Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau Part 33

"I am in for ten thousand francs," said du Tillet; "he asked me for them two weeks ago, and I let him have them on his own note without security.

But he formerly did me some service, and I am willing to lose the money."

"Your nephew has done like all the rest," said Lourdois to Pillerault,--"given b.a.l.l.s and parties! That a scoundrel should try to throw dust in people's eyes, I can understand; but it is amazing that a man who pa.s.sed for as honest as the day should play those worn-out, knavish tricks which we are always finding out and condemning."

"Don't trust people unless they live in hovels like Claparon," said Gigonnet.

"Hey! mein freint," said the fat Nucingen to du Tillet, "you haf joust missed blaying me a bretty drick in zenting Pirodot to me. I don't know," he added, addressing Gobenheim the manufacturer, "vy he tid not ask me for fifdy tousand francs. I should haf gif dem to him."

"Oh, no, Monsieur le baron," said Joseph Lebas, "you knew very well that the Bank had refused his paper; you made them reject it in the committee on discounts. The affair of this unfortunate man, for whom I still feel the highest esteem, presents certain peculiar circ.u.mstances."

Pillerault pressed the hand of Joseph Lebas.

"Yes," said Mongenod, "it seems impossible to believe what has happened, unless we believe that concealed behind Gigonnet there are certain bankers who want to strangle the speculation in the lands about the Madeleine."

"What has happened is what happens always to those who go out of their proper business," said Claparon, hastily interrupting Mongenod. "If he had set up his own Cephalic Oil instead of running up the price of all the land in Paris by pouncing upon it, he might have lost his hundred thousand francs with Roguin, but he wouldn't have failed. He will go on now under the name of Popinot."

"Keep a watch on Popinot," said Gigonnet.

Roguin, in the parlance of such worthy merchants, was now the "unfortunate Roguin." Cesar had become "that wretched Birotteau."

The one seemed to them excused by his great pa.s.sion; the other they considered all the more guilty for his harmless pretensions.

Gigonnet, after leaving the Bourse, went round by the Rue Perrin-Ga.s.selin on his way home, in search of Madame Madou, the vendor of dried fruits.

"Well, old woman," he said, with his coa.r.s.e good-humor, "how goes the business?"

"So-so," said Madame Madou, respectfully, offering her only armchair to the usurer, with a show of attention she had never bestowed on her "dear defunct."

Mother Madou, who would have floored a recalcitrant or too-familiar wagoner and gone fearlessly to the a.s.sault of the Tuileries on the 10th of October, who jeered her best customers and was capable of speaking up to the king in the name of her a.s.sociate market-women,--Angelique Madou received Gigonnet with abject respect. Without strength in his presence, she shuddered under his rasping glance. The lower cla.s.ses will long tremble at sight of the executioner, and Gigonnet was the executioner of petty commerce. In the markets no power on earth is so respected as that of the man who controls the flow of money; all other human inst.i.tutions are as nothing beside him. Justice herself takes the form of a commissioner, a familiar personage in the eyes of the market; but usury seated behind its green boxes,--usury, entreated with fear tugging at the heart-strings, dries up all jesting, parches the throat, lowers the proudest look, and makes the commonest market women respectful.

"Do you want anything of me?" she said.

"A trifle, a mere nothing. Hold yourself ready to make good those notes of Birotteau; the man has failed, and claims must be put in at once. I will send you the account to-morrow morning."

Madame Madou's eyes contracted like those of a cat for a second, and then shot out flames.

"Ah, the villain! Ah, the scoundrel! He came and told me himself he was a deputy-mayor,--a trumped-up story! Reprobate! is that what he calls business? There is no honor among mayors; the government deceives us.

Stop! I'll go and make him pay me; I will--"

"Hey! at such times everybody looks out for himself, my dear!" said Gigonnet, lifting his leg with the quaint little action of a cat fearing to cross a wet place,--a habit to which he owed his nickname. "There are some very big wigs in the matter who mean to get themselves out of the sc.r.a.pe."

"Yes, and I'll pull my nuts out of the fire, too! Marie-Jeanne, bring my clogs and my rabbit-skin cloak; and quick, too, or I'll warm you up with a box on the ear."

"There'll be warm work down there!" thought Gigonnet, rubbing his hands as he walked away. "Du Tillet will be satisfied; it will make a fine scandal all through the quarter. I don't know what that poor devil of a perfumer has done to him; for my part I pity the fellow as I do a dog with a broken leg. He isn't a man, he has got no force."

Madame Madou bore down, like an insurrectionary wave from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, upon the shop-door of the hapless Birotteau, which she opened with excessive violence, for her walk had increased her fury.

"Heap of vermin! I want my money; I will have my money! You shall give me my money, or I carry off your scent-bags, and that satin trumpery, and the fans, and everything you've got here, for my two thousand francs. Who ever heard of mayors robbing the people? If you don't pay me I'll send you to the galleys; I'll go to the police,--justice shall be done! I won't leave this place till I've got my money."

She made a gesture as if to break the gla.s.s before the shelves on which the valuables were placed.

"Mother Madou takes a drop too much," whispered Celestin to his neighbor.

The virago overheard him,--for in paroxysms of pa.s.sion the organs are either paralyzed or trebly acute,--and she forthwith applied to Celestin's ear the most vigorous blow that ever resounded in a Parisian perfumery.

"Learn to respect women, my angel," she said, "and don't smirch the names of the people you rob."

"Madame," said Madame Birotteau, entering from the back-shop, where she happened to be with her husband,--whom Pillerault was persuading to go with him, while Cesar, to obey the law, was humbly expressing his willingness to go to prison,--"madame, for heaven's sake do not raise a mob, and bring a crowd upon us!"

"Hey! let them come," said the woman; "I'll tell them a tale that will make you laugh the wrong side of your mouth. Yes, my nuts and my francs, picked up by the sweat of my brow, helped you to give b.a.l.l.s. There you are, dressed like the queen of France in woollen which you sheared off the backs of poor sheep such as me! Good G.o.d! it would burn my shoulders, that it would, to wear stolen goods! I've got nothing but rabbit-skin to cover my carca.s.s, but it is mine! Brigands, thieves, my money or--"

She darted at a pretty inlaid box containing toilet articles.

"Put that down, madame!" said Cesar, coming forward, "nothing here is mine; everything belongs to my creditors. I own nothing but my own person; if you wish to seize that and put me in prison, I give you my word of honor"--the tears fell from his eyes--"that I will wait here till you have me arrested."

The tone and gesture were so completely in keeping with his words that Madame Madou's anger subsided.

"My property has been carried off by a notary; I am innocent of the disasters I cause," continued Cesar, "but you shall be paid in course of time if I have to die in the effort, and work like a galley-slave as a porter in the markets."

"Come, you are a good man," said the market-woman. "Excuse my words, madame; but I may as well go and drown myself, for Gigonnet will hound me down. I can't get any money for ten months to redeem those d.a.m.ned notes of yours which I gave him."

"Come and see me to-morrow morning," said Pillerault, showing himself.

"I will get you the money from one of my friends, at five per cent."

"Hey! if it isn't the worthy Pere Pillerault! Why, to be sure, he's your uncle," she said to Constance. "Well, you are all honest people, and I sha'n't lose my money, shall I? To-morrow morning, then, old fellow!"

she said to the retired iron-monger.

Cesar was determined to live on amid the wreck of his fortunes at "The Queen of Roses," insisting that he would see his creditors and explain his affairs to them himself. Despite Madame Birotteau's earnest entreaties, Pillerault seemed to approve of Cesar's decision and took him back to his own room. The wily old man then went to Monsieur Haudry, explained the case, and obtained from him a prescription for a sleeping draught, which he took to be made up, and then returned to spend the evening with the family. Aided by Cesarine he induced her father to drink with them. The narcotic soon put Cesar to sleep, and when he woke up, fourteen hours later, he was in Pillerault's bedroom, Rue des Bourdonnais, fairly imprisoned by the old man, who was sleeping himself on a cot-bed in the salon.

When Constance heard the coach containing Pillerault and Cesar roll away from the door, her courage deserted her. Our powers are often stimulated by the necessity of upholding some being feebler than ourselves. The poor woman wept to find herself alone in her home as she would have wept for Cesar dead.

"Mamma," said Cesarine, sitting on her mother's knee, and caressing her with the pretty kittenish grace which women only display to perfection amongst themselves, "you said that if I took up my life bravely, you would have strength to bear adversity. Don't cry, dear mother; I am ready and willing to go into some shop, and I shall never think again of what we once were. I shall be like you in your young days; and you shall never hear a complaint, nor even a regret, from me. I have a hope. Did you not hear what Monsieur Anselme said?"

"That dear boy! he shall not be my son-in-law--"

"Oh, mamma!"

"--he shall be my own son."

"Sorry has one good," said Cesarine, kissing her mother; "it teaches us to know our true friends."

The daughter at last eased the pain of the poor woman by changing places and playing the mother to her. The next morning Constance went to the house of the Duc de Lenoncourt, one of the gentlemen of the king's bedchamber, and left a letter asking for an interview at a later hour of the day. In the interval she went to Monsieur de la Billardiere, and explained to him the situation in which Roguin's flight had placed Cesar, begging him to go with her to the duke and speak for her, as she feared she might explain matters ill herself. She wanted a place for Birotteau. Birotteau, she said, would be the most upright of cashiers,--if there could be degrees of integrity among honest men.

"The King has just appointed the Comte de Fontaine master of his household; there is no time to be lost in making the application," said the mayor.

At two o'clock Monsieur de la Billardiere and Madame Cesar went up the grand staircase of the Hotel de Lenoncourt, Rue Saint-Dominique, and were ushered into the presence of the n.o.bleman whom the king preferred to all others,--if it can be said that Louis XVIII. ever had a preference. The gracious welcome of this great lord, who belonged to the small number of true gentlemen whom the preceding century bequeathed to ours, encouraged Madame Cesar. She was dignified, yet simple, in her sorrow. Grief enn.o.bles even the plainest people; for it has a grandeur of its own; to reflect its l.u.s.tre, a nature must needs be true.

Constance was a woman essentially true.