Lost Illusions

“If your brother, madame, had been well advised, he would have been on the way to honors, and Mme. de Bargeton’s husband by this time; but what can you expect?  He deserted her and insulted her.  She is now Mme. la Comtesse Sixte du Chatelet, to her own great regret, for she loved Lucien.”

“Is it possible!” exclaimed Mme. Sechard.

“Your brother is like a young eagle, blinded by the first rays of glory and luxury.  When an eagle falls, who can tell how far he may sink before he drops to the bottom of some precipice?  The fall of a great man is always proportionately great.”

Eve came away with a great dread in her heart; those last words pierced her like an arrow.  She had been wounded to the quick.  She said not a word to anybody, but again and again a tear rolled down her cheeks, and fell upon the child at her breast.  So hard is it to give up illusions sanctioned by family feeling, illusions that have grown with our growth, that Eve had doubted Eugene de Rastignac.  She would rather hear a true friend’s account of her brother.  Lucien had given them d’Arthez’s address in the days when he was full of enthusiasm for the brotherhood; she wrote a pathetic letter to d’Arthez, and received the following reply:—­

D’Arthez to Mme. Sechard.

“MADAME,—­You ask me to tell you the truth about the life that your brother is leading in Paris; you are anxious for enlightenment as to his prospects; and to encourage a frank answer on my part, you repeat certain things that M. de Rastignac has told you, asking me if they are true.  With regard to the purely personal matter, madame, M. de Rastignac’s confidences must be corrected in Lucien’s favor.  Your brother wrote a criticism of my book, and brought it to me in remorse, telling me that he could not bring himself to publish it, although obedience to the orders of his party might endanger one who was very dear to him.  Alas! madame, a man of letters must needs comprehend all passions, since it is his pride to express them; I understood that where a mistress and a friend are involved, the friend is inevitably sacrificed.  I smoothed your brother’s way; I corrected his murderous article myself, and gave it my full approval.

“You ask whether Lucien has kept my friendship and esteem; to this it is difficult to make an answer.  Your brother is on a road that leads him to ruin.  At this moment I still feel sorry for him; before long I shall have forgotten him, of set purpose, not so much on account of what he has done already as for that which he inevitably will do.  Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in emotion, he does not create.  He is, in fact—­permit me to say it —­a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman’s great failing.  Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the pleasure of displaying his own wit.  He would not hesitate to sign a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years of luxurious and glorious life.  Nay, has he not done worse already?  He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights of living openly with an actress.  So far, he has not seen the dangers of his position; the girl’s youth and beauty and devotion (for she worships him) have closed his eyes to the truth; he cannot see that no glory or success or fortune can induce the world to accept the position.  Very well, as it is now, so it will be with each new temptation—­your brother will not look beyond the enjoyment of the moment.  Do not be alarmed:  Lucien will never go so far as a crime, he has not the strength of character; but he would take the fruits of a crime, he would share the benefit but not the risk—­a thing that seems abhorrent to the whole world, even to scoundrels.  Oh, he would despise himself, he would repent; but bring him once more to the test, and he would fail again; for he is weak of will, he cannot resist the allurements of pleasure, nor forego the least of his ambitions.  He is indolent, like all who would fain be poets; he thinks it clever to juggle with the difficulties of life instead of facing and overcoming them.  He will be brave at one time, cowardly at another, and deserves neither credit for his courage, nor blame for his cowardice.  Lucien is like a harp with strings that are slackened or tightened by the atmosphere.  He might write a great book in a glad or angry mood, and care nothing for the success that he had desired for so long.

“When he first came to Paris he fell under the influence of an unprincipled young fellow, and was dazzled by his companion’s adroitness and experience in the difficulties of a literary life.  This juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path.  The admiration that is given too readily is a sign of want of judgment; a poet ought not to be paid in the same coin as a dancer on the tight-rope.  We all felt hurt when intrigue and literary rascality were preferred to the courage and honor of those who counseled Lucien rather to face the battle than to filch success, to spring down into the arena rather than become a trumpet in the orchestra.

“Society, madame, oddly enough, shows plentiful indulgence to young men of Lucien’s stamp; they are popular, the world is fascinated by their external gifts and good looks.  Nothing is asked of them, all their sins are forgiven; they are treated like perfect natures, others are blind to their defects, they are the world’s spoiled children.  And, on the other hand, the world is stern beyond measure to strong and complete natures.  Perhaps in this apparently flagrant injustice society acts sublimely, taking a harlequin at his just worth, asking nothing of him but amusement, promptly forgetting him; and asking divine great deeds of those before whom she bends the knee.  Everything is judged by laws of its being; the diamond must be flawless; the ephemeral creation of fashion may be flimsy, bizarre, inconsequent.  So Lucien may perhaps succeed to admiration in spite of his mistakes; he has only to profit by some happy vein or to be among good companions; but if an evil angel crosses his path, he will go to the very depths of hell.  ’Tis a brilliant assemblage of good qualities embroidered upon too slight a tissue; time wears the flowers away till nothing but the web is left; and if that is poor stuff, you behold a rag at the last.  So long as Lucien is young, people will like him; but where will he be as a man of thirty?  That is the question which those who love him sincerely are bound to ask themselves.  If I alone had come to think in this way of Lucien, I might perhaps have spared you the pain which my plain speaking will give you; but to evade the questions put by your anxiety, and to answer a cry of anguish like your letter with commonplaces, seemed to me alike unworthy of you and of me, whom you esteem too highly; and besides, those of my friends who knew Lucien are unanimous in their judgment.  So it appeared to me to be a duty to put the truth before you, terrible though it may be.  Anything may be expected of Lucien, anything good or evil.  That is our opinion, and this letter is summed up in that sentence.  If the vicissitudes of his present way of life (a very wretched and slippery one) should bring the poet back to you, use all your influence to keep him among you; for until his character has acquired stability, Paris will not be safe for him.  He used to speak of you, you and your husband, as his guardian angels; he has forgotten you, no doubt; but he will remember you again when tossed by tempest, with no refuge left to him but his home.  Keep your heart for him, madame; he will need it.

“Permit me, madame, to convey to you the expression of the sincere respect of a man to whom your rare qualities are known, a man who honors your mother’s fears so much, that he desires to style himself your devoted servant,

“D’ARTHEZ.”

Two days after the letter came, Eve was obliged to find a wet-nurse; her milk had dried up.  She had made a god of her brother; now, in her eyes, he was depraved through the exercise of his noblest faculties; he was wallowing in the mire.  She, noble creature that she was, was incapable of swerving from honesty and scrupulous delicacy, from all the pious traditions of the hearth, which still burns so clearly and sheds its light abroad in quiet country homes.  Then David had been right in his forecasts!  The leaden hues of grief overspread Eve’s white brow.  She told her husband her secret in one of the pellucid talks in which married lovers tell everything to each other.  The tones of David’s voice brought comfort.  Though the tears stood in his eyes when he knew that grief had dried his wife’s fair breast, and knew Eve’s despair that she could not fulfil a mother’s duties, he held out reassuring hopes.

“Your brother’s imagination has let him astray, you see, child.  It is so natural that a poet should wish for blue and purple robes, and hurry as eagerly after festivals as he does.  It is a bird that loves glitter and luxury with such simple sincerity, that God forgives him if man condemns him for it.”

“But he is draining our lives!” exclaimed poor Eve.

“He is draining our lives just now, but only a few months ago he saved us by sending us the first fruits of his earnings,” said the good David.  He had the sense to see that his wife was in despair, was going beyond the limit, and that love for Lucien would very soon come back.  “Fifty years ago, or thereabouts, Mercier said in his Tableau de Paris that a man cannot live by literature, poetry, letters, or science, by the creatures of his brain, in short; and Lucien, poet that he is, would not believe the experience of five centuries.  The harvests that are watered with ink are only reaped ten or twelve years after the sowing, if indeed there is any harvest after all.  Lucien has taken the green wheat for the sheaves.  He will have learned something of life, at any rate.  He was the dupe of a woman at the outset; he was sure to be duped afterwards by the world and false friends.  He has bought his experience dear, that is all.  Our ancestors used to say, ’If the son of the house brings back his two ears and his honor safe, all is well——­’”

“Honor!” poor Eve broke in.  “Oh, but Lucien has fallen in so many ways!  Writing against his conscience!  Attacking his best friend!  Living upon an actress!  Showing himself in public with her.  Bringing us to lie on straw——­”

“Oh, that is nothing——!” cried David, and suddenly stopped short.  The secret of Lucien’s forgery had nearly escaped him, and, unluckily, his start left a vague, uneasy impression on Eve.

“What do you mean by nothing?” she answered.  “And where shall we find the money to meet bills for three thousand francs?”

“We shall be obliged to renew the lease with Cerizet, to begin with,” said David.  “The Cointets have been allowing him fifteen per cent on the work done for them, and in that way alone he has made six hundred francs, besides contriving to make five hundred francs by job printing.”

“If the Cointets know that, perhaps they will not renew the lease.  They will be afraid of him, for Cerizet is a dangerous man.”

“Eh! what is that to me!” cried David, “we shall be rich in a very little while.  When Lucien is rich, dear angel, he will have nothing but good qualities.”

“Oh!  David, my dear, my dear; what is this that you have said unthinkingly?  Then Lucien fallen into the clutches of poverty would not have the force of character to resist evil?  And you think just as M. d’Arthez thinks!  No one is great unless he has strength of character, and Lucien is weak.  An angel must not be tempted—­what is that?”

“What but a nature that is noble only in its own region, its own sphere, its heaven?  I will spare him the struggle; Lucien is not meant for it.  Look here!  I am so near the end now that I can talk to you about the means.”

He drew several sheets of white paper from his pocket, brandished them in triumph, and laid them on his wife’s lap.

“A ream of this paper, royal size, would cost five francs at the most,” he added, while Eve handled the specimens with almost childish surprise.

“Why, how did you make these sample bits?” she asked.

“With an old kitchen sieve of Marion’s.”

“And are you not satisfied yet?” asked Eve.

“The problem does not lie in the manufacturing process; it is a question of the first cost of the pulp.  Alas, child, I am only a late comer in a difficult path.  As long ago as 1794, Mme. Masson tried to use printed paper a second time; she succeeded, but what a price it cost!  The Marquis of Salisbury tried to use straw as a material in 1800, and the same idea occurred to Seguin in France in 1801.  Those sheets in your hand are made from the common rush, the arundo phragmites, but I shall try nettles and thistles; for if the material is to continue to be cheap, one must look for something that will grow in marshes and waste lands where nothing else can be grown.  The whole secret lies in the preparation of the stems.  At present my method is not quite simple enough.  Still, in spite of this difficulty, I feel sure that I can give the French paper trade the privilege of our literature; papermaking will be for France what coal and iron and coarse potter’s clay are for England—­a monopoly.  I mean to be the Jacquart of the trade.”

Eve rose to her feet.  David’s simple-mindedness had roused her to enthusiasm, to admiration; she held out her arms to him and held him tightly to her, while she laid her head upon his shoulder.

“You give me my reward as if I had succeeded already,” he said.

For all answer, Eve held up her sweet face, wet with tears, to his, and for a moment she could not speak.

“The kiss was not for the man of genius,” she said, “but for my comforter.  Here is a rising glory for the glory that has set; and, in the midst of my grief for the brother that has fallen so low, my husband’s greatness is revealed to me.—­Yes, you will be great, great like the Graindorges, the Rouvets, and Van Robais, and the Persian who discovered madder, like all the men you have told me about; great men whom nobody remembers, because their good deeds were obscure industrial triumphs.”

“What are they doing just now?”

It was Boniface Cointet who spoke.  He was walking up and down outside in the Place du Murier with Cerizet watching the silhouettes of the husband and wife on the blinds.  He always came at midnight for a chat with Cerizet, for the latter played the spy upon his former master’s every movement.

“He is showing her the paper he made this morning, no doubt,” said Cerizet.

“What is it made of?” asked the paper manufacturer.

“Impossible to guess,” answered Cerizet; “I made a hole in the roof and scrambled up and watched the gaffer; he was boiling pulp in a copper pan all last night.  There was a heap of stuff in a corner, but I could make nothing of it; it looked like a heap of tow, as near as I could make out.”

“Go no farther,” said Boniface Cointet in unctuous tones; “it would not be right.  Mme. Sechard will offer to renew your lease; tell her that you are thinking of setting up for yourself.  Offer her half the value of the plant and license, and, if she takes the bid, come to me.  In any case, spin the matter out. . . .  Have they no money?”

“Not a sou,” said Cerizet.

“Not a sou,” repeated tall Cointet.—­“I have them now,” said he to himself.

Metivier, paper manufacturers’ wholesale agent, and Cointet Brothers, printers and paper manufacturers, were also bankers in all but name.  This surreptitious banking system defies all the ingenuity of the Inland Revenue Department.  Every banker is required to take out a license which, in Paris, costs five hundred francs; but no hitherto devised method of controlling commerce can detect the delinquents, or compel them to pay their due to the Government.  And though Metivier and the Cointets were “outside brokers,” in the language of the Stock Exchange, none the less among them they could set some hundreds of thousands of francs moving every three months in the markets of Paris, Bordeaux, and Angouleme.  Now it so fell out that that very evening Cointet Brothers had received Lucien’s forged bills in the course of business.  Upon this debt, tall Cointet forthwith erected a formidable engine, pointed, as will presently be seen, against the poor, patient inventor.

By seven o’clock next morning, Boniface Cointet was taking a walk by the mill stream that turned the wheels in his big factory; the sound of the water covered his talk, for he was talking with a companion, a young man of nine-and-twenty, who had been appointed attorney to the Court of First Instance in Angouleme some six weeks ago.  The young man’s name was Pierre Petit-Claud.

“You are a schoolfellow of David Sechard’s, are you not?” asked tall Cointet by way of greeting to the young attorney.  Petit-Claud had lost no time in answering the wealthy manufacturer’s summons.

“Yes, sir,” said Petit-Claud, keeping step with tall Cointet.

“Have you renewed the acquaintance?”

“We have met once or twice at most since he came back.  It could hardly have been otherwise.  In Paris I was buried away in the office or at the courts on week-days, and on Sundays and holidays I was hard at work studying, for I had only myself to look to.” (Tall Cointet nodded approvingly.) “When we met again, David and I, he asked me what I had done with myself.  I told him that after I had finished my time at Poitiers, I had risen to be Maitre Olivet’s head-clerk, and that some time or other I hoped to make a bid for his berth.  I know a good deal more of Lucien Chardon (de Rubempre he calls himself now), he was Mme. de Bargeton’s lover, our great poet, David Sechard’s brother-in-law, in fact.”

“Then you can go and tell David of your appointment, and offer him your services,” said tall Cointet.

“One can’t do that,” said the young attorney.

“He has never had a lawsuit, and he has no attorney, so one can do that,” said Cointet, scanning the other narrowly from behind his colored spectacles.

A certain quantity of gall mingled with the blood in Pierre Petit-Claud’s veins; his father was a tailor in L’Houmeau, and his schoolfellows had looked down upon him.  His complexion was of the muddy and unwholesome kind which tells a tale of bad health, late hours and penury, and almost always of a bad disposition.  The best description of him may be given in two familiar expressions—­he was sharp and snappish.  His cracked voice suited his sour face, meagre look, and magpie eyes of no particular color.  A magpie eye, according to Napoleon, is a sure sign of dishonesty.  “Look at So-and-so,” he said to Las Cases at Saint Helena, alluding to a confidential servant whom he had been obliged to dismiss for malversation.  “I do not know how I could have been deceived in him for so long; he has a magpie eye.”  Tall Cointet, surveying the weedy little lawyer, noted his face pitted with smallpox, the thin hair, and the forehead, bald already, receding towards a bald cranium; saw, too, the confession of weakness in his attitude with the hand on the hip.  “Here is my man,” said he to himself.

As a matter of fact, this Petit-Claud, who had drunk scorn like water, was eaten up with a strong desire to succeed in life; he had no money, but nevertheless he had the audacity to buy his employer’s connection for thirty thousand francs, reckoning upon a rich marriage to clear off the debt, and looking to his employer, after the usual custom, to find him a wife, for an attorney always has an interest in marrying his successor, because he is the sooner paid off.  But if Petit-Claud counted upon his employer, he counted yet more upon himself.  He had more than average ability, and that of a kind not often found in the provinces, and rancor was the mainspring of his power.  A mighty hatred makes a mighty effort.

There is a great difference between a country attorney and an attorney in Paris; tall Cointet was too clever not to know this, and to turn the meaner passions that move a pettifogging lawyer to good account.  An eminent attorney in Paris, and there are many who may be so qualified, is bound to possess to some extent the diplomate’s qualities; he had so much business to transact, business in which large interests are involved; questions of such wide interest are submitted to him that he does not look upon procedure as machinery for bringing money into his pocket, but as a weapon of attack and defence.  A country attorney, on the other hand, cultivates the science of costs, broutille, as it is called in Paris, a host of small items that swell lawyers’ bills and require stamped paper.  These weighty matters of the law completely fill the country attorney’s mind; he has a bill of costs always before his eyes, whereas his brother of Paris thinks of nothing but his fees.  The fee is a honorarium paid by a client over and above the bill of costs, for the more or less skilful conduct of his case.  One-half of the bill of costs goes to the Treasury, whereas the entire fee belongs to the attorney.  Let us admit frankly that the fees received are seldom as large as the fees demanded and deserved by a clever lawyer.  Wherefore, in Paris, attorneys, doctors, and barristers, like courtesans with a chance-come lover, take very considerable precautions against the gratitude of clients.  The client before and after the lawsuit would furnish a subject worthy of Meissonier; there would be brisk bidding among attorneys for the possession of two such admirable bits of genre.

There is yet another difference between the Parisian and the country attorney.  An attorney in Paris very seldom appears in court, though he is sometimes called upon to act as arbitrator (refere).  Barristers, at the present day, swarm in the provinces; but in 1822 the country attorney very often united the functions of solicitor and counsel.  As a result of this double life, the attorney acquired the peculiar intellectual defects of the barrister, and retained the heavy responsibilities of the attorney.  He grew talkative and fluent, and lost his lucidity of judgment, the first necessity for the conduct of affairs.  If a man of more than ordinary ability tries to do the work of two men, he is apt to find that the two men are mediocrities.  The Paris attorney never spends himself in forensic eloquence; and as he seldom attempts to argue for and against, he has some hope of preserving his mental rectitude.  It is true that he brings the balista of the law to work, and looks for the weapons in the armory of judicial contradictions, but he keeps his own convictions as to the case, while he does his best to gain the day.  In a word, a man loses his head not so much by thinking as by uttering thoughts.  The spoken word convinces the utterer; but a man can act against his own bad judgment without warping it, and contrive to win in a bad cause without maintaining that it is a good one, like the barrister.  Perhaps for this very reason an old attorney is the more likely of the two to make a good judge.

A country attorney, as we have seen, has plenty of excuses for his mediocrity; he takes up the cause of petty passions, he undertakes pettifogging business, he lives by charging expenses, he strains the Code of procedure and pleads in court.  In a word, his weak points are legion; and if by chance you come across a remarkable man practising as a country attorney, he is indeed above the average level.

“I thought, sir, that you sent for me on your own affairs,” said Petit-Claud, and a glance that put an edge on his words fell upon tall Cointet’s impenetrable blue spectacles.

“Let us have no beating about the bush,” returned Boniface Cointet.  “Listen to me.”

After that beginning, big with mysterious import, Cointet set himself down upon a bench, and beckoned Petit-Claud to do likewise.

“When M. du Hautoy came to Angouleme in 1804, on his way to his consulship at Valence, he made the acquaintance of Mme. de Senonches, then Mlle. Zephirine, and had a daughter by her,” added Cointet for the attorney’s ear——­“Yes,” he continued, as Petit-Claud gave a start; “yes, and Mlle. Zephirine’s marriage with M. de Senoches soon followed the birth of the child.  The girl was brought up in my mother’s house; she is the Mlle. Francoise de la Haye in whom Mme. de Senoches takes an interest; she is her godmother in the usual style.  Now, my mother farmed land belonging to old Mme. de Cardanet, Mlle. Zephirine’s grandmother; and as she knew the secret of the sole heiress of the Cardanets and the Senonches of the older branch, they made me trustee for the little sum which M. Francois du Hautoy meant for the girl’s fortune.  I made my own fortune with those ten thousand francs, which amount to thirty thousand at the present day.  Mme. de Senonches is sure to give the wedding clothes, and some plate and furniture to her goddaughter.  Now, I can put you in the way of marrying the girl, my lad,” said Cointet, slapping Petit-Claud on the knee; “and when you marry Francoise de la Haye, you will have a large number of the aristocracy of Angouleme as your clients.  This understanding between us (under the rose) will open up magnificent prospects for you.  Your position will be as much as any one could want; in fact, they don’t ask better, I know.”

“What is to be done?” Petit-Claud asked eagerly.  “You have an attorney, Maitre Cachan——­”

“And, moreover, I shall not leave Cachan at once for you; I shall only be your client later on,” said Cointet significantly.  “What is to be done, do you ask, my friend?  Eh! why, David Sechard’s business.  The poor devil has three thousand francs’ worth of bills to meet; he will not meet them; you will stave off legal proceedings in such a way as to increase the expenses enormously.  Don’t trouble yourself; go on, pile on items.  Doublon, my process-server, will act under Cachan’s directions, and he will lay on like a blacksmith.  A word to the wise is sufficient.  Now, young man?——­”

An eloquent pause followed, and the two men looked at each other.

“We have never seen each other,” Cointet resumed; “I have not said a syllable to you; you know nothing about M. du Hautoy, nor Mme. de Senonches, nor Mlle. de la Haye; only, when the time comes, two months hence, you will propose for the young lady.  If we should want to see each other, you will come here after dark.  Let us have nothing in writing.”

“Then you mean to ruin Sechard?” asked Petit-Claud.

“Not exactly; but he must be in jail for some time——­”

“And what is the object?”

“Do you think that I am noodle enough to tell you that?  If you have wit enough to find out, you will have sense enough to hold your tongue.”

“Old Sechard has plenty of money,” said Petit-Claud.  He was beginning already to enter into Boniface Cointet’s notions, and foresaw a possible cause of failure.

“So long as the father lives, he will not give his son a farthing; and the old printer has no mind as yet to send in an order for his funeral cards.”

“Agreed!” said Petit-Claud, promptly making up his mind.  “I don’t ask you for guarantees; I am an attorney.  If any one plays me a trick, there will be an account to settle between us.”

“The rogue will go far,” thought Cointet; he bade Petit-Claud good-morning.

The day after this conference was the 30th of April, and the Cointets presented the first of the three bills forged by Lucien.  Unluckily, the bill was brought to poor Mme. Sechard; and she, seeing at once that the signature was not in her husband’s handwriting, sent for David and asked him point-blank: 

“You did not put your name to that bill, did you?”

“No,” said he; “your brother was so pressed for time that he signed for me.”

Eve returned the bill to the bank messenger sent by the Cointets.

“We cannot meet it,” she said; then, feeling that her strength was failing, she went up to her room.  David followed her.

“Go quickly to the Cointets, dear,” Eve said faintly; “they will have some consideration for you; beg them to wait; and call their attention besides to the fact that when Cerizet’s lease is renewed, they will owe you a thousand francs.”

David went forthwith to his enemies.  Now, any foreman may become a master printer, but there are not always the makings of a good man of business in a skilled typographer; David knew very little of business; when, therefore, with a heavily-beating heart and a sensation of throttling, David had put his excuses badly enough and formulated his request, the answer—­“This is nothing to do with us; the bill has been passed on to us by Metivier; Metivier will pay us.  Apply to M. Metivier”—­cut him short at once.

“Oh!” cried Eve when she heard the result, “as soon as the bill is returned to M. Metivier, we may be easy.”

At two o’clock the next day, Victor-Ange-Hermenegilde Doublon, bailiff, made protest for non-payment at two o’clock, a time when the Place du Murier is full of people; so that though Doublon was careful to stand and chat at the back door with Marion and Kolb, the news of the protest was known all over the business world of Angouleme that evening.  Tall Cointet had enjoined it upon Master Doublon to show the Sechards the greatest consideration; but when all was said and done, could the bailiff’s hypocritical regard for appearances save Eve and David from the disgrace of a suspension of payment?  Let each judge for himself.  A tolerably long digression of this kind will seem all too short; and ninety out of every hundred readers shall seize with avidity upon details that possess all the piquancy of novelty, thus establishing yet once again the trust of the well-known axiom, that there is nothing so little known as that which everybody is supposed to know—­the Law of the Land, to wit.

And of a truth, for the immense majority of Frenchmen, a minute description of some part of the machinery of banking will be as interesting as any chapter of foreign travel.  When a tradesman living in one town gives a bill to another tradesman elsewhere (as David was supposed to have done for Lucien’s benefit), the transaction ceases to be a simple promissory note, given in the way of business by one tradesman to another in the same place, and becomes in some sort a letter of exchange.  When, therefore, Metivier accepted Lucien’s three bills, he was obliged to send them for collection to his correspondents in Angouleme—­to Cointet Brothers, that is to say.  Hence, likewise, a certain initial loss for Lucien in exchange on Angouleme, taking the practical shape of an abatement of so much per cent over and above the discount.  In this way Sechard’s bills had passed into circulation in the bank.  You would not believe how greatly the quality of banker, united with the august title of creditor, changes the debtor’s position.  For instance, when a bill has been passed through the bank (please note that expression), and transferred from the money market in Paris to the financial world of Angouleme, if that bill is protested, then the bankers in Angouleme must draw up a detailed account of the expenses of protest and return; ’tis a duty which they owe to themselves.  Joking apart, no account of the most romantic adventure could be more mildly improbable than this of the journey made by a bill.  Behold a certain article in the Code of commerce authorizing the most ingenious pleasantries after Mascarille’s manner, and the interpretation thereof shall make apparent manifold atrocities lurking beneath the formidable word “legal.”

Master Doublon registered the protest and went himself with it to MM.  Cointet Brothers.  The firm had a standing account with their bailiff; he gave them six months’ credit; and the lynxes of Angouleme practically took a twelvemonth, though tall Cointet would say month by month to the lynxes’ jackal, “Do you want any money, Doublon?” Nor was this all.  Doublon gave the influential house a rebate upon every transaction; it was the merest trifle, one franc fifty centimes on a protest, for instance.

Tall Cointet quietly sat himself down at his desk and took out a small sheet of paper with a thirty-five centime stamp upon it, chatting as he did so with Doublon as to the standing of some of the local tradesmen.

“Well, are you satisfied with young Gannerac?”

“He is not doing badly.  Lord, a carrier drives a trade——­”

“Drives a trade, yes; but, as a matter of fact, his expenses are a heavy pull on him; his wife spends a good deal, so they tell me——­”

“Of his money?” asked Doublon, with a knowing look.

The lynx meanwhile had finished ruling his sheet of paper, and now proceeded to trace the ominous words at the head of the following account in bold characters:—­

ACCOUNT OF EXPENSES OF PROTEST AND RETURN.

<i>To one bill for</i> one thousand francs, <i>bearing date of February the
tenth, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, drawn by</i> Sechard junior <i>of
Angouleme, to order of</i> Lucien Chardon, <i>otherwise</i> de Rubempre,
<i>endorsed to order of</i> Metivier, <i>and finally to our order, matured
the thirtieth of April last, protested by</i> Doublon, <i>process-server,
on the first of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two.</i>
fr.    c.&#160;
Principal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000   --
Expenses of Protest. . . . . . . . . . . . .   12   35
Bank charges, one-half per cent. . . . . . .    5   --
Brokerage, one-quarter per cent. . . . . . .    2   50
Stamp on re-draft and present account. . . .    1   35
Interest and postage . . . . . . . . . . . .    3   --
____ ____
1024   20
Exchange at the rate of one and a quarter
per cent on 1024 fr. 20 c.. . . . . . . .   13   25
____ ____
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037   45

  One thousand and thirty-seven francs forty-five centimes, for
  which we repay ourselves by our draft at sight upon M. Metivier,
  Rue Serpente, Paris, payable to order of M. Gannerac of L’Houmeau.

    ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822 COINTET BROTHERS.

At the foot of this little memorandum, drafted with the ease that comes of long practice (for the writer chatted with Doublon as he wrote), there appeared the subjoined form of declaration:—­

“We, the undersigned, Postel of L’Houmeau, pharmaceutical chemist, and Gannerac, forwarding agent, merchant of this town, hereby certify that the present rate of exchange on Paris is one and a quarter per cent.

  “ANGOULEME, May 2, 1822.”

“Here, Doublon, be so good as to step round and ask Postel and Gannerac to put their names to this declaration, and bring it back with you to-morrow morning.”

And Doublon, quite accustomed as he was to these instruments of torture, forthwith went, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.  Evidently the protest might have been sent in an envelope, as in Paris, and even so all Angouleme was sure to hear of the poor Sechards’ unlucky predicament.  How they all blamed his want of business energy!  His excessive fondness for his wife had been the ruin of him, according to some; others maintained that it was his affection for his brother-in-law; and what shocking conclusions did they not draw from these premises!  A man ought never to embrace the interests of his kith and kin.  Old Sechard’s hard-hearted conduct met with approval, and people admired him for his treatment of his son!

And now, all you who for any reason whatsoever should forget to “honor your engagements,” look well into the methods of the banking business, by which one thousand francs may be made to pay interest at the rate of twenty-eight francs in ten minutes, without breaking the law of the land.

The thousand francs, the one incontestable item in the account, comes first.

The second item is shared between the bailiff and the Inland Revenue Department.  The six francs due to the State for providing a piece of stamped paper, and putting the debtor’s mortification on record, will probably ensure a long life to this abuse; and as you already know, one franc fifty centimes from this item found its way into the banker’s pockets in the shape of Doublon’s rebate.

“Bank charges one-half per cent,” runs the third item, which appears upon the ingenious plea that if a banker has not received payment, he has for all practical purposes discounted a bill.  And although the contrary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs, it seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.  Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under the humble title of “charges,” representing a premium on the financial genius and skill with which the capitalist puts his money out to interest.  The more money he makes out of you, the more he asks.  Wherefore it would be undoubtedly cheaper to discount a bill with a fool, if fools there be in the profession of bill-discounting.

The law requires the banker to obtain a stock-broker’s certificate for the rate of exchange.  When a place is so unlucky as to boast no stock exchange, two merchants act instead.  This is the significance of the item “brokerage”; it is a fixed charge of a quarter per cent on the amount of the protested bill.  The custom is to consider the amount as paid to the merchants who act for the stock-broker, and the banker quietly puts the money into his cash-box.  So much for the third item in this delightful account.

The fourth includes the cost of the piece of stamped paper on which the account itself appears, as well as the cost of the stamp for re-draft, as it is ingeniously named, viz., the banker’s draft upon his colleague in Paris.

The fifth is a charge for postage and the legal interest due upon the amount for the time that it may happen to be absent from the banker’s strong box.

The final item, the exchange, is the object for which the bank exists, which is to say, for the transmission of sums of money from one place to another.

Now, sift this account thoroughly, and what do you find?  The method of calculation closely resembles Polichinelle’s arithmetic in Lablache’s Neapolitan song, “fifteen and five make twenty-two.”  The signatures of Messieurs Postel and Gannerac were obviously given to oblige in the way of business; the Cointets would act at need for Gannerac as Gannerac acted for the Cointets.  It was a practical application of the well-known proverb, “Reach me the rhubarb and I will pass you the senna.”  Cointet Brothers, moreover, kept a standing account with Metivier; there was no need of a re-draft, and no re-draft was made.  A returned bill between the two firms simply meant a debit or credit entry and another line in a ledger.

This highly-colored account, therefore, is reduced to the one thousand francs, with an additional thirteen francs for expenses of protest, and half per cent for a month’s delay, one thousand and eighteen francs it may be in all.

Suppose that in a large banking-house a bill for a thousand francs is daily protested on an average, then the banker receives twenty-eight francs a day by the grace of God and the constitution of the banking system, that all powerful invention due to the Jewish intellect of the Middle Ages, which after six centuries still controls monarchs and peoples.  In other words, a thousand francs would bring such a house twenty-eight francs per day, or ten thousand two hundred and twenty francs per annum.  Triple the average of protests, and consequently of expenses, and you shall derive an income of thirty thousand francs per annum, interest upon purely fictitious capital.  For which reason, nothing is more lovingly cultivated than these little “accounts of expenses.”

If David Sechard had come to pay his bill on the 3rd of May, that is, the day after it was protested, MM.  Cointet Brothers would have met him at once with, “We have returned your bill to M. Metivier,” although, as a matter of fact, the document would have been lying upon the desk.  A banker has a right to make out the account of expenses on the evening of the day when the bill is protested, and he uses the right to “sweat the silver crowns,” in the country banker’s phrase.