The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER XIV

ONE OF CER­IZET'S FE­MALE CLIENTS

The next morn­ing, at day­break, Theo­dose went to the of­fice of the banker of the poor, to see the ef­fect pro­duced up­on his en­emy by the punc­tu­al pay­ment of the night be­fore, and to make an­oth­er ef­fort to get rid of his hor­net.

He found Cer­izet stand­ing up, in con­fer­ence with a wom­an, and he re­ceived an im­per­ative sign to keep at a dis­tance and not to in­ter­rupt the in­ter­view. The bar­ris­ter was there­fore re­duced to con­jec­tures as to the im­por­tance of this wom­an, an im­por­tance re­vealed by the ea­ger look on the face of the lender “by the lit­tle week.” Theo­dose had a pre­sen­ti­ment, though a very vague one, that the up­shot of this con­fer­ence would have some in­flu­ence on Cer­izet's own ar­range­ments, for he sud­den­ly be­held on that crafty coun­te­nance the change pro­duced by a dawn­ing hope.

“But, my dear mam­ma Car­di­nal--”

“Yes, my good mon­sieur--”

“What is it you want--?”

“It must be de­cid­ed--”

These be­gin­nings, or these ends of sen­tences were the on­ly gleams of light that the an­imat­ed con­ver­sa­tion, car­ried on in the low­est tones with lip to ear and ear to lip, con­veyed to the mo­tion­less wit­ness, whose at­ten­tion was fixed on Madame Car­di­nal.

Madame Car­di­nal was one of Cer­izet's ear­li­est clients; she ped­dled fish. If Parisians know these cre­ations pe­cu­liar to their soil, for­eign­ers have no sus­pi­cion of their ex­is­tence; and Mere Car­di­nal --tech­no­log­ical­ly speak­ing, of course, de­served all the in­ter­est she ex­cit­ed in Theo­dose. So many wom­en of her species may be met with in the streets that the passers-​by give them no more at­ten­tion than they give to the three thou­sand pic­tures of the Sa­lon. But as she stood in Cer­izet's of­fice the Car­di­nal had all the val­ue of an iso­lat­ed mas­ter­piece; she was a com­plete and per­fect type of her species.

The wom­an was mount­ed on mud­dy sabots; but her feet, care­ful­ly wrapped in gaiters, were still fur­ther pro­tect­ed by stout and thick-​ribbed stock­ings. Her cot­ton gown, adorned with a glounce of mud, bore the im­print of the strap which sup­port­ed the fish-​bas­ket. Her prin­ci­pal gar­ment was a shawl of what was called “rab­bit's-​hair cash­mere,” the two ends of which were knot­ted be­hind, above her bus­tle--for we must needs em­ploy a fash­ion­able word to ex­press the ef­fect pro­duced by the transver­sal pres­sure of the bas­ket up­on her pet­ti­coats, which pro­ject­ed be­low it, in shape like a cab­bage. A print­ed cot­ton neck­er­chief, of the coars­est de­scrip­tion, gave to view a red neck, ribbed and lined like the sur­face of a pond where peo­ple have skat­ed. Her head was cov­ered in a yel­low silk foulard, twined in a man­ner that was rather pic­turesque. Short and stout, and rud­dy of skin, Mere Car­di­nal prob­ably drank her lit­tle drop of brandy in the morn­ing. She had once been hand­some. The Halle had for­mer­ly re­proached her, in the bold­ness of its fig­ura­tive speech, for do­ing “a dou­ble day's-​work in the twen­ty-​four.” Her voice, in or­der to re­duce it­self to the di­apa­son of or­di­nary con­ver­sa­tion, was obliged to sti­fle its sound as oth­er voic­es do in a sick-​room; but at such times it came thick and muf­fled, from a throat ac­cus­tomed to send to the far­thest re­cess­es of the high­est gar­ret the names of the fish in their sea­son. Her nose, a la Rox­elane, her well-​cut lips, her blue eyes, and all that for­mer­ly made up her beau­ty, was now buried in folds of vig­or­ous flesh which told of the habits and oc­cu­pa­tions of an out­door life. The stom­ach and bo­som were dis­tin­guished for an am­pli­tude wor­thy of Rubens.

“Do you want to make me lie in the straw?” she said to Cer­izet. “What do I care for the Toupil­liers? Ain't I a Toupil­li­er my­self? What do you want to do with them, those Toupil­liers?”

This sav­age out­burst was hasti­ly re­pressed by Cer­izet, who ut­tered a pro­longed “Hush-​sh!” such as all con­spir­ators obey.

“Well, go and find out all you can about it, and come back to me,” said Cer­izet, push­ing the wom­an to­ward the door, and whis­per­ing, as he did so, a few words in her ear.

“Well, my dear friend,” said Theo­dose to Cer­izet, “you have got your mon­ey?”

“Yes,” re­turned Cer­izet “we have mea­sured our claws, they are the same length, the same strength, and the same sharp­ness. What next?”

“Am I to tell Du­tocq that you re­ceived, last night, twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs?”

“Oh! my dear friend, not a word, if you love me!” cried Cer­izet.

“Lis­ten,” said Theo­dose. “I must know, once for all, what you want. I am pos­itive­ly de­ter­mined not to re­main twen­ty-​four hours longer on the grid­iron where you have got me. Cheat Du­tocq if you will; I am ut­ter­ly in­dif­fer­ent to that; but I in­tend that you and I shall come to an un­der­stand­ing. It is a for­tune that I have paid you, twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs, and you must have earned ten thou­sand more in your busi­ness; it is enough to make you an hon­est man. Cer­izet, if you will leave me in peace, if you won't pre­vent my mar­riage with Made­moi­selle Colleville, I shall cer­tain­ly be king's at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, or some­thing of that kind in Paris. You can't do bet­ter than make sure of an in­flu­ence in that sphere.”

“Here are my con­di­tions; and they won't al­low of dis­cus­sion; you can take them or leave them. You will ob­tain for me the lease of Thuil­li­er's new house for eigh­teen years, and I'll hand you back one of your five notes can­celled, and you shall not find me any longer in your way. But you will have to set­tle with Du­tocq for the re­main­ing four notes. You got the bet­ter of _me_, and I know Du­tocq hasn't the force to stand against you.”

“I'll agree to that, pro­vid­ed you'll pay a rent of forty-​eight thou­sand francs for the house, the last year in ad­vance, and be­gin the lease in Oc­to­ber.”

“Yes; but I shall not give for the last year's rent more than forty-​three thou­sand francs; your note will pay the re­main­der. I have seen the house, and ex­am­ined it. It suits me very well.”

“One last con­di­tion,” said Theo­dose; “you'll help me against Du­tocq?”

“No,” said Cer­izet, “you'll cook him brown your­self; he doesn't need any bast­ing from me; he'll give out his gravy fast enough. But you ought to be rea­son­able. The poor fel­low can't pay off the last fif­teen thou­sand francs due on his prac­tice, and you should re­flect that fif­teen thou­sand francs would cer­tain­ly buy back your notes.”

“Well; give me two weeks to get your lease--”

“No, not a day lat­er than Mon­day next! Tues­day your notes will be in Louchard's hands; un­less you pay them Mon­day, or Thuil­li­er signs the lease.”

“Well, Mon­day, so be it!” said Theo­dose; “are we friends?”

“We shall be Mon­day,” re­spond­ed Cer­izet.

“Well, then, Mon­day you'll pay for my din­ner,” said Theo­dose, laugh­ing.

“Yes, at the Rocher de Can­cale, if I have the lease. Du­tocq shall be there--we'll all be there--ah! it is long since I've had a good laugh.”

Theo­dose and Cer­izet shook hands, say­ing, re­cip­ro­cal­ly:--

“We'll meet soon.”

Cer­izet had not calmed down so sud­den­ly with­out rea­sons. In the first place, as Desroches once said, “Bile does not fa­cil­itate busi­ness,” and the usurer had too well seen the jus­tice of that re­mark not to cool­ly re­solve to get some­thing out of his po­si­tion, and to squeeze the jugu­lar vein of the crafty Proven­cal un­til he stran­gled him.

“It is a fair re­venge,” Desroches said to him; “mind you ex­tract its quintessence. You hold that fel­low.”

For ten years past Cer­izet had seen men grow­ing rich by prac­tis­ing the trade of prin­ci­pal ten­ant. The prin­ci­pal ten­ant is, in Paris, to the own­ers of hous­es what farm­ers are to coun­try land­lords. All Paris has seen one of its great tai­lors, build­ing at his own cost, on the fa­mous site of Fras­cati, one of the most sump­tu­ous of hous­es, and pay­ing, as prin­ci­pal ten­ant, fifty thou­sand francs a year for the ground rent of the house, which, at the end of nine­teen years' lease, was to be­come the prop­er­ty of the own­er of the land. In spite of the costs of con­struc­tion, which were some­thing like sev­en hun­dred thou­sand francs, the prof­its of those nine­teen years proved, in the end, very large.

Cer­izet, al­ways on the watch for busi­ness, had ex­am­ined the chances for gain of­fered by the sit­ua­tion of the house which Thuil­li­er had _stolen_,--as he said to Desroches,--and he had seen the pos­si­bil­ity of let­ting it for six­ty thou­sand at the end of six years. There were four shops, two on each side, for it stood on a boule­vard cor­ner. Cer­izet ex­pect­ed, there­fore, to get clear ten thou­sand a year for a dozen years, al­low­ing for even­tu­al­ities and sun­dries at­ten­dant on re­new­al of leas­es. He there­fore pro­posed to him­self to sell his mon­ey-​lend­ing busi­ness to the wid­ow Poiret and Ca­denet for ten thou­sand francs; he al­ready pos­sessed thir­ty thou­sand; and the two to­geth­er would en­able him to pay the last year's rent in ad­vance, which house-​own­ers in Paris usu­al­ly de­mand as a guar­an­tee from a prin­ci­pal ten­ant on a long lease. Cer­izet had spent a hap­py night; he fell asleep in a glo­ri­ous dream; he saw him­self in a fair way to do an hon­est busi­ness, and to be­come a bour­geois like Thuil­li­er, like Mi­nard, and so many oth­ers.

But he had a wak­ing of which he did not dream. He found For­tune stand­ing be­fore him, and emp­ty­ing her gild­ed horns of plen­ty at his feet in the per­son of Madame Car­di­nal. He had al­ways had a lik­ing for the wom­an, and had promised her for a year past the nec­es­sary sum to buy a don­key and a lit­tle cart, so that she could car­ry on her busi­ness on a large scale, and go from Paris to the sub­urbs. Madame Car­di­nal, wid­ow of a porter in the corn-​mar­ket, had an on­ly daugh­ter, whose beau­ty Cer­izet had heard of from some of the moth­er's cronies. Olympe Car­di­nal was about thir­teen years of age at the time, 1837, when Cer­izet be­gan his sys­tem of loans in the quar­ter; and with a view to an in­fa­mous lib­er­tin­ism, he had paid great at­ten­tion to the moth­er, whom he res­cued from ut­ter mis­ery, hop­ing to make Olympe his mis­tress. But sud­den­ly, in 1838, the girl left her moth­er, and “made her life,” to use an ex­pres­sion by which the low­er class­es in Paris de­scribe the abuse of the most pre­cious gifts of na­ture and youth.

To look for a girl in Paris is to look for a smelt in the Seine; noth­ing but chance can throw her in­to the net. The chance came. Mere Car­di­nal, who to en­ter­tain a neigh­bor had tak­en her to the Bobi­no the­atre, rec­og­nized in the lead­ing la­dy her own daugh­ter, whom the first co­me­di­an had held un­der his con­trol for three years. The moth­er, grat­ified at first at be­hold­ing her daugh­ter in a fine gown of gold bro­cade, her hair dressed like that of a duchess, and wear­ing open-​worked stock­ings, satin shoes, and re­ceiv­ing the plau­dits of the au­di­ence, end­ed by scream­ing out from her seat in the gallery:--

“You shall soon hear of me, mur­der­er of your own moth­er! I'll know whether mis­er­able strolling-​play­ers have the right to come and de­bauch young girls of six­teen!”

She wait­ed at the stage-​door to cap­ture her daugh­ter, but the first co­me­di­an and the lead­ing la­dy had no doubt jumped across the foot­lights and left the the­atre with the au­di­ence, in­stead of is­su­ing by the stage-​door, where Madame Car­di­nal and her crony, Mere Ma­houdeau, made an in­fer­nal rum­pus, which two mu­nic­ipal guards were called up­on to paci­fy. Those au­gust per­son­ages, be­fore whom the two wom­en low­ered the di­apa­son of their voic­es, called the moth­er's at­ten­tion to the fact that the girl was of le­git­imate the­atri­cal age, and that in­stead of scream­ing at the door af­ter the di­rec­tor, she could sum­mon him be­fore the jus­tice-​of-​peace, or the po­lice-​court, whichev­er she pleased.

The next day Madame Car­di­nal in­tend­ed to con­sult Cer­izet, in view of the fact that he was a clerk in the of­fice of the jus­tice-​of-​peace; but, be­fore reach­ing his lair in the rue des Poules, she was met by the porter of a house in which an un­cle of hers, a cer­tain Toupil­li­er, was liv­ing, who told her that the old man hadn't prob­ably two days to live, be­ing then in the last ex­trem­ity.

“Well, how do you ex­pect me to help it?” replied the wid­ow Car­di­nal.

“We count on you, my dear Madame Car­di­nal; we know you won't for­get the good ad­vice we'll give you. Here's the thing. Late­ly, your poor un­cle, not be­ing able to stir round, has trust­ed me to go and col­lect the rents of his house, rue Notre-​Dame de Nazareth, and the ar­rears of his div­idends at the Trea­sury, which come to eigh­teen hun­dred francs.”

By this time the wid­ow Car­di­nal's eyes were be­com­ing fixed in­stead of wan­der­ing.

“Yes, my dear,” con­tin­ued Per­rache, a hump-​backed lit­tle concierge; “and, see­ing that you are the on­ly per­son who ev­er thinks about him, and that you come and see him some­times, and bring him fish, per­haps he may make a be­quest in your fa­vor. My wife, who has been nurs­ing him for the last few days since he has been so ill, spoke to him of you, but he wouldn't have you told about his ill­ness. But now, don't you see, it is high time you should show your­self there. It is pret­ty nigh two months since he has been able to at­tend to busi­ness.”

“You may well think, you old thief,” replied Madame Car­di­nal, hur­ry­ing at top speed to­ward the rue Hon­ore-​Cheva­lier, where her un­cle lived in a wretched gar­ret, “that the hair would grow on my hand be­fore I could ev­er imag­ine that. What! my un­cle Toupil­li­er rich! the old pau­per of the church of Saint-​Sulpice!”

“Ah!” re­turned the porter, “but he fed well. He went to bed ev­ery night with his best friend, a big bot­tle of Rous­sil­lon. My wife has tast­ed it, though he told us it was com­mon stuff. The wine-​mer­chant in the rue des Canettes sup­plies it to him.”

“Don't say a word about all this,” said the wid­ow, when she part­ed from the man who had giv­en her the in­for­ma­tion. “I'll take care and re­mem­ber you--if any­thing comes of it.”

Toupil­li­er, for­mer drum-​ma­jor in the French Guards, had been for the two years pre­ced­ing 1789 in the ser­vice of the Church as bea­dle of Saint-​Sulpice. The Rev­olu­tion de­prived him of that post, and he then dropped down in­to a state of ab­ject mis­ery. He was even obliged to take to the pro­fes­sion of mod­el, for he _en­joyed_, as they say, a fine physique. When pub­lic wor­ship was re­stored, he took up his bea­dle's staff once more; but in 1816 he was dis­missed, as much on ac­count of his im­moral­ity as for his po­lit­ical opin­ions. Nev­er­the­less, he was al­lowed to stay about the door of the church and dis­tribute the holy wa­ter. Lat­er, an un­for­tu­nate af­fair, which we shall present­ly men­tion, made him lose even that po­si­tion; but, still find­ing means to keep to the sanc­tu­ary, he ob­tained per­mis­sion to be al­lowed as a pau­per in the porch. At this pe­ri­od of life, be­ing then sev­en­ty-​two years of age, he made him­self nine­ty-​six, and be­gan the pro­fes­sion of cen­te­nar­ian.

In all Paris it was im­pos­si­ble to find an­oth­er such beard and head of hair as Toupil­li­er's. As he walked he ap­peared bent dou­ble; he held a stick in his shak­ing hand,--a hand that was cov­ered with lichen, like a gran­ite rock, and with the oth­er he held out the clas­sic hat with a broad brim, filthy and bat­tered, in­to which, how­ev­er, there fell abun­dant alms. His legs were swathed in rags and ban­dages, and his feet shuf­fled along in mis­er­able over­shoes of wo­ven mat-​weed, in­side of which he had fas­tened ex­cel­lent cork soles. He washed his face with cer­tain com­pounds, which gave it an ap­pear­ance of forms of ill­ness, and he played the se­nil­ity of a cen­te­nar­ian to the life. He reck­oned him­self a hun­dred years old in 1830, at which time his ac­tu­al age was eighty; he was the head of the pau­pers of Saint-​Sulpice, the mas­ter of the place, and all those who came to beg un­der the ar­cades of the church, safe from the per­se­cu­tions of the po­lice and be­neath the pro­tec­tion of the bea­dle and the giv­er of holy wa­ter, were forced to pay him a sort of tithe.

When a new heir, a bride­groom, or some god­fa­ther left the church, say­ing, “Here, this is for all of you; don't tor­ment any of my par­ty,” Toupil­li­er, ap­point­ed by the bea­dle to re­ceive these alms, pock­et­ed three-​fourths, and dis­tribut­ed on­ly the re­main­ing quar­ter among his hench­men, whose trib­ute amount­ed to a sou a day. Mon­ey and wine were his last two pas­sions; but he reg­ulat­ed the lat­ter and gave him­self up to the for­mer, with ne­glect­ing his per­son­al com­fort. He drank at night on­ly, af­ter his din­ner, and for twen­ty years he slept in the arms of drunk­en­ness, his last mis­tress.

In the ear­ly morn­ing he was at his post with all his fac­ul­ties. From then un­til his din­ner, which he took at Pere Lath­uile's (made fa­mous by Charlet), he gnawed crusts of bread by way of nour­ish­ment; and he gnawed them ar­tis­ti­cal­ly, with an air of res­ig­na­tion which earned him abun­dant alms. The bea­dle and the giv­er of holy wa­ter, with whom he may have had some pri­vate un­der­stand­ing, would say of him:--

“He is one of the wor­thy poor of the church; he used to know the rec­tor Languet, who built Saint-​Sulpice; he was for twen­ty years bea­dle of the church be­fore the Rev­olu­tion, and he is now over a hun­dred years old.”

This lit­tle bi­og­ra­phy, well known to all the pi­ous at­ten­dants of the church, was, of course, the best of his ad­ver­tise­ments, and no hat was so well lined as his. He bought his house in 1826, and be­gan to in­vest his mon­ey in the Funds in 1830. From the val­ue of the two in­vest­ments he must have made some­thing like six thou­sand francs a year, and prob­ably turned them over by usury, af­ter Cer­izet's own fash­ion; for the sum he paid for the house was forty thou­sand francs, while his in­vest­ment in 1830 was forty-​eight thou­sand more. His niece, de­ceived by the old man as much as he de­ceived the func­tionar­ies and the pi­ous souls of the church, be­lieved him the most mis­er­able of pau­pers, and when she had any fish that were spoil­ing she some­times took them to the aged beg­gar.

Con­se­quent­ly, she now felt it her right to get what she could in re­turn for her pity and her lib­er­al­ity to an un­cle who was like­ly to have a crowd of col­lat­er­al heirs; she her­self be­ing the third and last Toupil­li­er daugh­ter. She had four broth­ers, and her fa­ther, a porter with a hand-​cart, had told her, in her child­hood, of three aunts and four un­cles, who all led an ex­is­tence of the baser sort.

Af­ter in­spect­ing the sick man, she went, at full speed, to con­sult Cer­izet, telling him, in the first place, how she had found her daugh­ter, and then the rea­sons and in­di­ca­tions which made her think that her un­cle Toupil­li­er was hoard­ing a pile of gold in his mat­tress. Mere Car­di­nal did not feel her­self strong enough to seize up­on the prop­er­ty, legal­ly or il­le­gal­ly, and she there­fore came to con­fide in Cer­izet and get his ad­vice.

So, then, the banker of the poor, like oth­er scav­engers, had, at last, found di­amonds in the slime in which he had pad­dled for the last four years, be­ing al­ways on the watch for some such chance,--a chance, they say, oc­ca­sion­al­ly met with in the purlieus, which give birth to heiress­es in sabots. This was the se­cret of his un­ex­pect­ed gen­tle­ness to la Peyrade, the man whose ru­in he had vowed. It is easy to imag­ine the anx­iety with which he await­ed the re­turn of Madame Car­di­nal, to whom this wily schemer of ne­far­ious plots had giv­en means to ver­ify her sus­pi­cions as to the ex­is­tence of the hoard­ed trea­sure, promis­ing her com­plete suc­cess if she would trust him to ob­tain for her so rich a har­vest. He was not the man to shrink from a crime, above all, when he saw that oth­ers could com­mit it, while he ob­tained the ben­efits.

“Well, mon­sieur,” cried the fish­wife, en­ter­ing Cer­izet's den with a face as much in­flamed by cu­pid­ity as by the haste of her move­ments, “my un­cle sleeps on more than a hun­dred thou­sand francs in gold, and I am cer­tain that those Per­raches, by dint of nurs­ing him, have smelt the rat.”

“Shared among forty heirs that won't be much to each,” said Cer­izet. “Lis­ten to me, Mere Car­di­nal: I'll mar­ry your daugh­ter; give her your un­cle's gold, and I'll guar­an­tee to you a life-​in­ter­est in the house and the div­idends from the mon­ey in the Funds.”

“We sha'n't run any risk?”

“None, what­ev­er.”

“Agreed, then,” said the wid­ow Car­di­nal, hold­ing out her hand to her fu­ture son-​in-​law. “Six thou­sand francs a year; hey! what a fine life I'll have.”

“With a son-​in-​law like me!” added Cer­izet.

“I shall be a bour­geoisie of Paris!”

“Now,” re­sumed Cer­izet, af­ter a pause, “I must study the ground. Don't leave your un­cle alone a minute; tell the Per­raches that you ex­pect a doc­tor. I'll be the doc­tor, and when I get there you must seem not to know me.”

“Aren't you sly, you old rogue,” said Madame Car­di­nal, with a punch on Cer­izet's stom­ach by way of farewell.

An hour lat­er, Cer­izet, dressed in black, dis­guised by a rusty wig and an ar­ti­fi­cial­ly paint­ed phys­iog­no­my, ar­rived at the house in the rue Hon­ore-​Cheva­lier in the reg­ula­tion cabri­olet. He asked the porter to tell him how to find the lodg­ing of an old beg­gar named Toupil­li­er.

“Is mon­sieur the doc­tor whom Madame Car­di­nal ex­pects?” asked Per­rache.

Cer­izet had no doubt re­flect­ed on the grav­ity of the af­fair he was un­der­tak­ing, for he avoid­ed giv­ing an an­swer to that ques­tion.

“Is this the way?” he said, turn­ing at ran­dom to one side of the court­yard.

“No, mon­sieur,” replied Per­rache, who then took him to the back stairs of the house, which led up to the wretched at­tic oc­cu­pied by the pau­per.

Noth­ing re­mained for the in­quis­itive porter to do but to ques­tion the driv­er of the cabri­olet; to which em­ploy­ment we will leave him, while we pur­sue our own in­quiries else­where.