in the sheepfold from which he had allowed himself
to be driven like a stupid sheep; his hate-inspired
projects against the woman who had so easily got
the better of all his cleverness, and the still vivid
remembrance of the fascinations to which he had
succumbed; such were his thoughts and emotions
during the long night when the little sleep he secured
was broken by horrible dreams.

The next day La Peyrade could not think; he was
(i79)



180 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

attacked with a violent fever, and the symptoms
became so serious that the doctor whom it was
thought best to call took measures to ward off what
seemed likely to prove a sharp attack of congestion
of the brain: bloodletting, leeches, applications of
ice to the head, were the agreeable climax of the
Provencal's dream of love; but let us hasten to add
that the physical crisis was followed by complete
mental cure ; the advocate soon ceased to feel for the
Hungarian traitress anything more than contempt
which did not even rise to thoughts of revenge.

Once more upon his feet and confronted by the
question of his future, as to which he had lost so
much ground, La Peyrade asked himself if he should
not try to renew his connection with the Thuilliers,
or if he should turn in the direction of the wealthy
insane girl, who had an ingot where other people
have their brains; but everything calculated to
remind him of his disastrous campaign aroused in
him an invincible repugnance, and, besides, what
assurance could he feel in treating with this Du
Portail who made use of such instruments to accom-
plish his purposes?

The great upheavals of the heart are like storms
which purify the atmosphere; they teach a moral
lesson and counsel strong and generous resolutions.
La Peyrade, as the result of the cruel disappoint-
ment he had undergone, subjected himself to a
thorough scrutiny. He asked himself wherein lay
the advantage of the base, ignoble existence he had
been leading for more than a year. Might he not



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS l8l

find better and noWer employment for the eminent
faculties he felt that he possessed ? The bar was
open to him as to other men; it was a straight,
broad road which might enable him to satisfy all the
cravings of legitimate ambition. Like Figaro, who,
to procure the bare means of subsistence, displayed
more science and more calculating skill than had
been displayed in governing all the Spains for a
hundred years past, so had La Peyrade, in order to
install himself and maintain his standing in the
Thuillier family, and to marry the daughter of a
clarionet-player and a flirt, put forth more wit, more
art, and we must say the word, for, in a corrupt
society, it is an element to be reckoned with more
dishonesty than would have sufficed to give him a
fair start in an honorable career.

"I've had enough," he said to himself, "of deal-
ing with Dutocq and Cerizet; enough of the nause-
ating atmosphere one breathes in the circle of the
Minards, the Phellions, the Collevilles, the Barniols
and the Laudigeois ! I must be off to Paris," he
added, "and shake off the yoke of this intramural
province, a thousand times more absurd and nig-
gardly than the departmental provinces; they have,
at least, an individuality of their own, and a dig-
nity sui generis, in contrast to its commonplace
pettiness ; they make no concealment of what they
are, the antipodes of Parisian life; the other is only
a parody of it"

La Peyrade therefore called upon two or three
attorneys, who had offered to give him briefs in



1 82 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

some cases of secondary importance ; he accepted
those which came to him directly, and three weeks
after his rupture with the Thuilliers he had ceased
to be the poor man's advocate and had become an
advocate in regular practice.

He had already tried several causes successfully,
when one morning a letter was handed to him,
which made him exceedingly anxious.

The chief executive officer of the order of advo-
cates requested him to come to his office at the
Palais during the day, as he had something of serious
importance to say to him.

The Provencal at once thought of the Boulevard
de la Madeleine property; if that affair had come
to the ears of the disciplinary committee it would
bring him directly within the jurisdiction of that
tribunal, whose severity was well known to him.

Now, this Du Portail, upon whom he had not as
yet called despite his conditional promise to Cerizet,
might have heard the whole story of the overbid-
ding from Cerizet himself. It was very evident
from his employment of the Hungarian that all
means were good to him. In his hot eagerness to
bring about the mad girl's marriage, had not the
maniac adopted the plan of denouncing him ? Had
not his persecutor, seeing that he was starting out
courageously and with some prospect of success on
a career wherein he might attain independence and
fortune, taken it upon himself to close that career to
him? Certainly there was enough probability in
this idea to make the advocate await with anxiety



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 183

the hour when it would be possible for him to ascer-
tain the exact explanation of the threatening sum-
mons.

While he was eating his frugal breakfast, lost in
conjecture, Madame Coffinet, who had the honor of
keeping house for him, came, to ask if he could
receive Monsieur E*tienne Lousteau. (See A Great
Man of the Provinces, etc.)

E*tienne Lousteau ! La Peyrade was confident he
had seen that name somewhere.

"Show him into my office," he said to the con-
cierge.

And a moment later, he greeted his caller, whose
face was not altogether unfamiliar to him.

"Monsieur," said the visitor, "I had the honor of
breakfasting with you at Vefour's some little time
ago; I was invited to that function, the serenity of
which was somewhat disturbed, by your friend Mon-
sieur Thuillier."

"Ah! very good," said the advocate, drawing
forward a chair, "you are on the editorial staff of a
newspaper?"

"Editor-in-chief of the cho de la Bievre, and I
wanted to talk with you on the subject of that very
sheet. Do you know what has happened?"

"No," said La Peyrade.

"What! you don't know that the ministry met
with a terrible reverse yesterday, and that, instead
of resigning, as you would naturally expect, they
are to dissolve the Chamber and appeal to the coun-
try?"



1 84 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

"I knew nothing of it," said La Peyrade; "I
haven't read the papers this morning."

"Well, you see, all the parliamentary ambitions
are in the field now, and, if 1 am well informed,
Monsieur Thuillier, already a member of the Gen-
eral Council, proposes to come forward as a candi-
date in the twelfth arrondissement"

"It is very likely that he has that intention,"
said La Peyrade.

"Very well, monsieur, I would like to place at
his disposal an instrument whose value I think you
fully realize. The Echo de la Btivre, a newspaper
devoted to the interests of a special class, may exert
a decisive influence on the election in that quarter."

"And you are disposed to support Thuillier's can-
didacy in your journal ?" asked the advocate.

"Better than that," replied Etienne Lousteau; "I
propose that Monsieur Thuillier should purchase the
paper, become its proprietor, and then he can make
what use he pleases of it."

"But in the first place," inquired La Peyrade,
"what's the condition of the enterprise ? As you just
now said, it is a journal devoted to a special interest,
and I have rarely seen it; indeed it would be quite
unknown to me except for the remarkable article you
were good enough to devote to Monsieur Thuillier's
defence at the time his pamphlet was seized."

Etienne Lousteau bowed his thanks and resumed:

"The journal is in excellent condition, and we
can let you have it on easy terms, for we were about
to discontinue its publication."



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 185

"That's strange a journal that's prospering!"

"On the contrary it is the most natural thing in
the world," replied Lousteau; "the founders, who
are all engaged in the great hide and leather indus-
try, established the paper with a definite object
That object is attained; the Echo de la B&vre has
become an effect with no cause behind it In such
a case, the best thing for shareholders, who don't
like annoyance and the petty details of the business,
and who aren't hunting for small profits, is to liqui-
date."

"But does the paper really pay expenses?" asked
La Peyrade.

"That's something we have never bothered our
heads about," Lousteau replied; "we didn't depend
upon subscriptions ; the main purpose of the under-
taking was to exert an immediate and direct influ-
ence on the Department of Commerce, in order to
procure the removal of restrictions on the importa-
tion of foreign hides ; you can understand that, out-
side of the tanning business, that purpose isn't
calculated to arouse the enthusiasm of many
readers."

"I thought, however," persisted La Peyrade,
"that a newspaper, even though its action was con-
fined within narrow limits, was a lever, whose
power depended on the number of its subscribers?"

"Not those papers which have a definite object,"
replied Lousteau in a superior tone; "under those
circumstances, on the other hand, subscribers are
an embarrassment, because you must always think



1 86 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

about pleasing them and amusing them ; and while
you're doing that, the point you had in your mind
is neglected. A newspaper whose aims are circum-
scribed should be a sort of pendulum, which, swing-
ing constantly upon a fixed point, fires the cannon at
the Palais Royal at a given hour."

"But tell me," said La Peyrade, "what value you
attach to a publication which has few or no subscri-
bers, which does not pay expenses, and which has
thus far been devoted to an object entirely different
from that for which it will be used thereafter?"

"Before answering your question," said Lous-
teau, "I will ask you another: do you think of pur-
chasing?"

"That depends," said the advocate; "of course I
must see Thuillier; but I may remark now that he
has no sort of familiarity with matters connected
with the press ; that in his somewhat bourgeois ideas
the proprietorship of a newspaper is a ruinous
thing; and so if, in connection with a plan entirely
strange to him and which will frighten him at first,
you have to ask any considerate figure, it's no use
to propose the thing; it's clear to my mind that it
would amount to nothing."

"Oh! no, we should be reasonable, as I told you,"
rejoined Lousteau ; "the proprietors give me carte
blanche; but you must remember that we already
have offers from various directions, and in giving
Monsieur Thuillier the preference, we consider that
we are doing him a very special favor. When may
I hope for your reply?"



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 187

"To-morrow, I think; shall I have the honor of
calling upon you at your home, or at the office of the
paper?"

"Neither; to-morrow I will be here at the same
hour, if satisfactory to you."

"Perfectly," said La Peyrade, bowing out his
guest, in whom he thought he could detect a larger
supply of self-sufficiency than of ability.

From the manner in which the Provencal received
the suggestion that he should act as an intermediary
with Thuillier, the reader will have understood that
a sudden revolution had taken place in his ideas.
Even if he had not received the disquieting letter
from the president of the order of advocates, the new
prospect opening before Thuillier by the maturing
of his parliamentary ambition would have given him
food for thought Evidently his good friend was
coming back to him, and his frenzied desire to be
chosen a deputy would deliver him to him bound
hand and foot. Was it not the time for him, sur-
rounding himself with all the precautions justified
by his memories of the past, to revert to the affair
of his marriage to Celeste? Far from being an
obstacle to any of the good resolutions inspired by
his disappointment in love and his brain fever, this
denouement would strengthen him in them and as-
sure his success ; but if, as was to be feared, he was
about to receive from the council of his order a
reprimand of the sort that wrecks a man's career, in
that case it would seem no more than natural that
he should seek the remedy where the harm had been



1 88 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

done ; it was his instinct and he had the right to
look for shelter to the Thuilliers, his accomplices
and the authors of his disaster.

With all these thoughts at work in his brain La
Peyrade betook himself to the batonnier's office at
the Palais.

He had guessed rightly: his whole course in the
matter of the purchase of the house, had been called
to the attention of his fellows in a very well written
and very circumstantial account thereof, and, while
he agreed that an anonymous denunciation should
be received with great suspicion, the high function-
ary of the order informed the incriminated advocate
that he was ready to listen to his explanation.

La Peyrade did not dare to take refuge in a sys-
tem of absolute denial; the hand that he believed to
have dealt the blow, seemed to him too determined
and too adroit not to have fortified itself with proofs.

But while admitting that the charges were
founded upon facts, he tried to put those facts in a
favorable light. He saw in a moment that his
answer was not considered a triumphant refutation,
for the batonnier's conclusion was as follows :

"Immediately after the close of the vacation, I
will make my report to the council of the order
upon the denunciation and the statements with
which you have met it It is for the council alone
to decide a matter of this importance.*'

Thus summarily dismissed, La Peyrade felt that
his professional future was sadly endangered ; but
he had a respite, and, in case of conviction, a plan



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 189

for securing a place to lay his head. He went there-
fore and put on his robe, which he was still entitled
to wear, and betook himself to the fifth chamber,
where he had a cause to argue.

As he left the court-room, laden with one of those
boxes of documents, which are commonly tied with
a strip of cotton, and being too bulky to be carried
under the arm are held upon the hand and forearm,
and supported against one side of the chest, the Pro-
vencal strode through the Salle des Pas Perdus with
the brisk gait characteristic of the advocate who has
to be in two or three places at once. Whether he was
really heated by his forensic exertions, or was sim-
ply pretending to be swimming in perspiration, so as
to announce to all comers that his gown was not, as
with many of his confreres, a show garment simply,
but a coat of mail, he was mopping his forehead with
his handkerchief as he walked along, when he saw
in the distance his Thuillier, who had just espied
him in the centre of the great hall, and was working
his way toward him.

There was nothing surprising in the meeting.
When he left home he told Madame Coffinet that he
was going to the Palais and should be there until
three o'clock, and bade her send there anybody who
might inquire for him.

Not choosing to make it too easy a matter for
Thuillier to accost him, La Peyrade suddenly turned
about, as if he had just remembered something, and
sat down on one of the benches that garnish the cir-
cumference of the vast antechamber of justice.



1 90 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

There he untied his bundle, took out a paper, buried
himself in it up to the ears, and assumed the bear-
ing of one who has not had time in the silence of
his office to examine the case which his fluent
speech and ready grasp of a subject will enable him
to try on the wing. Or this re-examination of docu-
ments might equally well be recognized as the act
of the conscientious and scrupulously accurate advo-
cate, who refreshes his memory, and casts a final
glance over his batteries before advancing to the
attack.

It goes without saying that the Provencal watched
Thuillier's manoeuvres out of the corner of his eye.
He, believing that La Peyrade was seriously occu-
pied, was now debating whether he should accost him.

After much going and coming the municipal coun-
cillor at last made up his mind, however, and steered
straight for the point where he had been, in thought,
for some minutes.

"Hallo! Theodose," he cried, as soon as he was
within hailing distance; "so you come to the Palais
now?"

"Why I should say," replied La Peyrade, "that
it's much the same with advocates at the Palais as
with Turks at Constantinople, where one of my com-
patriots gravely asserts that many of them are to be
seen. You're the one it is surprising to see here !"

"Not at all," said Thuillier carelessly; "I'm
here about that cursed pamphlet business. Is there
any such thing as an end to your law ? I was sum-
moned to the attorney's office again this morning.



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 191

However, I don't regret it, since I owe to that bother
the lucky chance of meeting you."

"I am delighted to see you too," said La' Peyrade,
tying up his package, "but I must leave you, for I
have an appointment; however, you are going to
the attorney's office yourself, aren't you?"

"I have just come from there," said Thuillier.

"Did you see Olivier Vinet, your dearest foe?"
asked La Peyrade.

"No," said Thuillier, naming another magistrate.

"The deuce! it's very funny," observed the ad-
vocate, "but it would seem that that young deputy
attorney has the gift of ubiquity; he's been in the
court-room ever since this morning, and he's just
finished summing up in the case I was trying a
moment ago."

Thuillier blushed, and replied, extricating himself
as best he could :

"Bless me! I don't know those fellows, and I
must have mistaken one of them for another."

La Peyrade shrugged his shoulders and said aloud
to himself:

"Always the same, playing sharp and squirming,
and unable to go straight to his object!"

"Whom are you talking about?" asked Thuillier
with a decidedly disconcerted air.

"Why, of you, my dear fellow, who take us for
imbeciles; as if everybody didn't know more than
two weeks ago that the affair of your pamphlet had
fallen into the water. Why were you summoned
to the attorney's office?"



192 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

"I was summoned there," replied Thuillier with
some embarrassment, "to pay some costs or other
for entering the judgment. Is anyone supposed to
understand all their scrawls?"

"And they selected for summoning you," con-
tinued La Peyrade, "the very day on which the
Moniteur, by announcing the dissolution of the
Chamber, made you a candidate in the twelfth
arrondissement. "

"Why not?" said Thuillier; "what connection is
there between my candidacy and any costs that I'm
responsible for?"

"I'll tell you what connection there is," retorted
La Peyrade dryly. "The attorney's office is, before
everything, amiable and obliging. 'Well, well,' it
said to itself, 'here's our dear Monsieur Thuillier a
candidate for the Chamber; he must be a little
hampered now by his attitude toward his ex-friend
Monsieur de la Peyrade, with whom he would like
very well to be on good terms about this time ; we
must relieve him from his embarrassment ; we'll sum-
mon him to pay some costs he doesn't owe and he'll
come to the Palais where La Peyrade comes every
day; in that way he can meet him without seeming
to have it in mind, and will be spared the necessity
of a step that would wound his self-esteem.' "

"Well, that's where you're mistaken," said
Thuillier, breaking the ice at last, "I've tried so
little to be sharp about it that I've just come from
your rooms, there! your concierge sent me here."

"Good!" returned La Peyrade, "I much prefer



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 193

frankness ; you can get along with people who play
with their cards on the table. Well, what is it you
want of me ? did you come to talk about your elec-
tion? I'm already at work on it"

"Really?" said Thuillier; "how?"

"Look at this," replied La Peyrade, fumbling
under his gown and taking a paper from his pocket;
"here's what I scratched down in the court-room
just now while my opponent's advocate was wan-
dering around his subject in the most approved
style."

"What is it?" inquired Thuillier.

"Read it and you'll see."

The paper contained the following:

SCHEME FOR A NEWSPAPER, SMALL PAGE, AT
THIRTY FRANCS PER YEAR.

Estimating the edition at five thousand, the
monthly cost will be:

Paper, 12 francs for 5 reams, 1,860 fr.

Composition, 2,400

Printing, 450

A director, 250

A clerk, 100

A manager, to act as cashier also, .... 200

A mailing clerk, 100

Folders, 120

An office-boy, 80

Covers and office expenses, ....'' 150

Rent, ioo

13



194 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

Stamps and mail ing, 7, 500 fr.

Editing, stenographic news, 1,800



Total per month, 15,110 fr.

" " year, 181,320

"Do you propose to start a newspaper ?" asked
Thuillier in dire distress.

"I don't propose anything about it," said La Pey-
rade; "you're the one to be asked if you propose to
be a deputy."

"Of course I do, for you planted that ambition in
my head when you put me forward for the General
Council. But just think, my dear fellow, of putting
out a hundred and eighty-one thousand three hun-
dred and twenty francs ! Have I got a fortune that
will stand such a load as that?"

"Yes; in the first place," replied La Peyrade,
"you could beyond question stand that expenditure
without putting yourself out at all ; indeed, compared
with the end you seek to obtain, it's not at all
exorbitant In England men make much greater
sacrifices to get a seat in Parliament But, in any
event, I beg you to observe that all the figures in
this scheme are put very high. Indeed there are
some items that can be cut out altogether ; for in-
stance, you won't need any director ; you, who are
an old accountant and 1, a former newspaper man,
will undertake the direction, and we'll do '.t with-
out winking; in the same way it's absurd to talk
about rent; you have your old apartments on Rue



THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 195

Saint-Dominique, which aren't let as yet, and
they'll make a magnificent newspaper office."

"All that," said Thuillier, "is a saving of twenty-
four hundred francs a year."

"That's something, but your mistake consists in
reckoning on the expenditure for a year. When are
the new elections to be held?"

"In two months," Thuillier replied.

"Very good; for two months it would cost you
thirty thousand francs, and that's on the supposition
that the paper hasn't a single subscriber."

"True," said Thuillier, "the expense is certainly
much less than I thought at first; but, after all, do
you think a newspaper indispensable?''

"Indispensable to this extent, that, unless I have
that weapon in my hands, I'll have nothing to do
with the election. You don't realize, my poor
friend, that by going to live across the river you lost
a tremendous lot of ground, electorally speaking.
You aren't a resident of the quarter now and they
can kill you with a word what the English call
absenteeism. Your game is much harder to play
now."

"I admit that," Thuillier replied; "but for this
newspaper, in addition to the money, we must have
a title, a manager and editors."

"The title we have already; the editors will be
you and myself and a few young men whom we can
find in Paris by the shovelful ; 1 have a man in view
for manager."

"The title will be?" asked Thuillier.



196 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS

"The &ho de la Bitvre. "

"But there's one sheet of that name already."

"That's just how I come to be advising you to go
into the thing. Do you think I would be fool
enough to try to start a new paper ? The Echo de
la Btivre! why the title itself is worth a mint of
money when it's a question of backing up a candi-
date in the twelfth district Say but one word and
I'll place that mint of money in your hands."

"How so?" queried Thuillier with interest.

"Parbleu ! by buying it ; you can get it for a song. "

"You see!" said Thuillier in a discouraged tone,
"there's the purchase money that you didn't count !"

"You're frightened at trifles," said La Peyrade
shrugging his shoulders; "we have many other
difficulties to deal with."

"Other difficulties?" repeated Thuillier.

"Parbleu! do you imagine," retorted La Peyrade,
"that, after what has passed between us, I propose
to harness myself valiantly on to your election car,
without knowing just what I'm to get out of it?"

"Why," said Thuillier, somewhat astonished,
"I thought that friendship was an exchange of ser-