Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau - Honoré de Balzac (best fiction novels .TXT) 📗

service to you. Busy as I am,--for I have the finances of Europe on my shoulders, and the Chamber takes all my time,--you will not be surprised to hear that I leave the vast bulk of our affairs to the examination of others. Go and see my brother Adolphe, downstairs; explain to him the nature of your securities; if he approves of the operation, come back here with him to-morrow or the day after, at five in the morning,--the hour at which I examine into certain business matters. We shall be proud and happy to obtain your confidence. You are one of those consistent royalists with whom, of course, we are political enemies, but whose good-will is always flattering--"

"Monsieur," said Cesar, elated by this specimen of tribune eloquence, "I trust I am as worthy of the honor you do me as I was of the signal and royal favor which I earned by my services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the banker, "your reputation is a passport, Monsieur Birotteau. You will, of course, propose nothing that is not feasible, and you can depend on our co-operation."

A lady, Madame Keller, one of the two daughters of the Comte de Gondreville, here opened a door which Birotteau had not observed.

"I hope to see you before you go the Chamber," she said.

"It is two o'clock," exclaimed the banker; "the battle has begun. Excuse me, monsieur, it is a question of upsetting the ministry. See my brother--"

He conducted the perfumer to the door of the salon, and said to one of the servants, "Show monsieur the way to Monsieur Adolphe."

As Cesar traversed a labyrinth of staircases, under the guidance of a man in livery, towards an office far less sumptuous but more useful than that of the head of the house, feeling himself astride the gentle steed of hope, he stroked his chin, and augured well from the flatteries of the great man. He regretted that an enemy of the Bourbons should be so gracious, so able, so fine an orator.

Full of these illusions he entered a cold bare room, furnished with two desks on rollers, some shabby armchairs, a threadbare carpet, and curtains that were much neglected. This cabinet was to that of the elder brother like a kitchen to a dining-room, or a work-room to a shop. Here were turned inside out all matters touching the bank and commerce; here all enterprises were sifted, and the first tithes levied, on behalf of the bank, upon the profits of industries judged worthy of being upheld. Here were devised those bold strokes by which short-lived monopolies were called into being and rapidly sucked dry. Here defects of legislation were chronicled; and bargains driven, without shame, for what the Bourse terms "pickings to be gobbled up," commissions exacted for the smallest services, such as lending their name to an enterprise, and allowing it credit. Here were hatched the specious, legal plots by which silent partnerships were taken in doubtful enterprises, that the bank might lie in wait for the moment of success, and then crush them and seize the property by demanding a return of the capital at a critical moment,--an infamous trick, which involves and ruins many small shareholders.

The two brothers had each selected his appropriate part. Upstairs, Francois, the brilliant man of the world and of politics, assumed a regal air, bestowed courtesies and promises, and made himself agreeable to all. His manners were easy and complying; he looked at business from a lofty standpoint; he intoxicated new recruits and fledgling speculators with the wine of his favor and his fervid speech, as he made plain to them their own ideas. Downstairs, Adolphe unsaid his brother's words, excused him on the ground of political preoccupation, and cleverly slipped the rake along the cloth. He played the part of the responsible partner, the careful business man. Two words, two speeches, two interviews, were required before an understanding could be reached with this perfidious house. Often the gracious "yes" of the sumptuous upper floor became a dry "no" in Adolphe's region. This obstructive manoeuvre gave time for reflection, and often served to fool unskilful applicants. As Cesar entered, the banker's brother was conversing with the famous Palma, intimate adviser of the house of Keller, who retired on the appearance of the perfumer. When Birotteau had explained his errand, Adolphe--much the cleverest of the two brothers, a thorough lynx, with a keen eye, thin lips, and a dry skin--cast at Birotteau, lowering his head to look over his spectacles as he did so, a look which we must call the banker-look,--a cross between that of a vulture and that of an attorney; eager yet indifferent, clear yet vague, glittering though sombre.

"Have the goodness to send me the deeds relating to the affair of the Madeleine," he said; "our security in making you this credit lies there: we must examine them before we consent to make it, or discuss the terms. If the affair is sound, we shall be willing, so as not to embarrass you, to take a share of the profits in place of receiving a discount."

"Well," thought Birotteau, as he walked away, "I see what it means. Like the hunted beaver, I am to give up a part of my skin. After all, it is better to be shorn than killed."

He went home smiling gaily, and his gaiety was genuine.

"I am saved," he said to Cesarine. "I am to have a credit with the Kellers."


III

It was not until the 29th of December that Birotteau was allowed to re-enter Adolphe's cabinet. The first time he called, Adolphe had gone into the country to look at a piece of property which the great orator thought of buying. The second time, the two Kellers were deeply engaged for the whole day, preparing a tender for a loan proposed in the Chamber, and they begged Monsieur Birotteau to return on the following Friday. These delays were killing to the poor man. But Friday came at last. Birotteau found himself in the cabinet, placed in one corner of the fireplace, facing the light from a window, with Adolphe Keller opposite to him.

"They are all right, monsieur," said the banker, pointing to the deeds. "But what payments have you made on the price of the land?"

"One hundred and forty thousand francs."

"Cash?"

"Notes."

"Are they paid?"

"They are not yet due."

"But supposing you have paid more than the present value of the property, where will be our security? It will rest solely on the respect you inspire, and the consideration in which you are held. Business is not conducted on sentiment. If you had paid two hundred thousand francs, supposing that there were another one hundred thousand paid down in advance for possession of the land, we should then have had the security of a hundred thousand francs, to warrant us in giving you a credit of one hundred thousand. The result might be to make us owners of your share by our paying for it, instead of your doing so; consequently we must be satisfied that the affair is a sound one. To wait five years to double our capital won't do for us; it is better to employ it in other ways. There are so many chances! You are trying to circulate paper to pay your notes when they fall due,--a dangerous game. It is wiser to step back for a better leap. The affair does not suit us."

This sentence struck Birotteau as if the executioner had stamped his shoulder with the marking-iron; he lost his head.

"Come," said Adolphe, "my brother feels a great interest in you; he spoke of you to me. Let us examine into your affairs," he added, glancing at Cesar with the look of a courtesan eager to pay her rent.

Birotteau became Molineux,--a being at whom he had once laughed so loftily. Enticed along by the banker,--who enjoyed disentangling the bobbins of the poor man's thought, and who knew as well how to cross-question a merchant as Popinot the judge knew how to make a criminal betray himself,--Cesar recounted all his enterprises; he put forward his Double Paste of Sultans and Carminative Balm, the Roguin affair, and his lawsuit about the mortgage on which he had received no money. As he watched the smiling, attentive face of Keller and the motions of his head, Birotteau said to himself, "He is listening; I interest him; I shall get my credit!" Adolphe Keller was laughing at Cesar, just as Cesar had laughed at Molineux. Carried away by the lust of speech peculiar to those who are made drunk by misfortune, Cesar revealed his inner man; he gave his measure when he ended by offering the security of Cephalic Oil and the firm of Popinot,--his last stake. The worthy man, led on by false hopes, allowed Adolphe Keller to sound and fathom him, and he stood revealed to the banker's eyes as a royalist jackass on the point of failure. Delighted to foresee the bankruptcy of a deputy-mayor of the arrondissement, an official just decorated, and a man in power, Keller now curtly told Birotteau that he could neither give him a credit nor say anything in his favor to his brother Francois. If Francois gave way to idiotic generosity, and helped people of another way of thinking from his own, men who were his political enemies, he, Adolphe, would oppose with might and main any attempt to make a dupe of him, and would prevent him from holding out a hand to the adversary of Napoleon, wounded at Saint-Roch. Birotteau, exasperated, tried to say something about the cupidity of the great banking-houses, their harshness, their false philanthropy; but he was seized with so violent a pain that he could scarcely stammer a few words about the Bank of France, from which the Kellers were allowed to borrow.

"Yes," said Adolphe Keller; "but the Bank would never discount paper which a private bank refused."

"The Bank of France," said Birotteau, "has always seemed to me to miss its vocation when it congratulates itself, as it does in presenting its reports, on never losing more than one or two hundred thousand francs through Parisian commerce: it should be the guardian and protector of Parisian commerce."

Adolphe smiled, and got up with the air and gesture of being bored.

"If the Bank were mixed up as silent partners with people who are involved in the most knavish and hazardous market in the world, it would soon have to hand in its schedule. It has, even now, immense difficulty in protecting itself against forgeries and false circulations of all kinds. Where would it be if it had to take account of the business of every one who wanted to get something out of it?"

* * * * *


"Where shall I find ten thousand francs for to-morrow, the THIRTIETH?" cried Birotteau, as he crossed the courtyard.

According to Parisian custom, notes were paid on the thirtieth, if the thirty-first was a holiday.

As Cesar reached the outer gate, his eyes bathed in tears, he scarcely saw a fine English horse, covered with sweat, which drew the handsomest cabriolet that rolled in those days along the pavements of Paris, and which was now pulled up suddenly beside him. He would gladly have been run over and crushed by it; if he died by accident, the confusion of his affairs would be laid to that circumstance. He did not recognize