VII

"While Rastignac was manoeuvring thus in Paris, imagine the state of

things on the Bourse. A friend of mine, a provincial, a stupid

creature, once asked me as we came past the Bourse between four and

five in the afternoon what all that crowd of chatterers was doing,

what they could possibly find to say to each other, and why they were

wandering to and fro when business in public securities was over for

the day. 'My friend,' said I, 'they have made their meal, and now they

are digesting it; while they digest it, they gossip about their

neighbors, or there would be no commercial security in Paris. Concerns

are floated here, such and such a manPalma, for instance, who is

something the same here as Sinard at the Academie Royale des Sciences

Palma says, "let the speculation be made!" and the speculation is

made.' "

"What a man that Hebrew is," put in Blondet; "he has not had a

university education, but a universal education. And universal does

not in his case mean superficial; whatever he knows, he knows to the

bottom. He has a genius, an intuitive faculty for business. He is the

oracle of all the lynxes that rule the Paris market; they will not

touch an investment until Palma has looked into it. He looks solemn,

he listens, ponders, and reflects; his interlocutor thinks that after

this consideration he has come round his man, till Palma says, 'This

will not do for me.'The most extraordinary thing about Palma, to my

mind, is the fact that he and Werbrust were partners for ten years,

and there was never the shadow of a disagreement between them."

"That is the way with the very strong or the very weak; any two

between the extremes fall out and lose no time in making enemies of

each other," said Couture.

"Nucingen, you see, had neatly and skilfully put a little bombshell

under the colonnades of the Bourse, and towards four o'clock in the

afternoon it exploded.'Here is something serious; have you heard the

news?' asked du Tillet, drawing Werbrust into a corner. 'Here is

Nucingen gone off to Brussels, and his wife petitioning for a

separation of her estate.'

" 'Are you and he in it together for a liquidation?' asked Werbrust,

smiling.

" 'No foolery, Werbrust,' said du Tillet. 'You know the holders of his

paper. Now, look here. There is business in it. Shares in this new

concern of ours have gone up twenty per cent already; they will go up

to five-and-twenty by the end of the quarter; you know why. They are

going to pay a splendid dividend.'

" 'Sly dog,' said Werbrust. 'Get along with you; you are a devil with

long and sharp claws, and you have them deep in the butter.'

" 'Just let me speak, or we shall not have time to operate. I hit on

the idea as soon as I heard the news. I positively saw Mme. de

Nucingen crying; she is afraid for her fortune.'

" 'Poor little thing!' said the old Alsacien Jew, with an ironical

expression. 'Well?' he added, as du Tillet was silent.

" 'Well. At my place I have a thousand shares of a thousand francs in

our concern; Nucingen handed them over to me to put on the market, do

you understand? Good. Now let us buy up a million of Nucingen's paper

at a discount of ten or twenty per cent, and we shall make a handsome

percentage out of it. We shall be debtors and creditors both;

confusion will be worked! But we must set about it carefully, or the

holders may imagine that we are operating in Nucingen's interests.'

"Then Werbrust understood. He squeezed du Tillet's hand with an

expression such as a woman's face wears when she is playing her

neighbor a trick.

"Martin Falleix came up.'Well, have you heard the news?' he asked.

'Nucingen has stopped payment.'

" 'Pooh,' said Werbrust, 'pray don't noise it about; give those that

hold his paper a chance.'

" 'What is the cause of the smash; do you know?' put in Claparon.

" 'You know nothing about it,' said du Tillet. 'There isn't any smash.

Payment will be made in full. Nucingen will start again; I shall find

him all the money he wants. I know the causes of the suspension. He

has put all his capital into Mexican securities, and they are sending

him metal in return; old Spanish cannon cast in such an insane fashion

that they melted down gold and bell-metal and church plate for it, and

all the wreck of the Spanish dominion in the Indies. The specie is

slow in coming, and the dear Baron is hard up. That is all.'

" 'It is a fact,' said Werbrust; 'I am taking his paper myself at

twenty per cent discount.'

"The news spread swift as fire in a straw rick. The most contradictory

reports got about. But such confidence was felt in the firm after the

two previous suspensions, that every one stuck to Nucingen's paper.

'Palma must lend us a hand,' said Werbrust.

"Now Palma was the Keller's oracle, and the Kellers were brimful of

Nucingen's paper. A hint from Palma would be enough. Werbrust arranged

with Palma, and he rang the alarm bell. There was a panic next day on

the Bourse. The Kellers, acting on Palma's advice, let go Nucingen's

paper at ten per cent of loss; they set the example on 'Change, for

they were supposed to know very well what they were about. Taillefer

followed up with three hundred thousand francs at a discount of twenty

per cent, and Martin Falleix with two hundred thousand at fifteen.

Gigonnet saw what was going on. He helped to spread the panic, with a

view to buying up Nucingen's paper himself and making a commission of

two or three per cent out of Werbrust.

"In a corner of the Bourse he came upon poor Matifat, who had three

hundred thousand francs in Nucingen's bank. Matifat, ghastly and

haggard, beheld the terrible Gigonnet, the bill-discounter of his old

quarter, coming up to worry him. He shuddered in spite of himself.

" 'Things are looking bad. There is a crisis on hand. Nucingen is

compounding with his creditors. But this does not interest you, Daddy

Matifat; you are out of business.'

" 'Oh, well, you are mistaken, Gigonnet; I am in for three hundred

thousand francs. I meant to speculate in Spanish bonds.'

" 'Then you have saved your money. Spanish bonds would have swept

everything away; whereas I am prepared to offer you something like

fifty per cent for your account with Nucingen.'

" 'You are very keen about it, it seems to me,' said Matifat. 'I never

knew a banker yet that paid less than fifty per cent. Ah, if it were

only a matter of ten per cent of loss' added the retired man of

drugs.

" 'Well, will you take fifteen?' asked Gigonnet.

" 'You are very keen about it, it seems to me,' said Matifat.

" 'Good-night.'

" 'Will you take twelve?'

" 'Done,' said Gigonnet.

"Before night two millions had been bought up in the names of the

three chance-united confederates, and posted by du Tillet to the debit

side of Nucingen's account. Next day they drew their premium.

"The dainty little old Baroness d'Aldrigger was at breakfast with her

two daughters and Godefroid, when Rastignac came in with a diplomatic

air to steer the conversation on the financial crisis. The Baron de

Nucingen felt a lively regard for the d'Aldrigger family; he was

prepared, if things went amiss, to cover the Baroness' account with

his best securities, to wit, some shares in the argentiferous lead-

mines, but the application must come from the lady.

" 'Poor Nucingen!' said the Baroness. 'What can have become of him?'

" 'He is in Belgium. His wife is petitioning for a separation of her

property; but he had gone to see if he can arrange with some bankers

to see him through.'

" 'Dear me! That reminds me of my poor husband! Dear M. de Rastignac,

how you must feel this, so attached as you are to the house!'

" 'If all the indifferent are covered, his personal friends will be

rewarded later on. He will pull through; he is a clever man.'

" 'An honest man, above all things,' said the Baroness.

"A month later, Nucingen met all his liabilities, with no formalities

beyond the letters by which creditors signified the investments which

they preferred to take in exchange for their capital; and with no

action on the part of other banks beyond registering the transfer of

Nucingen's paper for the investments in favor.

"While du Tillet, Werbrust, Claparon, Gigonnet, and others that

thought themselves clever were fetching in Nucingen's paper from

abroad with a premium of one per centfor it was still worth their

while to exchange it for securities in a rising marketthere was all

the more talk on the Bourse, because there was nothing now to fear.

They babbled over Nucingen; he was discussed and judged; they even

slandered him. His luxurious life, his enterprises! When a man has so

much on his hands, he overreaches himself, and so forth, and so forth.

"The talk was at its height, when several people were greatly

astonished to receive letters from Geneva, Basel, Milan, Naples,

Genoa, Marseilles, and London, in which their correspondents,

previously advised of the failure, informed them that somebody was

offering one per cent for Nucingen's paper! 'There is something up,'

said the lynxes of the Bourse.

"The Court meanwhile had granted the application for Mme. de

Nucingen's separation as to her estate, and the question became still

more complicated. The newspapers announced the return of M. le Baron

de Nucingen from a journey to Belgium; he had been arranging, it was

said, with a well-known Belgian firm to resume the working of some

coal-pits in the Bois de Bossut. The Baron himself appeared on the

Bourse, and never even took the trouble to contradict the slanders

circulating against him. He scorned to reply through the press; he

simply bought a splendid estate just outside Paris for two millions of

francs. Six weeks afterwards, the Bordeaux shipping intelligence

announced that two vessels with cargoes of bullion to the amount of

seven millions, consigned to the firm of Nucingen, were lying in the

river.

"Then it was plain to Palma, Werbrust, and du Tillet that the trick

had been played. Nobody else was any the wiser. The three scholars

studied the means by which the great bubble had been created, saw that

it had been preparing for eleven months, and pronounced Nucingen the

greatest financier in Europe.

"Rastignac understood nothing of all this, but he had the four hundred

thousand francs which Nucingen had allowed him to shear from the

Parisian sheep, and he portioned his sisters. D'Aiglemont, at a hint

from his cousin Beaudenord, besought Rastignac to accept ten per cent

upon his million if he would undertake to convert it into shares in a

canal which is still to make, for Nucingen worked things with the

Government to such purpose that the concessionaires find it to their

interest not to finish their scheme. Charles Grandet implored

Delphine's lover to use his interest to secure shares for him in

exchange for his cash. And altogether Rastignac played the part of Law

for ten days; he had the prettiest duchesses in France praying to him

to allot shares to them, and to-day the young man very likely has an

income of forty thousand livres, derived in the first instance from

the argentiferous lead-mines."

"If every one was better off, who can have lost?" asked Finot.

"Hear the conclusion," rejoined Bixiou. "The Marquis d'Aiglemont and

Beaudenord (I put them forward as two examples out of many) kept their

allotted shares, enticed by the so-called dividend that fell due a few

months afterwards. They had another three per cent on their capital,

they sang Nucingen's praises, and took his part at a time when

everybody suspected that he was going bankrupt. Godefroid married his

beloved Isaure and took shares in the mines to the value of a hundred

thousand francs. The Nucingens gave a ball even more splendid than

people expected of them on the occasion of the wedding; Delphine's

present to the bride was a charming set of rubies. Isaure danced, a

happy wife, a girl no longer. The little Baroness was more than ever a

Shepherdess of the Alps. The ball was at its height when Malvina, the

Andalouse of Musset's poem, heard du Tillet's voice drily advising her

to take Desroches. Desroches, warmed to the right degree by Rastignac

and Nucingen, tried to come to an understanding financially; but at

the first hint of shares in the mines for the bride's portion, he

broke off and went back to the Matifat's in the Rue du Cherche-Midi,

only to find the accursed canal shares which Gigonnet had foisted on

Matifat in lieu of cash.

"They had not long to wait for the crash. The firm of Claparon did

business on too large a scale, the capital was locked up, the concern

ceased to serve its purposes, or to pay dividends, though the

speculations were sound. These misfortunes coincided with the events

of 1827. In 1829 it was too well known that Claparon was a man of

straw set up by the two giants; he fell from his pedestal. Shares that

had fetched twelve hundred and fifty francs fell to four hundred,

though intrinsically they were worth six. Nucingen, knowing their

value, bought them up at four.

"Meanwhile the little Baroness d'Aldrigger had sold out of the mines

that paid no dividends, and Godefroid had reinvested the money

belonging to his wife and her mother in Claparon's concern. Debts

compelled them to realize when the shares were at their lowest, so

that of seven hundred thousand francs only two hundred thousand

remained. They made a clearance, and all that was left was prudently

invested in the three per cents at seventy-five. Godefroid, the

sometime gay and careless bachelor who had lived without taking

thought all his life long, found himself saddled with a little goose

of a wife totally unfitted to bear adversity (indeed, before six

months were over, he had witnessed the anserine transformation of his

beloved) to say nothing of a mother-in-law whose mind ran on pretty

dresses while she had not bread to eat. The two families must live

together to live at all. It was only by stirring up all his

considerably chilled interest that Godefroid got a post in the audit

department. His friends?They were out of town. His relatives?All

astonishment and promises. 'What! my dear boy! Oh! count upon me! Poor

fellow!' and Beaudenord was clean forgotten fifteen minutes

afterwards. He owed his place to Nucingen and de Vandenesse.

"And to-day these so estimable and unfortunate people are living on a

third floor (not counting the entresol) in the Rue du Mont Thabor.

Malvina, the Adolphus' pearl of a granddaughter, has not a farthing.

She gives music-lessons, not to be a burden upon her brother-in-law.

You may see a tall, dark, thin, withered woman, like a mummy escaped

from Passalacqua's about afoot through the streets of Paris. In 1830

Beaudenord lost his situation just as his wife presented him with a

fourth child. A family of eight and two servants (Wirth and his wife)

and an income of eight thousand livres. And at this moment the mines

are paying so well, that an original share of a thousand francs brings

in a dividend of cent per cent.

"Rastignac and Mme. de Nucingen bought the shares sold by the Baroness

and Godefroid. The Revolution made a peer of France of Nucingen and a

Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor. He has not stopped payment since

1830, but still I hear that he has something like seventeen millions.

He put faith in the Ordinances of July, sold out of all his

investments, and boldly put his money into the funds when the three

per cents stood at forty-five. He persuaded the Tuileries that this

was done out of devotion, and about the same time he and du Tillet

between them swallowed down three millions belonging to that great

scamp Philippe Bridau.

"Quite lately our Baron was walking along the Rue de Rivoli on his way

to the Bois when he met the Baroness d'Aldrigger under the colonnade.

The little old lady wore a tiny green bonnet with a rose-colored

lining, a flowered gown, and a mantilla; altogether, she was more than

ever the Shepherdess of the Alps. She could no more be made to

understand the causes of her poverty than the sources of her wealth.

As she went along, leaning upon poor Malvina, that model of heroic

devotion, she seemed to be the young girl and Malvina the old mother.

Wirth followed them, carrying an umbrella.

" 'Dere are beoples whose vordune I vound it imbossible to make,' said

the Baron, addressing his companion (M. Cointet, a cabinet minister).

'Now dot de baroxysm off brincibles haf bassed off, chust reinshtate

dot boor Peautenord.'

"So Beaudenord went back to his desk, thanks to Nucingen's good

offices; and the d'Aldriggers extol Nucingen as a hero of friendship,

for he always sends the little Shepherdess of the Alps and her

daughters invitations to his balls. No creature whatsoever can be made

to understand that the Baron yonder three times did his best to

plunder the public without breaking the letter of the law, and

enriched people in spite of himself. No one has a word to say against

him. If anybody should suggest that a big capitalist often is another

word for a cut-throat, it would be a most egregious calumny. If stocks

rise and fall, if property improves and depreciates, the fluctuations

of the market are caused by a common movement, a something in the air,

a tide in the affairs of men subject like other tides to lunar

influences. The great Arago is much to blame for giving us no

scientific theory to account for this important phenomenon. The only

outcome of all this is an axiom which I have never seen anywhere in

print"

"And that is?"

"The debtor is more than a match for the creditor."

"Oh!" said Blondet. "For my own part, all that we have been saying

seems to me to be a paraphrase of the epigram in which Montesquieu

summed up l'Espirit des Lois."

"What?" said Finot.

"Laws are like spiders' webs; the big flies get through, while the

little ones are caught."

"Then, what are you for?" asked Finot.

"For absolute government, the only kind of government under which

enterprises against the spirit of the law can be put down. Yes.

Arbitrary rule is the salvation of a country when it comes to the

support of justice, for the right of mercy is strictly one-sided. The

king can pardon a fraudulent bankrupt; he cannot do anything for the

victims. The letter of the law is fatal to modern society."

"Just get that into the electors' heads!" said Bixiou.

"Some one has undertaken to do it."

"Who?"

"Time. As the Bishop of Leon said, 'Liberty is ancient, but kingship

is eternal; any nation in its right mind returns to monarchical

government in one form or another.' "

"I say, there was somebody next door," said Finot, hearing us

rise to go.

"There always is somebody next door," retorted Bixiou. "But he must

have been drunk."

PARIS, November 1837.