CHAPTER IV

THREE-QUARTER LENGTH PORTRAITS OF CERTAIN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

If it were possible for literature to use the microscope of the

Leuwenhoeks, the Malpighis, and the Raspails (an attempt once made by

Hoffman, of Berlin), and if we could magnify and then picture the

teredos navalis, in other words, those ship-worms which brought

Holland within an inch of collapsing by honey-combing her dykes, we

might have been able to give a more distinct idea of Messieurs

Gigonnet, Baudoyer, Saillard, Gaudron, Falleix, Transon, Godard and

company, borers and burrowers, who proved their undermining power in

the thirtieth year of this century.

But now it is time to show another set of teredos, who burrowed and

swarmed in the government offices where the principal scenes of our

present study took place.

In Paris nearly all these government bureaus resemble each other. Into

whatever ministry you penetrate to ask some slight favor, or to get

redress for a trifling wrong, you will find the same dark corridors,

ill-lighted stairways, doors with oval panes of glass like eyes, as at

the theatre. In the first room as you enter you will find the office

servant; in the second, the under-clerks; the private office of the

second head-clerk is to the right or left, and further on is that of

the head of the bureau. As to the important personage called, under

the Empire, head of division, then, under the Restoration, director,

and now by the former name, head or chief of division, he lives either

above or below the offices of his three or four different bureaus.

Speaking in the administrative sense, a bureau consists of a man-

servant, several supernumeraries (who do the work gratis for a certain

number of years), various copying clerks, writers of bills and deeds,

order clerks, principal clerks, second or under head-clerk, and head-

clerk, otherwise called head or chief of the bureau. These

denominational titles vary under some administrations; for instance,

the order-clerks are sometimes called auditors, or again, book-

keepers.

Paved like the corridor, and hung with a shabby paper, the first room,

where the servant is stationed, is furnished with a stove, a large

black table with inkstand, pens, and paper, and benches, but no mats

on which to wipe the public feet. The clerk's office beyond is a large

room, tolerably well lighted, but seldom floored with wood. Wooden

floors and fireplaces are commonly kept sacred to heads of bureaus and

divisions; and so are closets, wardrobes, mahogany tables, sofas and

armchairs covered with red or green morocco, silk curtains, and other

articles of administrative luxury. The clerk's office contents itself

with a stove, the pipe of which goes into the chimney, if there be a

chimney. The wall paper is plain and all of one color, usually green

or brown. The tables are of black wood. The private characteristics of

the several clerks often crop out in their method of settling

themselves at their desks,--the chilly one has a wooden footstool

under his feet; the man with a bilious temperament has a metal mat;

the lymphatic being who dreads draughts constructs a fortification of

boxes on a screen. The door of the under-head-clerk's office always

stands open so that he may keep an eye to some extent on his

subordinates.

Perhaps an exact description of Monsieur de la Billardiere's division

will suffice to give foreigners and provincials an idea of the

internal manners and customs of a government office; the chief

features of which are probably much the same in the civil service of

all European governments.

In the first place, picture to yourself the man who is thus described

in the Yearly Register:--

"Chief of Division.--Monsieur la baron Flamet de la Billardiere

(Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel) formerly provost-marshal of the

department of the Correze, gentleman in ordinary of the bed-

chamber, president of the college of the department of the

Dordogne, officer of the Legion of honor, knight of Saint Louis

and of the foreign orders of Christ, Isabella, Saint Wladimir,

etc., member of the Academy of Gers, and other learned bodies,

vice-president of the Society of Belles-lettres, member of the

Association of Saint-Joseph and of the Society of Prisons, one of

the mayors of Paris, etc."

The person who requires so much typographic space was at this time

occupying an area five feet six in length by thirty-six inches in

width in a bed, his head adorned with a cotton night-cap tied on by

flame-colored ribbons; attended by Despleins, the King's surgeon, and

young doctor Bianchon, flanked by two old female relatives, surrounded

by phials of all kinds, bandages, appliances, and various mortuary

instruments, and watched over by the curate of Saint-Roch, who was

advising him to think of his salvation.

La Billardiere's division occupied the upper floor of a magnificent

mansion, in which the vast official ocean of a ministry was contained.

A wide landing separated its two bureaus, the doors of which were duly

labelled. The private offices and antechambers of the heads of the two

bureaus, Monsieur Rabourdin and Monsieur Baudoyer, were below on the

second floor, and beyond that of Monsieur Rabourdin were the

antechamber, salon, and two offices of Monsieur de la Billardiere.

On the first floor, divided in two by an entresol, were the living

rooms and office of Monsieur Ernest de la Briere, an occult and

powerful personage who must be described in a few words, for he well

deserves the parenthesis. This young man held, during the whole time

that this particular administration lasted, the position of private

secretary to the minister. His apartment was connected by a secret

door with the private office of his Excellency. A private secretary is

to the minister himself what des Lupeaulx was to the ministry at

large. The same difference existed between young La Briere and des

Lupeaulx that there is between an aide-de-camp and a chief of staff.

This ministerial apprentice decamps when his protector leaves office,

returning sometimes when he returns. If the minister enjoys the royal

favor when he falls, or still has parliamentary hopes, he takes his

secretary with him into retirement only to bring him back on his

return; otherwise he puts him to grass in some of the various

administrative pastures,--for instance, in the Court of Exchequer,

that wayside refuge where private secretaries wait for the storm to

blow over. The young man is not precisely a government official; he is

a political character, however; and sometimes his politics are limited

to those of one man. When we think of the number of letters it is the

private secretary's fate to open and read, besides all his other

avocations, it is very evident that under a monarchical government his

services would be well paid for. A drudge of this kind costs ten or

twenty thousand francs a year; and he enjoys, moreover, the opera-

boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of the minister. The

Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty thousand a

year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle, so

nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and span,--

careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But the private

secretary is a product of the representative government hot-house; he

is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under a monarchy

you will find none but courtiers and vassals, whereas under a

constitutional government you may be flattered, served, and adulated

by free men. In France ministers are better off than kings or women;

they have some one who thoroughly understands them. Perhaps, indeed,

the private secretary is to be pitied as much as women and white

paper. They are nonentities who are made to bear all things. They are

allowed no talents except hidden ones, which must be employed in the

service of their ministers. A public show of talent would ruin them.

The private secretary is therefore an intimate friend in the gift of

government-- However, let us return to the bureaus.

Three men-servants lived in peace in the Billardiere division, to wit:

a footman for the two bureaus, another for the service of the two

chiefs, and a third for the director of the division himself. All

three were lodged, warmed, and clothed by the State, and wore the

well-known livery of the State, blue coat with red pipings for

undress, and broad red, white, and blue braid for great occasions. La

Billardiere's man had the air of a gentleman-usher, an innovation

which gave an aspect of dignity to the division.

Pillars of the ministry, experts in all manners and customs

bureaucratic, well-warmed and clothed at the State's expense, growing

rich by reason of their few wants, these lackeys saw completely

through the government officials, collectively and individually. They

had no better way of amusing their idle hours than by observing these

personages and studying their peculiarities. They knew how far to

trust the clerks with loans of money, doing their various commissions

with absolute discretion; they pawned and took out of pawn, bought up

bills when due, and lent money without interest, albeit no clerk ever

borrowed of them without returning a "gratification." These servants

without a master received a salary of nine hundred francs a year; new

years' gifts and "gratifications" brought their emoluments to twelve

hundred francs, and they made almost as much money by serving

breakfasts to the clerks at the office.

The elder of these men, who was also the richest, waited upon the main

body of the clerks. He was sixty years of age, with white hair cropped

short like a brush; stout, thickset, and apoplectic about the neck,

with a vulgar pimpled face, gray eyes, and a mouth like a furnace

door; such was the profile portrait of Antoine, the oldest attendant

in the ministry. He had brought his two nephews, Laurent and Gabriel,

from Echelles in Savoie,--one to serve the heads of the bureaus, the

other the director himself. All three came to open the offices and

clean them, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning; at which

time they read the newspapers and talked civil service politics from

their point of view with the servants of other divisions, exchanging

the bureaucratic gossip. In common with servants of modern houses who

know their masters' private affairs thoroughly, they lived at the

ministry like spiders at the centre of a web, where they felt the

slightest jar of the fabric.

On a Thursday evening, the day after the ministerial reception and

Madame Rabourdin's evening party, just as Antoine was trimming his

beard and his nephews were assisting him in the antechamber of the

division on the upper floor, they were surprised by the unexpected

arrival of one of the clerks.

"That's Monsieur Dutocq," said Antoine. "I know him by that pickpocket

step of his. He is always moving round on the sly, that man. He is on

your back before you know it. Yesterday, contrary to his usual ways,

he outstayed the last man in the office; such a thing hasn't happened

three times since he has been at the ministry."

Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the

Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious

skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows

meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right

shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat,

silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes

with flapping bows; thus you behold him. Idle and incapable, he hated

Rabourdin,--naturally enough, for Rabourdin had no vice to flatter,

and no bad or weak side on which Dutocq could make himself useful. Far

too noble to injure a clerk, the chief was also too clear-sighted to

be deceived by any make-believe. Dutocq kept his place therefore

solely through Rabourdin's generosity, and was very certain that he

could never be promoted if the latter succeeded La Billardiere. Though

he knew himself incapable of important work, Dutocq was well aware

that in a government office incapacity was no hindrance to

advancement; La Billardiere's own appointment over the head of so

capable a man as Rabourdin had been a striking and fatal example of

this. Wickedness combined with self-interest works with a power

equivalent to that of intellect; evilly disposed and wholly self-

interested, Dutocq had endeavoured to strengthen his position by

becoming a spy in all the offices. After 1816 he assumed a marked

religious tone, foreseeing the favor which the fools of those days

would bestow on those they indiscriminately called Jesuits. Belonging

to that fraternity in spirit, though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq

went from bureau to bureau, sounded consciences by recounting immoral

jests, and then reported and paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the

latter thus learned all the trivial events of the ministry, and often

surprised the minister by his consummate knowledge of what was going

on. He tolerated Dutocq under the idea that circumstances might some

day make him useful, were it only to get him or some distinguished

friend of his out of a scrape by a disgraceful marriage. The two

understood each other well. Dutocq had succeeded Monsieur Poiret the

elder, who had retired in 1814, and now lived in the pension Vanquer

in the Latin quarter. Dutocq himself lived in a pension in the rue de

Beaune, and spent his evenings in the Palais-Royal, sometimes going to

the theatre, thanks to du Bruel, who gave him an author's ticket about

once a week. And now, a word on du Bruel.

Though Sebastien did his work at the office for the small compensation

we have mentioned, du Bruel was in the habit of coming there to

advertise the fact that he was the under-head-clerk and to draw his

salary. His real work was that of dramatic critic to a leading

ministerial journal, in which he also wrote articles inspired by the

ministers,--a very well understood, clearly defined, and quite

unassailable position. Du Bruel was not lacking in those diplomatic

little tricks which go so far to conciliate general good-will. He sent

Madame Rabourdin an opera-box for a first representation, took her

there in a carriage and brought her back,--an attention which

evidently pleased her. Rabourdin, who was never exacting with his

subordinates allowed du Bruel to go off to rehearsals, come to the

office at his own hours, and work at his vaudevilles when there.

Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu, the minister, knew that du Bruel was

writing a novel which was to be dedicated to himself. Dressed with the

careless ease of a theatre man, du Bruel wore, in the morning,

trousers strapped under his feet, shoes with gaiters, a waistcoat

evidently vamped over, an olive surtout, and a black cravat. At night

he played the gentleman in elegant clothes. He lived, for good

reasons, in the same house as Florine, an actress for whom he wrote

plays. Du Bruel, or to give him his pen name, Cursy, was working just

now at a piece in five acts for the Francais. Sebastien was devoted to

the author,--who occasionally gave him tickets to the pit,--and

applauded his pieces at the parts which du Bruel told him were of

doubtful interest, with all the faith and enthusiasm of his years. In

fact, the youth looked upon the playwright as a great author, and it

was to Sebastien that du Bruel said, the day after a first

representation of a vaudeville produced, like all vaudevilles, by

three collaborators, "The audience preferred the scenes written by

two."

"Why don't you write alone?" asked Sebastien naively.

There were good reasons why du Bruel did not write alone. He was the

third of an author. A dramatic writer, as few people know, is made up

of three individuals; first, the man with brains who invents the

subject and maps out the structure, or scenario, of the vaudeville;

second, the plodder, who works the piece into shape; and third, the

toucher-up, who sets the songs to music, arranges the chorus and

concerted pieces and fits them into their right place, and finally

writes the puffs and advertisements. Du Bruel was a plodder; at the

office he read the newest books, extracted their wit, and laid it by

for use in his dialogues. He was liked by his collaborators on account

of his carefulness; the man with brains, sure of being understood,

could cross his arms and feel that his ideas would be well rendered.

The clerks in the office liked their companion well enough to attend a

first performance of his plays in a body and applaud them, for he

really deserved the title of a good fellow. His hand went readily to

his pocket; ices and punch were bestowed without prodding, and he

loaned fifty francs without asking them back. He owned a country-house

at Aulnay, laid by his money, and had, besides the four thousand five

hundred francs of his salary under government, twelve hundred francs

pension from the civil list, and eight hundred from the three hundred

thousand francs fund voted by the Chambers for encouragement of the

Arts. Add to these diverse emoluments nine thousand francs earned by

his quarters, thirds, and halves of plays in three different theatres,

and you will readily understand that such a man must be physically

round, fat, and comfortable, with the face of a worthy capitalist. As

to morals, he was the lover and the beloved of Tullia and felt himself

preferred in heart to the brilliant Duc de Rhetore, the lover in

chief.

Dutocq had seen with great uneasiness what he called the liaison of

des Lupeaulx with Madame Rabourdin, and his silent wrath on the

subject was accumulating. He had too prying an eye not to have guessed

that Rabourdin was engaged in some great work outside of his official

labors, and he was provoked to feel that he knew nothing about it,

whereas that little Sebastien was, wholly or in part, in the secret.

Dutocq was intimate with Godard, under-head-clerk to Baudoyer, and the

high esteem in which Dutocq held Baudoyer was the original cause of

his acquaintance with Godard; not that Dutocq was sincere even in

this; but by praising Baudoyer and saying nothing of Rabourdin he

satisfied his hatred after the fashion of little minds.

Joseph Godard, a cousin of Mitral on the mother's side, made

pretension to the hand of Mademoiselle Baudoyer, not perceiving that

her mother was laying siege to Falliex as a son-in-law. He brought

little gifts to the young lady, artificial flowers, bonbons on New-

Year's day and pretty boxes for her birthday. Twenty-six years of age,

a worker working without purpose, steady as a girl, monotonous and

apathetic, holding cafes, cigars, and horsemanship in detestation,

going to bed regularly at ten o'clock and rising at seven, gifted with

some social talents, such as playing quadrille music on the flute,

which first brought him into favor with the Saillards and the

Baudoyers. He was moreover a fifer in the National Guard,--to escape

his turn of sitting up all night in a barrack-room. Godard was devoted

more especially to natural history. He made collections of shells and

minerals, knew how to stuff birds, kept a mass of curiosities bought

for nothing in his bedroom; took possession of phials and empty

perfume bottles for his specimens; pinned butterflies and beetles

under glass, hung Chinese parasols on the walls, together with dried

fishskins. He lived with his sister, an artificial-flower maker, in

the due de Richelieu. Though much admired by mammas this model young

man was looked down upon by his sister's shop-girls, who had tried to

inveigle him. Slim and lean, of medium height, with dark circles round

his eyes, Joseph Godard took little care of his person; his clothes

were ill-cut, his trousers bagged, he wore white stockings at all

seasons of the year, a hat with a narrow brim and laced shoes. He was

always complaining of his digestion. His principal vice was a mania

for proposing rural parties during the summer season, excursions to

Montmorency, picnics on the grass, and visits to creameries on the

boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. For the last six months Dutocq had taken

to visiting Mademoiselle Godard from time to time, with certain views

of his own, hoping to discover in her establishment some female

treasure.

Thus Baudoyer had a pair of henchmen in Dutocq and Godard. Monsieur

Saillard, too innocent to judge rightly of Dutocq, was in the habit of

paying him frequent little visits at the office. Young La Billardiere,

the director's son, placed as supernumerary with Baudoyer, made

another member of the clique. The clever heads in the offices laughed

much at this alliance of incapables. Bixiou named Baudoyer, Godard,

and Dutocq a "Trinity without the Spirit," and little La Billardiere

the "Pascal Lamb."

"You are early this morning," said Antoine to Dutocq, laughing.

"So are you, Antoine," answered Dutocq; "you see, the newspapers do

come earlier than you let us have them at the office."

"They did to-day, by chance," replied Antoine, not disconcerted; "they

never come two days together at the same hour."

The two nephews looked at each other as if to say, in admiration of

their uncle, "What cheek he has!"

"Though I make two sous by all his breakfasts," muttered Antoine, as

he heard Monsieur Dutocq close the office door, "I'd give them up to

get that man out of our division."

"Ah, Monsieur Sebastien, you are not the first here to-day," said

Antoine, a quarter of an hour later, to the supernumerary.

"Who is here?" asked the poor lad, turning pale.

"Monsieur Dutocq," answered Laurent.

Virgin natures have, beyond all others, the inexplicable gift of

second-sight, the reason of which lies perhaps in the purity of their

nervous systems, which are, as it were, brand-new. Sebastien had long

guessed Dutocq's hatred to his revered Rabourdin. So that when Laurent

uttered his name a dreadful presentiment took possession of the lad's

mind, and crying out, "I feared it!" he flew like an arrow into the

corridor.

"There is going to be a row in the division," said Antoine, shaking

his white head as he put on his livery. "It is very certain that

Monsieur le baron is off to his account. Yes, Madame Gruget, the

nurse, told me he couldn't live through the day. What a stir there'll

be! oh! won't there! Go along, you fellows, and see if the stoves are

drawing properly. Heavens and earth! our world is coming down about

our ears."

"That poor young one," said Laurent, "had a sort of sunstroke when he

heard that Jesuit of a Dutocq had got here before him."

"I have told him a dozen times,--for after all one ought to tell the

truth to an honest clerk, and what I call an honest clerk is one like

that little fellow who gives us "recta" his ten francs on New-Year's

day,--I have said to him again and again: The more you work the more

they'll make you work, and they won't promote you. He doesn't listen

to me; he tires himself out staying here till five o'clock, an hour

after all the others have gone. Folly! he'll never get on that way!

The proof is that not a word has been said about giving him an

appointment, though he has been here two years. It's a shame! it makes

my blood boil."

"Monsieur Rabourdin is very fond of Monsieur Sebastien," said Laurent.

"But Monsieur Rabourdin isn't a minister," retorted Antoine; "it will

be a hot day when that happens, and the hens will have teeth; he is

too--but mum! When I think that I carry salaries to those humbugs who

stay away and do as they please, while that poor little La Roche works

himself to death, I ask myself if God ever thinks of the civil

service. And what do they give you, these pets of Monsieur le marechal

and Monsieur le duc? 'Thank you, my dear Antoine, thank you,' with a

gracious nod! Pack of sluggards! go to work, or you'll bring another

revolution about your ears. Didn't see such goings-on under Monsieur

Robert Lindet. I know, for I served my apprenticeship under Robert

Lindet. The clerks had to work in his day! You ought to have seen how

they scratched paper here till midnight; why, the stoves went out and

nobody noticed it. It was all because the guillotine was there! now-a-

days they only mark 'em when they come in late!"

"Uncle Antoine," said Gabriel, "as you are so talkative this morning,

just tell us what you think a clerk really ought to be."

"A government clerk," replied Antoine, gravely, "is a man who sits in

a government office and writes. But there, there, what am I talking

about? Without the clerks, where should we be, I'd like to know? Go

along and look after your stoves and mind you never say harm of a

government clerk, you fellows. Gabriel, the stove in the large office

draws like the devil; you must turn the damper."

Antoine stationed himself at a corner of the landing whence he could

see all the officials as they entered the porte-cochere; he knew every

one at the ministry, and watched their behavior, observing narrowly

the contrasts in their dress and appearance.

The first to arrive after Sebastien was a clerk of deeds in

Rabourdin's office named Phellion, a respectable family-man. To the

influence of his chief he owed a half-scholarship for each of his two

sons in the College Henri IV.; while his daughter was being educated

gratis at a boarding school where his wife gave music lessons and he

himself a course of history and one of geography in the evenings. He

was about forty-five years of age, sergeant-major of his company in

the National Guard, very compassionate in feeling and words, but

wholly unable to give away a penny. Proud of his post, however, and

satisfied with his lot, he applied himself faithfully to serve the

government, believed he was useful to his country, and boasted of his

indifference to politics, knowing none but those of the men in power.

Monsieur Rabourdin pleased him highly whenever he asked him to stay

half an hour longer to finish a piece of work. On such occasions he

would say, when he reached home, "Public affairs detained me; when a

man belongs to the government he is no longer master of himself." He

compiled books of questions and answers on various studies for the use

of young ladies in boarding-schools. These little "solid treatises,"

as he called them, were sold at the University library under the name

of "Historical and Geographic Catechisms." Feeling himself in duty

bound to offer a copy of each volume, bound in red morocco, to

Monsieur Rabourdin, he always came in full dress to present them,--

breeches and silk stockings, and shoes with gold buckles. Monsieur

Phellion received his friends on Thursday evenings, on which occasions

the company played bouillote, at five sous a game, and were regaled

with cakes and beer. He had never yet dared to invite Monsieur

Rabourdin to honor him with his presence, though he would have

regarded such an event as the most distinguished of his life. He said

if he could leave one of his sons following in the steps of Monsieur

Rabourdin he should die the happiest father in the world.

One of his greatest pleasures was to explore the environs of Paris,

which he did with a map. He knew every inch of Arcueil, Bievre,

Fontenay-aux-Roses, and Aulnay, so famous as the resort of great

writers, and hoped in time to know the whole western side of the

country around Paris. He intended to put his eldest son into a

government office and his second into the Ecole Polytechnique. He

often said to the elder, "When you have the honor to be a government

clerk"; though he suspected him of a preference for the exact sciences

and did his best to repress it, mentally resolved to abandon the lad

to his own devices if he persisted. When Rabourdin sent for him to

come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of

work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word the

chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera. Silent in

the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and

never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously. His official

letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the

commands of the minister in solemn phrases. Monsieur Phellion's face

was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-

pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-

blue, and his figure above the common height. Neat and clean as a

master of history and geography in a young ladies' school ought to be,

he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat,

left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a

diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers. In

winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a

loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the

quarter in which he lived. He had given up taking snuff, and referred

to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could

exercise over himself. Monsieur Phellion came slowly up the stairs,

for he was afraid of asthma, having what he called an "adipose chest."

He saluted Antoine with dignity.

The next to follow was a copying-clerk, who presented a strange

contrast to the virtuous Phellion. Vimeux was a young man of twenty-

five, with a salary of fifteen hundred francs, well-made and graceful,

with a romantic face, and eyes, hair, beard, and eyebrows as black as

jet, fine teeth, charming hands, and wearing a moustache so carefully

trimmed that he seemed to have made it the business and occupation of

his life. Vimeux had such aptitude for work that he despatched it much

quicker than any of the other clerks. "He has a gift, that young man!"

Phellion said of him when he saw him cross his legs and have nothing

to do for the rest of the day, having got through his appointed task;

"and see what a little dandy he is!" Vimeux breakfasted on a roll and

a glass of water, dined for twenty sous at Katcomb's, and lodged in a

furnished room, for which he paid twelve francs a month. His

happiness, his sole pleasure in life, was dress. He ruined himself in

miraculous waistcoats, in trousers that were tight, half-tight,

pleated, or embroidered; in superfine boots, well-made coats which

outlined his elegant figure; in bewitching collars, spotless gloves,

and immaculate hats. A ring with a coat of arms adorned his hand,

outside his glove, from which dangled a handsome cane; with these

accessories he endeavoured to assume the air and manner of a wealthy

young man. After the office closed he appeared in the great walk of

the Tuileries, with a tooth-pick in his mouth, as though he were a

millionaire who had just dined. Always on the lookout for a woman,--an

Englishwoman, a foreigner of some kind, or a widow,--who might fall in

love with him, he practised the art of twirling his cane and of

flinging the sort of glance which Bixiou told him was American. He

smiled to show his fine teeth; he wore no socks under his boots, but

he had his hair curled every day. Vimeux was prepared, in accordance

with fixed principles, to marry a hunch-back with six thousand a year,

or a woman of forty-five at eight thousand, or an Englishwoman for

half that sum. Phellion, who delighted in his neat hand-writing, and

was full of compassion for the fellow, read him lectures on the duty

of giving lessons in penmanship,--an honorable career, he said, which

would ameliorate existence and even render it agreeable; he promised

him a situation in a young ladies' boarding-school. But Vimeux's head

was so full of his own idea that no human being could prevent him from

having faith in his star. He continued to lay himself out, like a

salmon at a fishmonger's, in spite of his empty stomach and the fact

that he had fruitlessly exhibited his enormous moustache and his fine

clothes for over three years. As he owed Antoine more than thirty

francs for his breakfasts, he lowered his eyes every time he passed

him; and yet he never failed at midday to ask the man to buy him a

roll.

After trying to get a few reasonable ideas into this foolish head,

Rabourdin had finally given up the attempt as hopeless. Adolphe (his

family name was Adolphe) had lately economized on dinners and lived

entirely on bread and water, to buy a pair of spurs and a riding-whip.

Jokes at the expense of this starving Amadis were made only in the

spirit of mischievous fun which creates vaudevilles, for he was really

a kind-hearted fellow and a good comrade, who harmed no one but

himself. A standing joke in the two bureaus was the question whether

he wore corsets, and bets depended on it. Vimeux was originally

appointed to Baudoyer's bureau, but he manoeuvred to get himself

transferred to Rabourdin's, on account of Baudoyer's extreme severity

in relation to what were called "the English,"--a name given by the

government clerks to their creditors. "English day" means the day on

which the government offices are thrown open to the public. Certain

then of finding their delinquent debtors, the creditors swarm in and

torment them, asking when they intend to pay, and threatening to

attach their salaries. The implacable Baudoyer compelled the clerks to

remain at their desks and endure this torture. "It was their place not

to make debts," he said; and he considered his severity as a duty

which he owed to the public weal. Rabourdin, on the contrary,

protected the clerks against their creditors, and turned the latter

away, saying that the government bureaus were open for public

business, not private. Much ridicule pursued Vimeux in both bureaus

when the clank of his spurs resounded in the corridors and on the

staircases. The wag of the ministry, Bixiou, sent round a paper,

headed by a caricature of his victim on a pasteboard horse, asking for

subscriptions to buy him a live charger. Monsieur Baudoyer was down

for a bale of hay taken from his own forage allowance, and each of the

clerks wrote his little epigram; Vimeux himself, good-natured fellow

that he was, subscribed under the name of "Miss Fairfax."

Handsome clerks of the Vimeux style have their salaries on which to

live, and their good looks by which to make their fortune. Devoted to

masked balls during the carnival, they seek their luck there, though

it often escapes them. Many end the weary round by marrying milliners,

or old women,--sometimes, however, young ones who are charmed with

their handsome persons, and with whom they set up a romance

illustrated with stupid love letters, which, nevertheless, seem to

answer their purpose.

Bixiou (pronounce it