The Lesser Bourgeoisie Part 72

"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 circ.u.mspect 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 a.s.sociates 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 a.s.sistance 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 G.o.dollo); 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sure 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 inst.i.tution; 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 G.o.d, h.e.l.l, 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 produces? Mercury, monsieur,--Mercury, the cleverest of the G.o.ds of paganism,--what was he but the police incarnate? It is true that he was also the G.o.d of thieves. We are better than he, for we don't allow that junction of forces."

"And yet," said la Peyrade, "Vautrin, or, I should say, Jacques Collin, the famous chief of the detective police--"

"Yes, yes! but that's in the lower ranks," replied Corentin, resuming his walk; "there's always a muddy place somewhere. Still, don't be mistaken even in that. Vautrin is a man of genius, but his pa.s.sions, like those of your uncle, dragged him down. But go up higher (for there lies the whole question, namely, the rung of the ladder on which a man has wits enough to perch). Take the prefect, for instance, that honored minister, flattered and respected, is he a spy? Well, I, monsieur, am the prefect of the secret police of diplomacy--of the highest statesmanship. And you hesitate to mount that throne!--to seem small and do great things; to live in a cave comfortably arranged like this, and command the light; to have at your orders an invisible army, always ready, always devoted, always submissive; to know the _other side_ of everything; to be duped by no intrigue because you hold the threads of all within your fingers; to see through all part.i.tions; to penetrate all secrets, search all hearts, all consciences,--these are the things you fear! And yet you were not afraid to go and wallow in a Thuillier bog; you, a thoroughbred, allowed yourself to be harnessed to a hackney-coach, to the ign.o.ble business of electing that parvenu bourgeois."

"A man does what he can," said la Peyrade.

"Here's a very remarkable thing," pursued Corentin, replying to his own thought; "the French language, more just than public opinion, has given us our right place, for it has made the word police the synonym of civilization and the antipodes of savage life, when it said and wrote: 'l'Etat police,' from the Greek words state and city. So, I can a.s.sure you, we care little for the prejudice that tries to brand us; none know men as we do; and to know them brings contempt for their contempt as well as for their esteem."

"There is certainly much truth in what you say with such warmth," said la Peyrade, finally.

"Much truth!" exclaimed Corentin, going back to his chair, "say, rather, that it is all true, and nothing but the truth; yet it is not the whole truth. But enough for to-day, monsieur. To succeed me in my functions, and to marry your cousin with a 'dot' that will not be less than five hundred thousand francs, that is my offer. I do not ask you for an answer now. I should have no confidence in a determination not seriously reflected upon. To-morrow, I shall be at home all the morning. I trust that my conviction may then have formed yours."

Dismissing his visitor with a curt little bow, he added: "I do not bid you adieu, but au revoir, Monsieur de la Peyrade."

Whereupon Corentin went to a side-table, where he found all that he needed to prepare a gla.s.s of "eau sucree," which he had certainly earned, and, without looking at la Peyrade, who left the room rather stunned, he seemed to have no other interest on his mind than that prosaic preparation.

Was it, indeed, necessary that the morning after this meeting with Corentin a visit from Madame Lambert, now become an exacting and importunate creditor, should come to bear its weight on la Peyrade's determination? As the great chief had pointed out to him the night before, was there not in his nature, in his mind, in his aspirations, in the mistakes and imprudences of his past life, a sort of irresistible incline which drew him down toward the strange solution of existence thus suddenly offered to him?

Fatality, if we may so call it, was lavish of the inducements to which he was destined to succ.u.mb. This day was the 31st of October; the vacation of the Palais was just over. The 2nd of November was the day on which the courts reopened, and as Madame Lambert left his room he received a summons to appear on that day before the Council of his order.

To Madame Lambert, who pressed him sharply to repay her, under pretence that she was about to leave Monsieur Picot and return to her native place, he replied: "Come here the day after to-morrow, at the same hour, and your money will be ready for you."

To the summons to give account of his actions to his peers he replied that he did not recognize the right of the Council to question him on the facts of his private life. That was an answer of one sort, certainly. Inevitably it would result in his being stricken from the roll of the barristers of the Royal courts; but, at least, it had an air of dignity and protestation which saved, in a measure, his self-love.