The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER XII

DEV­ILS AGAINST DEV­ILS

Dur­ing the ex­treme pover­ty of la Peyrade's first years in Paris, none but Cer­izet had ev­er gone to see him in the wretched gar­ret where, in severe­ly cold weath­er, he stayed in bed for want of clothes. On­ly one shirt re­mained to him. For three days he lived on one loaf of bread, cut­ting it in­to mea­sured morsels, and ask­ing him­self, “What am I to do?” At this mo­ment it was that his for­mer part­ner came to him, hav­ing just left prison, par­doned. The projects which the two men then formed be­fore a fire of laths, one wrapped in his land­la­dy's coun­ter­pane, the oth­er in his in­famy, it is use­less to re­late. The next day Cer­izet, who had talked with Du­tocq in the course of the morn­ing, re­turned, bring­ing trousers, waist­coat, coat, hat, and boots, bought in the Tem­ple, and he car­ried off Theo­dose to dine with him­self and Du­tocq. The hun­gry Proven­cal ate at Pin­son's, rue de l'An­ci­enne Come­die, half of a din­ner cost­ing forty-​sev­en francs. At dessert, af­ter Theo­dose had drunk freely, Cer­izet said to him:--

“Will you sign me bills of ex­change for fifty thou­sand francs in your ca­pac­ity as a bar­ris­ter?”

“You couldn't get five thou­sand on them.”

“That's not your af­fair, but ours; I mean mon­sieur's here, who is giv­ing us this din­ner, and mine, in a mat­ter where you risk noth­ing, but in which you'll get your ti­tle as bar­ris­ter, a fine prac­tice, and the hand in mar­riage of a girl about the age of an old dog, and rich by twen­ty or thir­ty thou­sand francs a year. Nei­ther Du­tocq nor I can mar­ry her; but we'll equip you, give you the look of a de­cent man, feed and lodge you, and set you up gen­er­al­ly. Con­se­quent­ly, we want se­cu­ri­ty. I don't say that on my own ac­count, for I know you, but for mon­sieur here, whose proxy I am. We'll equip you as a pi­rate, hey! to do the white-​slave trade! If we can't cap­ture that 'dot,' we'll try oth­er plans. Be­tween our­selves, none of us need be par­tic­ular what we touch--that's plain enough. We'll give you care­ful in­struc­tions; for the mat­ter is cer­tain to take time, and there'll prob­ably be some both­er about it. Here, see, I have brought stamped pa­per.”

“Wait­er, pens and ink!” cried Theo­dose.

“Ha! I like fel­lows of that kind!” ex­claimed Du­tocq.

“Sign: 'Theo­dose de la Peyrade,' and af­ter your name put 'Bar­ris­ter, rue Saint-​Do­minique d'En­fer,' un­der the words 'Ac­cept­ed for ten thou­sand.' We'll date the notes and sue you,--all se­cret­ly, of course, but in or­der to have a hold up­on you; the own­ers of a pri­va­teer ought to have se­cu­ri­ty when the brig and the cap­tain are at sea.”

The day af­ter this in­ter­view the bailiff of the jus­tice-​of-​peace did Cer­izet the ser­vice of su­ing la Peyrade se­cret­ly. He went to see the bar­ris­ter that evening, and the whole af­fair was done with­out any pub­lic­ity. The Court of com­merce has a hun­dred such cas­es in the course of one term. The strict reg­ula­tions of the coun­cil of bar­ris­ters of the bar of Paris are well known. This body, and al­so the coun­cil of at­tor­neys, ex­er­cise se­vere dis­ci­pline over their mem­bers. A bar­ris­ter li­able to go to Clichy would be dis­barred. Con­se­quent­ly, Cer­izet, un­der Du­tocq's ad­vice, had tak­en against their pup­pet mea­sures which were cer­tain to se­cure to each of them twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs out of Ce­leste's “dot.” In sign­ing the notes, Theo­dose saw but one thing,--his means of liv­ing se­cured; but as time had gone on, and the hori­zon grew clear­er, and he mount­ed, step by step, to a bet­ter po­si­tion on the so­cial lad­der, he be­gan to dream of get­ting rid of his as­so­ciates. And now, on ob­tain­ing twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs from Thuil­li­er, he hoped to treat on the ba­sis of fifty per cent for the re­turn of his fa­tal notes by Cer­izet.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this sort of in­fa­mous spec­ula­tion is not an ex­cep­tion­al fact; it takes place in Paris un­der var­ious forms too lit­tle dis­guised for the his­to­ri­an of man­ners and morals to pass them over un­no­ticed in a com­plete and ac­cu­rate pic­ture of so­ci­ety in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Du­tocq, an ar­rant scoundrel, still owed fif­teen thou­sand francs on his prac­tice, and lived in hopes of some­thing turn­ing up to keep his head, as the say­ing is, above wa­ter un­til the close of 1840. Up to the present time none of the three con­fed­er­ates had flinched or groaned. Each felt his strength and knew his dan­ger. Equals they were in dis­trust, in watch­ful­ness; equals, too, in ap­par­ent con­fi­dence; and equal­ly stol­id in si­lence and look when mu­tu­al sus­pi­cions rose to the sur­face of face or speech. For the last two months the po­si­tion of Theo­dose was ac­quir­ing the strength of a de­tached fort. But Cer­izet and Du­tocq held it un­der­mined by a mass of pow­der, with the match ev­er light­ed; but the wind might ex­tin­guish the match or the dev­il might flood the mine.

The mo­ment when wild beasts seize their food is al­ways the most crit­ical, and that mo­ment had now ar­rived for these three hun­gry tigers. Cer­izet would some­times say to Theo­dose, with that rev­olu­tion­ary glance which twice in this cen­tu­ry sovereigns have had to meet:--

“I have made you king, and here am I still noth­ing! for it is noth­ing not to be all.”

A re­ac­tion of en­vy was rush­ing its avalanche through Cer­izet. Du­tocq was at the mer­cy of his copy­ing clerk. Theo­dose would glad­ly have burned his co­part­ners could he have burned their pa­pers in the same con­fla­gra­tion. All three stud­ied each oth­er too care­ful­ly, in or­der to con­ceal their own thoughts, not to be in turn di­vined. Theo­dose lived a life of three hells as he thought of what lay be­low the cards, then of his own game, and then of his fu­ture. His speech to Thuil­li­er was a cry of de­spair; he threw his lead in­to the wa­ters of the old bour­geois and found there noth­ing more than twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs.

“And,” he said to him­self as he went to his own room, “pos­si­bly noth­ing at all a month hence.”

He new felt the deep­est ha­tred to the Thuil­liers. But Thuil­li­er him­self he held by a har­poon stuck in­to the depths of the man's van­ity; name­ly, by the pro­ject­ed work, en­ti­tled “Tax­ation and the Sink­ing Fund,” for which he in­tend­ed to re­ar­range the ideas of the Saint-​Si­mo­ni­an “Globe,” giv­ing them a sys­tem­at­ic form, and col­or­ing them with his fer­vid South­ern dic­tion. Thuil­li­er's bu­reau­crat­ic knowl­edge of the sub­ject would be of use to him here. Theo­dose there­fore clung to this rope, re­solv­ing to do bat­tle, on so poor a base of op­er­ations, with the van­ity of a fool, which, ac­cord­ing to in­di­vid­ual char­ac­ter, is ei­ther gran­ite or sand. On re­flec­tion, Theo­dose was in­clined to be con­tent with the prospect.

On the evening be­fore the right of re­demp­tion ex­pired, Cla­paron and Cer­izet pro­ceed­ed to ma­nip­ulate the no­tary in the fol­low­ing man­ner. Cer­izet, to whom Cla­paron had re­vealed the pass­word and the no­tary's re­treat, went out to this hid­ing-​place to say to the lat­ter:--

“One of my friends, Cla­paron, whom you know, has asked me to come and see you; he will ex­pect you to-​mor­row, in the evening, you know where. He has the pa­per you ex­pect from him, which he will ex­change with you for the ten thou­sand agreed up­on; but I must be present, for five thou­sand of that sum be­long to me; and I warn you, my dear mon­sieur, that the name in the counter-​deed is in blank.”

“I shall be there,” replied the ex-​no­tary.

The poor dev­il wait­ed the whole night in ag­onies of mind that can well be imag­ined, for safe­ty or in­evitable ru­in were in the bal­ance. At sun­rise he saw ap­proach­ing him, in­stead of Cla­paron, a bailiff of the Court of com­merce, who pro­duced a judg­ment against him in reg­ular form, and in­formed him that he must go with him to Clichy.

Cer­izet had made an ar­range­ment with one of the cred­itors of the luck­less no­tary, pledg­ing him­self to de­liv­er up the debtor on pay­ment to him­self of half the debt. Out of the ten thou­sand francs promised to Cla­paron, the vic­tim of this trap was obliged, in or­der to ob­tain his lib­er­ty, to pay six thou­sand down, the amount of his debt.

On re­ceiv­ing his share of this ex­tor­tion Cer­izet said to him­self: “There's three thou­sand to make Cer­izet clear out.”

Cer­izet then re­turned to the no­tary and said: “Cla­paron is a scoundrel, mon­sieur; he has re­ceived fif­teen thou­sand francs from the pro­posed pur­chas­er of your house, who will now, of course, be­come the own­er. Threat­en to re­veal his hid­ing-​place to his cred­itors, and to have him sued for fraud­ulent bankrupt­cy, and he'll give you half.”

In his wrath the no­tary wrote a ful­mi­nat­ing let­ter to Cla­paron. Cla­paron, alarmed, feared an ar­rest, and Cer­izet of­fered to get him a pass­port.

“You have played me many a trick, Cla­paron,” he said, “but lis­ten to me now, and you can judge of my kind­ness. I pos­sess, as my whole means, three thou­sand francs; I'll give them to you; start for Amer­ica, and make your for­tune there, as I'm try­ing to make mine here.”

That evening Cla­paron, care­ful­ly dis­guised by Cer­izet, left for Havre by the dili­gence. Cer­izet re­mained mas­ter of the fif­teen thou­sand francs to be paid to Cla­paron, and he await­ed Theo­dose with the pay­ment there­of tran­quil­ly.

“The lim­it for bid­ding-​in is passed,” thought Theo­dose, as he went to find Du­tocq and ask him to bring Cer­izet to his of­fice. “Sup­pose I were now to make an ef­fort to get rid of my leech?”

“You can't set­tle this af­fair any­where but at Cer­izet's, be­cause Cla­paron must be present, and he is hid­ing there,” said Du­tocq.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, Theo­dose went, be­tween sev­en and eight o'clock, to the den of the “banker of the poor,” whom Du­tocq had no­ti­fied of his com­ing. Cer­izet re­ceived him in the hor­ri­ble kitchen where mis­eries and sor­rows were chopped and cooked, as we have seen al­ready. The pair then walked up and down, pre­cise­ly like two an­imals in a cage, while mu­tu­al­ly play­ing the fol­low­ing scene:--

“Have you brought the fif­teen thou­sand francs?”

“No, but I have them at home.”

“Why not have them in your pock­et?” asked Cer­izet, sharply.

“I'll tell you,” replied Theo­dose, who, as he walked from the rue Saint-​Do­minique to the Es­tra­pade, had de­cid­ed on his course of ac­tion.

The Proven­cal, writhing up­on the grid­iron on which his part­ners held him, be­came sud­den­ly pos­sessed with a good idea, which flashed from the body of the live coal un­der him. Per­il has gleams of light. He re­solved to re­ly on the pow­er of frank­ness, which af­fects all men, even swindlers. Ev­ery one is grate­ful to an ad­ver­sary who bares him­self to the waist in a du­el.

“Well!” said Cer­izet, “now the hum­bug be­gins.”

The words seemed to come whol­ly through the hole in his nose with hor­ri­ble in­to­na­tions.

“You have put me in a mag­nif­icent po­si­tion, and I shall nev­er for­get the ser­vice you have done me, my friend,” be­gan Theo­dose, with emo­tion.

“Oh, that's how you take it, is it?” said Cer­izet.

“Lis­ten to me; you don't un­der­stand my in­ten­tions.”

“Yes, I do!” replied the lender by “the lit­tle week.”

“No, you don't.”

“You in­tend not to give up those fif­teen thou­sand francs.”

Theo­dose shrugged his shoul­ders and looked fixed­ly at Cer­izet, who, struck by the two mo­tions, kept si­lence.

“Would you live in my po­si­tion, know­ing your­self with­in range of a can­non load­ed with grape-​shot, with­out feel­ing a strong de­sire to get out of it? Now lis­ten to me care­ful­ly. You are do­ing a dan­ger­ous busi­ness, and you would be glad enough to have some sol­id pro­tec­tion in the very heart of the mag­is­tra­cy of Paris. If I can con­tin­ue my present course, I shall be sub­sti­tute at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, pos­si­bly at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, in three years. I of­fer you to-​day the of­fices of a de­vot­ed friend­ship, which will serve you here­after most as­sured­ly, if on­ly to re­place you in a hon­or­able po­si­tion. Here are my con­di­tions--”

“Con­di­tions!” ex­claimed Cer­izet.

“In ten min­utes I will bring you twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs if you re­turn to me all the notes which you have against me.”

“But Du­tocq? and Cla­paron?” said Cer­izet.

“Leave them in the lurch!” replied Theo­dose, with his lips at Cer­izet's ear.

“That's a pret­ty thing to say!” cried Cer­izet. “And so you have in­vent­ed this lit­tle game of ho­cus-​pocus be­cause you hold in your fin­gers fif­teen thou­sand francs that don't be­long to you!”

“But I've added ten thou­sand francs to them. Be­sides, you and I know each oth­er.”

“If you are able to get ten thou­sand francs out of your bour­geois you can sure­ly get fif­teen,” said Cer­izet. “For thir­ty thou­sand I'm your man. Frank­ness for frank­ness, you know.”

“You ask the im­pos­si­ble,” replied Theo­dose. “At this very mo­ment, if you had to do with Cla­paron in­stead of with me, your fif­teen thou­sand would be lost, for Thuil­li­er is to-​day the own­er of that house.”

“I'll speak to Cla­paron,” said Cer­izet, pre­tend­ing to go and con­sult him, and mount­ing the stairs to the bed­room, from which Cla­paron had on­ly just de­part­ed on his road to Havre.

The two ad­ver­saries had been speak­ing, we should here re­mark, in a man­ner not to be over­heard; and ev­ery time that Theo­dose raised his voice Cer­izet would make a ges­ture, in­ti­mat­ing that Cla­paron, from above, might be lis­ten­ing. The five min­utes dur­ing which Theo­dose heard what seemed to be the mur­mur­ing of two voic­es were tor­ture to him, for he had staked his very life up­on the is­sue. Cer­izet at last came down, with a smile up­on his lips, his eyes sparkling with in­fer­nal mis­chief, his whole frame quiv­er­ing in his joy, a Lu­cifer of gai­ety!

“I know noth­ing, so it seems!” he cried, shak­ing his shoul­ders, “but Cla­paron knows a great deal; he has worked with the big-​wig bankers, and when I told what you want­ed he be­gan to laugh, and said, 'I thought as much!' You will have to bring me the twen­ty-​five thou­sand you of­fer me to-​mor­row morn­ing, my lad; and as much more be­fore you can re­cov­er your notes.”

“Why?” asked Theo­dose, feel­ing his spinal col­umn liq­uidiz­ing as if the dis­charge of some in­ward elec­tric flu­id had melt­ed it.

“The house is ours.”

“How?”

“Cla­paron has bit it in un­der the name of one of his cred­itors, a lit­tle toad named Sauvaig­nou. Desroches, the lawyer, has tak­en the case, and you'll get a no­tice to-​mor­row. This af­fair will oblige Cla­paron, Du­tocq, and me to raise funds. What would be­come of me with­out Cla­paron! So I for­give him--yes, I for­gave him, and though you may not be­lieve it, my dear friend, I ac­tu­al­ly kissed him! Change your terms.”

The last three words were hor­ri­ble to hear, es­pe­cial­ly when il­lus­trat­ed by the face of the speak­er, who amused him­self by play­ing a scene from the “Legataire,” all the while study­ing at­ten­tive­ly the Proven­cal's char­ac­ter.

“Oh, Cer­izet!” cried Theo­dose; “I, who wished to do you so much good!”

“Don't you see, my dear fel­low,” re­turned Cer­izet, “that be­tween you and me there ought to be _this_,--” and he struck his heart,--“of which you have none. As soon as you thought you had a lever on us, you have tried to knock us over. I saved you from the hor­rors of star­va­tion and ver­min! You'll die like the id­iot you are. We put you on the high-​road to for­tune; we gave you a fine so­cial skin and a po­si­tion in which you could grasp the fu­ture--and look what you do! _Now_ I know you! and from this time forth, we shall go armed.”

“Then it is war be­tween us!” ex­claimed Theo­dose.

“You fired first,” re­turned Cer­izet.

“If you pull me down, farewell to your hopes and plans; if you don't pull me down, you have in me an en­emy.”

“That's just what I said yes­ter­day to Du­tocq; but, how can we help it? We are forced to choose be­tween two al­ter­na­tives--we must go ac­cord­ing to cir­cum­stances. I'm a good-​na­tured fel­low my­self,” he added, af­ter a pause; “bring me your twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs to-​mor­row morn­ing and Thuil­li­er shall keep the house. We'll con­tin­ue to help you at both ends, but you'll have to pay up, my boy. Af­ter what has just hap­pened that's pret­ty kind, isn't it?”

And Cer­izet pat­ted Theo­dose on the shoul­der, with a cyn­icism that seemed to brand him more than the iron of the gal­leys.

“Well, give me till to-​mor­row at mid-​day,” replied the Proven­cal, “for there'll be, as you said, some ma­nip­ula­tion to do.”

“I'll try to keep Cla­paron qui­et; he's in such a hur­ry, that man!”

“To-​mor­row then,” said Theo­dose, in the tone of a man who de­cides his course.

“Good-​night, friend,” said Cer­izet, in his nasal tone, which de­grad­ed the finest word in the lan­guage. “There's one who has got a mouth­ful to suck!” thought Cer­izet, as he watched Theo­dose go­ing down the street with the step of a dazed man.

When la Peyrade reached the rue des Postes he went with rapid strides to Madame Colleville's house, ex­cit­ing him­self as he walked along, and talk­ing aloud. The fire of his roused pas­sions and the sort of in­ward con­fla­gra­tion of which many Parisians are con­scious (for such sit­ua­tions abound in Paris) brought him fi­nal­ly to a pitch of fren­zy and elo­quence which found ex­pres­sion, as he turned in­to the rue des Deux-​Eglis­es, in the words:--

“I will kill him!”

“There's a fel­low who is not con­tent!” said a pass­ing work­man, and the jest­ing words calmed the in­can­des­cent mad­ness to which Theo­dose was a prey.

As he left Cer­izet's the idea came to him to go to Flavie and tell her all. South­ern na­tures are born thus--strong un­til cer­tain pas­sions arise, and then col­lapsed. He en­tered Flavie's room; she was alone, and when she saw Theo­dose she fan­cied her last hour had come.

“What is the mat­ter?” she cried.

“I--I--” he said. “Do you love me, Flavie?”

“Oh! how can you doubt it?”

“Do you love me ab­so­lute­ly?--if I were crim­inal, even?”

“Has he mur­dered some one?” she thought, re­ply­ing to his ques­tion by a nod.

Theo­dose, thank­ful to seize even this branch of wil­low, drew a chair be­side Flavie's so­fa, and there gave way to sobs that might have touched the old­est judge, while tor­rents of tears be­gan to flow from his eyes.

Flavie rose and left the room to say to her maid: “I am not at home to any one.” Then she closed all doors and re­turned to Theo­dose, moved to the ut­most pitch of ma­ter­nal so­lic­itude. She found him stretched out, his head thrown back, and weep­ing. He had tak­en out his hand­ker­chief, and when Flavie tried to move it from his face it was heavy with tears.

“But what is the mat­ter?” she asked; “what ails you?”

Na­ture, more im­pres­sive than art, served Theo­dose well; no longer was he play­ing a part; he was him­self; this ner­vous cri­sis and these tears were the wind­ing up of his pre­ced­ing scenes of act­ed com­edy.

“You are a child,” she said, in a gen­tle voice, stroking his hair soft­ly.

“I have but you, you on­ly, in all the world!” he replied, kiss­ing her hands with a sort of pas­sion; “and if you are true to me, if you are mine, as the body be­longs to the soul and the soul to the body, then--” he added, re­cov­er­ing him­self with in­fi­nite grace, “_Then_ I can have courage.”

He rose, and walked about the room.

“Yes, I will strug­gle; I will re­cov­er my strength, like An­taeus, from a fall; I will stran­gle with my own hands the ser­pents that en­twine me, that kiss with ser­pent kiss­es, that slaver my cheeks, that suck my blood, my hon­or! Oh, mis­ery! oh, pover­ty! Oh, how great are they who can stand erect and car­ry high their heads! I had bet­ter have let my­self die of hunger, there, on my wretched pal­let, three and a half years ago! A cof­fin is a soft­er bed to lie in than the life I lead! It is eigh­teen months that I have _fed on bour­geois_! and now, at the mo­ment of at­tain­ing an hon­est, for­tu­nate life, a mag­nif­icent fu­ture, at the mo­ment when I was about to sit down to the so­cial ban­quet, the ex­ecu­tion­er strikes me on the shoul­der! Yes, the mon­ster! he struck me there, on my shoul­der, and said to me: 'Pay thy dues to the dev­il, or die!' And shall I not crush them? Shall I not force my arm down their throats to their very en­trails? Yes, yes, I will, I will! See, Flavie, my eyes are dry now. Ha, ha! now I laugh; I feel my strength come back to me; pow­er is mine! Oh! say that you love me; say it again! At this mo­ment it sounds like the word 'Par­don' to the man con­demned to death!”

“You are ter­ri­ble, my friend!” cried Flavie. “Oh! you are killing me.”

She un­der­stood noth­ing of all this, but she fell up­on the so­fa, ex­haust­ed by the spec­ta­cle. Theo­dose flung him­self at her feet.

“For­give me! for­give me!” he said.

“But what is the mat­ter? what is it?” she asked again.

“They are try­ing to de­stroy me. Oh! promise to give me Ce­leste, and you shall see what a glo­ri­ous life I will make you share. If you hes­itate--very good; that is say­ing you will be whol­ly mine, and I will have you!”

He made so rapid a move­ment that Flavie, ter­ri­fied, rose and moved away.

“Oh! my saint!” he cried, “at thy feet I fall--a mir­acle! God is for me, sure­ly! A flash of light has come to me--an idea--sud­den­ly! Oh, thanks, my good an­gel, my grand Saint-​Theo­dose! thou hast saved me!”

Flavie could not help ad­mir­ing that chameleon be­ing; one knee on the floor, his hands crossed on his breast, and his eyes raised to heav­en in re­li­gious ec­sta­sy, he re­cit­ed a prayer; he was a fer­vent Catholic; he rev­er­ent­ly crossed him­self. It was fine; like the vi­sion of Saint-​Jerome.

“Adieu!” he said, with a melan­choly look and a mov­ing tone of voice.

“Oh!” cried Flavie, “leave me this hand­ker­chief.”

Theo­dose rushed away like one pos­sessed, sprang in­to the street, and dart­ed to­wards the Thuil­liers', but turned, saw Flavie at her win­dow, and made her a lit­tle sign of tri­umph.

“What a man!” she thought to her­self.

“Dear, good friend,” he said to Thuil­li­er, in a calm and gen­tle, al­most ca­ress­ing voice, “we have fall­en in­to the hands of atro­cious scoundrels. But I mean to read them a les­son.”

“What has hap­pened?” asked Brigitte.

“They want twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs, and, in or­der to get the bet­ter of us, the no­tary, or his ac­com­plices, have de­ter­mined to bid in the prop­er­ty. Thuil­li­er, put five thou­sand francs in your pock­et and come with me; I will se­cure that house to you. I am mak­ing my­self im­pla­ca­ble en­emies!” he cried; “they are seek­ing to de­stroy me moral­ly. But all I ask is that you will dis­re­gard their in­fa­mous calum­nies and feel no change of heart to me. Af­ter all, what is it? If I suc­ceed, you will on­ly have paid one hun­dred and twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs for the house in­stead of one hun­dred and twen­ty.”

“Pro­vid­ed the same thing doesn't hap­pen again,” said Brigitte, un­easi­ly, her eyes di­lat­ing un­der the ef­fect of a vi­olent sus­pi­cion.

“Pre­ferred cred­itors have alone the right to bid in prop­er­ty, and as, in this case, there is but one, and he has used that right, we are safe. The amount of his claim is re­al­ly on­ly two thou­sand francs, but there are lawyers, at­tor­neys, and so forth, to pay in such mat­ters, and we shall have to drop a note of a thou­sand francs to make the cred­itor hap­py.”

“Go, Thuil­li­er,” said Brigitte, “get your hat and gloves, and take the mon­ey--from you know where.”

“As I paid those fif­teen thou­sand francs with­out suc­cess, I don't wish to have any more mon­ey pass through my hands. Thuil­li­er must pay it him­self,” said Theo­dose, when he found him­self alone with Brigitte. “You have, how­ev­er, gained twen­ty thou­sand on the con­tract I en­abled you to make with Grindot, who thought he was serv­ing the no­tary, and you own a piece of prop­er­ty which in five years will be worth near­ly a mil­lion. It is what is called a 'boule­vard cor­ner.'”

Brigitte lis­tened un­easi­ly, pre­cise­ly like a cat which hears a mouse with­in the wall. She looked Theo­dose straight in the eye, and, in spite of the truth of his re­marks, doubts pos­sessed her.

“What trou­bles you, lit­tle aunt?”

“Oh! I shall be in mor­tal ter­ror un­til that prop­er­ty is se­cure­ly ours.”

“You would be will­ing to give twen­ty thou­sand francs, wouldn't you,” said Theo­dose, “to make sure that Thuil­li­er was what we call, in law, 'own­er not dis­pos­sess­able' of that prop­er­ty? Well, then, re­mem­ber that I have saved you twice that amount.”

“Where are we go­ing?” asked Thuil­li­er, re­turn­ing.

“To Maitre Gode­schal! We must em­ploy him as our at­tor­ney.”

“But we re­fused him for Ce­leste.”

“Well, that's one rea­son for go­ing to him,” replied Theo­dose. “I have tak­en his mea­sure; he's a man of hon­or, and he'll think it a fine thing to do you a ser­vice.”

Gode­schal, now Derville's suc­ces­sor, had for­mer­ly been, for more than two years, head-​clerk with Desroches. Theo­dose, to whom that cir­cum­stance was known, seemed to hear the name flung in­to his ear in the midst of his de­spair by an in­ward voice, and he fore­saw a pos­si­bil­ity of wrench­ing from the hands of Cla­paron the weapon with which Cer­izet had threat­ened him. He must, how­ev­er, in the first in­stance, gain an en­trance to Desroches, and get some light on the ac­tu­al sit­ua­tion of his en­emies. Gode­schal, by rea­son of the in­ti­ma­cy still ex­ist­ing be­tween the for­mer clerk and his old mas­ter, could be his go-​be­tween. When the at­tor­neys of Paris have ties like those which bound Gode­schal and Desroches to­geth­er, they live in true fra­ter­ni­ty, and the re­sult is a fa­cil­ity in ar­rang­ing any mat­ters which are, as one may say, ar­range­able. They ob­tain from one an­oth­er, on the ground of reci­procity, all pos­si­ble con­ces­sions by the ap­pli­ca­tion of the proverb, “Pass me the rhubarb, and I'll pass you the sen­na,” which is put in prac­tice in all pro­fes­sions, be­tween min­is­ters, sol­diers, judges, busi­ness men; wher­ev­er, in short, en­mi­ty has not raised bar­ri­ers too strong and high be­tween the par­ties.

“I gain a pret­ty good fee out of this com­pro­mise,” is a rea­son that needs no ex­pres­sion in words: it is vis­ible in the ges­ture, the tone, the glance; and as at­tor­neys and so­lic­itors meet con­stant­ly on this ground, the mat­ter, what­ev­er it is, is ar­ranged. The coun­ter­poise of this fra­ter­nal sys­tem is found in what we may call pro­fes­sion­al con­science. The pub­lic must be­lieve the physi­cian who says, giv­ing med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny, “This body con­tains ar­senic”; noth­ing is sup­posed to ex­ceed the in­tegri­ty of the leg­is­la­tor, the in­de­pen­dence of the cab­inet min­is­ter. In like man­ner, the at­tor­ney of Paris says to his broth­er lawyer, good-​hu­mored­ly, “You can't ob­tain that; my client is fu­ri­ous,” and the oth­er an­swers, “Very good; I must do with­out it.”

Now, la Peyrade, a shrewd man, had worn his le­gal gown about the Palais long enough to know how these ju­di­cial morals might be made to serve his pur­pose.

“Sit in the car­riage,” he said to Thuil­li­er, when they reached the rue Vivi­enne, where Gode­schal was now mas­ter of the prac­tice he had for­mer­ly served as clerk. “You needn't show your­self un­til he un­der­takes the af­fair.”

It was eleven o'clock at night; la Peyrade was not mis­tak­en in sup­pos­ing that he should find a new­ly fledged mas­ter of a prac­tice in his of­fice at that hour.

“To what do I owe this vis­it, mon­sieur?” said Gode­schal, com­ing for­ward to meet the bar­ris­ter.

For­eign­ers, provin­cials, and per­sons in high so­ci­ety may not be aware that bar­ris­ters are to at­tor­neys what gen­er­als are to mar­shals. There ex­ists a line of de­mar­ca­tion, strict­ly main­tained, be­tween the or­der of bar­ris­ters and the guild of at­tor­neys and so­lic­itors in Paris. How­ev­er ven­er­able an at­tor­ney may be, how­ev­er ca­pa­ble and strong in his pro­fes­sion, he must go to the bar­ris­ter. The at­tor­ney is the ad­min­is­tra­tor, who maps out the plan of the cam­paign, col­lects the mu­ni­tions of war, and puts the force in mo­tion; the bar­ris­ter gives bat­tle. It is not known why the law gives a man two men to de­fend him any more than it is known why an au­thor is forced to have both print­er and pub­lish­er. The rules of the bar for­bid its mem­bers to do any act be­long­ing to the guild of at­tor­neys. It is very rare that a bar­ris­ter puts his foot in an at­tor­ney's of­fice; the two class­es meet in the law-​courts. In so­ci­ety, there is no bar­ri­er be­tween them, and some bar­ris­ters, those in la Peyrade's sit­ua­tion par­tic­ular­ly, de­mean them­selves by call­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly on at­tor­neys, though even these cas­es are rare, and are usu­al­ly ex­cused by some spe­cial ur­gen­cy.

“I have come on im­por­tant busi­ness,” replied la Peyrade; “it con­cerns, es­pe­cial­ly, a ques­tion of del­ica­cy which you and I ought to solve to­geth­er. Thuil­li­er is be­low, in a car­riage, and I have come up to see you, not as a bar­ris­ter, but as his friend. You are in a po­si­tion to do him an im­mense ser­vice; and I have told him that you have too no­ble a soul (as a wor­thy suc­ces­sor of our great Derville must have) not to put your ut­most ca­pac­ity at his or­ders. Here's the af­fair.”

Af­ter ex­plain­ing, whol­ly to his own ad­van­tage, the swin­dling trick which must, he said, be met with cau­tion and abil­ity, the bar­ris­ter de­vel­oped his plan of cam­paign.

“You ought, my dear maitre, to go this very evening to Desroches, ex­plain the whole plot and per­suade him to send to-​mor­row for his client, this Sauvaig­nou. We'll con­fess the fel­low be­tween us, and if he wants a note for a thou­sand francs over and above the amount of his claim, we'll let him have it; not count­ing the five hun­dred for you and as much more for Desroches, pro­vid­ed Thuil­li­er re­ceives the re­lin­quish­ment of his claim by ten o'clock to-​mor­row morn­ing. What does this Sauvaig­nou want? Noth­ing but mon­ey. Well, a hag­gler like that won't re­sist the at­trac­tion of an ex­tra thou­sand francs, es­pe­cial­ly if he is on­ly the in­stru­ment of a cu­pid­ity be­hind him. It is no mat­ter to us how he fights it out with those who prompt him. Now, then, do you think you can get the Thuil­li­er fam­ily out of this?”

“I'll go and see Desroches at once,” said Gode­schal.

“Not be­fore Thuil­li­er gives you a pow­er of at­tor­ney and five hun­dred francs. The mon­ey should be on the ta­ble in a case like this.”

Af­ter the in­ter­view with Thuil­li­er was over, la Peyrade took Gode­schal in the car­riage to the rue du Bethizy, where Desroches lived, ex­plain­ing that it was on their way back to the rue Saint-​Do­minique d'En­fer. When they stopped at Desroches's door la Peyrade made an ap­point­ment with Gode­schal to meet him there the next morn­ing at sev­en o'clock.

La Peyrade's whole fu­ture and for­tune lay in the out­come of this con­fer­ence. It is there­fore not as­ton­ish­ing that he dis­re­gard­ed the cus­toms of the bar and went to Desroches's of­fice, to study Sauvaig­nou and take part in the strug­gle, in spite of the dan­ger he ran in thus plac­ing him­self vis­ibly be­fore the eyes of one of the most dread­ed at­tor­neys in Paris.

As he en­tered the of­fice and made his salu­ta­tions, he took note of Sauvaig­nou. The man was, as the name had al­ready told him, from Mar­seilles,--the fore­man of a mas­ter-​car­pen­ter, en­trust­ed with the giv­ing out of sub-​con­tracts. The prof­its of this work con­sist­ed of what he could make be­tween the price he paid for the work and that paid to him by the mas­ter-​car­pen­ter; this agree­ment be­ing ex­clu­sive of ma­te­ri­al, his con­tract be­ing on­ly for la­bor. The mas­ter-​car­pen­ter had failed. Sauvaig­nou had there­upon ap­pealed to the court of com­merce for recog­ni­tion as cred­itor with a lien on the prop­er­ty. He was a stocky lit­tle man, dressed in a gray linen blouse, with a cap on his head, and was seat­ed in an arm­chair. Three ban­knotes, of a thou­sand francs each, ly­ing vis­ibly be­fore him on Desroches's desk, in­formed la Peyrade that the ne­go­ti­ation had al­ready tak­en place, and that the lawyers were worsted. Gode­schal's eyes told the rest, and the glance which Desroches cast at the “poor man's ad­vo­cate” was like the blow of a pick-​axe in­to the earth of a grave. Stim­ulat­ed by his dan­ger, the Proven­cal be­came mag­nif­icent. He cool­ly took up the bank-​notes and fold­ed them, as if to put them in his pock­et, say­ing to Desroches:--

“Thuil­li­er has changed his mind.”

“Very good; then we are all agreed,” said the ter­ri­ble at­tor­ney.

“Yes; your client must now hand over to us the fifty thou­sand francs we have spent on fin­ish­ing the house, ac­cord­ing to the con­tract be­tween Thuil­li­er and Grindot. I did not tell you that yes­ter­day,” he added, turn­ing to Gode­schal.

“Do you hear that?” said Desroches to Sauvaig­nou. “That's a case I shall not touch with­out prop­er guar­an­tees.”

“But, messieurs,” said Sauvaig­nou, “I can't ne­go­ti­ate this mat­ter un­til I have seen the wor­thy man who paid me five hun­dred francs on ac­count for hav­ing signed him that bit of a proxy.”

“Are you from Mar­seilles?” said la Peyrade, in pa­tois.

“Oh! if he tack­les him with pa­tois the fel­low is beat­en,” said Gode­schal to Desroches in a low tone.

“Yes, mon­sieur,” replied the Mar­seil­lais.

“Well, you poor dev­il,” con­tin­ued Theo­dose, “don't you see that they want to ru­in you? Shall I tell you what you ought to do? Pock­et these three thou­sand francs, and when your wor­thy man comes af­ter you, take your rule and hit him a rap over the knuck­les; tell him he's a ras­cal who wants you to do his dirty work, and in­stead of that you re­voke your proxy and will pay him his five hun­dred francs in the week with three Thurs­days. Then be off with you to Mar­seilles with these three thou­sand francs and your sav­ings in your pock­et. If any­thing hap­pens to you there, let me know through these gen­tle­men, and I'll get you out of the scrape; for, don't you see? I'm not on­ly a Proven­cal, but I'm al­so one of the lead­ing lawyers in Paris, and the friend of the poor.”

When the work­man found a com­pa­tri­ot sanc­tion­ing in a tone of au­thor­ity the rea­sons by which he could be­tray Cer­izet, he ca­pit­ulat­ed, ask­ing, how­ev­er, for three thou­sand five hun­dred francs. That de­mand hav­ing been grant­ed he re­marked:--

“It is none too much for a rap over the knuck­les; he might put me in prison for as­sault.”

“Well, you needn't strike un­less he in­sults you,” replied la Peyrade, “and that's self-​de­fence.”

When Desroches had as­sured him that la Peyrade was re­al­ly a bar­ris­ter in good stand­ing, Sauvaig­nou signed the re­lin­quish­ment, which con­tained a re­ceipt for the amount, prin­ci­pal and in­ter­est, of his claim, made in du­pli­cate be­tween him­self and Thuil­li­er, and wit­nessed by the two at­tor­neys; so that the pa­per was a fi­nal set­tle­ment of the whole mat­ter.

“We'll leave the re­main­ing fif­teen hun­dred be­tween you,” whis­pered la Peyrade to Desroches and Gode­schal, “on con­di­tion that you give me the re­lin­quish­ment, which I will have Thuil­li­er ac­cept and sign be­fore his no­tary, Car­dot. Poor man! he nev­er closed his eyes all night!”

“Very well,” replied Desroches. “You may con­grat­ulate your­self,” he added, mak­ing Sauvaig­nou sign the pa­per, “that you've earned that mon­ey pret­ty eas­ily.”

“It is re­al­ly mine, isn't it, mon­sieur?” said the Mar­seil­lais, al­ready un­easy.

“Yes, and legal­ly, too,” replied Desroches, “on­ly you must let your man know this morn­ing that you have re­voked your proxy un­der date of yes­ter­day. Go out through my clerk's of­fice, here, this way.”

Desroches told his head-​clerk what the man was to do, and he sent a pupil-​clerk with him to see that a sher­iff's of­fi­cer car­ried the no­tice to Cer­izet be­fore ten o'clock.

“I thank you, Desroches,” said la Peyrade, press­ing the at­tor­ney's hand; “you think of ev­ery­thing; I shall nev­er for­get this ser­vice.”

“Don't de­posit the deed with Car­dot till af­ter twelve o'clock,” re­turned Desroches.

“Hay! com­rade,” cried the bar­ris­ter, in Proven­cal, fol­low­ing Sauvaig­nou in­to the next room, “take your Mar­got to walk about Belleville, and be sure you don't go home.”

“I hear,” said Sauvaig­nou. “I'm off to-​mor­row; adieu!”

“Adieu,” re­turned la Peyrade, with a Proven­cal cry.

“There is some­thing be­hind all this,” said Desroches in an un­der­tone to Gode­schal, as la Peyrade fol­lowed Sauvaig­nou in­to the clerk's of­fice.

“The Thuil­liers get a splen­did piece of prop­er­ty for next to noth­ing,” replied Gode­schal; “that's all.”

“La Peyrade and Cer­izet look to me like two divers who are fight­ing un­der wa­ter,” replied Desroches. “What am I to say to Cer­izet, who put the mat­ter in­to my hands?” he added, as the bar­ris­ter re­turned to them.

“Tell him that Sauvaig­nou forced your hand,” replied la Peyrade.

“And you fear noth­ing?” said Desroches, in a sud­den man­ner.

“I? oh no! I want to give Cer­izet a les­son.”

“To-​mor­row, I shall know the truth,” said Desroches, in a low tone, to Gode­schal; “no one chat­ters like a beat­en man.”

La Peyrade de­part­ed, car­ry­ing with him the deed of re­lin­quish­ment. At eleven o'clock he was in the court­room of the jus­tice-​of-​peace, per­fect­ly calm, and firm. When he saw Cer­izet come in, pale with rage, his eyes full of ven­om, he said in his ear:--

“My dear friend, I'm a pret­ty good fel­low my­self, and I hold that twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs in good bank-​bills at your dis­pos­al, when­ev­er you will re­turn to me those notes of mine which you hold.”

Cer­izet looked at the ad­vo­cate of the poor, with­out be­ing able to say one word in re­ply; he was green; the bile had struck in.