by Eugène Sue
At the same moment, two valets de chambre, summoned by the furious ringing, entered hastily, and found M. de Lucenay with the bell-rope in his hand, the duchess laughing heartily at this ridiculous fall of the wax lights, and M. de Montbrison sharing her mirth. M. de Saint-Remy alone did not laugh. M. de Lucenay, quite accustomed to such accidents, preserved his usual seriousness, and, throwing the bell-rope to one of the men, said:
“The duchess’s carriage.”
Clotilde, having somewhat recovered her composure, said:
“Really, my lord, there is no man in the world but yourself capable of exciting laughter at so lamentable an event.”
“Lamentable! Say fearful. Why, now, only yesterday, I was recollecting how many persons in my own family I would rather should have died than poor D’Harville. First, there’s my nephew, D’Emberval, who stutters so annoyingly; then there’s your Aunt Mérinville, who is always talking about her nerves and her headache, and who always gobbles up every day, whilst she is waiting for dinner, a mess of broth like a porter’s wife. Are you very fond of your Aunt Mérinville?”
“Really, my lord, have you lost your wits?” said the duchess, shrugging her shoulders.
“It’s true enough, though,” continued the duke; “one would give twenty indifferent persons for one friend; eh, Saint-Remy?”
“Unquestionably.”
“It is the old story of the tailor over again. Do you know it, Conrad, — the story of the tailor?”
“No, cousin.”
“You will understand the allegory at once. A tailor was going to be hanged; he was the only tailor in the village. What were the inhabitants to do? They said to the judge, ‘Please your judgeship, we have only one tailor, and we have three shoemakers; if it is all the same to you, please to hang one of the three shoemakers in the place of the tailor, for two shoemakers are enough.’ Do you understand the allegory, Conrad?”
“Yes, cousin.”
“And you, Saint-Remy?”
“Quite.”
“Her grace’s carriage!” said one of the servants.
“But, I say, why haven’t you put on your diamonds?” asked M. de Lucenay, abruptly; “with that dress they would look remarkably well.”
Saint-Remy shuddered.
“For the one poor time we are going out together,” continued the duke, “you might have done us the honour to wear your diamonds. The duchess’s diamonds are particularly fine. Did you ever see them, Saint-Remy?”
“Yes, he knows them well enough!” said Clotilde; and then she added, “Your arm, Conrad.”
M. de Lucenay followed the duchess with Saint-Remy, who could scarcely repress his anger.
“Aren’t you coming with us to the Sennevals, Saint-Remy?” inquired M. de Lucenay.
“No, impossible,” he replied, briefly.
“By the way, Saint-Remy, there’s Madame de Senneval, too, — what, do I say one? There’s two — whom I would willingly sacrifice, for her husband is also on my list.”
“What list?”
“That of the people whom I should not have cared to see die, provided D’Harville had been left to us.”
At the moment when they were in the anteroom, and M. de Montbrison was helping the duchess on with her mantle, M. de Lucenay, addressing his cousin, said to him:
“Since you are coming with us, Conrad, desire your carriage to follow ours; unless you will decide on coming, Saint-Remy, and then you shall take me, and I will tell you another story quite as good as that of the tailor.”
“Thank you,” said Saint-Remy, dryly, “I cannot accompany you.”
“Well, then, good night, my dear fellow. Have you and my wife quarrelled, for she is getting into her carriage without saying a word to you?”
And at this moment, the duchess’s berline having drawn up at the steps, she entered it.
“Now, cousin,” said Conrad, waiting for M. de Lucenay with an air of deference.
“Get in! Get in!” said the duke, who had stopped a moment, and, from the door, was contemplating the elegant equipage of the vicomte. “Are those your grays, Saint-Remy?”
“Yes.”
“And your jolly-looking Edwards! He’s what I call a right sort of coachman. How well he has his horses in hand! To do justice, there is no one who, like Saint-Remy, does things in such devilish high style!”
“My dear fellow, Madame de Lucenay and your cousin are waiting for you,” said M. de Saint-Remy, with bitterness.
“Pardieu! and that’s true. What a forgetful rascal I am! Au revoir, Saint-Remy. Ah, I forgot,” said the duke, stopping half way down the steps, “if you have nothing better to do, come and dine with us to-morrow. Lord Dudley has sent us some grouse from Scotland, and they are out-of-the-way things, you know. You’ll come, won’t you?” And the duke sprang into the carriage which contained his wife and Conrad.
Saint-Remy remained alone on the steps, and saw the carriage drive away. His own then drove up. He got into it, casting on that house which he had so often entered as master, and which now he so ignominiously quitted, a look of anger, hatred, and despair.
“Home!” he said, abruptly.
“To the hôtel!” said the footman to Edwards, as he closed the door.
We may imagine how bitter and desolating were Saint-Remy’s thoughts as he returned to his house. At the moment when he reached it, Boyer, who awaited him at the portico, said to him:
“M. le Comte is above, and waits for M. le Vicomte.”
“Very well.”
“And there is also a man whom your lordship appointed at ten o’clock, — a M. Petit-Jean.”
“Very well. Oh, what an evening party!” said Florestan, as he went up-stairs to see his father, whom he found in the salon on the first floor, the same room in which their meeting of the morning had taken place. “A thousand pardons, my father, that I was not awaiting you when you arrived; but I—”
“Is the man here who holds the forged bill?” inquired the comte, interrupting his son.
“Yes, father, he is below.”
“Desire him to come up.”
Florestan rang, and Boyer appeared.
“Desire M. Petit-Jean to come up.”
“Yes, my lord,” and Boyer withdrew.
“How good you are, father, to remember your kind promise!”
“I always remember what I promise.”
“What gratitude do I owe you! How can I ever prove to you—”
“I will not have my name dishonoured! It shall not be!”
“It shall not be! No, it shall never be, I swear to you, my father!”
The comte looked strangely at his son, and repeated:
“No, it shall never be!” Then he added, with a sarcastic air, “You are a prophet.”
“I read my resolution in my heart.”
Florestan’s father made no rejoinder. He walked up and down the room with his two hands thrust into the pockets of his long coat. He was very pale.
“M. Petit-Jean,” said Boyer, introducing a man of a mean, sordid, and crafty look.
“Where is the bill?” inquired the comte.
“Here it is, sir,” said Petit-Jean (Jacques Ferrand the notary’s man of straw), handing the bill to the comte.
“Is this it?” said the latter, showing the bill to his son.
“Yes, father.”
The comte took from his waistcoat pocket twenty-five notes of a thousand francs each, handed them to his son, and said:
“Pay!”
Florestan paid, and took the bill with a deep sigh of the utmost satisfaction. M. Petit-Jean put the notes carefully in an old pocket-book, made his bow, and retired. M. de Saint-Remy left the salon with him, whilst Florestan was very carefully tearing up the bill.
“At least Clotilde’s twenty-five thousand francs are still in my pocket, and if nothing is revealed, that is a comfort. But how she treated me! But what can my father have to say to the man Petit-Jean?”
The noise of a door being double-locked ma
de the vicomte start. His father returned to the room. His pallor had even increased.
“I fancied, father, I heard you lock the door of my cabinet?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And why, my dear father?” asked Florestan, greatly amazed.
“I will tell you.”
And the comte placed himself so that his son could not pass out by the secret staircase which led to the ground floor.
Florestan, greatly disquieted, now observed the sinister look of his father, and followed all his movements with mistrust. Without being able to account for it, he felt a vague alarm.
“What ails you, father?”
“This morning when you saw me, your only thought was, ‘My father will not allow his name to be dishonoured; he will pay if I can but contrive to wheedle him by some feigned words of repentance.’”
“Can you indeed think—”
“Do not interrupt me. I have not been your dupe; you have neither shame, regret, nor remorse. You are vicious to the very core, you have never felt one honest aspiration, you have not robbed as long as you have been in possession of wherewithal to gratify your caprices, — that is what is called the probity of rich persons of your stamp. Then came the want of delicate feeling, then meannesses, then crime, then forgery. This is but the first period of your life, — it is bright and pure in comparison with that which would be yet to come.”
“If I did not change my conduct, assuredly; but I shall change it, father, I have sworn to you.”
“You will not change it.”
“But—”
“You will not change it! Expelled from society in which you have hitherto lived, you would become very quickly criminal, like the wretches amongst whom you would be cast, a thief inevitably, and, if your need were, an assassin. That would be your future life.”
“I an assassin? — I?”
“Yes, because you are a coward!”
“I have had duels, and have evinced—”
“I tell you, you are a coward! You have already preferred infamy to death. A day would come in which you would prefer the impunity for fresh crimes to the life of another. This must not be, — I will not allow it. I have come in time, at least, to save my name from public dishonour hereafter. There must be an end to this.”
“What do you mean, dearest father? How an end to this? What would you imply?” exclaimed Florestan, still more alarmed at the fearful expression and the increased pallor of his father’s countenance.
Suddenly there was a violent blow struck on the cabinet door. Florestan made a motion to go and open it, in order to put an end to a scene which terrified him; but the comte seized him with a hand of iron, and held him fast.
“Who knocks?” inquired the comte.
“In the name of the law, open! Open!” said a voice.
“That forgery, then, was not the last,” exclaimed the comte, in a low voice, and looking at his son with a terrible air.
“Yes, my father, I swear it!” exclaimed Florestan, endeavouring, but vainly, to extricate himself from the vigorous grasp of his father.
“In the name of the law, open!” repeated the voice.
“What is it you seek?” demanded the comte.
“I am a commissary of police, and I have come to make a search after a robbery of diamonds, of which M. de Saint-Remy is accused. M. Baudoin, a jeweller, has proofs. If you do not open, sir, I shall be compelled to force open the door.”
“Already a thief! I was not then deceived,” said the comte, in a low voice. “I came to kill you, — I have delayed too long.”
“Kill me?”
“There is already too much dishonour on my name, — it must end. I have here two pistols; you must blow out your brains, or I will blow them out, and I will say that you killed yourself in despair in order to escape from shame.”
And, with a fearful sang-froid, the comte drew a pistol from his pocket, and, with the hand that was free, presented it to his son, saying:
“Now an end to this, if, indeed, you are not a coward!”
After repeated and ineffectual attempts to free himself from the comte’s hand, his son fell back aghast and livid with fear. He saw by the fearful look, the inexorable demeanour of his father, that he had no pity to expect from him.
“My father!” he exclaimed.
“You must die!”
“I repent!”
“It is too late. Hark! They are forcing in the door!”
“I will expiate my faults!”
“They are entering! Must I then kill you with my own hand?”
“Pardon!”
“The door gives way! You will then have it so!”
And the comte placed the muzzle of the weapon against Florestan’s breast.
The noise without announced that the door of the cabinet could not long resist. The vicomte saw he was lost. A sudden and desperate resolution lighted up his countenance. He no longer struggled with his father, and he said to him, with equal firmness and resignation:
“You are right, my father! Give me the pistol! There is infamy enough on my name! The life in store for me is frightful, and is not worth the trouble of a struggle. Give me the pistol! You shall see if I am a coward!” and he put forth his hand to take the pistol. “But, at least, one word, — one single word of consolation, — pity, — farewell!” said Florestan; and his trembling lips, his paleness, his agitated features, all betokened the terrible emotion of this frightful moment.
“But what if he were, indeed, my son!” thought the comte, with terror, and hesitating to hand him the deadly instrument. “If he were my son I ought to hesitate before such a sacrifice.”
A loud cracking of the cabinet door announced that it was being forced.
“My father, they are coming! Oh, now I feel that death is indeed a benefit. Yes, now I thank you! But, at least, your hand, — and forgive me!”
In spite of his sternness, the comte could not repress a shudder, as he said, in a voice of emotion:
“I forgive you.”
“My father, the door opens; go to them, that, at least, they may not even suspect you. Besides, if they enter here, they will prevent me from completing, — adieu!”
The steps of several persons were heard in the next room. Florestan placed the muzzle of the pistol to his heart. It went off at the instant when the comte, to avoid the horrid sight, turned away his head, and rushed out of the salon, whose curtains closed upon him.
At the sound of this explosion, at the sight of the comte, pale and haggard, the commissary stopped short at the threshold of the door, making a sign to his agents to pause also.
Informed by Boyer that the vicomte was shut up with his father, the magistrate understood all, and respected his deep grief.
“Dead!” exclaimed the comte, hiding his face in his hands. “Dead!” he repeated in a tone of agony. “It was just, — better death than infamy! But it is horrible!”
“Sir,” said the magistrate, sorrowfully, after a few minutes’ silence, “spare yourself a painful spectacle, — leave the house. And now I have another duty to fulfil, even more painful than that which summoned me hither.”
“You are quite right, sir,” said M. de Saint-Remy; “as to the sufferer by this robbery, you will request him to call on M. Dupont, the banker.”
“In the Rue Richelieu? He is very well known,” replied the magistrate.
“What is the estimated value of the stolen diamonds?”
“About thirty thousand francs. The person who bought them, and by whom the fraud was detected, gave that amount for them to your son.”
“I can still pay it, sir. Let the jeweller go to my banker the day after to-morrow, and I will have it all arranged.”
The commissary bowed. The comte left the room.
After the departure of the latter, the magistrate, deeply affected by this unlooked-for scene, went slowly towards the salon, the curtains of which were closed. He moved them on one side with agitation.
“Nobody!” he ex
claimed, amazed beyond measure, and looking around him, unable to see the least trace of the tragic event which he believed had just occurred.
Then, seeing a small door in the panel of the apartment, he went towards it. It was fastened in the side of the secret staircase.
“It was a trick, and he has escaped by this door!” he exclaimed, with vexation.
And in fact, the vicomte, having in his father’s presence placed the pistol on his heart, had very dexterously fired it under his arm, and rapidly made off.
In spite of the most careful search throughout the house, they could not discover Florestan.
During the conversation with his father and the commissary, he had quickly gained the boudoir, then the conservatory, then the lone alley, and so to the Champs Elysées.
The picture of this ignoble degradation in opulence is a sad thing.
We are aware of it. But for want of warnings, the richer classes have also fatally their miseries, vices, crimes. Nothing is more frequent and more afflicting than those insensate, barren prodigalities which we have now described, and which always entail ruin, loss of consideration, baseness, or infamy. It is a deplorable, sad spectacle, just like contemplating a flourishing field of wheat destroyed by a herd of wild beasts. No doubt that inheritance, property, are, and ought to be, inviolable, sacred. Wealth acquired or transmitted ought to be able to shine with impunity and magnificently in the eyes of the poor and suffering masses. We must, too, see those frightful disproportions which exist between the millionaire Saint-Remy, and the artisan Morel. But, inasmuch as these inevitable disproportions are consecrated, protected by the law, so those who possess such wealth ought morally to be accountable to those who have only probity, resignation, courage, and desire to labour.
In the eyes of reason, human right, and even of a well-understood social interest, a great fortune should be a hereditary deposit, confided to prudent, firm, skilful, generous hands, which, entrusted at the same time to fructify and expend this fortune, know how to fertilise, vivify, and ameliorate all that should have the felicity to find themselves within the scope of its splendid and salutary rays.
And sometimes it is so, but the instances are very rare. How many young men, like Saint-Remy, masters at twenty of a large patrimony, spend it foolishly in idleness, in waste, in vice, for want of knowing how to employ their wealth more advantageously either for themselves or for the public. Others, alarmed at the instability of human affairs, save in the meanest manner. Thus there are those who, knowing that a fixed fortune always diminishes, give themselves up, fools or rogues, to that hazardous, immoral gaming, which the powers that be encourage and patronise.
