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Mysteries of Paris, V3

E >> Eugene Sue >> Mysteries of Paris, V3




"It was bold and skillful--who would have thought it of you?"

"Listen again: I hated my cashier, François Germain. One night he took from
me a little gold, which he returned the next day; but to ruin him, I
accused him of having robbed me of a considerable sum. I was believed, he
was thrown into prison. Now my honor is at your mercy."

"Oh, you love me, Jacques, you love me. To inform me thus of your
secrets--what empire I must have over you! I will not be ungrateful; let me
kiss this forehead, where so many infernal thoughts were created."

"Oh!" cried the notary, stammering, "if the scaffold stood there, ready, I
would not draw back. Listen again: this child, Fleur-de-Marie, once
abandoned, crosses my path--she inspires me with fears; I have had her
killed!"

"You? How? where?"

"A few days since--near Asnières Bridge, by Ravageurs' Island. One named
Martial drowned her in a boat. Are these details sufficient? do you believe
me?"

"Oh! demon from hell: you alarm, yet attract me. You inspire me. What is,
then, your power?"

"Listen again: before that a man had confided to me a hundred thousand
crowns. I set a trap for him. I blew his brains out. I proved that he
committed suicide, and I denied the deposit which his sister the Baroness
de Fermont reclaimed. Now my life is at your mercy--open."

"Jacques, I adore you!" said the Creole, with warmth.

"Oh! come a thousand deaths, and I'd dare them!" cried the notary, in an
intoxication impossible to describe. "Yes, you are right; were I young and
charming, I should not experience this triumphant joy. The key! throw me
the key! draw the bolt!"

The Creole took the key from the lock, and handed it to the notary through
the wicket, saying, "Jacques, I am mad!"

"You are mine, at length!" cried he, with a savage roar, turning the key in
the lock. But the door, fastened with a bolt, did not open.

"Come, my tiger! come," said Cecily, in an expiring voice.

"The bolt! the bolt!" cried Jacques Ferrand.

"But, if you deceive me," cried the Creole, suddenly, "if these secrets are
an invention, to cajole me---"

The notary remained for a moment, struck with stupor; he thought he had
succeeded: this last difficulty raised his impatient fury to its climax.

He thrust his hand quickly in his bosom, opened his waistcoat, broke with
violence a small chain of steel, to which was suspended a small, thin
pocket-book, took it, and showing it through the wicket to Cecily, he said,
in an oppressed and breathless tone,

"Here is what would cause my head to fall! draw the bolt--the book is
yours."

"Give it to me, my tiger," cried Cecily.

And hastily drawing the bolt with one hand, with the other she seized the
book.

But Jacques Ferrand did not abandon it until the moment he felt the door
yielding to his efforts.

But though the door yielded, it was only for about six inches, confined, as
it was, by the chain above mentioned. At this unforeseen obstacle, Jacques
Ferrand threw himself against the door, and shook it with a desperate
effort. Cecily, with the rapidity of thought, put the wallet between her
teeth, opened the window, threw a cloak into the court, and with great
dexterity making use of a cord previously fastened to the balcony, she let
herself down into the court, as rapidly and lightly as an arrow falls to
the ground.

Then, wrapping herself up in haste in the mantle, she ran to the porter's
lodge, opened it, drew the bolt, went out into the street, and jumped into
a carriage, which, since her residence at Jacques Ferrand's, was sent every
night by order of Baron de Graun, stationed not twenty steps from the
notary's mansion.

This carriage was quickly driven off, drawn by two stout horses. It reached
the boulevard before Jacques Ferrand had perceived the flight of Cecily.
Let us return to this monster.

Through the opening of the door it was impossible for him to see the window
by which the Creole escaped. With one mighty effort with his broad
shoulders, he burst the chain which confined the door, and rushed into the
chamber, and found no one.

The cord waved in the wind, as he leaned from the balcony. Then, from the
other side of the court, by the light of the moon, which burst forth at
intervals from the driving clouds, he saw the gate open.

In a moment he divined everything. A last ray of hope remained.

Vigorous and determined, he sprang over the balcony, using the cord in his
turn, lowered himself into the court, and rushed out of the house. The
street was deserted--he was alone.

He heard no other noise than the distant rolling of the carriage which was
rapidly carrying off the Creole. The notary thought it was some belated
vehicle, and attached no importance to this circumstance.

Thus, for him no chance remained of finding Cecily, who carried off with
her the proofs of his crimes!!!

On this frightful certainty, he fell, thunderstruck, on his own threshold.

He remained there a long time, dumb, immovable, petrified. With wan eyes,
his teeth compressed, his mouth foaming, tearing mechanically with his
nails his breast, he felt his reason totter, and was lost in an abyss of
darkness. When he awoke from his stupor, he walked heavily, and with an
ill-assured step; objects trembled in his sight; he felt as if recovering
from a fit of intoxication.

He shut with violence the street door, and re-entered the court. The rain
had ceased, but the wind continued to blow with violence, chasing the heavy
laden clouds, which veiled, without concealing, the light of the moon.

Slightly calmed by the brisk and cold air of the night, Ferrand, hoping to
combat his internal agitation by the rapidity of his walk, plunged into the
obscure walks of his garden, marching with rapid strides, and from time to
time striking his forehead with his clinched fists.

Walking thus at hazard, he reached the end of a walk near a greenhouse in
ruins. Suddenly he stumbled violently over a mound of earth newly raised.
He stooped, and looked mechanically on some linen stained with blood.

He was near the grave where Louise Morel buried her dead child. Her
child--also the child of Jacques Ferrand! Notwithstanding his obduracy,
notwithstanding the frightful fears which agitated him, Jacques Ferrand
shuddered with alarm.

There was something supernatural in this stumbling-block. Pursued by the
avenging punishment of his _vice_, chance carried him to the grave of
his child--unhappy fruit of his violence. Under any other circumstances,
Jacques Ferrand would have trampled on this sepulcher with atrocious
indifference; but having exhausted his savage energy in the scene we have
related, he was seized with a weakness and sudden alarm. His face was
covered with an icy sweat, his trembling knees shook under him, and he fell
lifeless across this open grave.




CHAPTER III.

LA FORCE.


The interior of a prison is a frightful pandemonium--a sad
_thermometer_ of the state of society, and an instructive study.

In a word, the varied physiognomies of all classes of prisoners, the
relations of family or affection which connects them still to the world,
from which the prison walls separate them, have appeared to us worthy of
regard.

The reader will, then, excuse us for having grouped around several of the
prisoners personages to be known in this tale, and other secondary figures,
destined to place in active relief certain critical events necessary to
complete this initiation into prison life. Let us enter La Force.

There is nothing gloomy, nothing sinister in the aspect of this house of
detention.

In the middle of one of the first courts are to be seen some mounds of
earth, planted with shrubbery, at the foot of which are already shooting
forth some precocious cowslips and snowdrops; a trellised doorway leads to
one of the seven or eight exercise-grounds destined for the prisoners.

The vast buildings surrounding this court resemble much a barrack or
manufactory, kept with extreme neatness. They are built of limestone, with
lofty windows, in order to allow a free circulation of air. The steps and
pavement of the yard are of scrupulous cleanliness. On the ground-floor,
vast halls, heated during winter, and well aired during summer, serve
during the day as a place for conversation, workshops, or refectories. The
upper stories are used as immense sleeping apartments, ten or twelve feet
in height, with shining floors; they are furnished with two rows of iron
bedsteads, excellent beds, composed of a soft thick mattress, a bolster,
sheets of white linen, and a warm woolen covering.

At the sight of these accommodations, uniting all the requisites of comfort
and salubrity, a stranger is much surprised, accustomed as he is to suppose
all prisons as sorrowful, dirty, unhealthy, and gloomy. He is mistaken.

Sad, dirty, and gloomy are the holes where so many poor and honest workmen
languish exhausted, forced to abandon their beds to their infirm wives, and
to leave with powerless despair their half-starving, naked children,
struggling with the cold, in the infectious straw.

There is some contrast between the physiognomies of the inhabitants of
these two dwellings. Incessantly occupied with the wants of his family, to
whom the day is hardly long enough, seeing a mad perversity reducing his
salary, the artisan will be cast down and worn out; the hour of repose will
not be sound to him; a kind of sleep like lassitude alone interrupts his
daily toil. Then, on awaking from this mournful drowsiness, he will find
himself overwhelmed with the same racking thoughts of the present, with the
same inquietudes for the morrow.

But if, hardened by vice, indifferent to the past, happy with the present,
certain of the future (he can assure himself of it by an offense or crime),
regretting his liberty without doubt, but finding large compensation in the
personal well-being he enjoys, certain to carry away with him on his
release a good sum of money, gained by moderate and easy labor, esteemed,
or, may be, feared by his companions, either for his impudence or
perversity, the convict, on the contrary, will be almost always careless
and gay. Once more; what does he want?

Does he not find in prison good shelter, good bed, good food, good pay,
easy labor, and above all and before all, _a society to his taste_, a
society, let us repeat, which measures his merit by the magnitude of his
offenses?

A hardened criminal, then, knows neither poverty, hunger, nor cold. What
matters to him the horror he inspires in honest men? He does not see
them--he knows none.

His crimes are his glory, influence, and strength with the bandits among
whom he will henceforth pass his life. How can he fear shame?

Instead of grave and charitable remonstrances, which might force him to
blush and to repent, he hears savage plaudits, which encourage him to
robbery and murder, Scarcely imprisoned, he meditates new misdeeds. What is
more logical?

If he is discovered, arrested anew, he will find repose, the personal care
of the prison, and his joyous and bold companions in crime and debauchery.

Is his corruption less great than that of the others? does he manifest, on
the contrary, the slightest remorse that he is exposed to atrocious
railings, infernal shouts, terrible threats?

In fine--a thing so rare that it has become an exception to the
rule--should a condemned man come out of this frightful pandemonium with a
firm resolution to reform by prodigies of labor, courage, patience, and
honesty, and be able to conceal his past offenses, a meeting with one of
his old prison companions would be sufficient to overturn his plan of
reformation so carefully designed. In this way:

A hardened ticket-of-leave proposes a job to a repentant one; the latter,
in spite of dangerous threats, refuses the criminal association;
immediately an anonymous communication strips the veil from the past life
of this unfortunate, who wishes, at any sacrifice, to conceal and expiate a
first fault by honorable conduct.

Then, exposed to the contempt, or, at least, the suspicion of those whose
interest he had obtained by force of industry and probity, reduced to
distress, soured by injustice, carried away by want, yielding, in fine, to
these fatal derelictions, this man, almost restored, falls back again, and
forever, to the bottom of the abyss from whence he had with so much
difficulty escaped.

In the following scenes we shall endeavor, then, to show the monstrous and
inevitable consequences of promiscuous confinement.

After ages of barbarous proofs and pernicious doubts, it begins to be
understood how unreasonable it is to plunge into an atmosphere abominably
vitiated, people whom a pure and salubrious air might have saved.

How much time shall be required to find out that, to associate gangrened
beings is to redouble the intensity of their corruption, which thus becomes
incurable?

How long to find out that there is but one remedy to this growing leprosy,
which threatens the body social, Solitary confinement?

We should esteem ourselves happy if our feeble voice could be, if not
counted, at least heard, among all those which, more imposing, more
eloquent than ours, demand, with so just and so impatient an importunity,
the complete, absolute adoption of the _solitary system_.

Some day, also, perhaps, society will know that evil is an accidental, not
organic malady; that criminals are almost always good in substance, but
false and wicked through ignorance, selfishness, or negligence of those
governing; and that the health of the soul, like that of the body, is
invincibly subordinate to the laws of a "hygiene" at once salubrious and
preservative.

God gives to all, along with healthy organs, energetic appetites, and the
desire of comfort; it is for society to modify and satisfy these wants.

The man who only has as his share strength, good-will, and health, has the
_right_, sovereign _right_ to a labor justly remunerated, which will assure
him, not the superfluities, but the necessaries of life, the means to be
healthy and robust, active and industrious, therefore honest and virtuous,
because his condition will be happy.

The dismal regions of misery and ignorance are peopled with beings of
sorrowful hearts. Cleanse these sewers, spread there the inclination to
labor, equitable salaries, just rewards, and soon these sickly faces, these
broken hearts, will be brought back to virtue, which is the life and health
of the soul.

We will conduct the reader to the visitors' room of the prison. It is an
obscure apartment, separated down its whole length into two equal parts by
a narrow, railed passage. One part communicates with the interior, destined
for the prisoners.

The other communicates with the office, destined for strangers admitted to
visit the prisoners.

These interviews and conversations take place through the double grating of
iron, in presence of a warder, who remains inside, at the extremity of the
passage. The appearance of the prisoners assembled in the visiting room on
this day offered numerous contrasts: some were covered with wretched
vestments; some seemed to belong to the working class; others, again, to
the well-to-do class.

The same contrast of condition was observable among the persons who came to
see the prisoners; they were almost all of them women. Generally the
prisoners appear less sad than the visitors; for, strange as it may appear,
it is proved by experience, there are few sorrows and little shame which
resist three or four days of imprisonment passed in company.

Those who are most alarmed at this hideous communion are soon habituated;
the contagion reaches them; surrounded by degraded beings, hearing only
infamous words, a kind of ferocious emulation drags them on, and either to
impose upon their companions by rivaling their obduracy or to stupefy
themselves by this moral intoxication, almost always the newly-arrived show
as much depravity and insolent gayety as the old hands. Let us return to
the visitors' room.

Notwithstanding the humming noise of a great number of conversations
carried on in a low tone, from one side of the passage to the other,
prisoners and visitors succeeded, after some practice, in being able to
converse among themselves--on the absolute condition not to allow
themselves, for a moment, to be distracted or occupied with the
conversation of their neighbors, which created a kind of secret in the
midst of all this noisy exchange of words, each one being forced to hear,
but not to listen, to a word of that which was spoken around him.

Among the prisoners summoned to the visitors' room, and the furthest from
the place where the guardian was seated, was one whom we still
particularize.

To the sad state of dejection he was in on his arrest had succeeded
impudent assurance. Already the contagious and detestable influence of
imprisonment _in common_ bore its fruits. Without doubt, if he had been
immediately transferred to a solitary cell, this wretch, still under the
blow of his first detection, the thought of his crimes constantly before
him, alarmed at the punishment which awaited him, might have experienced,
if not repentance, at least a salutary alarm, from which nothing might have
distracted him. And who knows what effect may be produced on a criminal by
an incessant, forced meditation on the crimes which he had committed, and
their punishment? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a ruffianly crowd
in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice, or, rather,
_treachery_, which they dearly expiate, for, in their savage obduracy and
in senseless distrust, they look upon as a spy every man (if there should
be such a one) who, sad and mournful, regretting his fault, does not
partake of their audacious thoughtlessness, and shudders at their contact.

Thrown among the bandits, this man, knowing, for a long time and by
tradition, the manners and ways of prisons, overcame his weakness, and
wished to appear worthy of a name already celebrated in the annals of
robbery and murder.

For it had been to him, Nicholas Martial, that Ferrand had applied when the
idea struck him to be rid of his housekeeper and Fleur-de-Marie at a blow.

His family were what are called ravageurs, that is dredgers, living on what
they could pick up out of the mud of the Seine. At least they were openly
these, but, secretly, they were river pirates, "lumpers," "light horsemen,"
housebreakers, and bravoes. The father had perished on the scaffold. His
widow, forty-five years old, was confirmed in crime, stern, hard, coldly
cruel, and bent on training all her children up into the life which would
most revenge on society the slaying of her husband. One son, Ambrose, had
been sold by Bras-Rouge (Red-Arm), a tavern keeper and fence, and now
languished in the Rochefort hulks. The eldest son, known as Martial, being
head of the family, was a poacher, a fisherman at unlawful seasons, but not
irreclaimably bad. The youngest children, François and Amandine, were not
yet spoiled by evil surroundings.

To this family, who added to their evil income by keeping a thieves' resort
in their house on Ravageur's Island, La Chouette had applied for the
murdering of Fleur-de-Marie. Nicholas and his sister, known as Calabash
(from her yellow complexion) had succeeded in drowning Ferrand's
housekeeper only. But, believing they had fulfilled the twofold bargain,
they had gone off rejoicing with their mother, to meet La Chouette, report
their success, and join in a fresh atrocity. This new crime, the robbery
and murder of a diamond-dealer in Red-Arm's public-house, was frustrated by
the landlord's secret connection with the police. They had made their
descent just as the jewel-broker was in the villains' hands, and arrested
the whole gang. Bras-Rouge (taken to prevent his fellows suspecting his
treachery), Nicholas Martial, and a scamp named Barbillon, were put in La
Force, widow Martial and Calabash in Saint Lazare. Another capture, a
ruffian called the Maitre d'École (Schoolmaster), from his caligraphic
abilities, who had killed La Chouette in a fit of madness, was put in the
Conciergerie Prison, in a cell for the insane.

To return to Nicholas Martial in La Force. Some veteran gallows-birds had
known his executed father, others, his brother, the galley-slave; he was
received and immediately patronized by these revelers in crime with savage
interest.

This paternal reception from murderer to murderer exhilarated the widow's
son, these praises bestowed on the hereditary perversity of his family
intoxicated him. Soon forgetting, in this hideous thoughtlessness, the
future which menaced him, he only remembered his past misdeeds but to
exaggerate them and glorify himself in the eyes of his companions. The
expression, then, of his face, was as impudent as his visitor's was uneasy
and concerned. This individual was one Micou, a receiver, dwelling in the
Passage de la Brasserie, to whose house Madame de Fermont and her daughter,
victims of the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand, had been obliged to retire.
Micou knew to what punishment he was subject, for having several times
acquired, at a miserable price, the fruits of Nicholas's robberies, and of
several others.

He being arrested, the receiver found himself almost at the discretion of
the bandit, who could point him out as his habitual fence. Although this
accusation might not be sustained by flagrant proofs, it was not the less
very dangerous for Micou: so he had immediately executed the orders which
Nicholas had sent him by a prisoner whose time had expired.

"Well! how do you get on, Daddy Micou?" said the thief.

"To serve you, sir," answered the receiver, eagerly. "As soon as I saw the
person you sent me, right away I--"

"Stop! why do you speak so loftily, Micou?" said Nicholas, interrupting
him, with a sardonic air. "Do you not despise me because I am in quod?"

"No, I despise no one," said the receiver, who did not care to make public
his past familiarity with this wretch.

"Well, then, speak as usual, or I shall believe you have no friendship for
me, and that would break my heart."

"As you like," said Micou, sighing. "I have busied myself with all your
little commissions."

"Well spoken, Micou. I knew well that you would not forget friends. The
weed?"

"I have left two pounds at the office, my lad."

"Is it good?"

"None better."

"And the ham?"

"Also left there, with a quartern loaf. I have added a little surprise you
did not expect--half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and a fine Dutch cheese."

"That's what I call acting like a pal! And wine?"

"There are six bottles, sealed; but, you know, they will only give you one
bottle a day."

"What would you have? One ought to be content with that."

"I hope you are satisfied with me, my friend?"

"Certainly; and shall be still, and shall be again, Daddy Micou, for this
ham, cheese, eggs, and wine will only last the time to swallow them; but,
when there is no more, there will come some more, thanks to Daddy Micou,
who will give me some more sugar-plums, if I am a good boy."

"How? you wish--"

"In two or three days you would renew my little provision, Micou."

"May the devil burn me if I do. It is all very well for once."

"Good for once! Come, come; ham and wine are good always, you know that
well enough."

"It is possible; but I am not obliged to feed you with dainties."

"Oh, Micou! it is wrong, it is unjust, to refuse ham to me, who have so
often brought you fat tripe (sheet-lead)."

"Hush!" said the alarmed receiver.

"No; I'll make the beak decide; I will tell him. Imagine that, Daddy
Micou--"

"Good, good!" cried the receiver, seeing, with as much fear as anger,
Nicholas was disposed to abuse the position which their dealings gave him;
"I consent--I will replenish your stock of provisions when they are
exhausted."

"It is just--nothing but just. Neither must you forget to send some coffee
to my mother and Calabash, who are at Saint Lazare; they used to take their
cup every morning--they will feel the want of it."

"Still more? But do you mean to ruin me, lad?"

"As you please, old Micou; let us speak no more about it. I will ask the
big-wig if--"

"Agreed, then, for the coffee," said the receiver, interrupting him. "But
may the devil take you! cursed be the day I knew you!"

"My old man, as for me, it is just the contrary. At this moment, I am
delighted to know you. I venerate you as my foster-father."

"I hope that you have nothing more to order?" answered Micou, with
bitterness.

"Yes! tell my mother and sister that, though I trembled when I was
arrested, I tremble no more, and that I am now as bold as both of them."

"I will tell them. Is that all?"

"Stop! I forgot to ask for two pair of warm woolen stockings--you do not
wish me to take cold, do you?"

"I wish you were froze!"

"Thank you, Micou, that shall be later; at present, I prefer something
else. I wish to pass life calmly--at least, if they do not make me a head
shorter, like father, I shall have enjoyed life."

"Your life is very pleasant!"

"It is superb! Since I have been here, I have amused myself like a king. If
there had been lamps and guns, there would have been an illumination and a
salvo in my honor, when it was known that I was the son of the famous
Martial!"

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