Cousin Pons

by Honoré de Balzac

  Half-way between the rue de Normandie and the rue de la Perle, La Cibot met Fraisier coming to see her, so impatient was he to learn what he called ‘the basic facts’.

  ‘What a surprise!’ she said. ‘I was on my way to your house.’

  Fraisier complained about Elias Magus refusing to see him, but the concierge dimmed the gleam of suspicion which was dawning in the lawyer’s eye by telling him Magus had been away, and that in two days’ time she would arrange a meeting for them in Pons’s flat, where they could settle the value of the collection.

  ‘Be open and above board with me,’ was Fraisier’s answer. ‘It’s more than likely that the interests of Pons’s heirs will be entrusted to me. In such circumstances, I shall be in a much better position to serve you.’

  He said this so sharply that La Cibot quaked. This starveling lawyer must surely be working for his own ends, just as she was working for hers. She was not wrong in her conjecture. The advocate and the doctor had gone to the expense of ordering a brand-new suit for Fraisier, so that he could present himself in respectable garb at the house of Madame la Présidente Camusot de Marville. The time needed for the making of this suit was the only reason for delaying the interview on which the prospects of the two friends depended. After visiting Madame Cibot, Fraisier was intending to go to his tailor to try on his coat, waistcoat and trousers. He found these garments finished and ready. He went back home, put on a new wig, and set off in a hired cab, at about ten in the morning, for the rue de Hanovre, where he hoped to obtain an audience with the Présidente. Fraisier in white cravat, yellow gloves, new wig and scented with toilet-water looked like a measure of poison in a crystal phial with a white leather stopper – everything about it is neat, the label and even the thread round the stopper, but it appears no less dangerous for that. His self-assertive air, his pimply face, his scrofulous skin, his green eyes, and the savour of viciousness which his person exuded, cast a chill like clouds moving across a blue sky. In his office, under La Cibot’s gaze, he had been the common knife, a murderer’s tool of trade. Now, at the Présidente’s door, he was the elegant poniard a young lady keeps in a little display-cabinet.

  21. The Fraisier* blossoms forth

  A GREAT change had taken place in the rue de Hanovre. Neither the Vicomte and Vicomtesse Popinot, nor the ex-Minister and his wife, would dream of letting the Président and Présidente move from the house they had made over to their daughter as a marriage portion, and into a rented flat. And so the Président and his wife settled in on the second floor, now vacated by the old lady, who wanted to live in the country for the rest of her life.

  Madame Camusot kept on Madeleine Vivet, her cook and her manservant, and found herself back in the straitened circumstances of her early married years, though this poverty was alleviated by the fact that she had no rent to pay for her four-thousand-francs flat, and also by Camusot’s salary of ten thousand francs a year. This aurea mediocritas in itself was distasteful to Madame de Marville, who aspired to financial means proportionate to her ambitions.

  Moreover the transfer of all their estates to their daughter meant that the Président had forfeited his property qualification for election to the Chamber of Deputies. Now Amélie was not the sort of woman who would readily forgo her plans: she aimed at getting her husband into the Chamber, and by no means despaired of securing the Président’s election in the constituency to which Marville belonged. For two months, therefore, she had been pestering Baron Camusot (the new Peer of France had been raised to this dignity) to make over to his son an advance of one hundred thousand francs on his patrimony in order, as she said, to purchase a small domain enclaved within the Marville estate, one which, when taxes had been paid, would bring in about two thousand francs. She and her husband would thus have a home of their own, they would be near their children, and the Marville property would be rounded off and correspondingly enlarged. In her talks with her father-in-law, the Présidente laid emphasis on the sacrifice she had had to make for her daughter’s marriage, and she asked the old man if he really had the heart to debar his eldest son from the highest magisterial honours which could only be accorded to a man holding a strong position in the Chamber; her husband would be capable of seizing such a position and hence of inspiring respect in the Ministers.

  ‘Those gentry give you nothing unless you twist their cravats round their necks until their tongues are hanging out,’ she-exclaimed. ‘An ungrateful lot… think what they owe to Camusot! By pressing for the July Ordinances, he raised the House of Orléans to the throne!’*

  The old man averred that he had strained his resources by investing in railways, and although he admitted that the suggested donation was necessary, he postponed making it until the shares went up, as he expected they would.

  The Présidente had been plunged into despondency by this half-promise, which she had extorted from him a few days ago. It was doubtful whether the former owner of Marville would be able to stand for the next elections, since the property qualifications only became valid after a year.

  Fraisier had no difficulty in obtaining access to Madeleine Vivet. These two vipers had been hatched from the same egg and recognized their kinship.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said Fraisier, in sugary tones, ‘I would request a moment’s audience with Madame la Présidente on a matter which affects her personally and has to do with her financial situation. It is a question of an inheritance… Be sure you tell her this… I have not the honour of being known to Madame la Présidente, and so my name would mean nothing to her… As a rule I do not leave my consulting-room, but I know what deference is due to a presiding magistrate’s lady, and I have taken the trouble to come in person, the more so because the affair brooks no delay.’

  So couched, this request, repeated and amplified by the lady’s-maid, naturally met with a favourable response. It was a critical moment for the two ambitions embodied in Fraisier; and therefore, despite the intrepidity of this little provincial solicitor, so overbearing, so harsh, so incisive, he felt what military leaders feel at the beginning of a battle on whose issue a whole campaign depends. As he passed into the little salon in which Amélie was awaiting him, he experienced an effect which no sudorific, however potent, had yet been able to produce on an epidermis clogged up by a nauseating disease and resistant to remedies: he felt a slight sweat down his back and on his forehead.

  ‘Well, even if I don’t make my fortune,’ he said to himself, ‘I am saved, for Poulain promised I should recover my health the day I started perspiring.’

  ‘Madame,’ he said on seeing the Présidente, who was in morning dress. Fraisier halted and bowed to her with the obsequiousness which, in legal circles, is an acknowledgement of the superior status of the person addressed.

  ‘Be seated, Monsieur,’ said the Présidente, at once recognizing in him a member of the legal confraternity.

  ‘Madame la Présidente, if I have taken the liberty of approaching you over a matter of material interests which concerns Monsieur le Président, it is because I am certain that Monsieur de Marville, occupying the high position he does, would be likely to allow things to take their course and thus lose seven or eight hundred thousand francs: a sum which few ladies, who in my view are much better versed in private affairs than the most capable magistrates, would consider unimportant…’

  ‘You mentioned an inheritance…’ the Présidente interrupted. Dazzled at the mention of such a sum and trying to conceal her astonishment and satisfaction, Amélie was acting like a reader impatient to find out how a novel ends.

  ‘Yes, Madame, an inheritance which is lost to you – entirely lost – but one which I can and shall recover for you…’

  ‘Pray proceed, Monsieur,’ said Madame de Marville coldly, as she examined Fraisier from head to foot with an appraising eye.

  ‘Madame, I am aware of your eminent capabilities, since I was once at Mantes. Monsieur Lebœuf, the President of Assizes in that town, a friend of Monsieur de Marville, will be able to fur
nish him with information about me.’

  The Présidente gave a shrug which was so bluntly significant that Fraisier was obliged to insert a parenthesis into his exordium.

  ‘So distinguished a lady as you will understand straight away why I am beginning by talking of myself. It is the shortest cut to the inheritance.’

  The Présidente responded to this delicate remark with a silent gesture.

  ‘Madame,’ continued Fraisier, taking this gesture as an authorization to go on with his story. ‘I was an attorney at Mantes, and all my prospects depended on the post I held, for I had bought the practice of Monsieur Levroux – you knew him, no doubt?…’

  The Présidente nodded.

  ‘… With borrowed capital and about ten thousand francs of my own. For six years previously I had been senior clerk to Monsieur Desroches, one of the most competent attorneys in Paris. Well, I was unlucky enough to incur the displeasure of the Public Prosecutor in Mantes, Monsieur…’

  ‘Olivier Vinet.’

  ‘Precisely, Madame, the Attorney-General’s son. He was paying court to a young person…’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘… Madame Vatinelle. She was very pretty and attractive… when I was there. She was kind to me: inde irae,’ Fraisier continued. ‘I was energetic, I wanted to pay back the loans from my friends and get married. I needed cases, and I looked round for them. I was soon handling more business on my own than the rest of the law officials. Well then, I found myself up against all the attorneys, notaries and even the bailiffs in Mantes. They looked for ways of harming me. You know, Madame, that in our redoubtable profession, when a man is marked for destruction, it doesn’t take long. They found out I was acting as counsel on both sides of a case. Slightly unprofessional, but it’s done in Paris in certain conjunctures: attorneys take in one another’s washing. Not, however, at Mantes. Monsieur Bouyonnet, to whom I had already done a good turn of that kind, egged on by his colleagues and encouraged by the Public Prosecutor, gave the game away… You see I am hiding nothing. There was a general hue and cry. I was a scoundrel, a greater blackguard than Marat. They forced me to sell out and I lost everything. I came back to Paris, and tried to build up a practice here; but my health was undermined, and I was not fit to work even for two solid hours out of the twenty-four. Today I have only one ambition – a paltry one. Sooner or later, Madame, you will be the wife of a Keeper of the Seals, or perhaps of a senior Judge of Appeal. I, poor puny creature that I am, have no other desire than to obtain a post in which I can peacefully end my days, a post to vegetate in; I want to be a justice of the peace in Paris. It would be a trifling matter for you and Monsieur le Président to obtain me this appointment – you must cause the present Keeper of the Seals sufficient embarrassment for him to be anxious to oblige you…

  ‘…But that is not all, Madame,’ he added as he saw the Présidente stirring as if she were about to break in. ‘I have a friend, a doctor, in attendance on the old man from whom Monsieur le Président ought to inherit. You see I am coming to the point… This doctor, whose cooperation is indispensable, is in a similar situation to myself: he has talent, but no luck!… It was through him that I learnt how your interests are being encroached upon. At this very moment the die may already be cast and the will which disinherits the Président made… This doctor seeks an appointment as senior medical officer in a hospital or as a consultant to the Royal Colleges. To put it briefly, you understand, he needs a position in Paris equivalent to the one I am seeking… Pardon me for treating of such delicate matters, but there must not be the slightest ambiguity in this respect. I would add that the doctor is a man of high repute and great skill – he saved the life of Monsieur Pillerault, the great-uncle of your son-in-law the Vicomte Popinot. So then, if you will be so good as to promise me these two posts – that of justice of the peace for myself and a medical sinecure for my friend – I will take it upon myself to secure the heritage almost intact. I say almost intact, because it will be saddled with obligations which the legatee will have to incur towards certain persons with whose help we cannot dispense. You will only carry out your promises when I have carried out mine.’

  *

  The Présidente, who for the last few minutes had had her arms folded like a person forced to listen to a sermon, unfolded them, looked at Fraisier and said:

  ‘Monsieur, you have the merit of clarity as regards everything that concerns yourself, but you leave my side of things in the dark.’

  ‘Two words will suffice to make everything clear, Madame. Monsieur le Président is the sole heir – collaterally – of Monsieur Pons. Monsieur Pons is very ill. He is about to make his will – he may have done so already – in favour of a German friend of his named Schmucke: a considerable legacy, amounting to more than seven hundred thousand francs. In three days time I hope to have completely accurate information about the figure…’

  ‘If that is so,’ the Présidente murmured – she was thunderstruck on hearing how high the figure might reach – ‘I made a great mistake in quarrelling with him and heaping abuse upon him…’

  ‘No, Madame, for were it not for that quarrel he would be as chirpy as a sparrow and would outlive us all.’

  ‘The ways of Providence are inscrutable; let us not look into them too closely,’ he added in order to mask the odiousness of the reflection he had just made. ‘After all, we legal practitioners see the positive side of things. You must realize, Madame, that Monsieur de Marville, occupying the important position he does, would not and could not do anything in the present situation. He is at mortal odds with his cousin. You no longer receive Pons; you have blackballed him from society. No doubt you had excellent reasons for doing so; but the man is ill and he’s leaving his possessions to his only friend. A Président in the Royal Court of Justice cannot cavil at a properly drawn-up will made in such circumstances. But between you and me, Madame, when one is legally entitled to an inheritance of seven or eight hundred thousand francs – who knows? a million perhaps – when one is the only heir recognized by the law, how disagreeable it is not to recover one’s due!… Only, in the effort to achieve this end, one gets involved in disreputable manoeuvres which are very difficult, very delicate; one has to be in touch with such lowly-placed people, servants, underlings; one has to press them so hard, that no solicitor, no notary in Paris could see such a business through. It needs a briefless barrister like me: a man of real, solid capacity, whose assiduity can be reckoned on, and whose regrettably precarious position is on a level with that of such people. In my district I deal with the affairs of the lower middle classes, working men, the common people… Yes, indeed, Madame, that is the level to which I have sunk thanks to the enmity of a public attorney who is now a deputy public prosecutor in Paris – just because he cannot forgive me for being more competent than himself… I know you, Madame, I am fully cognizant of the reliability of your protection, and in the service I can render you I foresee the end of my misfortunes and success for my friend Dr Poulain!’

  The Présidente remained absorbed in thought. This was a moment of terrible anguish for Fraisier. Vinet, one of the orators of the centre party in the Chamber of Deputies, an Attorney-General of sixteen years’ standing, ear-marked ten years since for the post of Chancellor, and the father of the public prosecutor of Mantes who for a year had been a deputy public prosecutor in Paris, was at daggers drawn with the vindictive Présidente. Nor did this haughty Attorney-General hide his scorn for Président Camusot. Fraisier was ignorant, and was to remain ignorant of these circumstances.

  ‘Is that all you have on your conscience – the fact of having been counsel for two opposing litigants?’ she asked, looking Fraisier straight in the eye.

  ‘Madame la Présidente can consult Monsieur Lebœuf. He was well-disposed towards me.’

  ‘Are you sure that Monsieur Lebœuf will give a favourable account of you to Monsieur de Marville and the Comte Popinot?’

  ‘I can answer for that, especially since Monsieur Olivier Vine
t is no longer at Mantes, for between ourselves, the very proximity of that little magistrate was a cause of misgiving to the worthy Lebœuf. Moreover, with your permission, Madame la Présidente, I will go to Mantes to see Monsieur Lebœuf myself. It will cause no delay. I shall not be able to ascertain the amount of the inheritance for two or three days. I must not tell you, I am obliged to conceal from you, the strings I have to pull. But is not my success guaranteed by the reward I expect for my entire devotion to your interests?’

  ‘Very well. Win Monsieur Lebœuf’s goodwill, and if – which I doubt – the inheritance is as considerable as you make out, I promise you the two posts. But only if you succeed – that goes without saying.’

  ‘I shall succeed, Madame. One thing however: will you have the goodness to summon your notary and your solicitors as soon as I need them? Will you give me written authority to act in the Président’s name? Will you tell these gentlemen to follow out my instructions and do nothing on their own initiative?’

  ‘Yours is the responsibility,’ the Présidente solemnly answered. ‘Yours too must be the plenary powers… But is Monsieur Pons seriously ill?’ she asked with a smile.

  ‘Well, Madame, I honestly think he would recover, above all since he has so conscientious a doctor as Poulain. This friend of mine, Madame, is only an innocent onlooker whom I am using in your interests : he is quite capable of pulling the old musician through. But the concierge who is looking after the sick man would willingly thrust him into his grave in order to get thirty thousand francs… No, she wouldn’t kill him: she won’t give him arsenic. That would be too charitable. She’ll do more than that, she will commit moral murder by trying his patience a thousand times a day. Poor old man; in quiet, peaceful country surroundings, well-tended, with friends to make a fuss of him, he’d get better. But under the constant nagging of a scold who, in her youth, was one of the thirty ‘comely oyster-girls’ whose praises were sung throughout Paris – grasping, voluble, domineering – a woman who keeps on worrying him to leave her a substantial legacy, the sick man will inevitably contract hardening of the liver; gall-stones are forming at this very moment, and the extraction of them will entail an operation which he will not be able to stand… The doctor – a splendid person – is in a frightful predicament. He really ought to have this woman dismissed.’