Bureaucracy, Honoré de Balzac [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

you shall be made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the ministry after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send in your name in a batch for the peerage."

"You are a man of honor, and I accept."

This is how it came to pass that Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, whose father was ennobled under Louis XV., and who beareth quarterly, first, argent, a wolf ravisant carrying a lamb gules; second, purpure, three mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent; fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules; supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.

Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of the place, and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two nephews of old Antoine, who had recently retired on a pension.

"Well, Laurent, how is your chief of division going on?"

"Oh, don't talk to me about him; I can't do anything with him. He rings me up to ask if I have seen his handkerchief or his snuff-box. He receives people without making them wait; in short, he hasn't a bit of dignity. I'm often obliged to say to him: But, monsieur, monsieur le comte your predecessor, for the credit of the thing, used to punch holes with his penknife in the arms of his chair to make believe he was working. And he makes such a mess of his room. I find everything topsy-turvy. He has a very small mind. How about your man?"

"Mine? Oh, I have succeeded in training him. He knows exactly where his letter-paper and envelopes, his wood, and his boxes and all the rest of his things are. The other man used to swear at me, but this one is as meek as a lamb,--still, he hasn't the grand style! Moreover, he isn't decorated, and I don't like to serve a chief who isn't; he might be taken for one of us, and that's humiliating. He carries the office letter-paper home, and asked me if I couldn't go there and wait at table when there was company."

"Hey! what a government, my dear fellow!"

"Yes, indeed; everybody plays low in these days."

"I hope they won't cut down our poor wages."

"I'm afraid they will. The Chambers are prying into everything. Why, they even count the sticks of wood."

"Well, it can't last long if they go on that way."

"Hush, we're caught! somebody is listening."

"Hey! it is the late Monsieur Rabourdin. Ah, monsieur, I knew your step. If you have business to transact here I am afraid you will not find any one who is aware of the respect that ought to be paid to you; Laurent and I are the only persons remaining about the place who were here in your day. Messieurs Colleville and Baudoyer didn't wear out the morocco of the chairs after you left. Heavens, no! six months later they were made Collectors of Paris."

* * * * *


Note.--Anagrams cannot, of course, be translated; that is why three English ones have been substituted for some in French. [Tr.]


ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Baudoyer, Isidore
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons

Bianchon, Horace
Father Goriot
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche

Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
Gobseck
The Vendetta
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
A Daughter of Eve

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
A Man of Business
Gaudissart II.
The Unconscious Humorists
Cousin Pons

Brezacs (The)
The Country Parson

Bruel, Jean Francois du
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Daughter of Eve

Camps, Madame Octave de
Madame Firmiani
A Woman of Thirty
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis

Chaboisseau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Man of Business

Chatelet, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, Baronne du
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Chessel, Madame de
The Lily of the Valley

Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel
Cesar Birotteau
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes

Colleville
The Middle Classes

Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes

Desplein
The Atheist's Mass
Cousin Pons
Lost Illusions
The Thirteen
Pierrette
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Seamy Side of History
Modest Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine

Desroches (son)
A Bachelor's Establishment
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
A Woman of Thirty
The Commission in Lunacy
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes

Dutocq
The Middle Classes

Falleix, Martin
The Firm of Nucingen

Falleix, Jacques
The Thirteen
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Ferraud, Comtesse
Colonel Chabert

Finot, Andoche
Cesar Birotteau
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Start in Life
Gaudissart the Great
The Firm of Nucingen

Fleury
The Middle Classes

Fontaine, Comte de
The Chouans
Modeste Mignon
The Ball at Sceaux
Cesar Birotteau

Fontanon, Abbe
A Second Home
Honorine
The Member for Arcis

Gaudron, Abbe
Honorine
A Start in Life

Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
Gobseck
Father Goriot
Cesar Birotteau
The Unconscious Humorists

Godard, Joseph
The Middle Classes

Granson, Athanase
Jealousies of a Country Town

Gruget, Madame Etienne
The Thirteen
A Bachelor's Establishment

Keller, Francois
Domestic Peace
Cesar Birotteau
Eugenie Grandet
The Member for Arcis

La Bastie la Briere, Ernest de
Modeste Mignon

La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de
The Chouans
Cesar Birotteau

Laudigeois
The Middle Classes

Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier
The Chouans
The Seamy Side of History
The Gondreville Mystery
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Ball at Sceaux
The Lily of the Valley
Colonel Chabert

Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
The Muse of the Department
Eugenie Grandet
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Ursule Mirouet

Metivier
Lost Illusions
The Middle Classes

Minard, Auguste-Jean-Francois
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes

Minard, Madame
The Middle Classes

Minorets, The
The Peasantry

Mitral
Cesar Birotteau

Nathan, Madame Raoul
The Muse of the Department
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Bachelor's Establishment
Ursule Mirouet
Eugenie Grandet
The Imaginary Mistress
A Prince of Bohemia
A Daughter of Eve
The Unconscious Humorists

Phellion
The Middle Classes

Poiret, the elder
Father Goriot
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Middle Classes

Rabourdin, Xavier
At