The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER VII

THE WOR­THY PHEL­LIONS

The house to which Theo­dose de la Peyrade now bent his steps had been the “hoc er­at in vo­tis” of Mon­sieur Phel­lion for twen­ty years; it was the house of the Phel­lions, just as much as Cer­izet's frogged coat was the nec­es­sary com­ple­ment of his per­son­al­ity.

This dwelling was stuck against the side of a large house, but on­ly to the depth of one room (about twen­ty feet or so), and ter­mi­nat­ed at each end in a sort of pavil­ion with one win­dow. Its chief charm was a gar­den, one hun­dred and eighty feet square, longer than the fa­cade of the house by the width of a court­yard which opened on the street, and a lit­tle clump of lin­dens. Be­yond the sec­ond pavil­ion, the court­yard had, be­tween it­self and the street, an iron rail­ing, in the cen­tre of which was a lit­tle gate open­ing in the mid­dle.

This build­ing, of rouge stone cov­ered with stuc­co, and two storeys in height, had re­ceived a coat of yel­low-​wash; the blinds were paint­ed green, and so were the shut­ters on the low­er storey. The kitchen oc­cu­pied the ground-​floor of the pavil­ion on the court­yard, and the cook, a stout, strong girl, pro­tect­ed by two enor­mous dogs, per­formed the func­tions of portress. The fa­cade, com­posed of five win­dows, and the two pavil­ions, which pro­ject­ed nine feet, were in the style Phel­lion. Above the door the mas­ter of the house had in­sert­ed a tablet of white mar­ble, on which, in let­ters of gold, were read the words, “Au­rea medi­ocritas.” Above the sun-​di­al, af­fixed to one pan­el of the fa­cade, he had al­so caused to be in­scribed this sapi­ent max­im: “Um­bra mea vi­ta, sic!”

The for­mer win­dow-​sills had re­cent­ly been su­perced­ed by sills of red Langue­doc mar­ble, found in a mar­ble shop. At the bot­tom of the gar­den could be seen a col­ored stat­ue, in­tend­ed to lead ca­su­al ob­servers to imag­ine that a nurse was car­ry­ing a child. The ground-​floor of the house con­tained on­ly the sa­lon and the din­ing-​room, sep­arat­ed from each oth­er by the well of the stair­case and the land­ing, which formed a sort of an­techam­ber. At the end of the sa­lon, in the oth­er pavil­ion, was a lit­tle study oc­cu­pied by Phel­lion.

On the first up­per floor were the rooms of the fa­ther and moth­er and that of the young pro­fes­sor. Above were the cham­bers of the chil­dren and the ser­vants; for Phel­lion, on con­sid­er­ation of his own age and that of his wife, had set up a male do­mes­tic, aged fif­teen, his son hav­ing by that time en­tered up­on his du­ties of tu­ition. To right, on en­ter­ing the court­yard, were lit­tle of­fices where wood was stored, and where the for­mer pro­pri­etor had lodged a porter. The Phel­lions were no doubt await­ing the mar­riage of their son to al­low them­selves that ad­di­tion­al lux­ury.

This prop­er­ty, on which the Phel­lions had long had their eye, cost them eigh­teen thou­sand francs in 1831. The house was sep­arat­ed from the court­yard by a balustrade with a base of free­stone and a cop­ing of tiles; this lit­tle wall, which was breast-​high, was lined with a hedge of Ben­gal ros­es, in the mid­dle of which opened a wood­en gate op­po­site and lead­ing to the large gates on the street. Those who know the cul-​de-​sac of the Feuil­lan­tines, will un­der­stand that the Phel­lion house, stand­ing at right an­gles to the street, had a south­ern ex­po­sure, and was pro­tect­ed on the north by the im­mense wall of the ad­join­ing house, against which the small­er struc­ture was built. The cupo­la of the Pan­theon and that of the Val-​de-​Grace looked from there like two gi­ants, and so di­min­ished the sky space that, walk­ing in the gar­den, one felt cramped and op­pressed. No place could be more silent than this blind street.

Such was the re­treat of the great un­known cit­izen who was now tast­ing the sweets of re­pose, af­ter dis­charg­ing his du­ty to the na­tion in the min­istry of fi­nance, from which he had re­tired as reg­is­tra­tion clerk af­ter a ser­vice of thir­ty-​six years. In 1832 he had led his bat­tal­ion of the Na­tion­al Guard to the at­tack on Saint-​Mer­ri, but his neigh­bors had pre­vi­ous­ly seen tears in his eyes at the thought of be­ing obliged to fire on mis­guid­ed French­men. The af­fair was al­ready de­cid­ed by the time his le­gion crossed the pont Notre-​Dame at a quick step, af­ter de­bouch­ing by the flow­er-​mar­ket. This no­ble hes­ita­tion won him the re­spect of his whole quar­ter, but he lost the dec­ora­tion of the Le­gion of hon­or; his colonel told him in a loud voice that, un­der arms, there was no such thing as de­lib­er­ation,--a say­ing of Louis-​Philippe to the Na­tion­al Guard of Metz. Nev­er­the­less, the bour­geois virtues of Phel­lion, and the great re­spect in which he was held in his own quar­ter had kept him ma­jor of the bat­tal­ion for eight years. He was now near­ly six­ty, and see­ing the mo­ment com­ing when he must lay off the sword and stock, he hoped that the king would deign to re­ward his ser­vices by grant­ing him at last the Le­gion of hon­or.

Truth com­pels us to say, in spite of the stain this pet­ti­ness will put up­on so fine a char­ac­ter, that Com­man­der Phel­lion rose up­on the tips of his toes at the re­cep­tions in the Tu­ileries, and did all that he could to put him­self for­ward, even eye­ing the cit­izen-​king per­pet­ual­ly when he dined at his ta­ble. In short, he in­trigued in a dumb sort of way; but had nev­er yet ob­tained a look in re­turn from the king of his choice. The wor­thy man had more than once thought, but was not yet de­cid­ed, to beg Mon­sieur Mi­nard to as­sist him in ob­tain­ing his se­cret de­sire.

Phel­lion, a man of pas­sive obe­di­ence, was sto­ical in the mat­ter of du­ty, and iron in all that touched his con­science. To com­plete this pic­ture by a sketch of his per­son, we must add that at fifty-​nine years of age Phel­lion had “thick­ened,” to use a term of the bour­geois vo­cab­ulary. His face, of one monotonous tone and pit­ted with the small-​pox, had grown to re­sem­ble a full moon; so that his lips, for­mer­ly large, now seemed of or­di­nary size. His eyes, much weak­ened, and pro­tect­ed by glass­es, no longer showed the in­no­cence of their light-​blue orbs, which in for­mer days had of­ten ex­cit­ed a smile; his white hair now gave grav­ity to much that twelve years ear­li­er had looked like silli­ness, and lent it­self to ridicule. Time, which does such dam­age to faces with re­fined and del­icate fea­tures, on­ly im­proves those which, in their youth, have been course and mas­sive. This was the case with Phel­lion. He oc­cu­pied the leisure of his old age in mak­ing an abridg­ment of the His­to­ry of France; for Phel­lion was the au­thor of sev­er­al works adopt­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty.

When la Peyrade pre­sent­ed him­self, the fam­ily were all to­geth­er. Madame Barniol was just telling her moth­er about one of her ba­bies, which was slight­ly in­dis­posed. They were dressed in their Sun­day clothes, and were sit­ting be­fore the fire­place of the wain­scot­ed sa­lon on chairs bought at a bar­gain; and they all felt an emo­tion when Genevieve, the cook and portress, an­nounced the per­son­age of whom they were just then speak­ing in con­nec­tion with Ce­leste, whom, we must here state, Fe­lix Phel­lion loved, to the ex­tent of go­ing to mass to be­hold her. The learned math­emati­cian had made that ef­fort in the morn­ing, and the fam­ily were jok­ing him about it in a pleas­ant way, hop­ing in their hearts that Ce­leste and her par­ents might un­der­stand the trea­sure that was thus of­fered to them.

“Alas! the Thuil­liers seem to me in­fat­uat­ed with a very dan­ger­ous man,” said Madame Phel­lion. “He took Madame Colleville by the arm this morn­ing af­ter church, and they went to­geth­er to the Lux­em­bourg.”

“There is some­thing about that lawyer,” re­marked Fe­lix Phel­lion, “that strikes me as sin­is­ter. He might be found to have com­mit­ted some crime and I shouldn't be sur­prised.”

“That's go­ing too far,” said old Phel­lion. “He is cousin-​ger­main to Tartuffe, that im­mor­tal fig­ure cast in bronze by our hon­est Moliere; for Moliere, my chil­dren, had hon­esty and pa­tri­otism for the ba­sis of his ge­nius.”

It was at that in­stant that Genevieve came in to say, “There's a Mon­sieur de la Peyrade out there, who wants to see mon­sieur.”

“To see me!” ex­claimed Phel­lion. “Ask him to come in,” he added, with that solem­ni­ty in lit­tle things which gave him even now a touch of ab­sur­di­ty, though it al­ways im­pressed his fam­ily, which ac­cept­ed him as king.

Phel­lion, his two sons, and his wife and daugh­ter, rose and re­ceived the cir­cu­lar bow made by the lawyer.

“To what do we owe the hon­or of your vis­it, mon­sieur?” asked Phel­lion, stiffly.

“To your im­por­tance in this ar­rondisse­ment, my dear Mon­sieur Phel­lion, and to pub­lic in­ter­ests,” replied Theo­dose.

“Then let us go in­to my study,” said Phel­lion.

“No, no, my friend,” said the rigid Madame Phel­lion, a small wom­an, flat as a floun­der, who re­tained up­on her fea­tures the grim sever­ity with which she taught mu­sic in board­ing-​schools for young ladies; “we will leave you.”

An up­right Er­ard pi­ano, placed be­tween the two win­dows and op­po­site to the fire­place, showed the con­stant oc­cu­pa­tion of a pro­fi­cient.

“Am I so un­for­tu­nate as to put you to flight?” said Theo­dose, smil­ing in a kind­ly way at the moth­er and daugh­ter. “You have a de­light­ful re­treat here,” he con­tin­ued. “You on­ly lack a pret­ty daugh­ter-​in-​law to pass the rest of your days in this 'au­rea medi­ocritas,' the wish of the Latin po­et, sur­round­ed by fam­ily joys. Your an­tecedents, my dear Mon­sieur Phel­lion, ought sure­ly to win you such re­wards, for I am told that you are not on­ly a pa­tri­ot but a good cit­izen.”

“Mon­sieur,” said Phel­lion, em­bar­rassed, “mon­sieur, I have on­ly done my du­ty.” At the word “daugh­ter-​in-​law,” ut­tered by Theo­dose, Madame Barniol, who re­sem­bled her moth­er as much as one drop of wa­ter is like an­oth­er, looked at Madame Phel­lion and at Fe­lix as if she would say, “Were we mis­tak­en?”

The de­sire to talk this in­ci­dent over car­ried all four per­son­ages in­to the gar­den, for, in March, 1840, the weath­er was spring-​like, at least in Paris.

“Com­man­der,” said Theo­dose, as soon as he was alone with Phel­lion, who was al­ways flat­tered by that ti­tle, “I have come to speak to you about the elec­tion--”

“Yes, true; we are about to nom­inate a mu­nic­ipal coun­cil­lor,” said Phel­lion, in­ter­rupt­ing him.

“And it is apro­pos of that can­di­da­cy that I have come to dis­turb your Sun­day joys; but per­haps in so do­ing we shall not go be­yond the lim­its of the fam­ily cir­cle.”

It would be im­pos­si­ble for Phel­lion to be more Phel­lion than Theo­dose was Phel­lion at that mo­ment.

“I shall not let you say an­oth­er word,” replied the com­man­der, prof­it­ing by the pause made by Theo­dose, who watched for the ef­fect of his speech. “My choice is made.”

“We have had the same idea!” ex­claimed Theo­dose; “men of the same char­ac­ter agree as well as men of the same mind.”

“In this case I do not be­lieve in that phe­nomenon,” replied Phel­lion. “This ar­rondisse­ment had for its rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil the most vir­tu­ous of men, as he was the no­blest of mag­is­trates. I al­lude to the late Mon­sieur Popinot, the de­ceased judge of the Roy­al courts. When the ques­tion of re­plac­ing him came up, his nephew, the heir to his benev­olence, did not re­side in this quar­ter. He has since, how­ev­er, pur­chased, and now oc­cu­pies, the house where his un­cle lived in the rue de la Mon­tagne-​Sainte-​Genevieve; he is the physi­cian of the Ecole Poly­tech­nique and that of our hos­pi­tals; he does hon­or to this quar­ter; for these rea­sons, and to pay homage in the per­son of the nephew to the mem­ory of the un­cle, we have de­cid­ed to nom­inate Doc­tor Ho­race Bian­chon, mem­ber of the Acade­my of Sci­ences, as you are aware, and one of the most dis­tin­guished young men in the il­lus­tri­ous fac­ul­ty of Paris. A man is not great in our eyes sole­ly be­cause he is cel­ebrat­ed; to my mind the late Coun­cil­lor Popinot was al­most an­oth­er Saint Vin­cent de Paul.”

“But a doc­tor is not an ad­min­is­tra­tor,” replied Theo­dose; “and, be­sides, I have come to ask your vote for a man to whom your dear­est in­ter­ests re­quire that you should sac­ri­fice a predilec­tion, which, af­ter all, is quite unim­por­tant to the pub­lic wel­fare.”

“Mon­sieur!” cried Phel­lion, ris­ing and strik­ing an at­ti­tude like that of La­fon in “Le Glo­rieux,” “Do you de­spise me suf­fi­cient­ly to sup­pose that my per­son­al in­ter­ests could ev­er in­flu­ence my po­lit­ical con­science? When a mat­ter con­cerns the pub­lic wel­fare, I am a cit­izen --noth­ing more, and noth­ing less.”

Theo­dose smiled to him­self at the thought of the bat­tle which was now to take place be­tween the fa­ther and the cit­izen.

“Do not bind your­self to your present ideas, I en­treat you,” he said, “for this mat­ter con­cerns the hap­pi­ness of your dear Fe­lix.”

“What do you mean by those words?” asked Phel­lion, stop­ping short in the mid­dle of the sa­lon and pos­ing, with his hand thrust through the bo­som of his waist­coat from right to left, in the well-​known at­ti­tude of Odilon Bar­rot.

“I have come in be­half of our mu­tu­al friend, the wor­thy and ex­cel­lent Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er, whose in­flu­ence on the des­tiny of that beau­ti­ful Ce­leste Colleville must be well known to you. If, as I think, your son, whose mer­its are in­con­testable, and of whom both fam­ilies may well be proud, if, I say, he is court­ing Ce­leste with a view to a mar­riage in which all ex­pe­di­en­cies may be com­bined, you can­not do more to pro­mote that end than to ob­tain Thuil­li­er's eter­nal grat­itude by propos­ing your wor­thy friend to the suf­frages of your fel­low-​cit­izens. As for me, though I have late­ly come in­to the quar­ter, I can, thanks to the in­flu­ence I en­joy through cer­tain le­gal ben­efits done to the poor, ma­te­ri­al­ly ad­vance his in­ter­ests. I might, per­haps, have put my­self for­ward for this po­si­tion; but serv­ing the poor brings in but lit­tle mon­ey; and, be­sides, the mod­esty of my life is out of keep­ing with such dis­tinc­tions. I have de­vot­ed my­self, mon­sieur, to the ser­vice of the weak, like the late Coun­cil­lor Popinot,--a sub­lime man, as you just­ly re­marked. If I had not al­ready cho­sen a ca­reer which is in some sort monas­tic, and pre­cludes all idea of mar­riage and pub­lic of­fice, my taste, my sec­ond vo­ca­tion, would lead me to the ser­vice of God, to the Church. I do not trum­pet what I do, like the phi­lan­thropists; I do not write about it; I sim­ply act; I am pledged to Chris­tian char­ity. The am­bi­tion of our friend Thuil­li­er be­com­ing known to me, I have wished to con­tribute to the hap­pi­ness of two young peo­ple who seem to me made for each oth­er, by sug­gest­ing to you the means of win­ning the rather cold heart of Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er.”

Phel­lion was be­wil­dered by this tirade, ad­mirably de­liv­ered; he was daz­zled, at­tract­ed; but he re­mained Phel­lion; he walked up to the lawyer and held out his hand, which la Peyrade took.

“Mon­sieur,” said the com­man­der, with emo­tion, “I have mis­judged you. What you have done me the hon­or to con­fide to me will die _there_,” lay­ing his hand on his heart. “You are one of the men of whom we have too few,--men who con­sole us for many evils in­her­ent in our so­cial state. Righ­teous­ness is seen so sel­dom that our too fee­ble na­tures dis­trust ap­pear­ances. You have in me a friend, if you will al­low me the hon­or of as­sum­ing that ti­tle. But you must learn to know me, mon­sieur. I should lose my own es­teem if I nom­inat­ed Thuil­li­er. No, my son shall nev­er own his hap­pi­ness to an evil ac­tion on his fa­ther's part. I shall not change my can­di­date be­cause my son's in­ter­ests de­mand it. That is civic virtue, mon­sieur.”

La Peyrade pulled out his hand­ker­chief and rubbed it in his eye so that it drew a tear, as he said, hold­ing out his hand to Phel­lion, and turn­ing aside his head:--

“Ah! mon­sieur, how sub­lime a strug­gle be­tween pub­lic and pri­vate du­ty! Had I come here on­ly to see this sight, my vis­it would not have been wast­ed. You can­not do oth­er­wise! In your place, I should do the same. You are that no­blest thing that God has made--a righ­teous man! a cit­izen of the Jean-​Jacques type! With many such cit­izens, oh France! my coun­try! what might­est thou be­come! It is I, mon­sieur, who so­lic­it, humbly, the hon­or to be your friend.”

“What can be hap­pen­ing?” said Madame Phel­lion, watch­ing the scene through the win­dow. “Do see your fa­ther and that hor­rid man em­brac­ing each oth­er.”

Phel­lion and la Peyrade now came out and joined the fam­ily in the gar­den.

“My dear Fe­lix,” said the old man, point­ing to la Peyrade, who was bow­ing to Madame Phel­lion, “be very grate­ful to that ad­mirable young man; he will prove most use­ful to you.”

The lawyer walked for about five min­utes with Madame Barniol and Madame Phel­lion be­neath the leaf­less lin­dens, and gave them (in con­se­quence of the em­bar­rass­ing cir­cum­stances cre­at­ed by Phel­lion's po­lit­ical ob­sti­na­cy) a piece of ad­vice, the ef­fects of which were to bear fruit that evening, while its first re­sult was to make both ladies ad­mire his tal­ents, his frank­ness, and his in­ap­pre­cia­ble good qual­ities. When the lawyer de­part­ed the whole fam­ily con­duct­ed him to the street gate, and all eyes fol­lowed him un­til he had turned the cor­ner of the rue du Faubourg-​Saint-​Jacques. Madame Phel­lion then took the arm of her hus­band to re­turn to the sa­lon, say­ing:--

“Hey! my friend! what does this mean? You, such a good fa­ther, how can you, from ex­ces­sive del­ica­cy, stand in the way of such a fine mar­riage for our Fe­lix?”

“My dear,” replied Phel­lion, “the great men of an­tiq­ui­ty, Bru­tus and oth­ers, were nev­er fa­thers when called up­on to be cit­izens. The bour­geoisie has, even more than the aris­toc­ra­cy whose place it has been called up­on to take, the obli­ga­tions of the high­est virtues. Mon­sieur de Saint-​Hi­laire did not think of his lost arm in pres­ence of the dead Turenne. We must give proof of our wor­thi­ness; let us give it at ev­ery state of the so­cial hi­er­ar­chy. Shall I in­struct my fam­ily in the high­est civic prin­ci­ples on­ly to ig­nore them my­self at the mo­ment for ap­ply­ing them? No, my dear; weep, if you must, to-​day, but to-​mor­row you will re­spect me,” he added, see­ing tears in the eyes of his starched bet­ter half.

These no­ble words were said on the sill of the door, above which was writ­ten, “Au­rea medi­ocritas.”

“I ought to have put, 'et digna,'” added Phel­lion, point­ing to the tablet, “but those two words would im­ply self-​praise.”

“Fa­ther,” said Marie-​Theodore Phel­lion, the fu­ture en­gi­neer of “ponts et chaussees,” when the fam­ily were once more seat­ed in the sa­lon, “it seems to me that there is noth­ing dis­hon­or­able in chang­ing one's de­ter­mi­na­tion about a choice which is of no re­al con­se­quence to pub­lic wel­fare.”

“No con­se­quence, my son!” cried Phel­lion. “Be­tween our­selves I will say, and Fe­lix shares my opin­ion, Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er is ab­so­lute­ly with­out ca­pac­ity; he knows noth­ing. Mon­sieur Ho­race Bian­chon is an able man; he will ob­tain a thou­sand things for our ar­rondisse­ment, and Thuil­li­er will ob­tain none! Re­mem­ber this, my son; to change a good de­ter­mi­na­tion for a bad one from mo­tives of self-​in­ter­est is one of those in­fa­mous ac­tions which es­cape the con­trol of men but are pun­ished by God. I am, or I think I am, void of all blame be­fore my con­science, and I owe it to you, my chil­dren, to leave my mem­ory un­stained among you. Noth­ing, there­fore, can make me change my de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

“Oh, my good fa­ther!” cried the lit­tle Barniol wom­an, fling­ing her­self on a cush­ion at Phel­lion's knees, “don't ride your high horse! There are many fools and id­iots in the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil, and France gets along all the same. That old Thuil­li­er will adopt the opin­ions of those about him. Do re­flect that Ce­leste will prob­ably have five hun­dred thou­sand francs.”

“She might have mil­lions,” said Phel­lion, “and I might see them there at my feet be­fore I would pro­pose Thuil­li­er, when I owe to the mem­ory of the best of men to nom­inate, if pos­si­ble, Ho­race Bian­chon, his nephew. From the heav­en above us Popinot is con­tem­plat­ing and ap­plaud­ing me!” cried Phel­lion, with ex­al­ta­tion. “It is by such con­sid­er­ations as you sug­gest that France is be­ing low­ered, and the bour­geoisie are bring­ing them­selves in­to con­tempt.”

“My fa­ther is right,” said Fe­lix, com­ing out of a deep rever­ie. “He de­serves our re­spect and love; as he has through­out the whole course of his mod­est and hon­ored life. I would not owe my hap­pi­ness ei­ther to re­morse in his no­ble soul, or to a low po­lit­ical bar­gain. I love Ce­leste as I love my own fam­ily; but, above all that, I place my fa­ther's hon­or, and since this ques­tion is a mat­ter of con­science with him it must not be spo­ken of again.”

Phel­lion, with his eyes full of tears, went up to his el­dest son and took him in his arms, say­ing, “My son! my son!” in a chok­ing voice.

“All that is non­sense,” whis­pered Madame Phel­lion in Madame Barniol's ear. “Come and dress me; I shall make an end of this; I know your fa­ther; he has put his foot down now. To car­ry out the plan that pi­ous young man, Theo­dose, sug­gest­ed, I want your help; hold your­self ready to give it, my daugh­ter.”

At this mo­ment, Genevieve came in and gave a let­ter to Mon­sieur Phel­lion.

“An in­vi­ta­tion for din­ner to-​day, for Madame Phel­lion and Fe­lix and my­self, at the Thuil­liers',” he said.

The mag­nif­icent and sur­pris­ing idea of Thuil­li­er's mu­nic­ipal ad­vance­ment, put forth by the “ad­vo­cate of the poor” was not less up­set­ting in the Thuil­li­er house­hold than it was in the Phel­lion sa­lon. Jerome Thuil­li­er, with­out ac­tu­al­ly con­fid­ing any­thing to his sis­ter, for he made it a point of hon­or to obey his Mephistophe­les, had rushed to her in great ex­cite­ment to say:--

“My dear­est girl” (he al­ways touched her heart with those ca­ress­ing words), “we shall have some big-​wigs at din­ner to-​day. I'm go­ing to ask the Mi­nards; there­fore take pains about your din­ner. I have writ­ten to Mon­sieur and Madame Phel­lion; it is rather late; but there's no need of cer­emo­ny with them. As for the Mi­nards, I must throw a lit­tle dust in their eyes; I have a par­tic­ular need of them.”

“Four Mi­nards, three Phel­lions, four Collevilles, and our­selves; that makes thir­teen--”

“La Peyrade, four­teen; and it is worth while to in­vite Du­tocq; he may be use­ful to us. I'll go up and see him.”

“What are you schem­ing?” cried his sis­ter. “Fif­teen to din­ner! There's forty francs, at the very least, waltz­ing off.”

“You won't re­gret them, my dear­est. I want you to be par­tic­ular­ly agree­able to our young friend, la Peyrade. There's a friend, in­deed! you'll soon have proofs of that! If you love me, cos­set him well.”

So say­ing, he de­part­ed, leav­ing Brigitte be­wil­dered.

“Proofs, in­deed! yes, I'll look out for proofs,” she said. “I'm not to be caught with fine words, not I! He is an ami­able fel­low; but be­fore I take him in­to my heart I shall study him a lit­tle clos­er.”

Af­ter invit­ing Du­tocq, Thuil­li­er, hav­ing be­di­zened him­self, went to the ho­tel Mi­nard, rue des Ma­cons-​Sor­bonne, to cap­ture the stout Zelie, and gloss over the short­ness of the in­vi­ta­tion.

Mi­nard had pur­chased one of those large and sump­tu­ous habi­ta­tions which the old re­li­gious or­ders built about the Sor­bonne, and as Thuil­li­er mount­ed the broad stone steps with an iron balustrade, that proved how arts of the sec­ond class flour­ished un­der Louis XI­II., he en­vied both the man­sion and its oc­cu­pant,--the may­or.

This vast build­ing, stand­ing be­tween a court­yard and gar­den, is no­tice­able as a spec­imen of the style, both no­ble and el­egant, of the reign of Louis XI­II., com­ing sin­gu­lar­ly, as it did, be­tween the bad taste of the ex­pir­ing re­nais­sance and the heavy grandeur of Louis XIV., at its dawn. This tran­si­tion pe­ri­od is shown in many pub­lic build­ings. The mas­sive scroll-​work of sev­er­al fa­cades--that of the Sor­bonne, for in­stance,--and columns rec­ti­fied ac­cord­ing to the rules of Gre­cian art, were be­gin­ning to ap­pear in this ar­chi­tec­ture.

A gro­cer, a lucky adul­ter­ator, now took the place of the for­mer ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal gov­er­nor of an in­sti­tu­tion called in for­mer times L'Econo­mat; an es­tab­lish­ment con­nect­ed with the gen­er­al agen­cy of the old French cler­gy, and found­ed by the long-​sight­ed ge­nius of Riche­lieu. Thuil­li­er's name opened for him the doors of the sa­lon, where sat en­throned in vel­vet and gold, amid the most mag­nif­icent “Chi­ne­series,” the poor wom­an who weighed with all her avoirdupois on the hearts and minds of princes and princess­es at the “pop­ular balls” of the palace.

“Isn't she a good sub­ject for 'La Car­ica­ture'?” said a so-​called la­dy of the bed­cham­ber to a duchess, who could hard­ly help laugh­ing at the as­pect of Zelie, glit­ter­ing with di­amonds, red as a pop­py, squeezed in­to a gold bro­cade, and rolling along like the casts of her for­mer shop.

“Will you par­don me, fair la­dy,” be­gan Thuil­li­er, twist­ing his body, and paus­ing in pose num­ber two of his im­pe­ri­al reper­to­ry, “for hav­ing al­lowed this in­vi­ta­tion to re­main in my desk, think­ing, all the while, that it was sent? It is for to-​day, but per­haps I am too late?”

Zelie ex­am­ined her hus­band's face as he ap­proached them to re­ceive Thuil­li­er; then she said:--

“We in­tend­ed to drive in­to the coun­try and dine at some chance restau­rant; but we'll give up that idea and all the more read­ily be­cause, in my opin­ion, it is get­ting dev­il­ish­ly vul­gar to drive out of Paris on Sun­days.”

“We will have a lit­tle dance to the pi­ano for the young peo­ple, if enough come, as I hope they will. I have sent a line to Phel­lion, whose wife is in­ti­mate with Madame Pron, the suc­ces­sor--”

“Suc­ces­sor_ess_,” in­ter­rupt­ed Madame Mi­nard.

“No,” said Thuil­li­er, “it ought to be suc­cess'ress; just as we say may'ress, drop­ping the O, you know.”

“Is it full dress?” asked Madame Mi­nard.

“Heav­ens! no,” replied Thuil­li­er; “you would get me fine­ly scold­ed by my sis­ter. No, it is on­ly a fam­ily par­ty. Un­der the Em­pire, madame, we all de­vot­ed our­selves to danc­ing. At that great epoch of our na­tion­al life they thought as much of a fine dancer as they did of a good sol­dier. Nowa­days the coun­try is so mat­ter-​of-​fact.”

“Well, we won't talk pol­itics,” said the may­or, smil­ing. “The King is grand; he is very able. I have a deep ad­mi­ra­tion for my own time, and for the in­sti­tu­tions which we have giv­en to our­selves. The King, you may be sure, knows very well what he is do­ing by the de­vel­op­ment of in­dus­tries. He is strug­gling hand to hand against Eng­land; and we are do­ing him more harm dur­ing this fruit­ful peace than all the wars of the Em­pire would have done.”

“What a deputy Mi­nard would make!” cried Zelie, naive­ly. “He prac­tis­es speechi­fy­ing at home. You'll help us to get him elect­ed, won't you, Thuil­li­er?”

“We won't talk pol­itics now,” replied Thuil­li­er. “Come at five.”

“Will that lit­tle Vinet be there?” asked Mi­nard; “he comes, no doubt, for Ce­leste.”

“Then he may go in­to mourn­ing,” replied Thuil­li­er. “Brigitte won't hear of him.”

Zelie and Mi­nard ex­changed a smile of sat­is­fac­tion.

“To think that we must hob-​nob with such com­mon peo­ple, all for the sake of our son!” cried Zelie, when Thuil­li­er was safe­ly down the stair­case, to which the may­or had ac­com­pa­nied him.

“Ha! he thinks to be deputy!” thought Thuil­li­er, as he walked away. “These gro­cers! noth­ing sat­is­fies them. Heav­ens! what would Napoleon say if he could see the gov­ern­ment in the hands of such peo­ple! I'm a trained ad­min­is­tra­tor, at any rate. What a com­peti­tor, to be sure! I won­der what la Peyrade will say?”

The am­bi­tious ex-​beau now went to in­vite the whole Laudi­geois fam­ily for the evening, af­ter which he went to the Collevilles', to make sure that Ce­leste should wear a be­com­ing gown. He found Flavie rather pen­sive. She hes­itat­ed about com­ing, but Thuil­li­er over­came her in­de­ci­sion.

“My old and ev­er young friend,” he said, tak­ing her round the waist, for she was alone in her lit­tle sa­lon, “I won't have any se­cret from you. A great af­fair is in the wind for me. I can't tell you more than that, but I can ask you to be par­tic­ular­ly charm­ing to a cer­tain young man--”

“Who is it?”

“La Peyrade.”

“Why, Charles?”

“He holds my fu­ture in his hands. Be­sides, he's a man of ge­nius. I know what that is. He's got this sort of thing,”--and Thuil­li­er made the ges­ture of a den­tist pulling out a back tooth. “We must bind him to us, Flavie. But, above all, don't let him see his pow­er. As for me, I shall just give and take with him.”

“Do you want me to be co­quet­tish?”

“Not too much so, my an­gel,” replied Thuil­li­er, with a fop­pish air.

And he de­part­ed, not ob­serv­ing the stu­por which over­came Flavie.

“That young man is a pow­er,” she said to her­self. “Well, we shall see!”

For these rea­sons she dressed her hair with marabouts, put on her pret­ti­est gown of gray and pink, which al­lowed her fine shoul­ders to be seen be­neath a peler­ine of black lace, and took care to keep Ce­leste in a lit­tle silk frock made with a yoke and a large plait­ed col­larette, telling her to dress her hair plain­ly, a la Berthe.