The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER II

THE HIS­TO­RY OF A TYRAN­NY

At the fall of the Vil­lele min­istry, Mon­sieur Louis-​Jerome Thuil­li­er, who had then seen twen­ty-​six years' ser­vice as a clerk in the min­istry of fi­nance, be­came sub-​di­rec­tor of a de­part­ment there­of; but scarce­ly had he en­joyed the sub­al­tern au­thor­ity of a po­si­tion for­mer­ly his low­est hope, when the events of Ju­ly, 1830, forced him to re­sign it. He cal­cu­lat­ed, shrewd­ly enough, that his pen­sion would be hon­or­ably and read­ily giv­en by the new-​com­ers, glad to have an­oth­er of­fice at their dis­pos­al. He was right; for a pen­sion of sev­en­teen hun­dred francs was paid to him im­me­di­ate­ly.

When the pru­dent sub-​di­rec­tor first talked of re­sign­ing, his sis­ter, who was far more the com­pan­ion of his life than his wife, trem­bled for his fu­ture.

“What will be­come of Thuil­li­er?” was a ques­tion which Madame and Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er put to each oth­er with mu­tu­al ter­ror in their lit­tle lodg­ing on a third floor of the rue d'Ar­gen­teuil.

“Se­cur­ing his pen­sion will oc­cu­py him for a time,” Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er said one day; “but I am think­ing of in­vest­ing my sav­ings in a way that will cut out work for him. Yes; it will be some­thing like ad­min­is­trat­ing the fi­nances to man­age a piece of prop­er­ty.”

“Oh, sis­ter! you will save his life,” cried Madame Thuil­li­er.

“I have al­ways looked for a cri­sis of this kind in Jerome's life,” replied the old maid, with a pro­tect­ing air.

Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er had too of­ten heard her broth­er re­mark: “Such a one is dead; he on­ly sur­vived his re­tire­ment two years”; she had too of­ten heard Colleville, her broth­er's in­ti­mate friend, a gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ee like him­self, say, jest­ing on this cli­mac­ter­ic of bu­reau­crats, “We shall all come to it, our­selves,” not to ap­pre­ci­ate the dan­ger her broth­er was run­ning. The change from ac­tiv­ity to leisure is, in truth, the crit­ical pe­ri­od for gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees of all kinds.

Those of them who know not how to sub­sti­tute, or per­haps can­not sub­sti­tute oth­er oc­cu­pa­tions for the work to which they have been ac­cus­tomed, change in a sin­gu­lar man­ner; some die out­right; oth­ers take to fish­ing, the va­can­cy of that amuse­ment re­sem­bling that of their late em­ploy­ment un­der gov­ern­ment; oth­ers, who are smarter men, dab­ble in stocks, lose their sav­ings, and are thank­ful to ob­tain a place in some en­ter­prise that is like­ly to suc­ceed, af­ter a first dis­as­ter and liq­ui­da­tion, in the hands of an abler man­age­ment. The late clerk then rubs his hands, now emp­ty, and says to him­self, “I al­ways did fore­see the suc­cess of the busi­ness.” But near­ly all these re­tired bu­reau­crats have to fight against their for­mer habits.

“Some,” Colleville used to say, “are vic­tims to a sort of 'spleen' pe­cu­liar to the gov­ern­ment clerk; they die of a checked cir­cu­la­tion; a red-​tape­worm is in their vi­tals. That lit­tle Poiret couldn't see the well-​known white car­ton with­out chang­ing col­or at the beloved sight; he used to turn from green to yel­low.”

Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er was con­sid­ered the mov­ing spir­it of her broth­er's house­hold; she was not with­out de­ci­sion and force of char­ac­ter, as the fol­low­ing his­to­ry will show. This su­pe­ri­or­ity over those who im­me­di­ate­ly sur­round­ed her en­abled her to judge her broth­er, al­though she adored him. Af­ter wit­ness­ing the fail­ure of the hopes she had set up­on her idol, she had too much re­al ma­ter­ni­ty in her feel­ing for him to let her­self be mis­tak­en as to his so­cial val­ue.

Thuil­li­er and his sis­ter were chil­dren of the head porter at the min­istry of fi­nance. Jerome had es­caped, thanks to his near-​sight­ed­ness, all drafts and con­scrip­tions. The fa­ther's am­bi­tion was to make his son a gov­ern­ment clerk. At the be­gin­ning of this cen­tu­ry the army pre­sent­ed too many posts not to leave var­ious va­can­cies in the gov­ern­ment of­fices. A de­fi­cien­cy of mi­nor of­fi­cials en­abled old Pere Thuil­li­er to hoist his son up­on the low­est step of the bu­reau­crat­ic hi­er­ar­chy. The old man died in 1814, leav­ing Jerome on the point of be­com­ing sub-​di­rec­tor, but with no oth­er for­tune than that prospect. The wor­thy Thuil­li­er and his wife (who died in 1810) had re­tired from ac­tive ser­vice in 1806, with a pen­sion as their on­ly means of sup­port; hav­ing spent what prop­er­ty they had in giv­ing Jerome the ed­uca­tion re­quired in these days, and in sup­port­ing both him and his sis­ter.

The in­flu­ence of the Restora­tion on the bu­reau­cra­cy is well known. From the forty and one sup­pressed de­part­ments a crowd of hon­or­able em­ploy­ees re­turned to Paris with noth­ing to do, and clam­orous for places in­fe­ri­or to those they had late­ly oc­cu­pied. To these ac­quired rights were added those of ex­iled fam­ilies ru­ined by the Rev­olu­tion. Pressed be­tween the two floods, Jerome thought him­self lucky not to have been dis­missed un­der some frivolous pre­text. He trem­bled un­til the day when, be­com­ing by mere chance sub-​di­rec­tor, he saw him­self se­cure of a re­tir­ing pen­sion. This cur­so­ry view of mat­ters will serve to ex­plain Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er's very lim­it­ed scope and knowl­edge. He had learned the Latin, math­emat­ics, his­to­ry, and ge­og­ra­phy that are taught in schools, but he nev­er got be­yond what is called the sec­ond class; his fa­ther hav­ing pre­ferred to take ad­van­tage of a sud­den op­por­tu­ni­ty to place him at the min­istry. So, while the young Thuil­li­er was mak­ing his first records on the Grand-​Livre, he ought to have been study­ing his rhetoric and phi­los­ophy.

While grind­ing the min­is­te­ri­al ma­chine, he had no leisure to cul­ti­vate let­ters, still less the arts; but he ac­quired a rou­tine knowl­edge of his busi­ness, and when he had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rise, un­der the Em­pire, to the sphere of su­pe­ri­or em­ploy­ees, he as­sumed a su­per­fi­cial air of com­pe­tence which con­cealed the son of a porter, though none of it rubbed in­to his mind. His ig­no­rance, how­ev­er, taught him to keep si­lence, and si­lence served him well. He ac­cus­tomed him­self to prac­tise, un­der the im­pe­ri­al regime, a pas­sive obe­di­ence which pleased his su­pe­ri­ors; and it was to this qual­ity that he owed at a lat­er pe­ri­od his pro­mo­tion to the rank of sub-​di­rec­tor. His rou­tine habits then be­came great ex­pe­ri­ence; his man­ners and his si­lence con­cealed his lack of ed­uca­tion, and his ab­so­lute nul­li­ty was a rec­om­men­da­tion, for a ci­pher was need­ed. The gov­ern­ment was afraid of dis­pleas­ing both par­ties in the Cham­ber by se­lect­ing a man from ei­ther side; it there­fore got out of the dif­fi­cul­ty by re­sort­ing to the rule of se­nior­ity. That is how Thuil­li­er be­came sub-​di­rec­tor. Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, know­ing that her broth­er ab­horred read­ing, and could sub­sti­tute no busi­ness for the bus­tle of a pub­lic of­fice, had wise­ly re­solved to plunge him in­to the cares of prop­er­ty, in­to the cul­ture of a gar­den, in short, in­to all the in­finite­ly pet­ty con­cerns and neigh­bor­hood in­trigues which make up the life of the bour­geoisie.

The trans­plant­ing of the Thuil­li­er house­hold from the rue d'Ar­gen­teuil to the rue Saint-​Do­minique d'En­fer, the busi­ness of mak­ing the pur­chase, of find­ing a suit­able porter, and then of ob­tain­ing ten­ants oc­cu­pied Thuil­li­er from 1831 to 1832. When the phe­nomenon of the change was ac­com­plished, and the sis­ter saw that Jerome had borne it fair­ly well, she found him oth­er cares and oc­cu­pa­tions (about which we shall hear lat­er), all based up­on the char­ac­ter of the man him­self, as to which it will now be use­ful to give in­for­ma­tion.

Though the son of a min­is­te­ri­al porter, Thuil­li­er was what is called a fine man, slen­der in fig­ure, above mid­dle height, and pos­sess­ing a face that was rather agree­able if wear­ing his spec­ta­cles, but fright­ful with­out them; which is fre­quent­ly the case with near-​sight­ed per­sons; for the habit of look­ing through glass­es has cov­ered the pupils of his eyes with a sort of film.

Be­tween the ages of eigh­teen and thir­ty, young Thuil­li­er had much suc­cess among wom­en, in a sphere which be­gan with the less­er bour­geois and end­ed in that of the heads of de­part­ments. Un­der the Em­pire, war left Parisian so­ci­ety rather de­nud­ed of men of en­er­gy, who were most­ly on the bat­tle­field; and per­haps, as a great physi­cian has sug­gest­ed, this may ac­count for the flab­bi­ness of the gen­er­ation which oc­cu­pies the mid­dle of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry.

Thuil­li­er, forced to make him­self no­tice­able by oth­er charms than those of mind, learned to dance and to waltz in a way to be cit­ed; he was called “that hand­some Thuil­li­er”; he played bil­liards to per­fec­tion; he knew how to cut out like­ness­es in black pa­per, and his friend Colleville coached him so well that he was able to sing all the bal­lads of the day. These var­ious small ac­com­plish­ments re­sult­ed in that ap­pear­ance of suc­cess which de­ceives youth and be­fogs it about the fu­ture. Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, from 1806 to 1814, be­lieved in her broth­er as Made­moi­selle d'Or­leans be­lieved in Louis-​Philippe. She was proud of Jerome; she ex­pect­ed to see him the di­rec­tor-​gen­er­al of his de­part­ment of the min­istry, thanks to his suc­cess­es in cer­tain sa­lons, where, un­doubt­ed­ly, he would nev­er have been ad­mit­ted but for the cir­cum­stances which made so­ci­ety un­der the Em­pire a med­ley.

But the suc­cess­es of “that hand­some Thuil­li­er” were usu­al­ly of short du­ra­tion; wom­en did not care to keep his de­vo­tion any more than he de­sired to make his de­vo­tion eter­nal. He was re­al­ly an un­will­ing Don Juan; the ca­reer of a “beau” wea­ried him to the point of ag­ing him; his face, cov­ered with lines like that of an old co­quette, looked a dozen years old­er than the reg­is­ters made him. There re­mained to him of all his suc­cess­es in gal­lantry, a habit of look­ing at him­self in mir­rors, of but­ton­ing his coat to de­fine his waist, and of pos­ing in var­ious danc­ing at­ti­tudes; all of which pro­longed, be­yond the pe­ri­od of en­joy­ing his ad­van­tages, the sort of lease that he held on his cog­nomen, “that hand­some Thuil­li­er.”

The truth of 1806 has, how­ev­er, be­come a fa­ble, in 1826. He re­tains a few ves­tiges of the for­mer cos­tume of the beaux of the Em­pire, which are not un­be­com­ing to the dig­ni­ty of a for­mer sub-​di­rec­tor. He still wears the white cra­vat with in­nu­mer­able folds, where­in his chin is buried, and the co­quet­tish bow, for­mer­ly tied by the hands of beau­ty, the two ends of which threat­en dan­ger to the passers to right and left. He fol­lows the fash­ions of for­mer days, adapt­ing them to his present needs; he tips his hat on the back of his head, and wears shoes and thread stock­ings in sum­mer; his long-​tailed coats re­mind one of the well-​known “surtouts” of the Em­pire; he has not yet aban­doned his frilled shirts and his white waist­coats; he still plays with his Em­pire switch, and holds him­self so erect that his back bends in. No one, see­ing Thuil­li­er prom­enad­ing on the boule­vards, would take him for the son of a man who cooked the break­fasts of the clerks at a min­istry and wore the liv­ery of Louis XVI.; he re­sem­bles an im­pe­ri­al diplo­ma­tist or a sub-​pre­fect. Now, not on­ly did Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er very in­no­cent­ly work up­on her broth­er's weak spot by en­cour­ag­ing in him an ex­ces­sive care of his per­son, which, in her, was sim­ply a con­tin­ua­tion of her wor­ship, but she al­so pro­vid­ed him with fam­ily joys, by trans­plant­ing to their midst a house­hold which had hith­er­to been quasi-​col­lat­er­al to them.

It was that of Mon­sieur Colleville, an in­ti­mate friend of Thuil­li­er. But be­fore we pro­ceed to de­scribe Py­lades let us fin­ish with Orestes, and ex­plain why Thuil­li­er--that hand­some Thuil­li­er--was left with­out a fam­ily of his own--for the fam­ily, be it said, is non-​ex­is­tent with­out chil­dren. Here­in ap­pears one of those deep mys­ter­ies which lie buried in the are­na of pri­vate life, a few shreds of which rise to the sur­face at mo­ments when the pain of a con­cealed sit­ua­tion grows poignant. This con­cerns the life of Madame and Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er; so far, we have seen on­ly the life (and we may call it the pub­lic life) of Jerome Thuil­li­er.

Marie-​Jeanne-​Brigitte Thuil­li­er, four years old­er than her broth­er, had been ut­ter­ly sac­ri­ficed to him; it was eas­ier to give a ca­reer to one than a “dot” to the oth­er. Mis­for­tune to some na­tures is a pharos, which il­lu­mines to their eyes the dark low cor­ners of so­cial ex­is­tence. Su­pe­ri­or to her broth­er both in mind and en­er­gy, Brigitte had one of those na­tures which, un­der the ham­mer of per­se­cu­tion, gath­er them­selves to­geth­er, be­come com­pact and pow­er­ful­ly re­sis­tant, not to say in­flex­ible. Jeal­ous of her in­de­pen­dence, she kept aloof from the life of the house­hold; choos­ing to make her­self the sole ar­biter of her own fate. At four­teen years of age, she went to live alone in a gar­ret, not far from the min­istry of fi­nance, which was then in the rue Vivi­enne, and al­so not far from the Bank of France, then, and now, in the rue de la Vril­liere. There she brave­ly gave her­self up to a form of in­dus­try lit­tle known and the perquisite of a few per­sons, which she ob­tained, thanks to the pa­trons of her fa­ther. It con­sist­ed in mak­ing bags to hold coin for the Bank, the Trea­sury, and the great fi­nan­cial hous­es. At the end of three years she em­ployed two work­wom­en. By in­vest­ing her sav­ings on the Grand-​Livre, she found her­self, in 1814, the mis­tress of three thou­sand six hun­dred francs a year, earned in fif­teen years. As she spent lit­tle, and dined with her fa­ther as long as he lived, and, as gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties were very low dur­ing the last con­vul­sions of the Em­pire, this re­sult, which seems at first sight ex­ag­ger­at­ed, ex­plains it­self.

On the death of their fa­ther, Brigitte and Jerome, the for­mer be­ing twen­ty-​sev­en, the lat­ter twen­ty-​three, unit­ed their ex­is­tence. Broth­er and sis­ter were bound to­geth­er by an ex­treme af­fec­tion. If Jerome, then at the height of his suc­cess, was pinched for mon­ey, his sis­ter, clothed in serge, and her fin­gers rough­ened by the coarse thread with which she sewed her bags, would give him a few louis. In Brigitte's eyes Jerome was the hand­somest and most charm­ing man in the whole French Em­pire. To keep house for this cher­ished broth­er, to be ini­ti­at­ed in­to the se­crets of Lin­dor and Don Juan, to be his hand­maid­en, his spaniel, was Brigitte's dream. She im­mo­lat­ed her­self lov­ing­ly to an idol whose self­ish­ness, al­ways great, was enor­mous­ly in­creased by her self-​sac­ri­fice. She sold her busi­ness to her fore-​wom­an for fif­teen thou­sand francs and came to live with Thuil­li­er in the rue d'Ar­gen­teuil, where she made her­self the moth­er, pro­tec­tress, and ser­vant of this spoiled child of wom­en. Brigitte, with the nat­ural cau­tion of a girl who owed ev­ery­thing to her own dis­cre­tion and her own la­bor, con­cealed the amount of her sav­ings from Jerome,--fear­ing, no doubt, the ex­trav­agance of a man of gal­lantry. She mere­ly paid a quo­ta of six hun­dred francs a year to the ex­pens­es of the house­hold, and this, with her broth­er's eigh­teen hun­dred, en­abled her to make both ends meet at the end of the year.

From the first days of their com­ing to­geth­er, Thuil­li­er lis­tened to his sis­ter as to an or­acle; he con­sult­ed her in his tri­fling af­fairs, kept none of his se­crets from her, and thus made her taste the fruit of despo­tism which was, in truth, the one lit­tle sin of her na­ture. But the sis­ter had sac­ri­ficed ev­ery­thing to the broth­er; she had staked her all up­on his heart; she lived by him on­ly. Brigitte's as­cen­dan­cy over Jerome was sin­gu­lar­ly proved by the mar­riage which she pro­cured for him about the year 1814.

See­ing the ten­den­cy to en­forced re­duc­tion which the new-​com­ers to pow­er un­der the Restora­tion were be­gin­ning to bring about in the gov­ern­ment of­fices, and par­tic­ular­ly since the re­turn of the old so­ci­ety which sought to ride over the bour­geoisie, Brigitte un­der­stood, far bet­ter than her broth­er could ex­plain it to her, the so­cial cri­sis which present­ly ex­tin­guished their com­mon hopes. No more suc­cess­es for that hand­some Thuil­li­er in the sa­lons of the no­bles who now suc­ceed­ed the ple­beians of the Em­pire!

Thuil­li­er was not enough of a per­son to take up a politic opin­ion and choose a par­ty; he felt, as his sis­ter did for him, the ne­ces­si­ty of prof­it­ing by the re­mains of his youth to make a set­tle­ment. In such a sit­ua­tion, a sis­ter as jeal­ous of her pow­er as Brigitte nat­ural­ly would, and ought, to mar­ry her broth­er, to suit her­self as well as to suit him; for she alone could make him re­al­ly hap­py, Madame Thuil­li­er be­ing on­ly an in­dis­pens­able ac­ces­so­ry to the ob­tain­ing of two or three chil­dren. If Brigitte did not have an in­tel­lect quite the equal of her will, at least she had the in­stinct of her despo­tism; with­out, it is true, ed­uca­tion, she marched straight be­fore her, with the head­strong de­ter­mi­na­tion of a na­ture ac­cus­tomed to suc­ceed. She had the ge­nius of house­keep­ing, a fac­ul­ty for econ­omy, a thor­ough un­der­stand­ing of how to live, and a love for work. She saw plain­ly that she could nev­er suc­ceed in mar­ry­ing Jerome in­to a sphere above their own, where par­ents might in­quire in­to their do­mes­tic life and feel un­easy at find­ing a mis­tress al­ready reign­ing in the home. She there­fore sought in a low­er grade for per­sons to daz­zle, and found, al­most be­side her, a suit­able match.

The old­est ush­er at the Bank, a man named Lem­prun, had an on­ly daugh­ter, called Ce­leste. Made­moi­selle Ce­leste Lem­prun would in­her­it the for­tune of her moth­er, the on­ly daugh­ter of a rich farmer. This for­tune con­sist­ed of some acres of land in the en­vi­rons of Paris, which the old fa­ther still worked; be­sides this, she would have the prop­er­ty of Lem­prun him­self, a man who had left the firms of Thelus­son and of Keller to en­ter the ser­vice of the Bank of France. Lem­prun, now the head of that ser­vice, en­joyed the re­spect and con­sid­er­ation of the gov­er­nors and au­di­tors.

The Bank coun­cil, on hear­ing of the prob­able mar­riage of Ce­leste to an hon­or­able em­ploy­ee at the min­istry of fi­nance, promised a wed­ding present of six thou­sand francs. This gift, added to twelve thou­sand giv­en by Pere Lem­prun, and twelve thou­sand more from the ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther, Sieur Galard, mar­ket-​gar­den­er at Au­teuil, brought up the dowry to thir­ty thou­sand francs. Old Galard and Mon­sieur and Madame Lem­prun were de­light­ed with the mar­riage. Lem­prun him­self knew Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, and con­sid­ered her one of the wor­thi­est and most con­sci­en­tious wom­en in Paris. Brigitte then, for the first time, al­lowed her in­vest­ments on the Grand-​Livre to shine forth, as­sur­ing Lem­prun that she should nev­er mar­ry; con­se­quent­ly, nei­ther he nor his wife, per­sons de­vot­ed to the main chance, would ev­er al­low them­selves to find fault with Brigitte. Above all, they were great­ly struck by the splen­did prospects of the hand­some Thuil­li­er, and the mar­riage took place, as the con­ven­tion­al say­ing is, to the gen­er­al sat­is­fac­tion.

The gov­er­nor of the Bank and the sec­re­tary were the bride's wit­ness­es; Mon­sieur de la Bil­lardiere, di­rec­tor of Thuil­li­er's de­part­ment, and Mon­sieur Rabour­din, head of the of­fice, be­ing those of the groom. Six days af­ter the mar­riage old Lem­prun was the vic­tim of a dar­ing rob­bery which made a great noise in the news­pa­pers of the day, though it was quick­ly for­got­ten dur­ing the events of 1815. The guilty par­ties hav­ing es­caped de­tec­tion, Lem­prun wished to make up the loss; but the Bank agreed to car­ry the deficit to its prof­it and loss ac­count; nev­er­the­less, the poor old man ac­tu­al­ly died of the grief this af­fair had caused him. He re­gard­ed it as an at­tack up­on his aged hon­or.

Madame Lem­prun then re­signed all her prop­er­ty to her daugh­ter, Madame Thuil­li­er, and went to live with her fa­ther at Au­teuil un­til he died from an ac­ci­dent in 1817. Alarmed at the prospect of hav­ing to man­age or lease the mar­ket-​gar­den and the farm of her fa­ther, Madame Lem­prun en­treat­ed Brigitte, whose hon­esty and ca­pac­ity as­ton­ished her, to wind up old Galard's af­fairs, and to set­tle the prop­er­ty in such a way that her daugh­ter should take pos­ses­sion of ev­ery­thing, se­cur­ing to her moth­er fif­teen hun­dred francs a year and the house at Au­teuil. The land­ed prop­er­ty of the old farmer was sold in lots, and brought in thir­ty thou­sand francs. Lem­prun's es­tate had giv­en as much more, so that Madame Thuil­li­er's for­tune, in­clud­ing her “dot,” amount­ed in 1818 to nine­ty thou­sand francs. Join­ing the rev­enue of this prop­er­ty to that of the broth­er and sis­ter, the Thuil­li­er house­hold had an in­come, in 1818, amount­ing to eleven thou­sand francs, man­aged by Brigitte alone on her sole re­spon­si­bil­ity. It is nec­es­sary to be­gin by stat­ing this fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, not on­ly to pre­vent ob­jec­tions but to rid the dra­ma of dif­fi­cul­ties.

Brigitte be­gan, from the first, by al­low­ing her broth­er five hun­dred francs a month, and by sail­ing the house­hold boat at the rate of five thou­sand francs a year. She grant­ed to her sis­ter-​in-​law fifty francs a month, ex­plain­ing to her care­ful­ly that she her­self was sat­is­fied with forty. To strength­en her despo­tism by the pow­er of mon­ey, Brigitte laid by the sur­plus of her own funds. She made, so it was said in busi­ness of­fices, usu­ri­ous loans by means of her broth­er, who ap­peared as a mon­ey-​lender. If, be­tween the years 1813 and 1830, Brigitte had cap­ital­ized six­ty thou­sand francs, that sum can be ex­plained by the rise in the Funds, and there is no need to have re­course to ac­cu­sa­tions more or less well found­ed, which have noth­ing to do with our present his­to­ry.

From the first days of the mar­riage, Brigitte sub­dued the un­for­tu­nate Madame Thuil­li­er with a touch of the spur and a jerk of the bit, both of which she made her feel severe­ly. A fur­ther dis­play of tyran­ny was use­less; the vic­tim re­signed her­self at once. Ce­leste, thor­ough­ly un­der­stood by Brigitte, a girl with­out mind or ed­uca­tion, ac­cus­tomed to a seden­tary life and a tran­quil at­mo­sphere, was ex­treme­ly gen­tle by na­ture; she was pi­ous in the fullest ac­cep­ta­tion of the word; she would will­ing­ly have ex­pi­at­ed by the hard­est pun­ish­ments the in­vol­un­tary wrong of giv­ing pain to her neigh­bor. She was ut­ter­ly ig­no­rant of life; ac­cus­tomed to be wait­ed on by her moth­er, who did the whole ser­vice of the house, for Ce­leste was un­able to make much ex­er­tion, ow­ing to a lym­phat­ic con­sti­tu­tion which the least toil wea­ried. She was tru­ly a daugh­ter of the peo­ple of Paris, where chil­dren, sel­dom hand­some, and of no vig­or, the prod­uct of pover­ty and toil, of homes with­out fresh air, with­out free­dom of ac­tion, with­out any of the con­ve­niences of life, meet us at ev­ery turn.

At the time of the mar­riage, Ce­leste was seen to be a lit­tle wom­an, fair and fad­ed al­most to sick­li­ness, fat, slow, and sil­ly in the coun­te­nance. Her fore­head, much too large and too promi­nent, sug­gest­ed wa­ter on the brain, and be­neath that wax­en cupo­la her face, no­tice­ably too small and end­ing in a point like the nose of a mouse, made some peo­ple fear she would be­come, soon­er or lat­er, im­be­cile. Her eyes, which were light blue, and her lips, al­ways fixed in a smile, did not con­tra­dict that idea. On the solemn oc­ca­sion of her mar­riage she had the man­ner, air, and at­ti­tude of a per­son con­demned to death, whose on­ly de­sire is that it might all be over speed­ily.

“She is rather round,” said Colleville to Thuil­li­er.

Brigitte was just the knife to cut in­to such a na­ture, to which her own formed the strongest con­trast. Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er was re­mark­able for her reg­ular and cor­rect beau­ty, but a beau­ty in­jured by toil which, from her very child­hood, had bent her down to painful, thank­less tasks, and by the se­cret pri­va­tions she im­posed up­on her­self in or­der to amass her lit­tle prop­er­ty. Her com­plex­ion, ear­ly dis­col­ored, had some­thing the tint of steel. Her brown eyes were framed in brown; on the up­per lip was a brown floss like a sort of smoke. Her lips were thin, and her im­pe­ri­ous fore­head was sur­mount­ed by hair once black, now turn­ing to chin­chilla. She held her­self as straight as the fairest beau­ty; but all things else about her showed the har­di­ness of her life, the dead­en­ing of her nat­ural fire, the cost of what she was!

To Brigitte, Ce­leste was sim­ply a for­tune to lay hold of, a fu­ture moth­er to rule, one more sub­ject in her em­pire. She soon re­proached her for be­ing _weak_, a con­stant word in her vo­cab­ulary, and the jeal­ous old maid, who would strong­ly have re­sent­ed any signs of ac­tiv­ity in her sis­ter-​in-​law, now took a sav­age plea­sure in prod­ding the lan­guid in­ert­ness of the fee­ble crea­ture. Ce­leste, ashamed to see her sis­ter-​in-​law dis­play­ing such en­er­gy in house­hold work, en­deav­ored to help her, and fell ill in con­se­quence. In­stant­ly, Brigitte was de­vot­ed to her, nursed her like a beloved sis­ter, and would say, in pres­ence of Thuil­li­er: “You haven't any strength, my child; you must nev­er do any­thing again.” She showed up Ce­leste's in­ca­pac­ity by that dis­play of sym­pa­thy with which strength, seem­ing to pity weak­ness, finds means to boast of its own pow­ers.

But, as all despot­ic na­tures lik­ing to ex­er­cise their strength are full of ten­der­ness for phys­ical suf­fer­ings, Brigitte took such re­al care of her sis­ter-​in-​law as to sat­is­fy Ce­leste's moth­er when she came to see her daugh­ter. Af­ter Madame Thuil­li­er re­cov­ered, how­ev­er, she called her, in Ce­leste's hear­ing, “a help­less crea­ture, good for noth­ing!” which sent the poor thing cry­ing to her room. When Thuil­li­er found her there, dry­ing her eyes, he ex­cused her sis­ter, say­ing:--

“She is an ex­cel­lent wom­an, but rather hasty; she loves you in her own way; she be­haves just so with me.”

Ce­leste, re­mem­ber­ing the ma­ter­nal care of her sis­ter-​in-​law dur­ing her ill­ness, for­gave the wound. Brigitte al­ways treat­ed her broth­er as the king of the fam­ily; she ex­alt­ed him to Ce­leste, and made him out an au­to­crat, a Ladis­las, an in­fal­li­ble pope. Madame Thuil­li­er hav­ing lost her fa­ther and grand­fa­ther, and be­ing well-​nigh de­sert­ed by her moth­er, who came to see her on Thurs­days on­ly (she her­self spend­ing Sun­days at Au­teuil in sum­mer), had no one left to love ex­cept her hus­band, and she did love him,--in the first place, be­cause he was her hus­band, and sec­ond­ly, be­cause he still re­mained to her “that hand­some Thuil­li­er.” Be­sides, he some­times treat­ed her like a wife, and all these rea­sons to­geth­er made her adore him. He seemed to her all the more per­fect be­cause he of­ten took up her de­fence and scold­ed his sis­ter, not from any re­al in­ter­est in his wife, but for pure self­ish­ness, and in or­der to have peace in the house­hold dur­ing the very few mo­ments that he stayed there.

In fact, that hand­some Thuil­li­er was nev­er at home ex­cept at din­ner, af­ter which meal he went out, re­turn­ing very late at night. He went to balls and oth­er so­cial fes­tiv­ities by him­self, pre­cise­ly as if he were still a bach­elor. Thus the two wom­en were al­ways alone to­geth­er. Ce­leste in­sen­si­bly fell in­to a pas­sive at­ti­tude, and be­came what Brigitte want­ed her,--a helot. The Queen Eliz­abeth of the house­hold then passed from despo­tism to a sort of pity for the poor vic­tim who was al­ways sac­ri­ficed. She end­ed by soft­en­ing her haughty ways, her cut­ting speech, her con­temp­tu­ous tones, as soon as she was cer­tain that her sis­ter-​in-​law was com­plete­ly un­der the yoke. When she saw the wounds it made on the neck of her vic­tim, she took care of her as a thing of her own, and Ce­leste en­tered up­on hap­pi­er days. Com­par­ing the end with the be­gin­ning, she even felt a sort of love for her tor­tur­er. To gain some pow­er of self-​de­fence, to be­come some­thing less a ci­pher in the house­hold, sup­port­ed, un­known to her­self, by her own means, the poor helot had but a sin­gle chance, and that chance nev­er came to her.

Ce­leste had no child. This bar­ren­ness, which, from month to month, brought floods of tears from her eyes, was long the cause of Brigitte's scorn; she re­proached the poor wom­an bit­ter­ly for be­ing fit for noth­ing, not even to bear chil­dren. The old maid, who had longed to love her broth­er's child as if it were her own, was un­able, for years, to rec­on­cile her­self to this ir­re­me­di­able steril­ity.

At the time when our his­to­ry be­gins, name­ly, in 1840, Ce­leste, then forty-​six years old, had ceased to weep; she now had the cer­tain­ty of nev­er be­ing a moth­er. And here is a strange thing. Af­ter twen­ty-​five years of this life, in which vic­to­ry had end­ed by first dulling and then break­ing its own knife, Brigitte loved Ce­leste as much as Ce­leste loved Brigitte. Time, ease, and the per­pet­ual rub­bing of do­mes­tic life, had worn off the an­gles and smoothed the as­per­ities; Ce­leste's res­ig­na­tion and lamb-​like gen­tle­ness had brought, at last, a serene and peace­ful au­tumn. The two wom­en were still fur­ther unit­ed by the one sen­ti­ment that lay with­in them, name­ly, their ado­ra­tion for the lucky and self­ish Thuil­li­er.

More­over, these two wom­en, both child­less, had each, like all wom­en who have vain­ly de­sired chil­dren, fall­en in love with a child. This fic­ti­tious moth­er­hood, equal in strength to a re­al moth­er­hood, needs an ex­pla­na­tion which will car­ry us to the very heart of our dra­ma, and will show the rea­son of the new oc­cu­pa­tion which Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er pro­vid­ed for her broth­er.