whom you may deal on equitable terms. — On this, however,
I do not insist.
"Meanwhile, here are five hundred francs," he went on,
offering a note to the astonished lawyer, "to supply your
more pressing wants. I ask for no receipt; you will be
indebted on no evidence but that of your conscience, and
your conscience may lie silent till you have to some extent
recovered yourself. — I will settle with Halpersohn."
"But who are you?" asked the old man, sinking on to
a chair.
"I," replied Godefroid, "am nobody; but I serve certain
powerful persons to whom your necessities are now made
known, and who take an interest in you. — Ask no more."
"And what motive can these persons have — ?"
"Religion, Monsieur," replied Godefroid.
"Is it possible? — Religion!"
"Yes, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion."
"Then you are of the Order of Jesus?"
"No, Monsieur," said Godefroid. "Be perfectly easy.
No one has any design on you beyond that of helping you
and restoring your family to comfort."
"Can philanthropy then wear any guise but that of
vanity ? ' '
"Nay, Monsieur, do not insult holy Catholic Charity, the
virtue described by Saint Paul!" cried Godefroid eagerly.
474 BALZAC'S WORKS
At this reply Monsieur Bernard began to stride up and
down the room.
"I accept!" he suddenly said. "And I have but one
way of showing my gratitude — that is, by intrusting you
with my work. The notes and quotations are unnecessary
to a lawyer; and I have, as I told you, two months' work
beiore me yet in copying them out. — To-morrow then," and
lie shook hands with Godefroid.
"Can I have effected a conversion ?" thought Godefroid,
struck by the new expression he saw on the old man's face
as he had last spoken.
Next day, at three o'clock, a hackney coach stopped at
the door, and out of it stepped Halpersohn, buried in a vast
bearskin coat. The cold had increased in the course of the
night, and the thermometer stood at ten degrees below
freezing.
The Jewish doctor narrowly though furtively examined
the room in which his visitor of yesterday received him,
and Godefroid detected a gleam of suspicion sparkling in
his eye like the point of a dagger. This swift flash of doubt
gave Godefroid an internal chill ; he began to think that this
man would be merciless in his money dealings; and it is so
natural to think of genius as allied to goodness, that this
gave him an impulse of disgust.
"Monsieur," said he, "I perceive that the plainness of
my lodgings arouses your uneasiness; so you will not be
surprised at my manner of proceeding. Here are your two
hundred francs, and here, you see, are three notes for a
thousand francs each" — and he drew out the notes which
Madame de la Chanterie had given him to redeem Monsieur
Bernard's manuscript. "If you have any further doubts as
to my solvency, I may refer you, as a guarantee for the
carrying out of my pledge, to Messrs. Mongenod the bank-
ers. Rue de la Victoire."
"I know them," said Halpersohn, slipping the ten gold
pieces into his pocket.
"And he will go there!" thought Godefroid.
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 475
"And where does the sick lady live?" asked the doctor,
rising, as a man who knows the value of time.
"Come this way, Monsieur," said Godefroid, going first
to show him the way.
The Jew cast a shrewd and scrutinizing glance on the
rooms he went through, for he had the eye of a spy; and
he was able to see the misery of poverty through the door
into Monsieur Bernard's bedroom, for, unluckily, Monsieur
Bernard had just been putting on the dress in which he
always showed himself to his daughter, and in his haste
to admit his visitors he left the door of his kennel ajar.
He bowed with dignity to Halpersohn, and softly opened
his daughter's bedroom door.
"Vanda, my dear, here is the doctor," he said.
He stood aside to let Halpersohn pass, still wrapped in
his furs.
The Jew was surprised at the splendor of this room,
which in this part of the town seemed anomalous; but his
astonishment was of no long duration, for he had often seen
in the houses of German and Polish Jews a similar discrep-
ancy between the display of extreme penury and concealed
wealth. While walking from the door to the bed he never
took his eyes off the sufferer; and when he stood by her
side, he said to her in Polish —
"Are you a Pole?"
"I am not; my mother was."
"Whom did your grandfather, General Tarlovski,
marry
?"
"A Pole."
"Of what province?"
"A Sobolevska of Pinsk."
"Good. — And this gentleman is your father?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Monsieur," said Halpersohn, "is your wife — "
"She is dead," replied Monsieur Bernard.
"Was she excessively fair?" said Halpersohn, with some
impatience at the interruption.
476 BALZAC'S WORKS
"Here is a portrait of her," replied Monsieur Bernard,
taking down a handsome frame containing several good
miniatures.
Halpersohn was feeling the invalid's head and hair, while
he looked at the portrait of Vanda Tarlovska nee Comtesse
Sobolevska.
"Tell me the symptoms of the patient's illness." And
he seated himself in the armchair, gazing steadily at Vanda
during twenty minutes, while the father and daughter spoke
by turns,
"And how old is the lady?"
"Eight-aud-thirty."
"Very good!" he said as he rose. "Well, I undertake
to cure her. I cannot promise to give her the use of her
legs, but she can be cured. Only, she must be placed in
a private hospital in my part of the town."
"But, Monsieur, my daughter cannot be moved — "
"I will answer for her life," said Halpersohn senten-
tiously. "But I answer for her only on those conditions.
— Do you know she will exchange her present symptoms for
another horrible form of disease, which will last for a year
perhaps, or six months at the very least? — You can come
to see her, as you are her father."
"And it is certain ?" asked Monsieur Bernard.
"Certain," repeated the Jew. "Your daughter has a
vicious humor, a national disorder, in her blood, and it
must be brought out. When you bring her, carry her to
the Eue Basse-Saint-Pierre at Chaillot — Dr. Halpersohn's
private hospital."
"But how?"
"On a stretcher, as the sick people are always carried
to a hospital."
"But it will kill her to be moved."
"No."
And Halpersohn, as he spoke this curt No^ was at the
door, where Godefroid met him on the landing.
The Jew, who was suflEocating with heat, said in his ear —
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 477
"The charge will be fifteen francs a day, besides the
thousand crowns; three months paid in advance."
"Very good, Monsieur. — And," asked Godefroid, stand-
ing on the step of the cab into which the doctor had hurried,
"you answer for the cure?"
"Positively," said the Pole. "Are you in love with the
lady?"
"No," said Godefroid.
"You must not repeat what I am about to tell you, for
I am saying it only to prove to you that I am sure of the
cure; but if you say anything about it, you will be the death
of the woman — ' '
Godefroid replied only by a gesture.
"For seventeen years she has been suffering from the
disease known as Plica Polonica, which can produce all
these torments ; I have seen the most dreadful cases. Now
I am the only man living who knows how to bring out the
Plica in such a form as to be curable, for not every one gets
over it. You see. Monsieur, that I am really very liberal.
If this were some great lady — a Baronne de Nucingen or
any other wife or daughter of some modern Croesus — I
should get a hundred — two hundred thousand francs for
this cure — whatever 1 might like to ask! — However, that
is a minor misfortune."
"And moving her?"
"Oh, she will seem to be dying, but she will not die of
it! She may live a hundred years when once she is cured.
— Now, Jacques, quick — Rue Monsieur, and make haste!"
said he to the driver.
He left Godefroid standing in the street, where he gazed
in bewilderment after the retreating cab.
"Who on earth is that queer-looking man dressed in
bearskin?" asked Madame Vauthier, whom nothing could
escape. "Is it true, as the hackney coachman said, that
he is the most famous doctor in Paris?"
"And what can that matter to you. Mother Vauthier ?"
"Oh, not at all," said she with a sour face.
478 BALZAC'S WORKS
"You made a great mistake in not siding with me," said
Godefroid, as he slowly went into the house. "You would
have done better than by sticking to Monsieur Barbet and
Monsieur Metivier; you will get nothing out of them."
"And am I on their side?" retorted she with a shrug.
"Monsieur Barbet is my landlord, that is all."
It took two days to persuade Monsieur Bernard to part
from his daughter and carry her to Ohaillot. Godefroid and
the old lawyer walked all the way, one on each side of the
stretcher, screened in with striped blue-and- white ticking,
on which the precious patient lay, almost tied down to the
mattress, so greatly did her father fear the convulsions of a
nervous attack. However, having set out at three o'clock,
the procession reached the private hospital at live, when it
was dusk. Godefroid paid the four hundred and fifty francs
demanded for the three months' board, and took a receipt
for it; then, when he went down to pay the two porters,
Monsieur Bernard joined him and took from under the
mattress a very voluminous sealed packet, which he handed
to Godefroid.
"One of these men will fetch you a cab," said he, "for
you cannot carry those four volumes very far. This is my
book; place it in my censor's hands; 1 will leave it with
him for a week. I shall remain at least a week in this
neighborhood, for I cannot abandon my daughter to her
fate. I know my grandson; he can mind the house, espe-
cially with you to help him; and I commend him to your
care. If I were myself what once I was, I would ask you
my critic's name; for if he was once a magistrate, there
were few whom I did not know'—"
"It is no mystery," said Godefroid, interrupting Mon-
sieur Bernard. "Since you show such entire confidence in
me, I may tell you that the reader is the President Lecamus
de Tresnes. ' '
"Oh, of the Supreme Court in Paris. Talce it — by all
means. He is one of the noblest men of our time. He and
the late Judge Popinot, the judge of the Lower Court, were
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 479
lawyers worthy of the best days of the old Parlements. All
my fears, if I had any, must vanish. — And where does he
live ? I should like to go and thank him when he has
taken so much trouble."
"You will find him in the Rue Chanoinesse, under the
name of Monsieur Nicolas. I am just going there. — But
your agreement with those rascals?"
"Auguste will give it you," said the old man, going
back into the hospital.
A cab was found on the Quai de Billy and brought by
one of the men; Godefroid got in and stimulated the driver
by the promise of drink money if he drove quickly to the
Rue Chanoinesse, where he intended to dine.
Half an hour after Vanda's removal, three men, dressed
in black, were led in by Madame Vauthier at the door in the
Rue Notre-Dame des Champs, where they had been waiting,
no doubt, till the coast should be clear. They went upstairs
under the guidance of the Judas in petticoats, and gently
knocked at Monsieur Bernard's door. As it happened to be
a Thursday, the young collegian was at home. He opened
the door, and three men slipped like shadows into the outer
room.
"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked the youth.
"This is Monsieur Bernard's — that is to say. Monsieur
le Baron—?"
"But what do you want here ?"
"Oh, you know that pretty well, young man, for your
grandfather has just gone off with a closed litter, I am told.
— Well, that does not surprise us; he shows his wisdom. I
am a bailiff, and I have come to seize everything here. On
Monday last you were summoned to pay three thousand
francs and the expenses to Monsieur M^tivier, under penalty
of imprisonment; and as a man who has grown onions
knows the smell of chives, the debtor has taken the key
of the fields rather than wait for that of the lock-up. How-
ever, if we cannot secure him, we can get a wing or a leg
480 BALZAC'S WORKS
of his gorgeous furniture — for we know all about it, young
man, and we are going to make an official report."
"Here are some stamped papers that your grandpapa
would never take, ' ' said the Widow Vauthier, shoving three
writs into Auguste's hand.
"Stay here, Ma'am; we will put you in possession. The
law gives you forty sous a day ; it is not to be sneezed at. ' '
"Ah, ha! Then I shall see what there is in the grand
bedroom!" cried Madame Vauthier.
"You shall not go into my mother's room!" cried the
lad in a fury, as he flung himself between the door and the
three men in black.
On a sign from their leader, the two men and a lawyer's
clerk who came in seized Auguste.
"No resistance, young man; you are not master here.
We shall draw up a charge, and you will spend the night
in the lock-up."
At this dreadful threat, Auguste melted into tears.
"Oh, what a mercy," cried he, "that mamma is gone!
This would have killed her!"
The men and the bailiff now held a sort of council with
the Widow Vauthier. Auguste understood, though they
talked in a low voice, that what they chiefly wanted was
to seize his grandfather's manuscripts, so he opened the
bedroom door.
"Walk in then, gentlemen," said he, "but spoil nothing.
You will be paid to-morrow morning." Then, still in tears,
he went mto his own squalid room, snatched up all his
grandfather's notes, and stuffed them into the stove, where
he knew that there was not a spark of fire.
The thing was done so promptly that the bailiff, though
he was keen and cunning, and worthy of his employers Bar-
bet and M^tivier, found the boy in tears on a chair when he
rushed into the room, having concluded that the manuscripts
would not be in the anteroom. Though books and manu-
scripts may not legally be seized for debt, the lien signed by
the old lawyer in this case justified the proceeding. Still,
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 481
it would have been easy to find means of delaying the dis-
traint, as Monsieur Bernard would certainly have known.
Hence the necessity for acting with cunning.
The Widow Vauthier had been an invaluable ally to her
landlord by failing to serve his notices on her lodger; her
plan was to throw them on him when entering at the heels
of the officers of justice; or, if necessary, to declare to Mon-
sieur Bernard that she had supposed them to be intended for
the two writers who had been absent for two days.
The inventory of the goods took above an hour to make
out, for the bailiff would omit nothing, and regarded the
value as sufficient to pay oflt" the debts.
As soon as the officers were gone, the poor youth took
the writs and , hurried away to find his grandfather at Hal-
persohn's hospital; for, as the bailiff assured him that
Madame Vauthier was responsible for everything under
heavy penalties, he could leave the place without fear.
The idea of his grandfather's being taken to prison for
debt drove the poor boy absolutely mad — mad in the way
in which the young are mad; that is to say, a victim to the
dangerous and fatal excitement in which every energy of
youth is in a ferment and may lead to the worst as to the
most heroic actions.
When poor Auguste reached the Rue Basse-Saint-Pierre,
the doorkeeper told him that he did not know what had be-
come of the father of the patient brought in at five o'clock,
but that by Monsieur Halpersohn's orders no one — not even
her father — was to be allowed to see the lady for a week, or
it might endaager her life.
This reply put a climax to Auguste's desperation. He
went back again to the Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, re-
volving the most extravagant schemes as he went. He got
home by about half-past eight, almost starving, so exhausted
by hunger and grief that he accepted when Madame Vau-
thier invited him to share her supper, consisting of a stew
of mutton and potatoes. The poor boy dropped half dead
into a chair in the dreadful woman's room.
(U)— Vol. 17
482 BALZAC'S WORKS
Encouraged by the old woman's coaxing and insinuating
words, he answered a few cunningly arranged questions
about Godefroid, and gave her to understand that it was
he who would pay off his grandfather's debts on the
morrow, and that to him they owed the improvement that
had taken place in their prospects during the past week.
The widow listened to all this with an affectation of doubt,
plying Auguste with a few glasses of wine.
At ten o'clock the wheels of a cab were heard to stop in
front of the house, and the woman exclaimed —
"Oh, there is Monsieur Godefroid!"
Auguste took the key of his rooms and went upstairs to
seethe kind friend of the family; but he found Godefroid
so entirely unlike himself that he hesitated to speak till the
thought of his grandfather's danger spurred the generous
youth.
This is what had happened in the Rue Chanoinesse, and
had caused Godefroid's stern expression of countenance.
The neophyte, arriving in good time, had found Madame
de la Chanterie and her adherents in the drawing-room, and
he had taken Monsieur Nicolas aside to deliver to him the
"Spirit of the Modern Laws." Monsieur Nicolas at once
carried the sealed parcel to his room, and came down to
dinner. Then, after chatting during the first part of the
evening, he went up again, intending to begin reading
the work.
Godefroid was greatly surprised when, a few minutes
after, Manon came from the old judge to beg him to go up
to speak with him. Following Manon, he was led to Mon-
sieur Nicolas's room; but he could pay no attention to its
details, so greatly was he startled by the evident distress
of a man usually so placid and firm.
"Did you know," said Monsieur Nicolas, quite the Judge
again, "the name of the author of this work ?"
"Monsieur Bernard," said Godefroid. "I know him only
by that name. I did not open the parcel — "
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 483
"True," said Monsieur Nicolas. "I broke the seals
myself. — And you made no inquiry as to his previous
history ? ' '
"No. I know that he married for love the daughter of
General Tarlovski, that his daughter is named Vanda after
her mother, and his grandson Auguste. And the portrait
I saw of Monsieur Bernard is,*I believe, in the dress of a
Presiding Judge — a red gown."
"Look here!" said Monsieur Nicolas, and held out the
title of the work in Auguste's handwriting, and in the fol-
lowing form:
THE SPIRIT
OF THE MODERN LAWS
BY
M. BERNARD-JEAN-BAPTISTE MACLOUD
BARON BO U RLAC
Formerly Attorney-General to the High Court of Justice at Rouen
Commander of the Legion of Honor
"Oh! The man who condemned Madame, her daughter,
and the Chevalier du Yissard!" said Godefroid in a choked
voice.
His knees gave way, and the neophyte dropped on to
a chair. "What a beginning!" he murmured.
"This, my dear Godefroid, is a business that comes home
to us all. You have done your part; we must deal with it
now! I beg you to do nothing further of any kind; go and
fetch whatever you left in your rooms ; and not a word ! — In
fact, absolute silence. Tell Baron Bourlac to apply to me.
Between this and then, we shall have decided how it will be
best to act in such circumstances."
Godefroid went downstairs, called a hackney cab, and
hurried back to the Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, filled with
horror as he thought of the examination and trials at Caen,
of the hideous drama that ended on the scaffold, and of Ma-
484 BALZAC'S WORKS
dame de la Chanterie's sojourn in Bicetre. He understood
the neglect into which this lawyer, almost a second Fou-
quier-Tinville, had fallen in his old-age, and the reasons
why he so carefully concealed his name.
"1 hope Monsieur Nicolas will take some terrible revenge
for poor Madame de la Chanterie!"
He had just thought out this not very Christian wish,
when he saw Auguste.
"What do you want of me?" asked Godefroid.
"My dear sir, a misfortune has befallen us which is turn-
ing my brain! Some scoundrels have been here to take
possession of everything belonging to my mother, and they
are hunting for my grandfather to put him into prison. But
it is not by reason of these disasters that I turn to you for
help," said the lad with Roman pride; "it is to beg you
to do me such a service as you would do to a condemned
criminal — "
"Speak," said Godefroid.
"They wanted to get hold of my grandfather's manu-
scripts; and as I believe he placed the work in your hands,
I want to beg you to take the notes, for the woman will not
allow me to remove a thing. — Put them with the volumes,
and then — "
"Very well," said Godefroid, "make haste and fetch
them."
While the lad went off, to return immediately, Godefroid
reflected that the poor boy was guilty of no crime, that he
must not break his heart by telling him about his grand-
father, or the desertion which was the punishment in his
sad old age of the passions of his political career; he took
the packet not unkindly.
"What is your mother's name?" he asked.
"My mother, Monsieur, is the Baronne de Mergi. My
father was the son of the Presiding Judge of the Supreme
Court at Rouen."
"Ah!" said Godefroid, "so your grandfather married his
daughter to the son of the famous Judge Mergi?"
THE SEAMY SIDE OF HISTORY 485
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Leave me, my little friend," said Godefroid.
He went out on to the landing with the young Baron de
Mergi, and called Madame Vauthier.
"Mother Vauthier," said he, "you can relet my rooms;
I am never coming back again."
And he went down to the cab.
"Have you intrusted anything to that gentleman ?" asked
the widow of Auguste.
"Yes," said the lad.
"You're a pretty fool. He is one ot your enemies'
agents. He has been at the bottom of it all, you may be
sure. It is proof enough that the trick has turned out all
right that he never means to conie back. He told me I
could let his rooms."
Auguste flew out, and down the boulevard, running after
the cab, and at last succeeded in stopping it by his shouts
and cries.
"What is it?" asked Godefroid.
"My grandfather's manuscripts?"
"Tell him to apply for them to Monsieur Nicolas."
The lad took this reply as the cruel jest of a thief who
has no shame left; he sat down in the snow as he saw the
cab set off again at a brisk trot.
He rose in a fever of fierce energy and went home to bed,
worn out with rushing about Paris, and quite heart-broken.
Next morning, Auguste de Mergi awoke to find himself
alone in the rooms where yesterday his mother and his
grandfather had been with him, and he went through all
the miseries of his position, of which he fully understood
the extent. The utter desertion of the place, hitherto so
amply filled, where every minute had brought with it a
duty and an occupation, was so painful to him that he went
down to ask the Widow Yauthier whether his grandfather
had come in during the night or early morning ; for he him-
self had slept very late, and he supposed that if the Baron
Bourlac had come home the woman would have warned him
BALZAC'S WORKS
against his pursuers. She replied, with a sneer, that he
must know full well where to look for his grandfather; for
if he had not come in, it was evident that he had taken up
his abode in the "Chateau de Clichy." This impudent
irony from the woman who, the day before, had cajoled
him so eiiectually, again drove the poor boy to frenzy, and
he flew to the private hospital in the Rue Basse-Saint-
Fierre, in despair, as he thought of his grandfather in
prison.
Baron Bourlac had hung about all night in front of the
hospital which he was forbidden to enter, or close to the
house of Doctor Halpersohn, whom he naturally wished to
call to account for this conduct. The doctor did not get
home till two in the morning. The old man, who, at half-
past one, had been at the doctor's door, had just gone off
to walk in the Champs-Elysees, and when he returned at
half-past two the gatekeeper told him that Monsieur Halper-
sohn was now in bed and asleep, and was on no account
to be disturbed.
Here, alone, at half-past two in the morning, the un-
happy father, in utter despair, paced the quay, and under
the trees loaded with frost, of the sidewalks of the Cours-
la-Reine, waiting for the day.
At nine o'clock he presented himself at the doctor's,
and asked him why he thus kept his daughter under lock
and key.
"Monsieur," said Halpersohn, "I yesterday made my-
self answerable for your daughter's recovery; and at this
moment I am responsible for her life, and you must under-