Complete Works of Emile Zola (1119 page)

In reality, the point which more particularly vexed Madame Caroline was that she could no longer constantly be in the establishment exercising supervision. She was only able to go to the Rue de Londres at long intervals on some pretext or other. She now lived alone in the workroom at home, and scarcely saw Saccard, except in the evening. He had kept his rooms in the Rue Saint Lazare, but the entire ground floor, as well as the offices on the first floor, remained closed; and the Princess d’Orviedo, happy in reality at being freed from the remorse of having that bank, that money shop, installed underneath her, did not even try to re-let the premises, indifferent as she was to the question of making money, even in the most legitimate way. The empty house, echoing to every passing vehicle, seemed like a tomb. Madame Caroline now only heard that quivering echo ascending through the ceilings from the closed wickets whence for two years there had ever come a faint jingling of gold. Her days now seemed to her of greater length and increasing dulness. Yet she worked a great deal, always kept busy by her brother, who required her to do no end of writing for him. At times, though, she would pause in her work and listen, instinctively feeling anxious, desirous of knowing what was going on at the Bank. But she heard nothing, not a breath; the rooms below were stripped of their furniture, empty, dark, securely locked. Then a little shiver would come upon her and she would forget herself for a few minutes in her anxiety. What were they doing in the Rue de Londres? Was not the crack appearing at that very moment — the crack which would cause the collapse of the whole edifice?

A report, vague and faint as yet, was spreading to the effect that Saccard contemplated a fresh issue of shares. He wished to raise the Bank’s capital from one hundred to one hundred and fifty millions. It was a time of particular excitement, the fatal time when all the prosperities of the reign, the vast works which had transformed the city of Paris, the frenzied circulation of money, the furore of luxury and greed, were bound to culminate in a high fever of speculation. Each wished to have his share of wealth and risked his fortune on the tapis vert, in order to increase it tenfold and reap enjoyment like so many others who had enriched themselves in a single night. The banners of the Exhibition flapping in the sunlight, the illuminations and orchestras of the Champ de Mars, the crowds from all over the world which streamed along the streets, completed the intoxication of the Parisians, made them dream alike of inexhaustible wealth and sovereign dominion. During the clear evenings, from all the huge city en fête, seated at table in exotic restaurants, amid a colossal fair where pleasure was freely sold under the stars, there arose the supreme fit of madness, the joyous, voracious folly which seizes upon great capitals threatened with destruction. And Saccard, with the scent of a cut-purse, had so clearly divined the advent of this paroxysm, this desire of one and all to empty their pockets and throw their money to the winds, that he had just doubled the amount allowed for advertising, urging Jantrou to raise the most deafening din.

Day by day, ever since the opening of the Exhibition, the voice of the Press had been like a peal of bells ringing the praises of the Universal. Each morning brought its clash of cymbals to make the world turn round and look: some extraordinary news ‘par,’ some story of a lady who had forgotten a hundred shares in a cab; some extract from an account of a journey in Asia Minor, in which it was explained that the first Napoleon had predicted the advent of the establishment in the Rue de Londres; some leading article in which the role of this financial house was considered from a political point of view in connection with the approaching solution of the Eastern question, to say nothing of the constant notes in the financial journals, all enlisted and marching together in a compact mass. Jantrou had made annual contracts with the small financial prints, which assured him a column in every number; and in utilising this column he displayed astonishing fertility and variety of imagination, going so far even as to attack the Bank, for the sake of refuting the attack and triumphing afterwards. The famous pamphlet which he had meditated had just been launched through the entire world to the extent of a million copies. His new agency was also established — that agency which, under the pretext of sending a financial bulletin to the provincial newspapers, made itself absolute master of the market in all the important towns. And finally ‘L’Espérance,’ shrewdly conducted, was daily acquiring greater political importance. Much attention had been attracted by a series of articles issued after the decree of January 19, which to the old formula of an address from the Corps Législatif substituted the right of interpellation — a fresh concession on the part of the Emperor on his path to the re-establishment of Parliamentary liberty. Saccard, who inspired these articles, did not venture to openly attack his brother, who, despite everything, was still Minister of State, resigned, such was his passion for power, to defend to-day that which he had condemned yesterday; still it could be seen that the financier was on the look-out, watching Rougon in his false position, caught as he was between the Third Party hungering for his inheritance, and the Clericals who had leagued themselves with the despotic Bonapartists against the establishment of a liberal empire. Indeed, insinuations were already beginning; the paper was again becoming a mouthpiece of militant Catholicism, commenting tartly on each one of the Minister’s acts. The accession of ‘L’Espérance’ to the ranks of the Opposition journals would mean popularity, and would finish carrying the name of the Universal to the four corners, not only of France, but of the world.

Then, as an effect of all the formidable advertising, the probability of an increase of capital, the rumour of a new issue of fifty millions, fevered even the most sensible of that agitated society, ripe for every folly. From humble dwellings to aristocratic mansions, from the dark dens of door-porters to the drawing-rooms of duchesses, all heads took fire; the general infatuation became blind faith, heroic and ready for battle. Polks enumerated the great things done by the Universal — its first startling successes, its unexpected dividends, such as no other company had distributed in the early phases of its existence. They recalled that happy idea of the United Steam Navigation Company, which had so speedily yielded a magnificent profit, and whose shares already commanded a premium of a hundred francs. Then there was the Carmel silver-mine, with its miraculous yield of the precious metal, to which a reverend preacher had referred during Lent from the pulpit of Notre-Dame, calling it a gift from the Most High to trusting Christians. And, besides this, there was another company established to work the immense deposits of coal which had been discovered; and yet another which was going to work the vast Lebanon forests, felling a certain number of trees every year, to say nothing of the establishment of that substantial concern, the National Turkish Bank at Constantinople.

There had not been one check; good fortune, ever on the increase, changed everything that the Universal touched into gold. There was already a large ensemble of prosperous creations, providing an immovable basis for future operations and justifying the rapid increase of the capital. Then there was the future which opened before overheated imaginations — the future so big with great enterprises that it necessitated that call for another fifty millions, the mere announcement of which was sufficient to upset men’s brains. In this respect there was an unlimited field for Bourse and drawing-room rumours; however, the approaching grand affair of the Oriental Railway Company stood out amid all other projects, found its way into all conversations, decried by some and exalted by others.

The women especially became excited, and carried on enthusiastic propaganda in favour of the scheme. In boudoirs and at gala dinners, behind flowery jardinières at the late hour of tea,1 even in the depths of alcoves, there were charming, persuasive, caressing creatures who thus catechised men: ‘What! you have no Universals? But they are the only shares worth having! Make haste and buy some Universals if you wish me to love you!’ It was the new Crusade, they said, the conquest of Asia, which the Crusaders of Peter the Hermit and Saint Louis had been unable to effect, and which they, these ladies, undertook to accomplish with their little purses of chain gold. They all pretended to be well-informed, and talked in technical terms of the main line which would be opened first from Broussa to Beyrout by way of Angora and Aleppo. Later on would come the branch line from Smyrna to Angora; later, that from Trebizond to Angora by way of Erzeroum and Sivas; later still, that from Damascus to Beyrout. And then they smiled, and winked, and whispered that perhaps there would be another one, oh! a long time hence, from Beyrout to Jerusalem, by way of the old cities of the coast — Saida, Saint Jean d’Acre, and Jaffa. And afterwards, mon Dieu! who could tell? there might be one from Jerusalem to Port Said and Alexandria. To say nothing of the fact that Bagdad was not far from Damascus, and that, if a line should be carried to that point, why, Persia, India, and China would some day be united to the West.

At a word from their pretty lips it seemed as though the treasures of the Caliphs were found again and were shining resplendently, as in some tale of the ‘Arabian Nights.’ The jewels and gems of dreamland rained into the coffers of the palace in the Rue de Londres, whilst Carmel supplied smoking incense and a vague, delicate background of Biblical legends, hallowing the mighty appetite for gain. Did it not mean Eden reconquered, the Holy Land delivered, religion triumphing in the very cradle of humanity? And then the ladies paused, refusing to say any more, but their eyes beaming at thought of that which it was necessary to hide. That could not even be whispered in a lover’s ear. Many of these ladies were ignorant of the secret, but none the less pretended to know it. That was the mystery, the thing which perchance might never happen, and which perchance might some day burst upon the world like a thunderbolt: Jerusalem purchased from the Sultan, given to the Pope with Syria for a kingdom; the Papacy provided with a revenue supplied by a Catholic bank — the Treasury of the Holy Sepulchre — which would place it beyond the pale of political disturbances; briefly, Catholicism would be rejuvenated, would be no longer forced to any compromises, but would acquire renewed authority, and dominate the world from the summit of the height where Christ the man expired.

And of a morning now, in his luxurious Louis Quatorze office, Saccard was forced to forbid his door when he wished to work; for there were endless assaulting parties, or rather a court procession, coming, as it were, to a king’s levée — courtiers, business people, applicants of all kinds soliciting and adoring his omnipotence. One morning, during the early days of July, he was particularly inflexible, giving the most stringent orders to admit no one. Whilst the ante-room was filling with people, who, despite the usher, persisted in waiting and hoping that they would be received, he shut himself up with two heads of departments to finish planning the new issue of shares. After examining various projects, he pronounced in favour of a combination which, thanks to this new issue of a hundred thousand shares, would permit the complete release of the two hundred thousand old ones, upon each of which only one hundred and twenty-five francs had been paid. This result was arrived at by issuing the new shares — which were reserved for existing shareholders — at the price of eight hundred and fifty francs; that is to say, five hundred francs for the share itself and three hundred and fifty francs premium, this premium effecting the proposed release. However, certain complications arose, due to the large amount of its own stock which the Bank held, and it was necessary to find a means of filling up certain gaps, the worry of which acted upon Saccard’s nerves. The sound of the voices in the ante-room, moreover, irritated him. That cringing Paris, whose homage he usually received with the goodnature of a despot prone to familiarity, filled him on this occasion with contempt. And Dejoie, who served him as usher in the morning, having ventured to take a roundabout way and enter by a little door opening from a passage, he turned on him in a fury: ‘What! I told you nobody, nobody; do you understand? Here! take my walking stick, place it at my door, and let them kiss it.’

Dejoie impassively ventured to insist. ‘Excuse me, monsieur, it is the Countess de Beauvilliers. She begged so hard, and, as I know Monsieur wishes to be agreeable to her—’

‘What!’ cried Saccard in a fit of anger; ‘let her go to the devil with the others.’

Then with a gesture of repressed wrath he immediately reconsidered the matter: ‘Show her in,’ said he, ‘since it seems certain that I cannot be left in peace. And by the little door, mind, so that the whole flock may not enter with her.’

The welcome which he extended to the Countess de Beauvilliers was fraught with the abruptness of a man just recovering from excitement. Even the sight of Alice, who accompanied her mother, silently meditating, did not calm him. He had sent the two heads of departments away, and was only thinking of how soon he would be able to call them back so as to continue his work.

‘Pray speak quickly, madame, for I am terribly busy.’

The Countess, always slow with her words and movements, always preserving the sadness of a fallen queen, stopped short in evident surprise. ‘But if I disturb you, monsieur ‘ — she began.

He had to offer them seats, and the girl, the braver of the two, sat down the first in a resolute way whilst her mother continued: ‘I have come for some advice, monsieur. I am in a state of very painful uncertainty, and am afraid that I shall never be able to come to a decision by myself.’

Then she reminded him that at the time of the establishment of the Bank she had taken a hundred shares, which she had doubled at the time of the first increase of capital and again at the time of the second increase, so that she now held four hundred shares, upon which, inclusive of premiums, she had paid the sum of eighty-seven thousand francs. Twenty thousand francs of this amount had been supplied by her savings, and the rest — some seventy thousand — she had been forced to borrow on her farm, Les Aublets.