The Lesser Bourgeoisie, Honore de Balzac [good book recommendations .TXT] 📗

saying are

like the horse and its rider) ricochetted, so to speak, to this

company. Monsieur Minard was always impatiently expected, for he was

certain to know the truth of important circumstances. The women of the

Thuillier salon held by the Jesuits; the men defended the University;

and, as a general thing, the women listened. A man of intelligence

(could he have borne the dulness of these evenings) would have

laughed, as he would at a comedy of Moliere, on hearing, amid endless

discussion, such remarks as the following:--

 

"How could the Revolution of 1789 have been avoided? The loans of

Louis XIV. prepared the way for it. Louis XV., an egotist, a man of

narrow mind (didn't he say, 'If I were lieutenant of police I would

suppress cabriolets'?), that dissolute king--you remember his Parc aux

Cerfs?--did much to open the abyss of revolution. Monsieur de Necker,

an evil-minded Genovese, set the thing a-going. Foreigners have always

tried to injure France. The maximum did great harm to the Revolution.

Legally Louis XVI. should never have been condemned; a jury would have

acquitted him. Why did Charles X. fall? Napoleon was a great man, and

the facts that prove his genius are anecdotal: he took five pinches of

snuff a minute out of a pocket lined with leather made in his

waistcoat. He looked into all his tradesmen's accounts; he went to

Saint-Denis to judge for himself the prices of things. Talma was his

friend; Talma taught him his gestures; nevertheless, he always refused

to give Talma the Legion of honor! The emperor mounted guard for a

sentinel who went to sleep, to save him from being shot. Those were

the things that made his soldiers adore him. Louis XVIII., who

certainly had some sense, was very unjust in calling him Monsieur de

Buonaparte. The defect of the present government is in letting itself

be led instead of leading. It holds itself too low. It is afraid of

men of energy. It ought to have torn up all the treaties of 1815 and

demanded the Rhine. They keep the same men too long in the ministry";

etc., etc.

 

"Come, you've exerted your minds long enough," said Mademoiselle

Thuillier, interrupting one of these luminous talks; "the altar is

dressed; begin your little game."

 

If these anterior facts and all these generalities were not placed

here as the frame of the present Scene, to give an idea of the spirit

of this society, the following drama would certainly have suffered

greatly. Moreover, this sketch is historically faithful; it shows a

social stratum of importance in any portrayal of manners and morals,

especially when we reflect that the political system of the Younger

branch rests almost wholly upon it.

 

The winter of the year 1839 was, it may be said, the period when the

Thuillier salon was in its greatest glory. The Minards came nearly

every Sunday, and began their evening by spending an hour there, if

they had other engagements elsewhere. Often Minard would leave his

wife at the Thuilliers and take his son and daughter to other houses.

This assiduity on the part of the Minards was brought about by a

somewhat tardy meeting between Messieurs Metivier, Barbet, and Minard

on an evening when the two former, being tenants of Mademoiselle

Thuillier, remained rather longer than usual in discussing business

with her. From Barbet, Minard learned that the old maid had money

transactions with himself and Metivier to the amount of sixty thousand

francs, besides having a large deposit in the Bank.

 

"Has she an account at the Bank?" asked Minard.

 

"I believe so," replied Barbet. "I give her at least eighty thousand

francs there."

 

Being on intimate terms with a governor of the Bank, Minard

ascertained that Mademoiselle Thuillier had, in point of fact, an

account of over two hundred thousand francs, the result of her

quarterly deposits for many years. Besides this, she owned the house

they lived in, which was not mortgaged, and was worth at least one

hundred thousand francs, if not more.

 

"Why should Mademoiselle Thuillier work in this way?" said Minard to

Metivier. "She'd be a good match for you," he added.

 

"I? oh, no," replied Metivier. "I shall do better by marrying a

cousin; my uncle Metivier has given me the succession to his business;

he has a hundred thousand francs a year and only two daughters."

 

However secretive Mademoiselle Thuillier might be,--and she said

nothing of her investments to any one, not even to her brother,

although a large amount of Madame Thuillier's fortune went to swell

the amount of her own savings,--it was difficult to prevent some ray

of light from gliding under the bushel which covered her treasure.

 

Dutocq, who frequented Barbet, with whom he had some resemblance in

character and countenance, had appraised, even more correctly than

Minard, the Thuillier finances. He knew that their savings amounted,

in 1838, to one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he followed

their progress secretly, calculating profits by the help of that

all-wise money-lender, Barbet.

 

"Celeste will have from my brother and myself two hundred thousand

francs in ready money," the old maid had said to Barbet in confidence,

"and Madame Thuillier wishes to secure to her by the marriage contract

the ultimate possession of her own fortune. As for me, my will is

made. My brother will have everything during his lifetime, and Celeste

will be my heiress with that reservation. Monsieur Cardot, the notary,

is my executor."

 

Mademoiselle Thuillier now instigated her brother to renew his former

relations with the Saillards, Baudoyers, and others, who held a

position similar to that of the Thuilliers in the quartier

Saint-Antoine, of which Monsieur Saillard was mayor. Cardot, the notary,

had produced his aspirant for Celeste's hand in the person of Monsieur

Godeschal, attorney and successor to Derville; an able man, thirty-six

years of age, who had paid one hundred thousand francs for his

practice, which the two hundred thousand of the "dot" would doubly

clear off. Minard, however, got rid of Godeschal by informing

Mademoiselle Thuillier that Celeste's sister-in-law would be the

famous Mariette of the Opera.

 

"She came from the stage," said Colleville, alluding to his wife, "and

there's no need she should return to it."

 

"Besides, Monsieur Godeschal is too old for Celeste," remarked

Brigitte.

 

"And ought we not," added Madame Thuillier, timidly, "to let her marry

according to her own taste, so as to be happy?"

 

The poor woman had detected in Felix Phellion a true love for Celeste;

the love that a woman crushed by Brigitte and wounded by her husband's

indifference (for Thuillier cared less for his wife than he did for a

servant) had dreamed that love might be,--bold in heart, timid

externally, sure of itself, reserved, hidden from others, but

expanding toward heaven. At twenty-three years of age, Felix Phellion

was a gentle, pure-minded young man, like all true scholars who

cultivate knowledge for knowledge's sake. He had been sacredly brought

up by his father, who, viewing all things seriously, had given him

none but good examples accompanied by trivial maxims. He was a young

man of medium height, with light chestnut hair, gray eyes, and a skin

full of freckles; gifted with a charming voice, a tranquil manner;

making few gestures; thoughtful, saying little, and that little

sensible; contradicting no one, and quite incapable of a sordid

thought or a selfish calculation.

 

"That," thought Madame Thuillier, "is what I should have liked my

husband to be."

 

One evening, in the month of February, 1840, the Thuillier salon

contained the various personages whose silhouettes we have just traced

out, together with some others. It was nearly the end of the month.

Barbet and Metivier having business with mademoiselle Brigitte, were

playing whist with Minard and Phellion. at another table were Julien

the advocate (a nickname given by Colleville to young Minard), Madame

Colleville, Monsieur Barniol, and Madame Phellion. "Bouillotte," at

five sous a stake, occupied Madame Minard, who knew no other game,

Colleville, old Monsieur Saillard, and Bandoze, his son-in-law. The

substitutes were Laudigeois and Dutocq. Mesdames Falleix, Baudoyer,

Barniol, and Mademoiselle Minard were playing boston, and Celeste was

sitting beside Prudence Minard. Young Phellion was listening to Madame

Thuillier and looking at Celeste.

 

At a corner of the fireplace sat enthroned on a sofa the Queen

Elizabeth of the family, as simply dressed as she had been for the

last thirty years; for no prosperity could have made her change her

habits. She wore on her chinchilla hair a black gauze cap, adorned

with the geranium called Charles X.; her gown, of plum-colored stuff,

made with a yoke, cost fifteen francs, her embroidered collarette was

worth six, and it ill disguised the deep wrinkle produced by the two

muscles which fastened the head to the vertebral column. The actor,

Monvel, playing Augustus Caesar in his old age, did not present a

harder and sterner profile than that of this female autocrat, knitting

socks for her brother. Before the fireplace stood Thuillier in an

attitude, ready to go forward and meet the arriving guests; near him

was a young man whose entrance had produced a great effect, when the

porter (who on Sundays wore his best clothes and waited on the

company) announced Monsieur Olivier Vinet.

 

A private communication made by Cardot to the celebrated

"procureur-general," father of this young man, was the cause of his

visit. Olivier Vinet had just been promoted from the court of

Arcis-sur-Aube to that of the Seine, where he now held the post of

substitute "procureur-de-roi." Cardot had already invited Thuillier

and the elder Vinet, who was likely to become minister of justice,

with his son, to dine with him. The notary estimated the fortunes

which would eventually fall to Celeste at seven hundred thousand

francs. Vinet junior appeared charmed to obtain the right to visit

the Thuilliers on Sundays. Great dowries make men commit great and

unbecoming follies without reserve or decency in these days.

 

Ten minutes later another young man, who had been talking with

Thuillier before the arrival of Olivier Vinet, raised his voice

eagerly, in a political discussion, and forced the young magistrate to

follow his example in the vivacious argument which now ensued. The

matter related to the vote by which the Chamber of Deputies had just

overthrown the ministry of the 12th of May, refusing the allowance

demanded for the Duc de Nemours.

 

"Assuredly," said the young man, "I am far from belonging to the

dynastic party; I am very far from approving of the rise of the

bourgeoisie to power. The bourgeoisie ought not, any more than the

aristocracy of other days, to assume to be the whole nation. But the

French bourgeoisie has now taken upon itself to create a new dynasty,

a royalty of its own, and behold how it treats it! When the people

allowed Napoleon to rise to power, it created with him a splendid and

monumental state of things; it was proud of his grandeur; and it nobly

gave its blood and sweat in building up the edifice of the Empire.

Between the magnificence of the aristocratic throne and those of the

imperial purple, between the great of the earth and the People, the

bourgeoisie is proving itself petty; it degrades power to its own

level instead of rising up to it. The saving of candle-ends it has so

long practised behind its counters, it now seeks to impose on its

princes. What may perhaps have been virtue in its shops is a blunder

and a crime higher up. I myself have wanted many things for the

people, but I never should have begun by lopping off ten millions of

francs from the new civil list. In becoming, as it were, nearly the

whole of France, the bourgeoisie owed to us the prosperity of the

people, splendor without ostentation, grandeur without privilege."

 

The father of Olivier Vinet was just now sulking with the government.

The robe of Keeper of the Seals, which had been his dream, was slow in

coming to him. The young substitute did not, therefore, know exactly

how to answer this speech; he thought it wise to enlarge on one of its

side issues.

 

"You are right, monsieur," said Olivier Vinet. "But, before

manifesting itself magnificently, the bourgeoisie has other duties to

fulfil towards France. The luxury you speak of should come after duty.

That which seems to you so blameable is the necessity of the moment.

The Chamber is far from having its full share in public affairs; the

ministers are less for France than they are for the crown, and

parliament has determined that the administration shall have, as in

England, a strength and power of its own, and not a mere borrowed

power. The day on which the administration can act for itself, and

represent the Chamber as the Chamber represents the country,

parliament will be found very liberal toward the crown. The whole

question is there. I state it without expressing my own opinion, for

the duties of my post demand, in politics, a certain fealty to the

crown."

 

"Setting aside the political question," replied the young man, whose

voice and accent were those of a native