Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau

H >> Honore de Balzac >> Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau


"Hair is produced by a follicular organ," resumed the great chemist,
--"a species of pocket, or sack, open at both extremities. By one end
it is fastened to the nerves and the blood vessels; from the other
springs the hair itself. According to some of our scientific
brotherhood, among them Monsieur Blainville, the hair is really a dead
matter expelled from that pouch, or crypt, which is filled with a
species of pulp."

"Then hair is what you might call threads of sweat!" cried Popinot, to
whom Cesar promptly administered a little kick on his heels.

Vauquelin smiled at Popinot's idea.

"He knows something, doesn't he?" said Cesar, looking at Popinot.
"But, monsieur, if the hair is still-born, it is impossible to give it
life, and I am lost! my prospectus will be ridiculous. You don't know
how queer the public is; you can't go and tell it--"

"That it has got manure upon its head," said Popinot, wishing to make
Vauquelin laugh again.

"Cephalic catacombs," said Vauquelin, continuing the joke.

"My nuts are bought!" cried Birotteau, alive to the commercial loss.
"If this is so why do they sell--"

"Don't be frightened," said Vauquelin, smiling, "I see it is a
question of some secret about making the hair grow or keeping it from
turning gray. Listen! this is my opinion on the subject, as the result
of my studies."

Here Popinot pricked up his ears like a frightened hare.

"The discoloration of this substance, be it living or dead, is, in my
judgment, produced by a check to the secretion of the coloring matter;
which explains why in certain cold climates the fur of animals loses
all color and turns white in winter."

"Hein! Popinot."

"It is evident," resumed Vauquelin, "that alterations in the color of
the hair come from changes in the circumjacent atmosphere--"

"Circumjacent, Popinot! recollect, hold fast to that," cried Cesar.

"Yes," said Vauquelin, "from hot and cold changes, or from internal
phenomena which produce the same effect. Probably headaches and other
cephalagic affections absorb, dissipate, or displace the generating
fluids. However, the interior of the head concerns physicians. As for
the exterior, bring on your cosmetics."

"Monsieur," said Birotteau, "you restore me to life! I have thought of
selling an oil of nuts, believing that the ancients made use of that
oil for their hair; and the ancients are the ancients, as you know: I
agree with Boileau. Why did the gladiators oil themselves--"

"Olive oil is quite as good as nut oil," said Vauquelin, who was not
listening to Birotteau. "All oil is good to preserve the bulb from
receiving injury to the substances working within it, or, as we should
say in chemistry, in liquefaction. Perhaps you are right; Dupuytren
told me the oil of nuts had a stimulating property. I will look into
the differences between the various oils, beech-nut, colza, olive, and
hazel, etc."

"Then I am not mistaken," cried Birotteau, triumphantly. "I have
coincided with a great man. Macassar is overthrown! Macassar,
monsieur, is a cosmetic given--that is, sold, and sold dear--to make
the hair grow."

"My dear Monsieur Birotteau," said Vauquelin, "there are not two
ounces of Macassar oil in all Europe. Macassar oil has not the
slightest action upon the hair; but the Malays buy it up for its
weight in gold, thinking that it preserves the hair: they don't know
that whale-oil is just as good. No power, chemical, or divine--"

"Divine! oh, don't say that, Monsieur Vauquelin."

"But, my dear monsieur, the first law of God is to be consistent with
Himself; without unity, no power--"

"Ah! in that light--"

"No power, as I say, can make the hair grow on bald heads; just as you
can never dye, without serious danger, red or white hair. But in
advertising the benefits of oil you commit no mistake, you tell no
falsehood, and I think that those who use it will probably preserve
their hair."

"Do you think that the royal Academy of Sciences would approve of--"

"Oh! there is no discovery in all that," said Vauquelin. "Besides,
charlatans have so abused the name of the Academy that it would not
help you much. My conscience will not allow me to think the oil of
nuts a prodigy."

"What would be the best way to extract it; by pressure, or decoction?"
asked Birotteau.

"Pressure between two hot slabs will cause the oil to flow more
abundantly; but if obtained by pressure between cold slabs it will be
of better quality. It should be applied to the skin itself," added
Vauquelin, kindly, "and not to the hair; otherwise the effect might be
lost."

"Recollect all that, Popinot," said Birotteau, with an enthusiasm that
sent a glow into his face. "You see before you, monsieur, a young man
who will count this day among the finest in his life. He knew you, he
venerated you, without ever having seen you. We often talk of you in
our home: a name that is in the heart is often on the lips. We pray
for you every day, my wife and daughter and I, as we ought to pray for
our benefactor."

"Too much for so little," said Vauquelin, rather bored by the voluble
gratitude of the perfumer.

"Ta, ta, ta!" exclaimed Birotteau, "you can't prevent our loving you,
you who will take nothing from us. You are like the sun; you give
light, and those whom you illuminate can give you nothing in return."

The man of science smiled and rose; the perfumer and Popinot rose
also.

"Anselme, look well at this room. You permit it, monsieur? Your time
is precious, I know, but he will never have another opportunity."

"Well, have you got all you wanted?" said Vauquelin to Birotteau.
"After all, we are both commercial men."

"Pretty nearly, monsieur," said Birotteau, retreating towards the
dining-room, Vauquelin following. "But to launch our Comagene Essence
we need a good foundation--"

"'Comagene' and 'Essence' are two words that clash. Call your cosmetic
'Oil of Birotteau'; or, if you don't want to give your name to the
world, find some other. Why, there's the Dresden Madonna! Ah, Monsieur
Birotteau, do you mean that we shall quarrel?"

"Monsieur Vauquelin," said the perfumer, taking the chemist's hand.
"This treasure has no value except the time that I have spent in
finding it. We had to ransack all Germany to find it on China paper
before lettering. I knew that you wished for it and that your
occupations did not leave you time to search for it; I have been your
commercial traveller, that is all. Accept therefore, not a paltry
engraving, but efforts, anxieties, despatches to and fro, which are
the evidence of my complete devotion. Would that you had wished for
something growing on the sides of precipices, that I might have sought
it and said to you, 'Here it is!' Do not refuse my gift. We have so
much reason to be forgotten; allow me therefore to place myself, my
wife, my daughter, and the son-in-law I expect to have, beneath your
eyes. You must say when you look at the Virgin, 'There are some people
in the world who are thinking of me.'"

"I accept," said Vauquelin.

Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so affected were they by the
kindly tone in which the academician uttered the words.

"Will you crown your goodness?" said the perfumer.

"What's that?" exclaimed Vauquelin.

"I assemble my friends"--he rose from his heels, taking, nevertheless,
a modest air--"as much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory
as to commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor--"

"Ah!" exclaimed Vauquelin, surprised.

"Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and royal favor, by my
services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting for the Bourbons
upon the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was
wounded by Napoleon. My wife gives a ball, three weeks from Sunday;
pray come to it, monsieur. Do us the honor to dine with us on that
day. Your presence would double the happiness with which I receive my
cross. I will write you beforehand."

"Well, yes," said Vauquelin.

"My heart swells with joy!" cried the perfumer, when he got into the
street. "He comes to my house! I am afraid I've forgotten what he said
about hair: do you remember it, Popinot!"

"Yes, monsieur; and twenty years hence I shall remember it still."

"What a great man! what a glance, what penetration!" said Birotteau.
"Ah! he made no bones about it; he guessed our thoughts at the first
word; he has given us the means of annihilating Macassar oil. Yes!
nothing can make the hair grow; Macassar, you lie! Popinot, our
fortune is made. We'll go to the manufactory to-morrow morning at
seven o'clock; the nuts will be there, and we will press out some oil.
It is all very well for him to say that any oil is good; if the public
knew that, we should be lost. If we didn't put some scent and the name
of nuts into the oil, how could we sell it for three or four francs
the four ounces?"

"You are about to be decorated, monsieur?" said Popinot, "what glory
for--"

"Commerce; that is true, my boy."

Cesar's triumphant air, as if certain of fortune, was observed by
the clerks, who made signs at each other; for the trip in the
hackney-coach, and the full dress of the cashier and his master had
thrown them all into the wildest regions of romance. The mutual
satisfaction of Cesar and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically
exchanged, the glance full of hope which Popinot cast now and then at
Cesarine, proclaimed some great event and gave color to the conjectures
of the clerks. In their busy and half cloistral life the smallest
events have the interest which a prisoner feels in those of his prison.
The bearing of Madame Cesar, who replied to the Olympian looks of her
lord with an air of distrust, seemed to point to some new enterprise;
for in ordinary times Madame Cesar, delighted with the smallest routine
success, would have shared his contentment. It happened, accidentally,
that the receipts for the day amounted to more than six thousand
francs; for several outstanding bills chanced to be paid.

The dining-room and the kitchen, lighted from a little court, and
separated from the dining-room by a passage, from which the staircase,
taken out of a corner of the backshop, opened up, was on the
_entresol_ where in former days Cesar and Constance had their
appartement; in fact, the dining-room, where the honey-moon had been
passed, still wore the look of a little salon. During dinner Raguet,
the trusty boy of all work, took charge of the shop; but the clerks
came down when the dessert was put on table, leaving Cesar, his wife
and daughter to finish their dinner alone by the chimney corner. This
habit was derived from the Ragons, who kept up the old-fashioned
usages and customs of former commercial days, which placed an enormous
distance between the masters and the apprentices. Cesarine or
Constance then prepared for Birotteau his cup of coffee, which he took
sitting on a sofa by the corner of the fire. At this hour he told his
wife all the little events of the day, and related what he had seen in
the streets, what was going on in the Faubourg du Temple, and the
difficulties he had met with in the manufactory, _et caetera_.

"Wife," he said, when the clerks had gone down, "this is certainly one
of the most important days in our life! The nuts are bought, the
hydraulic press is ready to go to work, the land affair is settled.
Here, lock up that cheque on the Bank of France," he added, handing her
Pillerault's paper. "The improvements in the house are ordered, the
dignity of our appartement is about to be increased. Bless me! I saw,
down in the Cour Batave, a very singular man,"--and he told the tale
of Monsieur Molineux.

"I see," said his wife, interrupting him in the middle of a tirade,
"that you have gone in debt two hundred thousand francs."

"That is true, wife," said Cesar, with mock humility, "Good God, how
shall we pay them? It counts for nothing that the lands about the
Madeleine will some day become the finest quarter of Paris."

"Some day, Cesar!"

"Alas!" he said, going on with his joke, "my three eighths will only
be worth a million in six years. How shall I ever pay that two hundred
thousand francs?" said Cesar, with a gesture of alarm. "Well, we shall
be reduced to pay them with that," he added, pulling from his pocket a
nut, which he had taken from Madame Madou and carefully preserved.

He showed the nut between his fingers to Constance and Cesarine. His
wife was silent, but Cesarine, much puzzled, said to her father, as
she gave him his coffee, "What do you mean, papa,--are you joking?"

The perfumer, as well as the clerks, had detected during dinner the
glances which Popinot had cast at Cesarine, and he resolved to clear
up his suspicions.

"Well, my little daughter," he said, "this nut will revolutionize our
home. From this day forth there will be one person the less under my
roof."

Cesarine looked at her father with an eye which seemed to say, "What
is that to me?"

"Popinot is going away."

Though Cesar was a poor observer, and had, moreover, prepared his
phrase as much to herald the creation of the house of A. Popinot and
Company, as to set a trap for his daughter, yet his paternal
tenderness made him guess the confused feelings which rose in
Cesarine's heart, blossomed in roses on her cheek, suffused her
forehead and even her eyes as she lowered them. Cesar thought that
words must have passed between Cesarine and Popinot. He was mistaken;
the two children comprehended each other, like all timid lovers,
without a word.

Some moralists hold that love is an involuntary passion, the most
disinterested, the least calculating, of all the passions, except
maternal love. This opinion carries with it a vulgar error. Though the
majority of men may be ignorant of the causes of love, it is none the
less true that all sympathy, moral or physical, is based upon
calculations made either by the mind, or by sentiment or brutality.
Love is an essentially selfish passion. Self means deep calculation.
To every mind which looks only at results, it will seem at first sight
singular and unlikely that a beautiful girl like Cesarine should love
a poor lame fellow with red hair. Yet this phenomenon is completely in
harmony with the arithmetic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it,
would be to give the reason of marriages which are constantly looked
upon with surprise,--marriages between tall and beautiful women and
puny men, or between ugly little creatures and handsome men. Every man
who is cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is,
--club-feet, a halting-gait, a humped-back, excessive ugliness, claret
stains upon the cheek, Roguin's species of deformity, and other
monstrosities the result of causes beyond the control of the sufferer,
--has but two courses open to him: either he must make himself feared,
or he must practise the virtues of exquisite loving-kindness; he is not
permitted to float in the middle currents of average conduct which are
habitual to other men. If he takes the first course he probably has
talent, genius, or strength of will; a man inspires terror only by the
power of evil, respect by genius, fear through force of mind. If he
chooses the second course, he makes himself adored; he submits to
feminine tyranny, and knows better how to love than men of
irreproachable bodily condition.

Anselme, brought up by virtuous people, by the Ragons, models of the
honorable bourgeoisie, and by his uncle the judge, had been led,
through his ingenuous nature and his deep religious sentiments, to
redeem the slight deformity of his person by the perfection of his
character. Constance and Cesar, struck by these tendencies, so
attractive in youth, had repeatedly sung his praises before Cesarine.
Petty as they might be in many ways, husband and wife were noble by
nature, and understood the deep things of the heart. Their praises
found an echo in the mind of the young girl, who, despite her
innocence, had read in Anselme's pure eyes the violent feeling, which
is always flattering whatever be the lover's age, or rank, or personal
appearance. Little Popinot had far more reason to adore a woman than a
handsome man could ever have. If she were beautiful, he would love her
madly to her dying day; his fondness would inspire him with ambition;
he would sacrifice his own life that his wife's might be happy; he
would make her mistress of their home, and be himself the first to
accept her sway. Thus thought Cesarine, involuntarily perhaps, yet not
altogether crudely; she gave a bird's-eye glance at the harvest of
love in her own home, and reasoned by induction; the happiness of her
mother was before her eyes,--she wished for no better fate; her
instinct told her that Anselme was another Cesar, improved by his
education, as she had been improved by hers. She dreamed of Popinot as
mayor of an arrondissement, and liked to picture herself taking up the
collections in their parish church as her mother did at Saint-Roch.
She had reached the point of no longer perceiving the difference
between the left leg and the right leg of her lover, and was even
capable of saying, in all sincerity, "Does he limp?" She loved those
liquid eyes, and liked to watch the effect her own glance had upon
them, as they lighted up for a moment with a chaste flame, and then
fell, sadly.

Roguin's head-clerk, Alexandre Crottat, who was gifted with the
precocious experience which comes from knowledge acquired in a
lawyer's office, had an air and manner that was half cynical, half
silly, which revolted Cesarine, already disgusted by the trite and
commonplace character of his conversation. The silence of Popinot, on
the other hand, revealed his gentle nature; she loved the smile,
partly mournful, with which he listened to trivial vulgarities. The
silly nonsense which made him smile filled her with repulsion; they
were grave or gay in sympathy. This hidden vantage-ground did not
hinder Anselme from plunging into his work, and his indefatigable
ardor in it pleased Cesarine, for she guessed that when his comrades
in the shop said, "Mademoiselle Cesarine will marry Roguin's
head-clerk," the poor lame Anselme, with his red hair, did not despair
of winning her himself. A high hope is the proof of a great love.

"Where is he going?" asked Cesarine of her father, trying to appear
indifferent.

"He is to set up for himself in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants; and, my
faith! by the grace of God!" cried Cesar, whose exclamations were not
understood by his wife, nor by his daughter.

When Birotteau encountered a moral difficulty he did as the insects do
when there is an obstacle in their way,--he turned either to the right
or to the left. He therefore changed the conversation, resolving to
talk over Cesarine with his wife.

"I told all your fears and fancies about Roguin to your uncle, and he
laughed," he said to Constance.

"You should never tell what we say to each other!" cried Constance.
"That poor Roguin may be the best man in the world; he is fifty-eight
years old, and perhaps he thinks no longer of--"

She stopped short, seeing that Cesarine was listening attentively, and
made a sign to Cesar.

"Then I have done right to agree to the affair," said Birotteau.

"You are the master," she answered.

Cesar took his wife by the hands and kissed her brow; that answer
always conveyed her tacit assent to her husband's projects.

"Now, then," cried the perfumer, to his clerks, when he went back to
them, "the shop will be closed at ten o'clock. Gentlemen, lend a hand!
a great feat! We must move, during the night, all the furniture from
the first floor to the second floor. We shall have, as they say, to
put the little pots in the big pots, for my architect must have his
elbows free to-morrow morning--Popinot has gone out without my
permission," he cried, looking round and not seeing his cashier. "Ah,
true, he does not sleep here any more, I forget that. He is gone,"
thought Cesar, "either to write down Monsieur Vauquelin's ideas, or
else to hire the shop."

"We all know the cause of this household change," said Celestin,
speaking in behalf of the two other clerks and Raguet, grouped behind
him. "Is it allowable to congratulate monsieur upon an honor which
reflects its light upon the whole establishment? Popinot has told us
that monsieur--"

"Hey, hey! my children, it is all true. I have been decorated. I am
about to assemble my friends, not only to celebrate the emancipation
of our territory, but to commemorate my promotion to the order of the
Legion of honor. I may, possibly, have shown myself worthy of that
signal and royal favor by my services on the Bench of commerce, and by
fighting for the royal cause; which I defended--at your age--upon the
steps of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire, and I give you my word
that Napoleon, called emperor, wounded me himself! wounded me in the
thigh; and Madame Ragon nursed me. Take courage! recompense comes to
every man. Behold, my sons! misfortunes are never wasted."

"They will never fight in the streets again," said Celestin.

"Let us hope so," said Cesar, who thereupon went off into an harangue
to the clerks, which he wound up by inviting them to the ball.

The vision of a ball inspired the three clerks, Raguet, and Virginie
the cook with an ardor that gave them the strength of acrobats. They
came and went up and down the stairs, carrying everything and breaking
nothing. By two o'clock in the morning the removal was effected. Cesar
and his wife slept on the second floor. Popinot's bedroom became that
of Celestin and the second clerk. On the third floor the furniture was
stored provisionally.

In the grasp of that magnetic ardor, produced by an influx of the
nervous fluid, which lights a brazier in the midriff of ambitious men
and lovers intent on high emprise, Popinot, so gentle and tranquil
usually, pawed the earth like a thoroughbred before the race, when he
came down into the shop after dinner.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Celestin.

"Oh, what a day! my dear fellow, what a day! I am set up in business,
and Monsieur Cesar is decorated."

"You are very lucky if the master helps you," said Celestin.

Popinot did not answer; he disappeared, driven by a furious wind,--the
wind of success.

"Lucky!" said one of the clerks, who was sorting gloves by the dozen,
to another who was comparing prices on the tickets. "Lucky! the master
has found out that Popinot is making eyes at Mademoiselle Cesarine,
and, as the old fellow is pretty clever, he gets rid of Anselme; it
would be difficult to refuse him point-blank, on account of his
relations. Celestin thinks the trick is luck or generosity!"



VI

Anselme Popinot went down the Rue Saint-Honore and rushed along the
Rue des Deux-Ecus to seize upon a young man whom his commercial
_second-sight_ pointed out to him as the principal instrument of his
future fortune. Popinot the judge had once done a great service to the
cleverest of all commercial travellers, to him whose triumphant
loquacity and activity were to win him, in coming years, the title of
The Illustrious. Devoted especially to the hat-trade and the
_article-Paris_, this prince of travellers was called, at the time of
which we write, purely and simply, Gaudissart. At the age of twenty-two
he was already famous by the power of his commercial magnetism. In
those days he was slim, with a joyous eye, expressive face, unwearied
memory, and a glance that guessed the wants of every one; and he
deserved to be, what in fact he became, the king of commercial
travellers, the _Frenchman par excellence_. A few days earlier Popinot
had met Gaudissart, who mentioned that he was on the point of departure;
the hope of finding him still in Paris sent the lover flying into the
Rue des Deux-Ecus, where he learned that the traveller had engaged his
place at the Messageries-Royales. To bid adieu to his beloved capital,
Gaudissart had gone to see a new piece at the Vaudeville; Popinot
resolved to wait for him. Was it not drawing a cheque on fortune to
entrust the launching of the oil of nuts to this incomparable
steersman of mercantile inventions, already petted and courted by the
richest firms? Popinot had reason to feel sure of Gaudissart. The
commercial traveller, so knowing in the art of entangling that most
wary of human beings, the little provincial trader, had himself become
entangled in the first conspiracy attempted against the Bourbons after
the Hundred Days. Gaudissart, to whom the open firmament of heaven was
indispensable, found himself shut up in prison, under the weight of an
accusation for a capital offence. Popinot the judge, who presided at
the trial, released him on the ground that it was nothing worse than
his imprudent folly which had mixed him up in the affair. A judge
anxious to please the powers in office, or a rabid royalist, would
have sent the luckless traveller to the scaffold. Gaudissart, who
believed he owed his life to the judge, cherished the grief of being
unable to make his savior any other return than that of sterile
gratitude. As he could not thank a judge for doing justice, he went to
the Ragons and declared himself liege-vassal forever to the house of
Popinot.