher duty on the introduction of foreign leathers. You understand that outside of the tannery circle, this interest was not very exciting to the general reader.”

“I should have thought, however,” persisted la Peyrade, “that a newspaper, however circumscribed its action, would be a lever which depended for its force on the number of its subscribers.”

“Not for journals which aim for a single definite thing,” replied Lousteau, dogmatically. “In that case, subscribers are, on the contrary, an embarrassment, for you have to please and amuse them, and in so doing, the real object has to be neglected. A newspaper which has a definite and circumscribed object ought to be like the stroke of that pendulum which, striking steadily on one spot, fires at a given hour the cannon of the Palais-Royal.”

“At any rate,” said la Peyrade, “what price do you put upon a publication which has no subscribers, does not pay its expenses, and has until now been devoted to a purpose totally different from that you propose for it?”

“Before answering,” returned Lousteau, “I shall ask you another question. Have you any intention of buying it?”

“That’s according to circumstances,” replied la Peyrade. “Of course I must see Thuillier; but I may here remark to you that he knows absolutely nothing about newspaper business. With his rather bourgeois ideas, the ownership of a newspaper will seem to him a ruinous speculation. Therefore, if, in addition to an idea that will scare him, you suggest an alarming price, it is useless for me to speak to him. I am certain he would never go into the affair.”

“No,” replied Lousteau. “I have told you we should be reasonable; these gentlemen have left the whole matter in my hands. Only, I beg to remark that we have had propositions from other parties, and in giving Monsieur Thuillier this option, we intended to pay him a particular courtesy. When can I have your answer?”

“To-morrow, I think; shall I have the honor of seeing you at your own house, or at the office of the journal?”

“No,” said Lousteau, “to-morrow I will come here, at the same hour, if that is convenient to you.”

“Perfectly,” replied la Peyrade, bowing out his visitor, whom he was inclined to think more consequential than able.

By the manner in which the barrister had received the proposition to become an intermediary to Thuillier, the reader must have seen that a rapid revolution had taken place in his ideas. Even if he had not received that extremely disquieting letter from the president of the order of barristers, the new situation in which Thuillier would be placed if elected to the Chamber gave him enough to think about. Evidently his dear good friend would have to come back to him, and Thuillier’s eagerness for election would deliver him over, bound hand and foot. Was it not the right moment to attempt to renew his marriage with Celeste? Far from being an obstacle to the good resolutions inspired by his amorous disappointment and his incipient brain fever, such a finale would ensure their continuance and success. Moreover, if he received, as he feared, one of those censures which would ruin his dawning prospects at the bar, it was with the Thuilliers, the accomplices and beneficiaries of the cause of his fall, that his instinct led him to claim an asylum.

With these thoughts stirring in his mind la Peyrade obeyed the summons and went to see the president of the order of barristers.

He was not mistaken; a very circumstantial statement of his whole proceeding in the matter of the house had been laid before his brethren of the bar; and the highest dignitary of the order, after stating that an anonymous denunciation ought always to be received with great distrust, told him that he was ready to receive and welcome an explanation. La Peyrade dared not entrench himself in absolute denial; the hand from which he believed the blow had come seemed to him too resolute and too able not to hold the proofs as well. But, while admitting the facts in general, he endeavored to give them an acceptable coloring. In this, he saw that he had failed, when the president said to him: —

“After the vacation which is now beginning I shall report to the Council of the order the charges made against you, and the statements by which you have defended yourself. The Council alone has the right to decide on a matter of such importance.”

Thus dismissed, la Peyrade felt that his whole future at the bar was imperilled; but at least he had a respite, and in case of condemnation a new project on which to rest his head. Accordingly, he put on his gown, which he had never worn till now, and went to the fifth court-room, where he was employed upon a case.

As he left the court-room, carrying one of those bundles of legal papers held together by a strip of cotton which, being too voluminous to hold under the arm, are carried by the hand and the forearm pressed against the chest, la Peyrade began to pace about the Salle des Pas perdus with that harassed look of business which denotes a lawyer overwhelmed with work. Whether he had really excited himself in pleading, or whether he was pretending to be exhausted to prove that his gown was not a dignity for show, as it was with many of his legal brethren, but an armor buckled on for the fight, it is certain that, handkerchief in hand, he was mopping his forehead as he walked, when, in the distance, he spied Thuillier, who had evidently just caught sight of him, and was beginning on his side to manoeuvre.

La Peyrade was not surprised by the encounter. On leaving home he had told Madame Coffinet he was going to the Palais, and should be there till three o’clock, and she might send to him any persons who called on business. Not wishing to let Thuillier accost him too easily, he turned abruptly, as if some thought had changed his purpose, and went and seated himself on one of the benches which surround the walls of that great antechamber of Justice. There he undid his bundle, took out a paper, and buried himself in it with the air of a man who had not had time to examine in his study a case he was about to plead. It is not necessary to say that while doing this the Provencal was watching the manoeuvres of Thuillier out of the corner of his eye. Thuillier, believing that la Peyrade was really occupied in some serious business, hesitated to approach him.

However, after sundry backings and fillings the municipal councillor made up his mind, and sailing straight before the wind he headed for the spot he had been reconnoitring for the last ten minutes.

“Bless me, Theodose!” he cried as soon as he had got within hailing distance. “Do you come to the Palais now?”

“It seems to me,” replied Theodose, “that barristers at the Palais are like Turks at Constantinople, where a friend of mine affirmed you could see a good many. It is YOU whom it is rather surprising to see here.”

“Not at all,” said Thuillier, carelessly. “I’ve come about that cursed pamphlet. Is there ever any end to your legal bothers? I was summoned here this morning, but I don’t regret it, as it gives me the happy chance of meeting you.”

“I, too,” said la Peyrade, tying up his bundle. “I am very glad to see you, but I must leave you now; I have an appointment, and I suppose you want to do your business at once.”

“I have done it,” said Thuillier.

“Did you speak to Olivier Vinet, that mortal enemy of yours? he sits in that court,” asked la Peyrade.

“No,” said Thuillier, naming another official.

“Well, that’s queer!” said the barrister; “that fellow must have the gift of ubiquity; he has been all the morning in the fifth court-room, and has just this minute given a judgment on a case I pleaded.”

Thuillier colored, and got out of his hobble as best he could. “Oh, hang it!” he said; “those men in gowns are all alike, I don’t know one from another.”

La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and said aloud, but as if to himself: “Always the same; crafty, crooked, never straightforward.”

“Whom are you talking about?” asked Thuillier, rather nonplussed.

“Why, of you, my dear fellow, who take me for an imbecile, as if I and the whole world didn’t know that your pamphlet business came to an end two weeks ago. Why, then, summon you to court?”

“Well, I was sent for,” said Thuillier, with embarrassment; “something about registry fees, – it is all Greek to me, I can’t comprehend their scrawls.”

“And they chose,” said la Peyrade, “precisely the very day when the Moniteur, announcing the dissolution of the Chamber, made you think about being a candidate for the 12th arrondissement.”

“Why not?” asked Thuillier, “what has my candidacy to do with the fees I owe to the court?”

“I’ll tell you,” said la Peyrade, dryly. “The court is a thing essentially amiable and complaisant. ‘Tiens!’ it said to itself, ‘here’s this good Monsieur Thuillier going to be a candidate for the Chamber; how hampered he’ll be by his attitude to his ex-friend Monsieur de la Peyrade, with whom he wishes now he hadn’t quarrelled. I’ll summon him for fees he doesn’t owe; that will bring him to the Palais where la Peyrade comes daily; and in that way he can meet him by chance, and so avoid taking a step which would hurt his self-love.”

“Well, there you are mistaken!” cried Thuillier, breaking the ice. “I used so little craft, as you call it, that I’ve just come from your house, there! and your portress told me where to find you.”

“Well done!” said la Peyrade, “I like this frankness; I can get on with men who play above-board. Well, what do you want of me? Have you come to talk about your election? I have already begun to work for it.”

“No, really?” said Thuillier, “how?”

“Here,” replied la Peyrade, feeling under his gown for his pocket and bringing out a paper, “here’s what I scribbled just now in the court-room while the lawyer on the other side rambled on like an expert.”

“What is it about?” asked Thuillier.