Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  The lawyer walked for about five minutes with Madame Barniol and Madame Phellion beneath the leafless lindens, and gave them (in consequence of the embarrassing circumstances created by Phellion’s political obstinacy) a piece of advice, the effects of which were to bear fruit that evening, while its first result was to make both ladies admire his talents, his frankness, and his inappreciable good qualities. When the lawyer departed the whole family conducted him to the street gate, and all eyes followed him until he had turned the corner of the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques. Madame Phellion then took the arm of her husband to return to the salon, saying: —

  “Hey! my friend! what does this mean? You, such a good father, how can you, from excessive delicacy, stand in the way of such a fine marriage for our Felix?”

  “My dear,” replied Phellion, “the great men of antiquity, Brutus and others, were never fathers when called upon to be citizens. The bourgeoisie has, even more than the aristocracy whose place it has been called upon to take, the obligations of the highest virtues. Monsieur de Saint-Hilaire did not think of his lost arm in presence of the dead Turenne. We must give proof of our worthiness; let us give it at every state of the social hierarchy. Shall I instruct my family in the highest civic principles only to ignore them myself at the moment for applying them? No, my dear; weep, if you must, to-day, but to-morrow you will respect me,” he added, seeing tears in the eyes of his starched better half.

  These noble words were said on the sill of the door, above which was written, “Aurea mediocritas.”

  “I ought to have put, ‘et digna,’” added Phellion, pointing to the tablet, “but those two words would imply self-praise.”

  “Father,” said Marie-Theodore Phellion, the future engineer of “ponts et chaussees,” when the family were once more seated in the salon, “it seems to me that there is nothing dishonorable in changing one’s determination about a choice which is of no real consequence to public welfare.”

  “No consequence, my son!” cried Phellion. “Between ourselves I will say, and Felix shares my opinion, Monsieur Thuillier is absolutely without capacity; he knows nothing. Monsieur Horace Bianchon is an able man; he will obtain a thousand things for our arrondissement, and Thuillier will obtain none! Remember this, my son; to change a good determination for a bad one from motives of self-interest is one of those infamous actions which escape the control of men but are punished by God. I am, or I think I am, void of all blame before my conscience, and I owe it to you, my children, to leave my memory unstained among you. Nothing, therefore, can make me change my determination.”

  “Oh, my good father!” cried the little Barniol woman, flinging herself on a cushion at Phellion’s knees, “don’t ride your high horse! There are many fools and idiots in the municipal council, and France gets along all the same. That old Thuillier will adopt the opinions of those about him. Do reflect that Celeste will probably have five hundred thousand francs.”

  “She might have millions,” said Phellion, “and I might see them there at my feet before I would propose Thuillier, when I owe to the memory of the best of men to nominate, if possible, Horace Bianchon, his nephew. From the heaven above us Popinot is contemplating and applauding me!” cried Phellion, with exaltation. “It is by such considerations as you suggest that France is being lowered, and the bourgeoisie are bringing themselves into contempt.”

  “My father is right,” said Felix, coming out of a deep reverie. “He deserves our respect and love; as he has throughout the whole course of his modest and honored life. I would not owe my happiness either to remorse in his noble soul, or to a low political bargain. I love Celeste as I love my own family; but, above all that, I place my father’s honor, and since this question is a matter of conscience with him it must not be spoken of again.”

  Phellion, with his eyes full of tears, went up to his eldest son and took him in his arms, saying, “My son! my son!” in a choking voice.

  “All that is nonsense,” whispered Madame Phellion in Madame Barniol’s ear. “Come and dress me; I shall make an end of this; I know your father; he has put his foot down now. To carry out the plan that pious young man, Theodose, suggested, I want your help; hold yourself ready to give it, my daughter.”

  At this moment, Genevieve came in and gave a letter to Monsieur Phellion.

  “An invitation for dinner to-day, for Madame Phellion and Felix and myself, at the Thuilliers’,” he said.

  The magnificent and surprising idea of Thuillier’s municipal advancement, put forth by the “advocate of the poor” was not less upsetting in the Thuillier household than it was in the Phellion salon. Jerome Thuillier, without actually confiding anything to his sister, for he made it a point of honor to obey his Mephistopheles, had rushed to her in great excitement to say: —

  “My dearest girl” (he always touched her heart with those caressing words), “we shall have some big-wigs at dinner to-day. I’m going to ask the Minards; therefore take pains about your dinner. I have written to Monsieur and Madame Phellion; it is rather late; but there’s no need of ceremony with them. As for the Minards, I must throw a little dust in their eyes; I have a particular need of them.”

  “Four Minards, three Phellions, four Collevilles, and ourselves; that makes thirteen — ”

  “La Peyrade, fourteen; and it is worth while to invite Dutocq; he may be useful to us. I’ll go up and see him.”

  “What are you scheming?” cried his sister. “Fifteen to dinner! There’s forty francs, at the very least, waltzing off.”

  “You won’t regret them, my dearest. I want you to be particularly agreeable to our young friend, la Peyrade. There’s a friend, indeed! you’ll soon have proofs of that! If you love me, cosset him well.”

  So saying, he departed, leaving Brigitte bewildered.

  “Proofs, indeed! yes, I’ll look out for proofs,” she said. “I’m not to be caught with fine words, not I! He is an amiable fellow; but before I take him into my heart I shall study him a little closer.”

  After inviting Dutocq, Thuillier, having bedizened himself, went to the hotel Minard, rue des Macons-Sorbonne, to capture the stout Zelie, and gloss over the shortness of the invitation.

  Minard had purchased one of those large and sumptuous habitations which the old religious orders built about the Sorbonne, and as Thuillier mounted the broad stone steps with an iron balustrade, that proved how arts of the second class flourished under Louis XIII., he envied both the mansion and its occupant, — the mayor.

  This vast building, standing between a courtyard and garden, is noticeable as a specimen of the style, both noble and elegant, of the reign of Louis XIII., coming singularly, as it did, between the bad taste of the expiring renaissance and the heavy grandeur of Louis XIV., at its dawn. This transition period is shown in many public buildings. The massive scroll-work of several facades — that of the Sorbonne, for instance, — and columns rectified according to the rules of Grecian art, were beginning to appear in this architecture.

  A grocer, a lucky adulterator, now took the place of the former ecclesiastical governor of an institution called in former times L’Economat; an establishment connected with the general agency of the old French clergy, and founded by the long-sighted genius of Richelieu. Thuillier’s name opened for him the doors of the salon, where sat enthroned in velvet and gold, amid the most magnificent “Chineseries,” the poor woman who weighed with all her avoirdupois on the hearts and minds of princes and princesses at the “popular balls” of the palace.

  “Isn’t she a good subject for ‘La Caricature’?” said a so-called lady of the bedchamber to a duchess, who could hardly help laughing at the aspect of Zelie, glittering with diamonds, red as a poppy, squeezed into a gold brocade, and rolling along like the casts of her former shop.

  “Will you pardon me, fair lady,” began Thuillier, twisting his body, and pausing in pose number two of his imperial repertory, “for having allowed this invitation to remain in my desk, thinking, all the while, that it was sent
? It is for to-day, but perhaps I am too late?”

  Zelie examined her husband’s face as he approached them to receive Thuillier; then she said: —

  “We intended to drive into the country and dine at some chance restaurant; but we’ll give up that idea and all the more readily because, in my opinion, it is getting devilishly vulgar to drive out of Paris on Sundays.”

  “We will have a little dance to the piano for the young people, if enough come, as I hope they will. I have sent a line to Phellion, whose wife is intimate with Madame Pron, the successor — ”

  “Successoress,” interrupted Madame Minard.

  “No,” said Thuillier, “it ought to be success’ress; just as we say may’ress, dropping the O, you know.”

  “Is it full dress?” asked Madame Minard.

  “Heavens! no,” replied Thuillier; “you would get me finely scolded by my sister. No, it is only a family party. Under the Empire, madame, we all devoted ourselves to dancing. At that great epoch of our national life they thought as much of a fine dancer as they did of a good soldier. Nowadays the country is so matter-of-fact.”

  “Well, we won’t talk politics,” said the mayor, smiling. “The King is grand; he is very able. I have a deep admiration for my own time, and for the institutions which we have given to ourselves. The King, you may be sure, knows very well what he is doing by the development of industries. He is struggling hand to hand against England; and we are doing him more harm during this fruitful peace than all the wars of the Empire would have done.”

  “What a deputy Minard would make!” cried Zelie, naively. “He practises speechifying at home. You’ll help us to get him elected, won’t you, Thuillier?”

  “We won’t talk politics now,” replied Thuillier. “Come at five.”

  “Will that little Vinet be there?” asked Minard; “he comes, no doubt, for Celeste.”

  “Then he may go into mourning,” replied Thuillier. “Brigitte won’t hear of him.”

  Zelie and Minard exchanged a smile of satisfaction.

  “To think that we must hob-nob with such common people, all for the sake of our son!” cried Zelie, when Thuillier was safely down the staircase, to which the mayor had accompanied him.

  “Ha! he thinks to be deputy!” thought Thuillier, as he walked away. “These grocers! nothing satisfies them. Heavens! what would Napoleon say if he could see the government in the hands of such people! I’m a trained administrator, at any rate. What a competitor, to be sure! I wonder what la Peyrade will say?”

  The ambitious ex-beau now went to invite the whole Laudigeois family for the evening, after which he went to the Collevilles’, to make sure that Celeste should wear a becoming gown. He found Flavie rather pensive. She hesitated about coming, but Thuillier overcame her indecision.

  “My old and ever young friend,” he said, taking her round the waist, for she was alone in her little salon, “I won’t have any secret from you. A great affair is in the wind for me. I can’t tell you more than that, but I can ask you to be particularly charming to a certain young man — ”

  “Who is it?”

  “La Peyrade.”

  “Why, Charles?”

  “He holds my future in his hands. Besides, he’s a man of genius. I know what that is. He’s got this sort of thing,” — and Thuillier made the gesture of a dentist pulling out a back tooth. “We must bind him to us, Flavie. But, above all, don’t let him see his power. As for me, I shall just give and take with him.”

  “Do you want me to be coquettish?”

  “Not too much so, my angel,” replied Thuillier, with a foppish air.

  And he departed, not observing the stupor which overcame Flavie.

  “That young man is a power,” she said to herself. “Well, we shall see!”

  For these reasons she dressed her hair with marabouts, put on her prettiest gown of gray and pink, which allowed her fine shoulders to be seen beneath a pelerine of black lace, and took care to keep Celeste in a little silk frock made with a yoke and a large plaited collarette, telling her to dress her hair plainly, a la Berthe.

  CHAPTER VIII. AD MAJOREM THEODOSIS GLORIAM

  At half-past four o’clock Theodose was at his post. He had put on his vacant, half-servile manner and soft voice, and he drew Thuillier at once into the garden.

  “My friend,” he said, “I don’t doubt your triumph, but I feel the necessity of again warning you to be absolutely silent. If you are questioned about anything, especially about Celeste, make evasive answers which will keep your questioners in suspense. You must have learned how to do that in a government office.”

  “I understand!” said Thuillier. “But what certainty have you?”

  “You’ll see what a fine dessert I have prepared for you. But please be modest. There come the Minards; let me pipe to them. Bring them out here, and then disappear yourself.”

  After the first salutations, la Peyrade was careful to keep close to the mayor, and presently at an opportune moment he drew him aside to say: —

  “Monsieur le maire, a man of your political importance doesn’t come to bore himself in a house of this kind without an object. I don’t want to fathom your motives — which, indeed, I have no right to do — and my part in this world is certainly not to mingle with earthly powers; but please pardon my apparent presumption, and deign to listen to a piece of advice which I shall venture to give you. If I do you a service to-day you are in a position to return it to me to-morrow; therefore, in case I should be so fortunate as to do you a good turn, I am really only obeying the law of self-interest. Our friend Thuillier is in despair at being a nobody; he has taken it into his head that he wants to become a personage in this arrondissement — ”

  “Ah! ah!” exclaimed Minard.

  “Oh! nothing very exalted; he wants to be elected to the municipal council. Now, I know that Phellion, seeing the influence such a service would have on his family interests, intends to propose your poor friend as candidate. Well, perhaps you might think it wise, in your own interests, to be beforehand with him. Thuillier’s nomination could only be favorable for you — I mean agreeable; and he’ll fill his place in the council very well; there are some there who are not as strong as he. Besides, owing to his place to your support, he will see with your eyes; he already looks to you as one of the lights of the town.”

  “My dear fellow, I thank you very much,” replied Minard. “You are doing me a service I cannot sufficiently acknowledge, and which proves to me — ”

  “That I don’t like those Phellions,” said la Peyrade, taking advantage of a slight hesitation on the part of the mayor, who feared to express an idea in which the lawyer might see contempt. “I hate people who make capital out of their honesty and coin money from fine sentiments.”

  “You know them well,” said Minard; “they are sycophants. That man’s whole life for the last ten years is explained by this bit of red ribbon,” added the mayor, pointing to his own buttonhole.

  “Take care!” said the lawyer, “his son is in love with Celeste, and he’s fairly in the heart of the family.”

  “Yes, but my son has twelve thousand a year in his own right.”

  “Oh!” said Theodose, with a start, “Mademoiselle Brigitte was saying the other day that she wanted at least as much as that in Celeste’s suitor. Moreover, six months hence you’ll probably hear that Thuillier has a property worth forty thousand francs a year.”

  “The devil! well, I thought as much. Yes, certainly, he shall be made a member of the municipal council.”

  “In any case, don’t say anything about me to him,” said the advocate of the poor, who now hastened away to speak to Madame Phellion. “Well, my fair lady,” he said, when he reached her, “have you succeeded?”

  “I waited till four o’clock, and then that worthy and excellent man would not let me finish what I had to say. He is much to busy to accept such an office, and he sent a letter which Monsieur Phellion has read, saying that he, Doctor Bianchon, thanked him f
or his good intentions, and assured him that his own candidate was Monsieur Thuillier. He said that he should use all his influence in his favor, and begged my husband to do the same.”

  “And what did your excellent husband say?”

  “‘I have done my duty,’ he said. ‘I have not been false to my conscience, and now I am all for Thuillier.’”

  “Well, then, the thing is settled,” said la Peyrade. “Ignore my visit, and take all the credit of the idea to yourselves.”

  Then he went to Madame Colleville, composing himself in the attitude and manner of the deepest respect.

  “Madame,” he said, “have the goodness to send out to me here that kindly papa Colleville. A surprise is to be given to Monsieur Thuillier, and I want Monsieur Colleville to be in the secret.”

  While la Peyrade played the part of man of the world with Colleville, and allowed himself various witty sarcasms when explaining to him Thuillier’s candidacy, telling him he ought to support it, if only to exhibit his incapacity, Flavie was listening in the salon to the following conversation, which bewildered her for the moment and made her ears ring.

  “I should like to know what Monsieur Colleville and Monsieur de la Peyrade can be saying to each other to make them laugh like that,” said Madame Thuillier, foolishly, looking out of the window.

  “A lot of improper things, as men always do when they talk together,” replied Mademoiselle Thuillier, who often attacked men with the sort of instinct natural to old maids.

  “No, they are incapable of that,” said Phellion, gravely. “Monsieur de la Peyrade is one of the most virtuous young men I have ever met. People know what I think of Felix; well, I put the two on the same line; indeed, I wish my son had a little more of Monsieur de la Peyrade’s beautiful piety.”

  “You are right; he is a man of great merit, who is sure to succeed,” said Minard. “As for me, my suffrages — for I really ought not to say protection — are his.”