Complete Works of Emile Zola (47 page)

“There,” said he, after closing the door of a large drawing-room, “now we are alone, my friend. I can come down from my pedestal as much as I please.”

Marius smiled at the count’s rough and eccentric ways.

“Well,” the latter went on, “you don’t ask me to help you, to defend you against Cazalis? Come, you’re sensible. You understand that I can do nothing against that vain and obstinate nobility to which I belong. Ah! your brother has done a fine thing!”

M. de Girousse was striding about the drawing-room. He pulled himself up abruptly before Marius, and said to him in a loud voice:

“Listen well to what I am about to tell you. There are some fifty of us in this good town, all old fellows like myself, living by ourselves, buried in a past for ever dead. We profess to be the cream of the cream of Provence, and there we stick, doing nothing but twirling our thumbs. For, see you! we are noblemen, chivalrous hearts, awaiting devoutly the return of their legitimate princes. And, the deuce take it! we shall wait a long time, so long that we shall all have died of solitude and idleness, before the least legitimate prince shows himself. If we were gifted with good eyes we should observe the march of events. We cry out to facts: ‘You shall go no farther!’ and yet the facts pass quietly over our bodies and crush us.

“It maddens me to see how we are shut up in an obstinacy as ridiculous as it is heroic. To think that we are most of us wealthy, that we might nearly all become intelligent manufacturers, working for the prosperity of the country, and that we prefer to grow mouldy in the recesses of our mansions, like the rubbish of a bygone age!”

He stopped to take breath, and then went on still more energetically:

“And we take a pride in our empty existence. We don’t work because we disdain labour. We have a holy horror of the people because their hands are soiled. Ah! your brother dared to touch one of our daughters! We’ll show him whether his blood is the same as ours. We shall league ourselves together and give the rascallions a lesson, we’ll cure them of seeking to find favour in our children’s eyes. Some powerful ecclesiastics will second us; they are fatally bound to our cause. It will be a splendid campaign for our vanity.”

After a pause, M. de Girousse resumed sarcastically: “Our vanity, it has at times received some nasty knocks. A few years prior to my birth, a terrible tragedy was enacted in the mansion adjoining this. M. d’Entrecasteaux, the president of the parliament, murdered his wife in her bed; he cut her throat with a razor, which was not found till twenty-five days afterwards at the bottom of the garden. The victim’s jewels were discovered down the well, where the murderer had thrown them to lead the authorities to believe that robbery was the reason of the murder. President d’Entrecasteaux took to flight and went, I believe, to Portugal, where he died in poverty. The parliament condemned him, in default, to be broken alive on the wheel.

“So you see we have also our scoundrels, and that the lower classes have nothing to envy us. That cowardly crime, committed by one of ourselves, dealt a sad blow in those days to our authority. A novelist might write a heart-rending book with the materials furnished by this doleful and tragic story.”

Resuming his walk, M. de Girousse continued: “And we also know how to humble ourselves. For instance, when Fouché, the regicide, then Duke of Otranto, was, somewhere about 1810, exiled for a short time to our town, all the nobles dragged themselves before him.

“I remember an anecdote which will show you to what abject servility we lowered ourselves. On New Year’s Day 1811, there was a long file of persons waiting to pay their respects to the ex-member of the Convention. In the reception-room there was some talk of the severity of the weather, and one of the callers was expressing his fears as to the fate of the olive-trees. ‘What do we care for the olive-trees!’ exclaimed one of the noble personages, ‘providing his Grace the Duke keeps well!’

“That’s how we are now-a-days, my friend, humble with the mighty, haughty with the weak. There are no doubt some exceptions, but they are rare. You must see, therefore, that your brother will be convicted. Our pride, which bent the knee before a Fouché, cannot do so before a Cayol. That’s logical. Good-night!”

And the count abruptly dismissed Marius. His own words had exasperated him, and he feared that his anger might end by making him say something foolish.

The next day, the young man met him again and M. de Girousse took him home as on the previous evening. He held in his hand a newspaper containing a list of the jury who were to decide Philippe’s case and struck the paper forcibly with his finger, exclaiming:

“Those are the men who will condemn your brother! Shall I tell you some stories about them? They are curious and instructive.”

M. de Girousse seated himself, and glanced through the paper, shrugging his shoulders as he did so.

“It’s a packed jury,” he said at last, “an assembly of rich men who have every interest to serve the cause of M. de Cazalis. They are all more or less mixed up with the clergy or on intimate terms with the nobility. They are almost all friends of men who spend their mornings in the churches and cheat their customers the rest of the day.”

Then he named them one by one, and spoke of the set they frequented with increasing indignation.

“Humbert,” he said, “is the brother of a Marseille merchant, a dealer in oil, an honest man who holds his head erect and whom every poor devil salutes. Twenty years ago their father was but a struggling clerk. Today his sons are millionaires, thanks to his skilful speculations. One year he sold a large quantity of oil beforehand, at the market rate. A few weeks afterwards the cold destroyed the olive-trees, the crop was lost, and he was a ruined man if he did not deceive his customers. But he preferred deceit to poverty.

“Whilst his brother-merchants were delivering the genuine article at a loss, our man bought up all the spoilt and rancid oils he could find, and then made the promised deliveries. His customers complained and grew angry, but the speculator coolly replied that he was strictly keeping to his agreements and that they could claim nothing further of him. And the trick was played. All Marseille, which knows the story, is never tired of taking its hat off to this skilful man.

“Gautier is another Marseille merchant. He has a nephew, Paul Bertrand, who swindled in style. This Bertrand was in partnership with a person named Aubert, living in New York, who used to send him consignments of goods to be disposed of in Marseille. They shared the profits. Our man made immense sums in this business, the more especially as he was careful to cheat his partner at each division of profits.

“One day, a crisis broke out and losses were incurred. Bertrand continued to receive the goods which the ships still brought, but he refused to honour the drafts Aubert drew upon him, saying that business was bad and he was in difficulties. The returned bills come back again with enormous expenses attached to them. Then Bertrand calmly says that he won’t pay, that he is not obliged to be Aubert’s partner for ever, and that he owes nothing. There’s a fresh return of the bills, fresh expenses incurred, and the New York merchant, surprised and indignant, has to take them up at great loss. The latter, who had to plead through a power of attorney, lost the action for damages he brought against Bertrand; I was assured that two thirds of his fortune, twelve hundred thousand francs, were swallowed up in this catastrophe.

“Bertrand remains the most honest man in the world; he is received everywhere and belongs to several congregations, he is envied and honoured.

“Dutailly is a dealer in corn. Some time ago, one of his sons-in-law, George Fouque, met with a misadventure which caused a scandal that his friends hastened to hush up. Fouque always arranged matters so that it should appear that the cargoes the ships brought him had suffered in transport. The insurance offices paid on the report of an expert. But tired of continually paying, the offices appointed as expert an honest baker, who soon received a visit from Fouque. The latter, whilst conversing on indifferent matters, slipped a few gold pieces into his hand. The baker dropped the coins and kicked them into the middle of the room. There were several persons present, yet Fouque’s reputation has in no way suffered.

“Delorme lives in a town not far from Marseille. He retired from business long ago. Listen to the disgraceful action his cousin Mille was guilty of. Thirty years back, Mille’s mother kept a draper’s shop. When the old lady retired, she sold her stock and goodwill to one of her assistants, an active and intelligent young fellow whom she almost looked upon as a son. This person, whose name was Michel, quickly discharged the debt and so increased his business that he felt compelled to take a partner. He chose a young fellow of Marseille named Jean Martin, who had a little money, and who appeared to be an honest, hard-working man. It was an assured fortune that Michel offered to his partner.

“At first, everything went well. The profits increased annually, and each partner put by a good round sum at the end of the year. But Jean Martin, who was eager for gain and dreamed of a rapid fortune, ended by reflecting that he would make twice as much if he were alone. The matter was a difficult one: Michel was in fact his benefactor, and moreover he had a friend in the landlord of the house, Madame Mille’s son. If the latter were honest, Jean Martin would be unable to put his nefarious scheme into execution. He went to see him, and found him to be the scoundrel he required. He proposed to him to give him a new lease, in consideration of a large sum of money; he doubled and even trebled the amount. Mille, who is both a rogue and a miser, sold himself for as much as possible. The bargain was struck. Then Jean Martin played the hypocrite with Michel: he said he desired to cancel the partnership deed and to start a business elsewhere; he even named a place he had taken. Michel, surprised but not suspecting the infamous trick of which he was to be the victim, said he could retire if he liked, and the deed was cancelled. Shortly afterwards Michel’s lease expired, and Jean Martin, armed with the new lease, triumphantly turned his ex-partner out. Michel, nearly driven mad by such a piece of treachery, opened a business elsewhere; but having no customers, he lost the money so painfully amassed during thirty years of labour. He died paralysed, suffering atrociously, shouting that Mille and Martin were scoundrels and traitors, and calling on his sons to avenge him. Today, his sons are toiling and moiling to keep body and soul together. Mille is connected by marriage with the best families in the town, his children are wealthy, and living handsomely in an odour of piety, and possessing the esteem of all.

“There’s Faivre. His mother was married twice, her second husband being a man named Chabran, a ship-owner and bill discounter. Pretending he had made some unfortunate speculations, Chabran wrote one day to his numerous creditors to the effect that he was obliged to suspend payment. Some of them consented to give him time, but the majority decided to proceed against him. So Chabran engages two young fellows as clerks, and spends a week in coaching them up in the parts he wishes them to play; then, accompanied by these youngsters, now thoroughly trained, he calls on all his creditors, one after the other, bewailing his sad position, and imploring their pity for his two starving sons who haven’t a coat to their backs. The trick succeeds admirably well. All the creditors forego their claims.

“The next day Chabran was at the Bourse, more sedate and more insolent than ever. A broker, who had not heard of the affair, asked him to discount three bills accepted, as it so happened, by three of the very merchants who had treated him so generously the day before. ‘I can have nothing to do with those kind of people,’ he replied, haughtily. At the present time, Chabran has almost retired from business. He lives in a villa where he gives sumptuous dinners on Sundays.

“As for Gerominot, the president of the club where he spends his evenings is a usurer of the very worst description. It is said that he has earned at the trade a snug little million, which enabled him to marry his daughter to one of the princes of finance. His name is Pertigny. But since his last failure, which left him a capital of three hundred thousand francs sticking to his fingers, he goes by the name of Felix. This skilful rascal failed a first time forty years ago, and that enabled him to purchase a house. His creditors received fifteen per cent. Ten years later, a second failure procured him a little place in the country. That time his creditors received ten per cent. Scarcely fifteen years ago he failed a third time, on that occasion for three hundred thousand francs, and offered a composition of five per cent. The creditors having declined to accept it, he proved to them that all the property was really his wife’s, and he never paid them a centime.”

Marius, thoroughly sickened, made a movement of disgust, as though to stop these abominable stories.

“You don’t believe me, perhaps,” said the terrible count. “You’re a simpleton, my friend. I’ve not yet done, and you must hear me to the end.”

M. de Girousse railed in a dreadful manner. His loud hissing words fell like the lash of a whip upon the persons whose disreputable histories he was relating. He named the jurymen one after another, he searched their lives and the lives of their relations, and laid bare all the scandals and meannesses connected with them. There was scarcely one he spared. Then he placed himself vehemently before Marius, and continued bitterly:

“Were you so simple as to believe that all these millionaires, all these upstarts, all these powerful persons who domineer over you and crush you today, were little saints, worthy individuals, whose lives were spotless? At Marseille especially, these men display their vanity and insolence; they have become devotees and hypocrites; they have deceived even the worthy people who salute and esteem them. In a word, they form an aristocracy of their own; their past is forgotten; their wealth and newly-acquired probity are alone seen.

“Well! I’ll unmask them. Listen: This one made his fortune by betraying his friend; that other, by trafficking in human flesh; that other, in selling his wife and daughter; that other, in speculating on the misery of his creditors; that other, in buying back for a song the shares of a company of which he was manager, and which he had brought into disrepute; that other, by scuttling a ship loaded with stones instead of merchandise, and securing a handsome sum from the underwriters; that other, verbally a partner, by refusing to pay his share of the losses in an unfortunate speculation; that other, by concealing his assets, failing two or three times, and ultimately living like an honest man; that other, by selling as wine a decoction of logwood or bullock’s blood; that other, by buying up all the corn at a time of scarcity; that other, by defrauding the customs on a large scale, attempting to corrupt the officers and robbing to his heart’s content; that other, by forging the signatures of friends or relations to bills which they do not dare to dishonour at maturity, but prefer to pay rather than disgrace the forger; that other, by setting fire to his factory or ships previously insured far above their value; that other, by tearing up and burning his acceptances snatched from his creditor’s hand the day they fell due; that other, by speculating at the Bourse without any intention of paying his differences, which does not prevent him enriching himself a week afterwards at the expense of some dupe — “