The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER IX

THE BANKER OF THE POOR

It was not on the next day, Mon­day, but on the fol­low­ing day, Tues­day, that Du­tocq and Theo­dose went to see Cer­izet, the for­mer hav­ing called la Peyrade's at­ten­tion to the fact that Cer­izet al­ways ab­sent­ed him­self on Sun­days and Mon­days, tak­ing ad­van­tage of the to­tal ab­sence of clients on those days, which are de­vot­ed by the pop­ulace to de­bauch. The house to­ward which they di­rect­ed their steps is one of the strik­ing fea­tures in the faubourg Saint-​Jacques, and it is quite as im­por­tant to study it here as it was to study those of Phel­lion and Thuil­li­er. It is not known (true, no com­mis­sion has yet been ap­point­ed to ex­am­ine this phe­nomenon), no one knows why cer­tain quar­ters be­come de­grad­ed and vul­gar­ized, moral­ly as well as ma­te­ri­al­ly; why, for in­stance, the an­cient res­idence of the court and the church, the Lux­em­bourg and the Latin quar­ter, have be­come what they are to-​day, in spite of the pres­ence of the finest palaces in the world, in spite of the bold cupo­la of Sainte-​Genevieve, that of Mansard on the Val-​de-​Grace, and the charms of the Jardin des Plantes. One asks one's self why the el­egance of life has left that re­gion; why the Vau­quer hous­es, the Phel­lion and the Thuil­li­er hous­es now swarm with ten­ants and board­ers, on the site of so many no­ble and re­li­gious build­ings, and why such mud and dirty trades and pover­ty should have fas­tened on a hilly piece of ground, in­stead of spread­ing out up­on the flat land be­yond the con­fines of the an­cient city.

The an­gel whose benef­icence once hov­ered above this quar­ter be­ing dead, usury, on the low­est scale, rushed in and took his place. To the old judge, Popinot, suc­ceed­ed Cer­izet; and strange to say,--a fact which it is well to study,--the ef­fect pro­duced, so­cial­ly speak­ing, was much the same. Popinot loaned mon­ey with­out in­ter­est, and was will­ing to lose; Cer­izet lost noth­ing, and com­pelled the poor to work hard and stay vir­tu­ous. The poor adored Popinot, but they did not hate Cer­izet. Here, in this re­gion, re­volves the low­est wheel of Parisian fi­nancier­ing. At the top, Nucin­gen & Co., the Kellers, du Tillet, and the Mon­gen­ods; a lit­tle low­er down, the Pal­mas, Gigonnets, and Gob­secks; low­er still, the Sa­monons, Chabois­seaus, and Bar­bets; and last­ly (af­ter the pawn-​shops) comes this king of usury, who spreads his nets at the cor­ners of the streets to en­tan­gle all mis­eries and miss none,--Cer­izet, “mon­ey lender by the lit­tle week.”

The frogged frock-​coat will have pre­pared you for the den in which this con­vict­ed stock-​bro­ker car­ried on his present busi­ness.

The house was hu­mid with salt­pe­tre; the walls, sweat­ing mois­ture, were enam­elled all over with large slabs of mould. Stand­ing at the cor­ner of the rue des Postes and rue des Poules, it pre­sent­ed first a ground-​floor, oc­cu­pied part­ly by a shop for the sale of the com­mon­est kind of wine, paint­ed a coarse bright red, dec­orat­ed with cur­tains of red cal­ico, fur­nished with a lead­en counter, and guard­ed by formidable iron bars. Above the gate of an odi­ous al­ley hung a fright­ful lantern, on which were the words “Night lodg­ings here.” The out­er walls were cov­ered with iron cross­bars, show­ing, ap­par­ent­ly, the in­se­cu­ri­ty of the build­ing, which was owned by the wine-​mer­chant, who al­so in­hab­it­ed the en­tresol. The wid­ow Poiret (nee Mi­chon­neau) kept fur­nished lodg­ings on the first, sec­ond, and third floors, con­sist­ing of sin­gle rooms for work­men and for the poor­est class of stu­dents.

Cer­izet oc­cu­pied one room on the ground-​floor and an­oth­er in the en­tresol, to which he mount­ed by an in­te­ri­or stair­case; this en­tresol looked out up­on a hor­ri­ble paved court, from which arose mephitic odors. Cer­izet paid forty francs a month to the wid­ow Poiret for his break­fast and din­ner; he thus con­cil­iat­ed her by be­com­ing her board­er; he al­so made him­self ac­cept­able to the wine-​mer­chant by procur­ing him an im­mense sale of wine and liquors among his clients--prof­its re­al­ized be­fore sun­rise; the wine-​shop be­gin­ning op­er­ations about three in the morn­ing in sum­mer, and five in win­ter.

The hour of the great Mar­ket, which so many of his clients, male and fe­male, at­tend­ed, was the de­ter­min­ing cause of Cer­izet's ear­ly hours. The Sieur Ca­denet, the wine-​mer­chant, in view of the cus­tom which he owed to the usurer, had let him the two rooms for the low price of eighty francs a year, and had giv­en him a lease for twelve years, which Cer­izet alone had a right to break, with­out pay­ing in­dem­ni­ty, at three months' no­tice. Ca­denet al­ways car­ried in a bot­tle of ex­cel­lent wine for the din­ner of this use­ful ten­ant; and when Cer­izet was short of mon­ey he had on­ly to say to his friend, “Ca­denet, lend me a few hun­dred francs,”--loans which he faith­ful­ly re­paid.

Ca­denet, it was said, had proof of the wid­ow Poiret hav­ing de­posit­ed in Cer­izet's hands some two thou­sand francs for in­vest­ment, which may ex­plain the progress of the lat­ter's af­fairs since the day when he first took up his abode in the quar­ter, sup­plied with a last note of a thou­sand francs and Du­tocq's pro­tec­tion. Ca­denet, prompt­ed by a cu­pid­ity which suc­cess in­creased, had pro­posed, ear­ly in the year, to put twen­ty thou­sand francs in­to the hands of his friend Cer­izet. But Cer­izet had pos­itive­ly de­clined them, on the ground that he ran risks of a na­ture to be­come a pos­si­ble cause of dis­pute with as­so­ciates.

“I could on­ly,” he said to Ca­denet, “take them at six per cent in­ter­est, and you can do bet­ter than that in your own busi­ness. We will go in­to part­ner­ship lat­er, if you like, in some se­ri­ous en­ter­prise, some good op­por­tu­ni­ty which may re­quire, say, fifty thou­sand francs. When you have got that sum to in­vest, let me know, and we'll talk about it.”

Cer­izet had on­ly sug­gest­ed the af­fair of the house to Theo­dose af­ter mak­ing sure that among the three, Madame Poiret, Ca­denet, and him­self, it was im­pos­si­ble to raise the full sum of one hun­dred thou­sand francs.

The “lender by the lit­tle week” was thus in per­fect safe­ty in his den, where he could even, if ne­ces­si­ty came, ap­peal to the law. On cer­tain morn­ings there might be seen as many as six­ty or eighty per­sons, men as of­ten as wom­en, ei­ther in the wine-​shop, or the al­ley, or sit­ting on the stair­case, for the dis­trust­ful Cer­izet would on­ly ad­mit six per­sons at a time in­to his of­fice. The first com­ers were first served, and each had to go by his num­ber, which the wine-​mer­chant, or his shop-​boy, af­fixed to the hats of the man and the backs of the wom­en. Some­times the clients would sell to each oth­er (as hack­ney-​coach­men do on the cab­stands), head num­bers for tail num­bers. On cer­tain days, when the mar­ket busi­ness was press­ing, a head num­ber was of­ten sold for a glass of brandy and a sou. The num­bers, as they is­sued from Cer­izet's of­fice, called up the suc­ceed­ing num­bers; and if any dis­putes arose Ca­denet put a stop to the fray at once my re­mark­ing:--

“If you get the po­lice here you won't gain any­thing; _he_'ll shut up shop.”

HE was Cer­izet's name. When, in the course of the day, some hap­less wom­an, with­out an atom of food in her room, and see­ing her chil­dren pale with hunger, would come to bor­row ten or twen­ty sous, she would say to the wine-​mer­chant anx­ious­ly:--

“Is _he_ there?”

Ca­denet, a short, stout man, dressed in blue, with out­er sleeves of black stuff and a wine-​mer­chant's apron, and al­ways wear­ing a cap, seemed an an­gel to these moth­ers when he replied to them:--

“_He_ told me that you were an hon­est wom­an and I might give you forty sous. You know what you must do about it--”

And, strange to say, _he_ was blessed by these poor peo­ple, even as they had late­ly blessed Popinot.

But Cer­izet was cursed on Sun­day morn­ings when ac­counts were set­tled; and they cursed him even more on Sat­ur­days, when it was nec­es­sary to work in or­der to re­pay the sum bor­rowed with in­ter­est. But, af­ter all, he was Prov­idence, he was God from Tues­day to Fri­day of ev­ery week.

The room which he made his of­fice, for­mer­ly the kitchen of the next floor, was bare; the beams of the ceil­ing had been white­washed, but still bore marks of smoke. The walls, along which he had put bench­es, and the stone floor, re­tained and gave out damp­ness. The fire­place, where the crane re­mained, was part­ly filled by an iron stove in which Cer­izet burned sea-​coal when the weath­er was se­vere. A plat­form about half a foot high and eight feet square ex­tend­ed from the edge of the fire­place; on it was fas­tened a com­mon ta­ble and an arm­chair with a round cush­ion cov­ered with green leather. Be­hind him, Cer­izet had sheathed the walls with planks; al­so pro­tect­ing him­self with a lit­tle wood­en screen, paint­ed white, from the draught be­tween the win­dow and door; but this screen, made of two leaves, was so placed that the warmth from the stove reached him. The win­dow had enor­mous in­side shut­ters of cast-​iron, held, when closed, by a bar. The door com­mand­ed re­spect by an ar­mor of the same char­ac­ter.

At the far­ther end of this room, in a cor­ner, was a spi­ral-​stair­case, com­ing, ev­ident­ly, from some pulled-​down shop, and bought in the rue Chapon by Ca­denet, who had fit­ted it through the ceil­ing in­to the room in the en­tresol oc­cu­pied by Cer­izet. In or­der to pre­vent all com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the up­per floors, Cer­izet had ex­act­ed that the door of that room which opened on the com­mon land­ing should be walled up. The place had thus be­come a fortress. The bed­room above had a cheap car­pet bought for twen­ty francs, an iron bed­stead, a bu­reau, three chairs, and an iron safe, made by a good work­man, which Cer­izet had bought at a bar­gain. He shaved be­fore a glass on the chim­ney-​piece; he owned two pairs of cot­ton sheets and six cot­ton shirts; the rest of his vis­ible wardrobe was of the same char­ac­ter. Ca­denet had once seen Cer­izet dressed like a dandy of the pe­ri­od; he must, there­fore, have kept hid­den, in some draw­er of his bu­reau, a com­plete dis­guise with which he could go to the opera, see the world, and not be rec­og­nized, for, had it not been that Ca­denet heard his voice, he would cer­tain­ly have asked him who he was.

What pleased the clients of this man most was his jovi­al­ity and his repar­tees; he talked their lan­guage. Ca­denet, his two shop-​men, and Cer­izet, liv­ing in the midst of dread­ful mis­ery, be­haved with the calm­ness of un­der­tak­ers in pres­ence of af­flict­ed heirs, of old sergeants of the Guard among heaps of dead. They no more shud­dered on hear­ing cries of hunger and de­spair than sur­geons shud­der at the cries of their pa­tients in hos­pi­tal; they said, as the sol­diers and the dressers said, the per­func­to­ry words, “Have pa­tience! a lit­tle courage! What's the good of griev­ing? Sup­pose you kill your­self, what then? One gets ac­cus­tomed to ev­ery­thing; be rea­son­able!”

Though Cer­izet took the pre­cau­tion to hide the mon­ey nec­es­sary for his morn­ing op­er­ations in the hol­low seat of the chair in which he sat, tak­ing out no more than a hun­dred francs at a time, which he put in the pock­ets of his trousers, nev­er dip­ping in­to the funds of the chair ex­cept be­tween the en­trance of two batch­es of clients (keep­ing his door locked and not open­ing it till all was safe­ly stowed in his pock­ets), he had re­al­ly noth­ing to fear from the var­ious de­spairs which found their way from all sides to this ren­dezvous of mis­ery. Cer­tain­ly, there are many dif­fer­ent ways of be­ing hon­est and vir­tu­ous; and the “Mono­graph of Virtue” has no oth­er ba­sis than this so­cial ax­iom.[*] A man is false to his con­science; he fails, ap­par­ent­ly, in del­ica­cy; he for­feits that bloom of hon­or which, though lost, does not, as yet, mean gen­er­al dis­re­pute; at last, how­ev­er, he fails de­cid­ed­ly in hon­or; if he falls in­to the hands of the cor­rec­tion­al po­lice, he is not, as yet, guilty of crime be­fore the court of as­sizes; but af­ter he is brand­ed with in­famy by the ver­dict of a ju­ry he may still be hon­ored at the gal­leys for the species of hon­or and in­tegri­ty prac­tised by crim­inals among them­selves, which con­sists in not be­tray­ing each oth­er, in shar­ing booty loy­al­ly, and in run­ning all dan­gers. Well, this last form of hon­or--which is per­haps a cal­cu­la­tion, a ne­ces­si­ty, the prac­tice of which of­fers cer­tain op­por­tu­ni­ties for grandeur to the guilty man and the pos­si­bil­ity of a re­turn to good--reigned ab­so­lute­ly be­tween Cer­izet and his clients. Nev­er did Cer­izet make an er­ror, nor his poor peo­ple ei­ther; nei­ther side ev­er de­nied what was due, ei­ther cap­ital or in­ter­ests. Many a time Cer­izet, who was born among the peo­ple, cor­rect­ed from one week to an­oth­er some ac­ci­den­tal er­ror, to the ben­efit of a poor man who had nev­er dis­cov­ered it. He was called a Jew, but an hon­est one, and his word in that city of sor­rows was sa­cred. A wom­an died, caus­ing a loss to him of thir­ty francs:

[*] A book on which the au­thor has been at work since 1833, the year in which it was first an­nounced.--Au­thor's note.

“See my prof­its! there they go!” he said to his as­sem­blage, “and you howl up­on me! You know I'll nev­er trou­ble the brats; in fact, Ca­denet has al­ready tak­en them bread and heel-​taps.”

Af­ter that it was said of him in both faubourgs:--

“He is not a bad fel­low!”

The “loan by the lit­tle week,” as in­ter­pret­ed by Cer­izet, is not, con­sid­er­ing all things, so cru­el a thing as the pawn-​shop. Cer­izet loaned ten francs Tues­day on con­di­tion of re­ceiv­ing twelve francs Sun­day morn­ing. In five weeks he dou­bled his cap­ital; but he had to make many com­pro­mis­es. His kind­ness con­sist­ed in ac­cept­ing, from time to time, eleven francs and fifty cen­times; some­times the whole in­ter­est was still ow­ing. When he gave fifty francs for six­ty to a fruit-​stall man, or a hun­dred francs for one hun­dred and twen­ty to a sell­er of peat-​fu­el, he ran great risks.

On reach­ing the rue des Poules through the rue des Postes, Theo­dose and Du­tocq saw a great as­sem­blage of men and wom­en, and by the light which the wine-​mer­chant's lit­tle oil-​lamps cast up­on these groups, they were hor­ri­fied at be­hold­ing that mass of red, seamed, hag­gard faces; solemn with suf­fer­ing, with­ered, dis­tort­ed, swollen with wine, pal­lid from liquor; some threat­en­ing, oth­ers re­signed, some sar­cas­tic or jeer­ing, oth­ers be­sot­ted; all ris­ing from the midst of those ter­ri­ble rags, which no de­sign­er can sur­pass in his most ex­trav­agant car­ica­tures.

“I shall be rec­og­nized,” said Theo­dose, pulling Du­tocq away; “we have done a fool­ish thing to come here at this hour and take him in the midst of his busi­ness.”

“All the more that Cla­paron may be sleep­ing in his lair, the in­te­ri­or of which we know noth­ing about. Yes, there are dan­gers for you, but none for me; I shall be thought to have busi­ness with my copy­ing-​clerk, and I'll go and tell him to come and dine with us; this is court day, so we can't have him to break­fast. I'll tell him to meet us at the 'Chau­miere' in one of the gar­den din­ing-​rooms.”

“Bad; any­body could lis­ten to us there with­out be­ing seen,” said la Peyrade. “I pre­fer the 'Pe­tit Rocher de Can­cale'; we can go in­to a pri­vate room and speak low.”

“But sup­pose you are seen with Cer­izet?”

“Well, then, let's go to the 'Cheval Rouge,' quai de la Tour­nelle.”

“That's best; sev­en o'clock; no­body will be there then.”

Du­tocq ad­vanced alone in­to the midst of that congress of beg­gars, and he heard his own name re­peat­ed from mouth to mouth, for he could hard­ly fail to en­counter among them some jail-​bird fa­mil­iar with the judge's of­fice, just as Theo­dose was cer­tain to have met a client.

In these quar­ters the jus­tice-​of-​peace is the supreme au­thor­ity; all le­gal con­tests stop short at his of­fice, es­pe­cial­ly since the law was passed giv­ing to those judges sovereign pow­er in all cas­es of lit­iga­tion in­volv­ing not over one hun­dred and forty francs. A way was made for the judge's clerk, who was not less feared than the judge him­self. He saw wom­en seat­ed on the stair­case; a hor­ri­ble dis­play of pal­lor and suf­fer­ing of many kinds. Du­tocq was al­most as­phyx­iat­ed when he opened the door of the room in which al­ready six­ty per­sons had left their odors.

“Your num­ber? your num­ber?” cried sev­er­al voic­es.

“Hold your jaw!” cried a gruff voice from the street, “that's the pen of the judge.”

Pro­found si­lence fol­lowed. Du­tocq found his copy­ing clerk clothed in a jack­et of yel­low leather like that of the gloves of the gen­darmerie, be­neath which he wore an ig­no­ble waist­coat of knit­ted wool. The read­er must imag­ine the man's dis­eased head is­su­ing from this species of scab­bard and cov­ered with a mis­er­able Madras hand­ker­chief, which, leav­ing to view the fore­head and neck, gave to that head, by the gleam of a tal­low can­dle of twelve to the pound, its nat­ural­ly hideous and threat­en­ing char­ac­ter.

“It can't be done that way, pa­pa Lan­timeche,” Cer­izet was say­ing to a tall old man, seem­ing to be about sev­en­ty years of age, who was stand­ing be­fore him with a red woollen cap in his hand, ex­hibit­ing a bald head, and a breast cov­ered with white hairs vis­ible through his mis­er­able linen jack­et. “Tell me ex­act­ly what you want to un­der­take. One hun­dred francs, even on con­di­tion of get­ting back one hun­dred and twen­ty, can't be let loose that way, like a dog in a church--”

The five oth­er ap­pli­cants, among whom were two wom­en, both with in­fants, one knit­ting, the oth­er suck­ling her child, burst out laugh­ing.

When Cer­izet saw Du­tocq, he rose re­spect­ful­ly and went rather hasti­ly to meet him, adding to his client:--

“Take time to re­flect; for, don't you see? it makes me doubt­ful to have such a sum as that, one hun­dred francs! asked for by an old jour­ney­man lock­smith!”

“But I tell you it con­cerns an in­ven­tion,” cried the old work­man.

“An in­ven­tion and one hun­dred francs!” said Du­tocq. “You don't know the laws; you must take out a patent, and that costs two thou­sand francs, and you want in­flu­ence.”

“All that is true,” said Cer­izet, who, how­ev­er, reck­oned a good deal on such chances. “Come to-​mor­row morn­ing, pa­pa Lan­timeche, at six o'clock, and we'll talk it over; you can't talk in­ven­tions in pub­lic.”

Cer­izet then turned to Du­tocq whose first words were:--

“If the thing turns out well, half prof­its!”

“Why did you get up at this time in the morn­ing to come here and say that to me?” de­mand­ed the dis­trust­ful Cer­izet, al­ready dis­pleased with the men­tion of “half prof­its.” “You could have seen me as usu­al at the of­fice.”

And he looked askance at Du­tocq; the lat­ter, while telling him his er­rand and speak­ing of Cla­paron and the ne­ces­si­ty of push­ing for­ward in the Theo­dose af­fair, seemed con­fused.

“All the same you could have seen me this morn­ing at the of­fice,” re­peat­ed Cer­izet, con­duct­ing his vis­itor to the door.

“There's a man,” thought he, as he re­turned to his seat, “who seems to me to have breathed on his lantern so that I may not see clear. Well, well, I'll give up that place of copy­ing clerk. Ha! your turn, lit­tle moth­er!” he cried; “you in­vent chil­dren! That's amus­ing enough, though the trick is well known.”

It is all the more use­less to re­late the con­ver­sa­tion which took place be­tween the three con­fed­er­ates at the “Cheval Rouge,” be­cause the ar­range­ments there con­clud­ed were the ba­sis of cer­tain con­fi­dences made, as we shall see, by Theo­dose to Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er; but it is nec­es­sary to re­mark that the clev­er­ness dis­played by la Peyrade seemed al­most alarm­ing to Cer­izet and Du­tocq. Af­ter this con­fer­ence, the banker of the poor, find­ing him­self in com­pa­ny with such pow­er­ful play­ers, had it in mind to make sure of his own stake at the first chance. To win the game at any price over the heads of the ablest gam­blers, by cheat­ing if nec­es­sary, is the in­spi­ra­tion of a spe­cial sort of van­ity pe­cu­liar to friends of the green cloth. Hence came the ter­ri­ble blow which la Peyrade was about to re­ceive.

He knew his two as­so­ciates well; and there­fore, in spite of the per­pet­ual ac­tiv­ity of his in­tel­lec­tu­al forces, in spite of the per­pet­ual watch­ful­ness his per­son­al­ity of ten faces re­quired, noth­ing fa­tigued him as much as the part he had to play with his two ac­com­plices. Du­tocq was a great knave, and Cer­izet had once been a com­ic ac­tor; they were both ex­perts in hum­bug. A mo­tion­less face like Tal­leyrand's would have made then break at once with the Proven­cal, who was now in their clutch­es; it was nec­es­sary, there­fore, that he should make a show of ease and con­fi­dence and of play­ing above board --the very height of art in such af­fairs. To de­lude the pit is an ev­ery-​day tri­umph, but to de­ceive Made­moi­selle Mars, Fred­er­ic Lemaitre, Poti­er, Tal­ma, Mon­rose, is the acme of art.

This con­fer­ence at the “Cheval Rouge” had there­fore the re­sult of giv­ing to la Peyrade, who was ful­ly as saga­cious as Cer­izet, a se­cret fear, which, dur­ing the lat­ter pe­ri­od of this dar­ing game, so fired his blood and heat­ed his brain that there came mo­ments when he fell in­to the mor­bid con­di­tion of the gam­bler, who fol­lows with his eye the roll of the ball on which he has staked his last pen­ny. The sens­es then have a lu­cid­ity in their ac­tion and the mind takes a range, which hu­man knowl­edge has no means of mea­sur­ing.