by Emile Zola
In truth, what was especially worrying Madame Caroline was that she was no longer able to be constantly there in the Bank, carrying on her supervision. She could scarcely do more now than go to the Rue de Londres at infrequent intervals, on some pretext or other. She was living alone in the workroom, hardly seeing Saccard except in the evenings. He had kept his apartment, but the whole of the ground floor was closed up, as were the first-floor offices; and the Princess d’Orviedo, with her deliberate indifference to any even legitimate gain, was not even trying to find a new tenant, glad in fact to be relieved of her nagging remorse about having that banking-house, that money-shop, installed in her building. The empty house, echoing to the sound of every passing carriage, was like a tomb. All Madame Caroline could hear now was the vibrant silence rising through the ceilings from the closed counters, from which, for two years, she had heard the faint, incessant tinkling of gold. The days seemed all the more heavy and long. She was, however, doing a lot of work, still kept busy by her brother who, from the East, was sending her various bookkeeping tasks. But sometimes she would pause in her work and listen, with instinctive anxiety, needing to know what was happening down below; and there was nothing, not so much as a whisper, just the desolation of the cleared rooms, now empty, dark and securely locked. Then she would feel a little cold shiver, and stay uneasily lost in thought for a few minutes. What was happening in the Rue de Londres? Was it perhaps at this very second that the crack was appearing, the crack that would bring the whole edifice down?
There was a rumour, quite vague and insubstantial as yet, that Saccard was preparing a further increase in the bank’s capital. He wanted to raise it from a hundred million to a hundred-and-fifty million. And this was a moment of special excitement, the inevitable moment when all the prosperity of the reign, the vast works that had transformed the city, the frenzied circulation of money and the wild extravagances of luxury, were bound to end in a frantic fever of speculation. Everybody wanted a share in it, risking their fortune on the gaming-table, hoping to see it increased tenfold so they could enjoy themselves like so many others suddenly made rich overnight. The banners of the Exhibition flapping in the sunshine, the illuminations, the bands playing on the Champ-de-Mars, crowds from the entire world flowing along the streets, all completed the intoxication of Paris in a dream of inexhaustible wealth and sovereign domination. During the long evenings, from this huge, festive city, dining out in exotic restaurants, and changed into a colossal fairground, with pleasure everywhere for sale beneath the stars, there rose an ultimate spasm of madness, the blithe and voracious frenzy that grips great capital cities on the edge of destruction. And Saccard, with his cutpurse flair, had so well recognized this general craze, this urge to throw money to the winds, to empty one’s pockets and one’s body, that he had just doubled the funds destined for advertising, urging Jantrou to make the most deafening din. Ever since the opening of the Exhibition, the Universal had been getting paeans of praise every day in the press. Every morning there was a new clashing of cymbals to attract the attention of the public: some extraordinary news item, the story of a woman who had lost a hundred shares in a cab; an extract from a journey in Asia Minor, claiming that Napoleon I had predicted the bank in the Rue de Londres; a big leading article in which the political role of the bank was considered in relation to the impending solution of the Orient question;* and there were continual notes in the financial journals, all under orders and marching together in a solid phalanx. Jantrou had set up yearly contracts with the minor financial papers, by which he had a column in each issue, and he used this column with an amazingly fertile and varied imagination, sometimes going so far as to launch an attack on the bank in order to enjoy the triumph of winning the day in the end. The famous pamphlet he’d been planning had just been launched on the world, in a million copies. His new agency had also been created, and under the pretext of sending a financial news bulletin to the provincial newspapers, it was making itself absolute master of the market in all the important towns. And finally L’Espérance, under his skilful management, was daily acquiring more and more political importance. Particular interest had been aroused by the series of articles that followed the decree of 19 January in which the address was replaced by the right to interpellation,* a further concession from the Emperor in his move towards greater liberty. Saccard, who inspired the articles, did not yet have them openly attack his brother, who had after all remained a minister of state, resigned, in his passionate attachment to power, to defending today what he had condemned the day before; but Saccard was clearly watching, keeping a close eye on the false position of Rougon, caught as he was in the Chamber between the Third Party,* hungrily waiting to take over from him, and the clericals who had allied themselves with the authoritarian Bonapartists against the liberalization of the Empire; insinuations were already beginning; the paper was again supporting militant Catholicism, and remarking sourly on each one of the minister’s acts. Now that L’Espérance had gone over to the Opposition, its popularity was assured, as the expression of a spirit of revolt that would end up carrying the name of the Universal to the four corners of France and the world.
Then, after the formidable surge of publicity, in that over-excited atmosphere, ripe for every kind of folly, the probable increase of the bank’s capital and the rumour of a new issue of fifty millions, stirred even the most sensible to fever-pitch. From humble dwelling to aristocratic mansion, from the concierge’s lodge to the drawing-rooms of duchesses, heads were set afire and infatuation became blind faith, heroic and ready for battle. People reeled off the great things the Universal had already achieved, the first dazzling successes, the unhoped-for dividends, such as no company had ever distributed in its early days. They recalled the excellent idea of the United Steamship Company, so quick to yield magnificent results, its shares already carrying a premium of a hundred francs; the Carmel Silver Mines with its miraculous product, mentioned during Lent at Notre-Dame by a revered preacher, who called it a gift from God to faithful Christians; another company created for the exploitation of immense coalfields, and yet another which was going to carry out periodic felling in the vast forests of Lebanon, and lastly, the establishment of the unshakeably solid Turkish National Bank in Constantinople. Without a single failure, this constantly increasing success that turned everything the bank touched into gold, along with a large number of prosperous companies already providing a sure base for future operations, justified the rapid increase of capital. Then there was the future, opening out in overheated imaginations, a future so full of even greater enterprises that it necessitated the call for the fifty millions, the mere announcement of which was sufficient to wreak havoc in people’s brains. So the scope for rumours, from Stock Exchange or drawing-rooms, was limitless, but the next great undertaking, the Oriental Railway Company, stood out from the other projects, and was the subject of every conversation, derided by some and exalted by others. Women especially were passionate about it, generating enthusiastic propaganda in favour of the idea. In boudoirs and at gala dinners, behind potted plants in bloom, at the late tea-hour,* and even in the bedroom, charming creatures could be found catechizing their menfolk: ‘Really? You have no Universals? But they’re the thing! Hurry up and buy Universals if you want to be loved!’ It was the new Crusade they said, the conquest of Asia which the crusaders, Peter the Hermit and Saint Louis,* had been unable to achieve, but which these ladies were now taking under their wing, with their little gold purses. They all claimed to be well informed, speaking in technical terms of the main line which was going to be opened first, running from Broussa to Beirut, via Angora and Aleppo. Later there would be the branch line from Smyrna to Angora, through Erzerum and Sivas, and later still, a line from Damascus to Beirut. And they smiled and winked and whispered that there would perhaps be another, in the distant future, from Beirut to Jerusalem through the ancient coastal cities of Sidon, Saint-Jean-d’Acre, Jaffa, and then—Heavens! Who could say?—There might be a line from Jerusal
em to Port Said and Alexandria. Not to mention the fact that Baghdad was not far from Damascus, and if a railway line got that far, then one day would see Persia, India, and China, all acquired for the West. It seemed that with just one word from their pretty lips, the rediscovered treasures of the Caliphs shone once more, as in a wonderful tale from the Arabian Nights. The dream jewels and gems rained down into the coffers of the Rue de Londres, while the incense from Carmel gave off the vague and delicate atmosphere of biblical legend, lending a touch of the divine to the eager appetites for profit. Was this not Eden Regained, the Holy Land delivered, and religion triumphant in the very cradle of humanity? And they would stop, refusing to say any more, their eyes shining with what had to be kept hidden—what could not even be whispered. Many of them did not know what it was, but pretended to know. It was the mystery, it was what would perhaps never happen, or what would one day burst upon the world like a thunderbolt: Jerusalem bought back from the Sultan and given to the Pope, with Syria as his kingdom; the Papacy with a budget provided by a Catholic bank, the Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre which would keep it safe from political disturbances, and finally Catholicism rejuvenated, freed from all compromise, finding a new authority and ruling the world from the summit of the mountain on which Christ died.
In the morning, in his luxurious Louis-Quatorze office, Saccard now had to defend his door, when he wanted to work, for there was an assault upon it, a procession like that of a court attending a king’s levée, a procession of courtiers, businessmen, supplicants of all sorts, clustering around his omnipotence in a frenzied mixture of adoration and begging. One morning during the first days of July, he was especially merciless, giving orders that nobody should be allowed in. While the antechamber was crammed with people, a crowd which, in spite of the usher, insisted on waiting, hoping against hope, Saccard had shut himself in with two department heads to finish planning the new share-issue. After looking at several suggestions, he had just decided on an arrangement which, thanks to the new issue of a hundred thousand shares, would allow the complete release of the two hundred thousand old shares, on each of which only one hundred and fifty francs had been paid; to reach this end, the share-issue reserved for shareholders only, at the rate of one new share for two old ones, would be priced at eight hundred and fifty francs, to be paid immediately, that is, five hundred francs for the capital, and a premium of three hundred and fifty francs for the proposed release.* But complications arose, for there was still a big hole to be filled, a fact that made Saccard very edgy. The noise of the voices in the antechamber irritated him. This Paris, grovelling at his feet, all this homage that he normally received with a despot’s amiable informality, on that day simply filled him with contempt. And when Dejoie, who sometimes acted as usher in the morning, took it upon himself to walk round, and appear at a little door from the passageway, he greeted him with fury.
‘What? I told you nobody, nobody, d’you hear?… Here, take my walking-stick, plant it at my door and let them kiss that!’
Quite unmoved, Dejoie ventured to insist.
‘I beg your pardon, Monsieur, it’s the Countess de Beauvilliers. She begged me, and as I know Monsieur likes to be nice to her…’
‘Ah!’ cried Saccard in fury. ‘She can go to the devil along with all the rest!’
But then he thought better of it, and with a gesture of suppressed anger, said:
‘Let her in, since I’m fated not to get any peace!… Through this little side-door, so the whole herd doesn’t come in with her.’
Saccard greeted the Countess with the prickliness of a man still rather annoyed. Even the sight of Alice, who accompanied her mother, and her air of quiet seriousness, did not calm him. He had sent the heads of department away, and was thinking only of when he could call them back and get on with his work.
‘I beg you, please be quick, Madame, I am dreadfully busy.’
The Countess, always slow to speak, with her air of sadness as of a fallen queen, stopped short in surprise.
‘But Monsieur, if I’m disturbing you…’
He had to ask them to be seated, and the girl, the braver one, was the first to sit down with a resolute air, while her mother went on:
‘Monsieur, I’ve come for some advice… I am in the most painful state of indecision, and I feel I shall never be able to make up my mind by myself…’
She reminded him that when the bank was founded, she had taken a hundred shares, which had been doubled at the first increase of capital, and doubled again at the second increase, which now meant four hundred shares on which, including the premiums, she had paid eighty-seven thousand francs. To pay this sum, above and beyond her savings of twenty thousand francs, she had had to borrow seventy thousand francs on her farm, Les Aublets.
‘And now’, she continued, ‘I have a buyer for Les Aublets… so, if there is indeed going to be a new share-issue, I could place our entire fortune in your bank.’
Saccard was calming down now, flattered to see these two poor ladies, the last of a great and ancient race, standing before him, so anxious and trusting. He rapidly told them all about it, with facts and figures.
‘Yes, quite right, a new share-issue, I’m just dealing with it… The share-price will be eight hundred and fifty francs, with the premium… Well now, we’re saying you have four hundred shares, so you’ll be allocated two hundred new ones, for which you’ll need to pay one hundred and seventy thousand francs. But all your shares will be released, and you will have six hundred shares totally your own, with nothing further owing.’
They didn’t understand, so he had to explain how the premium would release the shares, and they remained rather pale, faced by these big numbers, and discomfited at the thought of the boldness of the risk they would be taking.
‘In terms of money,’ the mother eventually murmured, ‘that would be all right… I am being offered two hundred and forty thousand francs for Les Aublets, which was formerly worth four hundred thousand, so when the money already borrowed is paid back, we would have just enough to make the investment… But oh! what a terrifying thing, to see this fortune moved around like this, and our whole existence put at risk!’
Her hands were trembling, and there was a silence, during which she reflected on the chain of events that had taken first her savings, then the seventy thousand francs she had borrowed, and was now threatening to take her entire farm. Her innate respect for landed property, for ploughed fields, grasslands, and forests, and her repugnance for trafficking in money, that base Jewish activity, unworthy of her race, came back to her, filling her with anguish at this moment of decision, when everything was about to be concluded. Her daughter gazed at her in silence, with pure and ardent eyes.
Saccard gave her an encouraging smile.
‘Indeed, it’s clear you will need to have confidence in us… but the figures are there. Just examine them and there’s no more room for hesitation… Let’s say you go ahead, you’ll then have six hundred shares, which, when released, will have cost you a total of two hundred and fifty-seven thousand francs. In fact, they are quoted today at an average of thirteen hundred francs, which makes a total for you of seven hundred and eighty thousand francs. You have already more than tripled your money… And that will go on, you’ll see how the price will rise after the flotation! I promise you a million before the end of the year.’
‘Oh, Mama!’ said Alice with a sigh, as if in spite of herself.
A million!—The house in the Rue Saint-Lazare freed of its mortgages, cleansed of the grime of poverty! The household set back on a proper footing, delivered from the nightmare of keeping a carriage but not having enough to eat! The daughter married, with a respectable dowry, able at last to have a husband and children, that joy granted to the lowliest poor woman of the streets. And the son, who was being killed by the climate of Rome, released from all that, able once more to maintain his rank while waiting to serve that grand cause which now made so little use of him. The mother re-established in her high posit
ion, able to pay her coachman, not needing to worry about adding an extra dish to her Tuesday dinners, no longer having to condemn herself to fasting for the rest of the week! That million blazed before them; it was salvation, it was their dream.
The Countess, quite won over, turned towards her daughter, to share in the decision.
‘Well, what do you think?’
But the daughter said nothing more, slowly closing her eyelids to dim the shining of her eyes.
‘Yes, I know,’ her mother went on, smiling in her turn, ‘I was forgetting that you want me to be absolute mistress in this matter… But I know how courageous you are, and everything you hope for…’