Lost Illusions

Lucien proved an apt pupil at whist.  Play became a passion with him; and so far from disapproving, Coralie encouraged his extravagance with the peculiar short-sightedness of an all-absorbing love, which sees nothing beyond the moment, and is ready to sacrifice anything, even the future, to the present enjoyment.  Coralie looked on cards as a safe-guard against rivals.  A great love has much in common with childhood—­a child’s heedless, careless, spendthrift ways, a child’s laughter and tears.

In those days there lived and flourished a set of young men, some of them rich, some poor, and all of them idle, called “free-livers” (viveurs); and, indeed, they lived with incredible insolence —­unabashed and unproductive consumers, and yet more intrepid drinkers.  These spendthrifts mingled the roughest practical jokes with a life not so much reckless as suicidal; they drew back from no impossibility, and gloried in pranks which, nevertheless, were confined within certain limits; and as they showed the most original wit in their escapades, it was impossible not to pardon them.

No sign of the times more plainly discovered the helotism to which the Restoration had condemned the young manhood of the epoch.  The younger men, being at a loss to know what to do with themselves, were compelled to find other outlets for their superabundant energy besides journalism, or conspiracy, or art, or letters.  They squandered their strength in the wildest excesses, such sap and luxuriant power was there in young France.  The hard workers among these gilded youths wanted power and pleasure; the artists wished for money; the idle sought to stimulate their appetites or wished for excitement; one and all of them wanted a place, and one and all were shut out from politics and public life.  Nearly all the “free-livers” were men of unusual mental powers; some held out against the enervating life, others were ruined by it.  The most celebrated and the cleverest among them was Eugene Rastignac, who entered, with de Marsay’s help, upon a political career, in which he has since distinguished himself.  The practical jokes, in which the set indulged became so famous, that not a few vaudevilles have been founded upon them.

Blondet introduced Lucien to this society of prodigals, of which he became a brilliant ornament, ranking next to Bixiou, one of the most mischievous and untiring scoffing wits of his time.  All through that winter Lucien’s life was one long fit of intoxication, with intervals of easy work.  He continued his series of sketches of contemporary life, and very occasionally made great efforts to write a few pages of serious criticism, on which he brought his utmost power of thought to bear.  But study was the exception, not the rule, and only undertaken at the bidding of necessity; dinners and breakfasts, parties of pleasure and play, took up most of his time, and Coralie absorbed all that was left.  He would not think of the morrow.  He saw besides that his so-called friends were leading the same life, earning money easily by writing publishers’ prospectuses and articles paid for by speculators; all of them lived beyond their incomes, none of them thought seriously of the future.

Lucien had been admitted into the ranks of journalism and of literature on terms of equality; he foresaw immense difficulties in the way if he should try to rise above the rest.  Every one was willing to look upon him as an equal; no one would have him for a superior.  Unconsciously he gave up the idea of winning fame in literature, for it seemed easier to gain success in politics.

“Intrigue raises less opposition than talent,” du Chatelet had said one day (for Lucien and the Baron had made up their quarrel); “a plot below the surface rouses no one’s attention.  Intrigue, moreover, is superior to talent, for it makes something out of nothing; while, for the most part, the immense resources of talent only injure a man.”

So Lucien never lost sight of his principal idea; and though to-morrow, following close upon the heels of to-day in the midst of an orgy, never found the promised work accomplished, Lucien was assiduous in society.  He paid court to Mme. de Bargeton, the Marquise d’Espard, and the Comtesse de Montcornet; he never missed a single party given by Mlle. des Touches, appearing in society after a dinner given by authors or publishers, and leaving the salons for a supper given in consequence of a bet.  The demands of conversation and the excitement of play absorbed all the ideas and energy left by excess.  The poet had lost the lucidity of judgment and coolness of head which must be preserved if a man is to see all that is going on around him, and never to lose the exquisite tact which the parvenu needs at every moment.  How should he know how many a time Mme. de Bargeton left him with wounded susceptibilities, how often she forgave him or added one more condemnation to the rest?

Chatelet saw that his rival had still a chance left, so he became Lucien’s friend.  He encouraged the poet in dissipation that wasted his energies.  Rastignac, jealous of his fellow-countryman, and thinking, besides, that Chatelet would be a surer and more useful ally than Lucien, had taken up the Baron’s cause.  So, some few days after the meeting of the Petrarch and Laura of Angouleme, Rastignac brought about the reconciliation between the poet and the elderly beau at a sumptuous supper given at the Rocher de Cancale.  Lucien never returned home till morning, and rose in the middle of the day; Coralie was always at his side, he could not forego a single pleasure.  Sometimes he saw his real position, and made good resolutions, but they came to nothing in his idle, easy life; and the mainspring of will grew slack, and only responded to the heaviest pressure of necessity.

Coralie had been glad that Lucien should amuse himself; she had encouraged him in this reckless expenditure, because she thought that the cravings which she fostered would bind her lover to her.  But tender-hearted and loving as she was, she found courage to advise Lucien not to forget his work, and once or twice was obliged to remind him that he had earned very little during the month.  Their debts were growing frightfully fast.  The fifteen hundred francs which remained from the purchase-money of the Marguerites had been swallowed up at once, together with Lucien’s first five hundred livres.  In three months he had only made a thousand francs, yet he felt as though he had been working tremendously hard.  But by this time Lucien had adopted the “free-livers” pleasant theory of debts.

Debts are becoming to a young man, but after the age of five-and-twenty they are inexcusable.  It should be observed that there are certain natures in which a really poetic temper is united with a weakened will; and these while absorbed in feeling, that they may transmute personal experience, sensation, or impression into some permanent form are essentially deficient in the moral sense which should accompany all observation.  Poets prefer rather to receive their own impressions than to enter into the souls of others to study the mechanism of their feelings and thoughts.  So Lucien neither asked his associates what became of those who disappeared from among them, nor looked into the futures of his so-called friends.  Some of them were heirs to property, others had definite expectations; yet others either possessed names that were known in the world, or a most robust belief in their destiny and a fixed resolution to circumvent the law.  Lucien, too, believed in his future on the strength of various profound axiomatic sayings of Blondet’s:  “Everything comes out all right at last—­If a man has nothing, his affairs cannot be embarrassed—­We have nothing to lose but the fortune that we seek—­Swim with the stream; it will take you somewhere—­A clever man with a footing in society can make a fortune whenever he pleases.”

That winter, filled as it was with so many pleasures and dissipations, was a necessary interval employed in finding capital for the new Royalist paper; Theodore Gaillard and Hector Merlin only brought out the first number of the Reveil in March 1822.  The affair had been settled at Mme. du Val-Noble’s house.  Mme. du val-Noble exercised a certain influence over the great personages, Royalist writers, and bankers who met in her splendid rooms—­“fit for a tale out of the Arabian Nights,” as the elegant and clever courtesan herself used to say—­to transact business which could not be arranged elsewhere.  The editorship had been promised to Hector Merlin.  Lucien, Merlin’s intimate, was pretty certain to be his right-hand man, and a feuilleton in a Ministerial paper had been promised to him besides.  All through the dissipations of that winter Lucien had been secretly making ready for this change of front.  Child as he was, he fancied that he was a deep politician because he concealed the preparation for the approaching transformation-scene, while he was counting upon Ministerial largesses to extricate himself from embarrassment and to lighten Coralie’s secret cares.  Coralie said nothing of her distress; she smiled now, as always; but Berenice was bolder, she kept Lucien informed of their difficulties; and the budding great man, moved, after the fashion of poets, by the tale of disasters, would vow that he would begin to work in earnest, and then forget his resolution, and drown his fleeting cares in excess.  One day Coralie saw the poetic brow overcast, and scolded Berenice, and told her lover that everything would be settled.

Mme. d’Espard and Mme. de Bargeton were waiting for Lucien’s profession of his new creed, so they said, before applying through Chatelet for the patent which should permit Lucien to bear the so-much desired name.  Lucien had proposed to dedicate the Marguerites to Mme. d’Espard, and the Marquise seemed to be not a little flattered by a compliment which authors have been somewhat chary of paying since they became a power in the land; but when Lucien went to Dauriat and asked after his book, that worthy publisher met him with excellent reasons for the delay in its appearance.  Dauriat had this and that in hand, which took up all his time; a new volume by Canalis was coming out, and he did not want the two books to clash; M. de Lamartine’s second series of Meditations was in the press, and two important collections of poetry ought not to appear together.

By this time, however, Lucien’s needs were so pressing that he had recourse to Finot, and received an advance on his work.  When, at a supper-party that evening, the poet journalist explained his position to his friends in the fast set, they drowned his scruples in champagne, iced with pleasantries.  Debts!  There was never yet a man of any power without debts!  Debts represented satisfied cravings, clamorous vices.  A man only succeeds under the pressure of the iron hand of necessity.  Debts forsooth!

“Why, the one pledge of which a great man can be sure, is given him by his friend the pawnbroker,” cried Blondet.

“If you want everything, you must owe for everything,” called Bixiou.

“No,” corrected des Lupeaulx, “if you owe for everything, you have had everything.”

The party contrived to convince the novice that his debts were a golden spur to urge on the horses of the chariot of his fortunes.  There is always the stock example of Julius Caesar with his debt of forty millions, and Friedrich II. on an allowance of one ducat a month, and a host of other great men whose failings are held up for the corruption of youth, while not a word is said of their wide-reaching ideas, their courage equal to all odds.

Creditors seized Coralie’s horses, carriage, and furniture at last, for an amount of four thousand francs.  Lucien went to Lousteau and asked his friend to meet his bill for the thousand francs lent to pay gaming debts; but Lousteau showed him certain pieces of stamped paper, which proved that Florine was in much the same case.  Lousteau was grateful, however, and offered to take the necessary steps for the sale of Lucien’s Archer of Charles IX.

“How came Florine to be in this plight?” asked Lucien.

“The Matifat took alarm,” said Lousteau.  “We have lost him; but if Florine chooses, she can make him pay dear for his treachery.  I will tell you all about it.”

Three days after this bootless errand, Lucien and Coralie were breakfasting in melancholy spirits beside the fire in their pretty bedroom.  Berenice had cooked a dish of eggs for them over the grate; for the cook had gone, and the coachman and servants had taken leave.  They could not sell the furniture, for it had been attached; there was not a single object of any value in the house.  A goodly collection of pawntickets, forming a very instructive octavo volume, represented all the gold, silver, and jewelry.  Berenice had kept back a couple of spoons and forks, that was all.

Lousteau’s newspaper was of service now to Coralie and Lucien, little as they suspected it; for the tailor, dressmaker, and milliner were afraid to meddle with a journalist who was quite capable of writing down their establishments.

Etienne Lousteau broke in upon their breakfast with a shout of “Hurrah!  Long live The Archer of Charles IX.!  And I have converted a hundred francs worth of books into cash, children.  We will go halves.”

He handed fifty francs to Coralie, and sent Berenice out in quest of a more substantial breakfast.

“Hector Merlin and I went to a booksellers’ trade dinner yesterday, and prepared the way for your romance with cunning insinuations.  Dauriat is in treaty, but Dauriat is haggling over it; he won’t give more than four thousand francs for two thousand copies, and you want six thousand francs.  We made you out twice as great as Sir Walter Scott!  Oh! you have such novels as never were in the inwards of you.  It is not a mere book for sale, it is a big business; you are not simply the writer of one more or less ingenious novel, you are going to write a whole series.  The word ‘series’ did it!  So, mind you, don’t forget that you have a great historical series on hand—­La Grande Mademoiselle, or The France of Louis Quatorze; Cotillon I., or The Early Days of Louis Quinze; The Queen and the Cardinal, or Paris and the Fronde; The Son of the Concini, or Richelieu’s Intrigue.  These novels will be announced on the wrapper of the book.  We call this manoeuvre ‘giving a success a toss in the coverlet,’ for the titles are all to appear on the cover, till you will be better known for the books that you have not written than for the work you have done.  And ‘In the Press’ is a way of gaining credit in advance for work that you will do.  Come, now, let us have a little fun!  Here comes the champagne.  You can understand, Lucien, that our men opened eyes as big as saucers.  By the by, I see that you have saucers still left.”

“They are attached,” explained Coralie.

“I understand, and I resume.  Show a publisher one manuscript volume and he will believe in all the rest.  A publisher asks to see your manuscript, and gives you to understand that he is going to read it.  Why disturb his harmless vanity?  They never read a manuscript; they would not publish so many if they did.  Well, Hector and I allowed it to leak out that you might consider an offer of five thousand francs for three thousand copies, in two editions.  Let me have your Archer; the day after to-morrow we are to breakfast with the publishers, and we will get the upper hand of them.”

“Who are they?” asked Lucien.

“Two partners named Fendant and Cavalier; they are two good fellows, pretty straightforward in business.  One of them used to be with Vidal and Porchon, the other is the cleverest hand on the Quai des Augustins.  They only started in business last year, and have lost a little on translations of English novels; so now my gentlemen have a mind to exploit the native product.  There is a rumor current that those dealers in spoiled white paper are trading on other people’s capital; but I don’t think it matters very much to you who finds the money, so long as you are paid.”

Two days later, the pair went to a breakfast in the Rue Serpente, in Lucien’s old quarter of Paris.  Lousteau still kept his room in the Rue de la Harpe; and it was in the same state as before, but this time Lucien felt no surprise; he had been initiated into the life of journalism; he knew all its ups and downs.  Since that evening of his introduction to the Wooden Galleries, he had been paid for many an article, and gambled away the money along with the desire to write.  He had filled columns, not once but many times, in the ingenious ways described by Lousteau on that memorable evening as they went to the Palais Royal.  He was dependent upon Barbet and Braulard; he trafficked in books and theatre-tickets; he shrank no longer from any attack, from writing any panegyric; and at this moment he was in some sort rejoicing to make all he could out of Lousteau before turning his back on the Liberals.  His intimate knowledge of the party would stand him in good stead in future.  And Lousteau, on his side, was privately receiving five hundred francs of purchase-money, under the name of commission, from Fendant and Cavalier for introducing the future Sir Walter Scott to two enterprising tradesmen in search of a French Author of “Waverley.”

The firm of Fendant and Cavalier had started in business without any capital whatsoever.  A great many publishing houses were established at that time in the same way, and are likely to be established so long as papermakers and printers will give credit for the time required to play some seven or eight of the games of chance called “new publications.”  At that time, as at present, the author’s copyright was paid for in bills at six, nine, and twelve months—­a method of payment determined by the custom of the trade, for booksellers settle accounts between themselves by bills at even longer dates.  Papermakers and printers are paid in the same way, so that in practice the publisher-bookseller has a dozen or a score of works on sale for a twelvemonth before he pays for them.  Even if only two or three of these hit the public taste, the profitable speculations pay for the bad, and the publisher pays his way by grafting, as it were, one book upon another.  But if all of them turn out badly; or if, for his misfortune, the publisher-bookseller happens to bring out some really good literature which stays on hand until the right public discovers and appreciates it; or if it costs too much to discount the paper that he receives, then, resignedly, he files his schedule, and becomes a bankrupt with an untroubled mind.  He was prepared all along for something of the kind.  So, all the chances being in favor of the publishers, they staked other people’s money, not their own upon the gaming-table of business speculation.

This was the case with Fendant and Cavalier.  Cavalier brought his experience, Fendant his industry; the capital was a joint-stock affair, and very accurately described by that word, for it consisted in a few thousand francs scraped together with difficulty by the mistresses of the pair.  Out of this fund they allowed each other a fairly handsome salary, and scrupulously spent it all in dinners to journalists and authors, or at the theatre, where their business was transacted, as they said.  This questionably honest couple were both supposed to be clever men of business, but Fendant was more slippery than Cavalier.  Cavalier, true to his name, traveled about, Fendant looked after business in Paris.  A partnership between two publishers is always more or less of a duel, and so it was with Fendant and Cavalier.

They had brought out plenty of romances already, such as the Tour du Nord, Le Marchand de Benares, La Fontaine du Sepulcre, and Tekeli, translations of the works of Galt, an English novelist who never attained much popularity in France.  The success of translations of Scott had called the attention of the trade to English novels.  The race of publishers, all agog for a second Norman conquest, were seeking industriously for a second Scott, just as at a rather later day every one must needs look for asphalt in stony soil, or bitumen in marshes, and speculate in projected railways.  The stupidity of the Paris commercial world is conspicuous in these attempts to do the same thing twice, for success lies in contraries; and in Paris, of all places in the world, success spoils success.  So beneath the title of Strelitz, or Russia a Hundred Years Ago, Fendant and Cavalier rashly added in big letters the words, “In the style of Scott.”

Fendant and Cavalier were in great need of a success.  A single good book might float their sunken bales, they thought; and there was the alluring prospect besides of articles in the newspapers, the great way of promoting sales in those days.  A book is very seldom bought and sold for its just value, and purchases are determined by considerations quite other than the merits of the work.  So Fendant and Cavalier thought of Lucien as a journalist, and of his book as a salable article, which would help them to tide over their monthly settlement.

The partners occupied the ground floor of one of the great old-fashioned houses in the Rue Serpente; their private office had been contrived at the further end of a suite of large drawing-rooms, now converted into warehouses for books.  Lucien and Etienne found the publishers in their office, the agreement drawn up, and the bills ready.  Lucien wondered at such prompt action.

Fendant was short and thin, and by no means reassuring of aspect.  With his low, narrow forehead, sunken nose, and hard mouth, he looked like a Kalmuck Tartar; a pair of small, wide-awake black eyes, the crabbed irregular outline of his countenance, a voice like a cracked bell—­the man’s whole appearance, in fact, combined to give the impression that this was a consummate rascal.  A honeyed tongue compensated for these disadvantages, and he gained his ends by talk.  Cavalier, a stout, thick-set young fellow, looked more like the driver of a mail coach than a publisher; he had hair of a sandy color, a fiery red countenance, and the heavy build and untiring tongue of a commercial traveler.

“There is no need to discuss this affair,” said Fendant, addressing Lucien and Lousteau.  “I have read the work, it is very literary, and so exactly the kind of thing we want, that I have sent it off as it is to the printer.  The agreement is drawn on the lines laid down, and besides, we always make the same stipulations in all cases.  The bills fall due in six, nine, and twelve months respectively; you will meet with no difficulty in discounting them, and we will refund you the discount.  We have reserved the right of giving a new title to the book.  We don’t care for The Archer of Charles IX.; it doesn’t tickle the reader’s curiosity sufficiently; there were several kings of that name, you see, and there were so many archers in the Middle Ages.  If you had only called it the Soldier of Napoleon, now!  But The Archer of Charles IX.!—­why, Cavalier would have to give a course of history lessons before he could place a copy anywhere in the provinces.”

“If you but knew the class of people that we have to do with!” exclaimed Cavalier.

“Saint Bartholomew would suit better,” continued Fendant.

“Catherine de’ Medici, or France under Charles IX., would sound more like one of Scott’s novels,” added Cavalier.

“We will settle it when the work is printed,” said Fendant.

“Do as you please, so long as I approve your title,” said Lucien.

The agreement was read over, signed in duplicate, and each of the contracting parties took their copy.  Lucien put the bills in his pocket with unequaled satisfaction, and the four repaired to Fendant’s abode, where they breakfasted on beefsteaks and oysters, kidneys in champagne, and Brie cheese; but if the fare was something of the homeliest, the wines were exquisite; Cavalier had an acquaintance a traveler in the wine trade.  Just as they sat down to table the printer appeared, to Lucien’s surprise, with the first two proof-sheets.

“We want to get on with it,” Fendant said; “we are counting on your book; we want a success confoundedly badly.”

The breakfast, begun at noon, lasted till five o’clock.

“Where shall we get cash for these things?” asked Lucien as they came away, somewhat heated and flushed with the wine.

“We might try Barbet,” suggested Etienne, and they turned down to the Quai des Augustins.

“Coralie is astonished to the highest degree over Florine’s loss.  Florine only told her about it yesterday; she seemed to lay the blame of it on you, and was so vexed, that she was ready to throw you over.”

“That’s true,” said Lousteau.  Wine had got the better of prudence, and he unbosomed himself to Lucien, ending up with:  “My friend—­for you are my friend, Lucien; you lent me a thousand francs, and you have only once asked me for the money—­shun play!  If I had never touched a card, I should be a happy man.  I owe money all round.  At this moment I have the bailiffs at my heels; indeed, when I go to the Palais Royal, I have dangerous capes to double.”

In the language of the fast set, doubling a cape meant dodging a creditor, or keeping out of his way.  Lucien had not heard the expression before, but he was familiar with the practice by this time.

“Are your debts so heavy?”

“A mere trifle,” said Lousteau.  “A thousand crowns would pull me through.  I have resolved to turn steady and give up play, and I have done a little ‘chantage’ to pay my debts.”

“What is ’chantage’?” asked Lucien.

“It is an English invention recently imported.  A ‘chanteur’ is a man who can manage to put a paragraph in the papers—­never an editor nor a responsible man, for they are not supposed to know anything about it, and there is always a Giroudeau or a Philippe Bridau to be found.  A bravo of this stamp finds up somebody who has his own reasons for not wanting to be talked about.  Plenty of people have a few peccadilloes, or some more or less original sin, upon their consciences; there are plenty of fortunes made in ways that would not bear looking into; sometimes a man has kept the letter of the law, and sometimes he has not; and in either case, there is a tidbit of tattle for the inquirer, as, for instance, that tale of Fouche’s police surrounding the spies of the Prefect of Police, who, not being in the secret of the fabrication of forged English banknotes, were just about to pounce on the clandestine printers employed by the Minister, or there is the story of Prince Galathionne’s diamonds, the Maubreuile affair, or the Pombreton will case.  The ‘chanteur’ gets possession of some compromising letter, asks for an interview; and if the man that made the money does not buy silence, the ‘chanteur’ draws a picture of the press ready to take the matter up and unravel his private affairs.  The rich man is frightened, he comes down with the money, and the trick succeeds.

“You are committed to some risky venture, which might easily be written down in a series of articles; a ‘chanteur’ waits upon you, and offers to withdraw the articles—­for a consideration.  ‘Chanteurs’ are sent to men in office, who will bargain that their acts and not their private characters are to be attacked, or they are heedless of their characters, and anxious only to shield the woman they love.  One of your acquaintance, that charming Master of Requests des Lupeaulx, is a kind of agent for affairs of this sort.  The rascal has made a position for himself in the most marvelous way in the very centre of power; he is the middle-man of the press and the ambassador of the Ministers; he works upon a man’s self-love; he bribes newspapers to pass over a loan in silence, or to make no comment on a contract which was never put up for public tender, and the jackals of Liberal bankers get a share out of it.  That was a bit of ‘chantage’ that you did with Dauriat; he gave you a thousand crowns to let Nathan alone.  In the eighteenth century, when journalism was still in its infancy, this kind of blackmail was levied by pamphleteers in the pay of favorites and great lords.  The original inventor was Pietro Aretino, a great Italian.  Kings went in fear of him, as stage-players go in fear of a newspaper to-day.”

“What did you do to the Matifat to make the thousand crowns?”

“I attacked Florine in half a dozen papers.  Florine complained to Matifat.  Matifat went to Braulard to find out what the attacks meant.  I did my ‘chantage’ for Finot’s benefit, and Finot put Braulard on the wrong scent; Braulard told the man of drugs that you were demolishing Florine in Coralie’s interest.  Then Giroudeau went round to Matifat and told him (in confidence) that the whole business could be accommodated if he (Matifat) would consent to sell his sixth share in Finot’s review for ten thousand francs.  Finot was to give me a thousand crowns if the dodge succeeded.  Well, Matifat was only too glad to get back ten thousand francs out of the thirty thousand invested in a risky speculation, as he thought, for Florine had been telling him for several days past that Finot’s review was doing badly; and, instead of paying a dividend, something was said of calling up more capital.  So Matifat was just about to close with the offer, when the manager of the Panorama-Dramatique comes to him with some accommodation bills that he wanted to negotiate before filing his schedule.  To induce Matifat to take them of him, he let out a word of Finot’s trick.  Matifat, being a shrewd man of business, took the hint, held tight to his sixth, and is laughing in his sleeve at us.  Finot and I are howling with despair.  We have been so misguided as to attack a man who has no affection for his mistress, a heartless, soulless wretch.  Unluckily, too, for us, Matifat’s business is not amenable to the jurisdiction of the press, and he cannot be made to smart for it through his interests.  A druggist is not like a hatter or a milliner, or a theatre or a work of art; he is above criticism; you can’t run down his opium and dyewoods, nor cocoa beans, paint, and pepper.  Florine is at her wits’ end; the Panorama closes to-morrow, and what will become of her she does not know.”

“Coralie’s engagement at the Gymnase begins in a few days,” said Lucien; “she might do something for Florine.”

“Not she!” said Lousteau.  “Coralie is not clever, but she is not quite simple enough to help herself to a rival.  We are in a mess with a vengeance.  And Finot is in such a hurry to buy back his sixth——­”

“Why?”

“It is a capital bit of business, my dear fellow.  There is a chance of selling the paper for three hundred thousand francs; Finot would have one-third, and his partners besides are going to pay him a commission, which he will share with des Lupeaulx.  So I propose to do another turn of ‘chantage.’”

“‘Chantage’ seems to mean your money or your life?”

“It is better than that,” said Lousteau; “it is your money or your character.  A short time ago the proprietor of a minor newspaper was refused credit.  The day before yesterday it was announced in his columns that a gold repeater set with diamonds belonging to a certain notability had found its way in a curious fashion into the hands of a private soldier in the Guards; the story promised to the readers might have come from the Arabian Nights.  The notability lost no time in asking that editor to dine with him; the editor was distinctly a gainer by the transaction, and contemporary history has lost an anecdote.  Whenever the press makes vehement onslaughts upon some one in power, you may be sure that there is some refusal to do a service behind it.  Blackmailing with regard to private life is the terror of the richest Englishman, and a great source of wealth to the press in England, which is infinitely more corrupt than ours.  We are children in comparison!  In England they will pay five or six thousand francs for a compromising letter to sell again.”

“Then how can you lay hold of Matifat?” asked Lucien.

“My dear boy, that low tradesman wrote the queerest letters to Florine; the spelling, style, and matter of them is ludicrous to the last degree.  We can strike him in the very midst of his Lares and Penates, where he feels himself safest, without so much as mentioning his name; and he cannot complain, for he lives in fear and terror of his wife.  Imagine his wrath when he sees the first number of a little serial entitled the Amours of a Druggist, and is given fair warning that his love-letters have fallen into the hands of certain journalists.  He talks about the ‘little god Cupid,’ he tells Florine that she enables him to cross the desert of life (which looks as if he took her for a camel), and spells ‘never’ with two v’s.  There is enough in that immensely funny correspondence to bring an influx of subscribers for a fortnight.  He will shake in his shoes lest an anonymous letter should supply his wife with the key to the riddle.  The question is whether Florine will consent to appear to persecute Matifat.  She has some principles, which is to say, some hopes, still left.  Perhaps she means to keep the letters and make something for herself out of them.  She is cunning, as befits my pupil.  But as soon as she finds out that a bailiff is no laughing matter, or Finot gives her a suitable present or hopes of an engagement, she will give me the letters, and I will sell them to Finot.  Finot will put the correspondence in his uncle’s hands, and Giroudeau will bring Matifat to terms.”

These confidences sobered Lucien.  His first thought was that he had some extremely dangerous friends; his second, that it would be impolitic to break with them; for if Mme. d’Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Chatelet should fail to keep their word with him, he might need their terrible power yet.  By this time Etienne and Lucien had reached Barbet’s miserable bookshop on the Quai.  Etienne addressed Barbet: 

“We have five thousand francs’ worth of bills at six, nine, and twelve months, given by Fendant and Cavalier.  Are you willing to discount them for us?”

“I will give you three thousand francs for them,” said Barbet with imperturbable coolness.

“Three thousand francs!” echoed Lucien.

“Nobody else will give you as much,” rejoined the bookseller.  “The firm will go bankrupt before three months are out; but I happen to know that they have some good books that are hanging on hand; they cannot afford to wait, so I shall buy their stock for cash and pay them with their own bills, and get the books at a reduction of two thousand francs.  That’s how it is.”

“Do you mind losing a couple of thousand francs, Lucien?” asked Lousteau.

“Yes!” Lucien answered vehemently.  He was dismayed by this first rebuff.

“You are making a mistake,” said Etienne.

“You won’t find any one that will take their paper,” said Barbet.  “Your book is their last stake, sir.  The printer will not trust them; they are obliged to leave the copies in pawn with him.  If they make a hit now, it will only stave off bankruptcy for another six months, sooner or later they will have to go.  They are cleverer at tippling than at bookselling.  In my own case, their bills mean business; and that being so, I can afford to give more than a professional discounter who simply looks at the signatures.  It is a bill-discounter’s business to know whether the three names on a bill are each good for thirty per cent in case of bankruptcy.  And here at the outset you only offer two signatures, and neither of them worth ten per cent.”

The two journalists exchanged glances in surprise.  Here was a little scrub of a bookseller putting the essence of the art and mystery of bill-discounting in these few words.

“That will do, Barbet,” said Lousteau.  “Can you tell us of a bill-broker that will look at us?”

“There is Daddy Chaboisseau, on the Quai Saint-Michel, you know.  He tided Fendant over his last monthly settlement.  If you won’t listen to my offer, you might go and see what he says to you; but you would only come back to me, and then I shall offer you two thousand francs instead of three.”

Etienne and Lucien betook themselves to the Quai Saint-Michel, and found Chaboisseau in a little house with a passage entry.  Chaboisseau, a bill-discounter, whose dealings were principally with the book trade, lived in a second-floor lodging furnished in the most eccentric manner.  A brevet-rank banker and millionaire to boot, he had a taste for the classical style.  The cornice was in the classical style; the bedstead, in the purest classical taste, dated from the time of the Empire, when such things were in fashion; the purple hangings fell over the wall like the classic draperies in the background of one of David’s pictures.  Chairs and tables, lamps and sconces, and every least detail had evidently been sought with patient care in furniture warehouses.  There was the elegance of antiquity about the classic revival as well as its fragile and somewhat arid grace.  The man himself, like his manner of life, was in grotesque contrast with the airy mythological look of his rooms; and it may be remarked that the most eccentric characters are found among men who give their whole energies to money-making.

Men of this stamp are, in a certain sense, intellectual libertines.  Everything is within their reach, consequently their fancy is jaded, and they will make immense efforts to shake off their indifference.  The student of human nature can always discover some hobby, some accessible weakness and sensitive spot in their heart.  Chaboisseau might have entrenched himself in antiquity as in an impregnable camp.

“The man will be an antique to match, no doubt,” said Etienne, smiling.

Chaboisseau, a little old person with powdered hair, wore a greenish coat and snuff-brown waistcoat; he was tricked out besides in black small-clothes, ribbed stockings, and shoes that creaked as he came forward to take the bills.  After a short scrutiny, he returned them to Lucien with a serious countenance.

“MM Fendant and Cavalier are delightful young fellows; they have plenty of intelligence; but, I have no money,” he said blandly.

“My friend here would be willing to meet you in the matter of discount——­” Etienne began.

“I would not take the bills on any consideration,” returned the little broker.  The words slid down upon Lousteau’s suggestion like the blade of the guillotine on a man’s neck.

The two friends withdrew; but as Chaboisseau went prudently out with them across the ante-chamber, Lucien noticed a pile of second-hand books.  Chaboisseau had been in the trade, and this was a recent purchase.  Shining conspicuous among them, he noticed a copy of a work by the architect Ducereau, which gives exceedingly accurate plans of various royal palaces and chateaux in France.

“Could you let me have that book?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Chaboisseau, transformed into a bookseller.

“How much?”

“Fifty francs.”

“It is dear, but I want it.  And I can only pay you with one of the bills which you refuse to take.”

“You have a bill there for five hundred francs at six months; I will take that one of you,” said Chaboisseau.

Apparently at the last statement of accounts, there had been a balance of five hundred francs in favor of Fendant and Cavalier.

They went back to the classical department.  Chaboisseau made out a little memorandum, interest so much and commission so much, total deduction thirty francs, then he subtracted fifty francs for Ducerceau’s book; finally, from a cash-box full of coin, he took four hundred and twenty francs.

“Look here, though, M. Chaboisseau, the bills are either all of them good, or all bad alike; why don’t you take the rest?”

“This is not discounting; I am paying myself for a sale,” said the old man.

Etienne and Lucien were still laughing at Chaboisseau, without understanding him, when they reached Dauriat’s shop, and Etienne asked Gabusson to give them the name of a bill-broker.  Gabusson thus appealed to gave them a letter of introduction to a broker in the Boulevard Poissonniere, telling them at the same time that this was the “oddest and queerest party” (to use his own expression) that he, Gabusson, had come across.  The friends took a cab by the hour, and went to the address.

“If Samanon won’t take your bills,” Gabusson had said, “nobody else will look at them.”

A second-hand bookseller on the ground floor, a second-hand clothes-dealer on the first story, and a seller of indecent prints on the second, Samanon carried on a fourth business—­he was a money-lender into the bargain.  No character in Hoffmann’s romances, no sinister-brooding miser of Scott’s, can compare with this freak of human and Parisian nature (always admitting that Samanon was human).  In spite of himself, Lucien shuddered at the sight of the dried-up little old creature, whose bones seemed to be cutting a leather skin, spotted with all sorts of little green and yellow patches, like a portrait by Titian or Veronese when you look at it closely.  One of Samanon’s eyes was fixed and glassy, the other lively and bright; he seemed to keep that dead eye for the bill-discounting part of his profession, and the other for the trade in the pornographic curiosities upstairs.  A few stray white hairs escaping from under a small, sleek, rusty black wig, stood erect above a sallow forehead with a suggestion of menace about it; a hollow trench in either cheek defined the outline of the jaws; while a set of projecting teeth, still white, seemed to stretch the skin of the lips with the effect of an equine yawn.  The contrast between the ill-assorted eyes and grinning mouth gave Samanon a passably ferocious air; and the very bristles on the man’s chin looked stiff and sharp as pins.

Nor was there the slightest sign about him of any desire to redeem a sinister appearance by attention to the toilet; his threadbare jacket was all but dropping to pieces; a cravat, which had once been black, was frayed by contact with a stubble chin, and left on exhibition a throat as wrinkled as a turkey-gobbler’s.