The Lesser Bourgeoisie

“Go on,” said la Peyrade, seeing that Thuillier hesitated, “or rather, no, be silent, for you will presently blush for your suspicions and ask my pardon humbly.”

By this time la Peyrade saw that without a confession to which he must compel himself, the influence and the future he had just recovered would be cut from under his feet. Resuming his speech he said, solemnly: —

“You will remember, my friend, that you were pitiless, and, by subjecting me to a species of moral torture, you have forced me to reveal to you a secret that is not mine.”

“Go on,” said Thuillier, “I take the whole responsibility upon myself. Make me see the truth clearly in this darkness, and if I have done wrong I will be the first to say so.”

“Well,” said la Peyrade, “those twenty-five thousand francs are the savings of a servant-woman who came to me and asked me to take them and to pay her interest.”

“A servant with twenty-five thousand francs of savings! Nonsense; she must serve in monstrously rich households.”

“On the contrary, she is the one servant of an infirm old savant; and it was on account of the discrepancy which strikes your mind that she wanted to put her money in my hands as a sort of trustee.”

“Bless me! my friend,” said Thuillier, flippantly, “you said we were in want of a romance-feuilletonist; but really, after this, I sha’n’t be uneasy. Here’s imagination for you!”

“What?” said la Peyrade, angrily, “you don’t believe me?”

“No, I do not believe you. Twenty-five thousand francs savings in the service of an old savant! that is about as believable as the officer of La Dame Blanche buying a chateau with his pay.”

“But if I prove to you the truth of my words; if I let you put your finger upon it?”

“In that case, like Saint Thomas, I shall lower my flag before the evidence. Meanwhile you must permit me, my noble friend, to wait until you offer me that proof.”

Thuillier felt really superb.

“I’d give a hundred francs,” he said to himself, “if Brigitte could have been here and heard me impeach him.”

“Well,” said la Peyrade, “suppose that without leaving this office, and by means of a note which you shall read, I bring into your presence the person from whom I received the money; if she confirms what I say will you believe me?”

This proposal and the assurance with which it was made rather staggered Thuillier.

“I shall know what to do when the time comes,” he replied, changing his tone. “But this must be done at once, now, here.”

“I said, without leaving this office. I should think that was clear enough.”

“And who will carry the note you write?” asked Thuillier, believing that by thus examining every detail he was giving proofs of amazing perspicacity.

“Carry the note! why, your own porter of course,” replied la Peyrade; “you can send him yourself.”

“Then write it,” said Thuillier, determined to push him to the wall.

La Peyrade took a sheet of paper with the new heading and wrote as follows, reading the note aloud: —

Madame Lambert is requested to call at once, on urgent business, at the office of the “Echo de la Bievre,” rue Saint-Dominique d’Enfer. The bearer of this note will conduct her. She is awaited impatiently by her devoted servant,

Theodose de la Peyrade.

“There, will that suit you?” said the barrister, passing the paper to Thuillier.

“Perfectly,” replied Thuillier, taking the precaution to fold the letter himself and seal it. “Put the address,” he added.

Then he rang the bell for the porter.

“You will carry this letter to its address,” he said to the man, “and bring back with you the person named. But will she be there?” he asked, on reflection.

“It is more than probable,” replied la Peyrade; “in any case, neither you nor I will leave this room until she comes. This matter must be cleared up.”

“Then go!” said Thuillier to the porter, in a theatrical tone.

When they were alone, la Peyrade took up a newspaper and appeared to be absorbed in its perusal.

Thuillier, beginning to get uneasy as to the upshot of the affair, regretted that he had not done something the idea of which had come to him just too late.

“Yes, I ought,” he said to himself, “to have torn up that letter, and not driven him to prove his words.”

Wishing to do something that might look like retaining la Peyrade in the position of which he had threatened to deprive him, he remarked presently: —

“By the bye, I have just come from the printing-office; the new type has arrived, and I think we might make our first appearance to-morrow.”

La Peyrade did not answer; but he got up and took his paper nearer to the window.

“He is sulky,” thought Thuillier, “and if he is innocent, he may well be. But, after all, why did he ever bring a man like that Cerizet here?”

Then to hide his embarrassment and the preoccupation of his mind, he sat down before the editor’s table, took a sheet of the head-lined paper and made himself write a letter.

Presently la Peyrade returned to the table and sitting down, took another sheet and with the feverish rapidity of a man stirred by some emotion he drove his pen over the paper.

From the corner of his eye, Thuillier tried hard to see what la Peyrade was writing, and noticing that his sentences were separated by numbers placed between brackets, he said: —

“Tiens! are you drawing up a parliamentary law?”

“Yes,” replied la Peyrade, “the law of the vanquished.”

Soon after this, the porter opened the door and introduced Madame Lambert, whom he had found at home, and who arrived looking rather frightened.

“You are Madame Lambert?” asked Thuillier, magisterially.

“Yes, monsieur,” said the woman, in an anxious voice.

After requesting her to be seated and noticing that the porter was still there as if awaiting further orders he said to the man: —

“That will do; you may go; and don’t let any one disturb us.”

The gravity and the lordly tone assumed by Thuillier only increased Madame Lambert’s uneasiness. She came expecting to see only la Peyrade, and she found herself received by an unknown man with a haughty manner, while the barrister, who had merely bowed to her, said not a word; moreover, the scene took place in a newspaper office, and it is a well-known fact that to pious persons especially all that relates to the press is infernal and diabolical.

“Well,” said Thuillier to the barrister, “it seems to me that nothing hinders you from explaining to madame why you have sent for her.”

In order to leave no loophole for suspicion in Thuillier’s mind la Peyrade knew that he must put his question bluntly and without the slightest preparation; he therefore said to her “ex abrupto”: —

“We wish to ask you, madame, if it is not true that about two and a half months ago you placed in my hands, subject to interest, the sum, in round numbers, of twenty-five thousand francs.”

Though she felt the eyes of Thuillier and those of la Peyrade upon her, Madame Lambert, under the shock of this question fired at her point-blank, could not restrain a start.

“Heavens!” she exclaimed, “twenty-five thousand francs! and where should I get such a sum as that?”

La Peyrade gave no sign on his face of the vexation he might be supposed to feel. As for Thuillier, who now looked at him with sorrowful commiseration, he merely said: —

“You see, my friend!”

“So,” resumed la Peyrade, “you are very certain that you did not place in my hands the sum of twenty-five thousand francs; you declare this, you affirm it?”

“Why, monsieur! did you ever hear of such a sum as that in the pocket of a poor woman like me? The little that I had, as everybody knows, has gone to eke out the housekeeping of that poor dear gentleman whose servant I have been for more than twenty years.”

“This,” said Thuillier, pompously, “seems to me categorical.”

La Peyrade still did not show the slightest sign of annoyance; on the contrary, he seemed to be playing into Thuillier’s hand.

“You hear, my dear Thuillier,” he said, “and if necessary I shall call for your testimony, that madame here declares that she did not possess twenty-five thousand francs and could not therefore have placed them in my hands. Now, as the notary Dupuis, in whose hands I fancied I had placed them, left Paris this morning for Brussels carrying with him the money of all his clients, I have no account with madame, by her own showing, and the absconding of the notary – ”

“Has the notary Dupuis absconded?” screamed Madame Lambert, driven by this dreadful news entirely out of her usual tones of dulcet sweetness and Christian resignation. “Ah, the villain! it was only this morning that he was taking the sacrament at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas.”

“To pray for a safe journey, probably,” said la Peyrade.

“Monsieur talks lightly enough,” continued Madame Lambert, “though that brigand has carried off my savings. But I gave them to monsieur, and monsieur is answerable to me for them; he is the only one I know in this transaction.”

“Hey?” said la Peyrade to Thuillier, pointing to Madame Lambert, whose whole demeanor had something of the mother-wolf suddenly bereft of her cubs; “is that nature? tell me! Do you think now that madame and I are playing a comedy for your benefit?”

“I am thunderstruck at Cerizet’s audacity,” said Thuillier. “I am overwhelmed with my own stupidity; there is nothing for me to do but to submit myself entirely to your discretion.”

“Madame,” said la Peyrade, gaily, “excuse me for thus frightening you; the notary Dupuis is still a very saintly man, and quite incapable of doing an injury to his clients. As for monsieur here, it was necessary that I should prove to him that you had really placed that money in my hands; he is, however, another myself, and your secret, though known to him, is as safe as it is with me.”

“Oh, very good, monsieur!” said Madame Lambert. “I suppose these gentlemen have no further need of me?”

“No, my dear madame, and I beg you to pardon me for the little terror I was compelled to occasion you.”

Madame Lambert turned to leave the room with all the appearance of respectful humility, but when she reached the door, she retraced her steps, and coming close to la Peyrade said, in her smoothest tones: —

“When does monsieur expect to be able to refund me that money?”

“But I told you,” said la Peyrade, stiffly, “that notaries never return on demand the money placed in their hands.”

“Does monsieur think that if I went to see Monsieur Dupuis himself and asked him – ”

“I think,” said la Peyrade, interrupting her, “that you would do a most ridiculous thing. He received the money from me in my own name, as you requested, and he knows only me in the matter.”

“Then monsieur will be so kind, will he not, as to get back that money for me as soon as possible? I am sure I would not wish to press monsieur, but in two or three months from now I may want it; I have heard of a little property it would suit me to buy.”

“Very good, Madame Lambert,” said la Peyrade, with well-concealed irritation, “it shall be done as you wish; and in less time, perhaps, than you have stated I shall hope to return your money to you.”

“That won’t inconvenience monsieur, I trust,” said the woman; “he told me that at the first indiscretion I committed – ”

“Yes, yes, that is all understood,” said la Peyrade, interrupting her.

“Then I have the honor to be the very humble servant of these gentlemen,” said Madame Lambert, now departing definitively.

“You see, my friend, the trouble you have got me into,” said la Peyrade to Thuillier as soon as they were alone, “and to what I am exposed by my kindness in satisfying your diseased mind. That debt was dormant; it was in a chronic state; and you have waked it up and made it acute. The woman brought me the money and insisted on my keeping it, at a good rate of interest. I refused at first; then I agreed to place it in Dupuis’s hands, explaining to her that it couldn’t be withdrawn at once; but subsequently, when Dutocq pressed me, I decided, after all, to keep it myself.”

“I am dreadfully sorry, dear friend, for my silly credulity. But don’t be uneasy about the exactions of that woman; we will manage to arrange all that, even if I have to make you an advance upon Celeste’s ‘dot.’”

“My excellent friend,” said la Peyrade, “it is absolutely necessary that we should talk over our private arrangements; to tell you the truth, I have no fancy for being hauled up every morning and questioned as to my conduct. Just now, while waiting for that woman, I drew up a little agreement, which you and I will discuss and sign, if you please, before the first number of the paper is issued.”

“But,” said Thuillier, “our deed of partnership seems to me to settle – ”

“ – that by a paltry forfeit of five thousand francs, as stated in Article 14,” interrupted Theodose, “you can put me, when you choose, out of doors. No, I thank you! After my experience to-day, I want some better security than that.”

At this moment Cerizet with a lively and all-conquering air, entered the room.

“My masters!” he exclaimed, “I’ve brought the money; and we can now sign the bond.”

Then, remarking that his news was received with extreme coldness, he added: —

“Well? what is it?”

“It is this,” replied Thuillier: “I refuse to be associated with double-face men and calumniators. We have no need of you or your money; and I request you not to honor these precincts any longer with your presence.”

“Dear! dear! dear!” said Cerizet; “so papa Thuillier has let the wool be pulled over his eyes again!”

“Leave the room!” said Thuillier; “you have nothing more to do here.”

“Hey, my boy!” said Cerizet, turning to la Peyrade, “so you’ve twisted the old bourgeois round your finger again? Well, well, no matter! I think you are making a mistake not to go and see du Portail, and I shall tell him – ”

“Leave this house!” cried Thuillier, in a threatening tone.

“Please remember, my dear monsieur, that I never asked you to employ me; I was well enough off before you sent for me, and I shall be after. But I’ll give you a piece of advice: don’t pay the twenty-five thousand francs out of your own pocket, for that’s hanging to your nose.”

So saying, Cerizet put his thirty-three thousand francs in banknotes back into his wallet, took his hat from the table, carefully smoothed the nap with his forearm and departed.

Thuillier had been led by Cerizet into what proved to be a most disastrous campaign. Now become the humble servant of la Peyrade, he was forced to accept his conditions, which were as follows: five hundred francs a month for la Peyrade’s services in general; his editorship of the paper to be paid at the rate of fifty francs a column, – which was simply enormous, considering the small size of the sheet; a binding pledge to continue the publication of the paper for six months, under pain of the forfeiture of fifteen thousand francs; an absolute omnipotence in the duties of editor-in-chief, – that is to say, the sovereign right of inserting, controlling, and rejecting all articles without being called to explain the reasons of his actions, – such were the stipulations of a treaty in duplicate made openly, “in good faith,” between the contracting parties. But, in virtue of another and secret agreement, Thuillier gave security for the payment of the twenty-five thousand francs for which la Peyrade was accountable to Madame Lambert, binding the said Sieur de la Peyrade, in case the payment were required before his marriage with Celeste Colleville could take place, to acknowledge the receipt of said sum advanced upon the dowry.

Matters being thus arranged and accepted by the candidate, who saw no chance of election if he lost la Peyrade, Thuillier was seized with a happy thought. He went to the Cirque-Olympique, where he remembered to have seen in the ticket-office a former employee in his office at the ministry of Finance, – a man named Fleury; to whom he proposed the post of manager. Fleury, being an old soldier, a good shot, and a skilful fencer, would certainly make himself an object of respect in a newspaper office. The working-staff of the paper being thus reconstituted, with the exception of a few co-editors or reporters to be added later, but whom la Peyrade, thanks to the facility of his pen, was able for the present to do without, the first number of the new paper was launched upon the world.

Thuillier now recommenced the explorations about Paris which we saw him make on the publication of his pamphlet. Entering all reading-rooms and cafes, he asked for the “Echo de la Bievre,” and when informed, alas, very frequently, that the paper was unknown in this or that establishment, “It is incredible!” he would exclaim, “that a house which respects itself does not take such a widely known paper.”

On that, he departed disdainfully, not observing that in many places, where this ancient trick of commercial travellers was well understood, they were laughing behind his back.

The evening of the day when the inauguration number containing the “profession of faith” appeared, Brigitte’s salon, although the day was not Sunday, was filled with visitors. Reconciled to la Peyrade, whom her brother had brought home to dinner, the old maid went so far as to tell him that, without flattery, she thought his leading article was a famous HIT. For that matter, all the guests as they arrived, reported that the public seemed enchanted with the first number of the new journal.

The public! everybody knows what that is. To every man who launches a bit of writing into the world, the public consists of five or six intimates who cannot, without offending the author, avoid knowing something more or less of his lucubrations.

“As for me!” cried Colleville, “I can truthfully declare that it is the first political article I ever read that didn’t send me to sleep.”

“It is certain,” said Phellion, “that the leading article seems to me to be stamped with vigor joined to an atticism which we may seek in vain in the columns of the other public prints.”

“Yes,” said Dutocq, “the matter is very well presented; and besides, there’s a turn of phrase, a clever diction, that doesn’t belong to everybody. However, we must wait and see how it keeps on. I fancy that to-morrow the ‘Echo de la Bievre’ will be strongly attacked by the other papers.”

“Parbleu!” cried Thuillier, “that’s what we are hoping for; and if the government would only do us the favor to seize us – ”

“No, thank you,” said Fleury, whom Thuillier had also brought home to dinner, “I don’t want to enter upon those functions at first.”

“Seized!” said Dutocq, “oh, you won’t be seized; but I think the ministerial journals will fire a broadside at you.”

The next day Thuillier was at the office as early as eight o’clock, in order to be the first to receive that formidable salvo. After looking through every morning paper he was forced to admit that there was no more mention of the “Echo de la Bievre” than if it didn’t exist. When la Peyrade arrived he found his unhappy friend in a state of consternation.

“Does that surprise you?” said the Provencal, tranquilly. “I let you enjoy yesterday your hopes of a hot engagement with the press; but I knew myself that in all probability there wouldn’t be the slightest mention of us in to-day’s papers. Against every paper which makes its debut with some distinction, there’s always a two weeks’, sometimes a two months’ conspiracy of silence.”

“Conspiracy of silence!” echoed Thuillier, with admiration.

He did not know what it meant, but the words had a grandeur and a something that appealed to his imagination. After la Peyrade had explained to him that by “conspiracy of silence” was meant the agreement of existing journals to make no mention of new-comers lest such notice should serve to advertise them, Thuillier’s mind was hardly better satisfied than it had been by the pompous flow of the words. The bourgeois is born so; words are coins which he takes and passes without question. For a word, he will excite himself or calm down, insult or applaud. With a word, he can be brought to make a revolution and overturn a government of his own choice.

The paper, however, was only a means; the object was Thuillier’s election. This was insinuated rather than stated in the first numbers. But one morning, in the columns of the “Echo,” appeared a letter from several electors thanking their delegate to the municipal council for the firm and frankly liberal attitude in which he had taken on all questions of local interests. “This firmness,” said the letter, “had brought down upon him the persecution of the government, which, towed at the heels of foreigners, had sacrificed Poland and sold itself to England. The arrondissement needed a man of such tried convictions to represent it in the Chamber, – a man holding high and firm the banner of dynastic opposition, a man who would be, by the mere signification of his name, a stern lesson given to the authorities.”

Enforced by an able commentary from la Peyrade, this letter was signed by Barbet and Metivier and all Brigitte’s tradesmen (whom, in view of the election she had continued to employ since her emigration); also by the family doctor and apothecary, and by Thuillier’s builder, and Barniol, Phellion’s son-in-law, who professed to hold rather “advanced” political opinions. As for Phellion himself, he thought the wording of the letter not altogether circumspect, and – always without fear as without reproach – however much he might expect that this refusal would injure his son in his dearest interests, he bravely refrained from signing it.

This trial kite had the happiest effect. The ten or a dozen names thus put forward were considered to express the will of the electors and were called “the voice of the quarter.” Thus Thuillier’s candidacy made from the start such rapid progress that Minard hesitated to put his own claims in opposition.

Delighted now with the course of events, Brigitte was the first to say that the time had come to attend to the marriage, and Thuillier was all the more ready to agree because, from day to day, he feared he might be called upon to pay the twenty-five thousand francs to Madame Lambert for which he had pledged himself. A thorough explanation now took place between la Peyrade and the old maid. She told him honestly of the fear she felt as to the maintenance of her sovereign authority when a son-in-law of his mind and character was established in the household.

“If we,” she ended by saying, “are to oppose each other for the rest of our days, it would be much better, from the beginning, to make two households; we shouldn’t be the less friends for that.”

La Peyrade replied that nothing under the sun would induce him to consent to such a plan; on the contrary, he regarded as amongst his happiest prospects for the future the security he should feel about the wise management of the material affairs of the home in such hands as hers. He should have enough to do in the management of outside interests, and he could not comprehend, for his part, how she could suppose he had ever had the thought of interfering in matters that were absolutely out of his province. In short, he reassured her so completely that she urged him to take immediate steps for the publication of the banns and the signature of the marriage contract, – declaring that she reserved to herself all the preparations relating to Celeste, whose acceptance of this sudden conclusion she pledged herself to secure.

“My dear child,” she said to Celeste the next morning, “I think you have given up all idea of being Felix Phellion’s wife. In the first place, he is more of an atheist than ever, and, besides, you must have noticed yourself that his mind is quite shaky. You have seen at Madame Minard’s that Madame Marmus, who married a savant, officer of the Legion of honor, and member of the Institute. There’s not a more unhappy woman; her husband has taken her to live behind the Luxembourg, in the rue Duguay-Trouin, a street that is neither paved nor lighted. When he goes out, he doesn’t know where he is going; he gets to the Champ de Mars when he wants to go to the Faubourg Poissoniere; he isn’t even capable of giving his address to the driver of a street cab; and he is so absent-minded he couldn’t tell if it were before dinner or after. You can imagine what sort of time a woman must have with a man whose nose is always at a telescope snuffing stars.”