The Lesser Bourgeoisie - Honoré de Balzac (top novels to read txt) 📗

I conceived the plan to which Thuillier will owe his nomination. He will be hunted down by envy and jealousy, and the task of upholding him will be a hard one; we must, however, get the better of his rivals and take the wind out of their sails."

"But this affair," said Brigitte, "what are the difficulties?"

"Mademoiselle, the difficulties lie within my own conscience. Assuredly, I could not serve you in this matter without first consulting my confessor. From a worldly point of view--oh! the affair is perfectly legal, and I am--you'll understand me?--a barrister inscribed on the panel, that is, member of a bar controlled by the strictest rules. I am therefore incapable of proposing an enterprise which might give occasion for blame. In the first place, I myself don't make a penny by it."

Brigitte was on thorns; her face was flaming; she broke her wool, mended it, broke it again, and did not know which way to look.

"One can't get," she said, "in these days, forty thousand francs a year from landed property unless it is worth one million eight hundred thousand."

"Well, I will undertake that you shall see a piece of property and estimate yourself its probable revenue, which I can make Thuillier the owner of for fifty thousand francs down."

"Oh! if you can make us obtain that!" cried Brigitte, worked up to the highest excitement by the spur of her natural cupidity. "Go on, my dear Monsieur Theodose, and--"

She stopped short.

"Well, mademoiselle?"

"You will, perhaps, have done yourself a service."

"Ah! if Thuillier has told you my secret, I must leave this house."

Brigitte looked up.

"Did he tell you that I love Celeste?"

"No, on my word of honor!" cried Brigitte, "but I myself was just about to speak of her."

"And offer her to me? Oh! may God forgive us! I can only win her of herself, her parents, by a free choice--No, no, all I ask of you is your good-will, your protection. Promise me, as Thuillier has, in return for my services your influence, your friendship; tell me that you will treat me as a son. If you will do that, I will abide by your decision in this matter; I can trust it; I need not speak to my confessor. For the last two years, ever since I have seen much of this family, to whom I would fain give my powers and devote my utmost energy--for, I shall succeed! surely I shall!--I have observed that your integrity, your honor is that of the olden time, your judgment righteous and inflexible. Also, you have a knowledge of business; and these qualities combined are precious helps to a man. With a mother-in-law, as I may say, of your powers, I should find my home life relieved of a crowd of cares and details as to property, which hinder a man's advance in a political career if he is forced to attend to them. I admired you deeply on Sunday evening. Ah! you were fine! How you did manage matters! In ten minutes that dining-room was cleared! And, without going outside of your own apartment, you had everything at hand for the refreshments, for the supper! 'There,' I said to myself, as I watched you, 'is a true "maitresse-femme"--a masterly woman!'"

Brigitte's nostrils dilated; she breathed in the words of the young lawyer. He gave her a side-long glance to enjoy his triumph; he had touched the right chord in her breast.

At this moment he was standing, but he now resumed his seat beside her, and said:--

"Now here is our affair, dear aunt--for you will be a sort of aunt--"

"Hush! you naughty fellow!" said Brigitte, "and go on."

"I'll tell you the matter roughly--and remark, if you please, that I compromise myself in telling it to you; for these secrets are entrusted to me as a lawyer. Therefore understand that you and I are both committing a crime, so to speak, of leze-confidence! A notary of Paris was in partnership with an architect; they bought land and built upon it; at the present moment, property has come down with a rush; they find themselves embarrassed--but all that doesn't concern us. Among the houses built by this illegal partnership--for notaries, you know, are sworn to have nothing to do with enterprises--is a very good one which, not being finished, must be sold at a great sacrifice; so great that they now ask only one hundred thousand francs for it, although the cost of the land and the building was at least four hundred thousand. As the whole interior is still unfinished, the value of what is still to do is easily appraised; it will probably not be more than fifty thousand francs. Now, owing to its excellent position, this house, when finished, will certainly bring in a rental, over and above the taxes, of forty thousand francs a year. It is built of freestone, the corners and copings of cut granite; the facade is covered with handsome carvings, on which they spent more than twenty thousand francs; the windows are plate glass with a new style of fastening called 'cremona.'"

"Well, where is the difficulty?"

"Just here: the notary wants to reserve to himself this bit of the cake he is forced to surrender; he is, under the name of a friend, the creditor who requests the sale of the property by the assignee of the bankruptcy. The case has not been brought into court; for legal proceedings cost so much money. The sale is to be made by voluntary agreement. Now, this notary has applied to one of my clients to lend him his name for this purchase. My client, a poor devil, says to me: 'There's a fortune to made out of that house by fooling the notary.'"

"And they do that sort of thing in business!" said Brigitte, quickly.

"If that were the only difficulty," continued Theodose, "it would be, as a friend of mine said to his pupil, who was complaining of the length of time it took to produce masterpieces in painting: 'My dear young fellow, if it were not so, our valets would be painting pictures.' But, mademoiselle, if we now get the better of this notary, who certainly deserves it, for he has compromised a number of private fortunes, yet, as he is a very shrewd man (though a notary), it might perhaps be very difficult to do it a second time, and here's the rub: When a piece of landed property is bought at a forced sale, if those who have lent money on that property see that is likely to be sold so low as not to cover the sum loaned upon it, they have the right, until the expiration of a certain time, to bid it in; that is, to offer more and keep the property in their own hands. If this trickster can't be hoodwinked as to the sale being a bona fide one until the time when his right to buy it expires, some other scheme must be resorted to. Now, is this business strictly legal? Am I justified in doing it for the benefit of a family I seek to enter? That is the question I have been revolving in my mind for the last three days."

Brigitte, we must acknowledge, hesitated, and Theodose then brought forward his last card:--

"Take the night to think of it," he said, "to-morrow we will talk it over."

"My young friend," said Brigitte, looking at the lawyer with an almost loving air, "the first thing to be done is to see the house. Where is it?"

"Near the Madeleine. That will be the heart of Paris in ten years. All that property has been desirable since 1819; the banker Du Tillet's fortune was derived from property about there. The famous failure of Maitre Roquin, which carried terror to all Paris, and did such harm to the confidence given to the notariat, was also caused by it; they went into heavy speculations on that land too soon; they should have waited until now."

"I remember about that," said Brigitte.

"The house might be finished by the end of the year," continued Theodose, "and the rentals could begin next spring."

"Could we go there to-morrow?"

"Dear aunt, I am at your orders."

"Ah ca!" she cried, "don't call me that before people. As to this affair," she continued, "I can't have any opinion until I have seen the house."

"It has six storeys; nine windows on the front; a fine courtyard, four shops, and it stands on a corner. Ah! that notary knows what he is about in wishing to hold on to such pieces of property! But let political events interfere, and down go the Funds! If I were you, I should sell out all that you and Madame Thuillier have on the Grand Livre and buy this fine piece of real estate for Thuillier, and I'd recover the fortune of that poor, pious creature by savings from its proceeds. Can the Funds go higher than they are to-day? One hundred and twenty-two! it is fabulous; I should make haste to sell."

Brigitte licked her lips; she perceived the means of keeping her own property intact, and of enriching her brother by this use of Madame Thuillier's fortune.

"My brother is right," she said to Theodose; "you certainly are a rare man; you'll get on in the world."

"And he'll walk before me," responded Theodose with a naivete that touched the old maid.

"You will live in the family," she said.

"There may be obstacles to that," he remarked. "Madame Thuillier is very queer at times; she doesn't like me."

"Ha! I'll settle that," cried Brigitte. "Do you attend to that affair and carry it through if it is feasible, and leave your interests in my hands."

"Thuillier, member of the municipal council, owner of an estate with a rental of forty thousand francs a year, with the cross of the Legion of honor and the author of a political work, grave, serious, important, will be deputy at the forthcoming general election. But, between ourselves, little aunt, one couldn't devote one's self so utterly except for a father-in-law."

"You are right."

"Though I have no fortune I shall have doubled yours; and if this affair goes through discreetly, others will turn up."

"Until I have seen the house," said Mademoiselle Thuillier again, "I can decide on nothing."

"Well then, send for a carriage to-morrow and let us go there. I will get a ticket early in the morning to view the premises."

"To-morrow, then, about mid-day," responded Brigitte, holding out her hand to Theodose that he might shake it, but instead of that he laid upon it the most respectful and the most tender kiss that Brigitte had ever in her life received.

"Adieu, my child," she said, as he reached the door.

She rang the bell hurriedly and when the servant came:--

"Josephine," she cried, "go at once to Madame Colleville, and ask her to come over and speak to me."

Fifteen minutes later Flavie entered the salon, where Brigitte was walking up and down, in a state of extreme agitation.

"My dear," she cried on seeing Flavie, "you can do me a great service, which concerns our dear Celeste. You know Tullia, don't you?--a danseuse at the opera; my brother was always dinning her into my ears at one time."

"Yes, I know her; but she is no longer a danseuse; she is Madame la Comtesse du Bruel. Her husband is peer of France!"

"Does she still like you?"

"We