good-humoredly.
"First of all I'll let Felix know that he isn't to
put his foot in my house again."
"Is it possible?" said the advocate, "or, at all
events, is it advisable?"
"Very possible, and I'll send word to him by
Phellion himself. His principles aje his hobby-
horse, and he'll be the first to acknowledge that his
son had better deprive us of his presence if he won't
do what's necessary to obtain Celeste's hand."
"What then?" queried La Peyrade.
"Then, I'll tell Celeste that we left her free to
choose one husband or the other, and as she won't
have Felix, she must put up with you, that you're
a pious fellow, just the sort she likes. Never you
fear, I'll work your generosity in not taking advan-
tage of her agreement for all it's worth, I tell you ;
but all this will take time; and if we have to wait
a week longer for the pamphlet to be done, Thuil-
lier's in such a state that we may have to send him
to Charenton before then."
"The pamphlet can be ready in two days; but can
I be sure that we're playing on the square, little
aunt? Mountains never meet, they say, but men
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 91
may; and it's certain that when the election comes
I shall be able to help Thuillier or hinder him as I
please. The other day I had a terrible fright, do
you know. I had a letter in my pocket in which he
spoke of the pamphlet as being written by me. For
a moment I was afraid I'd lost the letter at the Lux-
embourg. There'd have been a pretty how-d'ye-do
in the quarter, I fancy!"
"Am I likely to try any mischief with a sly ras-
cal like you?" said the old maid, with a perfect
understanding of the threat contained in the last
sentence, naturally as it was brought into the con-
versation. "But, after all," she added, "have you
any fault to find with us? Aren't you the one who
has fallen short of your promises? How about the
Cross we were to have in a week, and the pamphlet
that was to have appeared long ago?"
"The pamphlet and the Cross will come out all
right, one bringing the other," replied La Peyrade
rising to go. "Tell Thuillier to come and see me
to-morrow night, and I think we can correct the last
sheet. But be sure and not lend too willing an ear
to Madame de Godollo's slanders : I have an idea
that she wants to alienate all your friends in order
to make herself supreme in the house, and that
she's got her eye on Thuillier at the same time."
"Faith," said the old maid, whom the malicious
advocate's parting shot wounded in her most sensi-
tive spot, her autocracy, "I must pay some atten-
tion to what you tell me: the little lady is a bit of
a flirt!"
92 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
La Peyrade reaped still another advantage from
his adroit insinuation : Brigitte's reply convinced
him that the countess had not mentioned the visit
he had paid her during the day. Her reticence on
that subject might mean a great deal.
Four days later, the printer, the stitcher and the
hot-presser having done their work, Thuillier, in
the evening, was able to treat himself to the inex-
pressible delight of a walk beginning at the boule-
vards, and continued through all the by-ways as
far as the Palais-Royal. He cast a glance in every
bookseller's window as he passed, and read upon a
flaming yellow poster, the famous title:
TAXES AND THE SINKING-FUND
BY J. THUILLIER
Member of the General Council of the Seine
Having succeeded in persuading himself that, by
the care he had bestowed upon the proofs, he had
earned the right to appropriate the work, his pater-
nal heart, like Master Corbeau's, could not feel itself
beat for joy. We must add that he held in utter
contempt those publishers who did not offer this
novelty for sale, destined, as he firmly believed,
to be an epoch-marking event in the history of
Europe. Without quite satisfying himself as to
how he could punish their indifference, he took note
of the refractory establishments, feeling as bitter a
(93)
94 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
grudge against them as if he had received a direct
affront.
The next day he passed most blissfully in com-
posing a large number of letters of transmittal, and
in placing in their wrappers some fifty or more
copies, to which the sacramental phrase, "With the
compliments of the author," written by his own hand,
seemed to him to impart inestimable value.
But the third day after the sale began he experi-
enced something of a shock. He had taken for
publisher a young man who had plunged recklessly
into the business, and had recently opened a shop in
the Passage des Panoramas, where he paid a ruin-
ous rent. A nephew of Barbet, the bookseller who
was Brigitte's tenant in the building on Rue Saint-
Dominique-d'Enfer, and whose notes she used to
discount, this Barbet junior was a youngster who
was afraid of nothing, and when he was introduced
to Thuillier by his uncle, he undertook, provided he
was not restricted in the matter of advertising, to
make a second edition necessary at the end of a week.
Now Thuillier had expended nearly fifteen hun-
dred francs in purchased publicity; copies had been
sent in profusion to the newspapers, and after three
days had passed the sales amounted to SEVEN copies,
and, out of that number, three were taken on credit.
One might imagine that in making known this
pitiful result to the dismayed Thuillier, the young
publisher would have lost something of his assur-
ance. On the other hand this Guzman of the book
trade remarked:
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 95
"I am delighted at what has happened. If we
had sold a hundred copies, 1 should be uneasy about
the fifteen hundred we printed; I should say that
would look like a long story, whereas, this very
insignificant sale convinces me that the whole
edition will be snapped up at one mouthful."
"But when?" queried Thuillier, to whom this
theory seemed somewhat paradoxical.
"Parbleu!" replied Barbet, "when we have arti-
cles in all the papers. The announcements are only
useful to arouse the public attention, to arrest it, so
to speak: 'Hallo!' the people say, 'here's some-
thing that ought to be interesting.' Taxes and the
Sinking-Fund; that's an attractive title! but the
more alluring the title, the more suspicious people
are ; they've been taken in so many times ! So they
wait for the newspaper articles ; whereas, for a book
that's likely to have only a moderate sale there are
always a hundred buyers or so all ready : but after
them, good morning! we don't sell another one."
"If that's the way it is," said Thuillier, "you
don't despair of the sale?"
"On the contrary, I think the prospects are very
bright When the Debats, the Constitutionnel, the
Silcle, and the Presse have spoken, especially if
you're pummeled by the Debats, which is a minis-
terial sheet, it won't take four days to get rid of the
whole lot."
"You speak very confidently," rejoined Thuillier,
"but how are we to get at all these bell-wethers of
the press?"
96 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
"Oh! I'll look after that," said Barbet; "I'm on
the best of terms with all the editors-in-chief; they
say I'm a devil of a fellow and remind them of Lad-
vocat in his prime."
"In that case, my dear sir, you should have seen
them already."
"Ah! I beg your pardon, Papa Thuillier; there's
only one way of approaching journalists, and as you
made a great outcry over the fifteen hundred the
advertising cost you, I didn't dare broach the subject
of another extraordinary credit"
"But what do you want the credit for?" inquired
Thuillier anxiously.
"When you were elected a member of the Gen-
eral Council of the Seine," rejoined the bookseller,
"where was your election fixed up?"
"Parbleu! in my own house," replied Thuillier.
"In your own house, very true, but at a dinner-
party followed by a ball, and the ball crowned by
a supper. Well, my dear sir, there are not two
ways of doing business; Boileau says:
" 'Tout se fait en dlnant dans le temps oil nous sommes,
" 'Et c'est par les diners que I' on gouverne les hommes! ' " *
"So you think I should give the journalists a din-
ner?"
"Yes, but not at home, for newspaper men, you
see, aren't at their ease when there are women
* In our day everything \ arranged at the dinner-table, and men are gov-
erned by dinners.
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 97
about : they have to hold themselves back ! And then
a dinner's not the proper thing, but a breakfast At
night they have first performances to attend, articles
to prepare, to say nothing of their little engage-
ments; but in the morning they have nothing to
think about; I've always given breakfasts myself."
"But such spreads cost a heap! A newspaper
man's another name for a glutton!"
"Pshaw! twenty francs a head without wine.
Suppose you have ten guests, you can do the thing
very nicely for a hundred crowns or so. Why, just
from an economical standpoint a breakfast is prefer-
able; you couldn't get out of a dinner for anything
less than a five-hundred franc note."
"How fast you go, young man!" said Thuillier.
"Damnation ! everybody knows that a seat in the
Chamber's an expensive luxury, and you're simply
paving the way for your candidacy."
"But how shall I go to work to get these men?
Must I go myself and invite them?"
"Not at all; you have sent them your pamphlet,
so you can just name an hour at Philippe's or
Vefour's; they'll understand mighty quick."
"Ten guests," said Thuillier, beginning to enter
into the idea, "I shouldn't say there were so many
first-class papers."
"True," replied the publisher, "but we must have
the curs too, because they bay the loudest Your
breakfast will make a sensation; they would think
you were trying to be exclusive, and you make
an enemy of every man you leave out"
7
98 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
"You think it will be enough to send them written
invitations?"
"Yes, I'll make a list; do you write the letters
and send them to me; I'll see that they're sent, and
will deliver several with my own hand."
"If I were sure that this outlay would produce the
effect we desire!" said Thuillier hesitatingly.
" 'If I were sure' is pretty good," said Barbet con-
sequently; "why, my dear sir, it's money lent on
mortgage; if you do this, I'll guarantee you a sale
of fifteen hundred copies. At forty sous, allowing
for cost of delivery, that makes three thousand
francs. You see that your ordinary and extraordi-
nary expenses are all covered, and more."
"Well, "said Thuillier, preparing to go, "I'll talk
it over with La Peyrade."
"As you please, my dear sir, but decide soon, for
nothing moulds so quickly as a book : to write hot,
to serve hot, to take away hot, that's the three-step
exercise for author, publisher and public; outside of
that we get nothing but trash, and it's best let
alone."
When La Peyrade was consulted he did not, in
reality, look upon it as a very efficacious remedy,
but, in the bottom of his heart, he cherished the
most bitter animosity against Thuillier, so that he
was overjoyed to assist in levying the fresh tax that
was suggested upon his conceited idiocy and his
consequential inexperience.
As for Thuillier, the frenzy to pose as a publicist
and to make a noise in the world possessed him to
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 99
such an extent, that, even while he groaned at the
fresh bleeding to which his purse was subjected, he
had already determined on the sacrifice before he
took the advocate's advice. The very cautious and
conditional approval given by La Peyrade was
therefore more than sufficient to confirm him in his
determination, and that same evening he returned
to the establishment of Bar bet junior and asked to
see the famous list of invitations.
Barbet quickly prepared his little catalogue, and
instead of the ten guests he had suggested, the
names numbered fifteen, without counting himself
and La Peyrade, whom Thuillier desired to have
present to second him in this conclave, where he
was quite sure that he should be more or less em-
barrassed.
When Thuillier had cast his eyes over the list
which was handed to him, he said to the publisher:
"Look here, my dear man, you've written down
the names of newspapers nobody ever heard of.
What's this Moralisateur , and Lanterne de Dioglne,
and Pelican, and cko de la Bifcvre?"
"You make a great mistake," replied Barbet,
"to turn up your nose at the Echo de la Btivre, a
paper that's published in the twelfth arrondissement
where you expect to get your seat in the Chamber,
and it's patronized by all the tanners in the Quar-
tier Mouffetard!"
"Let that go then," said Thuillier, "but the
Klican?"
"The Pblican? a paper that's found in every
100 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
dentist's waiting-room, and dentists are the greatest
puffers in the world ; how many teeth a day, on an
average, are pulled out in Paris, do you suppose?"
"Oh! drop that!" said Thuillier, who summarily
struck out several names and reduced the number of
guests to fourteen.
"If one should drop out," said Barbet, "there'll
be thirteen of us."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Thuillier, the man of
sense, "do you suppose I'm as superstitious as all
that?"
The list being fixed at fourteen and closed, he
wrote the invitations on the spot, on a corner of
Barbet's desk, for the second day following, Barbet
promising, in view of the urgency of the case, that
no one would take offence at the shortness of the
notice.
The breakfast was to take place at Vefour's, the
restaurant par excellence for the middle class and
provincials. Barbet arrived even before Thuillier,
wearing a cravat tied in a huge knot which, in itself,
was enough to make a sensation in the quizzical
circle in which it was about to be displayed.
On his own responsibility the publisher changed
several items in the menu, and notably, instead of
having the champagne held back till the dessert
bourgeois-fashion, he ordered that two bottles of
champagne frappe should be placed on the table at
the beginning of the feast, with a quantity of
prawns, not thought of by the amphitryon.
Thuillier, who approved all these changes with a
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS IOI
very bad grace, was followed by La Peyrade; then
there was a long hiatus in the procession of guests;
the hour fixed for the breakfast was eleven o'clock,
and at quarter to twelve no one had appeared.
Barbet, who never lost countenance, ventured the
consoling remark that it was the same with invita-
tions to breakfast at a restaurant as with funerals,
where everyone knows that eleven o'clock means
noon.
In fact> just before the latter hour, two gentlemen
with goatees, exhaling a very strong odor of the
tap-room, made their appearance. Thuillier thanked
them effusively for the honor they were pleased to
do him ; then followed a further period of suspense,
the agony whereof we need not describe.
At one o'clock the contingent of guests numbered
five, Barbet and La Peyrade not included. It is
needless to say that no journalist of standing or
with any self-respect had accepted the absurd invi-
tation. They had no choice but to take their places
at the table; a few polite sentences addressed to
Thuillier as to the immensely interesting character
of his pamphlet were not enough to allay the bitter-
ness of his discomfiture; and except for the joviality
of the publisher, who seized the reins which Thuil-
lier, as gloomy as Hippolyte on the road to Mycene,
let fall, nothing could be imagined so deathly dull
and cold as this festive assemblage.
However, when the oysters were removed, the
champagne and chablis with which they were washed
down were beginning to send the thermometer up
102 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
slightly, when a young man in a cap, rushing into
the room where the banquet was in progress,
dealt Thuillier a most terrible and unexpected blow.
"Master," said the new-comer to Bar bet he was
one of the clerks in the bookshop, "we are cooked !
the police have made a raid on you; there was a
commissioner and two agents, and they seized mon-
sieur's pamphlet, and here's the paper they gave
me for you."
"Look at this, will you, Monsieur PAvocat," said
Barbet to La Peyrade, passing him the stamped
paper. His customary assurance failed him a little
at this blow.
"A summons to appear at once before the Assize
Court," said La Peyrade, after reading a few lines
of the bailiff's scrawl.
Thuillier turned pale as death.
"Didn't you comply with all the necessary for-
malities ?" he asked the publisher in a choking voice.
"Oh! it's no formal matter," replied La Pey-
rade, "it's a seizure for indictable abuse of the
press, inciting to hatred and contempt of the govern-
ment You must have a similar compliment await-
ing you at home, Thuillier."
"Why, then, it is treason!" cried Thuillier, losing
his head altogether.
"Damn it, my dear fellow, you know what you
put in your pamphlet; for my part I didn't see any-
thing in it to tyang a man for."
"It's a misunderstanding," said Barbet, recover-
ing his courage; "it will all be explained, and, as a
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 103
result, we'll have the best kind of material for an
article, won't we, gentlemen?"
"Waiter, pen and ink!" cried one of the journal-
ists thus addressed.
"Oh! you'll have time enough to write your
article later ; what has the bomb in common with
this filet sauti?" said one of his confreres, para-
phrasing the famous remark of Charles XII., King of
Sweden, when a projectile interrupted him as he
was dictating to one of his secretaries.
"Gentlemen," said Thuillier, rising, "I beg you
will excuse me; if, as Monsieur Barbet thinks,
there's a mistake in all this, it must be cleared up
at once : so I am going to the king's attorney's office
immediately. La Peyrade," he added significantly,
"you will not refuse to go with me, I take it And
it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to come along, my
dear publisher."
"Faith, no!" said Barbet junior; "when I break-
fast, I breakfast; if the attorney's office has made
a fool of itself, so much the worse for the attorney's
office!"
"But suppose it's a genuine prosecution!" cried
Thuillier, in the last stages of excitement
"Why, I shall say, and it is perfectly true, that I
didn't read a word of your pamphlet. There's just
one thing that annoys me: these cursed juries don't
like beards, so I must cut mine off if 1 have to
appear before them."
"Come, my dear host, sit down again," said the
editor-in-chief of the cho de la B&vre, "we'll back
104 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
you up: I have an article already written that will
make a stir among the peat-sellers, and that honor-
able guild is a power in itself."
"No, gentlemen!" said Thuillier "no! a man like
me cannot afford to remain quiet half an hour under
the charge that has been brought against me. Go
on without us: I hope to rejoin you soon. Are you
coming, La Peyrade?"
"He is delightful!" said Barbet, as Thuillier and
his counsel took their departure; "to leave a break-
fast after the oysters, just to go and talk with a fig-
ure-head of a deputy-attorney ! Come, gentlemen,
close ranks," he added with animation.
"Look!" said one of the famished journalists,
happening to cast his eye over the garden of the
Palais-Royal, upon which the breakfast room of the
restaurant looked; "there's Barbanchu going by!
suppose I call him up?"
"Yes, by all means! A paterfamilias requires a
substitute" said Barbet junior, paraphrasing an
advertisement everybody has read at the street
corners.
"Barbanchu! Barbanchu!" cried the self-styled
journalist
Barbanchu, with a pointed cap on his head, was
a long while discovering the cloud from which a
voice was calling him.
"Up here!" cried the voice, which seemed to him
a voice from heaven, when he saw that he was
hailed by a man with a glass of champagne in his
hand.
THE PETTY BOURGEOIS 105
"Come up, my dear boy, come up!" they shouted
to him in chorus, when he seemed to be hesitating;
"there's a good feed!"
When he left the attorney's office, Thuillier's
last hope had fled. The prosecution was a genuine
affair, and from the harsh reception he had met
with, he was justified in believing that he would be
treated without any indulgence.
Thereupon, as always happens between confeder-
ates, after the ill-success of the undertaking in
which they have been jointly concerned, La Peyrade
was assailed with many harsh words: "he had
paid no attention to what he was writing; he had
given full swing to his stupid Saint-Simonian ideas;
he snapped his fingers at the consequences! he
wasn't the one who would have to pay the fine and
go to prison!" When La Peyrade replied that the
affair did not seem serious to him, and that he would
undertake to secure a verdict of not guilty, Thuillier
retorted :
"Parbleu! it's a very simple matter isn't it? Mon-
sieur sees nothing in it but a case to make a hit in;
but I won't trust my honor and my fortune in the
hands of such a rattle-headed fellow as you. I'll
have a great advocate if the case comes to trial.
I've had enough of your collaboration!"
La Peyrade felt his temper rising under these
unjust reproaches. However, he felt that he was
disarmed, and as he did not choose to bring about a
rupture, he ended by leaving Thuillier, saying that
<he would forgive a man who was so excited by fear,
106 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
and that he would call during the afternoon and see
if he were not a little calmer ; at the same time they
would come to an understanding as to what course
they should attempt to pursue.
About four o'clock, therefore, the Provencal called
at the house on Boulevard de la Madeleine. Thuil-
lier's irritation had vanished and was succeeded by
the most craven fear. If he had been expecting to
be sent for to be led to the scaffold in half an hour,
he could not have been more completely crushed and
unmanned. Madame Thuillier, when the advocate
appeared, was engaged in administering a decoction
of herbs to him. The poor woman had emerged
from her usual apathetic state, and showed herself a
veritable Epponina beside this nineteenth-century
Sabinus.
As to Brigitte, who soon made her appearance
bringing a foot-bath with her own hands, she
treated the advocate without mercy or measure ; her
bitter, acrimonious reproaches, out of all proportion
to his sin, if indeed he had been guilty of any sin,
would have driven the most placid of men to forget
himself.
/ La Peyrade felt that he was ruined in the Thuil-
lier household, where one and all seemed to gloat
over the opportunity to break faith with him and to
exhibit the most revolting ingratitude with the ut-
most freedom. When an ironical allusion was made
to his success in obtaining decorations for his
friends, he rose and took his leave, deaf to all
attempts to detain him.
After walking for a while through the streets, the
Provencal, in the midst of his wrath, thought of Ma-
dame de Godollo, in fact, since their first interview
his mind had often reverted to the lovely foreigner.
Not on a single occasion only had she cut short
her visit when she happened to be at the Thuilliers,
on his arrival there ; the performance was repeated
whenever they met ; and without knowing just what
it meant, La Peyrade had convinced himself that, at
all events, this affectation of flight meant something
more than indifference. After the first visit, to call
again at once upon the fair Hungarian would not
have been a clever move ; but at the present hour,
all the time necessary to justify the conclusion that
a man had entirely retained his self-control had
elapsed. He retraced his steps therefore, and,
without asking the concierge if the countess was at
home, went upstairs as if returning to the Thuil-
liers' and rang the bell of the apartment on the
entresol.
As on the former occasion he was requested by
the maid-servant to wait until she had spoken to
her mistress, but the room he was ushered into was
not the dining-room, but another small salon
arranged as a library.
He was made to wait a long while and he did not
know what to think. He comforted himself, how-
ever, with the thought that, if he was to be denied
(107)
108 THE PETTY BOURGEOIS
an audience, the deliberation would not have lasted
so long.
At last the maid returned, but even then it was
not to introduce him.
"Madame la Comtesse," he was told, "is very
busy, and she begs monsieur to find something to
read while he is waiting, because she may be
detained longer than she would like."
As there was nothing disheartening either in the
substance or the form of the excuse, the advocate
set about taking the prescription suggested to avert
ennui. Without having to open any of the book-