Godeschal preached by example. If he professed the strictest principles of honor, discretion, and honesty, he practised them without assumption, as he walked, as he breathed; such action was the natural play of his soul, as walking and breathing were the natural play of his organs. Eighteen months after Oscar’s installation into the office, the second clerk was, for the second time, slightly wrong in his accounts, which were comparatively unimportant. Godeschal said to him in presence of all the other clerks:
“My dear Gaudet, go away from here of your own free will, that it may not be said that Monsieur Desroches has dismissed you. You have been careless or absent-minded, and neither of those defects can pass here. The master shall know nothing about the matter; that is all that I can do for a comrade.”
At twenty years of age, Oscar became third clerk in the office. Though he earned no salary, he was lodged and fed, for he did the work of the second clerk. Desroches employed two chief clerks, and the work of the second was unremitting toil. By the end of his second year in the law-school Oscar knew more than most licensed graduates; he did the work at the Palais intelligently, and argued some cases in chambers. Godeschal and Desroches were satisfied with him. And yet, though he now seemed a sensible man, he showed, from time to time, a hankering after pleasure and a desire to shine, repressed, though it was, by the stern discipline and continual toil of his life.
Moreau, satisfied with Oscar’s progress, relaxed, in some degree, his watchfulness; and when, in July, 1825, Oscar passed his examinations with a spotless record, the land-agent gave him the money to dress himself elegantly. Madame Clapart, proud and happy in her son, prepared the outfit splendidly for the rising lawyer.
In the month of November, when the courts reopened, Oscar Husson occupied the chamber of the second clerk, whose work he now did wholly. He had a salary of eight hundred francs with board and lodging. Consequently, uncle Cardot, who went privately to Desroches and made inquiries about his nephew, promised Madame Clapart to be on the lookout for a practice for Oscar, if he continued to do as well in the future.
In spite of these virtuous appearances, Oscar Husson was undergoing a great strife in his inmost being. At times he thought of quitting a life so directly against his tastes and his nature. He felt that galley-slaves were happier than he. Galled by the collar of this iron system, wild desires seized him to fly when he compared himself in the street with the well-dressed young men whom he met. Sometimes he was driven by a sort of madness towards women; then, again, he resigned himself, but only to fall into a deeper disgust for life. Impelled by the example of Godeschal, he was forced, rather than led of himself, to remain in that rugged way.
Godeschal, who watched and took note of Oscar, made it a matter of principle not to allow his pupil to be exposed to temptation. Generally the young clerk was without money, or had so little that he could not, if he would, give way to excess. During the last year, the worthy Godeschal had made five or six parties of pleasure with Oscar, defraying the expenses, for he felt that the rope by which he tethered the young kid must be slackened. These “pranks,” as he called them, helped Oscar to endure existence, for there was little amusement in breakfasting with his uncle Cardot, and still less in going to see his mother, who lived even more penuriously than Desroches. Moreau could not make himself familiar with Oscar as Godeschal could; and perhaps that sincere friend to young Husson was behind Godeschal in these efforts to initiate the poor youth safely into the mysteries of life. Oscar, grown prudent, had come, through contact with others, to see the extent and the character of the fault he had committed on that luckless journey; but the volume of his repressed fancies and the follies of youth might still get the better of him. Nevertheless, the more knowledge he could get of the world and its laws, the better his mind would form itself, and, provided Godeschal never lost sight of him, Moreau flattered himself that between them they could bring the son of Madame Clapart through in safety.
“How is he getting on?” asked the land-agent of Godeschal on his return from one of his journeys which had kept him some months out of Paris.
“Always too much vanity,” replied Godeschal. “You give him fine clothes and fine linen, he wears the shirt-fronts of a stockbroker, and so my dainty coxcomb spends his Sundays in the Tuileries, looking out for adventures. What else can you expect? That’s youth. He torments me to present him to my sister, where he would see a pretty sort of society! — actresses, ballet-dancers, elegant young fops, spendthrifts who are wasting their fortunes! His mind, I’m afraid, is not fitted for law. He can talk well, though; and if we could make him a barrister he might plead cases that were carefully prepared for him.”
In the month of November, 1825, soon after Oscar Husson had taken possession of his new clerkship, and at the moment when he was about to pass his examination for the licentiate’s degree, a new clerk arrived to take the place made vacant by Oscar’s promotion.
This fourth clerk, named Frederic Marest, intended to enter the magistracy, and was now in his third year at the law school. He was a fine young man of twenty-three, enriched to the amount of some twelve thousand francs a year by the death of a bachelor uncle, and the son of Madame Marest, widow of the wealthy wood-merchant. This future magistrate, actuated by a laudable desire to understand his vocation in its smallest details, had put himself in Desroches’ office for the purpose of studying legal procedure, and of training himself to take a place as head-clerk in two years. He hoped to do his “stage” (the period between the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which would surely not be refused to a rich young man. To see himself, by the time he was thirty, “procureur du roi” in any court, no matter where, was his sole ambition. Though Frederic Marest was cousin-german to Georges Marest, the latter not having told his surname in Pierrotin’s coucou, Oscar Husson did not connect the present Marest with the grandson of Czerni-Georges.
“Messieurs,” said Godeschal at breakfast time, addressing all the clerks, “I announce to you the arrival of a new jurisconsult; and as he is rich, rishissime, we will make him, I hope, pay a glorious entrance-fee.”
“Forward, the book!” cried Oscar, nodding to the youngest clerk, “and pray let us be serious.”
The youngest clerk climbed like a squirrel along the shelves which lined the room, until he could reach a register placed on the top shelf, where a thick layer of dust had settled on it.
“It is getting colored,” said the little clerk, exhibiting the volume.
We must explain the perennial joke of this book, then much in vogue in legal offices. In a clerical life where work is the rule, amusement is all the more treasured because it is rare; but, above all, a hoax or a practical joke is enjoyed with delight. This fancy or custom does, to a certain extent, explain Georges Marest’s behavior in the coucou. The gravest and most gloomy clerk is possessed, at times, with a craving for fun and quizzing. The instinct with which a set of young clerks will seize and develop a hoax or a practical joke is really marvellous. The denizens of a studio and of a lawyer’s office are, in this line, superior to comedians.
In buying a practice without clients, Desroches began, as it were, a new dynasty. This circumstance made a break in the usages relative to the reception of new-comers. Moreover, Desroches having taken an office where legal documents had never yet been scribbled, had bought new tables, and white boxes edged with blue, also new. His staff was made up of clerks coming from other officers, without mutual ties, and surprised, as one may say, to find themselves together. Godeschal, who had served his apprenticeship under Maitre Derville, was not the sort of clerk to allow the precious tradition of the “welcome” to be lost. This “welcome” is a breakfast which every neophyte must give to the “ancients” of the office into which he enters.
Now, about the time when Oscar came to the office, during the first six months of Desroches’ installation, on a winter evening when the work had been got through more quickly than u
sual, and the clerks were warming themselves before the fire preparatory to departure, it came into Godeschal’s head to construct and compose a Register “architriclino-basochien,” of the utmost antiquity, saved from the fires of the Revolution, and derived through the procureur of the Chatelet-Bordin, the immediate predecessor of Sauvaguest, the attorney, from whom Desroches had bought his practice. The work, which was highly approved by the other clerks, was begun by a search through all the dealers in old paper for a register, made of paper with the mark of the eighteenth century, duly bound in parchment, on which should be the stamp of an order in council. Having found such a volume it was left about in the dust, on the stove, on the ground, in the kitchen, and even in what the clerks called the “chamber of deliberations”; and thus it obtained a mouldiness to delight an antiquary, cracks of aged dilapidation, and broken corners that looked as though the rats had gnawed them; also, the gilt edges were tarnished with surprising perfection. As soon as the book was duly prepared, the entries were made. The following extracts will show to the most obtuse mind the purpose to which the office of Maitre Desroches devoted this register, the first sixty pages of which were filled with reports of fictitious cases. On the first page appeared as follows, in the legal spelling of the eighteenth century: —
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so be it. This
day, the feast of our lady Saincte-Geneviesve, patron saint of
Paris, under whose protection have existed, since the year 1525
the clerks of this Practice, we the under-signed, clerks and
sub-clerks of Maistre Jerosme-Sebastien Bordin, successor to the
late Guerbet, in his lifetime procureur at the Chastelet, do hereby
recognize the obligation under which we lie to renew and continue
the register and the archives of installation of the clerks of
this noble Practice, a glorious member of the Kingdom of Basoche,
the which register, being now full in consequence of the many acts
and deeds of our well-beloved predecessors, we have consigned to
the Keeper of the Archives of the Palais for safe-keeping, with
the registers of other ancient Practices; and we have ourselves
gone, each and all, to hear mass at the parish church of
Saint-Severin to solemnize the inauguration of this our new
register.
In witness whereof we have hereunto signed our names: Malin,
head-clerk; Grevin, second-clerk; Athanase Feret, clerk; Jacques
Heret, clerk; Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, clerk; Bedeau,
youngest clerk and gutter-jumper.
In the year of our Lord 1787.
After the mass aforesaid was heard, we conveyed ourselves to
Courtille, where, at the common charge, we ordered a fine
breakfast; which did not end till seven o’clock the next morning.
This was marvellously well engrossed. An expert would have said that it was written in the eighteenth century. Twenty-seven reports of receptions of neophytes followed, the last in the fatal year of 1792. Then came a blank of fourteen years; after which the register began again, in 1806, with the appointment of Bordin as attorney before the first Court of the Seine. And here follows the deed which proclaimed the reconstitution of the kingdom of Basoche: —
God in his mercy willed that, in spite of the fearful storms which
have cruelly ravaged the land of France, now become a great
Empire, the archives of the very celebrated Practice of Maitre
Bordin should be preserved; and we, the undersigned, clerks of the
very virtuous and very worthy Maitre Bordin, do not hesitate to
attribute this unheard-of preservation, when all titles,
privileges, and charters were lost, to the protection of
Sainte-Genevieve, patron Saint of this office, and also to the
reverence which the last of the procureurs of noble race had for
all that belonged to ancient usages and customs. In the uncertainty
of knowing the exact part of Sainte-Genevieve and Maitre Bordin in
this miracle, we have resolved, each of us, to go to Saint-Etienne
du Mont and there hear mass, which will be said before the altar
of that Holy-Shepherdess who sends us sheep to shear, and also to
offer a breakfast to our master Bordin, hoping that he will pay
the costs.
Signed: Oignard, first clerk; Poidevin, second clerk; Proust,
clerk; Augustin Coret, sub-clerk.
At the office.
November, 1806.
At three in the afternoon, the above-named clerks hereby return
their grateful thanks to their excellent master, who regaled them
at the establishment of the Sieur Rolland restaurateur, rue du
Hasard, with exquisite wines of three regions, to wit: Bordeaux,
Champagne, and Burgundy, also with dishes most carefully chosen,
between the hours of four in the afternoon to half-past seven in
the evening. Coffee, ices, and liqueurs were in abundance. But
the presence of the master himself forbade the chanting of hymns
of praise in clerical stanzas. No clerk exceeded the bounds of
amiable gayety, for the worthy, respectable, and generous patron
had promised to take his clerks to see Talma in “Brittanicus,” at
the Theatre-Francais. Long life to Maitre Bordin! May God shed
favors on his venerable pow! May he sell dear so glorious a
practice! May the rich clients for whom he prays arrive! May his
bills of costs and charges be paid in a trice! May our masters to
come be like him! May he ever be loved by clerks in other worlds
than this!
Here followed thirty-three reports of various receptions of new clerks, distinguished from one another by different writing and different inks, also by quotations, signatures, and praises of good cheer and wines, which seemed to show that each report was written and signed on the spot, “inter pocula.”
Finally, under date of the month of June, 1822, the period when Desroches took the oath, appears this constitutional declaration: —
I, the undersigned, Francois-Claude-Marie Godeschal, called by
Maitre Desroches to perform the difficult functions of head-clerk
in a Practice where the clients have to be created, having learned
through Maitre Derville, from whose office I come, of the
existence of the famous archives architriclino-basochien, so
celebrated at the Palais, have implored our gracious master to
obtain them from his predecessor; for it has become of the highest
importance to recover a document bearing date of the year 1786,
which is connected with other documents deposited for safe-keeping
at the Palais, the existence of which has been certified to by
Messrs. Terrasse and Duclos, keepers of records, by the help of
which we may go back to the year 1525, and find historical
indications of the utmost value on the manners, customs, and
cookery of the clerical race.
Having received a favorable answer to this request, the present
office has this day been put in possession of these proofs of the
worship in which our predecessors held the Goddess Bottle and good
living.
In consequence thereof, for the edification of our successors, and
to renew the chain of years and goblets, I, the said Godeschal,
have invited Messieurs Doublet, second clerk; Vassal, third clerk;
Herisson and Grandemain, clerks; and Dumets, sub-clerk, to
breakfast, Sunday next, at the “Cheval Rouge,” on the Quai
Saint-Bernard, where we will celebrate the victory of obtaining
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this volume which contains the Charter of our gullets.
This day, Sunday, June 27th, were imbibed twelve bottles of twelve
different wines, regarded as exquisite; also were devoured melons,
“pates au jus romanum,” and a fillet of beef with mushroom sauce.
Mademoiselle Mariette, the illustrious sister of our head-clerk
and leading lady of the Royal Academy of music and dancing, having
obligingly put at the disposition of this Practice orchestra seats
for the performance of this evening, it is proper to make this
record of her generosity. Moreover, it is hereby decreed that the
aforesaid clerks shall convey themselves in a body to that noble
demoiselle to thank her in person, and declare to her that on the
occasion of her first lawsuit, if the devil sends her one, she
shall pay the money laid out upon it, and no more.
And our head-clerk Godeschal has been and is hereby proclaimed a
flower of Basoche, and, more especially, a good fellow. May a man
who treats so well be soon in treaty for a Practice of his own!
On this record were stains of wine, pates, and candle-grease. To exhibit the stamp of truth that the writers had managed to put upon these records, we may here give the report of Oscar’s own pretended reception: —
This day, Monday, November 25th, 1822, after a session held
yesterday at the rue de la Cerisaie, Arsenal quarter, at the house
of Madame Clapart, mother of the candidate-basochien Oscar Husson,
we, the undersigned, declare that the repast of admission
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 86