A Start in Life, Honoré de Balzac [the best books to read .TXT] 📗

Messieurs Doublet, second clerk; Vassal, third clerk;
Herisson and Grandemain, clerks; and Dumets, sub-clerk, to
breakfast, Sunday next, at the "Cheval Rouge," on the Quai
Saint-Bernard, where we will celebrate the victory of obtaining
this volume which contains the Charter of our gullets.

This day, Sunday, June 27th, were imbibed twelve bottles of twelve
different wines, regarded as exquisite; also were devoured melons,
"pates au jus romanum," and a fillet of beef with mushroom sauce.
Mademoiselle Mariette, the illustrious sister of our head-clerk
and leading lady of the Royal Academy of music and dancing, having
obligingly put at the disposition of this Practice orchestra seats
for the performance of this evening, it is proper to make this
record of her generosity. Moreover, it is hereby decreed that the
aforesaid clerks shall convey themselves in a body to that noble
demoiselle to thank her in person, and declare to her that on the
occasion of her first lawsuit, if the devil sends her one, she
shall pay the money laid out upon it, and no more.

And our head-clerk Godeschal has been and is hereby proclaimed a
flower of Basoche, and, more especially, a good fellow. May a man
who treats so well be soon in treaty for a Practice of his own!

On this record were stains of wine, pates, and candle-grease. To exhibit the stamp of truth that the writers had managed to put upon these records, we may here give the report of Oscar's own pretended reception:--

This day, Monday, November 25th, 1822, after a session held
yesterday at the rue de la Cerisaie, Arsenal quarter, at the house
of Madame Clapart, mother of the candidate-basochien Oscar Husson,
we, the undersigned, declare that the repast of admission
surpassed our expectations. It was composed of radishes, pink and
black, gherkins, anchovies, butter and olives for hors-d'oeuvre; a
succulent soup of rice, bearing testimony to maternal solicitude,
for we recognized therein a delicious taste of poultry; indeed, by
acknowledgment of the new member, we learned that the gibbets of a
fine stew prepared by the hands of Madame Clapart herself had been
judiciously inserted into the family soup-pot with a care that is
never taken except in such households.

Item: the said gibbets inclosed in a sea of jelly.

Item: a tongue of beef with tomatoes, which rendered us all
tongue-tied automatoes.

Item: a compote of pigeons with caused us to think the angels had
had a finger in it.

Item: a timbale of macaroni surrounded by chocolate custards.

Item: a dessert composed of eleven delicate dishes, among which we
remarked (in spite of the tipsiness caused by sixteen bottles of
the choicest wines) a compote of peaches of august and mirobolant
delicacy.

The wines of Roussillon and those of the banks of the Rhone
completely effaced those of Champagne and Burgundy. A bottle of
maraschino and another of kirsch did, in spite of the exquisite
coffee, plunge us into so marked an oenological ecstasy that we
found ourselves at a late hour in the Bois de Boulogne instead of
our domicile, where we thought we were.

In the statutes of our Order there is one rule which is rigidly
enforced; namely, to allow all candidates for the privilege of
Basoche to limit the magnificence of their feast of welcome to the
length of their purse; for it is publicly notorious that no one
delivers himself up to Themis if he has a fortune, and every clerk
is, alas, sternly curtailed by his parents. Consequently, we
hereby record with the highest praise the liberal conduct of
Madame Clapart, widow, by her first marriage, of Monsieur Husson,
father of the candidate, who is worthy of the hurrahs which we
gave for her at dessert.

To all of which we hereby set our hands.

[Signed by all the clerks.]

Three clerks had already been deceived by the Book, and three real "receptions of welcome," were recorded on this imposing register.

The day after the arrival of each neophyte, the little sub-clerk (the errand-boy and "gutter-jumper") laid upon the new-comer's desk the "Archives Architriclino-Basochiennes," and the clerks enjoyed the sight of his countenance as he studied its facetious pages. Inter pocula each candidate had learned the secret of the farce, and the revelation inspired him with the desire to hoax his successor.

We see now why Oscar, become in his turn participator in the hoax, called out to the little clerk, "Forward, the book!"

Ten minutes later a handsome young man, with a fine figure and pleasant face, presented himself, asked for Monsieur Desroches, and gave his name without hesitation to Godeschal.

"I am Frederic Marest," he said, "and I come to take the place of third clerk."

"Monsieur Husson," said Godeschal to Oscar, "show monsieur his seat and tell him about the customs of the office."

The next day the new clerk found the register lying on his desk. He took it up, but after reading a few pages he began to laugh, said nothing to the assembled clerks, and laid the book down again.

"Messieurs," he said, when the hour of departure came at five o'clock, "I have a cousin who is head clerk of the notary Maitre Leopold Hannequin; I will ask his advice as to what I ought to do for my welcome."

"That looks ill," cried Godeschal, when Frederic had gone, "he hasn't the cut of a novice, that fellow!"

"We'll get some fun out of him yet," said Oscar.


CHAPTER IX, LA MARQUISE DE LAS FLORENTINAS Y CABIROLOS

The following day, at two o'clock, a young man entered the office, whom Oscar recognized as Georges Marest, now head-clerk of the notary Hannequin.

"Ha! here's the friend of Ali pacha!" he exclaimed in a flippant way.

"Hey! you here, Monsieur l'ambassadeur!" returned Georges, recollecting Oscar.

"So you know each other?" said Godeschal, addressing Georges.

"I should think so! We got into a scrape together," replied Georges, "about two years ago. Yes, I had to leave Crottat and go to Hannequin in consequence of that affair."

"What was it?" asked Godeschal.

"Oh, nothing!" replied Georges, at a sign from Oscar. "We tried to hoax a peer of France, and he bowled us over. Ah ca! so you want to jockey my cousin, do you?"

"We jockey no one," replied Oscar, with dignity; "there's our charter."

And he presented the famous register, pointing to a place where sentence of banishment was passed on a refractory who was stated to have been forced, for acts of dishonesty, to leave the office in 1788.

Georges laughed as he looked through the archives.

"Well, well," he said, "my cousin and I are rich, and we'll give you a fete such as you never had before,--something to stimulate your imaginations for that register. To-morrow (Sunday) you are bidden to the Rocher de Cancale at two o'clock. Afterwards, I'll take you to spend the evening with Madame la Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos, where we shall play cards, and you'll see the elite of the women of fashion. Therefore, gentleman of the lower courts," he added, with notarial assumption, "you will have to behave yourselves, and carry your wine like the seigneurs of the Regency."

"Hurrah!" cried the office like one man. "Bravo! very well! vivat! Long live the Marests!"

"What's all this about?" asked Desroches, coming out from his private office. "Ah! is that you, Georges? I know what you are after; you want to demoralize my clerks."

So saying, he withdrew into his own room, calling Oscar after him.

"Here," he said, opening his cash-box, "are five hundred francs. Go to the Palais, and get from the registrar a copy of the decision in Vandernesse against Vandernesse; it must be served to-night if possible. I have promised a PROD of twenty francs to Simon. Wait for the copy if it is not ready. Above all, don't let yourself be fooled; for Derville is capable, in the interest of his clients, to stick a spoke in our wheel. Count Felix de Vandernesse is more powerful than his brother, our client, the ambassador. Therefore keep your eyes open, and if there's the slightest hitch come back to me at once."

Oscar departed with the full intention of distinguishing himself in this little skirmish,--the first affair entrusted to him since his installation as second clerk.

After the departure of Georges and Oscar, Godeschal sounded the new clerk to discover the joke which, as he thought, lay behind this Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos. But Frederic, with the coolness and gravity of a king's attorney, continued his cousin's hoax, and by his way of answering, and his manner generally, he succeeded in making the office believe that the marquise might really be the widow of a Spanish grandee, to whom his cousin Georges was paying his addresses. Born in Mexico, and the daughter of Creole parents, this young and wealthy widow was noted for the easy manners and habits of the women of those climates.

"She loves to laugh, she loves to sing, she loves to drink like me!" he said in a low voice, quoting the well-known song of Beranger. "Georges," he added, "is very rich; he has inherited from his father (who was a widower) eighteen thousand francs a year, and with the twelve thousand which an uncle has just left to each of us, he has an income of thirty thousand. So he pays his debts, and gives up the law. He hopes to be Marquis de las Florentinas, for the young widow is marquise in her own right, and has the privilege of giving her titles to her husband."

Though the clerks were still a good deal undecided in mind as to the marquise, the double perspective of a breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale and a fashionable festivity put them into a state of joyous expectation. They reserved all points as to the Spanish lady, intending to judge her without appeal after the meeting.

The Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos was neither more nor less than Mademoiselle Agathe-Florentine Cabirolle, first danseuse at the Gaiete, with whom uncle Cardot was in the habit of singing "Mere Godichon." A year after the very reparable loss of Madame Cardot, the successful merchant encountered Florentine as she was leaving Coulon's dancing-class. Attracted by the beauty of that choregraphic flower (Florentine was then about thirteen years of age), he followed her to the rue Pastourel, where he found that the future star of the ballet was the daughter of a portress. Two weeks later, the mother and daughter, established in the rue de Crussol, were enjoying a modest competence. It was to this protector of the arts--to use the consecrated phrase--that the theatre owed the brilliant danseuse. The generous Maecenas made two beings almost beside themselves with joy in the possession of mahogany furniture, hangings, carpets, and a regular kitchen; he allowed them a woman-of-all-work, and gave them two hundred and fifty francs a month for their living. Pere Cardot, with his hair in "pigeon-wings," seemed like