Cousin Bette

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘I’ll go to the Ministry,’ he replied, ‘and see the Marshal, find out what he thinks of my brother, and ask him if he can do something for my sister. Try to think of some employment worthy of her.’

  ‘The Charitable Association of Ladies of Paris has created a number of benevolent societies under the patronage of the Archbishop, and they need inspectors, who are quite well paid, to sift the genuinely needy cases. Duties of that kind would suit dear Adeline; it would be work after her own heart.’

  ‘Order the horses,’ said the Marshal. ‘I’m going to dress. I’ll go to Neuilly, if need be!’

  ‘How fond he is of her! I must needs find her always in the way, wherever I go!’ said Lisbeth.

  Lisbeth already was the boss of that household, but behind the Marshal’s back. The three servants had been intimidated and put in their places. She had engaged a personal maid, and found an outlet for her unused energy in holding all the strings in her hands, poking her nose into everything, and making it her business to see to the well-being of her dear Marshal in every possible way. Being just as Republican as her future husband, Lisbeth pleased him greatly by her democratic ideas. She Battered him, besides, with immense skill; and in the past fortnight, the Marshal, living in greater comfort and taken care of like a child by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as an ideal partner.

  ‘My dear Marshal,’ she shouted, accompanying him to the steps, ‘put up the windows; don’t sit in a draught. Please do this, for my sake!’

  The Marshal, an old bachelor who had never had any coddling in his life, went off smiling at Lisbeth, in spite of his distressed heart.

  At that very moment Baron Hulot was leaving the War Office on his way to see Maréchal Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. Although there was nothing unusual in the Minister’s sending for one of his Directors, Hulot’s conscience was so tender that he imagined something sinister and cold in Mitouflet’s face.

  ‘How is the Prince, Mitouflet?’ he asked, closing his office door and overtaking the messenger, who had gone ahead.

  ‘He must have a bone to pick with you, Monsieur le Baron,’ replied the messenger, ‘because his voice, his eyes, his face are set stormy.’

  Hulot turned ghastly pale and said no more. He crossed the hall, the various reception rooms, and with a fast-beating heart reached the Minister’s door.

  The Marshal, then aged seventy, had the pure white hair and the weather-beaten skin to be expected in a veteran of his age, and a charming broad forehead of such amplitude that to the imaginative it seemed to extend like a battlefield. Under that snow-capped hoary cupola, in the shadow of very bony projecting eye-sockets, shone eyes of a Napoleonic blue, usually sad in expression, full of bitter thoughts and regrets. This rival of Bernadotte’s had hoped to attain a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightning when animated by strong feeling, and then his voice, always deep, rang out stridently. In anger, the Prince was a soldier again; he spoke the language of Sub-Lieutenant Cottin; he spared no one’s feelings. Hulot d’Ervy found this old lion, his hair shaken back like a mane, standing frowning with his back to the fireplace, his eyes remote, apparently lost in abstraction.

  ‘You sent for me, Prince?’ Hulot said deferentially, affecting nonchalance.

  The Marshal kept his eyes fixed on the Director, in silence, during the time he took to walk towards him from the door. This oppressive stare was like the eye of God. Hulot did not sustain it; he lowered his eyes in embarrassment.

  ‘He knows everything,’ he told himself.

  ‘Has your conscience nothing to say to you?’ asked the Marshal in his grave deep voice.

  ‘It tells me that I was probably wrong, Prince, to have levies made in Algeria without referring the matter to you. After forty-five years of service, at my age and with my tastes, I have no private fortune. You know the principles that guide the four hundred elected representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of anyone holding a high position. They have cut Ministers’ salaries – that’s typical!… Is it possible to ask them for money for an old servant of the state?… What are we to expect from people who pay judges and magistrates so badly? They give the dock labourers of Toulon thirty sous a day, when it is a physical impossibility for a family to exist on less than forty, and it never occurs to them that it’s outrageous to pay clerks in Paris no more than six hundred or ten or twelve hundred francs! They want our places themselves when the salary amounts to forty thousand francs! And those are the people who now refuse to restore to the Crown a piece of property confiscated from the Crown in 1830, one Louis XVI bought from his privy purse, moreover, when they are asked for it on behalf of an impoverished Prince!… If you had not a fortune of your own, Prince, they might well have left you, like my brother, high and dry with nothing but your salary, never remembering that you saved the Grande Armée (and I was there) in the swampy wastes of Poland.’

  ‘You have robbed the state! You have made yourself liable to be tried in the law-courts,’ said the Marshal, ‘like that clerk in the Treasury! And you treat the matter so lightly, Monsieur?’

  ‘Oh, but there’s a great difference, Monseigneur!’ exclaimed Baron Hulot. ‘Have I dipped my hands in a cash-box entrusted to me?…’

  ‘When a man in your position commits a vile crime like this,’ said the Marshal, ‘he doubles the crime by acting with blundering clumsiness. You have disgracefully compromised our administration, which until now had the cleanest hands in Europe! And that, Monsieur, for two hundred thousand francs for a whore!’ said the Marshal in a terrible voice. ‘You are a Councillor of State, and the punishment of an ordinary soldier who sells regimental property is death. Colonel Pourin, of the Second Lancers, once told me this story. At Saverne, one of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who wanted him to give her a shawl. The hussy made so much fuss about it that the poor devil, who was about to be promoted to quartermaster after twenty years’ service, and was respected by the whole regiment, sold some things belonging to his company to get the shawl. Do you know what that lancer did, Baron d’Ervy? He ground up glass from a window and swallowed it, and died in hospital eleven hours later.… Try, you, to die of a stroke, so that we can save your honour…’

  The Baron looked at the old soldier with haggard eyes, and as the Marshal saw his expression, which betrayed the coward, colour rose to the old man’s cheeks and his eyes blazed.

  ‘Would you fail me?…’ stammered Hulot.

  At that moment, Marshal Hulot, who had been told that his brother was alone with the Minister, ventured to enter the room, and, in the manner of deaf men, walked right up to the Prince.

  ‘Oh!’ cried the hero of the Polish campaign. ‘I know what you have come for, my old comrade! But it is quite useless!’

  ‘Useless?’ repeated Marshal Hulot, hearing only that word.

  ‘Yes, you have come to speak on behalf of your brother; but do you know what your brother is?’

  ‘My brother?’ said the deaf man.

  ‘Yes,’ shouted the Marshal, ‘your brother is a dastardly scoundrel, utterly unworthy of you!’

  And in his wrath the Marshal’s eyes flashed fulgurating glances, like those looks with which Napoleon broke men’s wills and nerve.

  ‘You lie, Cottin!’ returned Marshal Hulot, ashen pale. ‘Throw down your baton as I throw down mine! I am at your service.’

  The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked straight into his eyes, and as he clasped his hand, said in his ear:

  ‘Are you a man?’

  ‘You shall see.…’

  ‘Well, stand firm! You have to bear the worst disaster that could befall you.’

  The Prince turned, took a file of documents from the table and put it in Marshal Hulot’s hands, crying:

  ‘Read this!’

  The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter from the top of the file:

  To His Excellency the President of the Council

  Confidential

  Algiers


  My dear Prince,

  We have a very bad business on our hands, as you will see from the accompanying papers.

  Briefly, the matter is this: Baron Hulot d’Ervy sent one of his uncles into the province of Oran in order to make purchases of grain and forage as a speculation, with a storekeeper as accomplice. The storekeeper gave away certain information in order to save his own skin, and has since escaped. The Public Prosecutor handled the affair summarily, thinking it involved two minor officials only; but Johann Fischer, your Director general’s uncle, finding himself about to be brought before a court, stabbed himself fatally with a nail, in prison.

  That would have been the end of the matter, if this worthy and honourable man, who was apparently betrayed by both his accomplice and his nephew, had not taken it into his head to write to Baron Hulot. This letter, seized by the police, startled the Public Prosecutor so much that he came to see me. It would be such a terrible thing to arrest and try a Councillor of State, a Director general with such a long record of loyal service (for he saved us all after Beresina by his reorganization of the administration), that I had the papers sent to me.

  Must we let the affair take its course? Or should we, as the apparent chief culprit is dead, kill the case, after sentencing the storekeeper in default?

  The papers are sent to you by permission of the Attorney General; and as Baron d’Ervy is domiciled in Paris, proceedings will be within the competence of your superior court. We have found this, rather backstairs, means of disposing of the problem for the moment.

  Only, my dear Marshal, act quickly. This deplorable affair is being far too much talked about already, and it will do twice as much damage if the complicity of the eminent man chiefly concerned, which at present is known only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, the Attorney General, and me, should leak out.

  There, the paper fell from Marshal Hulot’s fingers. He looked at his brother, and saw that there was no need to examine the documents; but he looked for Johann Fischer’s letter, and held it out to him after scanning it rapidly.

  From Oran Prison

  Dear Nephew,

  When you read this letter, I shall no longer be alive.

  Set your mind at rest; nothing will be found to implicate you. With me dead, and your Jesuit Chardin escaped, the case will be stopped. When I think of the happiness of our Adeline’s face, that we owe to you, I feel that it is very easy to die. It is unnecessary, now, to send the two hundred thousand francs. Farewell.

  This letter will reach you through a prisoner whom I believe I can trust.

  JOHANN FISCHER

  ‘I make my apologies to Your Excellency,’ Marshal Hulot said to Prince de Wissembourg, with a pathetic pride.

  ‘Come, don’t be ceremonious with me, Hulot,’ the Minister replied, grasping his old friend’s hand. ‘It was only himself that the poor lancer killed,’ he said, with a withering look at Hulot d’Ervy.

  ‘How much did you take?’ Count de Forzheim said sternly to his brother.

  ‘Two hundred thousand francs.’

  ‘My dear friend,’ said the Count, addressing the Minister, ‘you shall have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot defrauded the state of a sou.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ said the Marshal. ‘I know where those two hundred thousand francs are, and I’ll have them returned. Send in your resignation and apply for your pension!’ he added, tossing a double sheet of foolscap in the direction of the Councillor of State, who, his legs giving way beneath him, had sat down at the table. ‘Proceedings against you would disgrace us all, so I have obtained the consent of the Council of Ministers to taking this course. Since you accept life without honour, without my esteem, can consent to exist in degradation, you shall have the pension that you are entitled to. Only, see to it that you are soon forgotten.’

  The Marshal rang.

  ‘Is the clerk Marneffe there?’

  ‘Yes, Monseigneur,’ said the attendant.

  ‘Send him in.’

  ‘You and your wife,’ exclaimed the Minister, when Marneffe appeared, ‘have deliberately ruined the Baron d’Ervy, whom you see here.’

  ‘Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon, we are very poor. I have only my salary to live on, and I have two children, of whom the one that is to come has been put in my family by Monsieur le Baron.’

  ‘What a rascally face!’ said the Prince to Marshal Hulot, indicating Marneffe. ‘That’s enough of this Sganarelle* talk,’ he answered the man. ‘You must return two hundred thousand francs, or you will go to Algeria.’

  ‘But, Monsieur le Ministre, you don’t know my wife; she has squandered everything. Monsieur le Baron invited six people to dinner every day.… Fifty thousand francs were spent in my house every year.’

  ‘Leave the room!’ thundered the Minister in the voice that once cried the Charge at the height of battles. ‘You will receive notice of your transfer within two hours.… Go!’

  ‘I prefer to hand in my resignation,’ said Marneffe insolently. ‘It’s a bit too thick to stand in my shoes and be bullied into the bargain; it’s not to my taste at all!’

  And he left the room.

  ‘What an impudent rogue!’ said the Prince.

  Marshal Hulot, who during this scene had stood motionless, pale as death, turning his eyes from time to time as if impelled to scrutinize his brother’s face, came forward to shake the Prince’s hand, saying:

  ‘Within forty-eight hours reparation shall be made for the loss of the money; but as for honour!… Farewell, Marshal! The last blow is the one that kills.… Yes, I shall not survive it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Why the devil did you have to come this morning?’ the Prince said with some feeling.

  ‘I came for his wife’s sake,’ the Count replied, with a glance at Hector.’ She has no means of livelihood… especially after this.’

  ‘He has his pension.’

  ‘He has borrowed money on it.’

  ‘He must have the devil in him!’ said the Prince, with a shrug. ‘What philtre do these women make you swallow to take away your wits?’ he demanded of Hulot d’Ervy. ‘How could you, who know the meticulous exactness with which the French administration writes everything down, makes out endless reports about every detail, covers reams of paper recording the outlay or receipt of a few centimes, you who used to complain that hundreds of signatures were needed for the most trivial transactions – to discharge a soldier, to buy a curry-comb – how could you hope to conceal theft for long? And what about the Press? And people who covet your place? And others who would like to steal too? Do these women rob you of ordinary common sense? Have they put blinkers on your eyes? Or are you made of different stuff from the rest of us? You should have given up administration as soon as you became not a man but a temperament! If you can add such utter blind folly to your crime, you will end up… I would rather not say where.…’

  ‘Promise me to do something for her, Cottin!’ said Count de Forzheim, hearing nothing and thinking only of his sister-in-law.

  ‘Set your mind at rest about that!’ said the Minister.

  ‘Thank you, then, and good-bye!– Come, sir,’ he said to his brother.

  The Prince considered the two brothers with apparent detachment, two so dissimilar in attitude, in essential structure, in character: the brave man and the coward, the sensualist and the self-disciplined, the honest man and the peculator, and he said to himself:

  ‘This coward will not know how to die! And my poor Hulot, so upright, has death in his knapsack!’

  He sat down at his table and took up the reading of the dispatches from Africa again, with a gesture which expressed both a soldier’s nonchalance and the profound compassion that the sight of battlefields makes part of his nature. For, in fact, no one is more humane than the soldier, to all appearance so tough, and trained by war to possess the icy cold inflexibility indispensable on the battlefield.


  On the following day several newspapers carried these items of news under various headlines:

  Monsieur le Baron Hulot d’Ervy has requested permission to send in his resignation. The irregularities in the books of the Algerian Administration, recently brought to light by the death and flight respectively of two officials, have influenced this highly placed administrator’s decision. Learning of the crimes committed by these employees, in whom he had had the ill-fortune to place some trust, Monsieur le Baron was stricken with a seizure in the War Minister’s office.

  Monsieur Hulot d’Ervy, brother of the Marshal, has completed forty-five years of service. His decision, which he cannot be persuaded to alter, has been received with regret by all who know Monsieur Hulot, whose qualities in private life are no less outstanding than his talents as an administrator. No one will have forgotten the devotion of the Commissary general of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, nor the energy and skill with which he organized the supply services of the army raised in 1815 by Napoleon.

  Yet another of the notable figures of the Empire is about to pass from the scene. Since 1830, Monsieur le Baron Hulot has been one of the unfailing, indispensable lights of the Council of State and the War Office.

  Algiers: The affair referred to as the forage scandal, which has been absurdly inflated in certain newspapers, is now brought to a close by the death of the chief culprit. The man Johann Wisch has committed suicide in prison, and his accomplice is in hiding, but the charges against him will be heard in his absence.

  Wisch, a former army contractor, was an honest man, greatly respected, who did not survive the knowledge that he had been duped by Chardin, the storekeeper who has absconded.

  And in the Paris news there was this:

  The Minister of War, in order to prevent any future irregularity, has decided to create a commissariat department in Africa. It is reported that Monsieur Marneffe, a senior clerk, is to be placed in charge of this organization.