The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER VIII

AD MA­JOREM THEO­DOSIS GLO­RI­AM

At half-​past four o'clock Theo­dose was at his post. He had put on his va­cant, half-​servile man­ner and soft voice, and he drew Thuil­li­er at once in­to the gar­den.

“My friend,” he said, “I don't doubt your tri­umph, but I feel the ne­ces­si­ty of again warn­ing you to be ab­so­lute­ly silent. If you are ques­tioned about any­thing, es­pe­cial­ly about Ce­leste, make eva­sive an­swers which will keep your ques­tion­ers in sus­pense. You must have learned how to do that in a gov­ern­ment of­fice.”

“I un­der­stand!” said Thuil­li­er. “But what cer­tain­ty have you?”

“You'll see what a fine dessert I have pre­pared for you. But please be mod­est. There come the Mi­nards; let me pipe to them. Bring them out here, and then dis­ap­pear your­self.”

Af­ter the first salu­ta­tions, la Peyrade was care­ful to keep close to the may­or, and present­ly at an op­por­tune mo­ment he drew him aside to say:--

“Mon­sieur le maire, a man of your po­lit­ical im­por­tance doesn't come to bore him­self in a house of this kind with­out an ob­ject. I don't want to fath­om your mo­tives--which, in­deed, I have no right to do--and my part in this world is cer­tain­ly not to min­gle with earth­ly pow­ers; but please par­don my ap­par­ent pre­sump­tion, and deign to lis­ten to a piece of ad­vice which I shall ven­ture to give you. If I do you a ser­vice to-​day you are in a po­si­tion to re­turn it to me to-​mor­row; there­fore, in case I should be so for­tu­nate as to do you a good turn, I am re­al­ly on­ly obey­ing the law of self-​in­ter­est. Our friend Thuil­li­er is in de­spair at be­ing a no­body; he has tak­en it in­to his head that he wants to be­come a per­son­age in this ar­rondisse­ment--”

“Ah! ah!” ex­claimed Mi­nard.

“Oh! noth­ing very ex­alt­ed; he wants to be elect­ed to the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil. Now, I know that Phel­lion, see­ing the in­flu­ence such a ser­vice would have on his fam­ily in­ter­ests, in­tends to pro­pose your poor friend as can­di­date. Well, per­haps you might think it wise, in your own in­ter­ests, to be be­fore­hand with him. Thuil­li­er's nom­ina­tion could on­ly be fa­vor­able for you--I mean agree­able; and he'll fill his place in the coun­cil very well; there are some there who are not as strong as he. Be­sides, ow­ing to his place to your sup­port, he will see with your eyes; he al­ready looks to you as one of the lights of the town.”

“My dear fel­low, I thank you very much,” replied Mi­nard. “You are do­ing me a ser­vice I can­not suf­fi­cient­ly ac­knowl­edge, and which proves to me--”

“That I don't like those Phel­lions,” said la Peyrade, tak­ing ad­van­tage of a slight hes­ita­tion on the part of the may­or, who feared to ex­press an idea in which the lawyer might see con­tempt. “I hate peo­ple who make cap­ital out of their hon­esty and coin mon­ey from fine sen­ti­ments.”

“You know them well,” said Mi­nard; “they are syco­phants. That man's whole life for the last ten years is ex­plained by this bit of red rib­bon,” added the may­or, point­ing to his own but­ton­hole.

“Take care!” said the lawyer, “his son is in love with Ce­leste, and he's fair­ly in the heart of the fam­ily.”

“Yes, but my son has twelve thou­sand a year in his own right.”

“Oh!” said Theo­dose, with a start, “Made­moi­selle Brigitte was say­ing the oth­er day that she want­ed at least as much as that in Ce­leste's suit­or. More­over, six months hence you'll prob­ably hear that Thuil­li­er has a prop­er­ty worth forty thou­sand francs a year.”

“The dev­il! well, I thought as much. Yes, cer­tain­ly, he shall be made a mem­ber of the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil.”

“In any case, don't say any­thing about me to him,” said the ad­vo­cate of the poor, who now has­tened away to speak to Madame Phel­lion. “Well, my fair la­dy,” he said, when he reached her, “have you suc­ceed­ed?”

“I wait­ed till four o'clock, and then that wor­thy and ex­cel­lent man would not let me fin­ish what I had to say. He is much to busy to ac­cept such an of­fice, and he sent a let­ter which Mon­sieur Phel­lion has read, say­ing that he, Doc­tor Bian­chon, thanked him for his good in­ten­tions, and as­sured him that his own can­di­date was Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er. He said that he should use all his in­flu­ence in his fa­vor, and begged my hus­band to do the same.”

“And what did your ex­cel­lent hus­band say?”

“'I have done my du­ty,' he said. 'I have not been false to my con­science, and now I am all for Thuil­li­er.'”

“Well, then, the thing is set­tled,” said la Peyrade. “Ig­nore my vis­it, and take all the cred­it of the idea to your­selves.”

Then he went to Madame Colleville, com­pos­ing him­self in the at­ti­tude and man­ner of the deep­est re­spect.

“Madame,” he said, “have the good­ness to send out to me here that kind­ly pa­pa Colleville. A sur­prise is to be giv­en to Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er, and I want Mon­sieur Colleville to be in the se­cret.”

While la Peyrade played the part of man of the world with Colleville, and al­lowed him­self var­ious wit­ty sar­casms when ex­plain­ing to him Thuil­li­er's can­di­da­cy, telling him he ought to sup­port it, if on­ly to ex­hib­it his in­ca­pac­ity, Flavie was lis­ten­ing in the sa­lon to the fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion, which be­wil­dered her for the mo­ment and made her ears ring.

“I should like to know what Mon­sieur Colleville and Mon­sieur de la Peyrade can be say­ing to each oth­er to make them laugh like that,” said Madame Thuil­li­er, fool­ish­ly, look­ing out of the win­dow.

“A lot of im­prop­er things, as men al­ways do when they talk to­geth­er,” replied Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, who of­ten at­tacked men with the sort of in­stinct nat­ural to old maids.

“No, they are in­ca­pable of that,” said Phel­lion, grave­ly. “Mon­sieur de la Peyrade is one of the most vir­tu­ous young men I have ev­er met. Peo­ple know what I think of Fe­lix; well, I put the two on the same line; in­deed, I wish my son had a lit­tle more of Mon­sieur de la Peyrade's beau­ti­ful piety.”

“You are right; he is a man of great mer­it, who is sure to suc­ceed,” said Mi­nard. “As for me, my suf­frages--for I re­al­ly ought not to say pro­tec­tion--are his.”

“He pays more for oil than for bread,” said Du­tocq. “I know that.”

“His moth­er, if he has the hap­pi­ness to still pos­sess her, must be proud of him,” re­marked Madame Thuil­li­er, sen­ten­tious­ly.

“He is a re­al trea­sure for us,” said Thuil­li­er. “If you on­ly knew how mod­est he is! He doesn't do him­self jus­tice.”

“I can an­swer for one thing,” added Du­tocq; “no young man ev­er main­tained a no­bler at­ti­tude in pover­ty; he tri­umphed over it; but he suf­fered--it is easy to see that.”

“Poor young man!” cried Zelie. “Such things make my heart ache!”

“Any one could safe­ly trust both se­crets and for­tune to him,” said Thuil­li­er; “and in these days that is the finest thing that can be said of a man.”

“It is Colleville who is mak­ing him laugh,” cried Du­tocq.

Just then Colleville and la Peyrade re­turned from the gar­den the very best friends in the world.

“Messieurs,” said Brigitte, “the soup and the King must nev­er be kept wait­ing; give your hand to the ladies.”

Five min­utes af­ter this lit­tle pleas­antry (is­su­ing from the lodge of her fa­ther the porter) Brigitte had the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing her ta­ble sur­round­ed by the prin­ci­pal per­son­ages of this dra­ma; the rest, with the one ex­cep­tion of the odi­ous Cer­izet, ar­rived lat­er.

The por­trait of the for­mer mak­er of can­vas mon­ey-​bags would be in­com­plete if we omit­ted to give a de­scrip­tion of one of her best din­ners. The phys­iog­no­my of the bour­geois cook of 1840 is, more­over, one of those de­tails es­sen­tial­ly nec­es­sary to a his­to­ry of man­ners and cus­toms, and clever house­wives may find some lessons in it. A wom­an doesn't make emp­ty bags for twen­ty years with­out look­ing out for the means to fill a few of them. Now Brigitte had one pe­cu­liar char­ac­ter­is­tic. She unit­ed the econ­omy to which she owed her for­tune with a full un­der­stand­ing of nec­es­sary ex­pens­es. Her rel­ative prodi­gal­ity, when it con­cerned her broth­er or Ce­leste, was the an­tipodes of avarice. In fact, she of­ten be­moaned her­self that she couldn't be miser­ly. At her last din­ner she had re­lat­ed how, af­ter strug­gling ten minute and en­dur­ing mar­tyr­dom, she had end­ed by giv­ing ten francs to a poor work­wom­an whom she knew, pos­itive­ly, had been with­out food for two days.

“Na­ture,” she said naive­ly, “is stronger than rea­son.”

The soup was a rather pale bouil­lon; for, even on an oc­ca­sion like this, the cook had been en­joined to make a great deal of bouil­lon out of the beef sup­plied. Then, as the said beef was to feed the fam­ily on the next day and the day af­ter that, the less juice it ex­pend­ed in the bouil­lon, the more sub­stan­tial were the sub­se­quent din­ners. The beef, lit­tle cooked, was al­ways tak­en away at the fol­low­ing speech from Brigitte, ut­tered as soon as Thuil­li­er put his knife in­to it:--

“I think it is rather tough; send it away, Thuil­li­er, no­body will eat it; we have oth­er things.”

The soup was, in fact, flanked by four viands mount­ed on old hot-​wa­ter chaf­ing-​dish­es, with the plat­ing worn off. At this par­tic­ular din­ner (af­ter­wards called that of the can­di­da­cy) the first course con­sist­ed of a pair of ducks with olives, op­po­site to which was a large pie with force­meat balls, while a dish of eels “a la tartare” cor­re­spond­ed in like man­ner with a frican­deau on chico­ry. The sec­ond course had for its cen­tral dish a most dig­ni­fied goose stuffed with chest­nuts, a sal­ad of veg­eta­bles gar­nished with rounds of beet­root op­po­site to cus­tards in cups, while low­er down a dish of turnips “au su­cre” faced a tim­bale of mac­aroni. This gala din­ner of the concierge type cost, at the ut­most, twen­ty francs, and the re­mains of the feast pro­vid­ed the house­hold for a cou­ple of days; nev­er­the­less, Brigitte would say:--

“Pest! when one has to have com­pa­ny how the mon­ey goes! It is fear­ful!”

The ta­ble was light­ed by two hideous can­dle­sticks of plat­ed sil­ver with four branch­es each, in which shone eight of those thrifty wax-​can­dles that go by the name of Au­ro­ra. The linen was daz­zling in white­ness, and the sil­ver, with bead­ed edges, was the fruit, ev­ident­ly, of some pur­chase made dur­ing the Rev­olu­tion by Thuil­li­er's fa­ther. Thus the fare and the ser­vice were in keep­ing with the house, the din­ing-​room, and the Thuil­liers them­selves, who could nev­er, un­der any cir­cum­stances, get them­selves above this style of liv­ing. The Mi­nards, Collevilles, and la Peyrade ex­changed now and then a smile which be­trayed their mu­tu­al­ly satir­ical but re­pressed thoughts. La Peyrade, seat­ed be­side Flavie, whis­pered in her ear:--

“You must ad­mit that they ought to be taught how to live. But those Mi­nards are no bet­ter in their way. What cu­pid­ity! they've come here sole­ly af­ter Ce­leste. Your daugh­ter will be lost to you if you let them have her. These par­venus have all the vices of the great lords of oth­er days with­out their el­egance. Mi­nard's son, who has twelve thou­sand francs a year of his own, could very well find a wife else­where, in­stead of push­ing his spec­ulat­ing rake in here. What fun it would be to play up­on those peo­ple as one would on a bass-​vi­ol or a clar­ionet!”

While the dish­es of the sec­ond course were be­ing re­moved, Mi­nard, afraid that Phel­lion would pre­cede him, said to Thuil­li­er with a grave air:--

“My dear Thuil­li­er, in ac­cept­ing your din­ner, I did so for the pur­pose of mak­ing an im­por­tant com­mu­ni­ca­tion, which does you so much hon­or that all here present ought to be made par­tic­ipants in it.”

Thuil­li­er turned pale.

“Have you ob­tained the cross for me?” he cried, on re­ceiv­ing a glance from Theo­dose, and wish­ing to prove that he was not with­out craft.

“You will doubt­less re­ceive it ere long,” replied the may­or. “But the mat­ter now re­lates to some­thing bet­ter than that. The cross is a fa­vor due to the good opin­ion of a min­is­ter, where­as the present ques­tion con­cerns an elec­tion due to the con­sent of your fel­low cit­izens. In a word, a suf­fi­cient­ly large num­ber of elec­tors in your ar­rondisse­ment have cast their eyes up­on you, and wish to hon­or you with their con­fi­dence by mak­ing you the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of this ar­rondisse­ment in the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil of Paris; which, as ev­ery­body knows, is the Coun­cil-​gen­er­al of the Seine.”

“Bra­vo!” cried Du­tocq.

Phel­lion rose.

“Mon­sieur le maire has fore­stalled me,” he said in an ag­itat­ed voice, “but it is so flat­ter­ing for our friend to be the ob­ject of ea­ger­ness on the part of all good cit­izens, and to ob­tain the pub­lic vote of high and low, that I can­not com­plain of be­ing obliged to come sec­ond on­ly; there­fore, all hon­or to the ini­tia­to­ry au­thor­ity!” (Here he bowed re­spect­ful­ly to Mi­nard.) “Yes, Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er, many elec­tors think of giv­ing you their votes in that por­tion of the ar­rondisse­ment where I keep my hum­ble pe­nates; and you have the spe­cial ad­van­tage of be­ing sug­gest­ed to their minds by a dis­tin­guished man.” (Sen­sa­tion.) “By a man in whose per­son we de­sired to hon­or one of the most vir­tu­ous in­hab­itants of the ar­rondisse­ment, who for twen­ty years, I may say, was the fa­ther of it. I al­lude to the late Mon­sieur Popinot, coun­sel­lor, dur­ing his life­time, to the Roy­al court, and our del­egate in the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil of Paris. But his nephew, of whom I speak, Doc­tor Bian­chon, one of our glo­ries, has, in view of his ab­sorb­ing du­ties, de­clined the re­spon­si­bil­ity with which we sought to in­vest him. While thank­ing us for our com­pli­ment he has--take note of this--in­di­cat­ed for our suf­frages the can­di­date of Mon­sieur le maire as be­ing, in his opin­ion, ca­pa­ble, ow­ing to the po­si­tion he for­mer­ly oc­cu­pied, of ex­er­cis­ing the mag­is­te­ri­al func­tions of the aedile­ship.”

And Phel­lion sat down amid ap­prov­ing mur­murs.

“Thuil­li­er, you can count on me, your old friend,” said Colleville.

At this mo­ment the guests were sin­cere­ly touched by the sight pre­sent­ed of old Made­moi­selle Brigitte and Madame Thuil­li­er. Brigitte, pale as though she were faint­ing, was let­ting the slow tears run, un­heed­ed, down her cheeks, tears of deep­est joy; while Madame Thuil­li­er sat, as if struck by light­ning, with her eyes fixed. Sud­den­ly the old maid dart­ed in­to the kitchen, cry­ing out to Josephine the cook:--

“Come in­to the cel­lar my girl, we must get out the wine be­hind the wood!”

“My friends,” said Thuil­li­er, in a shak­ing voice, “this is the finest mo­ment of my life, fin­er than even the day of my elec­tion, should I con­sent to al­low my­self to be pre­sent­ed to the suf­frages of my fel­low-​cit­izens” (“You must! you must!”); “for I feel my­self much worn down by thir­ty years of pub­lic ser­vice, and, as you may well be­lieve, a man of hon­or has need to con­sult his strength and his ca­pac­ities be­fore he takes up­on him­self the func­tions of the aedile­ship.”

“I ex­pect­ed noth­ing less of you, Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er,” cried Phel­lion. “Par­don me; this is the first time in my life that I have ev­er in­ter­rupt­ed a su­pe­ri­or; but there are cir­cum­stances--”

“Ac­cept! ac­cept!” cried Zelie. “Bless my soul! what we want are men like you to gov­ern us.”

“Re­sign your­self, my chief!” cried Du­tocq, and, “Long live the fu­ture mu­nic­ipal coun­cil­lor! but we haven't any­thing to drink--”

“Well, the thing is set­tled,” said Mi­nard; “you are to be our can­di­date.”

“You think too much of me,” replied Thuil­li­er.

“Come, come!” cried Colleville. “A man who has done thir­ty years in the gal­leys of the min­istry of fi­nance is a trea­sure to the town.”

“You are much too mod­est,” said the younger Mi­nard; “your ca­pac­ity is well known to us; it re­mains a tra­di­tion at the min­istry of fi­nance.”

“As you all in­sist--” be­gan Thuil­li­er.

“The King will be pleased with our choice; I can as­sure you of that,” said Mi­nard, pompous­ly.

“Gen­tle­men,” said la Peyrade, “will you per­mit a re­cent dweller in the faubourg Saint-​Jacques to make one lit­tle re­mark, which is not with­out im­por­tance?”

The con­scious­ness that ev­ery­body had of the ster­ling mer­its of the ad­vo­cate of the poor pro­duced the deep­est si­lence.

“The in­flu­ence of Mon­sieur le maire of an ad­join­ing ar­rondisse­ment, which is im­mense in ours where he has left such ex­cel­lent mem­ories; that of Mon­sieur Phel­lion, the or­acle--yes, let the truth be spo­ken,” he ex­claimed, notic­ing a ges­ture made by Phel­lion--“the _or­acle_ of his bat­tal­ion; the in­flu­ence, no less pow­er­ful, which Mon­sieur Colleville owes to the frank hearti­ness of his man­ner, and to his ur­ban­ity; that of Mon­sieur Du­tocq, the clerk of the jus­tice court, which will not be less ef­fi­ca­cious, I am sure; and the poor ef­forts which I can of­fer in my hum­ble sphere of ac­tiv­ity,--are pledges of suc­cess, but they are not suc­cess it­self. To ob­tain a rapid tri­umph we should pledge our­selves, now and here, to keep the deep­est se­cre­cy on the man­ifes­ta­tion of sen­ti­ments which has just tak­en place. Oth­er­wise, we should ex­cite, with­out know­ing or will­ing it, en­vy and all the oth­er sec­ondary pas­sions, which would cre­ate for us lat­er var­ious ob­sta­cles to over­come. The po­lit­ical mean­ing of the new so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion, its very ba­sis, its to­ken, and the guar­an­tee for its con­tin­uance, are in a cer­tain shar­ing of the gov­ern­ing pow­er with the mid­dle class­es, class­es who are the true strength of mod­ern so­ci­eties, the cen­tre of moral­ity, of all good sen­ti­ments and in­tel­li­gent work. But we can­not con­ceal from our­selves that the prin­ci­ple of elec­tion, ex­tend­ed now to al­most ev­ery func­tion, has brought the in­ter­ests of am­bi­tion, and the pas­sion for be­ing _some­thing_, ex­cuse the word, in­to so­cial depths where they ought nev­er to have pen­etrat­ed. Some see good in this; oth­ers see evil; it is not my place to judge be­tween them in pres­ence of minds be­fore whose em­inence I bow. I con­tent my­self by sim­ply sug­gest­ing this ques­tion in or­der to show the dan­gers which the ban­ner of our friend must meet. See for your­selves! the de­cease of our late hon­or­able rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil dates back scarce­ly one week, and al­ready the ar­rondisse­ment is be­ing can­vassed by in­fe­ri­or am­bi­tions. Such men put them­selves for­ward to be seen at any price. The writ of con­vo­ca­tion will, prob­ably, not take ef­fect for a month to come. Be­tween now and then, imag­ine the in­trigues! I en­treat you not to ex­pose our friend Thuil­li­er to the blows of his com­peti­tors; let us not de­liv­er him over to pub­lic dis­cus­sion, that mod­ern harpy which is but the trum­pet of en­vy and calum­ny, the pre­text seized by malev­olence to be­lit­tle all that is great, soil all that is im­mac­ulate and dis­hon­or what­ev­er is sa­cred. Let us, rather, do as the Third Par­ty is now do­ing in the Cham­ber,--keep si­lence and vote!”

“He speaks well,” said Phel­lion to his neigh­bor Du­tocq.

“And how strong the state­ment is!”

En­vy had turned Mi­nard and his son green and yel­low.

“That is well said and very true,” re­marked Mi­nard.

“Unan­imous­ly adopt­ed!” cried Colleville. “Messieurs, we are men of hon­or; it suf­fices to un­der­stand each oth­er on this point.”

“Whoso de­sires the end ac­cepts the means,” said Phel­lion, em­phat­ical­ly.

At this mo­ment, Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er reap­peared, fol­lowed by her two ser­vants; the key of the cel­lar was hang­ing from her belt, and three bot­tles of cham­pagne, three of her­mitage, and one bot­tle of mala­ga were placed up­on the ta­ble. She her­self was car­ry­ing, with al­most re­spect­ful care, a small­er bot­tle, like a fairy Cara­bosse, which she placed be­fore her. In the midst of the hi­lar­ity caused by this abun­dance of ex­cel­lent things--a fruit of grat­itude, which the poor spin­ster in the delir­ium of her joy poured out with a pro­fu­sion which put to shame the spar­ing hos­pi­tal­ity of her usu­al fort­night­ly din­ners --nu­mer­ous dessert dish­es made their ap­pear­ance: mounds of al­monds, raisins, figs, and nuts (pop­ular­ly known as the “four beg­gars”), pyra­mids of or­anges, con­fec­tions, crys­tal­lized fruits, brought from the hid­den depths of her cup­boards, which would nev­er have fig­ured on the ta­ble-​cloth had it not been for the “can­di­da­cy.”

“Ce­leste, they will bring you a bot­tle of brandy which my fa­ther ob­tained in 1802; make an or­ange-​sal­ad!” cried Brigitte to her sis­ter-​in-​law. “Mon­sieur Phel­lion, open the cham­pagne; that bot­tle is for you three. Mon­sieur Du­tocq, take this one. Mon­sieur Colleville, you know how to pop corks!”

The two maids dis­tribut­ed cham­pagne glass­es, al­so claret glass­es, and wine glass­es. Josephine al­so brought three more bot­tles of Bor­deaux.

“The year of the comet!” cried Thuil­li­er, laugh­ing, “Messieurs, you have turned my sis­ter's head.”

“And this evening you shall have punch and cakes,” she said. “I have sent to the chemists for some tea. Heav­ens! if I had on­ly known the af­fair con­cerned an elec­tion,” she cried, look­ing at her sis­ter-​in-​law, “I'd have served the turkey.”

A gen­er­al laugh wel­comed this speech.

“We have a goose!” said Mi­nard ju­nior.

“The carts are un­load­ing!” cried Madame Thuil­li­er, as “mar­rons glaces” and “meringues” were placed up­on the ta­ble.

Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er's face was blaz­ing. She was re­al­ly su­perb to be­hold. Nev­er did sis­ter­ly love as­sume such a fren­zied ex­pres­sion.

“To those who know her, it is re­al­ly touch­ing,” re­marked Madame Colleville.

The glass­es were filled. The guests all looked at one an­oth­er, ev­ident­ly ex­pect­ing a toast, where­upon la Peyrade said:--

“Messieurs, let us drink to some­thing sub­lime.”

Ev­ery­body looked cu­ri­ous.

“To Made­moi­selle Brigitte!”

They all rose, clinked glass­es, and cried with one voice, “Made­moi­selle Brigitte!” so much en­thu­si­asm did the ex­hi­bi­tion of a true feel­ing ex­cite.

“Messieurs,” said Phel­lion, read­ing from a pa­per writ­ten in pen­cil, “To work and its splen­dors, in the per­son of our for­mer com­rade, now be­come one of the may­ors of Paris,--to Mon­sieur Mi­nard and his wife!”

Af­ter five min­utes' gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion Thuil­li­er rose and said:--

“Messieurs, To the King and the roy­al fam­ily! I add noth­ing; the toast says all.”

“To the elec­tion of my broth­er!” said Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er a mo­ment lat­er.

“Now I'll make you laugh,” whis­pered la Peyrade in Flavie's ear.

And he rose.

“To Wom­an!” he said; “that en­chant­ing sex to whom we owe our hap­pi­ness,--not to speak of our moth­ers, our sis­ters, and our wives!”

This toast ex­cit­ed gen­er­al hi­lar­ity, and Colleville, al­ready some­what gay, ex­claimed:--

“Ras­cal! you have stolen my speech!”

The may­or then rose; pro­found si­lence reigned.

“Messieurs, our in­sti­tu­tions! from which come the strength and grandeur of dy­nas­tic France!”

The bot­tles dis­ap­peared amid a cho­rus of ad­mi­ra­tion as to the mar­vel­lous good­ness and del­ica­cy of their con­tents.

Ce­leste Colleville here said timid­ly:--

“Mam­ma, will you per­mit me to give a toast?”

The good girl had no­ticed the dull, be­wil­dered look of her god­moth­er, ne­glect­ed and for­got­ten,--she, the mis­tress of that house, wear­ing al­most the ex­pres­sion of a dog that is doubt­ful which mas­ter to obey, look­ing from the face of her ter­ri­ble sis­ter-​in-​law to that of Thuil­li­er, con­sult­ing each coun­te­nance, and obliv­ious of her­self; but joy on the face of that poor helot, ac­cus­tomed to be noth­ing, to re­press her ideas, her feel­ings, had the ef­fect of a pale win­try sun be­hind a mist; it bare­ly light­ed her fad­ed, flab­by flesh. The gauze cap trimmed with dingy flow­ers, the hair ill-​dressed, the gloomy brown gown, with no or­na­ment but a thick gold chain--all, com­bined with the ex­pres­sion of her coun­te­nance, stim­ulat­ed the af­fec­tion of the young Ce­leste, who--alone in the world--knew the val­ue of that wom­an con­demned to si­lence but aware of all about her, suf­fer­ing from all yet con­sol­ing her­self in God and in the girl who now was watch­ing her.

“Yes, let the dear child give us her lit­tle toast,” said la Peyrade to Madame Colleville.

“Go on, my daugh­ter,” cried Colleville; “here's the her­mitage still to be drunk--and it's hoary with age,” he added.

“To my kind god­moth­er!” said the girl, low­er­ing her glass re­spect­ful­ly be­fore Madame Thuil­li­er, and hold­ing it to­wards her.

The poor wom­an, star­tled, looked through a veil of tears first at her hus­band, and then at Brigitte; but her po­si­tion in the fam­ily was so well known, and the homage paid by in­no­cence to weak­ness had some­thing so beau­ti­ful about it, that the emo­tion was gen­er­al; the men all rose and bowed to Madame Thuil­li­er.

“Ah! Ce­leste, I would I had a king­dom to lay at your feet,” mur­mured Fe­lix Phel­lion.

The wor­thy Phel­lion wiped away a tear. Du­tocq him­self was moved.

“Oh! the charm­ing child!” cried Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, ris­ing, and go­ing round to kiss her sis­ter-​in-​law.

“My turn now!” said Colleville, pos­ing like an ath­lete. “Now lis­ten: To friend­ship! Emp­ty your glass­es; re­fill your glass­es. Good! To the fine arts,--the flow­er of so­cial life! Emp­ty your glass­es; re­fill your glass­es. To an­oth­er such fes­ti­val on the day af­ter elec­tion!”

“What is that lit­tle bot­tle you have there?” said Du­tocq to Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er.

“That,” she said, “is one of my three bot­tles of Madame Am­phoux' liqueur; the sec­ond is for the day of Ce­leste's mar­riage; the third for the day on which her first child is bap­tized.”

“My sis­ter is los­ing her head,” re­marked Thuil­li­er to Colleville.

The din­ner end­ed with a toast, of­fered by Thuil­li­er, but sug­gest­ed to him by Theo­dose at the mo­ment when the mala­ga sparkled in the lit­tle glass­es like so many ru­bies.

“Colleville, messieurs, has drunk to _friend­ship_. I now drink, in this most gen­er­ous wine, To my friends!”

An hur­rah, full of hearti­ness, greet­ed that fine sen­ti­ment, but Du­tocq re­marked aside to Theo­dose:--

“It is a shame to pour such wine down the throats of such peo­ple.”

“Ah! if we could on­ly make such wine as that!” cried Zelie, mak­ing her glass ring by the way in which she sucked down the Span­ish liq­uid. “What for­tunes we could get!”

Zelie had now reached her high­est point of in­can­des­cence, and was re­al­ly alarm­ing.

“Yes,” replied Mi­nard, “but ours is made.”

“Don't you think, sis­ter,” said Brigitte to Madame Thuil­li­er, “that we had bet­ter take cof­fee in the sa­lon?”

Madame Thuil­li­er obe­di­ent­ly as­sumed the air of mis­tress of the house, and rose.

“Ah! you are a great wiz­ard,” said Flavie Colleville, ac­cept­ing la Peyrade's arm to re­turn to the sa­lon.

“And yet I care on­ly to be­witch you,” he an­swered. “I think you more en­chant­ing than ev­er this evening.”

“Thuil­li­er,” she said, to evade the sub­ject, “Thuil­li­er made to think him­self a po­lit­ical char­ac­ter! oh! oh!”

“But, my dear Flavie, half the ab­sur­di­ties of life are the re­sult of such con­spir­acies; and men are not alone in these de­cep­tions. In how many fam­ilies one sees the hus­band, chil­dren, and friends per­suad­ing a sil­ly moth­er that she is a wom­an of sense, or an old wom­an of fifty that she is young and beau­ti­ful. Hence, in­con­ceiv­able con­tra­ri­eties for those who go about the world with their eyes shut. One man owes his ill-​sa­vored con­ceit to the flat­tery of a mis­tress; an­oth­er owes his ver­si­fy­ing van­ity to those who are paid to call him a great po­et. Ev­ery fam­ily has its great man; and the re­sult is, as we see it in the Cham­ber, gen­er­al ob­scu­ri­ty of the lights of France. Well, men of re­al mind are laugh­ing to them­selves about it, that's all. You are the mind and the beau­ty of this lit­tle cir­cle of the pet­ty bour­geoisie; it is this su­pe­ri­or­ity which led me in the first in­stance to wor­ship you. I have since longed to drag you out of it; for I love you sin­cere­ly --more in friend­ship than in love; though a great deal of love is glid­ing in­to it,” he added, press­ing her to his heart un­der cov­er of the re­cess of a win­dow to which he had tak­en her.

“Madame Phel­lion will play the pi­ano,” cried Colleville. “We must all dance to-​night--bot­tles and Brigitte's francs and all the lit­tle girls! I'll go and fetch my clar­ionet.”

He gave his emp­ty cof­fee-​cup to his wife, smil­ing to see her so friend­ly with la Peyrade.

“What have you said and done to my hus­band?” asked Flavie, when Colleville had left them.

“Must I tell you all our se­crets?”

“Ah! you don't love me,” she replied, look­ing at him with the co­quet­tish sly­ness of a wom­an who is not quite de­cid­ed in her mind.

“Well, since you tell me yours,” he said, let­ting him­self go to the live­ly im­pulse of Proven­cal gai­ety, al­ways so charm­ing and ap­par­ent­ly so nat­ural, “I will not con­ceal from you an anx­iety in my heart.”

He took her back to the same win­dow and said, smil­ing:--

“Colleville, poor man, has seen in me the artist re­pressed by all these bour­geois; silent be­fore them be­cause I feel mis­judged, mis­un­der­stood, and re­pelled by them. He has felt the heat of the sa­cred fire that con­sumes me. Yes I am,” he con­tin­ued, in a tone of con­vic­tion, “an artist in words af­ter the man­ner of Berry­er; I could make ju­ries weep, by weep­ing my­self, for I'm as ner­vous as a wom­an. Your hus­band, who de­tests the bour­geoisie, be­gan to tease me about them. At first we laughed; then, in be­com­ing se­ri­ous, he found out that I was as strong as he. I told him of the plan con­coct­ed to make _some­thing_ of Thuil­li­er, and I showed him all the good he could get him­self out of a po­lit­ical pup­pet. 'If it were on­ly,' I said to him, 'to make your­self Mon­sieur _de_ Colleville, and to put your charm­ing wife where I should like to see her, as the wife of a re­ceiv­er-​gen­er­al, or deputy. To make your­self all that you and she ought to be, you have on­ly to go and live a few years in the Up­per or Low­er Alps, in some hole of a town where ev­ery­body will like you, and your wife will se­duce ev­ery­body; and this,' I added, 'you can­not fail to ob­tain, es­pe­cial­ly if you give your dear Ce­leste to some man who can in­flu­ence the Cham­ber.' Good rea­sons, stat­ed in jest, have the mer­it of pen­etrat­ing deep­er in­to some minds than if they were giv­en sober­ly. So Colleville and I be­came the best friends in the world. Didn't you hear him say to me at ta­ble, 'Ras­cal! you have stolen my speech'? To-​night we shall be thee­ing and thouing each oth­er. I in­tend to have a choice lit­tle sup­per-​par­ty soon, where artists, tied to the pro­pri­eties at home, al­ways com­pro­mise them­selves. I'll in­vite him, and that will make us as solid­ly good friends as he is with Thuil­li­er. There, my dear adorned one, is what a pro­found sen­ti­ment gives a man the courage to pro­duce. Colleville must adopt me; so that I may vis­it your house by his in­vi­ta­tion. But what couldn't you make me do? lick lep­ers, swal­low live toads, se­duce Brigitte--yes, if you say so, I'll im­pale my own heart on that great pick­et-​rail to please you.”

“You fright­ened me this morn­ing,” she said.

“But this evening you are re­as­sured. Yes,” he added, “no harm will ev­er hap­pen to you through me.”

“You are, I must ac­knowl­edge, a most ex­traor­di­nary man.”

“Why, no! the small­est as well as the great­est of my ef­forts are mere­ly the re­flec­tions of the flame which you have kin­dled. I in­tend to be your son-​in-​law that we may nev­er part. My wife, heav­ens! what could she be to me but a ma­chine for child-​bear­ing? where­as the di­vin­ity, the sub­lime be­ing will be--you,” he whis­pered in her ear.

“You are Sa­tan!” she said, in a sort of ter­ror.

“No, I am some­thing of a po­et, like all the men of my re­gion. Come, be my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-​mor­row. I have the most ar­dent de­sire to see where you live and how you live, the fur­ni­ture you use, the col­or of your stuffs, the ar­range­ment of all things about you. I long to see the pearl in its shell.”

He slipped away clev­er­ly af­ter these words, with­out wait­ing for an an­swer.

Flavie, to whom in all her life love had nev­er tak­en the lan­guage of ro­mance, sat still, but hap­py, her heart pal­pi­tat­ing, and say­ing to her­self that it was very dif­fi­cult to es­cape such in­flu­ence. For the first time Theo­dose had ap­peared in a pair of new trousers, with gray silk stock­ings and pumps, a waist­coat of black silk, and a cra­vat of black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin se­lect­ed with taste. He wore al­so a new coat in the last fash­ion, and yel­low gloves, re­lieved by white shirt-​cuffs; he was the on­ly man who had man­ners, or de­port­ment in that sa­lon, which was now fill­ing up for the evening.

Madame Pron, nee Barniol, ar­rived with two school-​girls, aged sev­en­teen, con­fid­ed to her ma­ter­nal care by fam­ilies re­sid­ing in Mar­tinique. Mon­sieur Pron, pro­fes­sor of rhetoric in a col­lege presid­ed over by priests, be­longed to the Phel­lion class; but, in­stead of ex­pand­ing on the sur­face in phras­es and demon­stra­tions, and pos­ing as an ex­am­ple, he was dry and sen­ten­tious. Mon­sieur and Madame Pron, the flow­ers of the Phel­lion sa­lon, re­ceived ev­ery Mon­day. Though a pro­fes­sor, the lit­tle man danced. He en­joyed great in­flu­ence in the quar­ter en­closed by the boule­vard du Mont-​Par­nasse, the Lux­em­bourg, and the rue de Sevres. There­fore, as soon as Phel­lion saw his friend, he took him by the arm in­to a cor­ner to in­form him of the Thuil­li­er can­di­da­cy. Af­ter ten min­utes' con­sul­ta­tion they both went to find Thuil­li­er, and the re­cess of a win­dow, op­po­site to that where Flavie still sat ab­sorbed in her re­flec­tions, no doubt, heard a “trio” wor­thy, in its way, of that of the Swiss in “Guil­laume Tell.”

“Do you see,” said Theo­dose, re­turn­ing to Flavie, “the pure and hon­est Phel­lion in­trigu­ing over there? Give a per­son­al rea­son to a vir­tu­ous man and he'll pad­dle in the slim­iest pud­dle; he is hook­ing that lit­tle Pron, and Pron is tak­ing it all in, sole­ly to get your lit­tle Ce­leste for Fe­lix Phel­lion. Sep­arate them, and in ten min­utes they'll get to­geth­er again, and that young Mi­nard will be growl­ing round them like an an­gry bull­dog.”

Fe­lix, still un­der the strong emo­tion im­part­ed to him by Ce­leste's gen­er­ous ac­tion and the cry that came from the girl's heart, though no one but Madame Thuil­li­er still thought of it, be­came in­spired by one of those in­gen­uous art­ful­ness­es which are the hon­est char­la­tanism of true love; but he was not to the man­ner born of it, and math­emat­ics, more­over, made him some­what ab­sent-​mind­ed. He sta­tioned him­self near Madame Thuil­li­er, imag­in­ing that Madame Thuil­li­er would at­tract Ce­leste to her side. This as­tute cal­cu­la­tion suc­ceed­ed all the bet­ter be­cause young Mi­nard, who saw in Ce­leste noth­ing more than a “dot,” had no such sud­den in­spi­ra­tion, and was drink­ing his cof­fee and talk­ing pol­itics with Laudi­geois, Mon­sieur Barniol, and Du­tocq by or­der of his fa­ther, who was think­ing and plan­ning for the gen­er­al elec­tion of the leg­is­la­ture in 1842.

“Who wouldn't love Ce­leste?” said Fe­lix to Madame Thuil­li­er.

“Lit­tle dar­ling, no one in the world loves me as she does,” replied the poor slave, with dif­fi­cul­ty re­strain­ing her tears.

“Ah! madame, we both love you,” said the can­did pro­fes­sor, sin­cere­ly.

“What are you say­ing to each oth­er?” asked Ce­leste, com­ing up.

“My child,” said the pi­ous wom­an, draw­ing her god-​daugh­ter down to her and kiss­ing her on the fore­head. “He said that you both loved me.”

“Do not be an­gry with my pre­sump­tion, made­moi­selle. Let me do all I can to prove it,” mur­mured Fe­lix. “Ah! I can­not help it, I was made this way; in­jus­tice re­volts me to the soul! Yes, the Saviour of men was right to promise the fu­ture to the meek heart, to the slain lamb! A man who did not love you, Ce­leste, must have adored you af­ter that sub­lime im­pulse of yours at ta­ble. Ah, yes! in­no­cence alone can con­sole the mar­tyr. You are a kind young girl; you will be one of those wives who make the glo­ry and the hap­pi­ness of a fam­ily. Hap­py be he whom you will choose!”

“God­mam­ma, with what eyes do you think Mon­sieur Fe­lix sees me?”

“He ap­pre­ci­ates you, my lit­tle an­gel; I shall pray to God for both of you.”

“If you knew how hap­py I am that my fa­ther can do a ser­vice to Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er, and how I wish I could be use­ful to your broth­er--”

“In short,” said Ce­leste, laugh­ing, “you love us all.”

“Well, yes,” replied Fe­lix.

True love wraps it­self in the mys­ter­ies of re­serve, even in its ex­pres­sion; it proves it­self by it­self; it does not feel the ne­ces­si­ty, as a false love does, of light­ing a con­fla­gra­tion. By an ob­serv­er (if such a be­ing could have glid­ed in­to the Thuil­li­er sa­lon) a book might have been made in com­par­ing the two scenes of love-​mak­ing, and in watch­ing the enor­mous prepa­ra­tions of Theo­dose and the sim­plic­ity of Fe­lix: one was na­ture, the oth­er was so­ci­ety, --the true and the false em­bod­ied. Notic­ing her daugh­ter glow­ing with hap­pi­ness, ex­hal­ing her soul through the pores of her face, and beau­ti­ful with the beau­ty of a young girl gath­er­ing the first ros­es of an in­di­rect dec­la­ra­tion, Flavie had an im­pulse of jeal­ousy in her heart. She came across to Ce­leste and said in her ear:--

“You are not be­hav­ing well, my daugh­ter; ev­ery­body is ob­serv­ing you; you are com­pro­mis­ing your­self by talk­ing so long to Mon­sieur Fe­lix with­out know­ing whether we ap­prove of it.”

“But, mam­ma, my god­moth­er is here.”

“Ah! par­don me, dear friend,” said Madame Colleville; “I did not no­tice you.”

“You do as oth­ers do,” said the poor nonen­ti­ty.

That re­ply stung Madame Colleville, who re­gard­ed it as a barbed ar­row. She cast a haughty glance at Fe­lix and said to Ce­leste, “Sit there, my daugh­ter,” seat­ing her­self at the same time be­side Madame Thuil­li­er and point­ing to a chair on the oth­er side of her.

“I will work my­self to death,” said Fe­lix to Madame Thuil­li­er. “I'll be a mem­ber of the Acade­my of Sci­ences; I'll make some great dis­cov­ery, and win her hand by force of fame.”

“Ah!” thought the poor wom­an to her­self, “I ought to have had a gen­tle, peace­ful, learned man like that. I might have slow­ly de­vel­oped in a life of quiet­ness. It was not thy will, O God! but, I pray thee, unite and bless these chil­dren; they are made for one an­oth­er.”

And she sat there, pen­sive, lis­ten­ing to the rack­et made by her sis­ter-​in-​law--a ten-​horse pow­er at work--who now, lend­ing a hand to her two ser­vants, cleared the ta­ble, tak­ing ev­ery­thing out of the din­ing-​room to ac­com­mo­date the dancers, vo­cif­er­at­ing, like the cap­tain of a frigate on his quar­ter-​deck when tak­ing his ship in­to ac­tion: “Have you plen­ty of rasp­ber­ry syrup?” “Run out and buy some more orgeat!” “There's not enough glass­es. Where's the 'eau rougie'? Take those six bot­tles of 'vin or­di­naire' and make more. Mind that Coffinet, the porter, doesn't get any.” “Car­oline, my girl, you are to wait at the side­board; you'll have tongue and ham to slice in case they dance till morn­ing. But mind, no waste! Keep an eye on ev­ery­thing. Pass me the broom; put more oil in those lamps; don't make blun­ders. Ar­range the re­mains of the dessert so as to make a show on the side­board; ask my sis­ter to come and help us. I'm sure I don't know what she's think­ing about, that daw­dle! Heav­ens, how slow she is! Here, take away these chairs, they'll want all the room they can get.”

The sa­lon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Phel­lions, Laudi­geois, and many oth­ers whom the an­nounce­ment of a dance at the Thuil­liers', spread about in the Lux­em­bourg be­tween two and four in the af­ter­noon, the hour at which the bour­geoisie takes its walk, had drawn thith­er.

“Are you ready, Brigitte?” said Colleville, bolt­ing in­to the din­ing-​room; “it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as her­rings in the sa­lon. Car­dot, his wife and son and daugh­ter and fu­ture son-​in-​law have just come, ac­com­pa­nied by that young Vinet; the whole faubourg Saint An­toine is de­bouch­ing. Can't we move the pi­ano in here?”

Then he gave the sig­nal, by tun­ing his clar­ionet, the joy­ous sounds of which were greet­ed with huz­zas from the sa­lon.

It is use­less to de­scribe a ball of this kind. The toi­lets, faces, and con­ver­sa­tions were all in keep­ing with one fact which will sure­ly suf­fice even the dullest imag­ina­tion; they passed round, on tar­nished and dis­col­ored trays, com­mon tum­blers filled with wine, “eau rougie,” and “eau su­cree.” The trays on which were glass­es of orgeat and glass­es of syrup and wa­ter ap­peared on­ly at long in­ter­vals. There were five card-​ta­bles and twen­ty-​five play­ers, and eigh­teen dancers of both sex­es. At one o'clock in the morn­ing, all present--Madame Thuil­li­er, Made­moi­selle Brigitte, Madame Phel­lion, even Phel­lion him­self--were dragged in­to the vi­vac­ities of a coun­try-​dance, vul­gar­ly called “La Boulan­gere,” in which Du­tocq fig­ured with a veil over his head, af­ter the man­ner of the Kabyl. The ser­vants who were wait­ing to es­cort their mas­ters home, and those of the house­hold, were au­di­ence to this per­for­mance; and af­ter the in­ter­minable dance had last­ed one whole hour it was pro­posed to car­ry Brigitte in tri­umph when she gave the an­nounce­ment that sup­per was served. This cir­cum­stance made her see the ne­ces­si­ty of hid­ing a dozen bot­tles of old bur­gundy. In short, the com­pa­ny had amused them­selves so well, the ma­trons as well as the young girls, that Thuil­li­er found oc­ca­sion to say:--

“Well, well, this morn­ing we lit­tle thought we should have such a fete to-​night.”

“There's nev­er more plea­sure,” said the no­tary Car­dot, “than in just such im­pro­vised balls. Don't talk to me of par­ties where ev­ery­body stands on cer­emo­ny.”

This opin­ion, we may re­mark, is a stand­ing ax­iom among the bour­geoisie.

“Well, for my part,” said Madame Mi­nard, “I pre­fer the dig­ni­fied old ways.”

“We didn't mean that for you, madame; your sa­lon is the cho­sen haunt of plea­sure,” said Du­tocq.

When “La Boulan­gere” came to an end, Theo­dose pulled Du­tocq from the side­board where he was prepar­ing to eat a slice of tongue, and said to him:--

“Let us go; we must be at Cer­izet's very ear­ly in the morn­ing; we ought both of us to think over that af­fair; it is not so easy to man­age as Cer­izet seems to imag­ine.”

“Why not?” asked Du­tocq, bring­ing his slice of tongue to eat in the sa­lon.

“Don't you know the law?”

“I know enough of it to be aware of the dan­gers of the af­fair. If that no­tary wants the house and we filch it from him, there are means by which he can re­cov­er it; he can put him­self in­to the skin of a reg­is­tered cred­itor. By the present le­gal sys­tem re­lat­ing to mort­gages, when a house is sold at the re­quest of cred­itors, if the price ob­tained for it at auc­tion is not enough to pay all debts, the own­ers have the right to bid it in and hold it for a high­er sum; now the no­tary, see­ing him­self caught, may back out of the sale in that way.”

“Well,” said la Peyrade, “it needs at­ten­tion.”

“Very good,” replied Du­tocq, “we'll go and see Cer­izet.”

These words, “go and see Cer­izet,” were over­heard by Mi­nard, who was fol­low­ing the two as­so­ciates; but they of­fered no mean­ing to his mind. The two men were so out­side of his own course and projects that he heard them with­out lis­ten­ing to them.

“This has been one of the finest days in our lives,” said Brigitte to her broth­er, when she found her­self alone with him in the de­sert­ed sa­lon, at half-​past two in the morn­ing. “What a dis­tinc­tion! to be thus se­lect­ed by your fel­low-​cit­izens!”

“Don't be mis­tak­en about it, Brigitte; we owe it all, my child, to one man.”

“What man?”

“To our friend, la Peyrade.”