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

another

step. A few days hence the Council of the order of barristers will

assemble and will censure, more or less severely, your conduct in the

matter of the property you placed with such candor in Thuillier's

hands. Do not deceive yourself; censure from that quarter (and I

mention only your least danger) is as fatal to a barrister as being

actually disbarred."

 

"And it is to your kind offices, no doubt," said la Peyrade, "that I

shall owe that precious result?"

 

"Yes, I may boast of it," replied du Portail, "for, in order to tow

you into port it has been necessary to strip you of your rigging;

unless that were done, you would always have tried to navigate under

your own sails the bourgeois shoals that you are now among."

 

Seeing that he, undoubtedly, had to do with a strong hand, la Peyrade

thought best to modify his tone; and so, with a more circumspect air,

he said:--

 

"You will allow me, monsieur, to reserve my acknowledgments until I

receive some fuller explanation."

 

"Here you are, then," continued du Portail, "at twenty-eight years of

age, without a penny, virtually without a profession; with antecedents

that are very--middling; with associates like Monsieur Dutocq and the

courageous Cerizet; owing to Mademoiselle Thuillier ten thousand

francs, and to Madame Lambert twenty-five thousand, which you are no

doubt extremely desirous to return to her; and finally, this marriage,

your last hope, your sheet-anchor, has just become an utter

impossibility. Between ourselves, if I have something reasonable to

propose to you, do you not think that you had much better place

yourself at my disposal?"

 

"I have time enough to prove that your opinion is mistaken," returned

la Peyrade; "and I shall not form any resolutions so long as the

designs you choose to have upon me are not more fully explained."

 

"You were spoken to, at my instigation, about a marriage," resumed du

Portail. "This marriage, as I think, is closely connected with a past

existence from which a certain hereditary or family duty has devolved

upon you. Do you know what that uncle of yours, to whom you applied in

1829, was doing in Paris? In your family he was thought to be a

millionaire; and, dying suddenly, you remember, before you got to him,

he did not leave enough for his burial; a pauper's grave was all that

remained to him."

 

"Did you know him?" asked la Peyrade.

 

"He was my oldest and dearest friend," replied du Portail.

 

"If that is so," said la Peyrade, hastily, "a sum of two thousand

francs, which I received on my arrival in Paris from some unknown

source--"

 

"Came from me," replied du Portail. "Unfortunately, engaged at the

time in a rush of important affairs, which you shall hear of later, I

could not immediately follow up the benevolent interest I felt in you

for your uncle's sake; this explains why I left you in the straw of a

garret, where you came, like a medlar, to that maturity of ruin which

brought you under the hand of a Dutocq and a Cerizet."

 

"I am none the less grateful to you, monsieur," said la Peyrade; "and

if I had known you were that generous protector, whom I was never able

to discover, I should have been the first to seek occasion to meet you

and to thank you."

 

"A truce to compliments," said du Portail; "and, to come at once to

the serious side of our present conference, what should you say if I

told you that this uncle, whose protection and assistance you came to

Paris to obtain, was an agent of that occult power which has always

been the theme of feeble ridicule and the object of silly prejudice?"

 

"I do not seize your meaning," said la Peyrade, with uneasy curiosity;

"may I ask you to be more precise?"

 

"For example, I will suppose," continued du Portail, "that your uncle,

if still living, were to say to you to-day: 'You are seeking fortune

and influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to

play your part in all the great events of your time; you want

employment for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly

inclined to intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and

elegant sphere that force of will and subtlety which at present you

are wasting in the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren

and tough-skinned animal on earth, to wit: a bourgeois. Well, then,

lower your head, my fine nephew; enter with me through the little door

which I will open to you; it gives admittance to a great house, often

maligned, but better far than its reputation. That threshold once

crossed, you can rise to the height of your natural genius, whatever

its spark may be. Statesmen, kings even, will admit you to their most

secret thoughts; you will be their occult collaborator, and none of

the joys which money and the highest powers can bestow upon a man will

be lacking to you."

 

"But, monsieur," objected la Peyrade, "without venturing to understand

you, I must remark that my uncle died so poor, you tell me, that

public charity buried him."

 

"Your uncle," replied du Portail, "was a man of rare talent, but he

had a certain weak side in his nature which compromised his career. He

was eager for pleasure, a spendthrift, thoughtless for the future; he

wanted also to taste those joys that are meant for the common run of

men, but which for great, exceptional vocations are the worst of

snares and impediments: I mean the joys of family. He had a daughter

whom he madly loved, and it was through her that his terrible enemies

opened a breach in his life, and prepared the horrible catastrophe

that ended it."

 

"Is that an encouragement to enter this shady path, where, you say, he

might have asked me to follow him?"

 

"But if I myself," said du Portail, "should offer to guide you in it,

what then?"

 

"You, monsieur!" said la Peyrade, in stupefaction.

 

"Yes, I--I who was your uncle's pupil at first, and later his

protector and providence; I, whose influence the last half-century has

daily increased; I, who am wealthy; I, to whom all governments, as

they fall one on top of the others like houses of cards, come to ask

for safety and for the power to rebuild their future; I, who am the

manager of a great theatre of puppets (where I have Columbines in the

style of Madame de Godollo); I, who to-morrow, if it were necessary to

the success of one of my vaudevilles or one of my dramas, might

present myself to your eyes as the wearer of the grand cordon of the

Legion of honor, of the Order of the Black Eagle, or that of the

Golden Fleece. Do you wish to know why neither you nor I will die a

violent death like your uncle, and also why, more fortunate than

contemporaneous kings, I can transmit my sceptre to the successor whom

I myself may choose? Because, like you, my young friend, in spite of

your Southern appearance, I was cold, profoundly calculating, never

tempted to lose my time on trifles at the outskirts; because heat,

when I was led by force of circumstances to employ it, never went

below the surface. It is more than probable that you have heard of me;

well, for you I will open a window in my cloud; look at me, observe me

well; have I a cloven hoof, or a tail at the end of my spine? On the

contrary, am I not a model of the most inoffensive of householders in

the Saint-Sulpice quarter? In that quarter, where I have enjoyed, I

may say it, universal esteem for the last twenty-five years, I am

called du Portail; but to you, if you will allow me, I shall now name

myself _Corentin_."

 

"Corentin!" cried la Peyrade, with terrified astonishment.

 

"Yes, monsieur; and you see that in telling you that secret I lay my

hand upon you, and enlist you. Corentin! 'the greatest man of the

police in modern times,' as the author of an article in the

'Biographies of Living Men' has said of me--as to whom I ought in

justice to remark that he doesn't know a thing about my life."

 

"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "I can assure you that I shall keep that

secret; but the place which you offer me near you--in your employ--"

 

"That frightens you, or, at least, it makes you uneasy," said

Corentin, quickly. "Before you have even considered the thing the word

scares you, does it? The police! _Police_! you are afraid to encounter

the terrible prejudice that brands it on the brow."

 

"Certainly," said la Peyrade, "it is a necessary institution; but I do

not think that it is always calumniated. If the business of those who

manage it is honorable why do they conceal themselves so carefully?"

 

"Because all that threatens society, which it is the mission of the

police to repress," replied Corentin, "is plotted and prepared in

hiding. Do thieves and conspirators put upon their hats, 'I am

Guillot, the shepherd of this flock'? And when we are after them must

we ring a bell to let them know we are coming?"

 

"Monsieur," said la Peyrade, "when a sentiment is universal it ceases

to be a prejudice, it becomes an opinion; and this opinion ought to be

a law to every man who desires to keep his own esteem and that of

others."

 

"And when you robbed that notary to enrich the Thuilliers for your own

advantage," said Corentin, "did you keep your own esteem and that of

the Council of barristers? And who knows, monsieur, if in your life

there are not still blacker actions than that? I am a more honorable

man than you, because, outside of my functions, I have not one

doubtful act upon my conscience; and when the opportunity for _good_ has

been presented to me I have done it--always and everywhere. Do you

think that the guardianship of that poor insane girl in my home has

been all roses? But she was the daughter of my old friend, your uncle,

and when, feeling the years creep on me, I propose to you, between

sacks of money, to fit yourself to take my place--"

 

"What!" cried la Peyrade, "is that girl my uncle's daughter?"

 

"Yes; the girl I wish you to marry is the daughter of your uncle

Peyrade,--for he democratized his name,--or, if you like it better,

she was the daughter of Pere Canquoelle, a name he took from the

little estate on which your father lived and starved with eleven

children. You see, in spite of the secrecy your uncle always kept

about his family, that I know all about it. Do you suppose that before

selecting you as your cousin's husband I had not obtained every

possible information about you? And what I have learned need not make

you quite so supercilious to the police. Besides, as the vulgar saying

is, the best of your nose is made of it. Your uncle belonged to the

police, and, thanks to that, he became the confidant, I might almost

say the friend, of Louis XVIII., who took the greatest pleasure in his

companionship. And you, by nature and by mind, also by the foolish

position into which you have got yourself, in short, by your whole

being, have gravitated steadily to the conclusion I propose to you,

namely, that of succeeding me,--of succeeding Corentin. That is the

question between us, Monsieur. Do you really believe now that I have

not a grasp or a 'seizin,' as you call it, upon you, and that you can

manage to escape me for any foolish considerations of bourgeois

vanity?"

 

La Peyrade could not have been at heart so violently opposed to this

proposal as he seemed, for the vigorous language of the great master

of the police and the species of appropriation which he made of his

person brought a smile to the young man's lips.

 

Corentin had risen, and was walking up and down the room, speaking,

apparently, to himself.

 

"The police!" he cried; "one may say of it, as Basile said of calumny

to Batholo, 'The police, monsieur! you don't know what you despise!'

And, after all," he continued, after a pause, "who are they who

despise it? Imbeciles, who don't know any better than to insult their

protectors. Suppress the police, and you destroy civilization. Do the

police ask for the respect of such people? No, they want to inspire

them with one sentiment only: fear, that great lever with which to

govern mankind,--an impure race whose odious instincts God, hell, the

executioner, and the gendarmes can scarcely restrain!"

 

Stopping short before la Peyrade, and looking at him with a disdainful

smile, he continued:--

 

"So you are one of those ninnies who see in the police nothing more

than a horde of spies and informers? Have you never suspected the

statesmen, the diplomats, the Richelieus it