Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  “Go on, I will follow you,” said the Duchess after a moment’s hesitation. “Between us we may give Leontine some courage...”

  Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy’s house in the Rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin. Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant was lost. The two women were at once shown up to the Countess, whom they found reclining on a couch in a miniature chalet, surrounded by a garden fragrant with the rarest flowers.

  “That is well,” said Asie, looking about her. “No one can overhear us.”

  “Oh! my dear, I am half dead! Tell me, Diane, what have you done?” cried the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess by the shoulders, she melted into tears.

  “Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must not cry, but act,” said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down on the sofa by her side.

  Asie studied the Countess’ face with the scrutiny peculiar to those old hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a surgeon’s instrument probes a wound! — the sorrow that engraves ineradicable lines on the heart and on the features. She was dressed without the least touch of vanity. She was now forty-five, and her printed muslin wrapper, tumbled and untidy, showed her bosom without any art or even stays! Her eyes were set in dark circles, and her mottled cheeks showed the traces of bitter tears. She wore no sash round her waist; the embroidery on her petticoat and shift was all crumpled. Her hair, knotted up under a lace cap, had not been combed for four-and-twenty hours, and showed as a thin, short plait and ragged little curls. Leontine had forgotten to put on her false hair.

  “You are in love for the first time in your life?” said Asie sententiously.

  Leontine then saw the woman and started with horror.

  “Who is that, my dear Diane?” she asked of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse.

  “Whom should I bring with me but a woman who is devoted to Lucien and willing to help us?”

  Asie had hit the truth. Madame de Serizy, who was regarded as one of the most fickle of fashionable women, had had an attachment of ten years’ standing for the Marquis d’Aiglemont. Since the Marquis’ departure for the colonies, she had gone wild about Lucien, and had won him from the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, knowing nothing — like the Paris world generally — of Lucien’s passion for Esther. In the world of fashion a recognized attachment does more to ruin a woman’s reputation than ten unconfessed liaisons; how much more then two such attachments? However, as no one thought of Madame de Serizy as a responsible person, the historian cannot undertake to speak for her virtue thus doubly dog’s-eared.

  She was fair, of medium height, and well preserved, as a fair woman can be who is well preserved at all; that is to say, she did not look more than thirty, being slender, but not lean, with a white skin and flaxen hair; she had hands, feet, and a shape of aristocratic elegance, and was as witty as all the Ronquerolles, spiteful, therefore, to women, and good-natured to men. Her large fortune, her husband’s fine position, and that of her brother, the Marquis de Ronquerolles, had protected her from the mortifications with which any other woman would have been overwhelmed. She had this great merit — that she was honest in her depravity, and confessed her worship of the manners and customs of the Regency.

  Now, at forty-two this woman — who had hitherto regarded men as no more than pleasing playthings, to whom, indeed, she had, strange to say, granted much, regarding love as merely a matter of sacrifice to gain the upper hand, — this woman, on first seeing Lucien, had been seized with such a passion as the Baron de Nucingen’s for Esther. She had loved, as Asie had just told her, for the first time in her life.

  This postponement of youth is more common with Parisian women than might be supposed, and causes the ruin of some virtuous souls just as they are reaching the haven of forty. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was the only person in the secret of the vehement and absorbing passion, of which the joys, from the girlish suspicion of first love to the preposterous follies of fulfilment, had made Leontine half crazy and insatiable.

  True love, as we know, is merciless. The discovery of Esther’s existence had been followed by one of those outbursts of rage which in a woman rise even to the pitch of murder; then came the phase of meanness, to which a sincere affection humbles itself so gladly. Indeed, for the last month the Countess would have given ten years of her life to have Lucien again for one week. At last she had even resigned herself to accept Esther as her rival, just when the news of her lover’s arrest had come like the last trump on this paroxysm of devotion.

  The Countess had nearly died of it. Her husband had himself nursed her in bed, fearing the betrayal of delirium, and for twenty-four hours she had been living with a knife in her heart. She said to her husband in her fever:

  “Save Lucien, and I will live henceforth for you alone.”

  “Indeed, as Madame la Duchesse tells you, it is of no use to make your eyes like boiled gooseberries,” cried the dreadful Asie, shaking the Countess by the arm. “If you want to save him, there is not a minute to lose. He is innocent — I swear it by my mother’s bones!”

  “Yes, yes, of course he is!” cried the Countess, looking quite kindly at the dreadful old woman.

  “But,” Asie went on, “if Monsieur Camusot questions him the wrong way, he can make a guilty man of him with two sentences; so, if it is in your power to get the Conciergerie opened to you, and to say a few words to him, go at once, and give him this paper. — He will be released to-morrow; I will answer for it. Now, get him out of the scrape, for you got him into it.”

  “I?”

  “Yes, you! — You fine ladies never have a son even when you own millions. When I allowed myself the luxury of keeping boys, they always had their pockets full of gold! Their amusements amused me. It is delightful to be mother and mistress in one. Now, you — you let the men you love die of hunger without asking any questions. Esther, now, made no speeches; she gave, at the cost of perdition, soul and body, the million your Lucien was required to show, and that is what has brought him to this pass — — ”

  “Poor girl! Did she do that! I love her!” said Leontine.

  “Yes — now!” said Asie, with freezing irony.

  “She was a real beauty; but now, my angel, you are better looking than she is. — And Lucien’s marriage is so effectually broken off, that nothing can mend it,” said the Duchess in a whisper to Leontine.

  The effect of this revelation and forecast was so great on the Countess that she was well again. She passed her hand over her brow; she was young once more.

  “Now, my lady, hot foot, and make haste!” said Asie, seeing the change, and guessing what had caused it.

  “But,” said Madame de Maufrigneuse, “if the first thing is to prevent Lucien’s being examined by Monsieur Camusot, we can do that by writing two words to the judge and sending your man with it to the Palais, Leontine.”

  “Then come into my room,” said Madame de Serizy.

  This is what was taking place at the Palais while Lucien’s protectresses were obeying the orders issued by Jacques Collin. The gendarmes placed the moribund prisoner on a chair facing the window in Monsieur Camusot’s room; he was sitting in his place in front of his table. Coquart, pen in hand, had a little table to himself a few yards off.

  The aspect of a magistrate’s chambers is not a matter of indifference; and if this room had not been chosen intentionally, it must be owned that chance had favored justice. An examining judge, like a painter, requires the clear equable light of a north window, for the criminal’s face is a picture which he must constantly study. Hence most magistrates place their table, as this of Camusot’s was arranged, so as to sit with their back to the window and leave the face of the examinee in broad daylight. Not one of them all but, by the end of six months, has assumed an absent-minded and indifferent expression, if he does not wear spectacles, and
maintains it throughout the examination.

  It was a sudden change of expression in the prisoner’s face, detected by these means, and caused by a sudden point-blank question, that led to the discovery of the crime committed by Castaing at the very moment when, after a long consultation with the public prosecutor, the magistrate was about to let the criminal loose on society for lack of evidence. This detail will show the least intelligent person how living, interesting, curious, and dramatically terrible is the conflict of an examination — a conflict without witnesses, but always recorded. God knows what remains on the paper of the scenes at white heat in which a look, a tone, a quiver of the features, the faintest touch of color lent by some emotion, has been fraught with danger, as though the adversaries were savages watching each other to plant a fatal stroke. A report is no more than the ashes of the fire.

  “What is your real name?” Camusot asked Jacques Collin.

  “Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo, and secret envoy of His Majesty Ferdinand VII.”

  It must here be observed that Jacques Collin spoke French like a Spanish trollop, blundering over it in such a way as to make his answers almost unintelligible, and to require them to be repeated. But Monsieur de Nucingen’s German barbarisms have already weighted this Scene too much to allow of the introduction of other sentences no less difficult to read, and hindering the rapid progress of the tale.

  “Then you have papers to prove your right to the dignities of which you speak?” asked Camusot.

  “Yes, monsieur — my passport, a letter from his Catholic Majesty authorizing my mission. — In short, if you will but send at once to the Spanish Embassy two lines, which I will write in your presence, I shall be identified. Then, if you wish for further evidence, I will write to His Eminence the High Almoner of France, and he will immediately send his private secretary.”

  “And do you still pretend that you are dying?” asked the magistrate. “If you have really gone through all the sufferings you have complained of since your arrest, you ought to be dead by this time,” said Camusot ironically.

  “You are simply trying the courage of an innocent man and the strength of his constitution,” said the prisoner mildly.

  “Coquart, ring. Send for the prison doctor and an infirmary attendant. — We shall be obliged to remove your coat and proceed to verify the marks on your shoulder,” Camusot went on.

  “I am in your hands, monsieur.”

  The prisoner then inquired whether the magistrate would be kind enough to explain to him what he meant by “the marks,” and why they should be sought on his shoulder. The judge was prepared for this question.

  “You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an escaped convict, whose daring shrinks at nothing, not even at sacrilege!” said Camusot promptly, his eyes fixed on those of the prisoner.

  Jacques Collin gave no sign, and did not color; he remained quite calm, and assumed an air of guileless curiosity as he gazed at Camusot.

  “I, monsieur? A convict? May the Order I belong to and God above forgive you for such an error. Tell me what I can do to prevent your continuing to offer such an insult to the rights of free men, to the Church, and to the King my master.”

  The judge made no reply to this, but explained to the Abbe that if he had been branded, a penalty at that time inflicted by law on all convicts sent to the hulks, the letters could be made to show by giving him a slap on the shoulder.

  “Oh, monsieur,” said Jacques Collin, “it would indeed be unfortunate if my devotion to the Royal cause should prove fatal to me.”

  “Explain yourself,” said the judge, “that is what you are here for.”

  “Well, monsieur, I must have a great many scars on my back, for I was shot in the back as a traitor to my country while I was faithful to my King, by constitutionalists who left me for dead.”

  “You were shot, and you are alive!” said Camusot.

  “I had made friends with some of the soldiers, to whom certain pious persons had sent money, so they placed me so far off that only spent balls reached me, and the men aimed at my back. This is a fact that His Excellency the Ambassador can bear witness to — — ”

  “This devil of a man has an answer for everything! However, so much the better,” thought Camusot, who assumed so much severity only to satisfy the demands of justice and of the police. “How is it that a man of your character,” he went on, addressing the convict, “should have been found in the house of the Baron de Nucingen’s mistress — and such a mistress, a girl who had been a common prostitute!”

  “This is why I was found in a courtesan’s house, monsieur,” replied Jacques Collin. “But before telling you the reasons for my being there, I ought to mention that at the moment when I was just going upstairs I was seized with the first attack of my illness, and I had no time to speak to the girl. I knew of Mademoiselle Esther’s intention of killing herself; and as young Lucien de Rubempre’s interests were involved, and I have a particular affection for him for sacredly secret reasons, I was going to try to persuade the poor creature to give up the idea, suggested to her by despair. I meant to tell her that Lucien must certainly fail in his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu; and I hoped that by telling her she had inherited seven millions of francs, I might give her courage to live.

  “I am convinced, Monsieur le Juge, that I am a martyr to the secrets confided to me. By the suddenness of my illness I believe that I had been poisoned that very morning, but my strong constitution has saved me. I know that a certain agent of the political police is dogging me, and trying to entangle me in some discreditable business.

  “If, at my request, you had sent for a doctor on my arrival here, you would have had ample proof of what I am telling you as to the state of my health. Believe me, monsieur, some persons far above our heads have some strong interest in getting me mistaken for some villain, so as to have a right to get rid of me. It is not all profit to serve a king; they have their meannesses. The Church alone is faultless.”

  It is impossible to do justice to the play of Jacques Collin’s countenance as he carefully spun out his speech, sentence by sentence, for ten minutes; and it was all so plausible, especially the mention of Corentin, that the lawyer was shaken.

  “Will you confide to me the reasons of your affection for Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre?”

  “Can you not guess them? I am sixty years of age, monsieur — I implore you do not write it. — It is because — must I say it?”

  “It will be to your own advantage, and more particularly to Monsieur Lucien de Rubempre’s, if you tell everything,” replied the judge.

  “Because he is — Oh, God! he is my son,” he gasped out with an effort.

  And he fainted away.

  “Do not write that down, Coquart,” said Camusot in an undertone.

  Coquart rose to fetch a little phial of “Four thieves’ Vinegar.”

  “If he is Jacques Collin, he is a splendid actor!” thought Camusot.

  Coquart held the phial under the convict’s nose, while the judge examined him with the keen eye of a lynx — and a magistrate.

  “Take his wig off,” said Camusot, after waiting till the man recovered consciousness.

  Jacques Collin heard, and quaked with terror, for he knew how vile an expression his face would assume.

  “If you have not strength enough to take your wig off yourself — — Yes, Coquart, remove it,” said Camusot to his clerk.

  Jacques Collin bent his head to the clerk with admirable resignation; but then his head, bereft of that adornment, was hideous to behold in its natural aspect.

  The sight of it left Camusot in the greatest uncertainty. While waiting for the doctor and the man from the infirmary, he set to work to classify and examine the various papers and the objects seized in Lucien’s rooms. After carrying out their functions in the Rue Saint-Georges at Mademoiselle Esther’s house, the police had searched the rooms at the Quai Malaquais.

  “You have your
hand on some letters from the Comtesse de Serizy,” said Carlos Herrera. “But I cannot imagine why you should have almost all Lucien’s papers,” he added, with a smile of overwhelming irony at the judge.

  Camusot, as he saw the smile, understood the bearing of the word “almost.”

  “Lucien de Rubempre is in custody under suspicion of being your accomplice,” said he, watching to see the effect of this news on his examinee.

  “You have brought about a great misfortune, for he is as innocent as I am,” replied the sham Spaniard, without betraying the smallest agitation.

  “We shall see. We have not as yet established your identity,” Camusot observed, surprised at the prisoner’s indifference. “If you are really Don Carlos Herrera, the position of Lucien Chardon will at once be completely altered.”

  “To be sure, she became Madame Chardon — Mademoiselle de Rubempre!” murmured Carlos. “Ah! that was one of the greatest sins of my life.”

  He raised his eyes to heaven, and by the movement of his lips seemed to be uttering a fervent prayer.

  “But if you are Jacques Collin, and if he was, and knew that he was, the companion of an escaped convict, a sacrilegious wretch, all the crimes of which he is suspected by the law are more than probably true.”

  Carlos Herrera sat like bronze as he heard this speech, very cleverly delivered by the judge, and his only reply to the words “knew that he was” and “escaped convict” was to lift his hands to heaven with a gesture of noble and dignified sorrow.

  “Monsieur l’Abbe,” Camusot went on, with the greatest politeness, “if you are Don Carlos Herrera, you will forgive us for what we are obliged to do in the interests of justice and truth.”

  Jacques Collin detected a snare in the lawyer’s very voice as he spoke the words “Monsieur l’Abbe.” The man’s face never changed; Camusot had looked for a gleam of joy, which might have been the first indication of his being a convict, betraying the exquisite satisfaction of a criminal deceiving his judge; but this hero of the hulks was strong in Machiavellian dissimulation.