The Lesser Bourgeoisie

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On the Thuillier side, the newspaper would undoubtedly make him a
personage of considerable importance; he would have more power on the
election; and by involving their capital in an enterprise which,
without him, they would feel a gulf and a snare, he bound them to him
by self-interests so firmly that there was nothing to fear from their
caprice or ingratitude.

This horizon, rapidly taken in during Etienne Lousteau's visit, had
fairly dazzled the Provencal, and we have seen the peremptory manner
in which Thuillier was forced into accepting with some enthusiasm the
discovery of this philosopher's-stone.

The cost of the purchase was ridiculously insignificant. A bank-note
for five hundred francs, for which Etienne Lousteau never clearly
accounted to the share-holders, put Thuillier in possession of the
name, property, furniture, and good-will of the newspaper, which he
and la Peyrade at once busied themselves in reorganizing.



CHAPTER X

IN WHICH CERIZET PRACTISES THE HEALING ART AND
THE ART OF POISONING ON THE SAME DAY

While this regeneration was going on, Cerizet went one morning to see
du Portail, with whom la Peyrade was now more than ever determined to
hold no communication.

"Well," said the little old man to the poor man's banker, "what effect
did the news we gave to the president of the bar produce on our man?
Did the affair get wind at the Palais?"

"Phew!" said Cerizet, whose intercourse, no doubt pretty frequent,
with du Portail had put him on a footing of some familiarity with the
old man, "there's no question of that now. The eel has wriggled out of
our hands; neither softness nor violence has any effect upon that
devil of a man. He has quarrelled with the bar, and is in better odor
than ever with Thuillier. 'Necessity,' says Figaro, 'obliterates
distance.' Thuillier needs him to push his candidacy in the quartier
Saint-Jacques, so they kissed and made up."

"And no doubt," said du Portail, without much appearance of feeling,
"the marriage is fixed for an early day?"

"Yes," replied Cerizet, "but there's another piece of work on hand.
That crazy fellow has persuaded Thuillier to buy a newspaper, and
he'll make him sink forty thousand francs in it. Thuillier, once
involved, will want to get his money back, and in my opinion they are
bound together for the rest of their days."

"What paper is it?"

"Oh, a cabbage-leaf that calls itself the 'Echo de la Bievre'!" replied
Cerizet with great scorn; "a paper which an old hack of a journalist
on his last legs managed to set up in the Mouffetard quarter by the
help of a lot of tanners--that, you know, is the industry of the
quarter. From a political and literary point of view the affair is
nothing at all, but Thuillier has been made to think it a masterly
stroke."

"Well, for local service to the election the instrument isn't so bad,"
remarked du Portail. "La Peyrade has talent, activity, and much
resource of mind; he may make something out of that 'Echo.' Under what
political banner will Thuillier present himself?"

"Thuillier," replied the beggars' banker, "is an oyster; he hasn't any
opinions. Until the publication of his pamphlet he was, like all those
bourgeois, a rabid conservative; but since the seizure he has gone
over to the Opposition. His first stage will probably be the
Left-centre; but if the election wind should blow from another quarter,
he'll go straight before it to the extreme left. Self-interest, for
those bourgeois, that's the measure of their convictions."

"Dear, dear!" said du Portail, "this new combination of la Peyrade's
may assume the importance of a political danger from the point of view
of my opinions, which are extremely conservative and governmental."
Then, after a moment's reflection, he added, "I think you did
newspaper work once upon a time; I remember 'the courageous Cerizet.'"

"Yes," replied the usurer, "I even managed one with la Peyrade,--an
evening paper; and a pretty piece of work we did, for which we were
finely recompensed."

"Well," said du Portail, "why don't you do it again,--journalism, I
mean,--with la Peyrade."

Cerizet looked at du Portail in amazement.

"Ah ca!" he cried, "are you the devil, monsieur? Can nothing ever be
hidden from you?"

"Yes," said du Portail, "I know a good many things. But what has been
settled between you and la Peyrade?"

"Well, remembering my experience in the business, and not knowing whom
else to get, he offered to make me manager of the paper."

"I did not know that," said du Portail, "but it was quite probable.
Did you accept?"

"Conditionally; I asked time for reflection. I wanted to know what you
thought of the offer."

"Parbleu! I think that out of an evil that can't be remedied we should
get, as the proverb says, wing or foot. I had rather see you inside
than outside of that enterprise."

"Very good; but in order to get into it there's a difficulty. La
Peyrade knows I have debts, and he won't help me with the
thirty-three-thousand francs' security which must be paid down in my
name. I haven't got them, and if I had, I wouldn't show them and
expose myself to the insults of creditors."

"You must have a good deal left of that twenty-five thousand francs la
Peyrade paid you not more than two months ago," remarked du Portail.

"Only two thousand two hundred francs and fifty centimes," replied
Cerizet. "I was adding it up last night; the rest has all gone to pay
off pressing debts."

"But if you have paid your debts you haven't any creditors."

"Yes, those I've paid, but those I haven't paid I still owe."

"Do you mean to tell me that your liabilities were more than
twenty-five thousand francs?" said du Portail, in a tone of
incredulity.

"Does a man go into bankruptcy for less?" replied Cerizet, as though
he were enunciating a maxim.

"Well, I see I am expected to pay that sum myself," said du Portail,
crossly; "but the question is whether the utility of your presence in
this enterprise is worth to me the interest on one hundred and
thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three francs,
thirty-three centimes."

"Hang it!" said Cerizet, "if I were once installed near Thuillier, I
shouldn't despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads.
In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable
disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the
clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of
the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke
just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you
ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a
man of straw, can quietly give his sheet a push in the direction
wanted.

"There's a good deal of truth in that," said du Portail, "but defeat
to la Peyrade, that's what I am thinking about."

"Well," said Cerizet, "I think I have another nice little insidious
means of demolishing him with Thuillier."

"Say what it is, then!" exclaimed du Portail, impatiently; "you go
round and round the pot as if I were a man it would do you some good
to finesse with."

"You remember," said Cerizet, coming out with it, "that some time ago
Dutocq and I were much puzzled to know how la Peyrade was, all of a
sudden, able to make that payment of twenty-five thousand francs?"

"Ha!" said the old man quickly, "have you discovered the origin of
that very improbable sum in our friend's hands; and is that origin
shady?"

"You shall judge," said Cerizet.

And he related in all its details the affair of Madame Lambert,
--adding, however, that on questioning the woman closely at the office
of the justice-of-peace, after the meeting with la Peyrade, he had
been unable to extract from her any confession, although by her whole
bearing she had amply confirmed the suspicions of Dutocq and himself.

"Madame Lambert, rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9; at the house of Monsieur
Picot, professor of mathematics," said du Portail, as he made a note
of the information. "Very good," he added; "come back and see me
to-morrow, my dear Monsieur Cerizet."

"But please remark," said the usurer, "that I must give an answer to
la Peyrade in the course of to-day. He is in a great hurry to start
the business."

"Very well; you must accept, asking a delay of twenty-four hours to
obtain your security. If, after making certain inquiries I see it is
more to my interests not to meddle in the affair, you can get out of
it by merely breaking your word; you can't be sent to the court of
assizes for that."

Independently of a sort of inexplicable fascination which du Portail
exercised over his agent, he never lost an opportunity to remind him
of the very questionable point of departure of their intercourse.

The next day Cerizet returned.

"You guessed right," said du Portail. "That woman Lambert, being
obliged to conceal the existence of her booty, and wanting to draw
interest on her stolen property, must have taken it into her head to
consult la Peyrade; his devout exterior may have recommended him to
her. She probably gave him that money without taking a receipt. In
what kind of money was Dutocq paid?"

"In nineteen thousand-franc notes, and twelve of five-hundred francs."

"That's precisely it," said du Portail. "There can't be the slightest
doubt left. Now, what use do you expect to make of this information
bearing upon Thuillier."

"I expect to put it into his head that la Peyrade, to whom he is going
to give his goddaughter and heiress, is over head and ears in debt;
that he makes enormous secret loans; and that in order to get out of
his difficulties he means to gnaw the newspaper to the bone; and I
shall insinuate that the position of a man so much in debt must be
known to the public before long, and become a fatal blow to the
candidate whose right hand he is."

"That's not bad," said du Portail; "but there's another and even more
conclusive use to be made of the discovery."

"Tell me, master; I'm listening," said Cerizet.

"Thuillier has not yet been able, has he, to explain to himself the
reason of the seizure of the pamphlet?"

"Yes, he has," replied Cerizet. "La Peyrade was telling me only
yesterday, by way of explaining Thuillier's idiotic simplicity, that
he had believed a most ridiculous bit of humbug. The 'honest
bourgeois' is persuaded that the seizure was instigated by Monsieur
Olivier Vinet, substitute to the procureur-general. The young man
aspired for a moment to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and the
worthy Thuillier has been made to imagine that the seizure of his
pamphlet was a revenge for the refusal."

"Good!" said du Portail; "to-morrow, as a preparation for the other
version of which you are to be the organ, Thuillier shall receive from
Monsieur Vinet a very sharp and decided denial of the abuse of power
he foolishly gave ear to."

"Will he?" said Cerizet, with curiosity.

"But another explanation must take its place," continued du Portail;
"you must assure Thuillier that he is the victim of police
machinations. That is all the police is good for, you know,
--machinations."

"I know that very well; I've made that affirmation scores of times
when I was working for the republican newspapers and--"

"When you were 'the courageous Cerizet,'" interrupted du Portail.
"Well, the present machination, here it is. The government was much
displeased at seeing Thuillier elected without its influence to the
Council-general of the Seine; it was angry with an independent and
patriotic citizen who showed by his candidacy that he could do without
it; and it learned, moreover, that this excellent citizen was
preparing a pamphlet on the subject, always a delicate one, of the
finances, as to which this dangerous adversary had great experience.
So, what did this essentially corrupt government do? It suborned a man
in whom, as it learned, Thuillier placed confidence, and for a sum of
twenty-five thousand francs (a mere trifle to the police), this
treacherous friend agreed to insert into the pamphlet three or four
phrases which exposed it to seizure and caused its author to be
summoned before the court of assizes. Now the way to make the
explanation clinch the doubt in Thuillier's mind is to let him know
that the next day la Peyrade, who, as Thuillier knew, hadn't a sou,
paid Dutocq precisely that very sum of twenty-five thousand francs."

"The devil!" cried Cerizet, "it isn't a bad trick. Fellows of the
Thuillier species will believe anything against the police."

"We shall see, then," continued du Portail, "whether Thuillier will
want to keep such a collaborator beside him, and above all, whether he
will be so eager to give him his goddaughter."

"You are a strong man, monsieur," said Cerizet, again expressing his
approbation; "but I must own that I feel some scruples at the part
assigned me. La Peyrade came and offered me the management of the
paper, and, you see, I should be working to evict him."

"And that lease he knocked you out of in spite of his promises, have
you forgotten that?" asked the little old man. "Besides, are we not
aiming for his happiness, though the obstinate fellow persists in
thwarting our benevolent intentions?"

"It is true," said Cerizet, "that the result will absolve me. Yes,
I'll go resolutely along the ingenious path you've traced out for me.
But there's one thing more: I can't fling my revelation at Thuillier's
head at the very first; I must have time to prepare the way for it,
but that security will have to be paid in immediately."

"Listen to me, Monsieur Cerizet," said du Portail, in a tone of
authority; "if the marriage of la Peyrade to my ward takes place it is
my intention to reward your services, and the sum of thirty thousand
francs will be your perquisite. Now, thirty thousand from one side and
twenty-five thousand from the other makes precisely fifty-five
thousand francs that the matrimonial vicissitudes of your friend la
Peyrade will have put into your pocket. But, as country people do at
the shows of a fair, I shall not pay till I come out. If you take that
money out of your own hoard I shall feel no anxiety; you will know how
to keep it from the clutches of your creditors. If, on the contrary,
my money is at stake, you will have neither the same eagerness nor the
same intelligence in keeping it out of danger. Therefore arrange your
affairs so that you can pay down your own thirty-three thousand; in
case of success, that sum will bring you in pretty nearly a hundred
per cent. That's my last word, and I shall not listen to any
objections."

Cerizet had no time to make any, for at that moment the door of du
Portail's study opened abruptly, and a fair, slender woman, whose face
expressed angelic sweetness, entered the room eagerly. On her arm,
wrapped in handsome long clothes, lay what seemed to be the form of an
infant.

"There!" she said, "that naughty Katte insisted that the doctor was
not here. I knew perfectly well that I had seen him enter. Well,
doctor," she continued, addressing Cerizet, "I am not satisfied with
the condition of my little one, not satisfied at all; she is very
pallid, and has grown so thin. I think she must be teething."

Du Portail made Cerizet a sign to accept the role so abruptly thrust
upon him.

"Yes, evidently," he said, "it is the teeth; children always turn pale
at that crisis; but there's nothing in that, my dear lady, that need
make you anxious."

"Do you really think so, doctor," said the poor crazed girl, whom our
readers have recognized as du Portail's ward, Lydie de la Peyrade;
"but see her dear little arms, how thin they are getting."

Then taking out the pins that fastened the swathings, she exhibited to
Cerizet a bundle of linen which to her poor distracted mind
represented a baby.

"Why, no, no," said Cerizet, "she is a trifle thin, it is true, but
the flesh is firm and her color excellent."

"Poor darling!" said Lydie, kissing her dream lovingly. "I do think
she is better since morning. What had I better give her, doctor? Broth
disgusts her, and she won't take soup."

"Well," said Cerizet, "try panada. Does she like sweet things?"

"Oh, yes!" cried the poor girl, her face brightening, "she adores
them. Would chocolate be good for her?"

"Certainly," replied Cerizet, "but without vanilla; vanilla is very
heating."

"Then I'll get what they call health-chocolate," said Lydie, with all
the intonations of a mother, listening to the doctor as to a god who
reassured her. "Uncle," she added, "please ring for Bruneau, and tell
him to go to Marquis at once and get some pounds of that chocolate."

"Bruneau has just gone out," said her guardian; "but there's no hurry,
he shall go in the course of the day."

"There, she is going to sleep," said Cerizet, anxious to put an end to
the scene, which, in spite of his hardened nature, he felt to be
painful.

"True," said the girl, replacing the bandages and rising; "I'll put
her to bed. Adieu, doctor; it is very kind of you to come sometimes
without being sent for. If you knew how anxious we poor mothers are,
and how, with a word or two, you can do us such good. Ah, there she is
crying!"

"She is so sleepy," said Cerizet; "she'll be much better in her
cradle."

"Yes, and I'll play her that sonata of Beethoven that dear papa was so
fond of; it is wonderful how calming it is. Adieu, doctor," she said
again, pausing on the threshold of the door. "Adieu, kind doctor!" And
she sent him a kiss.

Cerizet was quite overcome.

"You see," said du Portail, "that she is an angel,--never the least
ill-humor, never a sharp word; sad sometimes, but always caused by a
feeling of motherly solicitude. That is what first gave the doctors
the idea that if reality could take the place of her constant
hallucination she might recover her reason. Well, this is the girl
that fool of a Peyrade refuses, with the accompaniment of a
magnificent 'dot.' But he must come to it, or I'll forswear my name.
Listen," he added as the sound of a piano came to them; "hear! what
talent! Thousands of sane women can't compare with her; they are not
as reasonable as she is, except on the surface."

When Beethoven's sonata, played from the soul with a perfection of
shades and tones that filled her hardened hearer with admiration, had
ceased to sound, Cerizet said:--

"I agree with you, monsieur; la Peyrade refuses an angel, a treasure,
a pearl, and if I were in his place--But we shall bring him round to
your purpose. Now I shall serve you not only with zeal, but with
enthusiasm, I may say fanaticism."

As Cerizet was concluding this oath of fidelity at the door of the
study, he heard a woman's voice which was not that of Lydie.

"Is he in his study, the dear commander?" said that voice, with a
slightly foreign accent.

"Yes, madame, but please come into the salon. Monsieur is not alone; I
will tell him you are here."

This was the voice of Katte, the old Dutch maid.

"Stop, go this way," said du Portail quickly to Cerizet.

And he opened a hidden door which led through a dark corridor directly
to the staircase, whence Cerizet betook himself to the office of the
"Echo de la Bievre," where a heated discussion was going on.

The article by which the new editors of every newspaper lay before the
public their "profession of faith," as the technical saying is, always
produces a laborious and difficult parturition. In this particular
case it was necessary, if not openly to declare Thuillier's candidacy,
to at least make it felt and foreseen. The terms of the manifesto,
after la Peyrade had made a rough draft of it, were discussed at great
length. This discussion took place in Cerizet's presence, who, acting
on du Portail's advice, accepted the management, but postponed the
payment of the security till the next day, through the latitude
allowed in all administrations for the accomplishment of that
formality.

Cleverly egged on by this master-knave, who, from the start, made
himself Thuillier's flatterer, the discussion became stormy, and
presently bitter; but as, by the deed of partnership the deciding word
was left to la Peyrade in all matters concerning the editorship, he
finally closed it by sending the manifesto, precisely as he had
written it, to the printing office.

Thuillier was incensed at what he called an abuse of power, and
finding himself alone with Cerizet later in the day, he hastened to
pour his griefs and resentments into the bosom of his faithful
manager, thus affording the latter a ready-made and natural
opportunity to insinuate the calumnious revelation agreed upon with du
Portail. Leaving the knife in the wound, Cerizet went out to make
certain arrangements to obtain the money necessary for his bond.

Tortured by the terrible revelation, Thuillier could not keep it to
himself; he felt the need of confiding it, and of talking over the
course he would be compelled to take by this infernal discovery.
Sending for a carriage he drove home, and half an hour later he had
told the whole story to his Egeria.

Brigitte had from the first very vehemently declared against all the
determinations made by Thuillier during the last few days. For no
purpose whatever, not even for the sake of her brother's election,
would she agree to a renewal of the relation to la Peyrade. In the
first place, she had treated him badly, and that was a strong reason
for disliking him; then, in case that adventurer, as she now called
him, married Celeste, the fear of her authority being lessened gave
her a species of second-sight; she had ended by having an intuitive
sense of the dark profundities of the man's nature, and now declared
that under no circumstances and for no possible price would she make
one household with him.

"Ruin yourself if you choose," she said, "you are the master of that,
and you can do as you like; a fool and his money are soon parted."

When, therefore, she listened to her brother's confidences it was not
with reproaches, but, on the contrary, with a crow of triumph,
celebrating the probable return of her power, that she welcomed them.

"So much the better!" she cried; "it is well to know at last that the
man is a spy. I always thought so, the canting bigot! Turn him out of
doors without an explanation. WE don't want him to work that
newspaper. This Monsieur Cerizet seems, from what you tell me, the
right sort of man, and we can get another manager. Besides, when
Madame de Godollo went away she promised to write to me; and she can
easily put us in the way of finding some one. Poor, dear Celeste! what
a fate we were going to give her!"

"How you run on!" said Thuillier. "La Peyrade, my dear, is so far only
accused. He must be heard in his defence. And besides, there's a deed
that binds us."

"Ah, very good!" said Brigitte; "I see how it will be; you'll let that
man twist you round his finger again. A deed with a spy! As if there
could be deeds with such fellows."

"Come, come, be calm, my good Brigitte," returned Thuillier. "We
mustn't do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish a
justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to
break with him, and I'll prove to you that I am no milksop. But
Cerizet himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only
came to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an
explanation outright."

"Not a doubt about it," replied Brigitte. "You ought to demand an
explanation and go to the bottom of this thing; if you don't, I cast
you off as my brother."

"That suffices," said Thuillier, leaving the room with solemnity; "you
shall see that we will come to an understanding."



CHAPTER XI

EXPLANATIONS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM

On his return to the office after his conference with Brigitte,
Thuillier found la Peyrade at his post as editor-in-chief, and in a
position of much embarrassment, caused by the high hand he had
reserved for himself as the sole selector of articles and
contributors. At this moment, Phellion, instigated by his family, and
deeply conscious of his position on the reading-committee of the
Odeon, had come to offer his services as dramatic critic.

"My dear monsieur," he said, continuing his remarks to la Peyrade,
after inquiring of Thuillier about his health, "I was a great student
of the theatre in my youth; the stage and its scenic effects continue
to have for me peculiar attractions; and the white hairs which crown
my brow to-day seem to me no obstacle to my allowing your interesting
publication to profit by the fruit of my studies and my experience. As
member of the reading-committee of the Odeon theatre, I am conversant
with the modern drama, and--if I may be quite sure of your discretion
--I will even confide to you that among my papers it would not be
impossible for me to find a certain tragedy entitled 'Sapor,' which in
my young days won me some fame when read in salons."

"Ah!" said la Peyrade, endeavoring to gild the refusal he should be
forced to give, "why not try to have it put upon the stage? We might
be able to help you in that direction."