‘Were you at the college of Angoulême with David Séchard?’ tall Cointet asked after saying good morning to the young solicitor, who had taken good care to answer the rich manufacturer’s summons.
‘Yes, monsieur,’ Petit-Claud replied, walking in step with Cointet.
‘Have you met him since then?’
‘Not more than twice since his return from Paris. There were no opportunities. On week-days I was either deep in office work or attending at court. Sundays and holidays I carried on my studies, for I had only myself to depend on.’
Tall Cointet gave a nod of approval.
‘When David and I met again, he asked me what I was doing. I told him that after taking my law degree at Poitiers I had become chief clerk to Maître Olivet and that sooner or later I hoped to succeed to his post… I was much better acquainted with Lucien Chardon who now styles himself Monsieur de Rubempré, the lover of Madame de Bargeton, our great local poet: in short, David Séchard’s brother-in-law.’
‘Consequently you can go and tell David that you are qualified and offer him your services.’
‘That isn’t done,’ the young solicitor replied.
‘He has never been to law and has no solicitor. That can certainly be done,’ Cointet replied, peering through his glasses at the little solicitor.
Pierre Petit-Claud was the son of a tailor in L’Houmeau and had been cold-shouldered by his school-fellows, so that a certain amount of bile seemed to have passed into his bloodstream. His face had the blurred and murky colouring which speaks of childhood sicknesses, late hours imposed by poverty and – almost always – resentful feelings. Colloquial speech provides adjectives to depict this young individual in two words: he was snappy and prickly. His cracked voice was in keeping with his sour looks, frail appearance and the indeterminate colour of his magpie eyes. Napoleon once observed that magpie eyes are a sign of dishonesty. ‘Look at so-and-so,’ he said to Las Casas at Saint Helena, speaking of a confidant whom he had been obliged to dismiss for embezzlement. ‘I don’t know how I could have been mistaken for so long: he has the eye of a magpie.’ And so, after tall Cointet had scrutinized this skinny, pock-marked little solicitor, with hair so sparse that one could scarcely tell where cranium left off and forehead began, when he saw him striking the pose of a sophisticated man with one hand on his hip, he said to himself: ‘He’s the fellow I need!’ In fact Petit-Claud, having had his fill of disdain, eaten up with a gnawing desire to push himself forward, had been bold enough, penniless as he was, to buy his employer’s practice for thirty thousand francs, counting on marriage to furnish him with this sum. As was customary, he expected his employer to find him a wife, for a predecessor always has a motive for making a match for his successor in order to get the money for his practice. But Petit-Claud relied even more on himself, for he was not without a certain superiority, rare in the provinces, though hatred was the ruling principle behind it. The more a man hates, the greater the efforts he will make.
There is a great difference between Parisian and provincial solicitors, and tall Cointet was too clever not to take advantage of the petty passions to which petty lawyers are prone. In Paris, a solicitor of some repute – there are many of them – has some of the qualities of a diplomat by virtue of the numerous affairs with which he has to deal, the importance of the interests involved and the wide scope of the issues confided to him; all this exempts him from the temptation to make a living out of legal shifts and tricks. Legal procedure, whether it is used as an offensive or defensive weapon, is no longer for him what it had been in former times – a source of lucre. In the provinces the opposite is true: solicitors go in for what Paris lawyers call ‘nibblings’, a superabundance of pettifoggeries which load their accounts with costs and use up a lot of stamped paper. A provincial solicitor is taken up with these trivialities. His concern is to pile up costs, whereas a Paris solicitor thinks only of his ‘retainer’. This honorarium is what a client owes, over and above costs, to his solicitor for the more or less skilful management of his affairs. The State takes half of the costs, whereas the retainer is his entirely. Let us face this fact: the fees paid rarely square with those which are asked for – reasonably so – for the services a good solicitor can render. Solicitors, doctors and barristers in Paris are like courtesans with their casual customers, extremely careful not to put too great a strain on their clients’ gratitude. Two admirable genre pictures worthy of Meissonier might be made of a client before and after his case is concluded, and no doubt a society of emeritus solicitors would bid a high price for them.
There is yet one more difference between a Paris and a provincial solicitor. The former rarely pleads, although he sometimes addresses a judge sitting in chambers. But in 1822, in most country districts (since then advocates have multiplied like rabbits), solicitors were also advocates and conducted their own cases. From this twofold function results a twofold responsibility which confers on a provincial solicitor the intellectual defects of a barrister without relieving him of his onerous obligations as a solicitor. He therefore becomes a gas-bag and loses that lucidity of judgement which is indispensable for the conduct of affairs. Through this doubling of parts an exceptional man often finds himself reduced to the status of two mediocre men. A solicitor in Paris, since he does not spend himself making speeches in court and rarely pleads on one side or the other, is able to preserve his sanity of judgment. True, he ranges his legalistic artillery and ransacks his arsenal to find the ways and means which the pros and cons of jurisprudence can furnish, but he allows himself no delusions over the case in hand, even though he is making every effort to win it. In a word, thinking goes to the head much less than talking. A man can talk himself into believing what he says, whereas it is possible to act against one’s own opinion while still holding to it and successfully conduct a bad case without maintaining that it is a good one, which is what an advocate does when he pleads. And so there are many reasons for a provincial solicitor turning out to be a mediocre person: he becomes involved in petty squabbles, takes on petty cases, makes his living on costs, misuses the code of procedure… and he pleads! In brief, he has many shortcomings. Consequently, when a noteworthy man is found among provincial solicitors, he stands head and shoulders above the rest.
‘I imagined, Monsieur, that you had sent for me to talk of your own affairs,’ Petit-Claud replied, and the look he cast on tall Cointet’s impenetrable spectacles gave added point to this remark.
‘Let’s come to the point,’ answered Boniface Cointet. ‘Listen.’ After uttering this one word, pregnant with confidential statements, Cointet went and sat down on a bench and invited Petit-Claud to do the same.
‘When Monsieur du Hautoy passed through Angoulême in 1804 to take up his consular post at Valencia, he met Madame de Sénonches who was then Mademoiselle Zéphirine. – And a daughter was born to them,’ Cointet added in a whisper to his interlocutor. ‘Yes,’ he went on as he saw Petit-Claud giving a shrug. ‘Mademoiselle Zéphirine’s marriage with Monsieur de Sénonches followed close upon this secret confinement. The daughter, who was brought up in the country by my mother, is Mademoiselle Françoise de La Haye, now looked after by Madame de Sénonches who, as is usual in such cases, poses as her godmother. As my mother, a farmer’s wife and a tenant of Mademoiselle Zéphirine’s grandmother, Madame de Cardanet, knew the facts about this sole heiress of the Cardanets and the Sénonches – the senior branch – I was commissioned to turn to account the small sum which Monsieur François du Hautoy intended eventually to make over to his daughter. I made a fortune out of these ten thousand francs which today amount to thirty thousand. Madame will certainly provide her ward with a wedding trousseau, silver and a modicum of furniture. And I, my boy,’ said Cointet, giving Petit-Claud a tap on the knee, ‘I can get the girl for you. If you marry Françoise de La Haye, you’ll add a large part of the aristocracy of Angoulême to your clientele. This bar sinister alliance will open out a magnificent future for you… They’ll be satisfied to ma
rry her to a solicitor-advocate: I know they won’t ask more than that.’
‘What must I do?’ asked Petit-Claud with avidity. ‘Maître Cachan is your solicitor.’
‘Yes, and I’m not going to drop Cachan all of a sudden for you. You’ll only have my legal business later,’ said tall Cointet… ‘What are you to do, my friend? Why, you take over David Séchard’s affairs. The poor devil has three thousand francs to pay us in bills: he won’t be able to pay them, and you’ll defend him against legal proceedings in such a way as to load him with enormous costs… Have no misgivings: go ahead, pile up the incidental expenses. Doublon, my bailiff, whose job it will be to carry out the proceedings with Cachan behind him, won’t do things by half… A wink’s as good as a nod… Well now, young man?…’
The two men looked at each other for a time in eloquent silence.
‘Mark this: you and I have never met,’ Cointet continued. ‘I’ve said nothing to you. You know nothing about Monsieur du Hautoy or Madame de Sénonches or Mademoiselle de La Haye. But when the time comes, in two months, you will ask for this young person’s hand in marriage. Whenever we have to get together you’ll come here in the evening. No letter-writing.’
‘So you want to ruin Séchard?’
‘Not entirely. But we’ve got to hold him in prison for a time.’
‘What’s your purpose?’
‘Do you think I’m fool enough to tell you? If you’ve sense enough to guess, you’ll also have sense enough to keep quiet.’
‘Old Séchard’s a rich man,’ said Petit-Claud, who already had a glimmering of Boniface’s purpose and saw that it might be thwarted.
‘The old man won’t give his son a farthing in his lifetime, and he has no intention of passing on just yet.’
‘I’ll take it on,’ said Petit-Claud, having made a prompt decision. ‘I’m not asking you for guarantees. I’m a lawyer. If you made a fool of me we should have accounts to settle.’
‘That rascal will go far,’ Cointet thought as he said good-night to Petit-Claud.
10. A free public lecture on dishonoured bills for those unable to meet them
THE day after this colloquy, on 30 April the brothers Cointet presented the first of the three bills Lucien had forged. Unfortunately the draft was handed to poor Eve, who recognized Lucien’s imitation of her husband’s signature. She called David and asked him point-blank: ‘Did you sign this bill?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Your brother was so hard-pressed that he signed it for me.’
She returned the bill to the cashier of the Cointet firm and told him: ‘We cannot meet it,’
Then, feeling faint, she went to her bedroom, with David following.
‘My dear,’ she said to him in a failing voice, ‘hurry to Messrs Cointet. They will show you some consideration. Ask them to wait, and also remind them that when Cérizet’s lease is renewed they will owe you a thousand francs.’
David went straight away to face his enemies.
A foreman-printer may always become a master-printer, but an able typographer is not necessarily a business man. And so David, who was out of his depth, remained dumbstruck before tall Cointet when, after having, with choking voice and racing heart, somewhat clumsily faltered out excuses and made his request, he received the following reply. ‘This is not our concern. We hold the bill from Métivier. Métivier will pay us. Apply to Monsieur Métivier.’
‘Oh!’ said Eve on hearing of this reply. ‘Once the bill is returned to Monsieur Métivier we can be easy in our minds.’
The next day, the bailiff, Victor-Ange-Herménégilde Doublon, brought David the protest at two o’clock, a time at which the Place du Mûrier is crowded with people; and, although he was careful to talk to Marion and Kolb only at the entrance to the alley, the protest was none the less a matter of common knowledge by that evening among the tradespeople of Angoulême. In any case, how could the hypocritical formalities resorted to by Maître Doublon, whom tall Cointet had recommended to show the greatest consideration, have saved Eve and David from the commercial ignominy resulting from a suspension of payment? Let us look into the matter. Even a lengthy disquisition will seem too brief. Ninety per cent of our readers will find the following details as appetizing as the spiciest news-item. They will offer new proof of the truth of this axiom: there is nothing about which people are more ignorant than what they ought to know: the workings of the law!
Indeed, to the immense majority of Frenchmen, a good description of one part of the machinery of banking could be as interesting as a chapter of a book on travels abroad. When a merchant sends a money order from the town in which his premises lie to a person living in another town, as David was supposed to have done for Lucien’s benefit, he converts a very simple operation, that of a negotiable instrument drawn between two merchants for business purposes, into something resembling a bill which one exchange draws on another. Thus, by accepting Lucien’s three drafts, in order to recover the sum advanced, Métivier was obliged to send them to Messrs Cointet, his correspondents in Angoulême. Hence an initial charge on Lucien designated as commission for change of place, which worked out at so much per cent on each draft irrespective of discount. The Séchard notes had thus passed into the category of Bank transactions. One would hardly believe to what extent the function of banker, joined to the august title of creditor, alters conditions for the debtor. Thus, ‘on the Bank’ (note this expression), once a bill transferred from Paris to Angoulême remains unpaid, the bankers owe it to themselves to draw up what in law is called a ‘Return Account’ – such an account, if we may risk a pun, as never any novelist gave of the most breathtaking adventures. For these are the ingenious clowneries authorized by a certain clause in the Commercial Code, and an explanation of them will show how many atrocities are concealed behind the terrible word legality.
As soon as Maître Doublon had registered his protest he took it in person to the Cointet brothers. The bailiff had an account with these Angoulême sharks and allowed them credits for six months which tall Cointet dragged on for a year by his method of settlement, although month after month he would say to his equally shark-like assistant: ‘Doublon, I suppose you want some money.’ And there was more to it than that. Doublon favoured this powerful firm with a rebate, and thus it made a gain on each process served: just a trifle, a mere nothing – one franc fifty per protest!
Tall Cointet sat down calmly at his desk, took out a little sheet of paper with a thirty-five centimes stamp on it, and chatted with Doublon the while in order to obtain information about the actual situation of certain tradespeople.
‘Well now, are you satisfied with little Gannerac?’
‘He’s not doing badly. After all, a haulage contractor…’
‘Yes, but in fact he’s having to do quite a lot of hauling. They say his wife is spending a lot of his money.’
‘His money?’ exclaimed Doublon with a leer.
Then the shark, who had just finished ruling lines on his sheet of paper, wrote out in a round hand the sinister heading beneath which he drew up the following account:
RETURN ACCOUNT AND COSTS
To a draft for ONE THOUSAND FRANCS, dated from Angoulême on the tenth of February, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, drawn by SÉCHARD junior to the order of LUCIEN CHARDON styled DE RUBEMPRÉ, passed to the order of MÉΤIVIER and to our order, payable on the thirtieth of April last, protested by DOUBLON, bailiff, on the first of May eighteen hundred and twenty-two.
Principal ......................................................
1000.00 frs.
Protest .........................................................
12.35
Commission at one-half per cent .................
5.00
Brokerage at one-quarter per cent ...............
2.50
Stamp for redraft and this return .................
1.35
Interest and postage .....................................
3.00
1024.30
Exchange transference at one and one quarter per cent
13.25
1037.45
One thousand thirty-seven francs and forty-five centimes, for which sum we reimburse ourselves by our draft on sight on Monsieur Métivier, rue Serpente, Paris, to the order of Monsieur Gannerac, of L’Houmeau,
Angoulême, the second of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two.
COINTET brothers.
Underneath this little memorandum, drawn up with the skill that comes from sheer habit – for he was still chatting with Doublon – tall Cointet wrote the following declaration:
We the undersigned, Postel, licensed apothecary of L’Houmeau, and Gannerac, haulage contractor, tradesmen of this city, certify that the charge for exchange between Angoulême and Paris is one and one-quarter per cent.
Angoulême, the third of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two.
‘Look, Doublon, do me the pleasure of going to Postel and Gannerac, ask them to sign this declaration and bring it back tomorrow morning.’
And Doublon, well up in these instruments of torture, went off as if it were the simplest of matters. Clearly, even if the protest had been delivered, as it is in Paris, in a sealed envelope, all Angoulême would have been well informed about the unhappy state of poor Séchard’s affairs. And how many accusations of indifference were levelled against him! Some said that his ruin was due to the excessive love he bore his wife. Others blamed him for being too fond of his brother-in-law. And what fearful conclusions they drew from these premises! One should never devote oneself to the interests of one’s relatives! There was approval and admiration for the severity which old Séchard was showing to his son.
Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) Page 60
