The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER IV

THE CIR­CLE OF MON­SIEUR AND MADAME THUIL­LI­ER

The Collevilles and their chil­dren be­came, nat­ural­ly, the nu­cle­us of the cir­cle which Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er had the am­bi­tion to group around her broth­er. A for­mer clerk in the Bil­lardiere di­vi­sion of the min­istry, named Phel­lion, had lived for the last thir­ty years in their present quar­ter. He was prompt­ly greet­ed by Colleville and Thuil­li­er at the first re­view. Phel­lion proved to be one of the most re­spect­ed men in the ar­rondisse­ment. He had one daugh­ter, now mar­ried to a school-​teach­er in the rue Saint-​Hy­acinthe, a Mon­sieur Barniol. Phel­lion's el­dest son was a pro­fes­sor of math­emat­ics in a roy­al col­lege; he gave lec­tures and pri­vate lessons, be­ing de­vot­ed, so his fa­ther was wont to say, to pure math­emat­ics. A sec­ond son was in the gov­ern­ment School of En­gi­neer­ing. Phel­lion had a pen­sion of nine hun­dred francs, and he pos­sessed a lit­tle prop­er­ty of nine thou­sand and a few odd hun­dred francs; the fruit of his econ­omy and that of his wife dur­ing thir­ty years of toil and pri­va­tion. He was, more­over, the own­er of a lit­tle house and gar­den where he lived in the “im­passe” des Feuil­lan­tines,--in thir­ty years he had nev­er used the old-​fash­ioned word “cul-​de-​sac”!

Du­tocq, the clerk of the jus­tice of peace, was al­so a for­mer em­ploy­ee at the min­istry of fi­nance. Sac­ri­ficed, in for­mer days, to one of those ne­ces­si­ties which are al­ways met with in rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, he had ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion of scape­goat, re­ceiv­ing, pri­vate­ly, a round sum of mon­ey and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to buy his present post of clerk in the ar­rondisse­ment. This man, not very hon­or­able, and known to be a spy in the gov­ern­ment of­fices, was nev­er wel­comed as he thought he ought to be by the Thuil­liers; but the cold­ness of his land­lords on­ly made him the more per­sis­tent in go­ing to see them. He was a bach­elor and had var­ious vices; he there­fore con­cealed his life care­ful­ly, know­ing well how to main­tain his po­si­tion by flat­ter­ing his su­pe­ri­ors. The jus­tice of peace was much at­tached to Du­tocq. This man, base as he was, man­aged, in the end, to make him­self tol­er­at­ed by the Thuil­liers, chiefly by coarse and cring­ing adu­la­tion. He knew the facts of Thuil­li­er's whole life, his re­la­tions with Colleville, and, above all, with Madame Colleville. One and all they feared his tongue, and the Thuil­liers, with­out ad­mit­ting him to any in­ti­ma­cy, en­dured his vis­its.

The fam­ily which be­came the flow­er of the Thuil­li­er sa­lon was that of a for­mer min­is­te­ri­al clerk, once an ob­ject of pity in the gov­ern­ment of­fices, who, driv­en by pover­ty, left the pub­lic ser­vice, in 1827, to fling him­self in­to a busi­ness en­ter­prise, hav­ing, as he thought, an idea. Mi­nard (that was his name) fore­saw a for­tune in one of those wicked con­cep­tions which re­flect such dis­cred­it on French com­merce, but which, in the year 1827, had not yet been ex­posed and blast­ed by pub­lic­ity. Mi­nard bought tea and mixed it with tea-​leaves al­ready used; al­so he adul­ter­at­ed the el­ements of choco­late in a man­ner which en­abled him to sell the choco­late it­self very cheap­ly. This trade in colo­nial prod­ucts, be­gun in the quarti­er Saint-​Mar­cel, made a mer­chant of Mi­nard. He start­ed a fac­to­ry, and through these ear­ly con­nec­tions he was able to reach the sources of raw ma­te­ri­al. He then did hon­or­ably, and on a large scale, a busi­ness be­gun in the first in­stance dis­hon­or­ably. He be­came a dis­tiller, worked up­on un­told quan­ti­ties of prod­ucts, and, by the year 1835, was con­sid­ered the rich­est mer­chant in the re­gion of the Place Maubert. By that time he had bought a hand­some house in the rue des Ma­cons-​Sor­bonne; he had been as­sis­tant may­or, and in 1839 be­came may­or of his ar­rondisse­ment and judge in the Court of Com­merce. He kept a car­riage, had a coun­try-​place near Lagny; his wife wore di­amonds at the court balls, and he prid­ed him­self on the rosette of an of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of hon­or in his but­ton­hole.

Mi­nard and his wife were ex­ceed­ing­ly benev­olent. Per­haps he wished to re­turn in re­tail to the poor the sums he had mulct­ed from the pub­lic by the whole­sale. Phel­lion, Colleville, and Thuil­li­er met their old com­rade, Mi­nard, at elec­tion, and an in­ti­ma­cy fol­lowed; all the clos­er with the Thuil­liers and Collevilles be­cause Madame Mi­nard seemed en­chant­ed to make an ac­quain­tance for her daugh­ter in Ce­leste Colleville. It was at a grand ball giv­en by the Mi­nards that Ce­leste made her first ap­pear­ance in so­ci­ety (be­ing at that time six­teen and a half years old), dressed as her Chris­tian named de­mand­ed, which seemed to be prophet­ic of her com­ing life. De­light­ed to be friend­ly with Made­moi­selle Mi­nard, her el­der by four years, she per­suad­ed her fa­ther and god­fa­ther to cul­ti­vate the Mi­nard es­tab­lish­ment, with its gild­ed sa­lons and great op­ulence, where many po­lit­ical celebri­ties of the “juste mi­lieu” were wont to con­gre­gate, such as Mon­sieur Popinot, who be­came, af­ter a time, min­is­ter of com­merce; Cochin, since made Baron Cochin, a for­mer em­ploy­ee at the min­istry of fi­nance, who, hav­ing a large in­ter­est in the drug busi­ness, was now the or­acle of the Lom­bard and Bour­don­nais quar­ters, con­joint­ly with Mon­sieur Anselme Popinot. Mi­nard's el­dest son, a lawyer, aim­ing to suc­ceed those bar­ris­ters who were turned down from the Palais for po­lit­ical rea­sons in 1830, was the ge­nius of the house­hold, and his moth­er, even more than his fa­ther, as­pired to mar­ry him well. Zelie Mi­nard, for­mer­ly a flow­er-​mak­er, felt an ar­dent pas­sion for the up­per so­cial spheres, and de­sired to en­ter them through the mar­riages of her son and daugh­ter; where­as Mi­nard, wis­er than she, and im­bued with the vig­or of the mid­dle class­es, which the rev­olu­tion of Ju­ly had in­fil­trat­ed in­to the fi­bres of gov­ern­ment, thought on­ly of wealth and for­tune.

He fre­quent­ed the Thuil­li­er sa­lon to gain in­for­ma­tion as to Ce­leste's prob­able in­her­itance. He knew, like Du­tocq and Phel­lion, the re­ports oc­ca­sioned by Thuil­li­er's for­mer in­ti­ma­cy with Flavie, and he saw at a glance the idol­atry of the Thuil­liers for their god­child. Du­tocq, to gain ad­mit­tance to Mi­nard's house, fawned up­on him gross­ly. When Mi­nard, the Roth­schild of the ar­rondisse­ment, ap­peared at the Thuil­liers', he com­pared him clev­er­ly to Napoleon, find­ing him stout, fat, and bloom­ing, hav­ing left him at the min­istry thin, pale, and puny.

“You looked, in the di­vi­sion Bil­lardiere,” he said, “like Napoleon be­fore the 18th Bru­maire, and I be­hold you now the Napoleon of the Em­pire.”

Notwith­stand­ing which flat­tery, Mi­nard re­ceived Du­tocq very cold­ly and did not in­vite him to his house; con­se­quent­ly, he made a mor­tal en­emy of the for­mer clerk.

Mon­sieur and Madame Phel­lion, wor­thy as they were, could not keep them­selves from mak­ing cal­cu­la­tions and cher­ish­ing hopes; they thought that Ce­leste would be the very wife for their son the pro­fes­sor; there­fore, to have, as it were, a watch­er in the Thuil­li­er sa­lon, they in­tro­duced their son-​in-​law, Mon­sieur Barniol, a man much re­spect­ed in the faubourg Saint-​Jacques, and al­so an old em­ploy­ee at the may­or's of­fice, an in­ti­mate friend of theirs, named Laudi­geois. Thus the Phel­lions formed a pha­lanx of sev­en per­sons; the Collevilles were not less nu­mer­ous; so that on Sun­days it of­ten ap­peared that thir­ty per­sons were as­sem­bled in the Thuil­li­er sa­lon. Thuil­li­er re­newed ac­quain­tance with the Sail­lards, Bau­doy­ers, and Fall­eixs,--all per­sons of re­spectabil­ity in the quar­ter of the Palais-​Roy­al, whom they of­ten in­vit­ed to din­ner.

Madame Colleville was, as a wom­an, the most dis­tin­guished mem­ber of this so­ci­ety, just as Mi­nard ju­nior and Pro­fes­sor Phel­lion were su­pe­ri­or among the men. All the oth­ers, with­out ideas or ed­uca­tion, and is­su­ing from the low­er ranks, pre­sent­ed the types and the ab­sur­di­ties of the less­er bour­geoisie. Though all suc­cess, es­pe­cial­ly if won from dis­tant sources, seems to pre­sup­pose some gen­uine mer­it, Mi­nard was re­al­ly an in­flat­ed bal­loon. Ex­press­ing him­self in emp­ty phras­es, mis­tak­ing syco­phancy for po­lite­ness, and wordi­ness for wit, he ut­tered his com­mon­places with a brisk as­sur­ance that passed for elo­quence. Cer­tain words which said noth­ing but an­swered all things, --progress, steam, bi­tu­men, Na­tion­al guard, or­der, demo­crat­ic el­ement, spir­it of as­so­ci­ation, le­gal­ity, move­ment, re­sis­tance,--seemed, as each po­lit­ical phase de­vel­oped, to have been ac­tu­al­ly made for Mi­nard, whose talk was a para­phrase on the ideas of his news­pa­per. Julien Mi­nard, the young lawyer, suf­fered from his fa­ther as much as his fa­ther suf­fered from his wife. Zelie had grown pre­ten­tious with wealth, with­out, at the same time, learn­ing to speak French. She was now very fat, and gave the idea, in her rich sur­round­ings, of a cook mar­ried to her mas­ter.

Phel­lion, that type and mod­el of the pet­ty bour­geois, ex­hib­it­ed as many virtues as he did ab­sur­di­ties. Ac­cus­tomed to sub­or­di­na­tion dur­ing his bu­reau­crat­ic life, he re­spect­ed all so­cial su­pe­ri­or­ity. He was there­fore silent be­fore Mi­nard. Dur­ing the crit­ical pe­ri­od of re­tire­ment from of­fice, he had held his own ad­mirably, for the fol­low­ing rea­son. Nev­er un­til now had that wor­thy and ex­cel­lent man been able to in­dulge his own tastes. He loved the city of Paris; he was in­ter­est­ed in its em­bel­lish­ment, in the lay­ing out of its streets; he was ca­pa­ble of stand­ing for hours to watch the de­mo­li­tion of hous­es. He might now have been ob­served, stolid­ly plant­ed on his legs, his nose in the air, watch­ing for the fall of a stone which some ma­son was loos­en­ing at the top of a wall, and nev­er mov­ing till the stone fell; when it had fall­en he went away as hap­py as an aca­demi­cian at the fall of a ro­man­tic dra­ma. Ver­ita­ble su­per­nu­mer­aries of the so­cial com­edy, Phel­lion, Laudi­geois, and their kind, ful­filled the func­tions of the an­tique cho­rus. They wept when weep­ing was in or­der, laughed when they should laugh, and sang in parts the pub­lic joys and sor­rows; they tri­umphed in their cor­ner with the tri­umphs of Al­giers, of Con­stan­tine, of Lis­bon, of Sainte-​Jean d'Ul­loa; they de­plored the death of Napoleon and the fa­tal catas­tro­phes of the Saint-​Mer­ri and the rue Transnon­nain, griev­ing over cel­ebrat­ed men who were ut­ter­ly un­known to them. Phel­lion alone presents a dou­ble side: he di­vides him­self con­sci­en­tious­ly be­tween the rea­sons of the op­po­si­tion and those of the gov­ern­ment. When fight­ing went on in the streets, Phel­lion had the courage to de­clare him­self be­fore his neigh­bors; he went to the Place Saint-​Michel, the place where his bat­tal­ion as­sem­bled; he felt for the gov­ern­ment and did his du­ty. Be­fore and dur­ing the ri­ot, he sup­port­ed the dy­nasty, the prod­uct of Ju­ly; but, as soon as the po­lit­ical tri­als be­gan, he stood by the ac­cused. This in­no­cent “weath­er-​cock­ism” pre­vails in his po­lit­ical opin­ions; he pro­duces, in re­ply to all ar­gu­ments, the “colos­sus of the North.” Eng­land is, to his think­ing, as to that of the old “Con­sti­tu­tion­nel,” a crone with two faces,--Machi­avel­lian Al­bion, and the mod­el na­tion: Machi­avel­lian, when the in­ter­ests of France and of Napoleon are con­cerned; the mod­el na­tion when the faults of the gov­ern­ment are in ques­tion. He ad­mits, with his cho­sen pa­per, the demo­crat­ic el­ement, but re­fus­es in con­ver­sa­tion all com­pact with the re­pub­li­can spir­it. The re­pub­li­can spir­it to him means 1793, ri­ot­ing, the Ter­ror, and agrar­ian law. The demo­crat­ic el­ement is the de­vel­op­ment of the less­er bour­geoisie, the reign of Phel­lions.

The wor­thy old man is al­ways dig­ni­fied; dig­ni­ty serves to ex­plain his life. He has brought up his chil­dren with dig­ni­ty; he has kept him­self a fa­ther in their eyes; he in­sists on be­ing hon­ored in his home, just as he him­self hon­ors pow­er and his su­pe­ri­ors. He has nev­er made debts. As a ju­ry­man his con­science obliges him to sweat blood and wa­ter in the ef­fort to fol­low the de­bates of a tri­al; he nev­er laughs, not even if the judge, and au­di­ence, and all the of­fi­cials laugh. Em­inent­ly use­ful, he gives his ser­vices, his time, ev­ery­thing--ex­cept his mon­ey. Fe­lix Phel­lion, his son, the pro­fes­sor, is his idol; he thinks him ca­pa­ble of at­tain­ing to the Acade­my of Sci­ences. Thuil­li­er, be­tween the au­da­cious nul­li­ty of Mi­nard, and the sol­id silli­ness of Phel­lion, was a neu­tral sub­stance, but con­nect­ed with both through his dis­mal ex­pe­ri­ence. He man­aged to con­ceal the empti­ness of his brain by com­mon­place talk, just as he cov­ered the yel­low skin of his bald pate with thready locks of his gray hair, brought from the back of his head with in­fi­nite art by the comb of his hair­dress­er.

“In any oth­er ca­reer,” he was wont to say, speak­ing of the gov­ern­ment em­ploy, “I should have made a very dif­fer­ent for­tune.”

He had seen the _right_, which is pos­si­ble in the­ory and im­pos­si­ble in prac­tice,--re­sults prov­ing con­trary to premis­es,--and he re­lat­ed the in­trigues and the in­jus­tices of the Rabour­din af­fair.

“Af­ter that, one can be­lieve all, and be­lieve noth­ing,” he would say. “Ah! it is a queer thing, gov­ern­ment! I'm very glad not to have a son, and nev­er to see him in the ca­reer of a place-​hunter.”

Colleville, ev­er gay, ro­tund, and good-​hu­mored, a say­er of “quodli­bets,” a mak­er of ana­grams, al­ways busy, rep­re­sent­ed the ca­pa­ble and ban­ter­ing bour­geois, with fac­ul­ty with­out suc­cess, ob­sti­nate toil with­out re­sult; he was al­so the em­bod­iment of jovial res­ig­na­tion, mind with­out ob­ject, art with use­ful­ness, for, ex­cel­lent mu­si­cian that he was, he nev­er played now ex­cept for his daugh­ter.

The Thuil­li­er sa­lon was in some sort a provin­cial sa­lon, light­ed, how­ev­er, by con­tin­ual flash­es from the Parisian con­fla­gra­tion; its medi­ocrity and its plat­itudes fol­lowed the cur­rent of the times. The pop­ular say­ing and thing (for in Paris the thing and its say­ing are like the horse and its rid­er) ric­ochet­ted, so to speak, to this com­pa­ny. Mon­sieur Mi­nard was al­ways im­pa­tient­ly ex­pect­ed, for he was cer­tain to know the truth of im­por­tant cir­cum­stances. The wom­en of the Thuil­li­er sa­lon held by the Je­suits; the men de­fend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty; and, as a gen­er­al thing, the wom­en lis­tened. A man of in­tel­li­gence (could he have borne the dul­ness of these evenings) would have laughed, as he would at a com­edy of Moliere, on hear­ing, amid end­less dis­cus­sion, such re­marks as the fol­low­ing:--

“How could the Rev­olu­tion of 1789 have been avoid­ed? The loans of Louis XIV. pre­pared the way for it. Louis XV., an ego­tist, a man of nar­row mind (didn't he say, 'If I were lieu­tenant of po­lice I would sup­press cabri­olets'?), that dis­so­lute king--you re­mem­ber his Parc aux Cerfs?--did much to open the abyss of rev­olu­tion. Mon­sieur de Neck­er, an evil-​mind­ed Gen­ovese, set the thing a-​go­ing. For­eign­ers have al­ways tried to in­jure France. The max­imum did great harm to the Rev­olu­tion. Legal­ly Louis XVI. should nev­er have been con­demned; a ju­ry would have ac­quit­ted him. Why did Charles X. fall? Napoleon was a great man, and the facts that prove his ge­nius are anec­do­tal: he took five pinch­es of snuff a minute out of a pock­et lined with leather made in his waist­coat. He looked in­to all his trades­men's ac­counts; he went to Saint-​De­nis to judge for him­self the prices of things. Tal­ma was his friend; Tal­ma taught him his ges­tures; nev­er­the­less, he al­ways re­fused to give Tal­ma the Le­gion of hon­or! The em­per­or mount­ed guard for a sen­tinel who went to sleep, to save him from be­ing shot. Those were the things that made his sol­diers adore him. Louis XVI­II., who cer­tain­ly had some sense, was very un­just in call­ing him Mon­sieur de Buon­aparte. The de­fect of the present gov­ern­ment is in let­ting it­self be led in­stead of lead­ing. It holds it­self too low. It is afraid of men of en­er­gy. It ought to have torn up all the treaties of 1815 and de­mand­ed the Rhine. They keep the same men too long in the min­istry”; etc., etc.

“Come, you've ex­ert­ed your minds long enough,” said Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, in­ter­rupt­ing one of these lu­mi­nous talks; “the al­tar is dressed; be­gin your lit­tle game.”

If these an­te­ri­or facts and all these gen­er­al­ities were not placed here as the frame of the present Scene, to give an idea of the spir­it of this so­ci­ety, the fol­low­ing dra­ma would cer­tain­ly have suf­fered great­ly. More­over, this sketch is his­tor­ical­ly faith­ful; it shows a so­cial stra­tum of im­por­tance in any por­tray­al of man­ners and morals, es­pe­cial­ly when we re­flect that the po­lit­ical sys­tem of the Younger branch rests al­most whol­ly up­on it.

The win­ter of the year 1839 was, it may be said, the pe­ri­od when the Thuil­li­er sa­lon was in its great­est glo­ry. The Mi­nards came near­ly ev­ery Sun­day, and be­gan their evening by spend­ing an hour there, if they had oth­er en­gage­ments else­where. Of­ten Mi­nard would leave his wife at the Thuil­liers and take his son and daugh­ter to oth­er hous­es. This as­siduity on the part of the Mi­nards was brought about by a some­what tardy meet­ing be­tween Messieurs Metivi­er, Bar­bet, and Mi­nard on an evening when the two for­mer, be­ing ten­ants of Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, re­mained rather longer than usu­al in dis­cussing busi­ness with her. From Bar­bet, Mi­nard learned that the old maid had mon­ey trans­ac­tions with him­self and Metivi­er to the amount of six­ty thou­sand francs, be­sides hav­ing a large de­posit in the Bank.

“Has she an ac­count at the Bank?” asked Mi­nard.

“I be­lieve so,” replied Bar­bet. “I give her at least eighty thou­sand francs there.”

Be­ing on in­ti­mate terms with a gov­er­nor of the Bank, Mi­nard as­cer­tained that Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er had, in point of fact, an ac­count of over two hun­dred thou­sand francs, the re­sult of her quar­ter­ly de­posits for many years. Be­sides this, she owned the house they lived in, which was not mort­gaged, and was worth at least one hun­dred thou­sand francs, if not more.

“Why should Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er work in this way?” said Mi­nard to Metivi­er. “She'd be a good match for you,” he added.

“I? oh, no,” replied Metivi­er. “I shall do bet­ter by mar­ry­ing a cousin; my un­cle Metivi­er has giv­en me the suc­ces­sion to his busi­ness; he has a hun­dred thou­sand francs a year and on­ly two daugh­ters.”

How­ev­er se­cre­tive Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er might be,--and she said noth­ing of her in­vest­ments to any one, not even to her broth­er, al­though a large amount of Madame Thuil­li­er's for­tune went to swell the amount of her own sav­ings,--it was dif­fi­cult to pre­vent some ray of light from glid­ing un­der the bushel which cov­ered her trea­sure.

Du­tocq, who fre­quent­ed Bar­bet, with whom he had some re­sem­blance in char­ac­ter and coun­te­nance, had ap­praised, even more cor­rect­ly than Mi­nard, the Thuil­li­er fi­nances. He knew that their sav­ings amount­ed, in 1838, to one hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs, and he fol­lowed their progress se­cret­ly, cal­cu­lat­ing prof­its by the help of that all-​wise mon­ey-​lender, Bar­bet.

“Ce­leste will have from my broth­er and my­self two hun­dred thou­sand francs in ready mon­ey,” the old maid had said to Bar­bet in con­fi­dence, “and Madame Thuil­li­er wish­es to se­cure to her by the mar­riage con­tract the ul­ti­mate pos­ses­sion of her own for­tune. As for me, my will is made. My broth­er will have ev­ery­thing dur­ing his life­time, and Ce­leste will be my heiress with that reser­va­tion. Mon­sieur Car­dot, the no­tary, is my ex­ecu­tor.”

Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er now in­sti­gat­ed her broth­er to re­new his for­mer re­la­tions with the Sail­lards, Bau­doy­ers, and oth­ers, who held a po­si­tion sim­ilar to that of the Thuil­liers in the quarti­er Saint-​An­toine, of which Mon­sieur Sail­lard was may­or. Car­dot, the no­tary, had pro­duced his as­pi­rant for Ce­leste's hand in the per­son of Mon­sieur Gode­schal, at­tor­ney and suc­ces­sor to Derville; an able man, thir­ty-​six years of age, who had paid one hun­dred thou­sand francs for his prac­tice, which the two hun­dred thou­sand of the “dot” would dou­bly clear off. Mi­nard, how­ev­er, got rid of Gode­schal by in­form­ing Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er that Ce­leste's sis­ter-​in-​law would be the fa­mous Ma­ri­ette of the Opera.

“She came from the stage,” said Colleville, al­lud­ing to his wife, “and there's no need she should re­turn to it.”

“Be­sides, Mon­sieur Gode­schal is too old for Ce­leste,” re­marked Brigitte.

“And ought we not,” added Madame Thuil­li­er, timid­ly, “to let her mar­ry ac­cord­ing to her own taste, so as to be hap­py?”

The poor wom­an had de­tect­ed in Fe­lix Phel­lion a true love for Ce­leste; the love that a wom­an crushed by Brigitte and wound­ed by her hus­band's in­dif­fer­ence (for Thuil­li­er cared less for his wife than he did for a ser­vant) had dreamed that love might be,--bold in heart, timid ex­ter­nal­ly, sure of it­self, re­served, hid­den from oth­ers, but ex­pand­ing to­ward heav­en. At twen­ty-​three years of age, Fe­lix Phel­lion was a gen­tle, pure-​mind­ed young man, like all true schol­ars who cul­ti­vate knowl­edge for knowl­edge's sake. He had been sa­cred­ly brought up by his fa­ther, who, view­ing all things se­ri­ous­ly, had giv­en him none but good ex­am­ples ac­com­pa­nied by triv­ial max­ims. He was a young man of medi­um height, with light chest­nut hair, gray eyes, and a skin full of freck­les; gift­ed with a charm­ing voice, a tran­quil man­ner; mak­ing few ges­tures; thought­ful, say­ing lit­tle, and that lit­tle sen­si­ble; con­tra­dict­ing no one, and quite in­ca­pable of a sor­did thought or a self­ish cal­cu­la­tion.

“That,” thought Madame Thuil­li­er, “is what I should have liked my hus­band to be.”

One evening, in the month of Febru­ary, 1840, the Thuil­li­er sa­lon con­tained the var­ious per­son­ages whose sil­hou­ettes we have just traced out, to­geth­er with some oth­ers. It was near­ly the end of the month. Bar­bet and Metivi­er hav­ing busi­ness with made­moi­selle Brigitte, were play­ing whist with Mi­nard and Phel­lion. at an­oth­er ta­ble were Julien the ad­vo­cate (a nick­name giv­en by Colleville to young Mi­nard), Madame Colleville, Mon­sieur Barniol, and Madame Phel­lion. “Bouil­lotte,” at five sous a stake, oc­cu­pied Madame Mi­nard, who knew no oth­er game, Colleville, old Mon­sieur Sail­lard, and Ban­doze, his son-​in-​law. The sub­sti­tutes were Laudi­geois and Du­tocq. Mes­dames Fall­eix, Bau­doy­er, Barniol, and Made­moi­selle Mi­nard were play­ing boston, and Ce­leste was sit­ting be­side Pru­dence Mi­nard. Young Phel­lion was lis­ten­ing to Madame Thuil­li­er and look­ing at Ce­leste.

At a cor­ner of the fire­place sat en­throned on a so­fa the Queen Eliz­abeth of the fam­ily, as sim­ply dressed as she had been for the last thir­ty years; for no pros­per­ity could have made her change her habits. She wore on her chin­chilla hair a black gauze cap, adorned with the gera­ni­um called Charles X.; her gown, of plum-​col­ored stuff, made with a yoke, cost fif­teen francs, her em­broi­dered col­larette was worth six, and it ill dis­guised the deep wrin­kle pro­duced by the two mus­cles which fas­tened the head to the ver­te­bral col­umn. The ac­tor, Mon­vel, play­ing Au­gus­tus Cae­sar in his old age, did not present a hard­er and stern­er pro­file than that of this fe­male au­to­crat, knit­ting socks for her broth­er. Be­fore the fire­place stood Thuil­li­er in an at­ti­tude, ready to go for­ward and meet the ar­riv­ing guests; near him was a young man whose en­trance had pro­duced a great ef­fect, when the porter (who on Sun­days wore his best clothes and wait­ed on the com­pa­ny) an­nounced Mon­sieur Olivi­er Vinet.

A pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tion made by Car­dot to the cel­ebrat­ed “pro­cureur-​gen­er­al,” fa­ther of this young man, was the cause of his vis­it. Olivi­er Vinet had just been pro­mot­ed from the court of Ar­cis-​sur-​Aube to that of the Seine, where he now held the post of sub­sti­tute “pro­cureur-​de-​roi.” Car­dot had al­ready in­vit­ed Thuil­li­er and the el­der Vinet, who was like­ly to be­come min­is­ter of jus­tice, with his son, to dine with him. The no­tary es­ti­mat­ed the for­tunes which would even­tu­al­ly fall to Ce­leste at sev­en hun­dred thou­sand francs. Vinet ju­nior ap­peared charmed to ob­tain the right to vis­it the Thuil­liers on Sun­days. Great dowries make men com­mit great and un­be­com­ing fol­lies with­out re­serve or de­cen­cy in these days.

Ten min­utes lat­er an­oth­er young man, who had been talk­ing with Thuil­li­er be­fore the ar­rival of Olivi­er Vinet, raised his voice ea­ger­ly, in a po­lit­ical dis­cus­sion, and forced the young mag­is­trate to fol­low his ex­am­ple in the vi­va­cious ar­gu­ment which now en­sued. The mat­ter re­lat­ed to the vote by which the Cham­ber of Deputies had just over­thrown the min­istry of the 12th of May, re­fus­ing the al­lowance de­mand­ed for the Duc de Nemours.

“As­sured­ly,” said the young man, “I am far from be­long­ing to the dy­nas­tic par­ty; I am very far from ap­prov­ing of the rise of the bour­geoisie to pow­er. The bour­geoisie ought not, any more than the aris­toc­ra­cy of oth­er days, to as­sume to be the whole na­tion. But the French bour­geoisie has now tak­en up­on it­self to cre­ate a new dy­nasty, a roy­al­ty of its own, and be­hold how it treats it! When the peo­ple al­lowed Napoleon to rise to pow­er, it cre­at­ed with him a splen­did and mon­umen­tal state of things; it was proud of his grandeur; and it nobly gave its blood and sweat in build­ing up the ed­ifice of the Em­pire. Be­tween the mag­nif­icence of the aris­to­crat­ic throne and those of the im­pe­ri­al pur­ple, be­tween the great of the earth and the Peo­ple, the bour­geoisie is prov­ing it­self pet­ty; it de­grades pow­er to its own lev­el in­stead of ris­ing up to it. The sav­ing of can­dle-​ends it has so long prac­tised be­hind its coun­ters, it now seeks to im­pose on its princes. What may per­haps have been virtue in its shops is a blun­der and a crime high­er up. I my­self have want­ed many things for the peo­ple, but I nev­er should have be­gun by lop­ping off ten mil­lions of francs from the new civ­il list. In be­com­ing, as it were, near­ly the whole of France, the bour­geoisie owed to us the pros­per­ity of the peo­ple, splen­dor with­out os­ten­ta­tion, grandeur with­out priv­ilege.”

The fa­ther of Olivi­er Vinet was just now sulk­ing with the gov­ern­ment. The robe of Keep­er of the Seals, which had been his dream, was slow in com­ing to him. The young sub­sti­tute did not, there­fore, know ex­act­ly how to an­swer this speech; he thought it wise to en­large on one of its side is­sues.

“You are right, mon­sieur,” said Olivi­er Vinet. “But, be­fore man­ifest­ing it­self mag­nif­icent­ly, the bour­geoisie has oth­er du­ties to ful­fil to­wards France. The lux­ury you speak of should come af­ter du­ty. That which seems to you so blame­able is the ne­ces­si­ty of the mo­ment. The Cham­ber is far from hav­ing its full share in pub­lic af­fairs; the min­is­ters are less for France than they are for the crown, and par­lia­ment has de­ter­mined that the ad­min­is­tra­tion shall have, as in Eng­land, a strength and pow­er of its own, and not a mere bor­rowed pow­er. The day on which the ad­min­is­tra­tion can act for it­self, and rep­re­sent the Cham­ber as the Cham­ber rep­re­sents the coun­try, par­lia­ment will be found very lib­er­al to­ward the crown. The whole ques­tion is there. I state it with­out ex­press­ing my own opin­ion, for the du­ties of my post de­mand, in pol­itics, a cer­tain feal­ty to the crown.”

“Set­ting aside the po­lit­ical ques­tion,” replied the young man, whose voice and ac­cent were those of a na­tive of Provence, “it is cer­tain­ly true that the bour­geoisie has ill un­der­stood its mis­sion. We can see, any day, the great law of­fi­cers, at­tor­ney-​gen­er­als, peers of France in om­nibus­es, judges who live on their salaries, pre­fects with­out for­tunes, min­is­ters in debt! Where­as the bour­geoisie, who have seized up­on those of­fices, ought to dig­ni­fy them, as in the old­en time when aris­toc­ra­cy dig­ni­fied them, and not oc­cu­py such posts sole­ly for the pur­pose of mak­ing their for­tune, as scan­dalous dis­clo­sures have proved.”

“Who is this young man?” thought Olivi­er Vinet. “Is he a rel­ative? Car­dot ought to have come with me on this first vis­it.”

“Who is that lit­tle mon­sieur?” asked Mi­nard of Bar­bet. “I have seen him here sev­er­al times.”

“He is a ten­ant,” replied Metivi­er, shuf­fling the cards.

“A lawyer,” added Bar­bet, in a low voice, “who oc­cu­pies a small apart­ment on the third floor front. Oh! _He_ doesn't amount to much; he has noth­ing.”

“What is the name of that young man?” said Olivi­er Vinet to Thuil­li­er.

“Theo­dose de la Peyrade; he is a bar­ris­ter,” replied Thuil­li­er, in a whis­per.

At that mo­ment the wom­en present, as well as the men, looked at the two young fel­lows, and Madame Mi­nard re­marked to Colleville:--

“He is rather good-​look­ing, that stranger.”

“I have made his ana­gram,” replied Colleville, “and his name, Charles-​Marie-​Theo­dose de la Peyrade, prophe­cies: 'Eh! mon­sieur pay­era, de la dot, des oies et le char.' There­fore, my dear Mam­ma Mi­nard, be sure you don't give him your daugh­ter.”

“They say that young man is bet­ter-​look­ing than my son,” said Madame Phel­lion to Madame Colleville. “What do you think about it?”

“Oh! in the mat­ter of phys­ical beau­ty a wom­an might hes­itate be­fore choos­ing,” replied Madame Colleville.

At that mo­ment it oc­curred to young Vinet as he looked round the sa­lon, so full of the less­er bour­geoisie, that it might be a shrewd thing to mag­ni­fy that par­tic­ular class; and he there­upon en­larged up­on the mean­ing of the young Proven­cal bar­ris­ter, declar­ing that men so hon­ored by the con­fi­dence of the gov­ern­ment should im­itate roy­al­ty and en­cour­age a mag­nif­icence sur­pass­ing that of the for­mer court. It was fol­ly, he said, to lay by the emol­uments of an of­fice. Be­sides, could it be done, in Paris es­pe­cial­ly, where costs of liv­ing had tre­bled, --the apart­ment of a mag­is­trate, for in­stance, cost­ing three thou­sand francs a year?

“My fa­ther,” he said in con­clu­sion, “al­lows me three thou­sand francs a year, and that, with my salary, bare­ly al­lows me to main­tain my rank.”

When the young sub­sti­tute rode bold­ly in­to this bog-​hole, the Proven­cal, who had sly­ly en­ticed him there, ex­changed, with­out be­ing ob­served, a wink with Du­tocq, who was just then wait­ing for the place of a play­er at bouil­lotte.

“There is such a de­mand for of­fices,” re­marked the lat­ter, “that they talk of cre­at­ing two jus­tices of the peace to each ar­rondisse­ment in or­der to make a dozen new clerk­ships. As if they could in­ter­fere with our rights and our salaries, which al­ready re­quire an ex­hor­bi­tant tax!”

“I have not yet had the plea­sure of hear­ing you at the Palais,” said Vinet to Mon­sieur de la Peyrade.

“I am ad­vo­cate for the poor, and I plead on­ly be­fore the jus­tice of peace,” replied la Peyrade.

Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, as she lis­tened to young Vinet's the­ory of the ne­ces­si­ty of spend­ing an in­come, as­sumed a dis­tant air and man­ner, the sig­nif­icance of which was well un­der­stood by Du­tocq and the young Proven­cal. Vinet left the house in com­pa­ny with Mi­nard and Julien the ad­vo­cate, so that the bat­tle-​field be­fore the fire-​place was aban­doned to la Peyrade and Du­tocq.

“The up­per bour­geoisie,” said Du­tocq to Thuil­li­er, “will be­have, in fu­ture, ex­act­ly like the old aris­toc­ra­cy. The no­bil­ity want­ed girls with mon­ey to ma­nure their lands, and the par­venus of to-​day want the same to feath­er their nests.”

“That's ex­act­ly what Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er was say­ing to me this morn­ing,” re­marked la Peyrade, bold­ly.

“Vinet's fa­ther,” said Du­tocq, “mar­ried a Demoi­selle de Charge­boeuf and has caught the opin­ions of the no­bil­ity; he wants a for­tune at any price; his wife spends mon­ey re­gal­ly.”

“Oh!” said Thuil­li­er, in whom the jeal­ousy be­tween the two class­es of the bour­geoisie was ful­ly roused, “take of­fices away from those fel­lows and they'd fall back where they came.”

Made­moi­selle was knit­ting with such pre­cip­itous haste that she seemed to be pro­pelled by a steam-​en­gine.

“Take my place, Mon­sieur Du­tocq,” said Madame Mi­nard, ris­ing. “My feet are cold,” she added, go­ing to the fire, where the gold­en or­na­ments of her tur­ban made fire­works in the light of the Saint-​Au­ro­ra wax-​can­dles that were strug­gling vain­ly to light the vast sa­lon.

“He is very small fry, that young sub­sti­tute,” said Madame Mi­nard, glanc­ing at Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er.

“Small fry!” cried la Peyrade. “Ah, madame! how wit­ty!”

“But madame has so long ac­cus­tomed us to that sort of thing,” said the hand­some Thuil­li­er.

Madame Colleville was ex­am­in­ing la Peyrade and com­par­ing him with young Phel­lion, who was just then talk­ing to Ce­leste, nei­ther of them pay­ing any heed to what was go­ing on around them. This is, cer­tain­ly, the right mo­ment to de­pict the sin­gu­lar per­son­age who was des­tined to play a sig­nal part in the Thuil­li­er house­hold, and who ful­ly de­serves the ap­pel­la­tion of a great artist.