A Start in Life

The steward in danger

Monsieur Huguet de Serisy descends in a direct line from the famous president Huguet, ennobled under Francois I.

This family bears:  party per pale or and sable, an orle counterchanged and two lozenges counterchanged, with:  “i, semper melius eris,”—­a motto which, together with the two distaffs taken as supporters, proves the modesty of the burgher families in the days when the Orders held their allotted places in the State; and the naivete of our ancient customs by the pun on “eris,” which word, combined with the “i” at the beginning and the final “s” in “melius,” forms the name (Serisy) of the estate from which the family take their title.

The father of the present count was president of a parliament before the Revolution.  He himself a councillor of State at the Grand Council of 1787, when he was only twenty-two years of age, was even then distinguished for his admirable memoranda on delicate diplomatic matters.  He did not emigrate during the Revolution, and spent that period on his estate of Serizy near Arpajon, where the respect in which his father was held protected him from all danger.  After spending several years in taking care of the old president, who died in 1794, he was elected about that time to the Council of the Five Hundred, and accepted those legislative functions to divert his mind from his grief.  After the 18th Brumaire, Monsieur de Serizy became, like so many other of the old parliamentary families, an object of the First Consul’s blandishment.  He was appointed to the Council of State, and received one of the most disorganized departments of the government to reconstruct.  This scion of an old historical family proved to be a very active wheel in the grand and magnificent organization which we owe to Napoleon.

The councillor of State was soon called from his particular administration to a ministry.  Created count and senator by the Emperor, he was made proconsul to two kingdoms in succession.  In 1806, when forty years of age, he married the sister of the ci-devant Marquis de Ronquerolles, the widow at twenty of Gaubert, one of the most illustrious of the Republican generals, who left her his whole property.  This marriage, a suitable one in point of rank, doubled the already considerable fortune of the Comte de Serizy, who became through his wife the brother-in-law of the ci-devant Marquis de Rouvre, made count and chamberlain by the Emperor.

In 1814, weary with constant toil, the Comte de Serizy, whose shattered health required rest, resigned all his posts, left the department at the head of which the Emperor had placed him, and came to Paris, where Napoleon was compelled by the evidence of his eyes to admit that the count’s illness was a valid excuse, though at first that unfatiguable master, who gave no heed to the fatigue of others, was disposed to consider Monsieur de Serizy’s action as a defection.  Though the senator was never in disgrace, he was supposed to have reason to complain of Napoleon.  Consequently, when the Bourbons returned, Louis XVIII., whom Monsieur de Serizy held to be his legitimate sovereign, treated the senator, now a peer of France, with the utmost confidence, placed him in charge of his private affairs, and appointed him one of his cabinet ministers.  On the 20th of March, Monsieur de Serizy did not go to Ghent.  He informed Napoleon that he remained faithful to the house of Bourbon; would not accept his peerage during the Hundred Days, and passed that period on his estate at Serizy.

After the second fall of the Emperor, he became once more a privy-councillor, was appointed vice-president of the Council of State, and liquidator, on behalf of France, of claims and indemnities demanded by foreign powers.  Without personal assumption, without ambition even, he possessed great influence in public affairs.  Nothing of importance was done without consulting him; but he never went to court, and was seldom seen in his own salons.  This noble life, devoting itself from its very beginning to work, had ended by becoming a life of incessant toil.  The count rose at all seasons by four o’clock in the morning, and worked till mid-day, attended to his functions as peer of France and vice-president of the Council of State in the afternoons, and went to bed at nine o’clock.  In recognition of such labor, the King had made him a knight of his various Orders.  Monsieur de Serizy had long worn the grand cross of the Legion of honor; he also had the orders of the Golden Fleece, of Saint-Andrew of Russia, that of the Prussian Eagle, and nearly all the lesser Orders of the courts of Europe.  No man was less obvious, or more useful in the political world than he.  It is easy to understand that the world’s honor, the fuss and feathers of public favor, the glories of success were indifferent to a man of this stamp; but no one, unless a priest, ever comes to life of this kind without some serious underlying reason.  His conduct had its cause, and a cruel one.

In love with his wife before he married her, this passion had lasted through all the secret unhappiness of his marriage with a widow,—­a woman mistress of herself before as well as after her second marriage, and who used her liberty all the more freely because her husband treated her with the indulgence of a mother for a spoilt child.  His constant toil served him as shield and buckler against pangs of heart which he silenced with the care that diplomatists give to the keeping of secrets.  He knew, moreover, how ridiculous was jealousy in the eyes of a society that would never have believed in the conjugal passion of an old statesman.  How happened it that from the earliest days of his marriage his wife so fascinated him?  Why did he suffer without resistance?  How was it that he dared not resist?  Why did he let the years go by and still hope on?  By what means did this young and pretty and clever woman hold him in bondage?

The answer to all these questions would require a long history, which would injure our present tale.  Let us only remark here that the constant toil and grief of the count had unfortunately contributed not a little to deprive him of personal advantages very necessary to a man who attempts to struggle against dangerous comparisons.  In fact, the most cruel of the count’s secret sorrows was that of causing repugnance to his wife by a malady of the skin resulting solely from excessive labor.  Kind, and always considerate of the countess, he allowed her to be mistress of herself and her home.  She received all Paris; she went into the country; she returned from it precisely as though she were still a widow.  He took care of her fortune and supplied her luxury as a steward might have done.  The countess had the utmost respect for her husband.  She even admired his turn of mind; she knew how to make him happy by approbation; she could do what she pleased with him by simply going to his study and talking for an hour with him.  Like the great seigneurs of the olden time, the count protected his wife so loyally that a single word of disrespect said of her would have been to him an unpardonable injury.  The world admired him for this; and Madame de Serizy owed much to it.  Any other woman, even though she came of a family as distinguished as the Ronquerolles, might have found herself degraded in public opinion.  The countess was ungrateful, but she mingled a charm with her ingratitude.  From time to time she shed a balm upon the wounds of her husband’s heart.

Let us now explain the meaning of this sudden journey, and the incognito maintained by a minister of State.

A rich farmer of Beaumont-sur-Oise, named Leger, leased and cultivated a farm, the fields of which projected into and greatly injured the magnificent estate of the Comte de Serizy, called Presles.  This farm belonged to a burgher of Beaumont-sur-Oise, named Margueron.  The lease made to Leger in 1799, at a time when the great advance of agriculture was not foreseen, was about to expire, and the owner of the farm refused all offers from Leger to renew the lease.  For some time past, Monsieur de Serizy, wishing to rid himself of the annoyances and petty disputes caused by the inclosure of these fields within his land, had desired to buy the farm, having heard that Monsieur Margueron’s chief ambition was to have his only son, then a mere tax-gatherer, made special collector of finances at Beaumont.  The farmer, who knew he could sell the fields piecemeal to the count at a high price, was ready to pay Margueron even more than he expected from the count.

Thus matters stood when, two days earlier than that of which we write, Monsieur de Serizy, anxious to end the matter, sent for his notary, Alexandre Crottat, and his lawyer, Derville, to examine into all the circumstances of the affair.  Though Derville and Crottat threw some doubt on the zeal of the count’s steward (a disturbing letter from whom had led to the consultation), Monsieur de Serizy defended Moreau, who, he said, had served him faithfully for seventeen years.

“Very well!” said Derville, “then I advise your Excellency to go to Presles yourself, and invite this Margueron to dinner.  Crottat will send his head-clerk with a deed of sale drawn up, leaving only the necessary lines for description of property and titles in blank.  Your Excellency should take with you part of the purchase money in a check on the Bank of France, not forgetting the appointment of the son to the collectorship.  If you don’t settle the thing at once that farm will slip through your fingers.  You don’t know, Monsieur le comte, the trickery of these peasants.  Peasants against diplomat, and the diplomat succumbs.”

Crottat agreed in this advice, which the count, if we may judge by the valet’s statements to Pierrotin, had adopted.  The preceding evening he had sent Moreau a line by the diligence to Beaumont, telling him to invite Margueron to dinner in order that they might then and there close the purchase of the farm of Moulineaux.

Before this matter came up, the count had already ordered the chateau of Presles to be restored and refurnished, and for the last year, Grindot, an architect then in fashion, was in the habit of making a weekly visit.  So, while concluding his purchase of the farm, Monsieur de Serizy also intended to examine the work of restoration and the effect of the new furniture.  He intended all this to be a surprise to his wife when he brought her to Presles, and with this idea in his mind, he had put some personal pride and self-love into the work.  How came it therefore that the count, who intended in the evening to drive to Presles openly in his own carriage, should be starting early the next morning incognito in Pierrotin’s coucou?

Here a few words on the life of the steward Moreau become indispensable.

Moreau, steward of the state of Presles, was the son of a provincial attorney who became during the Revolution syndic-attorney at Versailles.  In that position, Moreau the father had been the means of almost saving both the lives and property of the Serizys, father and son.  Citizen Moreau belonged to the Danton party; Robespierre, implacable in his hatreds, pursued him, discovered him, and finally had him executed at Versailles.  Moreau the son, heir to the doctrines and friendships of his father, was concerned in one of the conspiracies which assailed the First Consul on his accession to power.  At this crisis, Monsieur de Serizy, anxious to pay his debt of gratitude, enabled Moreau, lying under sentence of death, to make his escape; in 1804 he asked for his pardon, obtained it, offered him first a place in his government office, and finally took him as private secretary for his own affairs.

Some time after the marriage of his patron Moreau fell in love with the countess’s waiting-woman and married her.  To avoid the annoyances of the false position in which this marriage placed him (more than one example of which could be seen at the imperial court), Moreau asked the count to give him the management of the Presles estate, where his wife could play the lady in a country region, and neither of them would be made to suffer from wounded self-love.  The count wanted a trustworthy man at Presles, for his wife preferred Serizy, an estate only fifteen miles from Paris.  For three or four years Moreau had held the key of the count’s affairs; he was intelligent, and before the Revolution he had studied law in his father’s office; so Monsieur de Serizy granted his request.

“You can never advance in life,” he said to Moreau, “for you have broken your neck; but you can be happy, and I will take care that you are so.”

He gave Moreau a salary of three thousand francs and his residence in a charming lodge near the chateau, all the wood he needed from the timber that was cut on the estate, oats, hay, and straw for two horses, and a right to whatever he wanted of the produce of the gardens.  A sub-prefect is not as well provided for.

During the first eight years of his stewardship, Moreau managed the estate conscientiously; he took an interest in it.  The count, coming down now and then to examine the property, pass judgment on what had been done, and decide on new purchases, was struck with Moreau’s evident loyalty, and showed his satisfaction by liberal gifts.

But after the birth of Moreau’s third child, a daughter, he felt himself so securely settled in all his comforts at Presles that he ceased to attribute to Monsieur de Serizy those enormous advantages.  About the year 1816, the steward, who until then had only taken what he needed for his own use from the estate, accepted a sum of twenty-five thousand francs from a wood-merchant as an inducement to lease to the latter, for twelve years, the cutting of all the timber.  Moreau argued this:  he could have no pension; he was the father of a family; the count really owed him that sum as a gift after ten years’ management; already the legitimate possessor of sixty thousand francs in savings, if he added this sum to that, he could buy a farm worth a hundred and twenty-five thousand francs in Champagne, a township just above Isle-Adam, on the right bank of the Oise.  Political events prevented both the count and the neighboring country-people from becoming aware of this investment, which was made in the name of Madame Moreau, who was understood to have inherited property from an aunt of her father.

As soon as the steward had tasted the delightful fruit of the possession of the property, he began, all the while maintaining toward the world an appearance of the utmost integrity, to lose no occasion of increasing his fortune clandestinely; the interests of his three children served as a poultice to the wounds of his honor.  Nevertheless, we ought in justice to say that while he accepted casks of wine, and took care of himself in all the purchases that he made for the count, yet according to the terms of the Code he remained an honest man, and no proof could have been found to justify an accusation against him.  According to the jurisprudence of the least thieving cook in Paris, he shared with the count in the profits due to his own capable management.  This manner of swelling his fortune was simply a case of conscience, that was all.  Alert, and thoroughly understanding the count’s interests, Moreau watched for opportunities to make good purchases all the more eagerly, because he gained a larger percentage on them.  Presles returned a revenue of seventy thousand francs net.  It was a saying of the country-side for a circuit of thirty miles:—­

“Monsieur de Serizy has a second self in Moreau.”

Being a prudent man, Moreau invested yearly, after 1817, both his profits and his salary on the Grand Livre, piling up his heap with the utmost secrecy.  He often refused proposals on the plea of want of money; and he played the poor man so successfully with the count that the latter gave him the means to send both his sons to the school Henri IV.  At the present moment Moreau was worth one hundred and twenty thousand francs of capital invested in the Consolidated thirds, now paying five per cent, and quoted at eighty francs.  These carefully hidden one hundred and twenty thousand francs, and his farm at Champagne, enlarged by subsequent purchases, amounted to a fortune of about two hundred and eighty thousand francs, giving him an income of some sixteen thousand.

Such was the position of the steward at the time when the Comte de Serizy desired to purchase the farm of Moulineaux,—­the ownership of which was indispensable to his comfort.  This farm consisted of ninety-six parcels of land bordering the estate of Presles, and frequently running into it, producing the most annoying discussions as to the trimming of hedges and ditches and the cutting of trees.  Any other than a cabinet minister would probably have had scores of lawsuits on his hands.  Pere Leger only wished to buy the property in order to sell to the count at a handsome advance.  In order to secure the exorbitant sum on which his mind was set, the farmer had long endeavored to come to an understanding with Moreau.  Impelled by circumstances, he had, only three days before this critical Sunday, had a talk with the steward in the open field, and proved to him clearly that he (Moreau) could make the count invest his money at two and a half per cent, and thus appear to serve his patron’s interests, while he himself pocketed forty thousand francs which Leger offered him to bring about the transaction.

“I tell you what,” said the steward to his wife, as he went to bed that night, “if I make fifty thousand francs out of the Moulineaux affair,—­and I certainly shall, for the count will give me ten thousand as a fee,—­we’ll retire to Isle-Adam and live in the Pavillon de Nogent.”

This “pavillon” was a charming place, originally built by the Prince de Conti for a mistress, and in it every convenience and luxury had been placed.

“That will suit me,” said his wife.  “The Dutchman who lives there has put it in good order, and now that he is obliged to return to India, he would probably let us have it for thirty thousand francs.”

“We shall be close to Champagne,” said Moreau.  “I am in hopes of buying the farm and mill of Mours for a hundred thousand francs.  That would give us ten thousand a year in rentals.  Nogent is one of the most delightful residences in the valley; and we should still have an income of ten thousand from the Grand-Livre.”

“But why don’t you ask for the post of juge-de-paix at Isle-Adam?  That would give us influence, and fifteen hundred a year salary.”

“Well, I did think of it.”

With these plans in mind, Moreau, as soon as he heard from the count that he was coming to Presles, and wished him to invite Margueron to dinner on Saturday, sent off an express to the count’s head-valet, inclosing a letter to his master, which the messenger failed to deliver before Monsieur de Serizy retired at his usually early hour.  Augustin, however, placed it, according to custom in such cases, on his master’s desk.  In this letter Moreau begged the count not to trouble himself to come down, but to trust entirely to him.  He added that Margueron was no longer willing to sell the whole in one block, and talked of cutting the farm up into a number of smaller lots.  It was necessary to circumvent this plan, and perhaps, added Moreau, it might be best to employ a third party to make the purchase.

Everybody has enemies in this life.  Now the steward and his wife had wounded the feelings of a retired army officer, Monsieur de Reybert, and his wife, who were living near Presles.  From speeches like pin-pricks, matters had advanced to dagger-thrusts.  Monsieur de Reybert breathed vengeance.  He was determined to make Moreau lose his situation and gain it himself.  The two ideas were twins.  Thus the proceedings of the steward, spied upon for two years, were no secret to Reybert.  The same conveyance that took Moreau’s letter to the count conveyed Madame de Reybert, whom her husband despatched to Paris.  There she asked with such earnestness to see the count that although she was sent away at nine o’clock, he having then gone to bed, she was ushered into his study the next morning at seven.

“Monsieur,” she said to the cabinet-minister, “we are incapable, my husband and I, of writing anonymous letters, therefore I have come to see you in person.  I am Madame de Reybert, nee de Corroy.  My husband is a retired officer, with a pension of six hundred francs, and we live at Presles, where your steward has offered us insult after insult, although we are persons of good station.  Monsieur de Reybert, who is not an intriguing man, far from it, is a captain of artillery, retired in 1816, having served twenty years,—­always at a distance from the Emperor, Monsieur le comte.  You know of course how difficult it is for soldiers who are not under the eye of their master to obtain promotion,—­not counting that the integrity and frankness of Monsieur de Reybert were displeasing to his superiors.  My husband has watched your steward for the last three years, being aware of his dishonesty and intending to have him lose his place.  We are, as you see, quite frank with you.  Moreau has made us his enemies, and we have watched him.  I have come to tell you that you are being tricked in the purchase of the Moulineaux farm.  They mean to get an extra hundred thousand francs out of you, which are to be divided between the notary, the farmer Leger, and Moreau.  You have written Moreau to invite Margueron, and you are going to Presles to-day; but Margueron will be ill, and Leger is so certain of buying the farm that he is now in Paris to draw the money.  If we have enlightened you as to what is going on, and if you want an upright steward you will take my husband; though noble, he will serve you as he has served the State.  Your steward has made a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand francs out of his place; he is not to be pitied therefore.”

The count thanked Madame de Reybert coldly, bestowing upon her the holy-water of courts, for he despised backbiting; but for all that, he remembered Derville’s doubts, and felt inwardly shaken.  Just then he saw his steward’s letter and read it.  In its assurances of devotion and its respectful reproaches for the distrust implied in wishing to negotiate the purchase for himself, he read the truth.

“Corruption has come to him with fortune,—­as it always does!” he said to himself.

The count then made several inquiries of Madame de Reybert, less to obtain information than to gain time to observe her; and he wrote a short note to his notary telling him not to send his head-clerk to Presles as requested, but to come there himself in time for dinner.

“Though Monsieur le comte,” said Madame de Reybert in conclusion, “may have judged me unfavorably for the step I have taken unknown to my husband, he ought to be convinced that we have obtained this information about his steward in a natural and honorable manner; the most sensitive conscience cannot take exception to it.”

So saying, Madame de Reybert, nee de Corroy, stood erect as a pike-staff.  She presented to the rapid investigation of the count a face seamed with the small-pox like a colander with holes, a flat, spare figure, two light and eager eyes, fair hair plastered down upon an anxious forehead, a small drawn-bonnet of faded green taffetas lined with pink, a white gown with violet spots, and leather shoes.  The count recognized the wife of some poor, half-pay captain, a puritan, subscribing no doubt to the “Courrier Francais,” earnest in virtue, but aware of the comfort of a good situation and eagerly coveting it.

“You say your husband has a pension of six hundred francs,” he said, replying to his own thoughts, and not to the remark Madame de Reybert had just made.

“Yes, monsieur.”

“You were born a Corroy?”

“Yes, monsieur,—­a noble family of Metz, where my husband belongs.”

“In what regiment did Monsieur de Reybert serve?”

“The 7th artillery.”

“Good!” said the count, writing down the number.

He had thought at one time of giving the management of the estate to some retired army officer, about whom he could obtain exact information from the minister of war.

“Madame,” he resumed, ringing for his valet, “return to Presles, this afternoon with my notary, who is going down there for dinner, and to whom I have recommended you.  Here is his address.  I am going myself secretly to Presles, and will send for Monsieur de Reybert to come and speak to me.”

It will thus be seen that Monsieur de Serizy’s journey by a public conveyance, and the injunction conveyed by the valet to conceal his name and rank had not unnecessarily alarmed Pierrotin.  That worthy had just forebodings of a danger which was about to swoop down upon one of his best customers.