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Mysteries of Paris, V3

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MYSTERIES OF PARIS

By EUGENE SUE

VOLUME THREE

[Illustration: THE RECITATION]




PART III.

NIGHT.




CHAPTER I.

IN THE NOTARY'S OFFICE.


Brain, or heart of the land, which you will, as large cities are, Paris
may claim to have nerves, muscles, and arteries centering in it, which
but few capitals, by right of size, passions, horrors, loves, charms,
mysteries, in a word, can reveal. To trace its emotions, impulses,
secrets, wounds, cankers, joys, the following pages are devoted.

We must begin by taking up the further ends of threads which will soon
lead us deep into its labyrinths, not without events on the way, only
surpassed by those we shall meet in the mazes themselves.

In the year 1819, a singular project, incited by the current stories of
left-handed marriages and loving episodes, as in the case of the Prince
of Capua and Miss Penelope Smith, was put into operation by one Sarah
Seyton, widow of the Earl of M'Gregor. Her brother, the Honorable Tom
Seyton, assisted her to the utmost, fully prepared to aid his sister in
matrimonially entangling any crown-wearer whomsoever; he was perfectly
willing to participate with her in all the schemes and intrigues that
might be useful toward the success of her endeavor to become the wife of
a sovereign, however humble in possessions and power; but he would far
rather have killed the sister whom he so devotedly loved, than he would
have seen her become the mistress of a prince, even with the certainty
of a subsequent marriage in reparation.

The matrimonial inventory drawn up by Tom, with the aid of the _Almanach
de Gotha_, had a very satisfactory aspect. The Germanic Confederation,
especially, furnished a numerous contingency of young presumptive
sovereigns, the first to whom the adventurers meant to pay attention being
thus designated in the diplomatic and infallible Almanac of Gotha for the
year of 1819:


_Genealogy of the Sovereigns of Europe and their Families._

GEROLSTEIN.

Grand-Duke MAXIMILIAN RUDOLPH, born December 10th, 1764.
Succeeded his father, CHARLES FREDERIC RUDOLPH, April 21st 1785.
Widower January, 1808, of Louisa, daughter of Prince JOHN
AUGUSTUS of Burglen.

SON,

GUSTAVUS RUDOLPH, born April 17th, 1803.

MOTHER,

Grand-Duchess JUDITH, dowager widow of the Grand-Duke

CHARLES FREDERIC RUDOLPH, April 21st, 1785.


Tom had sense enough to inscribe first on his list the youngest of the
princes whom he desired for his brother-in-law, thinking that extreme youth
was more easily seduced than riper age.

The Countes M'Gregor was not only favored with the introduction of the
Marquis d'Harville (a friend of the grand-duke, to whom he had rendered
great services in 1815, and a little of a suitor of the lady's while she
was in Paris) and of the British Ambassador in Paris, but with that of her
own personal appearance. To rare beauty and a singular aptitude of
acquiring various accomplishments, was added a seductiveness all the more
dangerous, because she possessed a mind unbending and calculating, a
disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic
will--all hidden under the specious gloss of a generous, warm, and
impassioned nature. Physically her organization was as deceptive as it was
morally. Her large black eyes--which, by turns languished and beamed with
beauty beneath their ebon lashes--could feign to admiration all the
kindling fires of voluptuousness. And yet, the burning impulses of love
beat not in her frozen bosom; never could a surprise of either the heart or
the senses disturb the stern and pitiless schemes of this intriguing,
egotistical, and ambitious girl.

Fortunately for her, her plans were assisted by one Dr. Polidori, a learned
but hypocritical man, who hoped to be the future Richelieu over the puppet
he trusted to convert Prince Rudolph into. The lady and her brother
combined with Polidori against the youthful prince, whose only ally was his
true friend, an English baronet, Sir Walter Murphy.

The Countess M'Gregor drove things to the end, and, during a brief absence
of the grand-duke, was secretly married to Prince Rudolph. In time, about
to become a mother, the artful woman began to clamor for an acknowledgment
of the union. She braved exposure, hoping to force the prince into giving
her the station she sought. All was discovered, easily, therefore. But the
old duke was all-powerful within his realm: the clandestine union was
pronounced null and void, and the countess expelled. Her latest act of
vengeance was to inform Rudolph that their child had died. This was in
1827. But this assurance was on a par with her former falseness: the child,
a girl, was handed over to Jacques Ferrand, a miserly notary in Paris,
whose housekeeper got rid of it to a rogue known as Pierre Tournemine. When
he at last ran to the end of his tether, and was sentenced to imprisonment
in the Rochefort-hulks for forgery, he induced a woman called Gervais, but
nicknamed the Screech-Owl (Chouette), to take the girl, now five or six
years old, who brought the little creature up in the midst of as much
cruelty as degradation.

Meanwhile the countess nursed the idea of wedding Prince Rudolph in a more
secure manner. When, in time, he became grand-duke, she was more eager than
ever to enjoy what she considered her own. Though he had married, she
hoped; and, the second wife having died childless, the Countess M'Gregor
followed Rudolph into Prance, where he traveled _incognito_ as Count
Duren. As a last resort to force the grand-duke into her ambitious aims,
she sought for a girl of the age that her own would have been, to pass it
off as their child. By chance, the woman to whom she applied was La
Chouette, and hardly had she spoken of the likeness which the counterfeit
would have to bear to the supposed _suppressed_ child, than the woman
recognized the very girl whom she had kept for years by her, or in view.

Yes, the offspring of Prince Rudolph and the countess was a common girl of
the town, known as Fleur-de-Marie (the Virgin's Flower), for her touching
religious beauty, as La Goualeuse (the Songstress), for her vocal ability,
and La Pegriotte (Little Thief), out of La Chouette's anger that she would
not be what she styled her.

She had long shunned her sad sisters in shame, and, indeed, in all her life
had known but one friend. This was a sewing-girl known as Rigolette, or
Miss Dimpleton, from her continual smiles; a maid with no strong ideas of
virtue, but preserved from the miry path which poor Fleur-de-Marie had been
forced to use, merely by being too hard-worked to have leisure to be bad.

Prince Rudolph entertained the most profound aversion for the mother of his
child, yet for the latter he mourned still, fifteen or eighteen years after
her reported decease. Weary of life, save for doing good, he took a deep
liking for playing the part of a minor providence, be it said in all
reverence.

Known to society as the grand-duke, otherwise Count Duren, he had humble
lodgings in No. 7, Rue du Temple, as a fan-painter, plain M. Rudolph. To
mask the large sums which on occasion he dispensed in charity, he was wont
to give out that he was the agent of wealthy persons who trusted him in
their alms-giving.

Events brought him into immediate contact with Fleur-de-Marie, and
Rigolette (who lived in his own house in the Rue du Temple).

The former he had rescued from her wretchedness and provided with a home on
a farm at Bouqueval, whence she had been abducted by Chouette and comrades
of hers, by orders of Jacques Ferrand, who wanted her put out of the way.

The wretches who had undertaken to drown the girl with Ferrand's
housekeeper (become dangerous to him, as one aware of too many of his
secrets) murdered the latter, but the former, swept from their sight by the
Seine's current, had been saved by a former prison-mate of hers, a girl of
twenty, so wild in manner as to have won the nickname of Louve (Wolf).

Snatched from death, the exhausted girl now lay, but a little this side of
life's confines, in the house of Dr. Griffon, at Asnières, under his care
and that of the Count of St. Rémy, two gentlemen who had seen her escape.

Rudolph was seeking her all this while, yet not so busily that he forgot
his avenger's course. Chief among social oppressors, whose cunning baffled
the law, and verified the old saying of "what is everybody's business is
nobody's business," Jacques Ferrand stood.

He withheld a large sum of money, intrusted _verbally_ to him, from
its owner, the Baroness Fermont, and impoverished her and her daughter; he
had seduced his servant Louise Morel, caused her imprisonment on a charge
of child-murder, driving her father, a working jeweler, insane, and
menacing the destruction of the whole family--but Rudolph was at hand to
support them.

His cashier, François Germain, also was in prison, thanks to him. The
youth--who had saved some money, and deposited it with a banker out of
town--had no sooner heard that Louise Morel's father was in debt (a means
of Ferrand's triumph over the girl), than he gave her some of his
employer's money, thinking to replace it with his own immediately after.
But while he was away to draw the deficit from his banker's, the notary
discovered the loss, and had him arrested as a thief.

The notary, whose cunning had earned him a high reputation for honesty,
strictness, and parsimony, was, at this moment, therefore, at the climax of
inward delight. His chief accomplice removed (his only other being the Dr.
Polidori already mentioned) he believed he had nothing to fear. Louise
Morel had been replaced by a new servant, much more tempting to a man of
the notary's sensual cravings than that first poor victim had been.

We usher the reader, at the clerks' breakfast-time, into the notary's
gloomy office.

A thing unheard-of, stupendous, marvelous! instead of the meager and
unattractive stew, brought every morning to these young people by the
_departed_ housekeeper, Madame Séraphin, an enormous cold turkey,
served up on an old paper box, ornamented the middle of one of the tables
of the office, flanked by two loaves of bread, some Dutch cheese, and three
bottles of sealed wine; an old leaden inkstand, filled with a mixture of
salt and pepper, served as a salt-cellar; such was the bill of fare.

Each clerk, armed with his knife and a formidable appetite, awaited the
hour of the feast with hungry impatience; some of them were raging over the
absence of the head clerk, without whom they could not commence their
breakfast pursuant to etiquette.

This radical change in the ordinary meals of the clerks of Jacques Ferrand
announced an excessive domestic revolution.

The following conversation, eminently Boeotian (if we may be allowed to
borrow this word from the witty writer who has made it popular), will throw
some light upon this important question:

"Behold a turkey who never expected, when he entered into life, to appear
at breakfast on the table of our governor's quill-drivers!"

"Just so; when the governor entered on the life of a notary, in like manner
he never expected to give his clerks a turkey for breakfast."

"For this turkey is ours," cried Stump-in-the-Gutters, the office-boy, with
greedy eyes.

"My friend you forget; this turkey must be a foreigner to you."

"And as a Frenchman, you should hate a foreigner."

"All that can be done is to give you the claws."

"Emblem of the velocity with which you run your errands."

"I think, at least, I have a right to the carcass," said the boy,
murmuring.

"It might be granted; but you have no right to it, just as it was with the
Charter of 1814, which was only another carcass of liberty," said the
Mirabeau of the office.

"Apropos of carcass," said one of the party. "May the soul of Mother
Séraphin rest in peace! for, since she was drowned, we are no longer
condemned to eat her ever lasting hash!"

"And for a week past, the governor, instead of giving us a breakfast--"

"Allows us each forty sous a day."

"That is the reason I say: may her soul rest in peace."

"Exactly; for in her time, the old boy would never have given us the forty
sous."

"It is enormous!"

"It is astonishing!"

"There is not an office in Paris--"

"In Europe."

"In the universe, where they give forty sous to a famishing clerk for his
breakfast."

"Apropos of Madame Séraphin, which of you fellows has seen the new servant
that takes her place?"

"The Alsatian girl whom Madame Pipelet, the porter's wife of No. 17, Rue du
Temple, the house where poor Louise lived, brought one evening?"

"Yes."

"I have not seen her yet."

"Nor I."

"Of course not; it is altogether impossible to see her, for the governor is
more savage than ever to prevent our entering the pavilion in the
courtyard."

"And since the porter cleans the office now, how can one get a glimpse at
his Mary?"

"Pooh! I have seen her."

"You?"

"Where was that?"

"How does she look?"

"Large or small?"

"Young or old?"

"I am sure, beforehand, that she has not so good-looking a face as poor
Louise--that good girl?"

"Come, since you have seen her, how does this new servant look?"

"When I say I saw her, I have seen her cap--a very funny cap."

"What sort?"

"It was cherry color, and of velvet, I believe; something like those worn
by the little broom girls."

"Like the Alsatians? it is very natural, since she is an Alsatian."

"You don't say so!"

"But I do! what is it that surprises you? The burnt child shuns the fire!"

"Chalamel! what relation between your proverb and this cap?"

"There is none."

"Why did you say it, then?"

"Because a benefit is never lost, and the dog is a friend of man!"

"Hold! If Chalamel opens his budget of proverbs, which mean nothing, we are
in for it. Come, tell us what you know of this new servant."

"The day before yesterday I was out in the yard: she had her back toward
one of the windows of the ground-floor."

"The yard's back?"

"What stupidity! No, the servant's. The glasses are so dirty that I could
see nothing of her figure; but I could see her cherry-colored cap, and a
profusion of curls, as black as jet; for she wears her hair in short
curls."

"I am sure that the governor would not have seen through his spectacles as
much as you did; for here you have one, as they say, who, if he remained
alone with a woman on the earth, the world would soon come to an end."

"That is not astonishing. He laughs best who laughs last, and, moreover,
punctuality is the politeness of kings."

"How wearisome Chalamel is when he lays himself out to it!"

"Tell me what company you keep, and I'll tell you what you are."

"Oh! how pretty!"

"As for me, I have an idea that it is superstition that stupefies the
governor more and more."

"It is, perhaps, from penitence, that he gives us forty sous for our
breakfast."

"The fact is, he must be crazy."

"Or sick."

"I think for the last two or three days he has been quite wild."

"Not that we see him so much. He who was, for our torment, in his cabinet
from morning till night, and always at our backs, now has not, for two
days, put his nose into the office."

"That is the reason the head clerk has so much to do."

"And that we are obliged to die with hunger in waiting for him."

"What a change in the office."

"Poor Germain would be much astonished if any one should say to him, 'Only
fancy, my boy, the governor gives us forty sous for our breakfast;' 'Pshaw!
it is impossible,' he would say. 'It is so possible that he has announced
it to me, Chalamel, in my own person.' 'You are jesting.' 'I jest! This is
the way it occurred: during two or three days which followed the death of
Madame Séraphin, we had no breakfast at all. We liked that well enough, for
no breakfast at all was better than that she gave us; but, on the other
hand, our luncheon cost us money. However, we were patient, and said: "The
governor has got no servant, no housekeeper, and when he gets one, we shall
have to live on hash again." It wasn't so, my poor Germain: the old fellow
finally employed a servant, and our breakfast was still buried in the river
of oblivion. I was appointed a sort of deputy, to present to the governor
the complaints of the stomach; he was with the principal clerk." I do not
want to feed you in the morning," said he, in a gruff, surly tone; "my
servant has no time to prepare your breakfast." "But, sir, you are bound to
give us our morning meal." "Well, you may send out for your breakfast, and
I will pay for it. How much do you want?--forty sous each?" added he, with
some other subject evidently upon his mind, and mentioning, "forty sous,"
in the same manner that he would have said twenty sous, or a hundred sous.
"Yes, sir," I exclaimed, "forty sous, will do," catching the ball "on the
fly." "Let it be so," answered the notary; "the head clerk will take charge
of the expense, and I will settle with him." Thereupon the governor shut
the door in my face.' You must confess, gentleman that Germain would be
astonished at the extraordinary liberality of the governor."

"Germain would say: 'The governor is out of his head.'"

"And forty sous a-head out of his pocket," said Chalamel.

"Well done! the first chemist was right who said: 'Bitter as _Calomel!_'"

"Seriously, I believe that the governor is sick."

"For ten days past, he is scarcely to be recognized. His cheeks are so
hollow, that you might thrust in your fist."

"And he is so absent-minded, that it is curious to see him. The other day
he took off his glasses to read a deed; his eyes were red as live coals."

"He was right; short reckonings make long friends."

"For heaven's sake, don't cut me with your saws. I tell you, gentlemen,
that it is very singular. It was upside down."

"Which was upside down?--the deed or the governor? It is singular, as you
say. What the devil was he doing in that position? I should think it would
have given him the apoplexy, unless his habits, as you say, have changed
very suddenly."

"How wearisome you are, Chalamel! I mean that it was the deed which I
presented wrong end foremost."

"How wild he must have been!"

"Not at all; he didn't even perceive it. He looked at it for ten minutes,
with his bloodshot eyes fixed upon it, and then he gave it back to me,
saying: 'Quite correct.'"

"Still upside down?"

"Still."

"How could he have read the deed?"

"He couldn't, unless he can read upside down."

"No man can do that."

"He looked so gloomy and savage, that I dared not open my lips, and I went
away as if nothing had happened."

"I have got something to tell you. Four days ago I was in the office of the
head clerk, and in come one client, two clients, three clients, with whom
the governor had made an appointment. They waited impatiently, and
requested me to go and rap at the door of the study. I rapped, and,
receiving no answer, I walked in."

"Well, what did you see?"

"M. Ferrand lying upon his arms, which were placed upon the table, and his
bald head uncovered. He did not stir."

"He was asleep, probably."

"I thought so. I approached him, and said: 'There are some clients outside,
who wish to see you.' He did not move. 'M. Ferrand!' No reply. At length I
touched his shoulder, and he started up as if the devil had bitten him. His
motion was so sudden, that his big glasses fell off from his nose, and I
saw--you never can believe it--"

"Out with it. What did you see?"

"Tears!"

"Nonsense!"

"Isn't he a queer bird?"

"The governor weep! Get out of the way!"

"When you see him cry, ladybirds will play on the French horn!"

"And monkeys chew tobacco!"

"Pshaw! your nonsense won't prevent me from knowing what I saw with my own
eyes. I tell you I saw him as I have described."

"What! weeping?"

"Yes, weeping. And after that, he was wroth at being caught in such a
lachrymose condition, and sung out to me: 'Go away--go away!' 'But, sir.--'
'Go away, I tell you!' 'There are some clients in the office, with whom you
have made an appointment, sir, and--' 'I haven't the time to see them. Let
them go to the devil, and you with them.' Thereupon he arose, as furious as
he could be, and looked so much as if he would kick me out at the door,
that I didn't wait for the compliment, but hooked it, and told the clients
to leave also. They didn't look greatly pleased, I assure you; but for the
reputation of the office, I told them that the governor had caught the
whooping-cough."

This conversation was now interrupted by the entrance of the principal
clerk, who came in as if pressed with business. His appearance was hailed
by a general acclamation, and all eyes were turned toward the turkey.

"Without being uncivil, my lord, I must say that you have detained us from
breakfast for a long time," said Chalamel. "You must look out, for the next
time our appetites won't be under such good control."

"It is not my fault, I assure you; I was more impatient than you are--the
governor must be mad!"

"That's what I have been saying."

"But the madness of the governor ought not to keep us from eating."

"It should have the opposite effect."

"We can talk just as well with our mouths full."

"A thousand times better," said the office-boy.

Chalamel was carving the turkey, and he said to the principal clerk: "What
reason have you for thinking that the governor is crazy?"

"We were inclined to think that he had become perfectly stupid, when he
agreed to give us forty sous per head for our daily breakfast."

"I confess that I was as much surprised as you are, gentlemen; but it is a
trifle, actually a trifle, compared with what has just occurred."

"You don't say so!" said another.

"Is the notary crazy enough to invite us to dine every day, at his expense,
at the Cadran-Bleu?"

"And give us tickets to the play, after dinner?"

"And after that, take us to the _café_, to round off with punch?"

"And after that a la--"

"Gentlemen, just as far as you please; but the scene which I have just
observed is more frightful than funny."

"Give us the scene, I beg of you."

"That's right; don't trouble yourself about the breakfast--we are all
ears."

"And all jaws! I see through you, my pretties! while I am speaking, your
teeth will be in motion, and the turkey would be finished before my story.
Be patient; I will reserve it for the dessert."

We do not know whether it was the goad of hunger or curiosity that
stimulated the mastication of the young limbs of the law, but the breakfast
was so rapidly completed, that the moment for the story arrived
immediately.

Not to be surprised by the governor, they sent the office-boy, on whom the
carcass and claws of the turkey had been most liberally bestowed, as a
sentry into the neighboring room.

The head clerk said to his colleagues, "In the first place, you must know
that, for some days past the porter has been alarmed about master's health.
As the good man sits up very late, he has seen M. Ferrand go down to the
garden in the night in spite of the cold and rain, and walk up and down
rapidly. He ventured to leave his nest, and ask his master if he had need
of anything. The governor sent him to bed in such a tone that, since then,
the porter has kept himself quiet, and he will keep himself so always, as
soon as he hears the governor descend to the garden, which happens every
night, no matter what weather."

"The old boy is, perhaps, a somnambulist?"

"Not probable; but such nocturnal promenades announce great agitation. I
arrive at my story: just now, I went in to get some signatures. At the
moment I placed my hand on the lock, I thought I heard some one speak. I
stopped, and distinguished two or three dull cries, like stifled sobs.
After having hesitated to enter for a moment, fearing some misfortune, I
opened the door."

"Well?"

"What did I see? The governor on his knees, on the floor."

"On his knees?"

"On the floor?"

"Yes, kneeling on the floor, his face in his hands and Us elbows on the
seat of one of his old arm-chairs."

"It is very plain. What fools we are! He is so bigoted, he was making an
extra prayer."

"In any case, it would be a funny prayer! Nothing could be heard but
stifled groans, only from time to time he murmured, between his teeth,
'Lord, lord!' like a man in a state of despair. Seeing this, I did not know
whether I ought to remain or to retire."

"That would have been also my political opinion."

"I remained, therefore, very much embarrassed, when he rose and turned
suddenly. He had between his teeth an old pocket-handkerchief; his
spectacles remained on the chair. In all my life I have never seen such a
face: he had the appearance of a lost soul. I drew back, alarmed--on my
word of honor, alarmed! Then he--"

"Caught you by the throat?"

"You are out there. He looked at me, at first, with a bewildered air; then,
letting his handkerchief fall, which he had, doubtless, gnawed and torn in
grinding his teeth, he cried, throwing himself into my arms, 'Oh! I am very
unhappy!'"

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