by Eugène Sue
With the point of one of his fingers, as hard as iron, and covered with red hair, the notary rapped on a large leathern pocket-book which lay close beside him. Resolved on being as laconic, although trembling with rage, M. de Saint-Remy took from the pocket of his upper coat a Russian leather pocket-book, with gold clasps, from which he drew forth forty notes of a thousand francs each, and showed them to the notary.
“How many are there?” he inquired.
“Forty thousand francs.”
“Hand them to me!”
“Take them! and let this have a speedy termination. Ply your trade, pay yourself, and give me the bills,” said the viscount, as he threw the notes on the table, with an impatient air.
The notary took up the bank-notes, rose, went close to the window to examine them, turning and re-turning them over and over, one by one, with an attention so scrupulous, and really so insulting for M. de Saint-Rémy, that the viscount actually turned pale with rage. Jacques Ferrand, as if he had guessed the thoughts which were passing in the viscount’s mind, shook his head, turned half towards him, and said to him, with an indefinable accent:
“I have seen—”
M. de Saint-Remy, confused for a moment, said, drily:
“What?”
“Forged bank-notes,” replied the notary, continuing his scrutiny of a note, which he had not yet examined.
“What do you mean by that remark, sir?”
Jacques Ferrand paused for a moment, looked steadfastly at the viscount through his glasses, then, shrugging his shoulders slightly, he continued to investigate the notes, without uttering a syllable.
“Monsieur Notary! I would wish you to learn that, when I ask a question, I have an answer!” cried M. de Saint-Remy, exasperated at the coolness of Jacques Ferrand.
“These notes are good,” said the notary, turning towards his bureau, whence he took a small bundle of stamped papers, to which were annexed two bills of exchange; then, putting down one of the bank-notes for one thousand francs and three rouleaus, of one hundred francs each, on the table, he said to M. de Saint-Remy, pointing to the money and the bills with his finger:
“Here’s your change out of the forty thousand francs; my client has desired me to deduct the expenses.”
The viscount had contained himself with great difficulty whilst Jacques Ferrand was making out the account, and, instead of taking up the money, he exclaimed, in a voice that literally shook with passion:
“I beg to know, sir, what you meant by saying, whilst you looked at the bank-notes which I handed to you, that you ‘had seen forged notes?’”
“What I meant?”
“Yes.”
“Because I sent for you to come here on a matter of forgery.”
And the notary fixed his green spectacles on the viscount.
“And how can this forgery in any way affect me?”
After a moment’s silence, M. Ferrand said to the viscount, with a stern air:
“Are you aware, sir, of the duties which a notary fulfils?”
“Those duties appear to me, sir, very simple indeed; just now I had forty thousand francs, now I have thirteen hundred francs left.”
“You are facetious, sir; I will tell you that a notary is, in temporal matters, what a confessor is in spiritual affairs; by virtue of his position, he often becomes possessed of disgraceful secrets.”
“Go on, I beg, sir.”
“He is often brought into contact with rogues.”
“Go on, sir.”
“He ought, as well as he can, to prevent an honourable name from being dragged through the mud.”
“What is all this to me?”
“Your father’s name is deservedly respected; you, sir, dishonour it.”
“How dare you, sir, to address such language to me?”
“But for the interest which the gentleman, of whom I speak, inspires in the minds of all honest men, instead of being summoned before me, you would, at this moment, be standing before a police-magistrate.”
“I do not understand you.”
“Two months since, you discounted, through an agent, a bill for fifty-eight thousand francs (2,320l.), accepted by the house of Meulaert & Company, of Hamburg, in favour of a certain William Smith, payable in three months, at the bank of M. Grimaldi, of Paris.”
“Well?”
“That bill was a forgery.”
“Impossible!”
“That bill was a forgery! the firm of Meulaert never gave such a bill to William Smith, and never had such a transaction with such an individual.”
“Can this be true?” exclaimed M. de Saint-Rémy, with equal surprise and indignation; “then I have been most infamously deceived, sir, for I took the bill as ready money.”
“From whom?”
“From M. William Smith himself; the house of Meulaert is so well known, and I was so firmly convinced myself of the honour of M. William Smith, that I took the bill in payment of a debt he owed me.”
“William Smith never existed, — he is an imaginary personage.”
“Sir, you insult me!”
“His signature is forged and false, as well as all the rest of the bill.”
“I assert that M. William Smith is alive; but I must have been the dupe of a horrible abuse of confidence.”
“Poor young man!”
“Explain yourself, sir.”
“The actual holder of the bill is convinced you committed the forgery.”
“Sir!”
“He declares that he has proof of this; and he came to me the day before yesterday, requesting me to see you, and offer to give up this forged document, under certain conditions. Up to this point all was straightforward, but what follows is not so, and I only speak to you now according to my instructions. He requires one hundred thousand francs (4,000l.) down this very day, or else to-morrow, at twelve o’clock at noon, the forged bill will be handed over to the king’s attorney-general.”
“This is infamous, sir!”
“It is more, — it is absurd. You are a ruined man; you were all but arrested for the sum which you have just paid me, and which you have scraped up I cannot tell from where; and this I have told to the holder of the bill, who replied, that a certain great and very rich lady would not allow you to remain in this embarrassment.”
“Enough, sir! enough!”
“More infamous! more absurd! agreed.”
“Well, sir, and what is required of me?”
“Why, to work out infamously an action infamously commenced. I have consented to communicate this proposition to you, although it disgusts me, as an honest man ought to feel disgust on such an occasion; but now it is your affair. If you are guilty, choose between a criminal court and the means of ransom offered to you; my duty is only an official one, and I will not dirty my fingers any further in so foul a transaction. The third party is called M. Petit-Jean, an oil merchant, who lives on the banks of the Seine, Quai de Billy, No. 10. Make your arrangements with him; you are fit to meet if you are a forger, as he declares.”
M. de Saint-Remy had entered Jacques Ferrand’s study with a lip all scorn, and a head all pride. Although he had in his life committed some shameful actions, he still retained a certain elevation of race, and an instinctive courage, which had never forsaken him. At the beginning of this conversation, considering the notary as an adversary beneath him, he had been content to treat him with disdain; but, when Jacques Ferrand began to talk of forgery, he felt annihilated; in his turn he felt himself rode over by the notary. But for the entire command of self which he possessed, he could not have concealed the terrible impression which this unexpected revelation disclosed to him, for it might have incalculable consequences to him, — consequences unsuspected by the notary himself. After a moment of silence and reflection, he resigned himself, — he, so haughty, so irritable, so vain of his self-possession! — to beg of this coarse man, who had so roughly addressed to him the stern language of probity:
“Sir, you give me a proof of
your interest, for which I thank you, and I regret that any hasty expressions should have escaped me,” said M. de Saint-Remy, with a tone of cordiality.
“I do not take the slightest interest in or for you,” replied the notary, brutally. “Your father is the soul of honour, and I would not wish that in the depth of that solitude in which he lives, as they tell me, at Angers, he should learn that his name has been exposed, tarnished, degraded, in a court of justice, that’s all.”
“I repeat to you, sir, that I am incapable of the infamy which is attributed to me.”
“You may tell that to M. Petit-Jean.”
“But I confess that, in the absence of M. Smith, who has so unworthily abused my confidence, that—”
“The scoundrel Smith!”
“The absence of M. Smith places me in a cruel embarrassment. I am innocent, — let them accuse me, I will prove myself guiltless; but such an accusation, even, must always disgrace a gentleman.”
“Well?”
“Be so good as to use the sum I have just handed to you in part payment to the person who holds the acceptance.”
“That money belongs to a client and is sacred.”
“In two or three days I will repay you.”
“You will not be able.”
“I have resources.”
“You have none; not visible at least. Your household furniture, your horses, do not belong to you, as you declare; this has to me the appearance of a disgraceful fraud.”
“You are severe, sir; but, admitting what you say, do you not suppose that I shall turn everything into money in such a desperate extremity? Only, as it will be impossible for me to procure, between this and noon to-morrow, the one hundred thousand francs, I entreat you to employ the money I have just handed to you in procuring this unfortunate bill, or, at least, as you are very rich, advance the money. Do not leave me in such a position.”
“Me? Why, is the man mad?”
“Sir, I beseech you, in my father’s name, which you have mentioned to me, be so kind as to—”
“I am kind to those who deserve it,” said the notary, harshly. “An honest man myself, I hate swindlers, and should not be sorry to see one of those high-minded gentlemen, without faith or honour, impious and reprobate, put in the pillory, as an example to others; but I hear your horses, who are impatient to depart, M. le Vicomte,” said the notary, with a smile that displayed his black fangs.
At this moment some one knocked at the door of the apartment.
“Who’s there?” inquired Jacques Ferrand.
“Madame the Countess d’Orbigny,” said the chief clerk.
“Request her to wait a moment.”
“The stepmother of the Marchioness d’Harville?” exclaimed M. de Saint-Remy.
“Yes, sir; she has an appointment with me, — so, your servant, sir.”
“Not a word of this, sir!” cried M. de Saint-Remy, in a menacing voice.
“I told you, sir, that a notary is as discreet as a confessor.”
Jacques Ferrand rang, and the clerk appeared.
“Show Madame d’Orbigny in.” Then, addressing the viscount, “Take these thirteen hundred francs, sir; they will be something towards an arrangement with M. Petit-Jean.”
Madame d’Orbigny (formerly Madame Roland) entered at the moment when M. de Saint-Remy went out, his features convulsed with rage at having so uselessly humiliated himself before the notary.
“Ah, good day, M. de Saint-Remy,” said Madame d’Orbigny; “what a time it is since I saw you!”
“Why, madame, since D’Harville’s marriage, at which I was present, I do not think I have had the pleasure of meeting you,” said M. de Saint-Remy, bowing, and assuming an affable and smiling demeanour. “You have remained in Normandy ever since, I think?”
“Why, yes! M. d’Orbigny will only live in the country, and what he likes I like; so you see in me a complete country wife. I have not been in Paris since the marriage of my dear stepdaughter with that excellent M. d’Harville. Do you see him frequently?”
“D’Harville has grown very sullen and morose; he is seldom seen in the world,” said M. de Saint-Remy, with something like impatience, for the conversation was most irksome to him, both because of its untimeliness and that the notary seemed amused at it; but Madame d’Harville’s stepmother, enchanted at thus meeting with a dandy of the first water, was not the woman to allow her prey to escape her so easily.
“And my dear stepdaughter,” she continued,— “she, I hope, is not as morose as her husband?”
“Madame d’Harville is all the fashion, and has the world at her feet, as a lovely woman should have. But I take up your time, and—”
“Not at all, I assure you. It is quite agreeable to me to meet the ‘observed of all observers,’ — the monarch of fashion, — for, in ten minutes, I shall be as au fait of Paris as if I had never left it. And your dear M. de Lucenay, who was also present at M. d’Harville’s marriage?”
“A still greater oddity. He has been travelling in the East, and returned in time to receive a sword-wound yesterday, — nothing serious, though.”
“Poor dear duke! And his wife, always lovely and fascinating?”
“Madame, I have the honour to be one of her profoundest admirers, and my testimony would, therefore, be received with suspicion. I beg, on your return to Aubiers, you will not forget my regards to M. d’Orbigny.”
“He will, I am sure, be most sensible of your kindness; he often talks of you, and says you remind him of the Duke de Lauzun.”
“His comparison is a eulogy in itself, but, unfortunately, infinitely more flattering than true. Adieu, madame, for I fear I must not ask to be allowed to pay my respects to you before your departure.”
“I should lament to give you the trouble of calling on me, for I have pitched my tent for a few days in a furnished hôtel; but if, in the summer or autumn, you should be passing our way, en route to some of those fashionable châteaus where the leaders of ton dispute the pleasure of receiving you, pray give us a few days of your society, if it be only by way of contrast, and to rest yourself with us poor rustic folk from the whirl of your high life of fashion and distinction; for where you are it is always delightful to be.”
“Madame!”
“I need not say how delighted M. d’Orbigny and myself would be to receive you; but adieu, sir, I fear the kind attorney (she pointed to Ferrand) will grow impatient at our gossip.”
“Quite the reverse, madame, quite the reverse,” said Ferrand, with an emphasis that redoubled the repressed rage of M. de Saint-Remy.
He will scold you awfully.
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel
“Is not M. Ferrand a terrible man?” said Madame d’Orbigny, affectedly. “Mind now, I tell you, that, if he has charge of your affairs, he will scold you awfully. He is the most unpitying man — But that’s my nonsense; on the contrary, why, such an exquisite as you to have M. Ferrand for his solicitor is a proof of reformation, for we know very well that he never allows his clients to do foolish things; if they do, he gives up their business. Oh, he will not be everybody’s lawyer!” Then, turning to Jacques Ferrand: “Do you know, most puritanical solicitor, that you have made a splendid conversion there? If you reform the exquisite of exquisites, the King of the Mode—”
“It is really a conversion, madame. The viscount left my study a very different man from what he entered it.”
“There, I tell you that you perform miracles!”
“Ah, madame, you flatter me,” said Jacques Ferrand, with emphasis.
M. de Saint-Remy made a low bow to Madame d’Orbigny, and then, as he left the notary, desirous of trying once more to excite his pity, he said to him, in a careless tone, which, however, betrayed deep anxiety:
“Then, my dear M. Ferrand, you will not grant me the favour I ask?”
“Some wild scheme, no doubt. Be inexorable, my dear Puritan,” cried Madame d’Orbigny, laughing.
“You hear, sir? I must not contradi
ct such a handsome lady.”
“My dear M. Ferrand, let us speak seriously of serious things, and, you know, this is a most serious matter. Do you really refuse me?” inquired the viscount, with an anxiety which he could not altogether dissemble.
The notary was cruel enough to appear to hesitate; M. de Saint-Remy had an instant’s hope.
“What, man of iron, do you yield?” said Madame d’Harville’s stepmother, laughing still. “Do you, too, yield to the charm of the irresistible?”
“Ma foi, madame! I was on the point of yielding, as you say; but you make me blush for my weakness,” added M. Ferrand. And then, addressing himself to the viscount, he said to him, with an accent of which Saint-Remy felt all the meaning, “Well then, seriously,” (and he dwelt on the word), “it is impossible.”
“Ah, the Puritan! Hark to the Puritan!” said Madame d’Orbigny.
“See M. Petit-Jean. He will think precisely as I do, I am sure, and, like me, will say to you ‘No!’”
M. de Saint-Remy rushed out in despair.
After a moment’s reflection he said to himself, “It must be so!” Then he added, addressing his chasseur, who was standing with the door of his carriage opened, “To the Hôtel de Lucenay.”
Whilst M. de Saint-Remy is on his way to see the duchess, we will present the reader at the interview between M. Ferrand and the stepmother of Madame d’Harville.
CHAPTER V.
THE CLIENTS.
THE READER MAY have forgotten the portrait of the stepmother of Madame d’Harville as drawn by the latter. Let us then repeat, that Madame d’Orbigny was a slight, fair, delicate woman, with eyelashes almost white, round and palish blue eyes, with a soft voice, a hypocritical air, insidious and insinuating manners. Any one who studied her treacherous and perfidious countenance would detect therein craft and cruelty.
“What a delightful young man M. de Saint-Remy is!” said Madame d’Orbigny to Jacques Ferrand, when the viscount had left them.
“Delightful! But, madame, let us now proceed to our business. You wrote to me from Normandy that you desired to consult me upon most serious matters.”