VII

In the month of May, 1821, this family, ever grappling with adversity,

received a first reward for its efforts at a little fete which

Pillerault, the arbiter of its destinies, prepared for it. The last

Sunday of that month was the anniversary of the day on which Constance

had consented to marry Cesar. Pillerault, in concert with the Ragons,

hired a little country-house at Sceaux, and the worthy old ironmonger

silently prepared a joyous house-warming.

"Cesar," said Pillerault, on the Saturday evening, "to-morrow we are

all going into the country, and you must come."

Cesar, who wrote a superb hand, spent his evenings in copying for

Derville and other lawyers. On Sundays, justified by ecclesiastical

permission, he worked like a Negro.

"No," he said, "Monsieur Derville is waiting for a guardianship

account."

"Your wife and daughter ought to have some reward. You will meet none

but our particular friends,--the Abbe Loraux, the Ragons, Popinot, and

his uncle. Besides, I wish it."

Cesar and his wife, carried along by the whirlwind of business, had

never revisited Sceaux, though from time to time each longed to see

once more the tree under which the head-clerk of "The Queen of Roses"

had fainted with joy. During the trip, which Cesar made in a hackney-

coach with his wife and daughter, and Popinot who escorted them,

Constance cast many meaning glances at her husband without bringing to

his lips a single smile. She whispered a few words in his ear; for all

answer he shook his head. The soft signs of her tenderness, ever-

present yet at the moment forced, instead of brightening Cesar's face

made it more sombre, and brought the long-repressed tears into his

eyes. Poor man! he had gone over this road twenty years before, young,

prosperous, full of hope, the lover of a girl as beautiful as their

own Cesarine; he was dreaming then of happiness. To-day, in the coach

before him, sat his noble child pale and worn by vigils, and his brave

wife, whose only beauty now was that of cities through whose streets

have flowed the lava waves of a volcano. Love alone remained to him!

Cesar's sadness smothered the joy that welled up in the hearts of

Cesarine and Anselme, who embodied to his eyes the charming scene of

other days.

"Be happy, my children! you have earned the right," said the poor

father in heart-rending tones. "You may love without one bitter

thought."

As he said these words he took his wife's hands and kissed them with a

sacred and admiring effect which touched Constance more than the

brightest gaiety. When they reached the house where Pillerault, the

Ragons, the Abbe Loraux, and Popinot the judge were waiting for them,

these five choice people assumed an air and manner and speech which

put Cesar at his ease; for all were deeply moved to see him still on

the morrow of his great disaster.

"Go and take a walk in the Aulnay woods," said Pillerault, putting

Cesar's hand into that of Constance; "go with Anselme and Cesarine!

but come back by four o'clock."

"Poor souls, we should be a restraint upon them," said Madame Ragon,

touched by the deep grief of her debtor. "He will be very happy

presently."

"It is repentance without sin," said the Abbe Loraux.

"He could rise to greatness only through adversity," said the judge.

To forget is the great secret of strong, creative natures,--to forget,

in the way of Nature herself, who knows no past, who begins afresh, at

every hour, the mysteries of her untiring travail.

Feeble existences, like that of Birotteau, live sunk in sorrows,

instead of transmuting them into doctrines of experience: they let

them saturate their being, and are worn-out, finally, by falling more

and more under the weight of past misfortunes.

When the two couples reached the path which leads to the woods of

Aulnay, placed like a crown upon the prettiest hillside in the

neighborhood of Paris, and from which the Vallee-aux-Loups is seen in

all its coquetry, the beauty of the day, the charm of the landscape,

the first spring verdure, the delicious memory of the happiest day of

all his youth, loosened the tight chords in Cesar's soul; he pressed

the arm of his wife against his beating heart; his eye was no longer

glassy, for the light of pleasure once more brightened in it.

"At last," said Constance to her husband, "I see you again, my poor

Cesar. I think we have all behaved well enough to allow ourselves a

little pleasure now and then."

"Ought I?" said the poor man. "Ah! Constance, thy affection is all

that remains to me. Yes, I have lost even my old self-confidence; I

have no strength left; my only desire is that I may live to die

discharged of debt on earth. Thou, dear wife, thou who art my wisdom

and my prudence, thou whose eyes saw clear, thou who art

irreproachable, thou canst have pleasure. I alone--of us three--am

guilty. Eighteen months ago, in the midst of that fatal ball, I saw my

Constance, the only woman I have ever loved, more beautiful than the

young girl I followed along this path twenty years ago--like our

children yonder! In eighteen months I have blasted that beauty,--my

pride, my legitimate and sanctioned pride. I love thee better since I

know thee well. Oh, /dear/!" he said, giving to the word a tone which

reached to the inmost heart of his wife, "I would rather have thee

scold me, than see thee so tender to my pain."

"I did not think," she said, "that after twenty years of married life

the love of a wife for her husband could deepen."

These words drove from Cesar's mind, for one brief moment, all his

sorrows; his heart was so true that they were to him a fortune. He

walked forward almost joyously to /their/ tree, which by chance had

not been felled. Husband and wife sat down beneath it, watching

Anselme and Cesarine, who were sauntering across the grassy slope

without perceiving them, thinking probably that they were still

following.

"Mademoiselle," Anselme was saying, "do not think me so base and

grasping as to profit by your father's share which I have acquired in

the Cephalic Oil. I am keeping his share for him; I nurse it with

careful love. I invest the profits; if there is any loss I put it to

my own account. We can only belong to one another on the day when your

father is restored to his position, free of debt. I work for that day

with all the strength that love has given me."

"Will it come soon?" she said.

"Soon," said Popinot. The word was uttered in a tone so full of

meaning, that the chaste and pure young girl inclined her head to her

dear Anselme, who laid an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow,--so

noble was her gesture and action.

"Papa, all is well," she said to Cesar with a little air of

confidence. "Be good and sweet; talk to us, put away that sad look."

When this family, so tenderly bound together, re-entered the house,

even Cesar, little observing as he was, saw a change in the manner of

the Ragons which seemed to denote some remarkable event. The greeting

of Madame Ragon was particularly impressive; her look and accent

seemed to say to Cesar, "We are paid."

At the dessert, the notary of Sceaux appeared. Pillerault made him sit

down, and then looked at Cesar, who began to suspect a surprise,

though he was far indeed from imagining the extent of it.

"My nephew, the savings of your wife, your daughter, and yourself, for

the last eighteen months, amounted to twenty thousand francs. I have

received thirty thousand by the dividend on my claim. We have

therefore fifty thousand francs to divide among your creditors.

Monsieur Ragon has received thirty thousand francs for his dividend,

and you have now paid him the balance of his claim in full, interest

included, for which monsieur here, the notary of Sceaux, has brought

you a receipt. The rest of the money is with Crottat, ready for

Lourdois, Madame Madou, the mason, carpenter, and the other most

pressing creditors. Next year, we may do as well. With time and

patience we can go far."

Birotteau's joy is not to be described; he threw himself into his

uncle's arms, weeping.

"May he not wear his cross?" said Ragon to the Abbe Loraux.

The confessor fastened the red ribbon to Cesar's buttonhole. The poor

clerk looked at himself again and again during the evening in the

mirrors of the salon, manifesting a joy at which people thinking

themselves superior might have laughed, but which these good bourgeois

thought quite natural.

The next day Birotteau went to find Madame Madou.

"Ah, there you are, good soul!" she cried. "I didn't recognize you,

you have turned so gray. Yet you don't really drudge, you people;

you've got good places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that

deserves baptism."

"But, madame--"

"Never mind, I don't mean it as a reproach," she said. "You have got

my receipt."

"I came to tell you that I shall pay you to-morrow, at Monsieur

Crottat's, the rest of your claim in full, with interest."

"Is that true?"

"Be there at eleven o'clock."

"Hey! there's honor for you! good measure and running over!" she cried

with naive admiration. "Look here, my good monsieur, I am doing a fine

trade with your little red-head. He's a nice young fellow; he lets me

earn a fair penny without haggling over it, so that I may get an

equivalent for that loss. Well, I'll get you a receipt in full,

anyhow; you keep the money, my poor old man! La Madou may get in a

fury, and she does scold; but she has got something here--" she cried,

thumping the most voluminous mounds of flesh ever yet seen in the

markets.

"No," said Birotteau, "the law is plain. I wish to pay you in full."

"Then I won't deny you the pleasure," she said; "and to-morrow I'll

trumpet your conduct through the markets. Ha! it's rare, rare!"

The worthy man had much the same scene, with variations, at Lourdois

the house painter's, father-in-law of Crottat. It was raining; Cesar

left his umbrella at the corner of the door. The prosperous painter,

seeing the water trickling into the room where he was breakfasting

with his wife, was not tender.

"Come, what do you want, my poor Pere Birotteau?" he said, in the hard

tone which some people take to importunate beggars.

"Monsieur, has not your son-in-law told you--"

"What?" cried Lourdois, expecting some appeal.

"To be at his office this morning at half past eleven, and give me a

receipt for the payment of your claims in full, with interest?"

"Ah, that's another thing! Sit down, Monsieur Birotteau, and eat a

mouthful with us."

"Do us the pleasure to share our breakfast," said Madame Lourdois.

"You are doing well, then?" asked the fat Lourdois.

"No, monsieur, I have lived from hand to mouth, that I might scrape up

this money; but I hope, in time, to repair the wrongs I have done to

my neighbor."

"Ah!" said the painter, swallowing a mouthful of /pate de foie gras/,

"you are truly a man of honor."

"What is Madame Birotteau doing?" asked Madame Lourdois.

"She is keeping the books of Monsieur Anselme Popinot."

"Poor people!" said Madame Lourdois, in a low voice to her husband.

"If you ever need me, my dear Monsieur Birotteau, come and see me,"

said Lourdois. "I might help--"

"I do need you--at eleven o'clock to-day, monsieur," said Birotteau,

retiring.

*****

This first result gave courage to the poor bankrupt, but not peace of

mind. On the contrary, the thought of regaining his honor agitated his

life inordinately; he completely lost the natural color of his cheeks,

his eyes grew sunken and dim, and his face hollow. When old

acquaintances met him, in the morning at eight o'clock or in the

evening at four, as he went to and from the Rue de l'Oratoire, wearing

the surtout coat he wore at the time of his fall, and which he

husbanded as a poor sub-lieutenant husbands his uniform,--his hair

entirely white, his face pale, his manner timid,--some few would stop

him in spite of himself; for his eye was alert to avoid those he knew

as he crept along beside the walls, like a thief.

"Your conduct is known, my friend," said one; "everybody regrets the

sternness with which you treat yourself, also your wife and daughter."

"Take a little more time," said others; "the wounds of money do not

kill."

"No, but the wounds of the soul do," the poor worn Cesar answered one

day to his friend Matifat.

*****

At the beginning of the year 1822, the Canal Saint-Martin was begun.

Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The

canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of

Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it

agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take

possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to

Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the

transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq-

Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was indifferent to Popinot,

it is very certain that the lover of Cesarine felt an instinctive

hatred for du Tillet. He knew nothing of the theft and the infamous

scheme of the prosperous banker, but an inward voice cried to him,

"The man is an unpunished rascal." Popinot would never have transacted

the smallest business with him; du Tillet's very presence was odious

to his feelings. Under the present circumstances it was doubly so, for

the banker was now enriched through the forced spoliation of his

former master; the lands about the Madeleine, as well as those in the

Faubourg du Temple, were beginning to rise in price, and to foreshadow

the enormous value they were to reach in 1827. So that after du Tillet

had explained the object of his visit, Popinot looked at him with

concentrated wrath.

"I shall not refuse to give up my lease; but I demand sixty thousand

francs for it, and I shall not take one farthing less."

"Sixty thousand francs!" exclaimed du Tillet, making a movement to

leave the shop.

"I have fifteen years' lease still to run; it will, moreover, cost me

three thousand francs a year to get other buildings. Therefore, sixty

thousand francs, or say no more about it," said Popinot, going to the

back of the shop, where du Tillet followed him.

The discussion grew warm, Birotteau's name was mentioned; Madame Cesar

heard it and came down, and saw du Tillet for the first time since the

famous ball. The banker was unable to restrain a gesture of surprise

at the change which had come over the beautiful woman; he lowered his

eyes, shocked at the result of his own work.

"Monsieur," said Popinot to Madame Cesar, "is going to make three

hundred thousand francs out of /your/ land, and he refuses /us/ sixty

thousand francs' indemnity for /our/ lease."

"That is three thousand francs a year," said du Tillet.

"Three--thousand--francs!" said Madame Cesar, slowly, in a clear,

penetrating voice.

Du Tillet turned pale. Popinot looked at Madame Birotteau. There was a

moment of profound silence, which made the scene still more

inexplicable to Anselme.

"Sign your relinquishment of the lease, which I have made Crottat draw

up," said du Tillet, drawing a stamped paper from a side-pocket. "I

will give you a cheque on the Bank of France for sixty thousand

francs."

Popinot looked at Madame Cesar without concealing his astonishment; he

thought he was dreaming. While du Tillet was writing his cheque at a

high desk, Madame Cesar disappeared and went upstairs. The druggist

and the banker exchanged papers. Du Tillet bowed coldly to Popinot,

and went away.

"At last, in a few months," thought Popinot, as he watched du Tillet

going towards the Rue des Lombards, where his cabriolet was waiting,

"thanks to this extraordinary affair, I shall have my Cesarine. My

poor little wife shall not wear herself out any longer. A look from

Madame Cesar was enough! What secret is there between her and that

brigand? The whole thing is extraordinary."

Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went up to speak to

Madame Birotteau; she was not in the counting-room, and had doubtless

gone to her chamber. Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law

and son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other; he

therefore rushed up to Madame Cesar's appartement with the natural

eagerness of a lover on the threshold of his happiness. The young man

was prodigiously surprised to find her, as he sprang like a cat into

the room, reading a letter from du Tillet, whose handwriting he

recognized at a glance. A lighted candle, and the black and quivering

phantoms of burned letters lying on the floor made him shudder, for

his quick eyes caught the following words in the letter which

Constance held in her hand:--

"I adore you! You know it well, angel of my life, and--"

"What power have you over du Tillet that could force him to agree to

such terms?" he said with a convulsive laugh that came from repressed

suspicion.

"Do not let us speak of that," she said, showing great distress.

"No," said Popinot, bewildered; "let us rather talk of the end of all

your troubles." Anselme turned on his heel towards the window, and

drummed with his fingers on the panes as he gazed into the court.

"Well," he said to himself, "even if she did love du Tillet, is that

any reason why I should not behave like an honorable man?"

"What is the matter, my child?" said the poor woman.

"The total of the net profits of Cephalic Oil mount up to two hundred

and forty-two thousand francs; half of that is one hundred and twenty-

one thousand," said Popinot, brusquely. "If I withdraw from that

amount the forty-eight thousand francs which I paid to Monsieur

Birotteau, there remains seventy-three thousand, which, joined to

these sixty thousand paid for the relinquishment of the lease, gives

/you/ one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs."

Madame Cesar listened with fluctuations of joy which made her tremble

so violently that Popinot could hear the beating of her heart.

"Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau as my partner," he

went on; "we can use this sum to pay his creditors in full. Add the

twenty-eight thousand you have saved and placed in our uncle

Pillerault's hands, and we have one hundred and sixty-one thousand

francs. Our uncle will not refuse his receipt for his own claim of

twenty-five thousand. No human power can deprive me of the right of

lending to my father-in-law, by anticipating our profits of next year,

the necessary sum to make up the total amount due to his creditor, and

--he--will--be--reinstated--restored--"

"Restored!" cried Madame Cesar, falling on her knees beside a chair.

She joined her hands and said a prayer; as she did so, the letter slid

from her fingers. "Dear Anselme," she said, crossing herself, "dear

son!" She took his head in her hands, kissed him on the forehead,

pressed him to her heart, and seemed for a moment beside herself.

"Cesarine is thine! My daughter will be happy at last. She can leave

that shop where she is killing herself--"

"For love?" said Popinot.

"Yes," answered the mother, smiling.

"Listen to a little secret," said Popinot, glancing at the fatal

letter from a corner of his eye. "I helped Celestin to buy your

business; but I did it on one condition,--your appartement was to be

kept exactly as you left it. I had an idea in my head, though I never

thought that chance would favor it so much. Celestin is bound to sub-

let to you your old appartement, where he has never set foot, and

where all the furniture will be yours. I have kept the second story,

where I shall live with Cesarine, who shall never leave you. After our

marriage I shall come and pass the days from eight in the morning till

six in the evening here. I will buy out Monsieur Cesar's share in this

business for a hundred thousand francs, and that will give you an

income to live on. Shall you not be happy?"

"Tell me no more, Anselme, or I shall go out of my mind."

The angelic attitude of Madame Cesar, the purity of her eyes, the

innocence of her candid brow, contradicted so gloriously the thoughts

which surged in the lover's brain that he resolved to make an end of

their monstrosities forever. Sin was incompatible with the life and

sentiments of such a woman.

"My dear, adored mother," said Anselme, "in spite of myself, a

horrible suspicion has entered my soul. If you wish to see me happy,

you will put an end to it at once."

Popinot stretched out his hand and picked up the letter.

"Without intending it," he resumed, alarmed at the terror painted on

Constance's face, "I read the first words of this letter of du Tillet.

The words coincide in a singular manner with the power you have just

shown in forcing that man to accept my absurd exactions; any man would

explain it as the devil explains it to me, in spite of myself. Your

look--three words suffice--"

"Stop!" said Madame Cesar, taking the letter and burning it. "My son,

I am severely punished for a trifling error. You shall know all,

Anselme. I shall not allow a suspicion inspired by her mother to

injure my daughter; and besides, I can speak without blushing. What I

now tell you, I could tell my husband. Du Tillet wished to seduce me;

I informed my husband of it, and du Tillet was to have been dismissed.

On the very day my husband was about to send him away, he robbed us of

three thousand francs."

"I was sure of it!" said Popinot, expressing his hatred by the tones

of his voice.

"Anselme, your future, your happiness, demand this confidence; but you

must let it die in your heart, just as it is dead in mine and in

Cesar's. Do you not remember how my husband scolded us for an error in

the accounts? Monsieur Birotteau, to avoid a police-court which might

have destroyed the man for life, no doubt placed in the desk three

thousand francs,--the price of that cashmere shawl which I did not

receive till three years later. All this explains the scene. Alas! my

dear child, I must admit my foolishness; du Tillet wrote me three

love-letters, which pictured him so well that I kept them," she said,

lowering her eyes and sighing, "as a curiosity. I have not re-read

them more than once; still, it was imprudent to keep them. When I saw

du Tillet just now I was reminded of them, and I came upstairs to burn

them; I was looking over the last as you came in. That's the whole

story, my friend."

Anselme knelt for a moment beside her and kissed her hand with an

unspeakable emotion, which brought tears into the eyes of both; Madame

Cesar raised him, stretched out her arms and pressed him to her heart.

*****

This day was destined to be a day of joy to Cesar. The private

secretary of the king, Monsieur de Vandenesse, called at the Sinking-

Fund Office to find him. They walked out together into the little

courtyard.

"Monsieur Birotteau," said the Vicomte de Vandenesse, "your efforts to

pay your creditors in full have accidentally become known to the king.

His Majesty, touched by such rare conduct, and hearing that through

humility you no longer wear the cross of the Legion of honor, has sent

me to command you to put it on again. Moreover, wishing to help you in

meeting your obligations, he has charged me to give you this sum from

his privy purse, regretting that he is unable to make it larger. Let

this be a profound secret. His Majesty thinks it derogatory to the

royal dignity to have his good deeds divulged," said the private

secretary, putting six thousand francs into the hand of the poor

clerk, who listened to this speech with unutterable emotion. The words

that came to his lips were disconnected and stammering. Vandenesse

waved his hand to him, smiling, and went away.

The principle which actuated poor Cesar is so rare in Paris that his

conduct by degrees attracted admiration. Joseph Lebas, Popinot the

judge, Camusot, the Abbe Loraux, Ragon, the head of the important

house where Cesarine was employed, Lourdois, Monsieur de la

Billardiere, and others, talked of it. Public opinion, undergoing a

change, now lauded him to the skies.

"He is indeed a man of honor!" The phrase even sounded in Cesar's ears

as he passed along the streets, and caused him the emotion an author

feels when he hears the muttered words: "That is he!" This noble

recovery of credit enraged du Tillet. Cesar's first thought on

receiving the bank-notes sent by the king was to use them in paying

the debt still due to his former clerk. The worthy man went to the Rue

de la Chaussee d'Antin just as the banker was returning from the

Bourse; they met upon the stairway.

"Well, my poor Birotteau!" said du Tillet, with a stealthy glance.

"Poor!" exclaimed the debtor proudly, "I am very rich. I shall lay my

head this night upon my pillow with the happiness of knowing that I

have paid you in full."

This speech, ringing with integrity, sent a sharp pang through du

Tillet. In spite of the esteem he publicly enjoyed, he did not esteem

himself; an inextinguishable voice cried aloud within his soul, "The

man is sublime!"

"Pay me?" he said; "why, what business are you doing?"

Feeling sure that du Tillet would not repeat what he told him,

Birotteau answered: "I shall never go back to business, monsieur. No

human power could have foreseen what has happened to me there. Who

knows that I might not be the victim of another Roguin? But my conduct

has been placed under the eyes of the king; his heart has deigned to

sympathize with my efforts; he has encouraged them by sending me a sum

of money large enough to--"

"Do you want a receipt?" said du Tillet, interrupting him; "are you

going to pay--"

"In full, with interest. I must ask you to come with me now to

Monsieur Crottat, only two steps from here."

"Before a notary?"

"Monsieur; I am not forbidden to aim at my complete reinstatement; to

obtain it, all deeds and receipts must be legal and undeniable."

"Come, then," said du Tillet, going out with Birotteau; "it is only a

step. But where did you take all that money from?"

"I have not taken it," said Cesar; "I have earned it by the sweat of

my brow."

"You owe an enormous sum to Claparon."

"Alas! yes; that is my largest debt. I think sometimes I shall die

before I pay it."

"You never can pay it," said du Tillet harshly.

"He is right," thought Birotteau.

As he went home the poor man passed, inadvertently, along the Rue

Saint-Honore; for he was in the habit of making a circuit to avoid

seeing his shop and the windows of his former home. For the first time

since his fall he saw the house where eighteen years of happiness had

been effaced by the anguish of three months.

"I hoped to end my days there," he thought; and he hastened his steps,

for he caught sight of the new sign,--

CELESTIN CREVEL

Successor to Cesar Birotteau

"Am I dazzled, am I going blind? Was that Cesarine?" he cried,

recollecting a blond head he had seen at the window.

He had actually seen his daughter, his wife, and Popinot. The lovers

knew that Birotteau never passed before the windows of his old home,

and they had come to the house to make arrangements for a fete which

they intended to give him. This amazing apparition so astonished

Birotteau that he stood stock-still, unable to move.

"There is Monsieur Birotteau looking at his old house," said Monsieur

Molineux to the owner of a shop opposite to "The Queen of Roses."

"Poor man!" said the perfumer's former neighbor; "he gave a fine ball

--two hundred carriages in the street."

"I was there; and he failed in three months," said Molineux. "I was

the assignee."

Birotteau fled, trembling in every limb, and hastened back to

Pillerault.

Pillerault, who had just been informed of what had happened in the Rue

des Cinq-Diamants, feared that his nephew was scarcely fit to bear the

shock of joy which the sudden knowledge of his restoration would cause

him; for Pillerault was a daily witness of the moral struggles of the

poor man, whose mind stood always face to face with his inflexible

doctrines against bankruptcy, and whose vital forces were used and

spent at every hour. Honor was to Cesar a corpse, for which an Easter

morning might yet dawn. This hope kept his sorrow incessantly active.

Pillerault took upon himself the duty of preparing his nephew to

receive the good news; and when Birotteau came in he was thinking over

the best means of accomplishing his purpose. Cesar's joy as he related

the proof of interest which the king had bestowed upon him seemed of

good augury, and the astonishment he expressed at seeing Cesarine at

"The Queen of Roses" afforded, Pillerault thought, an excellent

opening.

"Well, Cesar," said the old man, "do you know what is at the bottom of

it?--the hurry Popinot is in to marry Cesarine. He cannot wait any

longer; and you ought not, for the sake of your exaggerated ideas of

honor, to make him pass his youth eating dry bread with the fumes of a

good dinner under his nose. Popinot wishes to lend you the amount

necessary to pay your creditors in full."

"Then he would buy his wife," said Birotteau.

"Is it not honorable to reinstate his father-in-law?"

"There would be ground for contention; besides--"

"Besides," exclaimed Pillerault, pretending anger, "you may have the

right to immolate yourself if you choose, but you have no right to

immolate your daughter."

A vehement discussion ensued, which Pillerault designedly excited.

"Hey! if Popinot lent you nothing," cried Pillerault, "if he had

called you his partner, if he had considered the price which he paid

to the creditors for your share in the Oil as an advance upon the

profits, so as not to strip you of everything--"

"I should have seemed to rob my creditors in collusion with him."

Pillerault feigned to be defeated by this argument. He knew the human

heart well enough to be certain that during the night Cesar would go

over the question in his own mind, and the mental discussion would

accustom him to the idea of his complete vindication.

"But how came my wife and daughter to be in our old appartement?"

asked Birotteau, while they were dining.

"Anselme wants to hire it, and live there with Cesarine. Your wife is

on his side. They have had the banns published without saying anything

about it, so as to force you to consent. Popinot says there will be

much less merit in marrying Cesarine after you are reinstated. You

take six thousand francs from the king, and you won't accept anything

from your relations! I can well afford to give you a receipt in full

for all that is owing to me; do you mean to refuse it?"

"No," said Cesar; "but that won't keep me from saving up everything to

pay you."

"Irrational folly!" cried Pillerault. "In matters of honor I ought to

be believed. What nonsense were you saying just now? How have you

robbed your creditors when you have paid them all in full?"

Cesar looked earnestly at Pillerault, and Pillerault was touched to

see, for the first time in three years, a genuine smile on the face of

his poor nephew.

"It is true," he said, "they would be paid; but it would be selling my

daughter."

"And I wish to be bought!" cried Cesarine, entering with Popinot.

The lovers had heard Birotteau's last words as they came on tiptoe

through the antechamber of their uncle's little appartement, Madame

Birotteau following. All three had driven round to the creditors who

were still unpaid, requesting them to meet at Alexandre Crottat's that

evening to receive their money. The all-powerful logic of the enamored

Popinot triumphed in the end over Cesar's scruples, though he

persisted for some time in calling himself a debtor, and in declaring

that he was circumventing the law by a substitution. But the

refinements of his conscience gave way when Popinot cried out: "Do you

want to kill your daughter?"

"Kill my daughter!" said Cesar, thunderstruck.

"Well, then," said Popinot, "I have the right to convey to you the sum

which I conscientiously believe to be your share in my profits. Do you

refuse it?"

"No," said Cesar.

"Very good; then let us go at once to Crottat and settle the matter,

so that there may be no backing out of it. We will arrange about our

marriage contract at the same time."

*****

A petition for reinstatement with corroborative documents was at once

deposited by Derville at the office of the /procureur-general/ of the

Cour Royale.

During the month required for the legal formalities and for the

publication of the banns of marriage between Cesarine and Anselme,

Birotteau was a prey to feverish agitation. He was restless. He feared

he should not live till the great day when the decree for his

vindication would be rendered. His heart throbbed, he said, without

cause. He complained of dull pains in that organ, worn out as it was

by emotions of sorrow, and now wearied with the rush of excessive joy.

Decrees of rehabilitation are so rare in the bankrupt court of Paris

that seldom more than one is granted in ten years.

To those persons who take society in its serious aspects, the

paraphernalia of justice has a grand and solemn character difficult

perhaps to define. Institutions depend altogether on the feelings with

which men view them and the degree of grandeur which men's thoughts

attach to them. When there is no longer, we will not say religion, but

belief among the people, whenever early education has loosened all

conservative bonds by accustoming youth to the practice of pitiless

analysis, a nation will be found in process of dissolution; for it

will then be held together only by the base solder of material

interests, and by the formulas of a creed created by intelligent

egotism.

Bred in religious ideas, Birotteau held justice to be what it ought to

be in the eyes of men,--a representation of society itself, an august

utterance of the will of all, apart from the particular form by which

it is expressed. The older, feebler, grayer the magistrate, the more

solemn seemed the exercise of his function,--a function which demands

profound study of men and things, which subdues the heart and hardens

it against the influence of eager interests. It is a rare thing

nowadays to find men who mount the stairway of the old Palais de

Justice in the grasp of keen emotions. Cesar Birotteau was one of

those men.

Few persons have noticed the majestic solemnity of that stairway,

admirably placed as it is to produce a solemn effect. It rises, beyond

the outer peristyle which adorns the courtyard of the Palais, from the

centre of a gallery leading, at one end, to the vast hall of the Pas

Perdus, and at the other to the Sainte-Chapelle,--two architectural

monuments which make all buildings in their neighborhood seem paltry.

The church of Saint-Louis is among the most imposing edifices in

Paris, and the approach to it through this long gallery is at once

sombre and romantic. The great hall of the Pas Perdus, on the

contrary, presents at the other end of the gallery a broad space of

light; it is impossible to forget that the history of France is linked

to those walls. The stairway should therefore be imposing in

character; and, in point of act, it is neither dwarfed nor crushed by

the architectural splendors on either side of it. Possibly the mind is

sobered by a glimpse, caught through the rich gratings, of the Place

du Palais-de-Justice, where so many sentences have been executed. The

staircase opens above into an enormous space, or antechamber, leading

to the hall where the Court holds its public sittings.

Imagine the emotions with which the bankrupt, susceptible by nature to

the awe of such accessories, went up that stairway to the hall of

judgment, surrounded by his nearest friends,--Lebas, president of the

Court of Commerce, Camusot his former judge, Ragon, and Monsieur

l'Abbe Loraux his confessor. The pious priest made the splendors of

human justice stand forth in strong relief by reflections which gave

them still greater solemnity in Cesar's eyes. Pillerault, the

practical philosopher, fearing the danger of unexpected events on the

worn mind of his nephew, had schemed to prepare him by degrees for the

joys of this festal day. Just as Cesar finished dressing, a number of

his faithful friends arrived, all eager for the honor of accompanying

him to the bar of the Court. The presence of this retinue roused the

honest man to an elation which gave him strength to meet the imposing

spectacle in the halls of justice. Birotteau found more friends

awaiting him in the solemn audience chamber, where about a dozen

members of the council were in session.

After the cases were called over, Birotteau's attorney made his demand

for reinstatement in the usual terms. On a sign from the presiding

judge, the /procureur-general/ rose. In the name of his office this

public prosecutor, the representative of public vindictiveness, asked

that honor might be restored to the merchant who had never really lost

it,--a solitary instance of such an appeal; for a condemned man can

only be pardoned. Men of honor alone can imagine the emotions of Cesar

Birotteau as he heard Monsieur de Grandville pronounce a speech, of

which the following is an abridgement:--

"Gentlemen," said that celebrated official, "on the 16th of

January, 1820, Birotteau was declared a bankrupt by the commercial

tribunal of the Seine. His failure was not caused by imprudence,

nor by rash speculations, nor by any act that stained his honor.

We desire to say publicly that this failure was the result of a

disaster which has again and again occurred, to the detriment of

justice and the great injury of the city of Paris. It has been

reserved for our generation, in which the bitter leaven of

republican principles and manners will long be felt, to behold the

notariat of Paris abandoning the glorious traditions of preceding

centuries, and producing in a few years as many failures as two

centuries of the old monarchy had produced. The thirst for gold

rapidly acquired has beset even these officers of trust, these

guardians of the public wealth, these mediators between the law

and the people!"

On this text followed an allocution, in which the Comte de Grandville,

obedient to the necessities of his role, contrived to incriminate the

Liberals, the Bonapartists, and all other enemies of the throne.

Subsequent events have proved that he had reason for his apprehension.

"The flight of a notary of Paris who carried off the funds which

Birotteau had deposited in his hands, caused the fall of your

petitioner," he resumed. "The Court rendered in that matter a

decree which showed to what extent the confidence of Roguin's

clients had been betrayed. A /concordat/ was held. For the honor

of your petitioner, we call attention to the fact that his

proceedings were remarkable for a purity not found in any of the

scandalous failures which daily degrade the commerce of Paris. The

creditors of Birotteau received the whole property, down to the

smallest articles that the unfortunate man possessed. They

received, gentlemen, his clothes, his jewels, things of purely

personal use,--and not only his, but those of his wife, who

abandoned all her rights to swell the total of his assets. Under

these circumstances Birotteau showed himself worthy of the respect

which his municipal functions had already acquired for him; for he

was at the time a deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement and

had just received the decoration of the Legion of honor, granted

as much for his devotion to the royal cause in Vendemiaire, on the

steps of the Saint-Roch, which were stained with his blood, as for

his conciliating spirit, his estimable qualities as a magistrate,

and the modesty with which he declined the honors of the

mayoralty, pointing out one more worthy of them, the Baron de la

Billardiere, one of those noble Vendeens whom he had learned to

value in the dark days."

"That phrase is better than mine," whispered Cesar to Pillerault.

"At that time the creditors, who received sixty per cent of their

claims through the aforesaid relinquishment on the part of this

loyal merchant, his wife, and his daughter of all that they

possessed, recorded their respect for their debtor in the

certificate of bankruptcy granted at the /concordat/ which then

took place, giving him at the same time a release from the

remainder of their claims. This testimonial is couched in terms

which are worthy of the attention of the Court."

Here the /procureur-general/ read the passage from the certificate of

bankruptcy.

"After receiving such expressions of good-will, gentlemen, most

merchants would have considered themselves released from

obligation and free to return boldly into the vortex of business.

Far from so doing, Birotteau, without allowing himself to be cast

down, resolved within his conscience to toil for the glorious day

which has at length dawned for him here. Nothing disheartened him.

Our beloved sovereign granted to the man who shed his blood on the

steps of Saint-Roch an office where he might earn his bread. The

salary of that office the bankrupt laid by for his creditors,

taking nothing for his own wants; for family devotion has

supported him."

Birotteau pressed his uncle's hand, weeping.

"His wife and his daughter poured their earnings into the common

fund, for they too espoused the noble hope of Birotteau. Each came

down from the position she had held and took an inferior one.

These sacrifices, gentlemen, should be held in honor, for they are

harder than all others to bear. I will now show you what sort of

task it was that Birotteau imposed upon himself."

Here the /procureur-general/ read a summing-up of the schedule, giving

the amounts which had remained unpaid and the names of the creditors.

"Each of these sums, with the interest thereon, has been paid,

gentlemen; and the payment is not shown by receipts under private

seal, which might be questioned: they are payments made before a

notary, properly authenticated; and according to the inflexible

requirements of this Court they have been examined and verified by

the proper authority. We now ask you to restore Birotteau, not to

honor, but to all the rights of which he was deprived. In doing

this you are doing justice. Such exhibitions of character are so

rare in this Court that we cannot refrain from testifying to the

petitioner how heartily we applaud his conduct, which an august

approval has already privately encouraged."

The prosecuting officer closed by reading his charge in the customary

formal terms.

The Court deliberated without retiring, and the president rose to

pronounce judgement.

"The Court," he said, in closing, "desires me to express to

Birotteau the satisfaction with which it renders such a judgment.

Clerk, call the next case."

Birotteau, clothed with the caftan of honor which the speech of the

illustrious /procureur-general/ had cast about him, stood dumb with

joy as he listened to the solemn words of the president, which

betrayed the quiverings of a heart beneath the impassibility of human

justice. He was unable to stir from his place before the bar, and

seemed for a moment nailed there, gazing at the judges with a

wondering air, as though they were angels opening to him the gates of

social life. His uncle took him by the arm and led him from the hall.

Cesar had not as yet obeyed the command of Louis XVIII., but he now

mechanically fastened the ribbon of the Legion of honor to his button-

hole. In a moment he was surrounded by his friends and borne in

triumph down the great stairway to his coach.

"Where are you taking me, my friends?" he said to Joseph Lebas,

Pillerault, and Ragon.

"To your own home."

"No; it is only three o'clock. I wish to go to the Bourse, and use my

rights."

"To the Bourse!" said Pillerault to the coachman, making an expressive

sign to Joseph Lebas, for he saw symptoms in Cesar which led him to

fear he might lose his mind.

The late perfumer re-entered the Bourse leaning on the arms of the two

honored merchants, his uncle and Joseph Lebas. The news of his

rehabilitation had preceded him. The first person who saw them enter,

followed by Ragon, was du Tillet.

"Ah! my dear master," he cried, "I am delighted that you have pulled

through. I have perhaps contributed to this happy ending of your

troubles by letting that little Popinot drag a feather from my wing. I

am as glad of your happiness as if it were my own."

"You could not be otherwise," said Pillerault. "Such a thing can never

happen to you."

"What do you mean by that?" said du Tillet.

"Oh! all in good part," said Lebas, smiling at the malicious meaning

of Pillerault, who, without knowing the real truth, considered the man

a scoundrel.

Matifat caught sight of Cesar, and immediately the most noted

merchants surrounded him and gave him an /ovation boursiere/. He was

overwhelmed with flattering compliments and grasped by the hand, which

roused some jealousy and caused some remorse; for out of every hundred

persons walking about that hall fifty at least had "liquidated" their

affairs. Gigonnet and Gobseck, who were talking together in a corner,

looked at the man of commercial honor very much as a naturalist must

have looked at the first electric-eel that was ever brought to him,--a

fish armed with the power of a Leyden jar, which is the greatest

curiosity of the animal kingdom. After inhaling the incense of his

triumph, Cesar got into the coach to go to his own home, where the

marriage contract of his dear Cesarine and the devoted Popinot was

ready for signature. His nervous laugh disturbed the minds of the

three old friends.

It is a fault of youth to think the whole world vigorous with its own

vigor,--a fault derived from its virtues. Youth sees neither men nor

things through spectacles; it colors all with the reflex glory of its

ardent fires, and casts the superabundance of its own life upon the

aged. Like Cesar and like Constance, Popinot held in his memory a

glowing recollection of the famous ball. Constance and Cesar through

their years of trial had often, though they never spoke of it to each

other, heard the strains of Collinet's orchestra, often beheld that

festive company, and tasted the joys so swiftly and so cruelly

chastised,--as Adam and Eve must have tasted in after times the

forbidden fruit which gave both death and life to all posterity; for

it appears that the generation of angels is a mystery of the skies.

Popinot, however, could dream of the fete without remorse, nay, with

ecstasy. Had not Cesarine in all her glory then promised herself to

him--to him, poor? During that evening had he not won the assurance

that he was loved for himself alone? So when he bought the appartement

restored by Grindot, from Celestin, when he stipulated that all should

be kept intact, when he religiously preserved the smallest things that

once belonged to Cesar and to Constance, he was dreaming of another

ball,--his ball, his wedding-ball! He made loving preparation for it,

imitating his old master in necessary expenses, but eschewing all

follies,--follies that were now past and done with. So the dinner was

to be served by Chevet; the guests were to be mostly the same: the

Abbe Loraux replaced the chancellor of the Legion of honor; the

president of the Court of Commerce, Monsieur Lebas, had promised to be

there; Popinot invited Monsieur Camusot in acknowledgment of the

kindness he had bestowed upon Birotteau; Monsieur de Vandenesse and

Monsieur de Fontaine took the place of Roguin and his wife. Cesarine

and Popinot distributed their invitations with much discretion. Both

dreaded the publicity of a wedding, and they escaped the jar such

scenes must cause to pure and tender hearts by giving the ball on the

evening of the day appointed for signing the marriage-contract.

Constance found in her room the gown of cherry velvet in which she had

shone for a single night with fleeting splendor. Cesarine cherished a

dream of appearing before Popinot in the identical ball-dress about

which, time and time again, he had talked to her. The appartement was

made ready to present to Cesar's eyes the same enchanting scene he had

once enjoyed for a single evening. Neither Constance, nor Cesarine,

nor Popinot perceived the danger to Cesar in this sudden and

overwhelming surprise, and they awaited his arrival at four o'clock

with a delight that was almost childish.

Following close upon the unspeakable emotion his re-entrance at the

Bourse had caused him, the hero of commercial honor was now to meet

the sudden shock of felicity that awaited him in his old home. He

entered the house, and saw at the foot of the staircase (still new as

he had left it) his wife in her velvet robe, Cesarine, the Comte de

Fontaine, the Vicomte de Vandenesse, the Baron de la Billardiere, the

illustrious Vauquelin. A light film dimmed his eyes, and his uncle

Pillerault, who held his arm, felt him shudder inwardly.

"It is too much," said the philosopher to the happy lover; "he can

never carry all the wine you are pouring out to him."

Joy was so vivid in their hearts that each attributed Cesar's emotion

and his stumbling step to the natural intoxication of his feelings,--

natural, but sometimes mortal. When he found himself once more in his

own home, when he saw his salon, his guests, the women in their ball-

dresses, suddenly the heroic measure in the finale of the great

symphony rang forth in his head and heart. Beethoven's ideal music

echoed, vibrated, in many tones, sounding its clarions through the

membranes of the weary brain, of which it was indeed the grand finale.

Oppressed with this inward harmony, Cesar took the arm of his wife and

whispered, in a voice suffocated by a rush of blood that was still

repressed: "I am not well."

Constance, alarmed, led him to her bedroom; he reached it with

difficulty, and fell into a chair, saying: "Monsieur Haudry, Monsieur

Loraux."

The Abbe Loraux came, followed by the guests and the women in their

ball-dresses, who stopped short, a frightened group. In presence of

that shining company Cesar pressed the hand of his confessor and laid

his head upon the bosom of his kneeling wife. A vessel had broken in

his heart, and the rush of blood strangled his last sigh.

"Behold the death of the righteous!" said the Abbe Loraux solemnly,

pointing to Cesar with the divine gesture which Rembrandt gave to

Christ in his picture of the Raising of Lazarus.

Jesus commanded the earth to give up its prey; the priest called

heaven to behold a martyr of commercial honor worthy to receive the

everlasting palm.