CHAPTER VII

SCENES FROM DOMESTIC LIFE

Parisian households are literally eaten up with the desire to be in

keeping with the luxury that surrounds them on all sides, and few

there are who have the wisdom to let their external situation conform

to their internal revenue. But this vice may perhaps denote a truly

French patriotism, which seeks to maintain the supremacy of the nation

in the matter of dress. France reigns through clothes over the whole

of Europe; and every one must feel the importance of retaining a

commercial sceptre that makes fashion in France what the navy is to

England. This patriotic ardor which leads a nation to sacrifice

everything to appearances--to the "paroistre," as d'Aubigne said in

the days of Henri IV.--is the cause of those vast secret labors which

employ the whole of a Parisian woman's morning, when she wishes, as

Madame Rabourdin wished, to keep up on twelve thousand francs a year

the style that many a family with thirty thousand does not indulge in.

Consequently, every Friday,--the day of her dinner parties,--Madame

Rabourdin helped the chambermaid to do the rooms; for the cook went

early to market, and the man-servant was cleaning the silver, folding

the napkins, and polishing the glasses. The ill-advised individual who

might happen, through an oversight of the porter, to enter Madame

Rabourdin's establishment about eleven o'clock in the morning would

have found her in the midst of a disorder the reverse of picturesque,

wrapped in a dressing-gown, her hair ill-dressed, and her feet in old

slippers, attending to the lamps, arranging the flowers, or cooking in

haste an extremely unpoetic breakfast. The visitor to whom the

mysteries of Parisian life were unknown would certainly have learned

for the rest of his life not to set foot in these greenrooms at the

wrong moment; a woman caught in her matin mysteries would ever after

point him out as a man capable of the blackest crimes; or she would

talk of his stupidity and indiscretion in a manner to ruin him. The

true Parisian woman, indulgent to all curiosity that she can put to

profit, is implacable to that which makes her lose her prestige. Such

a domiciliary invasion may be called, not only (as they say in police

reports) an attack on privacy, but a burglary, a robbery of all that

is most precious, namely, CREDIT. A woman is quite willing to let

herself be surprised half-dressed, with her hair about her shoulders.

If her hair is all her own she scores one; but she will never allow

herself to be seen "doing" her own rooms, or she loses her pariostre,

--that precious SEEMING-TO-BE!

Madame Rabourdin was in full tide of preparation for her Friday

dinner, standing in the midst of provisions the cook had just fished

from the vast ocean of the markets, when Monsieur des Lupeaulx made

his way stealthily in. The general-secretary was certainly the last

man Madame Rabourdin expected to see, and so, when she heard his boots

creaking in the ante-chamber, she exclaimed, impatiently, "The hair-

dresser already!"--an exclamation as little agreeable to des Lupeaulx

as the sight of des Lupeaulx was agreeable to her. She immediately

escaped into her bedroom, where chaos reigned; a jumble of furniture

to be put out of sight, with other heterogeneous articles of more or

rather less elegance,--a domestic carnival, in short. The bold des

Lupeaulx followed the handsome figure, so piquant did she seem to him

in her dishabille. There is something indescribably alluring to the

eye in a portion of flesh seen through an hiatus in the undergarment,

more attractive far than when it rises gracefully above the circular

curve of the velvet bodice, to the vanishing line of the prettiest

swan's-neck that ever lover kissed before a ball. When the eye dwells

on a woman in full dress making exhibition of her magnificent white

shoulders, do we not fancy that we see the elegant dessert of a grand

dinner? But the glance that glides through the disarray of muslins

rumpled in sleep enjoys, as it were, a feast of stolen fruit glowing

between the leaves on a garden wall.

"Stop! wait!" cried the pretty Parisian, bolting the door of the

disordered room.

She rang for Therese, called for her daughter, the cook, and the man-

servant, wishing she possessed the whistle of the machinist at the

Opera. Her call, however, answered the same purpose. In a moment,

another phenomenon! the salon assumed a piquant morning look, quite in

keeping with the becoming toilet hastily got together by the fugitive;

we say it to her glory, for she was evidently a clever woman, in this

at least.

"You!" she said, coming forward, "at this hour? What has happened?"

"Very serious things," answered des Lupeaulx. "You and I must

understand each other now."

Celestine looked at the man behind his glasses, and understood the

matter.

"My principle vice," she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix

up affections with politics; let us talk politics,--business, if you

will,--the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor a

whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together

things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is

my natural instinct as an artist. We women have politics of our own."

Already the tones of her voice and the charm of her manners were

producing their effect on the secretary and metamorphosing his

roughness into sentimental courtesy; she had recalled him to his

obligations as a lover. A clever pretty woman makes an atmosphere

about her in which the nerves relax and the feelings soften.

"You are ignorant of what is happening," said des Lupeaulx, harshly,

for he still thought it best to make a show of harshness. "Read that."

He gave the two newspapers to the graceful woman, having drawn a line

in red ink round each of the famous articles.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is this

Baudoyer?"

"A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses means,--

he gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that

pulls the wires."

The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and blurred

her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the

same moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that

began to beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite

bewildered, gazing at a window which she did not see.

"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning glance

at des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.

"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with an

interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.

"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said, laughing; "I

thought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me

less a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl."

"You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I meant

that I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l'Etourdi

played against Mascarille."

"What can you mean?"

"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."

He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out

to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.

"Read that."

Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale

under the blow.

"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,"

said des Lupeaulx.

"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I cannot

explain it, even to myself."

"The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without

keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and

too clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for

it."

"Who is he?"

"Your chief clerk."

"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,"

she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone."

"Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a general-

secretary?"

"What?"

"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me

because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well,

Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to

give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed."

"But all that is monstrous."

"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is

concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return

for ecclesiastical assistance."

"What shall you do?"

"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace, holding out

his hand.

Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling

as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive,

but she did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would

have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the

morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.

"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried

enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under

the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added,

assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.

"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of the

stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since

he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has

introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to

quarterings of nobility."

"You will continue to support us?"

"I am to draw up your husband's appointment-- But no cheating,

remember."

She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did

so. "You are mine!" she said.

Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.

[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as

follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,--an

acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,--

changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the evasion

charming?"]

"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your husband has

spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;

the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what

it is. Find out, and tell me to-night."

"I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the

errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.

"Madame, the hair-dresser."

"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have got out

of it if he had delayed much longer."

"You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said des

Lupeaulx, rising. "You shall be invited to the first select party

given by his Excellency's wife."

"Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you love

me; you love me intelligently."

"To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the Opera what

journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords

together."

"Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to

get the things you like best--"

"All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went

downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long

time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the

cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and

I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all,

women are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and

living here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth

cultivating," thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the

staircase.

"Good heavens! that man, without his glasses, must look funny enough

in a dressing-gown!" thought Celestine, "but the harpoon is in his

back and he'll tow me where I want to go; I am sure now of that

invitation. He has played his part in my comedy."

When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress

for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before

him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian

Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn.

"Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck.

"Monsieur des Lupeaulx."

"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which would

certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine

received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye.

"And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that startled air?"

"My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx;

such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don't

see why?"

"The man seems to me," she said, "to have good taste; you can't expect

me to blame him. I really don't know anything more flattering to a

woman than to please a worn-out palate. After--"

"A truce to nonsense, Celestine. Spare a much-tried man. I cannot get

an audience of the minister, and my honor is at stake."

"Good heavens, no! Dutocq can have the promise of a good place as soon

as you are named head of the division."

"Ah! I see what you are about, dear child," said Rabourdin; "but the

game you are playing is just as dishonorable as the real thing that is

going on around us. A lie is a lie, and an honest woman--"

"Let me use the weapons employed against us."

"Celestine, the more that man des Lupeaulx feels he is foolishly

caught in a trap, the more bitter he will be against me."

"What if I get him dismissed altogether?"

Rabourdin looked at his wife in amazement.

"I am thinking only of your advancement; it was high time, my poor

husband," continued Celestine. "But you are mistaking the dog for the

game," she added, after a pause. "In a few days des Lupeaulx will have

accomplished all that I want of him. While you are trying to speak to

the minister, and before you can even see him on business, I shall

have seen him and spoken with him. You are worn out in trying to bring

that plan of your brain to birth,--a plan which you have been hiding

from me; but you will find that in three months your wife has

accomplished more than you have done in six years. Come, tell me this

fine scheme of yours."

Rabourdin, continuing to shave, cautioned his wife not to say a word

about his work, and after assuring her that to confide a single idea

to des Lupeaulx would be to put the cat near the milk-jug, he began an

explanation of his labors.

"Why didn't you tell me this before, Rabourdin?" said Celestine,

cutting her husband short at his fifth sentence. "You might have saved

yourself a world of trouble. I can understand that a man should be

blinded by an idea for a moment, but to nurse it up for six or seven

years, that's a thing I cannot comprehend! You want to reduce the

budget,--a vulgar and commonplace idea! The budget ought, on the

contrary, to reach two hundred millions. Then, indeed, France would be

great. If you want a new system let it be one of loans, as Monsieur de

Nucingen keeps saying. The poorest of all treasuries is the one with a

surplus that it never uses; the mission of a minister of finance is to

fling gold out of the windows. It will come back to him through the

cellars; and you, you want to hoard it! The thing to do is to increase

the offices and all government employments, instead of reducing them!

So far from lessening the public debt, you ought to increase the

creditors. If the Bourbons want to reign in peace, let them seek

creditors in the towns and villages, and place their loans there;

above all, they ought not to let foreigners draw interest away from

France; some day an alien nation might ask us for the capital. Whereas

if capital and interest are held only in France, neither France nor

credit can perish. That's what saved England. Your plan is the

tradesman's plan. An ambitious public man should produce some bold

scheme,--he should make himself another Law, without Law's fatal ill-

luck; he ought to exhibit the power of credit, and show that we should

reduce, not principal, but interest, as they do in England."

"Come, come, Celestine," said Rabourdin; "mix up ideas as much as you

please, and make fun of them,--I'm accustomed to that; but don't

criticise a work of which you know nothing as yet."

"Do I need," she asked, "to know a scheme the essence of which is to

govern France with a civil service of six thousand men instead of

twenty thousand? My dear friend, even allowing it were the plan of a

man of genius, a king of France who attempted to carry it out would

get himself dethroned. You can keep down a feudal aristocracy by

levelling a few heads, but you can't subdue a hydra with thousands.

And is it with the present ministers--between ourselves, a wretched

crew--that you expect to carry out your reform? No, no; change the

monetary system if you will, but do not meddle with men, with little

men; they cry out too much, whereas gold is dumb."

"But, Celestine, if you will talk, and put wit before argument, we

shall never understand each other."

"Understand! I understand what that paper, in which you have analyzed

the capacities of the men in office, will lead to," she replied,

paying no attention to what her husband said. "Good heavens! you have

sharpened the axe to cut off your own head. Holy Virgin! why didn't

you consult me? I could have at least prevented you from committing

anything to writing, or, at any rate, if you insisted on putting it to

paper, I would have written it down myself, and it should never have

left this house. Good God! to think that he never told me! That's what

men are! capable of sleeping with the wife of their bosom for seven

years, and keeping a secret from her! Hiding their thoughts from a

poor woman for seven years!--doubting her devotion!"

"But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I have

been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting

me short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all

about my scheme."

"Nothing! I know all."

"Then tell it to me!" cried Rabourdin, angry for the first time since

his marriage.

"There! it is half-past six o'clock; finish shaving and dress at

once," she cried hastily, after the fashion of women when pressed on a

point they are not ready to talk of. "I must go; we'll adjourn the

discussion, for I don't want to be nervous on a reception-day. Good

heavens! the poor soul!" she thought, as she left the room, "it IS

hard to be in labor for seven years and bring forth a dead child! And

not trust his wife!"

She went back into the room.

"If you had listened to me you would never had interceded to keep your

chief clerk; he stole that abominable paper, and has, no doubt, kept a

fac-simile of it. Adieu, man of genius!"

Then she noticed the almost tragic expression of her husband's grief;

she felt she had gone too far, and ran to him, seized him just as he

was, all lathered with soap-suds, and kissed him tenderly.

"Dear Xavier, don't be vexed," she said. "To-night, after the people

are gone, we will study your plan; you shall speak at your ease,--I

will listen just as long as you wish me to. Isn't that nice of me?

What do I want better than to be the wife of Mohammed?"

She began to laugh; and Rabourdin laughed too, for the soapsuds were

clinging to Celestine's lips, and her voice had the tones of the

purest and most steadfast affection.

"Go and dress, dear child; and above all, don't say a word of this to

des Lupeaulx. Swear you will not. That is the only punishment that I

impose--"

"IMPOSE!" she cried. "Then I won't swear anything."

"Come, come, Celestine, I said in jest a really serious thing."

"To-night," she said, "I mean your general-secretary to know whom I am

really intending to attack; he has given me the means."

"Attack whom?"

"The minister," she answered, drawing himself up. "We are to be

invited to his wife's private parties."

In spite of his Celestine's loving caresses, Rabourdin, as he finished

dressing, could not prevent certain painful thoughts from clouding his

brow.

"Will she ever appreciate me?" he said to himself. "She does not even

understand that she is the sole incentive of my whole work. How wrong-

headed, and yet how excellent a mind!--If I had not married I might

now have been high in office and rich. I could have saved half my

salary; my savings well-invested would have given me to-day ten

thousand francs a year outside of my office, and I might then have

become, through a good marriage-- Yes, that is all true," he

exclaimed, interrupting himself, "but I have Celestine and my two

children." The man flung himself back on his happiness. To the best of

married lives there come moments of regret. He entered the salon and

looked around him. "There are not two women in Paris who understand

making life pleasant as she does. To keep such a home as this on

twelve thousand francs a year!" he thought, looking at the flower-

stands bright with bloom, and thinking of the social enjoyments that

were about to gratify his vanity. "She was made to be the wife of a

minister. When I think of his Excellency's wife, and how little she

helps him! the good woman is a comfortable middle-class dowdy, and

when she goes to the palace or into society--" He pinched his lips

together. Very busy men are apt to have very ignorant notions about

household matters, and you can make them believe that a hundred

thousand francs afford little or that twelve thousand afford all.

Though impatiently expected, and in spite of the flattering dishes

prepared for the palate of the gourmet-emeritus, des Lupeaulx did not

come to dinner; in fact he came in very late, about midnight, an hour

when company dwindles and conversations become intimate and

confidential. Andoche Finot, the journalist, was one of the few

remaining guests.

"I now know all," said des Lupeaulx, when he was comfortably seated on

a sofa at the corner of the fireplace, a cup of tea in his hand and

Madame Rabourdin standing before him with a plate of sandwiches and

some slices of cake very appropriately called "leaden cake." "Finot,

my dear and witty friend, you can render a great service to our

gracious queen by letting loose a few dogs upon the men we were

talking of. You have against you," he said to Rabourdin, lowering his

voice so as to be heard only by the three persons whom he addressed,

"a set of usurers and priests--money and the church. The article in

the liberal journal was instituted by an old money-lender to whom the

paper was under obligations; but the young fellow who wrote it cares

nothing about it. The paper is about to change hands, and in three

days more will be on our side. The royalist opposition,--for we have,

thanks to Monsieur de Chateaubriand, a royalist opposition, that is to

say, royalists who have gone over to the liberals,--however, there's

no need to discuss political matters now,--these assassins of Charles

X. have promised me to support your appointment at the price of our

acquiescence in one of their amendments. All my batteries are manned.

If they threaten us with Baudoyer we shall say to the clerical

phalanx, 'Such and such a paper and such and such men will attack your

measures and the whole press will be against you' (for even the

ministerial journals which I influence will be deaf and dumb, won't

they, Finot?). 'Appoint Rabourdin, a faithful servant, and public

opinion is with you--'"

"Hi, hi!" laughed Finot.

"So, there's no need to be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx. "I have

arranged it all to-night; the Grand Almoner must yield."

"I would rather have had less hope, and you to dinner," whispered

Celestine, looking at him with a vexed air which might very well pass

for an expression of wounded love.

"This must win my pardon," he returned, giving her an invitation to

the ministry for the following Tuesday.

Celestine opened the letter, and a flush of pleasure came into her

face. No enjoyment can be compared to that of gratified vanity.

"You know what the countess's Tuesdays are," said des Lupeaulx, with a

confidential air. "To the usual ministerial parties they are what the

'Petit-Chateau' is to a court ball. You will be at the heart of power!

You will see there the Comtesse Feraud, who is still in favor

notwithstanding Louis XVIII.'s death, Delphine de Nucingen, Madame de

Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard, and your dear Firmiani; I have had

her invited to give you her support in case the other women attempt to

black-ball you. I long to see you in the midst of them."

Celestine threw up her head like a thoroughbred before the race, and

re-read the invitation just as Baudoyer and Saillard had re-read the

articles about themselves in the newspapers, without being able to

quaff enough of it.

"THERE first, and NEXT at the Tuileries," she said to des Lupeaulx,

who was startled by the words and by the attitude of the speaker, so

expressive were they of ambition and security.

"Can it be that I am only a stepping-stone?" he asked himself. He

rose, and went into Madame Rabourdin's bedroom, where she followed

him, understanding from a motion of his head that he wished to speak

to her privately.

"Well, your husband's plan," he said; "what of it?"

"Bah! the useless nonsense of an honest man!" she replied. "He wants

to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six

thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the

whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith. His

analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and

rectitude,--poor dear man!"

Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which

accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a

judge of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.

"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.

"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on

consumption."

"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed

some such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of

the land-tax."

"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing new in his

scheme."

"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the

epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your

husband must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting

the scheme into practice."

"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl of her

lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six thousand

offices, when what is really needed is that everybody in France should

be personally enlisted in the support of the government."

Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind

he had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.

"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit of

feminine advice?" she said.

"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery," he said,

nodding.

"Well, then, say BAUDOYER to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion

and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write RABOURDIN."

"There are some women who say YES as long as they need a man, and NO

when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.

"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very foolish,

for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with

fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly

any one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."

"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man pardons. The

real danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do

but study revenge,--I spend my life among them."

When all the guests were gone, Rabourdin came into his wife's room,

and after asking for her strict attention, he explained his plan and

made her see that it did not cut down the revenue but on the contrary

increased it; he showed her in what ways the public funds were

employed, and how the State could increase tenfold the circulation of

money by putting its own, in the proportion of a third, or a quarter,

into the expenditures which would be sustained by private or local

interests. He finally proved to her plainly that his plan was not mere

theory, but a system teeming with methods of execution. Celestine,

brightly enthusiastic, sprang into her husband's arms and sat upon his

knee in the chimney-corner.

"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of

your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated

you to him gloriously and in good faith."

The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having

labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great

man in the eyes of his sole public.

"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger,

how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of

genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly

beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation

from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and

showed it to him.

"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to

face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency

shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me."

The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the

inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own!

Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman

bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers.

Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where

she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor

bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses,

had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of

the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning

attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,

--an ornament costing three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an

Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was finished. The leaves

were of stamped iron-work, as light as the vine-leaves themselves, and

the artist had not forgotten the graceful tendrils, which twined in

the wearer's curls just as, in nature, they catch upon the branches.

The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all what is called Berlin

iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made in Vienna, and

seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the stories tell us,

are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes of ants, or

weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutshell can contain it. Madame

Rabourdin's graceful figure, made more slender still by the black

draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the two

sides of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without sleeves.

At every motion she seemed, like a butterfly, to be about to leave her

covering; but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of the

wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine--a material

which the manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets; a

delightful stuff which some months later was to have a wild success, a

success which went further and lasted longer than most French

fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which needs no

washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to

revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little feet,

covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin

is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus

dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a bran-

bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of hope,

and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the

superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion,

asserted for her.

She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that

expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a happy

mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a

certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the

right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty

air of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men,

even when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it

were, while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one

of those select parties of few persons, where the women eye and

appraise each other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where

every glance is a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where

all that is commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of

merit or distinction is silently accepted as though it were the

natural level of all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the

adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing cards; and there

he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was

not without social intelligence.

"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis

XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It produces--

whence and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems ready to

will and to do anything."

"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des Lupeaulx,

puffed up with satisfaction.

At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister's

wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew

all the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming

to do so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in

love as he was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before,

"Be careful not to talk too much,"--words which were really an immense

proof of attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime

axiom: "Never interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice," to

which we may add (to make this chapter of the female code complete),

"Never blame a woman for scattering her pearls."

The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin

joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her

mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in

matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another

statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done with

gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora,"

and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with which to

reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that

ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head to

make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was

appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with the

name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress successfully, he

was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen,

and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had better

admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps was

supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister's vanity was

greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's cleverness pleased him, and she

had won his wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to come

to all her receptions whenever she pleased.

"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the

minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one

director; you will then be one of us, you know."

His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a

certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition

journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they

laughed over the absurdities of journalism.

"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of

seeing you here often."

And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.

"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women

hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."

"How so?"

"You alone can give me the right to come here."

"Pray explain."

"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have

the bad taste to seem a petitioner."

"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of

place," said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to

amuse a solemn man.

"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a

bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."

"That point need not be considered," said the minister. "your husband

is indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."

"Is that a veritable fact?"

"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn

up."

"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the

minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell

you that I can make you a return."

She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des

Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry

sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard

what, in fact, he had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-

tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had

hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the

appointment. He had carried the papers to his Excellency that evening,

and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the

appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as his

mistress. Just then the minister's valet approached des Lupeaulx in a

mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to

deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.

The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--

 Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see

 you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms

 with

Your obedient servant,

Gobseck.

The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we

cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like

to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of

signature. If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was

assuredly this written name, in which the first and the final letter

approached each other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable,

always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the

wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a

sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all

and revealed nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have

felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed

to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-

lender of the rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman,

des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to his own

rooms, thinking of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to whom

an aide-de-camp rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty thousand

fresh troops is attacking on our right flank."

A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet

and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both

waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on

the wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a

courier in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the

property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by

Mitral, these securities passed into the hands of the two usurers, who

hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o'clock.

Des Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a

simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the

flash itself.

"What is it, my masters?" he said.

The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently

pointed to the documents in his hand, and then at the servant.

"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a

sign.

"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.

"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a

couple of hundred thousand francs?"

"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said Gigonnet.

"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help you,

consider that I recollect the past."

"So do we," answered Gigonnet.

"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to

seem worsted at the outset.

"True," said Gobseck.

"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't stiffen your

chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and

read them."

The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's study while

he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which

seemed wafted to him from the clouds by angels.

"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in

Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.

"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said des

Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.

"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have

known till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of

commerce, a deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign."

Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.

"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said the

concise Gobseck.

"You master me," said the general-secretary, bowing with an air of

profound respect, bordering however, on sarcasm.

"True," said Gobseck.

"Can you mean to strangle me?"

"Possibly."

"Well, then, begin your work, executioners," said the secretary,

smiling.

"You will see," resumed Gigonnet, "that the sum total of your debts is

added to the sum loaned by us for the purchase of the property; we

have bought them up."

"Here are the deeds," said Gobseck, taking from the pocket of his

greenish overcoat a number of legal papers.

"You have three years in which to pay off the whole sum," said

Gigonnet.

"But," said des Lupeaulx, frightened at such kindness, and also by so

apparently fantastic an arrangement. "What do you want of me?"

"La Billardiere's place for Baudoyer," said Gigonnet, quickly.

"That's a small matter, though it will be next to impossible for me to

do it," said des Lupeaulx. "I have just tied my hands."

"Bite the cords with your teeth," said Gigonnet.

"They are sharp," added Gobseck.

"Is that all?" asked des Lupeaulx.

"We keep the title-deeds of the property till the debts are paid,"

said Gigonnet, putting one of the papers before des Lupeaulx; "and if

the matter of the appointment is not satisfactorily arranged within

six days our names will be substituted in place of yours."

"You are deep," cried the secretary.

"Exactly," said Gobseck.

"And this is all?" exclaimed des Lupeaulx.

"All," said Gobseck.

"You agree?" asked Gigonnet.

Des Lupeaulx nodded his head.

"Well, then, sign this power of attorney. Within two days Baudoyer is

to be nominated; within six your debts will be cleared off, and--"

"And what?" asked des Lupeaulx.

"We guarantee--"

"Guarantee!--what?" said the secretary, more and more astonished.

"Your election to the Chamber," said Gigonnet, rising on his heels.

"We have secured a majority of fifty-two farmers' and mechanics'

votes, which will be thrown precisely as those who lend you this money

dictate."

Des Lupeaulx wrung Gigonnet's hand.

"It is only such as we who never misunderstand each other," he said;

"this is what I call doing business. I'll make you a return gift."

"Right," said Gobseck.

"What is it?" asked Gigonnet.

"The cross of the Legion of honor for your imbecile of a nephew."

"Good," said Gigonnet, "I see you know him well."

The pair took leave of des Lupeaulx, who conducted them to the

staircase.

"They must be secret envoys from foreign powers," whispered the

footmen to each other.

Once in the street, the two usurers looked at each other under a

street lamp and laughed.

"He will owe us nine thousand francs interest a year," said Gigonnet;

"that property doesn't bring him in five."

"He is under our thumb for a long time," said Gobseck.

"He'll build; he'll commit extravagancies," continued Gigonnet;

"Falleix will get his land."

"His interest is only to be made deputy; the old fox laughs at the

rest," said Gobseck.

"Hey! hey!"

"Hi! hi!"

These dry little exclamations served as a laugh to the two old men,

who took their way back (always on foot) to the Cafe Themis.

Des Lupeaulx returned to the salon and found Madame Rabourdin sailing

with the wind of success, and very charming; while his Excellency,

usually so gloomy, showed a smooth and gracious countenance.

"She performs miracles," thought des Lupeaulx. "What a wonderfully

clever woman! I must get to the bottom of her heart."

"Your little lady is decidedly handsome," said the Marquise to the

secretary; "now if she only had your name."

"Yes, her defect is that she is the daughter of an auctioneer. She

will fail for want of birth," replied des Lupeaulx, with a cold manner

that contrasted strangely with the ardor of his remarks about Madame

Rabourdin not half an hour earlier.

The marquise looked at him fixedly.

"The glance you gave them did not escape me," she said, motioning

towards the minister and Madame Rabourdin; "it pierced the mask of

your spectacles. How amusing you both are, to quarrel over that bone!"

As the marquise turned to leave the room the minister joined her and

escorted her to the door.

"Well," said des Lupeaulx to Madame Rabourdin, "what do you think of

his Excellency?"

"He is charming. We must know these poor ministers to appreciate

them," she added, slightly raising her voice so as to be heard by his

Excellency's wife. "The newspapers and the opposition calumnies are so

misleading about men in politics that we are all more or less

influenced by them; but such prejudices turn to the advantage of

statesmen when we come to know them personally."

"He is very good-looking," said des Lupeaulx.

"Yes, and I assure you he is quite lovable," she said, heartily.

"Dear child," said des Lupeaulx, with a genial, caressing manner; "you

have actually done the impossible."

"What is that?"

"Resuscitated the dead. I did not think that man had a heart; ask his

wife. But he may have just enough for a passing fancy. Therefore

profit by it. Come this way, and don't be surprised." He led Madame

Rabourdin into the boudoir, placed her on a sofa, and sat down beside

her. "You are very sly," he said, "and I like you the better for it.

Between ourselves, you are a clever woman. Des Lupeaulx served to

bring you into this house, and that is all you wanted of him, isn't

it? Now when a woman decides to love a man for what she can get out of

him it is better to take a sexagenarian Excellency than a

quadragenarian secretary; there's more profit and less annoyance. I'm

a man with spectacles, grizzled hair, worn out with dissipation,--a

fine lover, truly! I tell myself all this again and again. It must be

admitted, of course, that I can sometimes be useful, but never

agreeable. Isn't that so? A man must be a fool if he cannot reason

about himself. You can safely admit the truth and let me see to the

depths of your heart; we are partners, not lovers. If I show some

tenderness at times, you are too superior a woman to pay any attention

to such follies; you will forgive me,--you are not a school-girl, or a

bourgeoise of the rue Saint-Denis. Bah! you and I are too well brought

up for that. There's the Marquise d'Espard who has just left the room;

this is precisely what she thinks and does. She and I came to an

understanding two years ago [the coxcomb!], and now she has only to

write me a line and say, 'My dear des Lupeaulx, you will oblige me by

doing such and such a thing,' and it is done at once. We are engaged

at this very moment in getting a commission of lunacy on her husband.

Ah! you women, you can get what you want by the bestowal of a few

favors. Well, then, my dear child, bewitch the minister. I'll help

you; it is my interest to do so. Yes, I wish he had a woman who could

influence him; he wouldn't escape me,--for he does escape me quite

often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect.

Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him,

I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest

grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the

advantages of the conquest you are making."

Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of

rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler

prevented her from suspecting a trick.

"Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling into the

trap.

"I know it; I am certain of it."

"Is it true that Rabourdin's appointment is signed?"

"I gave him the papers this morning. But it is not enough that your

husband should be made director; he must be Master of petitions."

"Yes," she said.

"Well, then, go back to the salon and coquette a little more with his

Excellency."

"It is true," she said, "that I never fully understood you till

to-night. There is nothing commonplace about YOU."

"We will be two old friends," said des Lupeaulx, "and suppress all

tender nonsense and tormenting love; we will take things as they did

under the Regency. Ah! they had plenty of wit and wisdom in those

days!"

"You are really strong; you deserve my admiration," she said, smiling,

and holding out her hand to him, "one does more for one's friend, you

know, than for one's--"

She left him without finishing her sentence.

"Dear creature!" thought des Lupeaulx, as he saw her approach the

minister, "des Lupeaulx has no longer the slightest remorse in turning

against you. To-morrow evening when you offer me a cup of tea, you

will be offering me a thing I no longer care for. All is over. Ah!

when a man is forty years of age women may take pains to catch him,

but they won't love him."

He looked himself over in a mirror, admitting honestly that though he

did very well as a politician he was a wreck on the shores of Cythera.

At the same moment Madame Rabourdin was gathering herself together for

a becoming exit. She wished to make a last graceful impression on the

minds of all, and she succeeded. Contrary to the usual custom in

society, every one cried out as soon as she was gone, "What a charming

woman!" and the minister himself took her to the outer door.

"I am quite sure you will think of me to-morrow," he said, alluding to

the appointment.

"There are so few high functionaries who have agreeable wives,"

remarked his Excellency on re-entering the room, "that I am very well

satisfied with our new acquisition."

"Don't you think her a little overpowering?" said des Lupeaulx with a

piqued air.

The women present all exchanged expressive glances; the rivalry

between the minister and his secretary amused them and instigated one

of those pretty little comedies which Parisian women play so well.

They excited and led on his Excellency and des Lupeaulx by a series of

comments on Madame Rabourdin: one thought her too studied in manner,

too eager to appear clever; another compared the graces of the middle

classes with the manners of high life, while des Lupeaulx defended his

pretended mistress as we all defend an enemy in society.

"Do her justice, ladies," he said; "is it not extraordinary that the

daughter of an auctioneer should appear as well as she does? See where

she came from, and what she is. She will end in the Tuileries; that is

what she intends,--she told me so."

"Suppose she is the daughter of an auctioneer," said the Comtesse

Feraud, smiling, "that will not hinder her husband's rise to power."

"Not in these days, you mean," said the minister's wife, tightening

her lips.

"Madame," said his Excellency to the countess, sternly, "such

sentiments and such speeches lead to revolutions; unhappily, the court

and the great world do not restrain them. You would hardly believe,

however, how the injudicious conduct of the aristocracy in this

respect displeases certain clear-sighted personages at the palace. If

I were a great lord, instead of being, as I am, a mere country

gentleman who seems to be placed where he is to transact your business

for you, the monarchy would not be as insecure as I now think it is.

What becomes of a throne which does not bestow dignity on those who

administer its government? We are far indeed from the days when a king

could make men great at will,--such men as Louvois, Colbert,

Richelieu, Jeannin, Villeroy, Sully,--Sully, in his origin, was no

greater than I. I speak to you thus because we are here in private

among ourselves. I should be very paltry indeed if I were personally

offended by such speeches. After all, it is for us and not for others

to make us great."

"You are appointed, dear," cried Celestine, pressing her husband's

hand as they drove away. "If it had not been for des Lupeaulx I should

have explained your scheme to his Excellency. But I will do it next

Tuesday, and it will help the further matter of making you Master of

petitions."

In the life of every woman there comes a day when she shines in all

her glory; a day which gives her an unfading recollection to which she

recurs with happiness all her life. As Madame Rabourdin took off one

by one the ornaments of her apparel, she thought over the events of

this evening, and marked the day among the triumphs and glories of her

life,--all her beauties had been seen and envied, she had been praised

and flattered by the minister's wife, delighted thus to make the other

women jealous of her; but, above all, her grace and vanities had shone

to the profit of conjugal love. Her husband was appointed.

"Did you think I looked well to-night?" she said to him, joyously.

At the same instant Mitral, waiting at the Cafe Themis, saw the two

usurers returning, but was unable to perceive the slightest

indications of the result on their impassible faces.

"What of it?" he said, when they were all seated at table.

"Same as ever," replied Gigonnet, rubbing his hands, "victory with

gold."

"True," said Gobseck.

Mitral took a cabriolet and went straight to the Saillards and

Baudoyers, who were still playing boston at a late hour. No one was

present but the Abbe Gaudron. Falleix, half-dead with the fatigue of

his journey, had gone to bed.

"You will be appointed, nephew," said Mitral; "and there's a surprise

in store for you."

"What is it?" asked Saillard.

"The cross of the Legion of honor?" cried Mitral.

"God protects those who guard his altars," said Gaudron.

Thus the Te Deum was sung with equal joy and confidence in both camps.