The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac (freenovel24 TXT) 📖

out an eager hand to snatch back his

crown.

 

For this reason when Etienne Lousteau went to la Peyrade, a former

journalist, with an offer of the weapon entitled the "Echo de la

Bievre," all the latter's instincts as a newspaper man were aroused,

in spite of the very inferior quality of the blade. The paper had

failed; la Peyrade believed he could revive it. The subscribers, on

the vendor's own showing, were few and far between, but he would

exercise upon them a "compelle intrare" both powerful and

irresistible. In the circumstances under which the affair was

presented to him it might surely be considered provincial. Threatened

with the loss of his position at the bar, he was thus acquiring, as we

said before, a new position and that of a "detached fort"; compelled,

as he might be, to defend himself, he could from that vantage-ground

take the offensive and oblige his enemies to reckon with him.

 

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 XI (N WHICH CERIZET PRACTISES THE HEALING ART ANDTHE 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