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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
BROWSING ROOM
THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
I^onorc tic Bal^^ac
J^onore tic Balzac
PARISIAN LIFE
VOLUME VI
LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES
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M. AND MADAME JULES AND IDA
'"My name is Ida, Monsieur. And if that is Madame Jules to ivliom I Jiave the advantage of speaking. Eve come to tell her all I have in my heart against her. It is very ^vrong when one is set lip and zuhen one is in her fiirnitnre, as yon arc here, to wish to take away from a poor girl a man with zvJiom I am as good as married, morally, and zvho talks of repairing his ivrongs by marrying me before the Municipality.
THE NOVELS
OF
HONORE DE BALZAC
NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
HISTORY OF THE THIRTEEN:
FERRAGUS CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS LA DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS
BY WILLIAM WALTON
WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY CLAUDE FAIVRE AND AUGUSTIN
MONGIN, AFTER PAINTINGS BY LOUIS-
EDOUARD FOURNIER
IN ONE VOLUME
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PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY
GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA
COPYRIGHTED, 1 896, BY G. B. * SON
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HISTORY OF THE THIRTEEN
189961
PREFACE
There were brought together under the Empire and in Paris, thirteen men all equally possessed by the same sentiment, all of them endowed with sufficient force to remain constant to one idea, suffi- ciently honorable not to betray one another, even when their individual interests conflicted, suffi- ciently politic to conceal the sacred ties which united them, sufficiently strong to maintain them- selves above all law, courageous enough to under- take anything, and fortunate enough to have almost always succeeded in their designs; having encoun- tered the greatest dangers, but never speaking of their defeats; inaccessible to fear, and having trem- bled neither before the prince, the headsman, nor innocence; accepting each other for such as they were, without taking into account social prejudices; criminals undoubtedly, but certainly remarkable for some of those qualities which mark great men, and recruiting their number only from men of distinc- tion. And, finally, that nothing might be lacking to the sombre and mysterious poetry of this history these thirteen men have remained unknown, though all of them have realized the strangest chimer- ical ideas which are suggested to the imagina- tion by that fantastic power wrongly attributed to
(3)
4 PREFACE
the Manfreds, the Fausts, the Melmoths; and all of them are to-day crushed, or at least dispersed. They have quietly returned to the yoke of the civil law, as Morgan, the Achilles of pirates, transformed himself from a destroyer to a peaceful colonist, dis- posing without remorse by the light of his own fire- side, of the millions gathered in blood by the red glare of incendiarism.
Since the death of Napoleon, an accident con- cerning which the author should still preserve silence, has dissolved the bonds of this life, as secret and curious, as the darkest of the romances of Mrs. Radcliffe. The permission, sufficiently remarkable in itself, to relate, in his own manner, some of the adventures of these men, always with respect for certain proprieties, has only recently been given him by one of these anonymous heroes to whom all branches of society were secretly sub- ject, and in whom the author believes himself to have discovered a vague desire for celebrity.
This man, in appearance still young, with light hair and blue eyes, whose voice, soft and clear, seemed to reveal a feminine soul, was pale of com- plexion and mysterious in his manners; he con- versed affably, pretended to be only forty years of age, and might have been a member of the highest class of society. The name which he had assumed appeared to be a fictitious one; in the gay world his person was unknown. Who is he ? no one knows.
Perhaps, in confiding to the author the extra- ordinary things which he revealed to him, the
PREFACE 5
unknown wished to see them reproduced in some manner and to enjoy the emotions which they would be certain to awaken in the bosoms of the populace; some feeling analogous to that experi- enced by Macpherson when the name of Ossian, his creation, was inscribed in all languages. And it was, certainly, for the Scottish lawyer one of the keenest sensations, or at least one of the rarest, that man can give himself. May it not be said to be the incognito of genius? To write the Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem, is to take one's part in the human glory of a century; but to endow one's country with a Homer, is it not to usurp the privi- leges of God ?
The author is too well acquainted with the laws of narration to remain in ignorance of the engage- ments which this short preface causes him to assume; but he also knows sufficiently well the story of the Thirteen to be certain of never falling below the interest which this programme would seem to promise. Certain dramas blood-curdling, certain comedies full of terrors, certain romances through which roll human heads secretly struck off, have been confided to him. If any reader has not been satiated with the horrors coolly served up to the public recently, he could, if but the slightest desire to hear them were manifested, reveal to him quiet atrocities, marvelous family tragedies. But he has selected in preference the mildest adventures, those in which pure scenes succeed the storms of the passions, in which woman is
6 PREFACE
radiant with virtue and beauty. For the honor of the Thirteen, such scenes may be met with in their history, which perhaps some day may be judged worthy of being published as a pendant to that of the buccaneers, that race apart, so curiously ener- getic, so attractive despite its crimes.
An author should disdain to convert his recital, when that recital is truthful, into a species of jack- in-the-box, and to lead his reader, after the manner of some romancers, from one subterranean crypt to another through four volumes in order to show him a withered corpse and to say to him, by way of con- clusion, that he has been keeping him in constant terror of a secret door in the tapestry or of a dead man left inadvertently under the floor. Notwith- standing his aversion to prefaces the author has felt obliged to place these sentences at the beginning of this fragment. Ferragus is a preliminary episode which is united by invisible bonds to the his- tory of the Thirteen, whose power, naturally acquired, alone can explain certain energies, appar- ently supernatural. Although it be permitted to story-tellers to have a kind of literary coquetry, on becoming historians, they should renounce the benefits which they might derive from strangeness of titles, which in our day procure certain slight successes. Therefore the author will explain here briefly the reasons which have obliged him to ac- cept certain titles for his books which at first sight may not seem quite natural.
Ferragus is, according to an ancient custom, a
PREFACE 7
name taken by a chief of Devorants. The day of their election, these chiefs adopt for themselves those of the names of the devorantesque dynasties which please them, just as, of the pontifical dynas- ties, the Popes do, at their installation. Thus the Devorants have Trempe-la-Soupe IX., Ferragus XXII., Tutanus XIII., Masche-Fer IK, in the same manner as the Church has its Clement XIV., Gregory IX., Julius II., Alexander VI., etc. Meanwhile, who are the Devorants? Devorants is the name of one of the tribes of "companions" that issued formerly from the great mystical organization formed among the workmen of Christendom to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. The compagnonnage still exists in France among the people. Its traditions, powerful for the unthinking and for those who are not sufficiently-well educated to break these oaths, might serve for formidable enterprises if some rough-hewn genius were to seize the direction of these various societies. In fact, there, there is no lack of blind instruments; there, from one town to another, has existed, for the compagnons, from time immemorial an ohade, a species of halting-place kept by a mother, an old woman, half gipsy, having nothing to lose, knowing all that passes in the country, and devoted — either from fear or from long custom — to the tribe which she lodges and feeds in detail. Finally, these people constantly chang- ing, yet submitting to immovable customs, may have eyes in every locality, execute everywhere a will, without a judgment thereon, for the oldest
8 PREFACE
companion is still in an age when one believes in something. In addition, the entire body professes doctrines sufficiently true, sufficiently mysterious, to electrify patriotically all the adepts, if they but receive the slightest development Then the attach- ment of the companions to their laws is so passionate that the various tribes wage bloody combat among themselves in order to decide some question of prin- ciple. Fortunately for the existing public order, when a Devorant becomes ambitious, he builds houses, makes a fortune, and leaves the compag- nonnage. There would be many curious details to give concerning the "Companions of Duty" — com- pagnons du Devoir — the rivals of the Devorants, and all the different sects of workmen, their customs and their fraternity, the relations which exist be- tween them and the Freemasons; but these details would be out of place here. Only, the author will add that, under the ancient monarchy, it was not un- known to find a Trempe-la-Soupe in the king's service, having secured a place for a hundred and one years in the galleys ; but from there still direct- ing his tribe, still consulted religiously by them, and if he quitted the chain-gang, certain of finding aid, comfort and respect everywhere. To see its chief at the galleys is, for a faithful tribe, only one of those misfortunes for which Providence is responsible, but which in no way relieves the Devorants from the duty of obeying the power created by them, above them. It is the temporary exile of their legitimate king, always a king for
PREFACE 9
them. Here may be seen, then, the romantic pres- tige attached to the name of Ferragus and to that of Devorants completely dissipated.
As to the Thirteen, the author feels himself suffi- ciently strongly supported by the details of this history, almost romantic, to renounce again one of the finest privileges of the novelist of which there can be an example — and which, on the Ch^telet of literature, would be awarded a high prize — and to impose on the public as many volumes as have been given them by LA CONTEMPORAINE. The Thirteen were all of them men of the same quality as was Trelawny, the friend of Lord Byron and, as it is said, the original of the Corsair; all of them fatalists, men of heart and poetical, but wearied of the monotonous life they led, strongly drawn to- wards Asiatic enjoyments by those forces which awoke in them all the more furiously, having been so long suppressed. One day, one of them, after having re-read Venice Preserved, after hav- ing admired the sublime union of Pierre and Jaffier, fell into contemplation of the peculiar virtues of those who find themselves thrown outside the social order, on the probity of the bagnios, on the fidelity of thieves to each other, on the privileges of exor- bitant power which these men know how to con- quer by concentrating all ideas in a single will. It appeared to him that man was greater than men. He thought that society in its entirety might belong to those distinguished ones who, to their natural abilities, to their acquired enlightenment, to their
10 PREFACE
fortune, would join a fanaticism furious enough to cast into a single jet all these different forces. Thus equipped, immense in action and in intens- ity, their occult power, against which the social order would be defenceless, might overthrow in it all obstacles, overwhelm all wills, and give to each one of them the diabolical power of all. This world isolated in the midst of the world, hostile to the world, admitting none of the ideas of the world, recognizing none of its laws, submitting only to the conscience of its own necessity, obedient to devotion only, acting altogether for one of the asso- ciates when one of them claimed the assistance of all; this life of buccaneers in kid gloves and in car- riages; this intimate union of superiors, cold and mocking, smiling and cursing in the midst of a false and mean society, the certainty of being able to make everything bend under a caprice, of contriving a vengeance skilfully, of living in thirteen hearts; then the continual satisfaction of having a secret of hatred in the face of men, of being always armed against them, and of being able to retire into one's self with one idea more than even the most re- markable men could have; — this religion of pleas- ure and of egoism fanaticized thirteen men, who reconstituted the Society of Jesus for the profit of the Devil. It was horrible and sublime. And in fact the compact was made; and in fact en- dured, precisely because it appeared impossible. There were then, in Paris, thirteen brothers, who belonged to each other and who did not recognize
PREFACE II
each other in the world; but who came together in the evening, like conspirators, hiding none of their thoughts from each other, using alternately a power like that of the Old Man of the Mountain; having a foothold in all the salons, their hands in all the strong-boxes, elbow-room in all the streets, their heads on any pillow, and, without scruple, making everything serve their fantastic will. No chief commanded them, no one could arrogate to himself the supreme power; only, the most vivid passion, the most exacting circumstances, assumed the initia- tive. They were thirteen unknown kings, but really kings, and more than kings, judges and executioners who, having made for themselves wings with which to traverse society from the top to the bottom, disdained to be something in it because they could be all. If the author should learn the causes of their abdication, he will relate them.
At present, he is permitted to commence the recital of the three episodes which, in this history, have most particularly attracted him by the Parisian flavor of the details and by the extravagance of the contrasts.
Paris, 1 83 1.
FERRAGUS, CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS
(13)
TO HECTOR BERLIOZ
(15)
FERRAGUS
CHIEF OF THE D^VORANTS
*
There are in Paris certain streets as dishonored as can be any man convicted of infamy; then there are noble streets, also streets that are simply hon- est, also young streets concerning whose morality the public has not yet formed any opinion; then there are murderous streets, streets older than the oldest possible dowagers, estimable streets, streets that are always clean, streets that are always dirty, workingmen's streets, students' streets and mercan- tile ones. In short, the streets of Paris have human qualities, and impress us by their physiognomy with certain ideas against which we are defence- less. There are streets of bad company in which you would not wish to dwell, and there are others in which you would willingly take up your resi- dence. Some streets, like that of Montmartre, have a fme head and end in a fish's tail. The Rue de la Paix is a wide street, a grand street; but it reveals none of those gracefully noble suggestions which surprise an impressionable soul in the midst of the Rue Royale, and it certainly lacks the majesty which reigns in the Place Vendome. If you walk
2 (17)
l8 FERRAGUS
about in the streets of the He Saint-Louis you will require no other cause for the nervous sad- ness which oppresses you than the solitude, the gloomy air of the houses and of the great deserted houses. This island, the corpse of the Farmers- General, is like the Venice of Paris. The Place de la Bourse is chattering, active, prostituted; it is only handsome by moonlight, at two o'clock in the morning; in the daylight it is an abridged presentation of Paris; at night, it is like a dream of Greece. The Rue Traversiere-Saint-Honore is it not an infamous street? There are in it wicked little houses with two window-casements, in which, from story to story, may be found vices, crimes and misery. The narrow streets facing north, into which the sunlight only comes three or four times in the course of the year, are streets of assassina- tion which kill with impunity; to-day, Justice does not interfere with them ; but formerly the par- liament would perhaps have summoned the lieuten- ant of police to reprimand him accordingly and would at least have issued a decree against the street, as one was directed formerly against the per- niqiies of the Chapter of Beauvais. Meanwhile, Monsieur Benoiston de Chateauneuf has demon- strated that the mortality of these streets is double that of others. To sum up all these ideas in one example, the Rue Fromenteau, is it not at once mur- derous and profligate? These observations, incom- prehensible outside of Paris, will be doubtless appreciated by those men of study and thought^
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS TQ
of poetry and pleasure, who know how to gather, whilst idling in Paris, all those enjoyments which float continually within her walls; by those for whom Paris is the most delicious of monsters; — there, a pretty woman; farther off, old and poor; here, brand-new, like the coinage of a new reign; in that corner, elegant as a woman of fashion. A monster so complete, moreover! His garrets, a species of head, crowded with science and with genius; his lower stories, comfortable stomachs; his shops, veritable feet, — from them issue all the comers and goers, all the busy people. And what a ceaselessly active life is that of the monster! Scarcely has the last rattling of the last carriages from the ball ceased in his heart when already his arms are moving at the barriers, and he shakes himself slowly. All the doors open, turning on their hinges, like the members of a great lobster, invisibly set in motion by thirty thousand men or women, of which each one lives in a space of six feet square, possesses there a kitchen, a workshop, a bed, children, a garden, does not see very clearly, and should see all. Imperceptibly the limbs begin to creak, the movement spreads, the street speaks. By noon everything is alive, the chim- neys smoke, the monster is eating; then he roars, then his thousand claws are in motion. Beautiful spectacle ! But, Oh ! Paris, he who has not admired thy sombre passages, thy gleams of light, thy gloomy and silent culs-de-sac; he who has not heard thy murmurs, between midnight and two
20 FERRAGUS
o'clock in the morning, still knows nothing of thy true poetry nor of thy great and curious contrasts. There is a small number of amateurs, people who never walk heedlessly, who taste their Paris, who possess so completely her physiognomy that they can perceive on it a wart, a mole, a pimple. For others, Paris is always this marvellous monster, an astonishing assemblage of movements, of machines and thoughts, the city with a hundred thousand romances, the head of the world. But to the first, Paris is sorrowful or gay, ugly or handsome, living or dead; to them, Paris is a creature; each man, each fraction of a house, is a lobe of the cellular tissue of this great wanton, of whom they know perfectly the head, the heart, and the fantastic manners. Thus these are the lovers of Paris: they elevate their noses at such a corner of the street sure of finding there the face of a clock; they say to a friend whose snuff-box is empty, ^'Take such a passage, you will find in it a tobacco shop, at the left, near to a pastry-cook who has a pretty wife." To ramble through Paris is, for these poets, a costly luxury. How to avoid spend- ing precious minutes before all the dramas, the disasters, the figures, the picturesque accidents, which continually assail you in the midst of this moving queen of cities, clothed with displayed posters and who, nevertheless, has not one clean corner, so complaisant is she to the vices of the French nation ! To whom has it not happened to set out in the morning from his lodging to go to the extremity
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 21
of Paris, and to find himself at dinner time still un- able to leave the centre of the city ? These, then, will know how to excuse this wandering introduc- tion which, however, may be summed up in an observation eminently useful and novel— as much so as any observation can be new in Paris, where there is nothing new, not even the statue set up yesterday on which a street-boy has already scrawled his name. Yes, then, there are streets, or ends of streets, there are certain houses, un- known for the greater part to people of social dis- tinction, in which a woman belonging to society could not enter without giving rise to the cruelest suspicions concerning herself. If this woman be rich, if she have a carriage, if she go on foot, or disguised, into some of these defiles of the Parisian country, she compromises her reputation as a vir- tuous woman. But if by chance she should come there at nine o'clock in the evening, the opinion that an observer would permit himself to form might have the most serious consequences. Finally, if this woman be young and pretty, if she enter some house in one of these streets; if this house have a long and dark passage-way, damp and ill- smelling; if at the bottom of this passage-way may be seen trembling the pale light of a lamp, and if under this light may be perceived a horrible visage of an old woman with long and lean fingers, — then in truth, let us say it, in the interests of all young and pretty women, such woman is lost. She is at the mercy of the first man of her acquaintance
22 FERRAGUS
whom she may encounter in these Parisian mo- rasses. But there are many streets in Paris in which this meeting might become the most fright- fully terrible drama, a drama full of blood and of love, a drama of the modern school. Unfortunately, this conviction, this dramatic possibility, will be, like the modern drama, comprehended but by few; and it is a great pity to have to relate a story to a public which does not appreciate all its local merit But who may flatter himself that he is ever un- derstood? We shall all die unrecognized. It is the plaint of women and authors.
At half-past eight o'clock one evening, in Rue Pagevin, at the period when Rue Pagevin had not one wall that did not echo an infamous word, and in the direction of Rue Soly, the narrowest and the most impassable of all the streets of Paris, not excepting the most frequented corner of the most deserted street; in the early part of the month of February, this adventure came to pass about thirteen years ago. — A young man, by one of those chances which do not present themselves twice in a lifetime, was turning the corner of Rue Pa- gevin on foot to enter Rue des Vieux-Augustins, on the right, precisely where Rue Soly is. There, this young man, who lived in Rue de Bourbon, thought he recognized in the woman a few feet behind whom he was walking quite care- lessly, a vague resemblance to the prettiest woman in Paris, a chaste and delicious being with whom he was secretly and passionately in love, and in love
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 23
without hope, for she was married. In a moment his heart leaped, an intolerable heat seemed to develop in his diaphragm and to pass into all his veins, he felt a chill in his back and in his head a superficial trembling. He loved, he was young, he knew Paris; and his perspicacity did not permit him to ignore all that there was possible of infamy for a woman, elegant, rich, young and beautiful, walking in this locality, and with a crim- inally furtive step. She, in this mud, at this hour ! The love which this young man bore for this lady may well seem romantic, and all the more so that he was an officer in the Garde Royale. If he had been attached to the infantry, the thing might still appear possible; but, a superior officer of cavalry, he belonged to that arm of the service which desires the greatest rapidity in its conquests, which finds food for vanity in its amorous affairs as much as in its uniform. However, the passion of this officer was genuine, and to very many young hearts it will seem noble. He loved this lady because she was virtuous, in her he loved virtue, modest grace, and imposing sanctity, as the dearest treas- ures of his unavowed passion. She was in truth worthy of inspiring one of those platonic loves which may be met with, in the history of the Middle Ages, like flowers growing in bloody ruins; worthy of being secretly the inspiring principle of all the actions of a young man ; a love as high, as pure, as the sky when it is blue; a love without hope, and to which we may attach ourselves because
24 FERRAGUS
it will never deceive; a love prodigal of unbounded enjoyments, especially at an age when the heart is burning, the imagination keen, and when the eyes of a man see very clearly. There may be met with in Paris very singular night effects, weird and inconceivable. Those only who have amused them- selves by observing them can know how fantastic may become through their means a woman in the dusk of evening. At moments the creature whom you are following, accidentally or with design, seems to you light and slender; again the stock- ings, if they are very white, convince you of the fme and elegant limbs; then the waist, though enveloped in a shawl, as in a pelisse, reveals itself young and voluptuous, in the shadows; then the uncertain lights of a shop or of a street lamp give to the unknown a fleeting illumination, nearly always deceptive, which awakens, lights up the imagination and carries it beyond the limita- tions of fact. The senses are all excited, every- thing takes color and animation; the woman assumes an entirely novel aspect; her person be- comes beautiful ; at certain moments she is no longer a woman, she is a demon, a will-o'-the-wisp, which entices you, by a magnetic attraction, to follow all the way to some respectable house where the poor boiirgeoise, terrified by your threatening step or the sound of your boots, shuts the door in your face without looking at you. A vacillating gleam, thrown from the shop-window of a shoe- maker, suddenly illuminated just below the waist
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 25
the figure of the woman who was before the young man. Ah! surely, she alone had those curves! She alone possessed the secret of that chaste gait which so innocently reveals the beauties of the most attractive forms. That was her shawl and that the velvet bonnet of her morning promenades. On her gray silk stocking not a spot; on her shoe not a splash of mud. The shawl was drawn tightly around the bust, it disclosed vaguely the delicious contours; and the young man had seen the white shoulders at balls, — he knew well what treasures that shawl covered. By the manner in which a Parisian woman wraps herself in her shawl, by the way in which she lifts her feet in the street, a man of quick intelligence can divine the secret of her mysterious course. There is something, I know not what, of quivering, of lightness, in the whole person and in the gait; the woman seems to weigh less, she goes, she goes, or, rather, she glides like a star, and floats carried on by a thought which is betrayed by the folds and by the motion of her dress. The young man quickened his step, passed the woman, and then turned to look at her — Pst ! she had disappeared into a passage-way, the grated door of which and its bell still rattled and sounded. The young man turned on his steps and saw this lady mounting, at the end of the passage-way — not with- out receiving the obsequious salutation of an old portress — a winding staircase, the lower steps of which were strongly illuminated; and Madame ascended buoyantly, quickly, like an eager woman.
26 FERRAGUS
"Eager for what? " said the young man to him- self, drawing back to flatten himself like a grape- vine, against the wall on the other side of the street.
And he watched, unhappy man, all the different stories of the house with the close attention of a police agent searching for his conspirator.
It was one of those houses of which there are thousands in Paris, a house ignoble, vulgar, narrow, yellowish in tone, with four stories and three win- dows on each floor. The shop and the entresol belonged to the shoemaker. The outer blinds on the first floor were closed. Where was Madame going ? The young man thought he heard the tinkle of a bell in the apartment on the second floor. In fact, a light began to move in a room with two windows strongly illuminated, and suddenly lit up the third window, the darkness of which showed that it was that of a first room, evidently either the salon or the dining-room of the apartment Imme- diately the silhouette of a woman's bonnet showed itself vaguely, the door closed, the first room became dark again, then the other two windows resumed their ruddy glow. At this moment the young man heard, "Look out there," and received a blow on his shoulder.
"You don't pay attention to anything, then," said a rough voice.
It was the voice of a workman carrying a long plank on his shoulder. And he passed on. This workman was the man sent by Providence, say- ing to this investigator, — "What are you meddling
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 2/
with? Think of your own duty, and leave the Parisians to their little affairs."
The young man crossed his arms; then, as no one saw him, he suffered tears of rage to roll down his cheeks without drying them. At last, the sight of the shadows playing on the two lighted windows gave him pain, he looked by chance toward the upper part of the Rue des Vieux-Augustins, and he saw a hackney-coach standing before a wall, at a locality where there was neither the door of a house nor the light of a shop.
Is it she? is it not she? Life or death for a lover. And this lover waited. He remained there during a century of twenty minutes. After that, the woman came down, and he then recognized her whom he secretly loved. Nevertheless, he wished still to doubt. She went toward the coach and got into it.
"The house will always be there, I can search it at any time, " said the young man following the carriage at a run in order to dissipate his last doubts, and very soon he no longer had any.
The coach stopped in the Rue de Richelieu before the shop of a florist, near the Rue de Menars. The lady got out, entered the shop, sent out the money to pay the coachman and came out herself after having selected a bunch of marabouts. Marabouts for her black hair! A brunette, she had placed the feathers close to her head to see the effect. The officer fancied he could hear the conversation between her and the florists.
28 FERRAGUS
"Madame, nothing is more becoming to brunettes, brunettes have something a little too precise in their contours, and the marabouts lend to their toilet a softness which they lack. Madame la Duchesse de Langeais says that they give to a woman something vague, Ossianic, and very comme ilfauL*'
"Very good. Send them to me promptly."
Then the lady turned quickly toward the Rue de Menars, and entered her own house. When the door of the hotel in which she lived closed on her, the young lover, having lost all his hopes, and, a double misfortune, his dearest beliefs, walked away through the streets of Paris like a drunken man, and presently found himself in his own room with- out knowing how he got there. He threw himself into an arm-chair, put his head in his hands and his feet on the andirons, drying his dampened boots until they burned. It was an awful moment, one of those moments in human life when the char- acter is modified, and when the conauct of the best man depends on the good or evil of his first action. Providence or fatality, choose which you will.
This young man belonged to a good family, the nobility of which was not very ancient; but there are so few really old families in these days, that all younger ones pass for ancient without dispute. His grandfather had purchased the office of Coun- sellor to the Parliament of Paris, of which he after- wards became President. His sons, each pro- vided with a handsome fortune, entered the army and through their matrimonial alliances became
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 29
attached to the Court. The Revolution swept this family away; but there remained one old dowager, obstinate enough to refuse to emigrate, and who, thrown into prison, threatened with death, and saved on the 9th Thermidor, recovered her prop- erty. She recalled to France at the proper time, about 1804, her grandson, Auguste de Maulincour, the only scion of the Carbonnons de Maulincour, who was educated by the good dowager with the triple care of a mother, of a woman of rank, and of an obstinate dowager. Then, when the Restoration arrived, the young man, then eighteen years of age, entered the Maison Rouge, followed the princes to Ghent, was made an officer in the Gardes du Corps, left it to serve in the line, was recalled to the Garde Royale, where at twenty-three years of age he found himself chef d'escadron of a regiment of cavalry, a superb position, and one which he owed to his grandmother, who, notwithstanding her age, knew her own world exceedingly well. This double biography is a compendium of the general and spe- cial history, barring variations, of all the noble families who have emigrated, who had debts and property, dowagers and shrewdness. Madame la Baronne de Maulincour had for a friend the old Vidame de Pamiers, formerly a Commander of the Knights of Malta. This was one of those undying friendships founded on sexagenary ties, and which nothing can destroy, because at the bottom of such intimacies there are always to be found certain secrets of the human heart, delightful to divine
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when we have the time, but insipid to explain in twenty lines and which might furnish the text of a work in four volumes as amusing as le Doyen de Killerine, one of those works about which the youth talk, and which they judge but do not read. Auguste de Maulincour belonged therefore to the Faubourg Saint-Germain through his grandmother and through the vidame, and it sufficed him to date back two centuries to assume the airs and the opin- ions of those who pretended to go back to Clovis. This young man, pale, tall and slender, delicate in appearance, a man of honor and of true courage moreover, who would engage in a duel without hesitating for a yes or for a no, had not yet found himself on any battlefield, and wore at his button- hole the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was, as you perceive, one of the living errors of the Res- toration, perhaps the most pardonable of them. The youth of those days was the youth of no epoch ; it came between the memories of the Empire and those of the Emigration, between the old traditions of the Court and the conscientious education of the bourgeoisie, between religion and the masked balls, between two political faiths; between Louis XVII!., who only saw the present, and Charles X., who looked too far into the future; it was, moreover, obliged to accept the will of the king, although royalty deceived it. This youth, uncertain in all things, blind and clear-seeing, was counted as noth- ing by the old men jealously keeping the reins of State in their palsied hands, while the monarchy
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 3 1
might have been saved by their retirement and by the accession of this Young France of which to-day the old doctrinaires, the emigres of the Restoration, still speak slightingly. Auguste de Maulincour was a victim of the ideas which at that time weighed upon this youth, and in this manner. The vidame was still at sixty-seven years of age a very brilliant man, having seen much, lived much, a good talker and man of honor, a gallant man, but who held with regard to women the most detestable opinions; he loved them and he despised them. Their honor, their feelings? Ta-ra-ra-, trifles and nonsense! When he was in their society he believed in them, the Ci-devant monster; he never contradicted them and he made them display their brightest qualities. But among his male friends, when they were brought into question, the vidame laid down the principle that to deceive women, to carry on several intrigues at once, should be the sole occupa- tion of young men, who would be wasting their time in occupying themselves with anything else under the government. It is unfortunate to have to sketch so hackneyed a portrait. Has it not figured everywhere.!* And has it not become literally as threadbare as that of a grenadier of the Empire.? But the vidame had upon the destiny of Monsieur de Maulincour an influence which it is necessary to depict; he lectured the young man after his fashion and endeavored to convert him to the doctrines of the great age of gallantry. The dowager, a woman tender-hearted and pious, sitting between her
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vidame and God, a model of grace and of sweet- ness, but gifted with that well-bred persistency which triumphs in the long run, had wished to pre- serve for her grandson the beautiful illusions of life, and had educated him in the highest principles; she gave to him all her own delicacy of feeling and made him a timid man, a coxcomb in appearance. The sensibilities of this young fellow, preserved pure, were not worn by contact without, and he remained so chaste, so scrupulous, that he was keenly offended by actions and maxims to which the world attached not the slightest importance. Ashamed of his susceptibility, the young man con- cealed it under a false assurance and suffered in silence; but he scoffed with others at things which when alone he reverenced. Thus it happened that he was deceived, because, in accordance with a not uncommon caprice of destiny, he encountered in the object of his first passion, he, a man of gentle mel- ancholy and a spiritualist in love, a woman who held in horror the German sentimentalism. The young man distrusted himself, became contempla- tive, absorbed in his griefs, complaining of not being understood. Then, as we desire all the more violently the things which we find it most difficult to obtain, he continued to adore women with that ingenious tenderness and those feline delicacies the secret of which belongs to them alone and of which they perhaps prefer to keep the monopoly. In fact, although women complain of the manner in which men love them, they have nevertheless but little
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 33
liking for those whose souls are half feminine. All their superiority consists in making men believe that they are their inferiors in love; therefore they quit willingly enough a lover when he is suffi- ciently experienced to rob them of those fears with which they seek to deck themselves, those delight- ful torments of feigned jealousy, those troubles of hope betrayed, those vain expectations, in short the whole procession of their feminine miseries; they hold in horror the Grandissons. What can be more contrary to their nature than a tranquil and perfect love? They want emotions, and happiness without storms is no longer happiness for them. The feminine souls that are strong enough to bring the infinite into love constitute angelic exceptions, and are among women what noble geniuses are among men. The great passions are as rare as masterpieces. Outside of this love there are only arrangements, irritations passing and contemptible, as are all things that are petty.
Amid the secret disasters of his heart, while he was still searching for the woman by whom he could be comprehended — a search which, let us say in passing, is the great amorous folly of our epoch — Auguste met in the society the farthest from his own, in the secondary sphere of the world of money where banking holds a first place, a perfect creature, one of those women who have about them I know not what that is saintly and sacred, who inspire so much reverence that love has need of all the help of a long familiarity to enable it to declare itself. 3
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Auguste then gave himself up wholly to the delights of the deepest and most moving of passions, to a love that was purely adoring. It was composed of innumerable repressed desires, shades of passion so vague and so profound, so fugitive and so actual, that one knows not what to compare them to; they are like perfumes, like clouds, like rays of the sun, like shadows, like everything which in nature can momentarily shine and disappear, spring to life and die, leaving in the heart long emotions. While the soul is still young enough to nourish melan- choly, distant hopes, and to know how to find in woman more than a woman, is it not the greatest happiness that can befall a man to love enough to feel more joy in touching a white glove, or ever so lightly the hair, to listen to a phrase, to cast a single look, than the most rapturous possession can ever give to happy love? Thus it is that rejected persons, the ugly, the unhappy, the unrevealed lovers, women or timid men, they alone know the treasures contained in the voice of the beloved. Taking their source and their principle from the soul itself, the vibrations of the air, charged with fire, bring the hearts so closely into communion, carry so lucidly thought between them, and are so incapable of falsehood, that a single inflection is often a complete revelation. What enchantments can be bestowed upon the heart of a poet by the harmonious intonations of a soft voice! How many ideas they awaken in it! What freshness they shed there ! Love is in the voice before the glance
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS _ 35
avows it. Auguste, poet after the manner of lovers — there are poets who feel, and poets who express, the first are the happier — Auguste had tasted all these first joys, so vast, so fecund. She possessed the most pleasing organ that the most artificial women in the world could have desired in order to deceive at her ease; she had that silvery voice which, soft to the ear, is ringing only for the heart which it stirs and troubles, which it caresses in overthrowing. And this woman went by night to Rue Soly, through Rue Pagevin; and her furtive apparition in an infamous house had just de- stroyed the grandest of passions! The vidame's logic triumphed.
"If she is betraying her husband, we will avenge ourselves," said Auguste.
There was still love shown by that z/— The philosophic doubt of Descartes is a politeness with which we should always honor virtue. Ten o'clock sounded. The Baron de Maulincour remem- bered at this moment that this woman was going to a ball that evening at a house to which he had access. He immediately dressed himself, set out, arrived there and searched for her with a gloomy air through all the salons. Madame de Nucingen, seeing him so thoughtful, said to him:
"You do not see Madame Jules, but she has not yet come.**
"Good evening, my dear," said a voice.
Auguste and Madame de Nucingen turned round. Madame Jules had arrived, dressed all in white,
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simple and noble, wearing in her hair the very- same marabouts that the young baron had seen her selecting in the flower shop. That voice of love pierced the heart of Auguste. If he had won the slightest right which permitted him to be jealous of this woman, he would have petrified her by saying to her only: "Rue Soly!" But if he, a stranger, had repeated a thousand times this name in the ear of Madame Jules she would have asked him in astonishment what he meant. He looked at her with a stupid air.
For those malicious people who laugh at every- thing it is perhaps a great amusement to detect the secret of a woman, to know that her chastity is a lie, that her calm face hides some deep thought, that there is some frightful drama hidden under that pure brow. But there are certain souls to whom such a sight is truly saddening, and many of those who laugh, when withdrawn into their inner selves, alone with their consciences, curse the world and despise such a woman. Such was the case with Auguste de Maulincour in the presence of Madame Jules. Singular situation! There was no other relation between them than that which the social world establishes between persons who ex- change a few words seven or eight times in the course of a winter, and yet he was calling her to account for a happiness unknown to her, he was judging her without informing her of the accusation.
Many young men have found themselves thus, re- turning to themselves, in despair at having broken
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 37
forever with a woman adored in secret; condemned, despised in secret. There are hidden monologues, said to the walls of some solitary lodging, storms roused and calmed without ever having issued from the bottom of hearts, admirable scenes of the moral world, for which a painter is wanted. Madame Jules sat down, leaving her husband who was making the tour of the salon. When she was seated she seemed uneasy, and, while talking with her neigh- bor, she watched furtively Monsieur Jules Desma- rets, her husband, the broker of the Baron de iNucingen. The following is the history of this household:
Monsieur Desmarets was, five years before his marriage, in a broker's office with no other means than the meagre salary of a clerk. But he was one of those men whom misfortune early instructs in the things of this life, and who follow the straight line with the tenacity of an insect making for its nest ; one of those dogged young men who slay be- fore obstacles and who wear out all patiences with their own tireless patience. Thus, young as he was, he had all the republican virtues of poor peo- ples; he was sober, saving of his time, an enemy to pleasure. He waited. Nature had moreover given him the immense advantage of an agreeable exte- rior. His calm and clear brow; the shape of his placid but expressive face; his simple manners, everything in him revealed a laborious and resigned existence, that lofty personal dignity which is im- posing, and that secret nobility of heart which can
18996J.
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meet all situations. His modesty inspired a sort of respect in all those who knew him. Solitary more- over in the midst of Paris he saw the world only by glimpses during the brief moments that he spent in his patron's salon on holidays. There were to be found in this young man, as in most of the men who live in this manner, passions of amazing pro- fundity,— passions too vast to permit him ever to compromise himself in petty incidents. His want of fortune compelled him to lead an austere life, and he conquered his fancies by hard work. When he grew pale over his figures, he found his recrea- tion in striving obstinately to acquire that wide and general knowledge which to-day is so necessary to every man who wishes to make his mark in soci- ety, in commerce, at the bar, in politics, or in literature. The only peril which these fme souls have to fear is their own uprightness. Should they see some poor girl, and fall in love with her, they marry her, and they wear out their lives in a struggle between poverty and love. The finest am- bition is quenched in the book of household ex- penses. Jules Desmarets fell headlong into his peril. One evening he met at his patron's house a young girl of the rarest beauty. The unfortunates deprived of affection and who consume the fine hours of their youth in long labors, alone know the secret of these rapid ravages which passion makes in their lonely and misunderstood hearts. They are so certain of loving truly, all their forces are concentrated so quickly on the woman who attracts
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 39
them that, at her side, they receive the most delightful sensation while inspiring frequently none at all. This is the most flattering of all egotisms to a woman who knows how to divine this apparently immovable passion and these emotions so deep that they have required a great length of time to reach the human surface. These poor men, anchorites in the midst of Paris, have all the enjoyments of anchorites and may sometimes succumb to their temptations; but more often deceived, betrayed and misunderstood, it is rarely permitted to them to gather the sweet fruits of this love which to them is like a flower dropped from heaven. One smile from his wife, a single inflection of her voice, sufficed to make Jules Desmarets conceive a passion without bounds. Happily, the concentrated fire of this secret passion revealed itself ingenuously to the one who inspired it. These two beings then loved each other religiously. To express all in a word, they took each other by the hand before all the world like two children, brother and sister, who wished to pass through a crowd where all made way for them admiringly. The young girl was in one of those frightful positions in which human selfish- ness places some children. She had no civil status, and her name of Clemence, her age, were recorded only by a notary public. As for her fortune, it was insignificant. Jules Desmarets was the happiest of men on learning these misfortunes. If Clemence had belonged to some opulent family, he would have despaired of obtaining her; but she
II
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was a poor child of love, the fruit of some terrible adulterine passion; they were married. Then began for Jules Desmarets a series of fortunate events. Every one envied his happiness, and his enviers accused him thenceforward of having nothing but good fortune, without recalling either his virtues or his courage. Some days after the marriage of her daughter, the mother of Clemence, who passed in society for her godmother, advised Jules Desmarets to purchase the connection of a broker, promising to procure for him the necessary capital. At that time these connections could still be bought at a moderate price. That evening, in the salon of his broker, a wealthy capitalist, as it happened, on the recommendation of this lady, proposed to Jules Desmarets the most advantageous transaction that it was possible for him to conclude, gave him all the funds that would be required for this purpose, and the next day the happy clerk bought out his patron. In four years Jules Des- marets had become one of the richest members of his profession; many new clients had come to aug- ment the number of those whom his predecessor had left to him. He inspired a boundless confi- dence, and it was impossible for him not to be con- scious, by the manner in which his affairs prospered, of some secret influence due to his mother-in-law, or some hidden protection which he attributed to Prov- idence. At the end of the third year Clemence lost her godmother. By that time Jules, so-called to distinguish him from his elder brother whom he
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 41
had established as a notary in Paris, possessed an income of about 200,000 francs. There did not exist in all Paris another example of the domestic happi- ness enjoyed in this household. During five years this exceptional love had only been troubled by one calumny, for which Monsieur Jules exacted signal vengeance. One of his former comrades attributed the fortune of the husband to Madame Jules, ex- plaining that it came from a high protection dearly purchased. The calumniator was killed in a duel. The deep passion of this couple, mutual as it was, and which survived marriage, obtained the greatest success in the social world, though some women were baffled by it. The charming household was respected, everybody feted it. Monsieur and Madame Jules were sincerely liked, perhaps because there is nothing pleasanter than to see happy peo- ple; but they never remained long in any salon, and escaped as if impatient to regain their nest in haste, like two wandering doves. This nest was, moreover, a large and handsome hotel in the Rue de Menars, where a feeling for art tempered that lux- ury which the financial world continues, tradition- ally, to display, and where they received magnifi- cently, although the obligations of social life suited them but little. Nevertheless, Jules submitted to the demands of the world, knowing that sooner or later a family has need of it; but his wife and he always felt themselves in its midst like greenhouse plants in a tempest. With a delicacy that was very natural, Jules had carefully concealed from his wife
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the calumny and the death of the calumniator which had well-nigh troubled their felicity. Madame Jules was inclined, by her delicate and artistic nature, to love luxury. Notwithstanding the terrible lesson of the duel, some imprudent women whispered to each other that Madame Jules must frequently be embarrassed for money. The twenty thousand francs which her husband gave her for her dress and for her fancies, could not, according to their cal- culations, suffice for her expenses. In fact, she was often found more elegantly dressed in her own home than when she went into society. She loved to adorn herself only to please her husband, as though wishing thus to prove to him that to her he was more than all the rest of the world. A true love, a pure love, happy above all, as much so as can be a love which is publicly clandestine. Thus Monsieur Jules, always a lover, and more loving each day, happy to be near his wife, even in her caprices, would have been uneasy if he had not found any in her, as though it would have been the symptom of some illness. Auguste de Maulincour had had the unhappiness of clashing this passion, and of madly falling in love with this woman. Never- theless, though he carried in his heart a love so sublime, he was not ridiculous. He complied with all the demands of military manners and customs; but he wore constantly, even when drinking a glass of champagne, that dreamy look, that silent disdain for existence, that nebulous expression, which, for various reasons, the biases wear, those dissatisfied
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 43
with hollow life, and those who believe themselves consumptive, or who please themselves by imagin- ing an affection of the heart. To love without hope, to be disgusted with life, constitute in these days a social position. The enterprise of invading the heart of a sovereign might give, perhaps, more hope than a rashly conceived love for a happy woman. Therefore Maulincour had sufficient rea- sons for remaining grave and gloomy. A queen retains the vanity of her power, she has against her her lofty elevation; but a pious bourgeoise is like a hedgehog, like an oyster, in their rough envelopes. At this moment the young officer was beside his nameless mistress, who certainly was not aware that she was doubly faithless. Madame Jules was seated in a naive attitude, like the least artful wo- man in the world, gentle, full of a majestic serenity. What an abyss is human nature after all ? Before beginning the conversation, the baron looked alter- nately at this lady and at her husband. How many reflections did he not make? He recomposed / Young's Night Thoughts in a moment. Mean- while the music was sounding through the apart- ments, the light was poured from a thousand candles, it was a banker's ball, one of those insolent festivities by which this world of dull gold endeav- ored to scorn the gilded salons in which laughed the fine company of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, not foreseeing the day when the bank would invade the Luxembourg and take its seat upon the throne. The conspirators were dancing at this moment,
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as indifferent to the future bankruptcies of power as to future failures of banks. The gilded salons of Monsieur le Baron de Nucingen had that peculiar animation which fashionaole Paris, joyous in appearance at least, gives to the festivals of Paris. There, men of talent communicate their wit to fools, and fools communicate that air of hap- piness which characterizes them. By this exchange everything becomes animated. But a festival in Paris always a little resembles a display of fire- works; wit, coquetry and pleasure all sparkle and all go out like rockets. The next day, every one has forgotten his wit, his coquetries and his pleasure.
"Well, then !" thought Auguste by way of con- clusion, "women are, after all, just as the vidame sees them.'' Certainly, all those dancing here are less irreproachable than Madame Jules appears, and Madame Jules goes to Rue Soly. "
Rue Soly was his malady, the very word con- tracted his heart.
"Madame, you never dance then ? " he asked her.
"This is the third time that you have asked me that question since the commencement of the win- ter," she answered smiling.
"But you have perhaps never answered it."
"That is true."
"I knew very well that you were deceptive, as are all other women — "
And Madame Jules continued to smile.
"Listen, Monsieur, if I told you the real reason, it would seem to you ridiculous. I do not think
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 45
that it is deceiving not to tell secrets at which the world is in the habit of laughing."
"Every secret demands, in order to be told, a friendship of which I am doubtless unworthy, Madame. But you could not have any but noble secrets, and do you think me then capable of jest- ing on worthy things .'' "
"Yes," she said. "You, like all the others, you laugh at our purest feelings; you calumniate them. Besides, I have no secrets. 1 have the right to love my husband in the face of all the world, 1 say it, I am proud of it; and if you laugh at me when 1 tell you that I dance only with him, 1 shall have the worst opinion of your heart."
"You have never danced, since your marriage, with anyone but your husband?"
"Never, Monsieur. His arm is the only one on which I have leaned, and I have never felt the touch of another man."
"Your physician, has he never felt your pulse?"
"Well, now, you are laughing at me."
"No, Madame, I admire you because I compre- hend you. But you let us hear your voice, you let us look at you, but — in fact, you permit our eyes to admire you — "
"Ah! that is one of my griefs," she said, inter- rupting him. "Yes, I would have had it possible for a married woman to live with her husband as a mistress lives with her lover; for, then — "
"Then why were you a few hours ago on foot, disguised, on Rue Soly?"
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"What is Rue Soly ? " she asked him.
And her voice so pure betrayed no sign of any emotion, no feature of her face quivered, she did not blush, and she remained calm.
"What! you did not go up to the second floor of a house situated in Rue des Vieux-Augustins, at the corner of Rue Soly ? You did not have a hackney- coach waiting ten paces away, and you did not return to Rue de Richelieu, to a flower shop, where you selected the marabout feathers that you are now wearing? "
"I did not leave my house this evening."
In lying thus, she was smiling and imperturbable, she fanned herself; but if someone who enjoyed the right had passed a hand under her girdle, in the middle of her back he would perhaps have found it moist. At that instant Auguste remembered the instructions of the vidame.
"Then it was someone who strangely resembled you," he said with a credulous air.
"Monsieur," she resumed, "if you are capable of following a woman and detecting her secrets, you will permit me to say to you that that is wrong, very wrong, and I do you the honor not to believe you."
The baron turned away, took his stand before the fireplace, and appeared thoughtful. He bent his head; but his look was covertly fixed on Madame Jules, who, not thinking of the reflection in the mirror, cast at him two or three glances that were full of terror. Presently she made a sign to her
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 47
husband, whose arm she took as she rose to walk about the salon. When she passed close to Mon- sieur de Maulincour, he, who was speaking with one of his friends, said, raising his voice, as if he were replying to a question :
"There is a woman who certainly will not sleep quietly this night — "
Madame Jules stopped, threw upon him an impos- ing look full of scorn and continued her walk, with- out knowing that one look the more, if surprised by her husband, might put in danger her own hap- piness and the lives of two men. Auguste, the prey of a rage which he smothered in the depths of his soul, presently left the house, swearing to pen- etrate to the heart of this intrigue. Before leaving, he sought Madame Jules in order to see her once more, but she had disappeared. What a drama cast into that young head so eminently romantic, like all those which have not known love in the wide extent which they ascribe to it ! He adored Madame Jules under a new aspect, he loved her with the fury of jealousy, with the frenzied anguish of hope. Unfaithful to her husband, this woman became common. Auguste could now give himself up to the joys of a successful love, and his imagination opened to him the immense career of the pleasures of possession. In fine, if he had lost the angel, he had found the most delicious of demons. He went to bed building a thousand castles in the air, justify- ing Madame Jules by some romantic fiction in which he did not believe himself. Then he resolved
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to devote himself wholly, from the morrow, to the search for the causes, the motives of the intrigue which this mystery concealed. It was a romance to read; or, better, a drama to play, and in which he had his part.
*
A very fine thing is the trade of a spy, when it is followed for one's own benefit and in the interest of a passion. Is it not to give ourselves the pleas- ures of a thief while remaining an honest man? But it is necessary to resign one's self to boiling with rage, to roaring with impatience, to freezing the feet in the mud, to be benumbed and to burn, to devour false hopes. It is necessary to go, on the faith of a mere indication, towards an unknown goal, to miss our stroke, to fume, to improvise for ourselves elegies, dithyrambics, to exclaim idiotic- ally before an inoffensive passer-by who stops to admire you ; then to knock over old apple-women and their baskets of fruit, to run, to rest, to mount guard beneath a window, to make a thousand sup- positions.— But it is the hunt, the hunt in Paris, the hunt with all its chances, less the dogs, the gun and the tally-ho! It is not to be compared with anything but the lives of gamblers. But it needs a heart big with love and with vengeance to ambush itself in Paris, like a tiger waiting to spring on its prey, and to enjoy thus all the possibilities of Paris and of a quarter, in furnishing them one interest the more to those in which they already abound. For this must we not have a multiple soul } Shall we not have to live in a thousand passions, a thousand simultaneous sentiments ? 4 (49)
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Auguste de Maulincour plunged passionately into this ardent existence, for he felt all its unhappinesses and all its pleasures. He went disguised through Paris, watching at all the corners of Rue Page- vin or of Rue des Vieux-Augustins. He hurried like a hunter from Rue de Menars to Rue Soly, and from Rue Soly to Rue de Menars, without obtaining either the vengeance or the reward with which would be punished or recompensed all these cares, these efforts and these ruses! However, he had not yet reached that impatience which wrings our entrails and makes us sweat; he roamed about hopefully, calculating that Madame Jules would not venture during the first few days to return to the locality where she had been de- tected. So he had devoted these first days to acquiring a knowledge of all the secrets of the street. A novice in this trade, he dared not ques- tion either the porter or the shoemaker of the house into which Madame Jules went; but he hoped to be able to establish a post of observation in the house directly opposite to the mysterious apart- ment. He studied the ground, he endeavored to conciliate prudence and impatience, his love and secrecy.
During the first days of the month of March, in the midst of the plans by which he thought to strike a decisive blow, leaving his post after one of those patient vigils by which he had as yet learned nothing, he was returning about four o'clock in the afternoon to his own house to which he was
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 5 1
recalled by a matter relating to his military service, when he was overtaken in Rue Coquilliere by one of those heavy showers which instantly flood the gutters, and of which each drop splashes loudly in the puddles of the roadway. A pedestrian in Paris, under these circumstances, is forced to stop short and take refuge in a shop or in a cafe, if he is rich enough to pay for the forced hospitality or, according to the urgency of the case, under a porte- cochere, that asylum for the poor and the shabby. How is it that none of our painters have ever attempted to reproduce the appearance of a crowd of Parisians grouped during a storm under the dripping portico of a house? Where could they find a richer subject? Is there not, first of all, the musing or philosophical pedestrian, who observes with pleasure all he sees, — whether it be the stripes made by the rain on the gray back- ground of the atmosphere, a species of chasing something like the capricious threads of spun glass; or the whirlwinds of clear water which the wind rolls in luminous dust along the roofs; or the capri- cious overflowings of the gutter-pipes, crackling and foaming; in short, the thousand other admirable nothings, studied with delight by the idlers, not- withstanding the strokes of the broom with which they are regaled by the occupant of the porter's lodge? Then there is the talkative pedestrian, who complains and converses with the porter's wife while she leans on her broom like a grenadier on his musket; the needy pedestrian, curiously flattened
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against the wall, without any regard for his rags long accustomed to the contact of the streets ; the learned pedestrian, who studies, spells or reads the posters without finishing them; the laughing pedes- trian, who amuses himself with those to whom some accident happens in the street, who laughs at the muddy women and makes grimaces to those of either sex who are at the windows; the silent pedes- trian, who studies all the windows, all the stories; the laboring pedestrian, armed with a satchel or furnished with a package, who is estimating the rain as so much profit or so much loss; the good- natured pedestrian who arrives like a bomb-shell exclaiming, "Ah! what weather. Messieurs!" and who salutes everybody ; and, finally, the true bour- geois of Paris, a man with an umbrella, an expert in showers, who has foreseen this one, has come out in spite of his wife, and who is now seated in the porter's chair. According to his character, each member of this fortuitous society contemplates the sky and finally departs, skipping so as not to splash himself, or because he is in a hurry, or because he sees other citizens marching along in spite of wind and tide, or because, the archway of the house being damp and mortally catarrhal, the bed's edge, as the proverb says, is worse than the sheets. Each one has his own motive. No one is left but the prudent pedestrian, the man who, before he sets out again, waits to spy some bits of blue in the midst of the rifting clouds.
Monsieur de Maulincour took refuge then, with a
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 53
whole family of foot passengers, under the porch of an old house, the court-yard of which resembled an immense chimney flue. There were along its plas- tered, saltpetred and mouldy walls so many lead pipes and so many conduits from all the floors of its four main parts that you would have said it was like the Cascatelles of Saint-Cloud. Water flowed everywhere; it boiled, it leaped, it murmured; it was black, white, blue, green; it cried aloud, it multiplied itself under the broom of the portress, a toothless old woman accustomed to storms, who seemed to bless them as she swept into the street a thousand bits of rubbish of which the curious inventory would have revealed the life and the habits of every dweller in the house. There were scraps of printed cotton, tea-leaves, artificial flower petals faded and worthless, parings of vegetables, papers, fragments of metal. At every stroke of her broom the old woman laid bare the bed of the gutter, that black crevice, cut out in squares, over which the porters are so exercised. The poor lover examined this scene, one of those thousands which agitated Paris presents daily; but he exam- ined it mechanically, like a man absorbed in his thoughts, when, raising his eyes, he found himself face to face with a man who had just entered.
This man was, in appearance at least, a beggar, but not the Parisian beggar, that creation without a name in human language; no, this man formed another type, outside of all the usual ideas suggested by the word "beggar." The unknown was not
54 FERRAGUS
distinguished in any way by that character, origi- nally Parisian, which strikes us so frequently in the unfortunates whom Charlet has sometimes rep- resented with a rare happiness of observation, — coarse faces rolled in the mud, with hoarse voices, reddened and bulbous noses, mouths deprived of teeth, although menacing; humble and terrible beings, in whom the profound intelligence which shines in their eyes seems like a contradiction. Some of these bold vagabonds have blotched, cracked, veiny skin; the forehead covered with wrinkles; the hair scanty and dirty, like that of a wig thrown into a corner. All of them gay in their degradation, and degraded in their joys, all of them marked with the stamp of debauchery, cast their silence like a reproach; their attitude reveals frightful thoughts. Placed between crime and beg- gary they no longer have any remorse, and circle prudently around the scaffold without mounting it, innocent in the midst of vice, vicious in the midst of their innocence. They often cause a smile, but they always cause reflection. One represents to you civilization stunted and repressed, he compre- hends everything; — the honor of the galleys, coun- try, virtue; then it is the malice of a vulgar crime, and the fine craftiness of elegant wickedness. Another is resigned, a deep mimic but a stupid one. All of them have faint indications of order and of work, but they are pushed back into their mire by a society which does not care to inquire as to what there may be of poets, of great men, of intrepid souls
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 55
and magnificent organizations among these beggars, these Bohemians of Paris; a people eminently good and eminently wicked, like all the masses who have suffered; accustomed to supporting unheard-of ills, and whom a fatal power always keeps down to thei^ level of the mud. They all have a dream, a hope, a happiness, — cards, lottery or wine. There was nothing of all this strange life in the personage lean- ing so carelessly against the wall before Monsieur de Maulincour, like some fantastic idea designed by a skilful artist on the back of a canvas turned with its face to the wall in his atelier. This man, long and dry, whose leaden visage betrayed a deep but chilling thought, dried up all pity in the hearts of the curious by his sarcastic aspect and by his black looks which announced an intention of treat- ing every man as his equal. His face was of a dirty white, and his wrinkled skull, denuded of hair, bore a vague resemblance to a block of granite, A few straight and gray locks on each side of his head fell to the collar of his greasy coat which was but- toned to the chin. He resembled at once Voltaire and Don Quixote; he was a scoffer and melancholy, full of disdain, of philosophy, but at least half de- ranged. He seemed to have no shirt. His beard was long. His rusty black cravat, quite worn out and ragged, exposed a protuberant neck, deeply fur- rowed, with thick veins like cords. A large brown circle like a bruise was strongly marked beneath each eye. He seemed to be at least sixty years old. His hands were white and clean. His boots were
56 FERRAGUS
full of holes and trodden down at the heels. His blue pantaloons, mended in several places, were whitened by a species of fluff which made them offensive to the eye. Whether it was that his damp clothes exhaled a fetid odor, or that he had in his normal condition that smell of poverty which belongs to the Parisian dens, just as offices, sacris- ties and hospitals have their own, a fetid and rancid smell, of which no words can give the least idea, the neighbors of this man moved away from him and left him alone. He cast upon them and then upon the officer his calm and expressionless look, the so celebrated regard of Monsieur de Talleyrand, v^ a dull, cold glance, a species of impenetrable veil beneath which a strong soul conceals profound emotion and the most exact estimation of men, things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth and his forehead were impassible; but his eyes lowered themselves with a noble and almost tragic slowness. There was in fact a whole drama in the movement of these withered eye-lids. The aspect of this stoical figure gave rise in Mon- sieur de Maulincour to one of those vagabond rev- eries which begin with a common interrogation and end by comprising a whole world of thought. The storm was past. Monsieur de Maulincour saw no more of the man than the skirt of his coat as it brushed the outside wall ; but as he left his place to depart, he saw under his feet a letter which had fallen and which he supposed to have belonged to the unknown, as he had seen him put back in his
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 57
pocket a handkerchief which he had used. The officer, who picked up the letter to return it to him, read the address involuntarily:
"A Mosieur, Mosieur Ferragusse, Rue des Grands-Augustains, au coing de la rue Soly,
PARIS."
The letter bore no postmark and the address served to prevent Monsieur de Maulincour from returning it; there are besides few passions that, in the long run, will not come to be lacking in probity. The baron had a presentiment of the opportunity of this windfall, and determined, by keeping the letter, to give himself the right of entrance into the mysterious house to return it to this man, not doubting that he lived in this suspected dwelling. Already suspicions, vague as the first gleams of daylight, caused him to establish relations between this man and Madame Jules. Jealous lovers sup- pose everything; and it is by supposing everything and then selecting the most probable of these con- jectures that judges, spies, lovers and observers, arrive at the truth which most interests them. "Is the letter for him ? Is it from Madame Jules ? " His unquiet imagination tossed a thousand ques- tions together at him at once ; but at the first words he smiled. Here is, textually, in all the splendor ■of its artless phrases and its ignoble orthography, this letter to which it would be impossible to add anything, just as nothing should be taken away.
58 FERRAGUS
unless it were the letter itself, but it has been nec- essary to punctuate it in reproducing it In the origi- nal, there are neither commas nor stops of any kind indicated, not even notes of exclamation, — a fact which tends to demolish the system of points and punctuation by which modern authors have endeav- ored to depict the great disasters of all the passions :
"Henry,
"Among the many sacrifisis which I imposed upon myself for your sal<e was that of no longer giving you any news of myself; but an irresistible voice now tells me to let you know the wrongs you done me. I know beforehand that your soul hardened in vice will not pitty me. Your heart is def to feel- ing. Is it not so too to the cries of nature? But what matter; 1 must tell you to what a dredful point your are gilty and the horror of the position in which you have put me. Henry, you knew all what I suffered from my first fault and yet you have plunged me into the same misery and then abbandoned me to my despair and my suffering. Yes 1 will sai it, the belif that I had of being loved and esteamed by you gave me corage to bare my fate. But to-day what have 1 left? Have you not maid me lose all that 1 had that was most deer, all that held me to life: parens, trends, 'onor, reputation, I have sacrifised all to you and nothing is left me but oprobrum, shame, and I say it without blushing, poverty. Nothing was wanting to my unhappiness but the sertainty of your contempt and your haite; and now 1 have them 1 will find the corage that my project requires. My decision is taken and the honor of my family commands it; I am going then to put an end to my suffering. Do not make any reflecions on my project, Henry. It is awful, I know it, but my condition forses me to it. With- out help, without support, without a. friend to console me, can I live? No. Fate hasdesidedfor me So in two days, Henry, in two days, Ida will be no longer worthy of your esteam; but
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 59
hear the oath that 1 make you that my conscience is at peace, since I have never seased to be worthy of your friendship. Oh, Henry, my friend, for I can never change to you, promise me that you will forgive me for what I am going to do. My love has given me corage, it will sustane me in virtue. My heart all full of your figger will be for me a preservative against seduction. Do not forget never that my fate is your work, and judge yourself. May Haven not punish you for your crime, it is on my knees that I ask your pardon, for I feel it, nothing will be wanting to my miseries but the sorow of knowing you unhaapy. In spite of the destitution in which I find myself I will refuse all kind of help from you. If you had loved me I would have received it as coming from your friendship, but a benefit given by pitty, my soul refusis it, and I would be baser in taking it than he who offered it to me. I have one favor to ask of you. I don't know how long I must stay at Madame Meynardie's, be genrous enough not to come to see me. Your last two visits did me a harm which I shall feel a long time; I do not wish to go into partidars about that conduct of yours. You hate me, that word is written on my 'eart and freeses it with feer. Alas! it is at the moment when I have need of all my corage that all my facculties abbandon me, Henry, my friend, before 1 put a barrier between us, give me a lastproof of your esteam; write me, answer me, say to me that you respect me still although you no longer love me. Although my eyes are always worthy of meeting yours, I do not ask an intervew; I fear all my weakness and my love. But, for pitty sake, write me a line at once; it will give me the corage I need to meet my troubles. Farewell, ortherof all my woes, but the only friend that my heart has chosen and whom it will never forget.
"IDA."
This life of a young girl of which the love be- trayed, the fatal joys, the sorrows, the poverty, and the lamentable resignation were summed up in
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SO few words; this poem unknown but essentially Parisian, written in this dirty letter, agitated Mon- sieur de Maulincour for a moment; he ended by asking himself if this Ida might not be some rela- tion of Madame Jules, and if the evening rendez- vous, of which he had been a witness by chance, had not been occasioned by some charitable effort That the old pauper could have seduced Ida?— This seduction would have been a miracle. Wandering in the labyrinth of his reflections which crossed each other and destroyed one another, the baron arrived at the Rue Pagevin, and saw a hackney-coach standing at the end of the Rue des Vieux-Augustins which is near the Rue Montmartre. All waiting hackney-coaches now had an interest for him.
' ' Can she be there ? " thought he.
And his heart beat with a hot and feverish throb- bing. He pushed open the little door with the bell, but he lowered his head as he did so in obedience to a sense of shame, for he heard a secret voice which said to him, — "Why do you put your foot into this mystery ? "
He went up a few steps, and found himself face to face with the old portress.
' ' Monsieur Ferragus ? "
"Don't know him."
"How.? Monsieur Ferragus does not live here?"
"We don't have that man here."
"But my good woman. — "
"1 am not a good woman, Monsieur, I am a concierge."
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 6l
" "But Madame," insisted the baron, "I have a letter to give to Monsieur Ferragus. "
"Ah! If Monsieur has a letter," said she, chang- ing her tone, "the thing is very different Will you let me see it, your letter? "
Auguste showed the folded letter. The old wo- man shook her head with a doubtful air, hesitated, seemed to wish to leave her lodge to go and inform the mysterious Ferragus of this unforeseen incident; finally she said:
"Very well go up, Monsieur, you ought to know where it is — "
Without replying to this remark, by which the wily old woman might have wished to have set a trap for him, the officer went lightly up the stair- way and rang loudly at the door of the second floor. His lover's instinct said to him, — "She is there."
The beggar of the porch, the Ferragus or the "orther" of Ida's woes, opened the door himself. He appeared in a flowered dressing-gown, panta- loons of white flannel, his feet in pretty embroid- ered slippers, and his head washed clean. Madame Jules, whose head appeared beyond the casing of the door into the next room, turned pale and fell into a chair.
' ' What is the matter, Madame ? " cried the officer, springing toward her.
But Ferragus stretched forth an arm and threw the officer backward with so strong a movement that Auguste felt as though he had received in the chest a blow from an iron bar.
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"Back, Monsieur !" said this man. "What do you want with us? You have been roaming about the quarter for the last five or six days. Are you a spy ? ' '
"Are you Monsieur Ferragus?" said the baron.
"No, Monsieur."
"Nevertheless," continued Auguste, "it is to you that I must return this paper, which you dropped under the doorway of the house beneath which we both took refuge during the rain."
While speaking and in offering the letter to this man, the baron could not refrain from casting an eye around the room in which Ferragus received him. He found it very well arranged, though sim- ply. A fire burned in the chimney-place; near it was a table with a more sumptuous service than seemed consistent with the apparent condition of this man and the humbleness of his lodging. And on a small sofa in the second room, which he could see through the doorway, he perceived a heap of gold, and heard a sound which could be no other than that of a woman weeping.
"This paper belongs to me, I thank you, " said the unknown, turning away in such a manner as to make the baron understand that he desired him to leave immediately.
Too curious himself to take notice of the profound examination of which he was the object, Auguste did not see the half magnetic glances by which the unknown seemed to wish to devour him ; but if he had encountered that basilisk eye he would have
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 63
comprehended the danger of his position. Too pas- sionately excited to thintc of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs and returned home, endeavoring to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons, — Ida, Ferragus and Madame Jules; an occupation which was practically equiva- lent to that of trying to arrange the outlandish bits of wood of a Chinese puzzle without possessing the key to the game. But Madame Jules had seen him, Madame Jules went there, Madame Jules had lied to him. Maulincour determined to go and pay a visit to this woman the next day, she could not refuse to see him, he was now her accomplice, he had his hands and feet in this mysterious intrigue; he already assumed to himself the power of a sul- tan, and thought of demanding imperiously from Madame Jules all her secrets.
In those days Paris was seized with the building fever. If Paris is a monster, it is certainly the most maniacal of monsters. It becomes enamored of a thousand fancies; sometimes it falls to build- ing like a great seigneur who loves a trowel ; then it drops its trowel and becomes all military, it dresses itself from head to foot as a National Guard, drills and smokes; then all at once it aban- dons the military manoeuvres and throws away its cigar; then it plunges into desolation, falls into bankruptcy, sells its furniture on the Place du Chatelet, stops payment; but a few days later it arranges its affairs, puts itself in festival array and dances. One day it eats barley-sugar by handfuls,
64 FERRAGUS
by mouthfuls ; yesterday it bought papier IVeynen; to-day, the monster has the tooth-ache and applies an alexipharmic to all its walls; to-morrow it will lay in its provision of pectoral paste. It has its manias for the month, for the season, for the year, like its manias for a day. So at this moment all the world was building and demolishing something, we scarcely know what as yet. There were very few streets in which could not be seen scaffoldings with long poles, furnished with planks set on cross- pieces and fixed from floor to floor in holes cut in the masonry, — a frail construction, shaken by the Limousins, but held together by ropes all white with plaster, scarcely secured from the wheels of carriages by the breastwork of planks, that enclosure required by law which is not built There is something maritime in all these masts, these ladders, these cordages and the shouts of the masons. So, now at a dozen steps from the Hotel Maulincour, one of these ephemeral constructions was erected before a house which was being built in cut stone. The next morning, at the moment when the Baron de Maulincour passed in his cabriolet before this scaf- folding, on his way to see Madame Jules, a stone, two feet square, which had been elevated to the topmost landing escaped from the ropes which held it by turning on itself, and fell on the baron's ser- vant, whom it crushed behind his carriage. A cry of horror shook both the scaffold and the masons ; one of the latter, in danger of death, clung with difficulty to one of the poles and seemed to have
I
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 65
been injured by the stone. A crowd collected promptly. All the masons came down, crying, swearing and saying that the cabriolet of Monsieur de Maulincour had caused the jar to their crane. Two inches more and the officer would have had his head crushed by the stone. The valet was dead, the carriage shattered. It was an event for the whole quarter, the newspapers made the most of it. Monsieur de Maulincour, certain that he had not touched the building, protested. Justice inter- vened, inquest being made, it was proved that a small boy armed with a lath had mounted guard and called to all foot passengers to keep away. The affair ended there. Monsieur de Maulincour ob- tained nothing for his servant, for his fright, and was obliged to remain in his bed for several days; for the back of the carriage in breaking had bruised him seriously, and the nervous shock of the surprise gave him a fever. He did not go to see Madame Jules. Ten days after this event, and when he first went out, he drove to the Bois de Boulogne in his repaired cabriolet when, as he was de'scending the Rue de Bourgogne at the locality where the sewer opens directly opposite the Cham- ber of Deputies, the axle-tree broke sharply in the middle, and the baron was driving so rapidly that this breakage caused the two wheels to come together with force enough to break his head ; — but he was preserved from this danger by the resistance of the leathern hood. Nevertheless, he was badly wounded in the side. For the second time in ten 5
1
66 FERRAGUS
days he was carried home, half-dead, to the terri- fied dowager. This second accident gave him a feeling of distrust and he thought, though vaguely, of Ferragus and of Madame Jules. To clear up his suspicions, he kept the broken axle in his room and sent for his carriage-maker. The carriage- maker came, examined the axle, the fracture, and proved two things to Monsieur de Maulincour. First, the axle was not made in his workshop; he furnished none on which he did not engrave the initials of his name, and he could not explain by what means this axle had been substituted for the other. Secondly, the breakage of this suspicious axle had been caused by a chamber, a species of hollow space, by blow-holes in the metal and by flaws, very skilfully managed.
"Eh! Monsieur le Baron, whoever did that was mighty malicious," said he, "to fix up an axle-tree that way, any one would swear to look at it that the axle v/as sound — "
Monsieur de Maulincour requested his carriage- maker to say nothing of this affair, and he consid- ered himself duly warned. These two attempts at assassination had been planned with an ability which denoted the enmity of intelligent minds.
"It is war to the death," he said to himself as he turned in his bed, "a war of savages, a war of surprises, of ambuscades, of treachery, declared in the name of Madame Jules. To what sort of man does she then belong? What kind of power does this Ferragus then wield.? "
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 67
In fact Monsieur de Maulincour, though a soldier and a brave man, could not repress a shudder. In the midst of the many thoughts which now assailed him there was one against which he felt he had neither defense nor courage: would not poison be ere long employed by his secret enemies? Under the influence of these fears, which his momentary weakness, his fever, and the low diet increased still more, he sent for an old woman long attached to the service of his grandmother, a woman who had for him one of those semi-maternal affections, the sublime or the commonplace. Without confid- ing in her wholly, he charged her to buy secretly and daily in different localities the food he needed, directing her to keep it under lock and key and to bring it to him herself, not allowing anyone, no matter who, to approach her while preparing it. In short, he took the most minute precautions to pro- tect himself against that form of death. He was confined to his bed, alone and ill ; he had therefore the leisure to think of his own security, the only necessity sufficiently clear-sighted to enable human egotism to forget nothing. But the unfortunate in- valid had poisoned his own life by this dread; and, in spite of himself, suspicion dyed all his hours with its gloomy tints. These two lessons of assas- sination did, however, instruct him in one of the virtues most necessary to politic men, he under- stood the wise dissimulation that must be practiced in dealing with the great interests of life. To be silent about our own secrets is nothing ; but to be
68 FERRAGUS
silent from the first, to know how to forget a fact for thirty years, if it is necessary, as did Ali Pacha, in order to be sure of a vengeance meditated for thirty years, — this is a fine study in a country in which there are but few men who know how to keep their own counsel for thirty days. Monsieur de Maulincour no longer lived but through Madame Jules. He was perpetually occupied in examining seriously the means which he could employ in this mysterious struggle to triumph over the mysterious adversaries. His secret passion for that woman grew by reason of all these obstacles. Madame Jules was ever there, erect, in the midst of his thoughts, in the centre of his heart, more attractive now by reason of her presumable vices than by the certain virtues which had constituted her his idol.
The sick man, wishing to reconnoitre the posi- tions of the enemy, thought he might without dan- ger initiate the old vidame into the secrets of his situation. The old commander loved Auguste as a father loves his wife's children ; he was shrewd, dexterous ; he had a diplomatic intelligence. He lis- tened to the baron, shook his head, and they both held counsel. The worthy vidame did not share his young friend's confidence, when Auguste said to him that in the times in which they now lived the police and the government were able to decipher all mysteries, and that if it were absolutely neces- sary to have recourse to these powers he would find in them most powerful auxiliaries.
The old man replied:
1
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 69
"The police, my dear boy, is the most incompe- tent thing in the world, and the government is the most feeble of all in matters concerning in- dividuals. Neither the police nor the government can read hearts. That which might be reasonably asked of them is to search for the causes of an act Now, the government and the police are eminently unfitted for this task; they lack essentially that '*p personal interest which reveals all to him who has {' need of knowing all. No human power can prevent an assassin or a poisoner from reaching either the heart of a prince or the stomach of an honest man. The passions make the best police."
The commander strongly advised the baron to set out for Italy, to go from Italy to Greece, from Greece to Syria, from Syria into Asia, and not to return until after he had succeeded in convincing his secret enemies of his repentance, and by so doing make tacitly his peace with them; if not, to remain in his house and even in his own room where he would be safe from the attempts of this Ferragus, and not to leave it until he could crush him in perfect safety. "An enemy should never be touched except to crush his head," said he gravely.
Nevertheless, the old man promised his favorite to employ all the astuteness with which Heaven had provided him in order to, without compromising anyone, reconnoitre the enemy's ground, examine his strength, and pave the way for victory. The commander had in his service an old retired Figaro,
70 FERRAGUS
the wildest monkey that ever assumed a human form, formerly as clever as a devil, capable bodily as a galley-slave, alert as a thief, sly as a woman, but now fallen into the decadence of genius for want of practice since the new constitution of Parisian society which has reformed even the valets of comedy. This Scapin-Emeritus was at- tached to his master as to a superior being; but the shrewd old vidame added a good round sum yearly to the wages of his former provost of gallantry, a little attention which strengthened the ties of natural affection by the bonds of self-interest, and procured for the old gentleman a care which the most loving mistress would not have been able to discover for her sick friend. It was this pearl of the old-fashioned comedy valets, relic of the last century, and auxiliary incorruptible from lack of passions to satisfy, in whom the commander and Monsieur de Maulincour now put their trust.
"Monsieur le Baron will spoil all," said this great man in livery when called into counsel. "Let Monsieur eat, drink and sleep in peace. I take the whole matter upon myself."
hi fact, eight days after the conference, when Monsieur de Maulincour, perfectly recovered from his indisposition, was breakfasting with his grand- mother and the vidame, Justin entered to make his report. As soon as the dowager had returned to her own apartments, he said with that mock mod- esty which men of talent affect:
"Ferragus is not the name of the enemy who
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 7 1
is pursuing Monsieur !e Baron. This man, this devil, is called the Sieur Gratien-Henri-Victor- Jean- Joseph Bourignard. The Sieur Gratien Bou- rignard is a former master-builder, once very rich and above all one of the handsomest men of his day in Paris, a Lovelace capable of seducing Grandison. My information stops there. He has been a simple workman, and the companions of the Order of the Devorants at one time elected him for their chief under the title of Ferragus XXIII. The police ought to know that, if the police were instituted to know anything. This man has moved, no longer lives in the Rue des Vieux-Augustins, and roosts now in the Rue Joquelet; Madame Jules Desmarets goes to see him frequently ; often enough her husband, on his way to the Bourse, drives her as far as the Rue Vivienne, or she drives her husband to the Bourse. Monsieur le Vidame knows too much about these things to require me to tell him if it is the husband who takes the wife, or the wife who takes her hus- band; but Madame Jules is so pretty that I will bet on her. All this is positively certain. My Bou- rignard often plays at Number 129. Saving your presence, Monsieur, he is a rogue who loves the wo- men, and he has his little ways like a man of condi- tion. As for the rest, he often wins, disguises him- self like an actor, makes himself as old as he likes, and in short leads the most original life in the world. I don't doubt that he has a good many lodgings, for most of the time he manages to evade what Monsieur le Vidame calls Parliamentary
72 FERRAGUS
investigation. If Monsieur wishes, he could never- theless be disposed of honorably, seeing what his habits are. It is always easy to get rid of a man who loves women. However this capitalist talks about moving again. — Now, have Monsieur le Vidame and Monsieur le Baron any other commands to give me?"
"Justin, I am satisfied with you, don't go any farther in the matter without orders; but keep a close watch here so that Monsieur le Baron may have nothing to fear. — My dear boy," resumed the vidame, addressing Maulincour, "go back to your old life and forget Madame Jules."
"No, no," said Auguste, "I will not yield to Gratien Bourignard, 1 will have him bound hand and foot and Madame Jules also."
That evening, the Baron Auguste de Maulincour, recently promoted to a higher rank in a company of the Gardes du Corps, went to a ball at the Elysee- Bourbon, given by Madame la Duchesse de Berri. There, certainly, no danger could lurk for him. The Baron de Maulincour when he came out had, nevertheless, an affair of honor on his hands, an affair which it was impossible to arrange amicably. His adversary, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, had the strongest reasons for being dissatisfied with Auguste, and Auguste had given him cause by his former liaison with the sister of Monsieur de Ron- querolles, the Comtesse de Serizy. This lady, who did not love German sentimentality, was all the more exacting in the least details of matters of
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 73
prudery. By one of those inexplicable fatalities, Auguste uttered a harmless jest which Madame de Serizy took amiss, and which her brother resented. The discussion took place in a corner, with lowered voices. In good society, the two adversaries never make any disturbance. The very next day, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, the Faubourg Saint-Ger- main and the Chateau discussed this affair. Madame de Serizy was warmly defended, and all the blame was laid on Maulincour. August personages inter- vened. Seconds of the highest distinction were imposed on Messieurs de Maulincour and de Ron- querolles, and every precaution was taken on the ground that no one should be killed. When Auguste found himself face to face with his adversary, a man of pleasure, to whom no one could possibly deny honorable sentiments, he could not bring him- self to see in him the instrument of Ferragus, Chief of the Devorants, but he was compelled by a secret power to obey an inexplicable presentiment in ques- tioning the Marquis.
"Messieurs," he said to the seconds, "I certainly do not refuse to meet the fire of Monsieur de Ron- querolles; but before doing so I here declare that I was in error, I offer to him whatever excuses he may require of me, publicly even, if he wishes it, because when the matter concerns a woman nothing I think can degrade a man of honor. I therefore appeal to his generosity and his good sense; is there not something rather silly in fighting when the rightful cause may losei* — "
74 FERRAGUS
Monsieur de Ronquerolles would not admit that the affair could be finished in this manner, and then the baron, his suspicions strengthened, ap- proached his adversary.
"Well, then. Monsieur le Marquis," he said, "pledge me, before these gentlemen, your word as a gentleman that you do not bring into this meeting any other reason for vengeance than that which is made public? "
"Monsieur, that is no question to ask me."
And Monsieur de Ronquerolles took his place. It was agreed in advance that the two adversaries were to be satisfied with one exchange of shots. Monsieur de Ronquerolles, in spite of the distance determined by the seconds, which seemed to make the death of Monsieur de Maulincour very prob- lematical, not to say impossible, brought down the baron. The ball traversed the latter's body, two fingers' breadth below the heart, but fortunately without fatal injury.
"You aim too well. Monsieur," said the ofificer of the Guards," to be avenging only dead quarrels."
Monsieur de Ronquerolles believed Auguste to be a dead man, and he could not refrain from smiling sardonically as he heard these words.
"The sister of Julius C^sar, Monsieur, should not be suspected."
"Always Madame Jules," replied Auguste.
He fainted, without being able to utter a biting jest which expired on his lips; but although he lost a great deal of blood, his wound was not dangerous.
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 75
At the end of a fortnight, during which the dowager and the vidame lavished upon him those cares of old age the secret of which can be given only by long experience in life, his grandmother, one morn- ing, dealt him a heavy stroke. She revealed to him the mortal anxieties which were oppressing her old, her last days. She had received a letter, signed "F, " in which the history of the secret espionage to which her grandson had lowered him- self, was recounted step by step. In this letter, actions unworthy of an honorable man were ascribed to Monsieur de Maulincour. He had, it said, placed an old woman at the stand of hackney- coaches in the Rue de Menars, an old spy, who pre- tended to sell water from her cask to the coachmen, but who was really there to watch the actions of Madame Jules Desmarets. He had spied upon the most inoffensive man in the world in order to detect his secrets, when on these secrets depended the life or the death of three persons. He had brought upon himself a relentless struggle, in which, already wounded three times, he would inevitably succumb because his death had been sworn and would be sought by all human means. Monsieur de Maulin- cour could no longer even avoid his fate by promis- ing to respect the mysterious life of these three persons, because it was impossible to believe in the word of a gentleman capable of descending to the level of a police-spy; and for what reason.? to trou- ble without cause the life of an innocent woman and of a harmless old man. The letter itself was
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as nothing for Auguste in comparison with the ten- der reproaches with which the old Baroness de MaulincoLir overwhelmed him. To betray a want of respect for and confidence in a woman, to spy upon her actions without having any right to do so ! And ought a man ever to spy upon the woman by whom he is loved? It was a tirade of excellent rea- sons which never prove anything, and which, for the first time in his life, threw the young baron into one of those great human furies in which are born, and from which issue, the most important actions of life.
"Since this duel is one to the death," said he in conclusion, "I shall have to kill my enemy by all the means which I may have at my disposal."
The old commander went immediately to inter- view in the name of Monsieur de Maulincour the chief of the secret police of Paris and, without bringing either the name or the person of Madame Jules into the narrative, although she was in reality the secret spring of it all, he made him aware of the fears which had been inspired in the family of de Maulincour by the unknown person who was bold enough to swear the death of an officer of the Guard, in defiance of the laws and the police. The police oificial pushed up his green spectacles in amazement, blew his nose several times, offered snuff to the vidame, who for the sake of his dignity pretended not to use snuff, although his own nose was lined with it. Then the chief took notes, and promised, Vidocq and his bloodhounds aiding, that he would render a very good account to the family
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS ^^
de Maulincour of this enemy in a few days, saying that there were no mysteries for the police of Paris. A few days after this the chief came to see Mon- sieur le Vidame at the Hotel Maulincour, and found the young baron completely recovered from his last wounds. Then he conveyed to them, in bureau- cratic style, his thanks for the indications which they had had the goodness to give him and informed them that this Bourignard was a convict, con- demned to twenty years' hard labor, but who had miraculously escaped from a gang which was being transported from Bicetre to Toulon. For thirteen years the police had been vainly endeavoring to recapture him, after having become aware that he had returned with the greatest hardihood to live in Paris, where he had been able to escape the most ac- tive search, although he was constantly implicated in many dark intrigues. However, this man, whose life offered the most curious details, would certainly be seized in one or other of his several domiciles and delivered up to justice. The bureaucrat termi- nated his official report by saying to Monsieur de Maulincour that if he attached enough importance to this affair to wish to witness the capture of Bou- rignard he might come the next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, to a house in the Rue Sainte-Foi of which he gave him the number. Monsieur de Mau- lincour dispensed with going in search of this cer- tainty, trusting, with the sacred respect inspired by the police of Paris, to the promptness of the author- ities. Three days later, having read nothing in
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the newspapers concerning this arrest, which, how- ever, should have furnished matter for a curious article. Monsieur de Maulincour was beginning to feel certain anxieties, which were dissipated by the following letter:
"to
•'MONSIEUR LE BARON,
"I have the honor to announce to you that you need have no further fear touching the affair in question. The man named Gratien Bourignard, otherwise called Ferragus, died yesterday at his lodgings, Rue Joquelet, No. 7. Those sus- picions which we naturally conceived as to his identity have been completely set at rest by the facts. The physician of the Prefecture of Police was detailed by us to assist the phy- sician of the Mayor's office, and the chief of the detective police made all the necessary verifications to obtain absolute certainty. Moreover, the high character of the witnesses who signed the certificate of death, and the affidavits of those who took care of the said Bourignard in his last moments, among others that of the worthy Vicar of the church of the Bonne-Nouvelle, to whom he made his last confession, for he died a Christian, do not permit us to entertain the least
doubts.
"Accept, Monsieur le Baron, etc."
Monsieur de Maulincour, the dowager and the vidame breathed again, with an unspeakable pleas- ure. The good old woman embraced her grandson, shedding a tear and left him to thank God in prayer. The dear old dowager, who was making a novena for Auguste's safety, believed her prayers were answered.
"Well," said the old commander, "now you can go to the ball of which you were speaking to me, I have no longer any objections to offer."
*
Monsieur de Maulincour was all the more eager to go to this ball because Madame Jules would be there. This fete was given by the Prefect of the Seine, in whose salon the two social worlds of Paris met as on neutral ground. Auguste traversed the rooms without seeing the woman who exercised so great an influence on his life. He entered a bou- doir as yet deserted, where the card tables were waiting for the players, and he seated himself on a divan, giving himself up to the most contradictory thoughts of Madame Jules. A man suddenly took the young officer by the arm and the baron was stu- pefied to see the pauper of the Rue Coquilli^re, the Ferragus of Ida, the lodger in the Rue Soly, the Bourignard of Justin, the convict of the police, the dead man of the day before.
"Monsieur, not a cry, not a word," said Bourig- nard, whose voice he recognized, although it cer- tainly would have seemed unknown to any other.
He was elegantly dressed, wore the order of the Golden Fleece and a decoration on his coat.
"Monsieur," he resumed in a voice which was sibilant like that of a hyena, "you authorize all my efforts against you by calling the police to your aid. You will perish. Monsieur. It is necessary. Do you love Madame Jules ? Are you beloved of her ?
(79)
8o FERRAGUS
By what right do you trouble her peaceful life and blacken her virtue ? ' '
Someone entered the room. Ferragus rose to go.
"Do you know this man.?" asked Monsieur de Maulincour, seizing Ferragus by the collar.
But Ferragus quickly disengaged himself, took Monsieur de Maulincour by the hair and shook him scoffmgly by the head several times.
"Must you absolutely have lead in it to render it wise.'"' said he.
"Not personally, Monsieur, " replied de Marsay, the witness of this scene; "but I know that he is Monsieur de Funcal, a very rich Portuguese."
Monsieur de Funcal had disappeared. The baron followed in pursuit without being able to overtake him, and when he reached the peristyle he saw Ferragus, who regarded him with a jeering laugh from a brilliant equipage, which was driven away at high speed.
"Monsieur, if you please," said Auguste, re- entering the salon and addressing de Marsay, whom he knew, "where does Monsieur de Funcal live?"
"I do not know, but someone here can no doubt inform you."
The baron, having questioned the Prefect, ascer- tained that the Comte de Funcal lived at the Portu- guese Embassy. At this moment, while he still felt the icy finger of Ferragus in his hair, he saw Madame Jules in all her dazzling beauty, fresh, gracious, artless, resplendent with that womanly sanctity which had won his love. This creature,
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 8 1
infernal to him, no longer excited in his soul any emotion but hatred, and this hatred overflowed, bloody, terrible, in his eyes; he watched for the moment when he could speak to her without being overheard by anyone, and then said to her:
"Madame, here are already three times that your bravi have missed me — "
"What can you mean. Monsieur ?" she replied reddening. "I know that several unfortunate acci- dents have happened to you, which I have greatly regretted; but how could 1 have had anything to do with them?"
"You knew then that there were bravi sent against me by the man of the Rue Soly ? "
"Monsieur! "
"Madame, now I will not be alone in calling you to account, not for my happiness, but for my blood—"
At this moment Jules Desmarets approached.
"What are you saying to my wife. Monsieur? "
"Come to enquire at my house if you are curious. Monsieur."
And Maulincour went out, leaving Madame Jules pale and almost fainting.
There are very few women indeed who have not found themselves, at least once in their lives, apropos of some undeniable fact, confronted with a direct, sharp uncompromising interrogation, one of those questions pitilessly asked by their husbands and of which the apprehension alone gives a chill, of which the very first word enters the heart like 6
1
V
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the steel of a dagger. Hence this maxim, "All women lie." Officious falsehood, venial falsehood, sublime falsehood, horrible falsehood, — but always the obligation to lie. This obligation once ad- mitted, is it not necessary to know how to lie well.? French women do it admirably. Our customs so readily teach them deception ! And then, woman is so naively impertinent, so pretty, so graceful, so truthful in her lying; she recognizes so fully the utility of it in order to avoid, in social life, the violent shocks which happiness might not be able to resist that it is as necessary to her as the cotton- wool in which she puts away her jewels. False- hood becomes for women, thus, the foundation of speech, and truth is only an exception ; they use it, just as they are virtuous, through caprice or by cal- culation. Moreover, according to their individual character, some women laugh in lying, some others weep, these become grave, those grow angry. After beginning life by feigning indifference to the homage that flatters them the most, they often end by lying to themselves. Who has not admired their apparent superiority to everything at the very moment when they are trembling for the mysterious treasures of their love? Who has never studied their ease, their facility, their freedom of spirit in the greatest embarrassments of life? With them, noth- ing is borrowed; deception flows as easily as the snow falls from the sky. Then with what art do they discover the truth in others ! With what clev- erness do they employ the most direct logic in
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 83
answer to some passionate question which has revealed to them the secret of the heart of a man who is guileless enough to proceed by questioning them ! To question a woman, is not that to deliver one's self up to her? Will she not learn all which we seek to hide from her, and will she not know how to be silent in speaking? And some men have the pretension of being able to struggle with a Par- isian woman! With a woman who knows how to hold herself above all dagger-thrusts, saying, — "You are very inquisitive! What does it matter to you ? Why do you wish to know? Ah ! you are jealous! And suppose I do not choose to answer you ? " — in short, with a woman who possesses the hundred and thirty-seven thousand manners of say- ing "No," and incommensurable variations of the word, "YES." The treatise on the "Yes" and the "No," is it not one of the finest works, diplomatic, philosophic, logographic and moral, which still remains for us to write? But to accomplish this diabolic work, will not an androgynous genius be necessary? For that reason, probably, it will never be attempted. Besides, of all unpublished works, is not that the best known and the best practiced among women? Have you ever studied the be- havior, the pose, the disinvoltura of a falsehood ? Examine it Madame Desmarets was seated in the right hand corner of her carriage, and her husband in the left corner. Having forced herself to recover from her emotion in coming out of the ball-room, Madame Jules now affected a calm demeanor. Her
84 FERRAGUS
husband had said nothing to her, and he still said nothing. Jules looked out of the carriage window at the black walls of the silent houses before which he passed ; but suddenly, as if driven by a deter- mining thought, in turning the corner of a street he examined his wife who appeared to be cold in spite of the fur-lined pelisse in which she was wrapped ; he thought she seemed pensive, and per- haps she really was pensive. Of all those things which are communicable, reflection and gravity are the most contagious.
"What was it, that Monsieur de Maulincour said to you that could affect you so keenly.-"' said Jules; "and why does he wish me to go to his house and find out ? "
"He can tell you nothing in his house that I can- not tell you here," she replied.
Then, with that feminine craft which always slightly degrades virtue, Madame Jules waited for another question. Her husband turned his face to the houses again and continued his study of the porte-cocheres. Another question, would it not be a suspicion, a distrust.'' To suspect a woman is crime in love; Jules had already killed a man with- out having doubted his wife. Clemence did not know all there was of true passion, of deep reflec- tion, in her husband's silence, just as Jules was ignorant of the wonderful drama that was wringing the heart of his Clemence. And the carriage rolled on through a silent Paris, bearing two lovers who adored each other, and who, softly reclining on the
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 85
same silken cushions, were nevertheless separated by an abyss. In these elegant coupes returning from a ball between midnight and two o'clock in the morning, how many curious and singular scenes must pass, — restricting ourselves only to those coupes whose lanterns light both the street and the carriage, those with their windows un- shaded, in short the coupes of legitimate love, in which the couples can quarrel without fearing to be seen by the passers-by, because the civil code gives the right to provoke, to beat, or to kiss a wife in a carriage or elsewhere, anywhere, every- where ! How many secrets must be thus revealed to nocturnal pedestrians, to those young men who have gone to a ball in a carriage, but are obliged, for whatever cause it may be, to return on foot. It was the first time that Jules and Clemence had found themselves thus, each in a corner. Usually the husband pressed close to his wife.
"It is very cold," said Madame Jules.
But her husband did not hear her. He was study- ing all the black signs above the shop windows.
"Clemence," he said at last. "Forgive me the question I am about to ask you."
He came closer, took her by the waist and drew her towards him.
"My God! it is coming!" thought the poor wo- man.
"Well," she said aloud, anticipating the ques- tion, "you wish to learn what Monsieur Maulincour said to me. 1 will tell you Jules, but not without
86 FERRAGUS
terror. Mon Dieii, is it possible that we should have secrets from each other ? For the last few moments I have seen you struggling between your conviction of our love and vague fears; but that conviction is clear within us, is it not, and your suspicions, do they not seem to you dark and un- natural? Why not remain in that clear light of confidence which pleases you? When I have told you all, you will still desire to know more; and yet I myself do not know what was hidden beneath the extraordinary words of that man. And what I fear is, that this may lead to some fatal affair between you. I would much prefer that we both forget this unpleasant moment. But in any case, swear to me that you will let this singular adventure explain itself naturally. Monsieur de Maulincour declared to me that the three accidents of which you have heard, —the falling of a stone on his servant, the breaking down of his cabriolet, and his duel about Madame de Serizy — were the result of some plot I had laid against him. Then he threatened to reveal to you the notion which inclined me to assassinate him. Can you imagine what all this means? My emotion came from the impression produced upon me by the sight of his face expressive of insanity, his haggard eyes and his words broken by some violent inward emotion. I thought him mad. This is all. Now, I should not be a woman if 1 had not perceived that for more than a year I had become, as they call it, the passion of Monsieur de Maulin- cour. He has never seen me except at a ball, and
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 87
our intercourse had always been insignificant, like that which one has at balls. Perhaps he wishes to disunite us, so that he may find me at some future time alone and unprotected. There, see already you are frowning! Oh, how cordially I hate society. We were so happy without him ! why take any notice of him ? Jules, promise me to forget all this. To-morrow we shall no doubt hear that Monsieur de Maulincour has gone mad."
"What a singular affair !" thought Jules as he descended from the carriage under the peristyle of his stairway.
He gave his arm to his wife, and together they went up to their apartments.
To develop this history in all its truth of detail, and to follow its course through all its windings, it is necessary here to divulge some of love's secrets, to glide beneath the ceilings of a marriage chamber, not shamelessly, but like Trilby, frightening neither Dougal nor Jeannie, alarming no one, being as chaste as our noble French language requires, as bold as was the pencil of Gerard in his painting of Daphnis and Chloe. The bedroom of Madame Jules was a sacred spot. Herself, her husband, and her maid alone entered it. Opulence has some noble privileges, and the most enviable are those which permit the development of the sentiments to their fullest extent, fertilizing them by the accom- plishment of their thousand caprices, surrounding them with that brilliancy which enlarges them, with those refinements which purify them, with
88 FERRAGUS
those delicacies which render them still more allur- ing. If you hate dinners on the grass and meals ill- served, if you experience a pleasure at the sight of a damask cloth of a dazzling whiteness, a silver gilt service, porcelains of exquisite purity, of a table served with gold, rich with chased silverware, lighted by transparent candles, where miracles of the most exquisite cookery are served under covers with armorial bearings,— you must, to be consist- ent, leave the garrets at the tops of the houses, the grisettes in the streets, abandon the garrets, the grisettes, the umbrellas and pattens to those peo- ple who pay for their dinners with tickets; then you will be able to comprehend love as a principle which only develops in all its grace on carpets of the Savonnerie, beneath the opal light of an alabas- ter lamp, between guarded and discreet walls hung with silk, before a gilded hearth in a chamber deaf- ened to the sounds of the neighbors, street and every- thing by shades, by shutters, by billowy curtains. You will require mirrors in which to show the play of form, and in which may be repeated infinitely the woman whom we would multiply, and whom love often multiplies; then very low divans; then a bed which, like a secret, is divined without being shown; then, in this coquettish chamber are fur- lined slippers for naked feet, wax candles under glass with muslin draperies, by which to read at all hours of the night, and flowers, not those oppres- sive to the head, and linen, the fineness of which might have satisfied Anne of Austria. Madame
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 89
Jules had realized this delightful programme, but that was nothing. Any woman of taste could have done as much, although, nevertheless, there was in the arrangement of these details a stamp of person- ality, which gives to this ornament, to that detail, a character that cannot be imitated. To-day more than ever reigns the fanaticism of individuality. The more our laws tend to an impossible equality, the more we get away from it in our manners and customs. Thus, the rich people in France are begin- ning to become more exclusive in their tastes and in their belongings than they have been for the last thirty years. Madame Jules knew well to what this programme tended, and had arranged every- thing about her in harmony with a luxury that suits so well with love. The Quince Cents Francs et Ma Sophie, or love in a cottage, are the dreams of starvelings to whom black bread suffices in their present state, but who, become gourmands if they really love, end by carving all the luxuries of gas- tronomy. Love holds toil and poverty in horror. It would rather die than live from hand to mouth. Most women returning from a ball, impatient for their beds, throw off anywhere their gowns, their faded flowers, their bouquets, the fragrance of which has now departed. They leave their little shoes beneath a chair, walk about in loose slippers, take out their combs and let their hair roll down as it will. Little they care if their husbands see the clasps, the hair pins, the artful props which sup- ported the elegant edifice of the hair and of its
QO FERRAGUS
dressing. No more mysteries, — everything is let down before the husband, there is no longer any embellishing for the husband. The corset — the most part of the time strictly cared for — lies where it is thrown if the too sleepy maid forgets to take it away with her. Then the whalebone bustle, the oiled silk protections under the sleeves, the pads, the false hair sold by the coiffeur, all the false wo- man, is there, scattered about in open sight Dis- jecta membra poeice, the artificial poetry so much admired by those for whom it has been conceived, elaborated, the fragments of the pretty woman, litter all the corners of the room. To the love of a husband who yawns, the actual woman presents herself, also yawning, in an inelegant disorder and with a tumbled nightcap, that of last night, that of to-morrow night also:
"For, really Monsieur, if you want a pretty night- cap to rumple every night, give me some more pin- A money.
There's life as it is! A woman is always old and unpleasing to her husband, but always dainty, elegant and adorned for the other, for that rival of all husbands, for that world which calumniates and tears to shreds her sex. Inspired by a true love, for love has like other beings its instinct of self- preservation, Madame Jules did very differently, and found in the constant benefits of her happy state the necessary impulse to accomplish all those min- ute personal duties which ought never to be relaxed, because they perpetuate love. These cares, these
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 9I
duties, do they not proceed moreover from a per- sonal dignity which is ravishingly becoming? Are they not subtle flatteries, is this not to respect in one's self the beloved one ? So Madame Jules had denied to her husband all access to her dressing- room where she changed her ball dress, and whence she issued dressed for the night, mysteriously adorned for the mysterious fetes of her heart In entering the chamber, which was always elegant and graceful, Jules saw there a woman coquet- tishly enveloped in an elegant peignoir, her hair simply wound in heavy coils around her head; for, not fearing to disarrange them, she guarded them neither from the sight nor the touch of love; a woman always more simple, more beautiful then, than she was before the world ; a woman who had found refreshment in her bath, and whose only artifice consisted in being whiter than her muslins, fresher than the freshest perfume, more seductive than the most skilful courtesan, in short, always tender and therefore always loved. This admirable understanding of a wife's business was the great secret of Josephine's charm for Napoleon, as it was in former times that of Cassonia for Caius Calig- ula, of Diane de Poitiers for Henri II. But, if it was largely productive for women who have counted seven or eight lustres, what a weapon it is in the hands of young women! A husband gathers with delight the rewards of his fidelity.
So now, on returning home after this conversa- tion which had chilled her with fear and which still
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gave her the keenest anxiety, Madame Jules took particular pains with her toilet for the night She wished to make herself, and she did make herself, enchanting. She girdled the batiste of her peignoir slightly opening the corsage, let her black hair fall on her rounded shoulders; her perfumed bath had given her an intoxicating fragrance; her bare feet were in velvet slippers. Strong in her sense of her advantages, she came in, stepping softly, and put her hands over her husband's eyes whom she found standing thoughtfully in his dressing-gown, his elbow on the mantel and one foot on the fender. She said in his ear, warming it with her breath and biting the end of it gently with her teeth:
"What are you thinking about. Monsieur?"
Then, clasping him closely, she enveloped him with her arms to tear him away from his evil thoughts. The woman who loves has a full knowl- edge of her power; and the more virtuous she is the more effectual is her coquetry.
"About you," he answered.
"Only about me.?"
"Yes."
"Oh, that is a very bold 'Yes ' "
They went to bed. As she fell asleep Madame Jules said to herself:
"Decidedly, Monsieur de Maulincour will be the cause of some evil. Jules is preoccupied, disturbed, and nursing thoughts he does not tell me."
It was about three o'clock in the morning when she was awakened by a presentiment which had
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 93
struck her heart as she slept. She had a percep- tion, at once physical and moral, of her husband's absence. She did not longer feel the arm which Jules passed beneath her head, that arm on which she had slept, peaceful and happy for five years, and which she never wearied. A voice had said to her, "Jules suffers, Jules is weeping—" She raised her head and then sat up, felt that her hus- band's place was cold, and saw him sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, his head resting on the back of an armchair. He had tears on his cheeks. The poor woman threw herself hastily from her bed and sprang at a bound to her husband's knee.
"Jules, what is it? Are you suffering — speak! tell me! speak to me if you love me."
And in a moment she poured out to him a hundred words expressive of the deepest tenderness.
Jules knelt at the feet of his wife, kissed her knees, her hands, and answered her with fresh tears :
"My dear Clemence, 1 am most unhappy! It is not loving to distrust your mistress, and you are my mistress. 1 adore you, and suspect you. — The words which that man said to me this evening have struck to my heart; they stay there in spite of my- self, to confound me. There is underneath it all some mystery. In short, and I blush for it, your explanations have not satisfied me. My reason offers me a certain light which my love causes me to reject. It is an awful combat. Could I stay there, holding your head and suspecting thoughts
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within it, to me unknown? — Oil, I believe in you, 1 believe in you," cried he, quickly, seeing her smile sadly and open her mouth as if to speak. "Do not say anything to me — reproach me with nothing. From you, the least word would kill me. Besides, could you say a single thing to me which I have not said to myself for the last three hours ? Yes, for three hours I have been here, watching you as you slept, so beautiful, admiring your fore- head, so pure, so peaceful. Oh! yes, you have always told me all your thoughts, have you not? I alone am in your soul. While I look at you, while my eyes can plunge into yours, I see all plainly. Your life is always as pure as your glance is clear. No, there is no secret behind those transparent eyes."
And he rose and kissed them softly.
"Let me avow to you, my dearest, that for the last five years that which has increased my happi- ness day by day was the knowledge that you had none of those natural affections which always take away a little from love. You had no sister, nor father, nor mother, nor companion, and I was there- fore neither above nor below any one else in your heart; I was there alone. Clemence, repeat to me all those sweet things of the spirit you have so often said to me; do not blame me, console me, I am unhappy. I have certainly an odious suspicion with which to reproach myself, and you — you have nothing in your heart to inflame you. My beloved, tell me, could I rest thus beside you ? Could two
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 95
heads united as ours have been, lie on the same pillow when one was suffering and the other tran- quil ? — What are you thinking of?'' he cried abruptly observing that Clemence was anxious, confused, and could not restrain her tears.
"I am thinking of my mother," she answered in a grave voice. "You will never know, Jules, the sorrow of your Clemence obliged to remember the dying farewells of her mother in hearing your voice, the sweetest of all music; and in thinking of the solemn pressure of the icy hand of a dying one in feeling the caresses of yours, at the moment when you overwhelm me with the assurances of your delightful love."
She raised her husband, took hold of him, strained him to her with a nervous force much greater than that of a man, kissed his hair, and cov- ered it with her tears.
"Ah! I would be hacked to pieces for you! Tell me that I make you happy, that I am to you the most beautiful of women, that I am a thousand wo- men for you. But you are loved as no other man ever will be. I do not know the meaning of the words duty, and virtue. Jules, I love you for your- self, I am happy in loving you, and I will love you more and more until my last breath. I have pride in my love, 1 feel that I am destined to have only one sentiment in my whole life. What I am going to say to you is dreadful perhaps, — I am glad to have no child, and I do not wish for any. I feel myself more wife than mother. Well ! then, have
96 FERRAGUS
you fears? Listen to me, my love, promise me to forget, not this hour of mingled tenderness and doubt, but the words of that madman. Jules, I wish it Promise me not to see him, not to go to him. I have a conviction that if you make one step more into this maze, we shall both roll into an abyss in which I shall perish, but with your name upon my lips and your heart in my heart Why do you hold me so high in your soul and yet so low in reality? How is it that you, who give credit to so many as to money, cannot give up to me the beg- garly gift of a suspicion ; and, for the first occasion in your life in which you might prove to me a boundless faith, you dethrone me in your heart! Between a madman and me, it is the madman whom you believe! — Oh Jules — "
She stopped, threw back the hair that fell about her brow and her neck, then in a heart-rending tone she added :
"I have said too much, one word should suffice. If your soul and your forehead still keep this cloud, however light it may be, know well that I shall die of it!"
She could not repress a shudder and turned pale.
"Oh! I will kill that man," thought Jules, as he lifted his wife in his arms and carried her to her bed. — "Let us sleep in peace my angel," he con- tinued. "I have forgotten all, 1 swear it to you."
Clemence fell asleep to the music of these sweet words, more softly repeated. Jules, as he watched her sleeping, said in his heart:
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 97
"She is right, when love is so pure, a suspicion blights it. For that soul so fresh, for that brow so tender, a blemish, yes, that would mean death."
When, between two beings filled with affection for each other and whose lives are in constant com- munion, a cloud has come, although this cloud may be dissipated, it leaves in these souls some trace of its passage. Either, the mutual tenderness becomes more living, as the earth is rejuvenated after the shower; or, the shock still echoes like distant thun- der through a cloudless sky; but it is impossible to recover absolutely the former life, and it will inev- itably happen that love will either increase or diminish. At breakfast. Monsieur and Madame Jules showed to each other those particular atten- tions in which there is always a little affectation. There were glances full of a gaiety which seemed almost forced, and which seemed to be the efforts of persons endeavoring to deceive themselves. Jules had involuntary doubts, and his wife had posi- tive fears. Nevertheless, sure of each other, they had slept. Was this strained condition the effect of a want of faith, or of the memory of their noctur- nal scene? They did not know themselves. But they loved each other, they loved each other so purely that the impression at once cruel and benefi- cent of that scene could not fail to leave its traces in their souls; both of them eager to make those traces disappear, and each wishing to be the first to return to the other, they could not yet fail to think of the first cause, of this first discord. For loving 7
98 FERRAGUS
souls, this is not grief, pain is still far distant; but it is a sort of mourning which is difficult to depict. If there are indeed relations between colors and the agitation of the soul, if, as Locke's blind man said, scarlet produces on the sight the effects produced on the ear by a fanfare of trumpets, it may perhaps be permissible to compare this reaction of melan- choly to soft gray tones. But love saddened, love in which remains a true sentiment of its happiness momentarily troubled, gives voluptuous pleasure which, derived from pain and pleasure both, are all novel. Jules studied his wife's voice, he watched her glances with the freshness of feeling that had inspired him in the earliest moments of his passion for her. The memory of five perfectly happy years, the beauty of Clemence, the candor of her love, promptly effaced in her husband's mind the last ves- tiges of an intolerable pain.
This next day was Sunday, a day on which there was no Bourse and no business; the two therefore passed the whole day together, getting farther into each others' hearts than they had ever yet done, like two children who in a moment of fear hold each other tightly, pressing together, and clasp each other united by a common instinct. There are in this life of two in one, completely happy days, due to chance, without any connection with yester- day or to-morrow, ephemeral flowers! — Jules and Clemence enjoyed this delicious day as though they had a foreboding that it would be the last of their loving life. What name shall we give to that
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 99
unknown power which hastens the steps of the trav- eler before the storm is yet visible, which makes the dying resplendent with life and with beauty a few days before his death and inspires him with the most joyous projects for the future, which tells the midnight student to turn up his lamp while it still shines brightly, which makes a mother to fear the too thoughtful look cast upon her infant by an observing man? We are all affected by this in- fluence in the great catastrophes of our life and we have not yet either named or studied it; it is some- thing more than presentiment and it is not yet sight. All went well until the following day. On Monday, Jules Desmarets, obliged to go to the Bourse at his usual hour, did not depart without asking his wife according to his custom if she wished to be driven anywhere in his carriage.
"No," she said, "the day is too unpleasant to go out."
In fact, it was raining in torrents. It was about half-past two when Monsieur Desmarets reached the Exchange and the Treasury. At four o'clock, in coming out of the Bourse, he found himself face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him there with that feverish pertinacity which is the result of hatred and vengeance.
"Monsieur, I have important communications to make to you," said the officer taking the broker by the arm. "Listen to me, I am too loyal a man to have recourse to anonymous letters which would trouble your peace of mind, I prefer to speak to you
100 FERRAGUS
in person. Moreover, believe that if it were not a question of my life I certainly should not interfere in any manner with the private affairs of a house- hold, even if I thought I had the right to do so."
"If what you have to say to me concerns Madame Desmarets," replied Jules, "I request you, Mon- sieur, to be silent."
"If I am silent, Monsieur, you may before long see Madame Jules on the prisoners' bench at the Court of Assizes, by the side of a convict. Now do you wish me to be silent.'' "
Jules turned pale, but his noble countenance instantly resumed a calm which was now false; then, drawing the officer under one of the temporary shelters of the Bourse near which they were stand- ing, he said to him in a voice which concealed his intense inward emotion:
"Monsieur, I will listen to you, but there will be between us a duel to the death, if — "
"Oh! to that 1 consent," cried Monsieur de Mau- lincour. "I have the greatest esteem for you. You speak of death. Monsieur ? You are doubtless igno- rant that your wife perhaps caused me to be poi- soned last Saturday evening. Yes, Monsieur, since day before yesterday something extraordinary has developed in me; my hair appears to distill in me through my head a fever and a deadly languor, and I know perfectly well what man touched my hair during the ball."
Monsieur de Maulincour then related, without omitting a single fact, his platonic love for Madame
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS lOI
Jules and the details of the adventure which began this narrative. Any one would have listened to him with as much attention as did the broker. But the husband of Madame Jules had good reason to be more amazed than any other human being. Here, his character displayed itself, he was more amazed than overwhelmed. Made a judge, and the judge of an adored woman, he found in his soul the equity of a judge, as he took the inflexibility of one. A lover still, he thought less of his own shattered life than of that of this woman; he listened not to his own anguish but to the far-off voice that cried to him, "Clemence cannot lie! Why should she betray you.-* "
"Monsieur," said the officer of the guards in con- cluding, "being absolutely certain of having recog- nized Saturday evening in Monsieur de Funcal that Ferragus whom the police declared dead, I have put immediately on his traces an intelligent man. As 1 returned home I remembered by a fortunate chance the name of Madame Meynardie, mentioned in the letter of that Ida, the presumed mistress of my per- secutor. Supplied with this one clue my emissary will soon discover for me the facts of this horrible affair, for he is far more able to discover the truth than the police themselves."
"Monsieur," replied the broker, "I do not know how to thank you for this confidence. You say that you can obtain proof, witnesses, I shall await them. I shall seek courageously the truth of this strange affair, but you will permit me to doubt everything
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until the evidence of these facts is proven to me. In any case, you shall have satisfaction, as you must know that such is demanded by both."
Jules returned home.
"What is the matter? "said his wife to him. You are so pale you frighten me."
"The day is cold," he answered walking with a slow step into that chamber in which everything spoke of happiness and of love, that chamber so calm in which was gathering a deadly tempest.
"You have not been out to-day? "he asked as though mechanically.
He was impelled to ask this question, doubtless, by the last of a thousand thoughts which had secretly gathered themselves together into a meditation, lucid although it was actively prompted by jeal- ousy.
"No," she answered with a false accent of candor.
At that moment Jules saw in the dressing-room of his wife some drops of rain on the velvet bonnet which she wore in the morning. He was a passion- ate man, but he was also full of delicacy, and it was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. In such a situation, everything is fin- ished for life between certain beings. And yet these drops of rain were like a flash which tore open his brain.
He left the room, went down to the porter's lodge and said to his concierge, after making sure that they were alone :
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS IO3
**Fouquereau, a hundred crowns of pension if you tell me the truth, dismissal if you deceive me, and nothing at all if, having told me the truth, you ever speak of my question and your answer."
He stopped to examine the concierge's face, leading him to the light of the window, and re- sumed :
"Did Madame go out this morning? "
"Madame went out at a quarter to three, and I think I saw her come in about half an hour ago."
"That is true, upon your honor?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"You will have the pension which I promised you ; but if you speak of this, remember my prom- ise, you will lose all."
Jules returned to his wife.
"Clemence, " he said to her, "I find I must put my household accounts in order, do not be offended at the inquiry I am going to make. Have I not given you forty thousand francs since the beginning of the year ? ' '
"More," she said, "forty-seven."
"Have you found use for them all ? "
"Why, yes," she replied. "In the first place, I had to pay several of our last year's bills — "
"I shall never find out anything in this way," thought Jules, "I am not taking the best course. "
At this moment his valet de chambre entered and handed him a letter, which he opened indifferently, but which he read eagerly as soon as his eyes had lighted on the signature.
104 FERRAGUS
"MONSIEUR,
"For the sake of your peace of mind as well as of our own I have taken the liberty of writing to you without possessing the advantage of being known to you; but my position, my age, and the fear of some misfortune compel me to entreat you to have some indulgence in the unfortunate circumstances in which our afflicted family now finds itself. Monsieur Auguste de Maulincour has for the last few days shown signs of mental derangement, and we fear that he may trouble your happiness by fancies which he has confided to us, Mon- sieur le Commandeur de Pamiers and myself, during his first attacks of fever. We think it right therefore to warn you of his malady, which is without doubt still curable; but it will have such grave and important effects on the honor of our family and the future of my grandson that I count on your entire discretion. If Monsieur le Commandeur or I, Mon- sieur, had been able to go to your house we would not have written; but 1 have no doubt that you will regard the prayer which is here made to you by a mother, to burn this letter.
"Accept the assurance of my distinguished consideration,
BARONNE DE MAULINCOUR, nee DE RIEUX."
"How many tortures! " cried Jules.
"But what is passing in your mind.!"' asked his wife, exhibiting the deepest anxiety.
"I have come," he answered, "to ask myself whether it can be you who have sent me this notice to divert my suspicions," he went on, throw- ing the letter to her. "Judge therefore what I suffer !"
"Unhappy man," said Madame Jules, letting fall the paper, "I pity him, although he has done me great harm."
"You know that he has spoken to me.^*"
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 105
**Oh, you have been to see him, in spite of your promise?" she cried, struck with terror.
"Clemence, our love is in danger of perishing, and we are outside of all the ordinary rules of life, let us then lay aside all petty considerations in pres- ence of the great perils. Listen, tell me why you went out this morning? Women think they have the right to tell us, sometimes, little falsehoods. Do they not like to amuse themselves often by conceal- ing pleasures which they are preparing for us? Just now you said to me, by mistake no doubt, one word for another, a no for a yes."
He went into the dressing-room and brought out the bonnet.
"See, now! without wishing to play here the part of Bartholo, your bonnet has betrayed you. These spots, are they not rain drops ? You must, therefore, have gone out in a street cab, and you must have received these drops of water either in going out to seek one, or entering the house to which you went, or in leaving it. But a woman can leave her own house most innocently, even after she has told her husband that she would not go out. There are so many reasons for changing our plans! To have caprices, is not that one of your rights? You are not obliged to be consistent with yourself. You had forgotten something, a service to render, a visit, or some kind action to do. But nothing hinders a woman from telling her husband what she has done. Does one ever blush on the breast of a friend? Well, it is not the jealous
I06 FERRAGUS
husband who speaks to you, my Clemence, it is the lover, it is the friend, it is the brother."
He flung himself passionately at her feet.
"Speak, not to justify yourself, but to calm my horrible suffering. I know well that you went out. Well, what did you do.? Where did you go? "
"Yes, I went out, Jules," she answered in an altered voice, although her face was calm. "But ask me nothing more. Wait with confidence; with- out which you will lay up for yourself eternal re- morse. Jules, my Jules, confidence is the virtue of love. I own to you that in this moment I am too much troubled to answer you ; but I am not an artful woman, and I love you, you know it."
"In the midst of all that can shake the faith of a man and rouse his jealousy, for I am not then the first in your heart, I am not then yourself i* — Well, Clemence, I still prefer to believe you, to believe your voice, to believe your eyes! If you deceive me, you deserve — "
"Oh! a thousand deaths," she said, interrupting him.
"I hide from you none of my thoughts, and you, — you — "
"Hush!" she said, "our happiness depends upon our mutual silence. "
"Ah! I will know all," he cried in a violent ac- cess of rage.
At that moment the cries of a woman were heard and the yelping of a shrill little voice came from the ante-chamber to the ears of husband and wife.
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 107
"I will enter, I tell you! " it cried. "Yes, I shall enter, 1 wish to see her, I will see her! "
Jules and Clemence rushed into the salon and they saw the door violently opened. A young woman entered suddenly, followed by two servants who said to their master :
"Monsieur, this woman would come in in spite of us. We told her that Madame was not at home. She answered that she knew very well that Madame had been out but she had seen her come in. She threatened to stay at the door of the house till she could speak to Madame."
"You can go," said Monsieur Desmarets to his domestics.
"What do you want. Mademoiselle?" he added, turning to the unknown.
This demoiselle was the type of a woman who is to be met with nowhere but in Paris. She is made in Paris, like the mud, like the pavement of Paris, as the water of the Seine is manufactured in Paris in grand reservoirs through which human industry filters it ten times before delivering it to the cut glass carafes in which it sparkles so clear and pure, from the muddiness that it had. She is therefore a creature truly original. Depicted scores of times by the painter's brush, the pencil of the caricaturist, the plumbago of the designer, she still escapes all analysis because she cannot be caught and rendered in all her moods, like nature, like this fantastic Paris. In fact, she holds to vice by but one spoke and breaks away from it at all the
I08 FERRAGUS
thousand other points of the social circumference. Moreover, she only lets one trait of her character be known, the only one which renders her blamable; her fine virtues are hidden; in her naive shame- lessness she glories. Incompletely rendered in dramas and tales in which she is put upon the scene with all her poesy, she is nowhere really true but in her garret, because she is always calumniated or over-praised elsewhere. Rich, she deteriorates; poor, she is misunderstood. And this could not be otherwise! She has too many vices and too many good qualities; she is too near to a sublime asphyx- iation or to a degrading laugh; she is too beautiful and too hideous; she personifies too well Paris, to which she furnishes the toothless portresses, the washwomen, the char-women, beggars, occasionally insolent countesses, admired actresses, applauded singers; she has even given in the olden time two quasi-Queens to the monarchy. Who can grasp such a Proteus ? She is all woman, less than wo- man, more than woman. From this vast portrait the painter of manners can take but certain details, the ensemble is the infinite. She was a grisette of Paris, but the grisette in all her splendor ; the grisette in a hackney-coach, happy, young, handsome, fresh, but a grisette with claws, with scissors, impudent as a Spanish woman, quarrelsome as a prudish Eng- lish woman proclaiming her conjugal rights, coquet- tish as a great lady, moreover frank and ready for everything; a.rea.\Honne issuing from the little apart- ment of which she had so often dreamed, with its red
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS IO9
calico curtains, its Utrecht velvet-covered furniture, the tea-table, the cabinet of china with painted designs, the sofa, the little moquette carpet, the ala- baster clock and candlesticks under glass, the yellow bed-room, the eider-down quilt, — in short all the joys of a grisette's life ; the housekeeper, a former grisette herself but a grisette with mustaches and chevrons; the theatre parties, the marrons unlimited, the silk dresses, the bonnets to spoil; in short, all the felic- ities imagined over the counter of the modiste, except the carriage, which only appears in the dreams of the counter as a marshal's baton does in those of a soldier. Yes, this grisette had all these things in return for a true affection, or in spite of a true affection, as some others obtain it for an hour a day, — a sort of tax carelessly paid under the claws of an old man. The young woman who was now in the presence of Monsieur and Madame Jules had a foot so uncovered in her shoe that only a slim black line was visible between the carpet and her white stocking. This peculiar footgear, which the Parisian caricature has so well rendered, is a spe- cial attribute of the Parisian grisette; but she is still better revealed to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to ad- here to her form, which they clearly define. Thus the unknown was, not to lose the picturesque expression invented by the French soldier, tied into a greenish dress with a yoke which revealed the beauty of her corsage perfectly visible; for her shawl of Ternaux cashmere, fallen to the floor, was
no FERRAGUS
only retained by the two corners which she held twisted around her wrists. She had a delicate face, rosy cheeks, a clear skin, sparkling gray eyes, a round and very prominent forehead, hair carefully smoothed which escaped from under her little bon- net in heavy curls upon her neck.
"My name is Ida, Monsieur. And if that is Madame Jules to whom I have the advantage of speaking, I've come to tell her all I have in my heart against her. It is very wrong when one is set up and when one is in her furniture, as you are here, to wish to take away from a poor girl a man with whom I am as good as married, morally, and who talks of repairing his wrongs by marrying me before the Municipality. There are plenty of hand- some young men in the world, ain't there, Mon- sieur.? to please her fancies without wishing to take from me a man of middle-age who makes my happiness. Quien! I haven't got a fine hotel, I — I have my love! I hate handsome men and money, I'm all heart, and — "
Madame Jules turned to her husband:
"You will allow me. Monsieur, not to hear any more of this," she said, re-entering her bedroom.
"If that lady lives with you, I have made a mess of it, I see; but so much the worser, " resumed Ida. "Why does she come to see Monsieur Ferragus every day? "
"You deceive yourself. Mademoiselle," said Jules stupefied. "My wife is incapable — "
"Ha, so you are married — you two!" said the
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS ill
grisette, showing some surprise. "Then it is much worse, Monsieur, isn't it, for a woman who has the happiness of being married in legal marriage to have relations with a man like Henri — "
"But what, Henri?" said Jules, taking Ida and leading her into an adjoining room that his wife might hear no more.
"Why, Monsieur Ferragus — "
"But he is dead," said Jules.
"Nonsense! I went to Franconi's with him yes- terday evening and he brought me home, as he should. Besides, your wife can give you news of him. Didn't she go to see him at three o'clock.? 1 know she did; I waited for her in the street, all because that good-natured man, Monsieur Justin, whom you know perhaps, a little old man with seals, who wears corsets, warned me that I had Madame Jules for a rival. That name, Monsieur, is well known among the fictitious ones. Excuse me since it is yours, but if Madame Jules was a Duch- ess of the Court, Henri is so rich that he could sat- isfy all her fancies. My business is to protect my property, and I have the right to; for love him, Henri, 1 do. He's my first inclination, and it con- cerns my happiness and all my future fate. I fear nothing, Monsieur; I am honest and I have never lied nor stolen the property of any living soul. If it was an Empress who was my rival I'd go straight to her; and if she carried away my future husband I feel capable of killing her, all empress as she was, because all pretty women are equals, Monsieur, — "
112 FERRAGUS
"Enough, enough," said Jules. "Where do you live?"
"Rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, No. 14, Mon- sieur. Ida Gruget, corset-maker at your service, for we make lots of corsets for men."
"And where does he live, the man whom you call Ferragus? "
"But, Monsieur," said she pursing up her lips, "in the first place he's not a man. He's a mon- sieur, much richer than you are, perhaps. But why do you ask me his address, when your wife knows it.'' He told me not to give it. Am I obliged to answer youi* — I am not, thank God, neither in a confessional nor a police court, and I'm responsible only to myself."
"And if I were to offer you twenty, thirty, forty thousand francs to tell me where Monsieur Ferragus lives? "
"O ! no, O no, my little friend, and that ends the matter! " she said, emphasizing this singular reply with a popular gesture. "There is no sum that would make me tell that. I have the honor to bid you good day. How does one get out of here? "
Jules, overwhelmed, allowed Ida to depart with- out thinking further of her. The whole world seemed to crumble beneath his feet; and over his head the heavens were falling in fragments.
"Monsieur is served," said his valet.
The valet and the footman waited in the dining- room a quarter of an hour without seeing their mas- ter or mistress.
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS II3
"Madame will not dine to-day, " said the waiting- maid, coming in.
"What's the matter, Josephine ? " asked the valet
"I don't know," she answered. "Madame is crying, and is going to bed. Monsieur has no doubt some affair on hand in the city, and it has been discovered at a very bad time, do you understand.^ I wouldn't answer for Madame's life. Men are so clumsy! They're always making scenes without any precaution."
"That's not so," replied the valet in a low voice, "on the contrary it is Madame who, — you under- stand.-' What time does Monsieur have to go after pleasure, he who for five years hasn't slept out of Madame's room once; who goes to his office at ten o'clock and only leaves it at noon for dejeuner.-' His life is all known, it is regular, while Madame goes out nearly every day at three o'clock, no one knows where."
"And Monsieur, too," said the maid taking her mistress's part.
' ' But Monsieur goes straight to the Bourse. Here's three times that I've told him that dinner was ready," continued the valet after a pause, "and you might as well speak to a post."
Jules entered.
"Where is Madame.?" he inquired.
"Madame is going to bed, her head aches," re- plied the maid, assuming an air of importance.
Jules then said very composedly, addressing his domestics : 8
114 FERRAGUS
"You can take it all away, I shall go and sit with Madame."
And he returned to his wife's room, where he found her weeping but endeavoring to smother her sobs in her handkerchief.
"Why do you weep?" said Jules to her. "You need expect from me neither violence nor reproaches. Why should I avenge myself ? If you have not been faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it — "
"Not worthy!"
These words repeated made themselves heard through her sobs, and the accent in which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules.
"To kill you, it would be necessary to love more than perhaps I do," he continued; "but I should never have the courage, I would kill myself rather, leaving you to your — happiness, and to — to whom ? ' '
He did not end his sentence.
"Kill yourself!" cried Clemence, flinging herself at the feet of Jules and clasping them.
But he, wishing to escape this embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging her in so doing toward the bed.
"Let me alone," he said.
"No, no! Jules," she cried. "If you love me no longer I shall die. Do you wish to know all ? "
"Yes."
He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed holding her between his legs;
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 15
then looking with a dry eye at that beautiful face, now red as fire though furrowed with tears :
"Now speak," he said.
Clemence's sobs began again.
"No, it is a secret of life and death. If I tell it, I — No I cannot. Have mercy, Jules! "
"You are still deceiving me — "
"Yes, Jules you may think that I am deceiving you, but soon you will know all."
"But this Ferragus, this convict, whom you go to see, this man enriched by crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him — "
"Oh Jules!—"
"Well, is he your mysterious benefactor, the man to whom we owe our fortune, as has already been said ? ' '
"Who said that?"
"A man whom I killed in a duel."
"Oh, God! one death already."
"If he is not your protector, if he does not give you money, if it is you who carry it to him, tell me, is he your brother ? "
"What if he were?" she said.
Monsieur Desmarets crossed his arms.
"Why should that have been concealed from me? " he resumed. "Then you have both deceived me, your mother and you? Besides, does a woman go to see her brother every day or nearly every day, eh?"
His wife had fainted at his feet.
"Dead," he said. "And if I were mistaken? "
Il6 FERRAGUS
He sprang to the bell rope, called Josephine, and lifted Clemence to the bed.
"I shall die of it," said Madame Jules, recover- ing consciousness.
"Josephine," cried Monsieur Desmarets, "send for Monsieur Desplein. Then you will go to my brother and ask him to come here as soon as possi- ble. ' '
"Why your brother?" asked Clemence.
Jules had already left the room.
*
For the first time in five years Madame Jules slept alone in her bed, and was compelled to admit a physician into that sacred chamber. These in themselves were two keen pangs. Desplein found Madame Jules very ill, never had a violent emotion been more untimely. He would not say anything definite, and postponed his opinion until the mor- row, after leaving a few directions which were not carried out, the emotions of the heart causing all bodily cares to be forgotten. When morning dawned Clemence had not yet slept. She was absorbed in the low murmur of a conversation which lasted several hours between the two brothers; but the thickness of the walls allowed no word which could betray the object of this long conference to reach her ears. Monsieur Desmarets, the notary, went away at last The stillness of the night and the singular activity of the senses given by strong emotion enabled Clemence to distinguish the scratching of a pen and the involuntary move- ments of a man engaged in writing. Those who are habitually up at night and who observe the different acoustic effects produced in absolute silence know that often a slight echo can be readily perceived in the same places where equable and continued murmurs are not distinct. At four o'clock the sound ceased. Clemence rose, anxious and
(117)
Il8 FERRAGUS
trembling. Then, with bare feet and without a wrapper, forgetting her moistened skin and her con- dition, the poor woman opened softly the door with- out making any noise. She saw her husband, a pen in his hand, sound asleep in his arm-chair. The candles had burned to the sockets. She slowly advanced and read on an envelope already sealed:
THIS IS MY WILL.
She kneeled down as if before a grave, and kissed the hand of her husband, who woke instantly.
"Jules, my dear, they grant some days to crim- inals condemned to death," she said looking at him with eyes lit up with fever and with love. "Your innocent wife only asks for two. Leave me free for two days, and — wait! After that I shall die happy, — at least you will regret me."
"Clemence, I grant them."
And then, as she kissed her husband's hand in a touching transport of her heart, Jules, under the spell of this cry of innocence, took her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead, thoroughly ashamed to feel himself still under the power of this noble beauty.
On the morrow, after taking a few hours' rest, Jules entered his wife's room, obeying mechanic- ally his custom of not leaving the house without seeing her. Clemence was asleep. A ray of light passing through a chink in the upper blind of the windows fell on the face of this overburdened
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS II9
woman. Already suffering had impaired her fore- head and the fresh redness of her lips. A lover's eye could not mistake the appearance of dark blotches and a sickly pallor which had replaced the uniform tone of the cheeks and the smooth white- ness of the skin, two pure pages on which were revealed so artlessly the sentiments of this beautiful soul.
"She suffers," thought Jules. "Poor Clemence, may God protect us ! "
He kissed her very softly on the forehead. She woke, saw her husband and remembered all ; but, unable to speak, she took his hand and her eyes filled with tears.
"I am innocent," said she, ending her dream.
"You will not go out to-day? " asked Jules.
"No, 1 feel too weak to leave my bed."
"If you should change your mind, wait till I return," said Jules.
Then he went down to the porter's lodge.
"Fouquereau, you will watch your door to-day closely, I wish to know exactly who comes to the house and who leaves it."
Then he threw himself into a hackney-coach, caused himself to be driven to the Hotel de Maulin- cour and there asked for the baron.
"Monsieur is ill," he was told.
Jules insisted on entering, gave his name; and, if he could not see Monsieur de Maulincour, he wished to see the vidame or the dowager. He waited some time in the salon of the old baroness,
I20 FERRAGUS
who came to see him and told him that her grand- son was much too ill to receive him.
"I know, Madame," replied Jules, "the nature of his illness from the letter which you did me the honor to write to me, and I beg you to believe — "
"A letter to you. Monsieur! written by me!" cried the dowager, interrupting him; "but I have written no letter. And what was I made to say. Monsieur, in that letter ? "
"Madame," replied Jules, "intending to see Monsieur de Maulincour to-day and to return you this letter I thought it best to preserve it in spite of the injunction with which it ends. There it is."
The dowager rang for her spectacles, and the mo- ment she cast her eyes on the paper she exhibited the greatest surprise.
"Monsieur," she said, "my writing is so per- fectly imitated that if the matter were not so recent I might be deceived myself. My grandson is ill, it is true. Monsieur; but his reason has never been the least bit in the world affected. We are the puppets of some evil persons; and yet I cannot imagine the object of this impertinence. — You shall see my grandson, Monsieur, and you will at once perceive that he is perfectly sound in his mind."
And she rang the bell again and sent to ask if the baron could receive Monsieur Desmarets. The valet returned with an affirmative answer. Jules ascended to the apartment of Auguste de Maulin- cour, whom he found seated in an arm-chair near the fire, and who, too feeble to rise, saluted him
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 121
with a melancholy gesture; the Vidame de Pamiers was sitting with him.
"Monsieur le Baron," said Jules, "I have some- thing to say to you of such a nature as to make it desirable that we should be alone,"
"Monsieur," replied Auguste, "Monsieur leCom- mandeur knows all about this affair and you can speak fearlessly before him."
"Monsieur le Baron," resumed Jules in a grave voice, "you have troubled, well nigh destroyed my happiness, without having any right to do so. Until the moment when we shall be able to see which of us should demand or should grant repara- tion to the other you are bound to help me in fol- lowing the dark and mysterious path into which you have flung me. I have now come to ascertain from you the present residence of the mysterious being who exercises such a fearful influence on our destinies and who seems to have at his orders a supernatural power. On my return home yester- day, after hearing your statements, I received this letter."
And Jules handed him the forged letter.
"This Ferragus, this Bourignard, or this Mon- sieur de Funcal, is a demon!" cried Maulincour after having read it. "Into what a frightful maze have I put my foot? Where am I going? — I did wrong. Monsieur," he added looking at Jules; "but death is certainly the greatest of all expiations, and my death is approaching. You can then ask me whatever you desire, I am at your orders."
122 FERRAGUS
"Monsieur, you should know where this unknown lives, I wish positively to penetrate this mystery, even if it should cost me my whole fortune; and in presence of an enemy so cruelly intelligent every moment is precious."
"Justin shall tell you all," replied the baron.
At these words the Commander fidgeted in his chair.
Auguste rang the bell.
"Justin is not in the house," cried the vidame with a hastiness that revealed much.
"Well then," said Auguste excitedly, "the other servants must know where he is, send a man on horseback to fmd him. Your valet is in Paris, isn't he ? He can be found. "
The Commander was visibly distressed.
"Justin cannot come, my dear boy," said the old man. "He is dead. I wished to conceal this acci- dent from you, but — "
"Dead! " cried Monsieur de Maulincour, "dead.? And when? And how?"
"Last night. He had been supping with some old friends and was doubtless drunk; his friends, as full of wine as he, left him lying in the street A heavy vehicle ran over him — "
"The convict did not miss him. At the first stroke he killed him," said Auguste. "He has not been so lucky with me, he has been obliged to try four times."
Jules became gloomy and thoughtful.
"I shall not know anything, then," he cried after
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 23
a long pause. "Your valet has perhaps been justly- punished! Did he not exceed your orders in calum- niating Madame Desmarets to a person named Ida, whose jealousy he roused in order to turn her loose upon us."
"Ah! Monsieur in my anger I abandoned Madame Jules to him."
"Monsieur!" cried the husband, keenly irri- tated.
"Oh! at present, Monsieur," replied the officer claiming silence by a gesture of the hand, "I am ready for all. You cannot make any better that which is already done, and you cannot tell me any- thing that my own conscience has not already said to me. I am now expecting this morning the most celebrated of professors of toxicology, in order to learn my fate. If I am doomed to intolerable suffer- ing, my resolution is taken, I shall blow out my brains."
"You talk like a child," cried the Commander, horrified by the coolness with which the baron said these words. "Your grandmother would die of grief."
"Then, Monsieur," said Jules, "there is no means of discovering in what part of Paris this extraordinary man resides?"
"I think. Monsieur," replied the old man, "from what I have heard poor Justin say, that Monsieur de Funcal lived at the Portuguese Embassy or at that of Brazil. Monsieur de Funcal is a gentleman who belongs to both those countries. As for the convict,
124 FERRAGUS
he is dead and buried. Your persecutor, whoever he is, seems to me so powerful that it would be well for you to accept him under his new shape until the moment when you will have the power of confound- ing and of crushing him ; but act with prudence, my dear Monsieur. If Monsieur de Maulincour had followed my advice, nothing of all this would have happened."
Jules retired coldly but with politeness, and now knew of no means to take to reach Ferragus. As he passed into his own house his concierge told him that Madame had gone out to throw a letter into the post box at the head of the Rue de Menars. Jules felt himself humiliated at this proof of the great intelligence with which his concierge espoused his cause and the cleverness with which he guessed the way to serve him. The zealousness of servants and their peculiar skill in compromising masters who compromise themselves, were known to him, the danger of having them for accomplices, no mat- ter for what purpose, he fully appreciated; but he could not think of his personal dignity until the moment when he found himself thus suddenly degraded. What a triumph for the slave incapable of raising himself to his master, to bring down his master to his own level ! Jules was harsh and hard. Another fault. But he suffered so deeply! His life, till this moment so upright, so pure, was becoming crooked, and he was obliged now to scheme and to lie. And Clemence also lied and schemed. It was a moment of immense disgust
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 12$
Lost in an abyss of bitter thoughts, Jules stood mechanically motionless at the door of his house. At one moment, yielding to his despair, he thought of fleeing, of leaving France, carrying with his love all the illusions of uncertainty. Then, not doubting that the letter thrown into the post box by Clem- ence was addressed to Ferragus, he searched for a means of gaining possession of the answer which that mysterious being would send. Then, in ana- lyzing the singular good fortune of his life since his marriage, he asked himself whether the calumny for which he had taken such signal vengeance was not a truth. Finally, reverting to the coming answer from Ferragus, he said to himself:
"But this man so profoundly capable, so logical in his least acts, who sees, who foresees, who calcu- lates and divines our very thoughts, this Ferragus, is he likely to send an answer? Will he not be more likely to employ some other means more in keeping with his power.? Will he not send his answer by some skilful rascal, or perhaps in a package brought by some honest man who does not suspect what he brings, or in some parcel of shoes which a shop-girl may innocently deliver to my wife ? If Clemence and he have some understand- ing between them?"
And he distrusted everything, and his mind ran over the immense fields, the shoreless oceans, of conjecture; then, after having floated for a time among a thousand contradictory ideas, he felt he was strongest in his own house, and he resolved
126 FERRAGUS
to keep watch in it as an ant-lion does at the bottom of his sandy labyrinth.
"Fouquereau," he said to his concierge, "I am not at home to any one who comes to see me. If any one wishes to see Madame or brings anything for her, you will ring twice. And you will bring me all letters that are addressed here, no matter for whom they are intended. — Thus," bethought as he mounted to his study which was in the entresol, " I will foil the schemes of Maiter Ferragus. If he sends some messenger clever enough to ask for me, so as to find out if Madame is alone, at least I shall not be tricked like a fool."
He concealed himself in the windows of his study which looked out on the street and then by a final scheme inspired by jealousy he resolved to send his head clerk in his own carriage to the Bourse, in his place, with a letter to another broker, one of his friends, in which he explained his purchases and sales and requested him to attend to them for that day. He postponed his more delicate transac- tions till the morrow, careless of the fall or rise of stocks and of the debts of all Europe. High privi- lege of love! it crushes all things, everything pales before it, — the altar, the throne, and the consols. At half-past three o'clock, just at the hour in which the Bourse is in full blast of reports, monthly settle- ments, premiums, leases, etc., Jules saw Fouquereau enter his study, quite radiant.
"Monsieur, an old woman has just come, but take carCy I think she's a sly one. She asked for
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 127
Monsieur, seemed much annoyed not to find him in, then she gave me a letter for Madame, and here it is."
In a feverish anxiety Jules tore open the letter ; then he fell into his chair overcome. The letter was mere nonsense throughout and it would have required a key to read it. It was written in cipher.
"You can go, Fouquereau. "
The concierge went out
"It is a mystery, deeper than the sea where there are no soundings. Ah! it must be love, love only is so sagacious, so ingenious, as this correspondent. My God! I shall kill Clemence. "
At this moment a happy idea flashed through his brain with such brilliancy that he felt almost physi- cally illuminated by it. In the days of his toil- some poverty, before his marriage, Jules had made for himself a true friend, a half Pemeja. The ex- treme delicacy with which he had managed the susceptibilities of a man both poor and modest, the respect with which he had surrounded him, the ingenious address with which he had nobly com- pelled him to share his own opulence without per- mitting him to blush at it, increased their friend- ship. Jacquet continued faithful to Desmarets in spite of his wealth.
Jacquet, an upright man, a toiler, austere in his morals, had slowly made his way in that particular ministry which develops at the same time the greatest knavery and the greatest honesty. Hold- ing a situation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
X
128 FERRAGUS
he had charge of the most delicate division of its archives. Jacquet was in this ministry a species of glow-worm, casting his light on the secret corres- pondence, deciphering and classifying despatches. Placed somewhat higher than the mere bourgeois he found in these diplomatic affairs all that there was of the highest in subaltern ranks, and lived in obscurity, happy in a retirement which sheltered him from reverses, and satisfied to be able to pay in this humble manner his debt to the country. Hereditary associate in his mayoralty, he obtained, as the newspapers express it, all the consideration which was due him. Thanks to Jules, his position had been ameliorated by a worthy marriage. An unrecognized patriot, a ministerial one in fact, he contented himself with groaning in his chimney- corner over the course of the government. For the rest, Jacquet was in his own household an easy- going king, a man with an umbrella, who hired for his wife a carriage which he never entered himself. In short, to complete this sketch of this philoso- pher without knowing it, he had not yet suspected, and never would in all his life suspect all the advantages he might have drawn from his position, having for intimate friend a broker and knowing every morning all the secrets of the State. This man, sublime after the manner of that nameless soldier who died in saving Napoleon by a guivive, lived at the ministry.
In ten minutes Jules was in the office of records, Jacquet offered him a chair, placed methodically on
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 29
the table his green taffeta eye-shade, rubbed his hands, took up his snuff-box, stretched himself till his shoulder blades cracked, swelled out his chest, and said:
"What chance brings you here, Mosieur Des- marets ? What do you want with me ? "
" Jacquet, I have need of you to decipher a secret, a secret of life and death."
"It doesn't concern politics?"
"If it did, I shouldn't come to you for informa- tion," said Jules. "No, it is a family matter, con- cerning which 1 require of you the most profound silence."
"Claude- Joseph Jacquet, dumb by profession. You are not acquainted with me, then.?" he said laughing. "Discretion is my lot."
Jules showed him the letter saying to him:
"You must read me this letter addressed to my wife — "
"The devil, the devil, a bad business," said Jacquet, examining the letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. "Ah! that's d. gridiron letter. Wait a minute."
He left Jules alone in the office, but returned almost immediately.
"This is silliness, my friend! it is written with an old gridiron used by the Portuguese ambassador, under Monsieur de Choiseul, at the time of the dismissal of the Jesuits." Here, see.
Jacquet placed upon the writing a piece of paper, cut out in regular squares like one of those 9
130 FERRAGUS
paper-laces which the confectioners wrap around their sugar-plums, and Jules could then read with perfect ease the words that were visible in the interstices:
Have no more anxieties, my dear Cle'mence, our happiness will not be troubled any more by any one, and your husband will lay aside his suspicions. I cannot come to see you. However ill you may be, you must have the courage to come; make the effort, search for strength; you will fmd it in your love. My affection for you has induced me to submit to the most cruel of operations, and 1 cannot leave my bed. I had several moxas applied yesterday evening to the back of my neck, from one shoulder to the other, and it was necessary to let them burn a long time. You understand me? But I thought of you, and I did not suffer too much. To baffle all the investigations of de Maulincour, who will notpersecute us much longer, I have left the protecting roof of the Embassy and am now safe from all pursuit in the Rue des Enfants- Rouges, No. 12, with an old woman named Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida who will pay dearly for her silly prank. Come here to-morrow at nine in the morning. I am in a room which is reached only by an interior staircase. Ask for M. Camuset. Adieu till tomorrow. I kiss your forehead my darling.
Jacquet looked at Jules with a sort of honest terror which covered a true compassion and uttered his favorite exclamation in two separate and dis- tinct tones :
"The devil, the devil."
"That seems clear to you, does it not.?" said Jules. "Well, there is in the depth of my heart a voice which pleads for my wife, and which makes itself heard above all the pangs of jealousy. 1 shall
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 131
endure until to-morrow the most horrible of tortures ; but at least to-morrow between nine and ten o'clock I shall know all, and I shall be unhappy or happy for the rest of my life. Think of me then, Jacquet "
"I shall be at your house to-morrow at eight o'clock. We will go there together, and I will wait for you, if you like, in the street You may run some danger, and you ought to have near you some devoted person who will understand a mere sign and whom you can safely trust. Count on me."
"Even to help me to kill someone?"
"The devil, the devil!" said Jacquet, quickly, repeating, as it were, the same musical note, "I have two children and a wife — "
Jules pressed the hand of Claude-Jacquet and went away. But he returned precipitately.
"I forgot the letter," he said, "but that's not all, it must be resealed. "
"The devil, the devil! you opened it without saving the seal, but the impression is luckily deep enough. There, leave it with me, and I will bring it to you secundum scripturam."
"At what time.?"
"At half- past five—"
"If I am not yet in, just give it to the concierge and tell him to send it up to Madame."
"Do you want me to-morrow?"
"No, adieu."
Jules arrived promptly at the Place de la Rotonde- du-Temple, he left his cabriolet there and went on foot to Rue des Enfants-Rouges, where he examined
132 FERRAGUS
the house of Madame dtienne Gruget There would be cleared up the mystery on which depended the fate of so many persons ; Ferragus was there, and to Ferragus led all the threads of this strange intrigue. The coming together of Madame Jules, of her husband and of this man, would it not be the Gordian knot of this already bloody drama, and for which the blade would not be wanting that should cut the most intricate ties?
This house was one of those which belonged to the class called cahajoutis. This very significant name is given by the populace of Paris to those houses which are built, as it were, piecemeal. They are nearly always buildings originally separate but afterwards brought together according to the fancy of the various proprietors who have successively enlarged them ; or they are houses begun, left unfin- ished, again built upon, and finally completed; un- happy houses, which have passed, like certain peo- ples, under several dynasties of capricious masters. Neither the floors nor the windows form an ensem- ble, to borrow from the art of painting one of its most picturesque terms; everything is in discord, even the external decorations. The cabajoutis is to Parisian architecture what the capharnailm is to the apartments, a general receptacle in which all sorts of things are thrown higgledy-piggledy.
*'Madame Etienne?" asked Jules of the portress.
This portress had her lodge under the main en- trance, in one of those species of chicken coops, a little wooden house on rollers, and sufficiently like
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 33
those sentry boxes which the police have set up by all the stands of hackney-coaches.
"Hein?" said the portress, laying down the stocking she was knitting.
In Paris, the various component parts which make up the physiognomy of any given portion of this monstrous city are admirably in keeping with its general character. Thus, porter, concierge or Suisse, whichever name may be given to that essential muscle of the Parisian monster, is always in conformity with the neighborhood of which he is a part, and of which he is often an epitome. Lazy, and with lace on every seam of his coat, the con- cierge dabbles in stocks on the Faubourg-Saint- Germain; the porter takes his ease in the Chaus- see-d'Antin; he reads his newspapers in the Bourse quarter; he has a business of his own in the Faubourg Montmartre. The portress is a former prostitute in the quarter of prostitutes; in the Marais she has morals, is ill-natured and full of whims.
On seeing Jules this portress took a knife to stir the almost extinguished peat in her foot-warmer; then she said to him :
"You want Madame Etienne, is it Madame Etienne Gruget? "
"Yes," said Jules Desmarets, assuming a vexed air.
"Who makes passementerie.-"'
"Yes."
"Well, then. Monsieur," said she, issuing from
134 FERRAGUS
her cage, laying her hand on Jules's arm and leading him to the end of the long dark passage-way vaulted like a cellar, "you will go up the second staircase at the end of the courtyard. Do you see the win- dows where there are the pots of pinks ? That's where Madame j^tienne lives."
"Thank you, Madame. Do you think she is alone? "
"But why shouldn't she be alone, that woman,? She is a widow."
Jules hastened up a very dark stairway, the steps of which were lumpy with hardened mud left by the feet of those who came and went On the second floor he saw three doors, but no sign of pinks. Fortunately, on one of the doors the oiliest and the darkest of the three, he read these words written in chalk:
"Ida will come at nine o'clock to-night."
"This is the place," thought Jules.
He pulled an old bell-cord, black with age, with a handle, and heard the smothered sound of a cracked bell and the barking of an asthmatic little dog. The way in which the sounds manifested themselves in the interior announced an apartment encumbered with articles which left no space for the least echo, — a characteristic feature of the lodg- ings occupied by work-people, by the humble house- holds, in which space and air are always lacking. Jules looked about mechanically for the pinks and finally found them on the outer sill of a sliding win- dow, between two filthy drain-pipes. Here were
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 35
flowers; here, a garden two feet long and six inches wide; here, a wheat-ear; here, ail life epitomized, but here, afeo, all the miseries of that life. A ray of light, falling from heaven as if by special favor on these shabby flowers and this superb stalk of wheat, brought out in full distinctness the dust, the grease, and that nameless color peculiar to Parisian dens, a thousand uncleanlinesses which enclosed, spotted and made old, the damp walls, the worm- eaten baluster of the stairway, the disjointed win- dow casings and the doors originally painted red. Presently an old woman's cough and the heavy step of a woman shuffling painfully along in list slippers announced the mother of Ida Gruget. This old woman opened the door, came out on the landing, raised her head and said:
"Ah! it's Monsieur Bocquillon. Why no. For sure! how much you are like Monsieur Bocquillon. You are his brother, perhaps. What can 1 do for you.-* Come in. Monsieur. "
Jules followed this woman into the first room where he saw huddled together cages, household utensils, ovens, furniture, little earthenware dishes full of food or of water for the dog and the cats, a wooden clock, bed-quilts, engravings of Eisen, heaps of old iron, all these things mixed and tum- bled together in such a manner as to produce a most grotesque effect, the true capharnaiJm of Paris, to which were not lacking even a few old numbers •of the Constitiitionnel.
Jules, instigated by a sense of prudence, paid
136 FERRAGUS
no attention to the widow Gruget, who said to him:
"Come in here, Monsieur, and warm yourself."
Fearing to be overheard by Ferragus, Jules asked himself whether it would not be wiser to conclude in this first apartment the arrangement he had come to propose to the old woman. A hen which de- scended cackling from a loft roused him from his inward meditation. He came to a resolution; he therefore followed Ida's mother into the room with the fireplace, where they were accompanied by the wheezy little pug, a dumb personage, who jumped upon an old stool. Madame Gruget had displayed all the foolishness of semi-pauperism when she invited her visitor to warm himself. Her fire-pot concealed completely two brands sufficiently far apart. The skimmer lay on the ground, the handle in the ashes. The mantel-shelf, adorned with a little wax Jesus under a square glass-case bordered with bluish paper, was piled with wools, bobbins and utensils used in the making of trimmings. Jules examined all the furniture in the room with a curiosity full of interest, and showed in spite of himself a secret satisfaction.
"Well, Monsieur, tell me, do you want to make an arrangement for any of my things? " said the widow seating herself in a yellow cane arm-chair which seemed to be her headquarters.
In it she kept altogether her handkerchief, her snuff-box, her knitting, half-peeled vegetables, spectacles, a calendar, a bit of livery fringe just
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 37
commenced, a greasy pack of cards, and two volumes of novels, all stuck into the hollow of the back. This article of furniture, in which this old creature was floating down the river of life, resembled the encyclopedic bag which a woman carries with her when she travels and in which may be found a compendium of her household belongings, from the portrait of her husband to eau de Melisse for faint- ness, sugar-plums for the children, and English court-plaster in case of cuts.
Jules studied everything. He looked attentively at the yellow visage of Madame Gruget, at her gray eyes without eyebrows, deprived of lashes, her toothless mouth, her wrinkles black-shaded, her cap of rusty tulle with ruffles still more rusty, her cot- ton petticoats full of holes, her worn-out slippers, her broken fire-pot, her table heaped with plates and with silks and with unfinished work in cotton and in wool, in the midst of which appeared a bottle of wine. Then he said to himself:
"This woman has some passion, some hidden vice, — she is mine. — Madame," said he aloud, making a sign of intelligence to her, "I have come to order some trimmings of you — "
Then he lowered his voice.
"I know," he continued, "that you have with you an unknown who takes the name of Camuset. "
The old woman looked at him suddenly, but with- out giving the least sign of astonishment.
"Tell me, can he overhear us? Consider that this is a question of a fortune for you."
138 FERRAGUS
"Monsieur," she replied, "speak without fear, I have no one here. But if I had anyone up there, it would be impossible for him to hear you."
"Ah! the sly old creature, she knows how to answer like a Norman," thought Jules. "We shall be able to come to an agreement. — Do not give yourself the trouble to lie, Madame," he resumed. "In the first place, you must know that I mean no harm to you, nor to your lodger ill with his moxas, nor to your daughter Ida, the corset-maker, and friend of Ferragus. You see, I know all about it. Reas- sure yourself, I am not of the police, nor do I desire anything that can hurt your conscience. A young lady will come here to-morrow between nine and ten o'clock, to talk with the friend of your daughter, I want to be where I can see all and hear all, with- out being seen or heard by them. You will furnish me the means of doing so, and I will reward this service by a sum of two thousand francs paid down, and a yearly annuity of six hundred. My notary shall prepare the deed before you this evening; I will put in his hands your money, he will pay it to you to-morrow after the conference at which I desire to be present and during which I shall acquire proofs of your good faith."
"Will that injure my daughter, my dear Mon- sieur.?" she asked, throwing a suspicious and cat- like glance upon him.
"In no way, Madame. But, moreover, it seems to me that your daughter treats you pretty badly. A girl who is loved by a man as rich and as powerful
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 1 39
as Ferragus should find it easy to make you more comfortable than you seem to be."
"Ah! my dear Monsieur, not so much as one poor theatre ticket for the Ambigu or the Gaiete, where she can go as much as she likes. It's shameful! A girl for whom I sold my silver forks and spoons, and I now eat, at my age, with German metal, and all to pay her apprenticeship and give her a trade where she could coin money if she chose. For, as to that, she takes after me, she's as clever as a witch, I must do her that justice. At least she might give over to me her old silk dresses, I who am so fond of wearing silk. No, Monsieur; she goes to the Cadran Bleu, dinner at fifty francs a head, rolls in her carriage like a princess, and mocks at her mother as though she were just noth- ing at all. Dieu de Dieii! what heedless young ones we have brought into the world, it is the finest thing that can be said about us. A mother, Mon- sieur, that is a good mother ! for I have hidden her foolishness, and I have always kept her in my bosom, to take the bread out of my mouth and cram everything into her own. Ah! well now, she comes, she wheedles you, she says to you, 'how do you do. Mother.' And there's all her duty paid toward the author of her days. Go along, as I tell you. But she'll have children one of these days, and she'll find out what it is to have such bad bag- .gages, which one can't help loving all the same." "What! she does nothing for you.?" "Ah, nothing.? No, Monsieur, I don't say that;
I40 FERRAGUS
if she did nothing that would be a little too much. She pays my rent, gives me fire-wood and thirty- six francs a month. — But Monsieur what's that at ^y age, fifty-two years old, with eyes that ache at night, ought I to be still working? Besides, why won't she have me with her ? I should shame her there? Then let her say so. In truth, ought one to be buried out of the way for such dogs of children who have forgotten you even before they've shut the door?"
She pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket and with it a lottery ticket that dropped on the floor ; but she hastily picked it up saying:
"Hi ! That's the receipt for my taxes."
Jules at once perceived the reason of the sagacious parsimony of which the mother complained, and he was only the more certain that the widow Gru- get would agree to the proposed bargain.
"Well, then, Madame," he said, "accept what I offer you."
"You said, Monsieur, two thousand francs in ready money and six hundred annuity? "
"Madame, I've changed my mind and I will promise you only three hundred annuity. This way seems to me more to my interest. But I will give you five thousand francs in ready money. Wouldn't you like that better? "
"Bless me, yes. Monsieur."
"You will have more comfort, and you can go to the Ambigu-Comique, to Franconi's, everywhere, at your ease, in a hackney-coach. "
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS 141
"Ah, I don't like Franconi, for they don't talk there. But, Monsieur, if I accept, it is because it will be very advantageous to my child. At least I shall no longer be an expense to her. Poor little thing, after all, I shouldn't want to take her pleas- ures from her. Monsieur, youth must amuse itself! and so, if you assure me that I will do no harm to anyone — "
"To no one," repeated Jules. "But now, how will you manage it?"
"Well, Monsieur, by giving to Monsieur Ferragus this evening a little tea made of poppy-heads he'll sleep sound, the dear man ! And he has good need of it because of his sufferings, for he does suffer, so that it is a pity. But, too, I should like to know what kind of invention it is for a healthy man to burn his back just to get rid of a tic-douloureux which only torments him once in two years! To get back to our affair, I have my neighbor's key, and her lodging is just above mine and there is a room adjoining the one in which Monsieur Ferragus is lying, with only a partition between them. She is away in the country for ten days. Well, then, in making a hole during the night in the partition-wall you will be able to see them and to hear them at your ease. I am on good terms with a locksmith, a very friendly man, who talks like an angel, and he will do that for me, and no one will know any- thing about it. "