The Two Brothers

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THE TWO BROTHERS

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated by

Katharine Prescott Wormeley



DEDICATION

To Monsieur Charles Nodier, member of the French Academy, etc.

Here, my dear Nodier, is a book filled with deeds that are
screened from the action of the laws by the closed doors of
domestic life; but as to which the finger of God, often called
chance, supplies the place of human justice, and in which the
moral is none the less striking and instructive because it is
pointed by a scoffer.

To my mind, such deeds contain great lessons for the Family
and for Maternity. We shall some day realize, perhaps too
late, the effects produced by the diminution of paternal
authority. That authority, which formerly ceased only at the
death of the father, was the sole human tribunal before which
domestic crimes could be arraigned; kings themselves, on
special occasions, took part in executing its judgments.
However good and tender a mother may be, she cannot fulfil the
function of the patriarchal royalty any more than a woman can
take the place of a king upon the throne. Perhaps I have never
drawn a picture that shows more plainly how essential to
European society is the indissoluble marriage bond, how fatal
the results of feminine weakness, how great the dangers
arising from selfish interests when indulged without
restraint. May a society which is based solely on the power of
wealth shudder as it sees the impotence of the law in dealing
with the workings of a system which deifies success, and
pardons every means of attaining it. May it return to the
Catholic religion, for the purification of its masses through
the inspiration of religious feeling, and by means of an
education other than that of a lay university.

In the "Scenes from Military Life" so many fine natures, so
many high and noble self-devotions will be set forth, that I
may here be allowed to point out the depraving effect of the
necessities of war upon certain minds who venture to act in
domestic life as if upon the field of battle.

You have cast a sagacious glance over the events of our own
time; its philosophy shines, in more than one bitter
reflection, through your elegant pages; you have appreciated,
more clearly than other men, the havoc wrought in the mind of
our country by the existence of four distinct political
systems. I cannot, therefore, place this history under the
protection of a more competent authority. Your name may,
perhaps, defend my work against the criticisms that are
certain to follow it,--for where is the patient who keeps
silence when the surgeon lifts the dressing from his wound?

To the pleasure of dedicating this Scene to you, is joined the
pride I feel in thus making known your friendship for one who
here subscribes himself

Your sincere admirer,

De Balzac
Paris, November, 1842.





THE TWO BROTHERS



CHAPTER I

In 1792 the townspeople of Issoudun enjoyed the services of a
physician named Rouget, whom they held to be a man of consummate
malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife
extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the
neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of
friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had
never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor
Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is not
pleasant to deal with." Consequently, during his lifetime, his
townsmen kept silence about him and treated him civilly. His wife, a
demoiselle Descoings, feeble in health during her girlhood (which was
said to be a reason why the doctor married her), gave birth to a son,
and also to a daughter who arrived, unexpectedly, ten years after her
brother, and whose birth took the husband, doctor though he were, by
surprise. This late-comer was named Agathe.

These little facts are so simple, so commonplace, that a writer seems
scarcely justified in placing them in the fore-front of his history;
yet if they are not known, a man of Doctor Rouget's stamp would be
thought a monster, an unnatural father, when, in point of fact, he was
only following out the evil tendencies which many people shelter under
the terrible axiom that "men should have strength of character,"--a
masculine phrase that has caused many a woman's misery.

The Descoings, father-in-law and mother-in-law of the doctor, were
commission merchants in the wool-trade, and did a double business by
selling for the producers and buying for the manufacturers of the
golden fleeces of Berry; thus pocketing a commission on both sides. In
this way they grew rich and miserly--the outcome of many such lives.
Descoings the son, younger brother of Madame Rouget, did not like
Issoudun. He went to seek his fortune in Paris, where he set up as a
grocer in the rue Saint-Honore. That step led to his ruin. But nothing
could have hindered it: a grocer is drawn to his business by an
attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives
artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social
potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would
be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer
rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to
follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.
In this instance, love decided the vocation of Descoings. He said to
himself, "I, too, will be a grocer!" and in the same breath he said
(also to himself) some other things regarding his employer,--a
beautiful creature, with whom he had fallen desperately in love.
Without other help than patience and the trifling sum of money his
father and mother sent him, he married the widow of his predecessor,
Monsieur Bixiou.

In 1792 Descoings was thought to be doing an excellent business. At
that time, the old Descoings were still living. They had retired from
the wool-trade, and were employing their capital in buying up the
forfeited estates,--another golden fleece! Their son-in-law Doctor
Rouget, who, about this time, felt pretty sure that he should soon
have to mourn for the death of his wife, sent his daughter to Paris to
the care of his brother-in-law, partly to let her see the capital, but
still more to carry out an artful scheme of his own. Descoings had no
children. Madame Descoings, twelve years older than her husband, was
in good health, but as fat as a thrush after harvest; and the canny
Rouget knew enough professionally to be certain that Monsieur and
Madame Descoings, contrary to the moral of fairy tales, would live
happy ever after without having any children. The pair might therefore
become attached to Agathe.

That young girl, the handsomest maiden in Issoudun, did not resemble
either father or mother. Her birth had caused a lasting breach between
Doctor Rouget and his intimate friend Monsieur Lousteau, a former
sub-delegate who had lately removed from the town. When a family
expatriates itself, the natives of a place as attractive as Issoudun
have a right to inquire into the reasons of so surprising a step. It
was said by certain sharp tongues that Doctor Rouget, a vindictive
man, had been heard to exclaim that Monsieur Lousteau should die by
his hand. Uttered by a physician, this declaration had the force of a
cannon-ball. When the National Assembly suppressed the sub-delegates,
Lousteau and his family left Issoudun, and never returned there. After
their departure Madame Rouget spent most of her time with the sister
of the late sub-delegate, Madame Hochon, who was the godmother of her
daughter, and the only person to whom she confided her griefs. The
little that the good town of Issoudun ever really knew of the
beautiful Madame Rouget was told by Madame Hochon,--though not until
after the doctor's death.

The first words of Madame Rouget, when informed by her husband that he
meant to send Agathe to Paris, were: "I shall never see my daughter
again."

"And she was right," said the worthy Madame Hochon.

After this, the poor mother grew as yellow as a quince, and her
appearance did not contradict the tongues of those who declared that
Doctor Rouget was killing her by inches. The behavior of her booby of
a son must have added to the misery of the poor woman so unjustly
accused. Not restrained, possibly encouraged by his father, the young
fellow, who was in every way stupid, paid her neither the attentions
nor the respect which a son owes to a mother. Jean-Jacques Rouget was
like his father, especially on the latter's worst side; and the doctor
at his best was far from satisfactory, either morally or physically.

The arrival of the charming Agathe Rouget did not bring happiness to
her uncle Descoings; for in the same week (or rather, we should say
decade, for the Republic had then been proclaimed) he was imprisoned
on a hint from Robespierre given to Fouquier-Tinville. Descoings, who
was imprudent enough to think the famine fictitious, had the
additional folly, under the impression that opinions were free, to
express that opinion to several of his male and female customers as he
served them in the grocery. The citoyenne Duplay, wife of a
cabinet-maker with whom Robespierre lodged, and who looked after the
affairs of that eminent citizen, patronized, unfortunately, the
Descoings establishment. She considered the opinions of the grocer
insulting to Maximilian the First. Already displeased with the manners
of Descoings, this illustrious "tricoteuse" of the Jacobin club regarded
the beauty of his wife as a kind of aristocracy. She infused a venom
of her own into the grocer's remarks when she repeated them to her
good and gentle master, and the poor man was speedily arrested on the
well-worn charge of "accaparation."

No sooner was he put in prison, than his wife set to work to obtain
his release. But the steps she took were so ill-judged that any one
hearing her talk to the arbiters of his fate might have thought that
she was in reality seeking to get rid of him. Madame Descoings knew
Bridau, one of the secretaries of Roland, then minister of the
interior,--the right-hand man of all the ministers who succeeded each
other in that office. She put Bridau on the war-path to save her
grocer. That incorruptible official--one of the virtuous dupes who are
always admirably disinterested--was careful not to corrupt the men on
whom the fate of the poor grocer depended; on the contrary, he
endeavored to enlighten them. Enlighten people in those days! As well
might he have begged them to bring back the Bourbons. The Girondist
minister, who was then contending against Robespierre, said to his
secretary, "Why do you meddle in the matter?" and all others to whom
the worthy Bridau appealed made the same atrocious reply: "Why do you
meddle?" Bridau then sagely advised Madame Descoings to keep quiet and
await events. But instead of conciliating Robespierre's housekeeper,
she fretted and fumed against that informer, and even complained to a
member of the Convention, who, trembling for himself, replied hastily,
"I will speak of it to Robespierre." The handsome petitioner put faith
in this promise, which the other carefully forgot. A few loaves of
sugar, or a bottle or two of good liqueur, given to the citoyenne
Duplay would have saved Descoings.

This little mishap proves that in revolutionary times it is quite as
dangerous to employ honest men as scoundrels; we should rely on
ourselves alone. Descoings perished; but he had the glory of going to
the scaffold with Andre Chenier. There, no doubt, grocery and poetry
embraced for the first time in the flesh; although they have, and ever
have had, intimate secret relations. The death of Descoings produced
far more sensation than that of Andre Chenier. It has taken thirty
years to prove to France that she lost more by the death of Chenier
than by that of Descoings.

This act of Robespierre led to one good result: the terrified grocers
let politics alone until 1830. Descoings's shop was not a hundred
yards from Robespierre's lodging. His successor was scarcely more
fortunate than himself. Cesar Birotteau, the celebrated perfumer of
the "Queen of Roses," bought the premises; but, as if the scaffold had
left some inexplicable contagion behind it, the inventor of the "Paste
of Sultans" and the "Carminative Balm" came to his ruin in that very
shop. The solution of the problem here suggested belongs to the realm
of occult science.

During the visits which Roland's secretary paid to the unfortunate
Madame Descoings, he was struck with the cold, calm, innocent beauty
of Agathe Rouget. While consoling the widow, who, however, was too
inconsolable to carry on the business of her second deceased husband,
he married the charming girl, with the consent of her father, who
hastened to give his approval to the match. Doctor Rouget, delighted
to hear that matters were going beyond his expectations,--for his
wife, on the death of her brother, had become sole heiress of the
Descoings,--rushed to Paris, not so much to be present at the wedding
as to see that the marriage contract was drawn to suit him. The ardent
and disinterested love of citizen Bridau gave carte blanche to the
perfidious doctor, who made the most of his son-in-law's blindness, as
the following history will show.

Madame Rouget, or, to speak more correctly, the doctor, inherited all
the property, landed and personal, of Monsieur and Madame Descoings
the elder, who died within two years of each other; and soon after
that, Rouget got the better, as we may say, of his wife, for she died
at the beginning of the year 1799. So he had vineyards and he bought
farms, he owned iron-works and he sold fleeces. His well-beloved son
was stupidly incapable of doing anything; but the father destined him
for the state in life of a land proprietor and allowed him to grow up
in wealth and silliness, certain that the lad would know as much as
the wisest if he simply let himself live and die. After 1799, the
cipherers of Issoudun put, at the very least, thirty thousand francs'
income to the doctor's credit. From the time of his wife's death he
led a debauched life, though he regulated it, so to speak, and kept it
within the closed doors of his own house. This man, endowed with "strength
of character," died in 1805, and God only knows what the townspeople
of Issoudun said about him then, and how many anecdotes they related
of his horrible private life. Jean-Jacques Rouget, whom his father,
recognizing his stupidity, had latterly treated with severity,
remained a bachelor for certain reasons, the explanation of which will
form an important part of this history. His celibacy was partly his
father's fault, as we shall see later.

Meantime, it is well to inquire into the results of the secret
vengeance the doctor took on a daughter whom he did not recognize as
his own, but who, you must understand at once, was legitimately his.
Not a person in Issoudun had noticed one of those capricious facts
that make the whole subject of generation a vast abyss in which
science flounders. Agathe bore a strong likeness to the mother of
Doctor Rouget. Just as gout is said to skip a generation and pass from
grandfather to grandson, resemblances not uncommonly follow the same
course.

In like manner, the eldest of Agathe's children, who physically
resembled his mother, had the moral qualities of his grandfather,
Doctor Rouget. We will leave the solution of this problem to the
twentieth century, with a fine collection of microscopic animalculae;
our descendants may perhaps write as much nonsense as the scientific
schools of the nineteenth century have uttered on this mysterious and
perplexing question.

Agathe Rouget attracted the admiration of everyone by a face destined,
like that of Mary, the mother of our Lord, to continue ever virgin,
even after marriage. Her portrait, still to be seen in the atelier of
Bridau, shows a perfect oval and a clear whiteness of complexion,
without the faintest tinge of color, in spite of her golden hair. More
than one artist, looking at the pure brow, the discreet, composed
mouth, the delicate nose, the small ears, the long lashes, and the
dark-blue eyes filled with tenderness,--in short, at the whole
countenance expressive of placidity,--has asked the great artist, "Is
that a copy of a Raphael?" No man ever acted under a truer inspiration
than the minister's secretary when he married this young girl. Agathe
was an embodiment of the ideal housekeeper brought up in the provinces
and never parted from her mother. Pious, though far from
sanctimonious, she had no other education than that given to women by
the Church. Judged, by ordinary standards, she was an accomplished
wife, yet her ignorance of life paved the way for great misfortunes.
The epitaph on the Roman matron, "She did needlework and kept the
house," gives a faithful picture of her simple, pure, and tranquil
existence.

Under the Consulate, Bridau attached himself fanatically to Napoleon,
who placed him at the head of a department in the ministry of the
interior in 1804, a year before the death of Doctor Rouget. With a
salary of twelve thousand francs and very handsome emoluments, Bridau
was quite indifferent to the scandalous settlement of the property at
Issoudun, by which Agathe was deprived of her rightful inheritance.
Six months before Doctor Rouget's death he had sold one-half of his
property to his son, to whom the other half was bequeathed as a gift,
and also in accordance with his rights as heir. An advance of fifty
thousand francs on her inheritance, made to Agathe at the time of her
marriage, represented her share of the property of her father and
mother.

Bridau idolized the Emperor, and served him with the devotion of a
Mohammedan for his prophet; striving to carry out the vast conceptions
of the modern demi-god, who, finding the whole fabric of France
destroyed, went to work to reconstruct everything. The new official
never showed fatigue, never cried "Enough." Projects, reports, notes,
studies, he accepted all, even the hardest labors, happy in the
consciousness of aiding his Emperor. He loved him as a man, he adored
him as a sovereign, and he would never allow the least criticism of
his acts or his purposes.

From 1804 to 1808, the Bridaus lived in a handsome suite of rooms on
the Quai Voltaire, a few steps from the ministry of the interior and
close to the Tuileries. A cook and footman were the only servants of
the household during this period of Madame Bridau's grandeur. Agathe,
early afoot, went to market with her cook. While the latter did the
rooms, she prepared the breakfast. Bridau never went to the ministry
before eleven o'clock. As long as their union lasted, his wife took
the same unwearying pleasure in preparing for him an exquisite
breakfast, the only meal he really enjoyed. At all seasons and in all
weathers, Agathe watched her husband from the window as he walked
toward his office, and never drew in her head until she had seen him
turn the corner of the rue du Bac. Then she cleared the
breakfast-table herself, gave an eye to the arrangement of the rooms,
dressed for the day, played with her children and took them to walk,
or received the visits of friends; all the while waiting in spirit for
Bridau's return. If her husband brought him important business that
had to be attended to, she would station herself close to the
writing-table in his study, silent as a statue, knitting while he
wrote, sitting up as late as he did, and going to bed only a few
moments before him. Occasionally, the pair went to some theatre,
occupying one of the ministerial boxes. On those days, they dined at a
restaurant, and the gay scenes of that establishment never ceased to
give Madame Bridau the same lively pleasure they afford to provincials
who are new to Paris. Agathe, who was obliged to accept the formal
dinners sometimes given to the head of a department in a ministry, paid
due attention to the luxurious requirements of the then mode of dress,
but she took off the rich apparel with delight when she returned home,
and resumed the simple garb of a provincial. One day in the week,
Thursday, Bridau received his friends, and he also gave a grand ball,
annually, on Shrove Tuesday.

These few words contain the whole history of their conjugal life,
which had but three events; the births of two children, born three
years apart, and the death of Bridau, who died in 1808, killed by
overwork at the very moment when the Emperor was about to appoint him
director-general, count, and councillor of state. At this period of
his reign, Napoleon was particularly absorbed in the affairs of the
interior; he overwhelmed Bridau with work, and finally wrecked the
health of that dauntless bureaucrat. The Emperor, of whom Bridau had
never asked a favor, made inquiries into his habits and fortune.
Finding that this devoted servant literally had nothing but his
situation, Napoleon recognized him as one of the incorruptible natures
which raised the character of his government and gave moral weight to
it, and he wished to surprise him by the gift of some distinguished
reward. But the effort to complete a certain work, involving immense
labor, before the departure of the Emperor for Spain caused the death
of the devoted servant, who was seized with an inflammatory fever.
When the Emperor, who remained in Paris for a few days after his
return to prepare for the campaign of 1809, was told of Bridau's
death he said: "There are men who can never be replaced." Struck by
the spectacle of a devotion which could receive none of the brilliant
recognitions that reward a soldier, the Emperor resolved to create an
order to requite civil services, just as he had already created the
Legion of honor to reward the military. The impression he received
from the death of Bridau led him to plan the order of the Reunion. He
had not time, however, to mature this aristocratic scheme, the
recollection of which is now so completely effaced that many of my
readers may ask what were its insignia: the order was worn with a blue
ribbon. The Emperor called it the Reunion, under the idea of uniting
the order of the Golden Fleece of Spain with the order of the Golden
Fleece of Austria. "Providence," said a Prussian diplomatist, "took
care to frustrate the profanation."

After Bridau's death the Emperor inquired into the circumstances of
his widow. Her two sons each received a scholarship in the Imperial
Lyceum, and the Emperor paid the whole costs of their education from
his privy purse. He gave Madame Bridau a pension of four thousand
francs, intending, no doubt, to advance the fortune of her sons in
future years.

From the time of her marriage to the death of her husband, Agathe had
held no communication with Issoudun. She lost her mother just as she
was on the point of giving birth to her youngest son, and when her
father, who, as she well knew, loved her little, died, the coronation
of the Emperor was at hand, and that event gave Bridau so much
additional work that she was unwilling to leave him. Her brother,
Jean-Jacques Rouget, had not written to her since she left Issoudun.
Though grieved by the tacit repudiation of her family, Agathe had come
to think seldom of those who never thought of her. Once a year she
received a letter from her godmother, Madame Hochon, to whom she
replied with commonplaces, paying no heed to the advice which that
pious and excellent woman gave to her, disguised in cautious words.

Some time before the death of Doctor Rouget, Madame Hochon had written
to her goddaughter warning her that she would get nothing from her
father's estate unless she gave a power of attorney to Monsieur
Hochon. Agathe was very reluctant to harass her brother. Whether it
were that Bridau thought the spoliation of his wife in accordance with
the laws and customs of Berry, or that, high-minded as he was, he
shared the magnanimity of his wife, certain it is that he would not
listen to Roguin, his notary, who advised him to take advantage of his
ministerial position to contest the deeds by which the father had
deprived the daughter of her legitimate inheritance. Husband and wife
thus tacitly sanctioned what was done at Issoudun. Nevertheless,
Roguin had forced Bridau to reflect upon the future interests of his
wife which were thus compromised. He saw that if he died before her,
Agathe would be left without property, and this led him to look into
his own affairs. He found that between 1793 and 1805 his wife and he
had been obliged to use nearly thirty thousand of the fifty thousand
francs in cash which old Rouget had given to his daughter at the time
of her marriage. He at once invested the remaining twenty thousand in
the public funds, then quoted at forty, and from this source Agathe
received about two thousand francs a year. As a widow, Madame Bridau
could live suitably on an income of six thousand francs. With
provincial good sense, she thought of changing her residence,
dismissing the footman, and keeping no servant except a cook; but her
intimate friend, Madame Descoings, who insisted on being considered
her aunt, sold her own establishment and came to live with Agathe,
turning the study of the late Bridau into her bedroom.