The Two Brothers - Honoré de Balzac (best fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

me, for I give you my word of honor that I will stay quietly in this office till you are convinced of my innocence."

These sensible words, said without the least hesitation, and with the ease of a man who is perfectly sure of his facts, made some impression on the magistrates.

"Yes, we must find all these persons and summon them," said Monsieur Mouilleron; "but it is more than the affair of a day. Make up your mind, therefore, in your own interests, to be imprisoned in the Palais."

"Provided I can write to my mother, so as to reassure her, poor woman--oh! you can read the letter," he added.

This request was too just not to be granted, and Joseph wrote the following letter:--

"Do not be uneasy, dear mother; the mistake of which I am a victim
can easily be rectified; I have already given them the means of
doing so. To-morrow, or perhaps this evening, I shall be at
liberty. I kiss you, and beg you to say to Monsieur and Madame
Hochon how grieved I am at this affair; in which, however, I have
had no hand,--it is the result of some chance which, as yet, I do
not understand."

When the note reached Madame Bridau, she was suffering from a nervous attack, and the potions which Monsieur Goddet was trying to make her swallow were powerless to soothe her. The reading of the letter acted like balm; after a few quiverings, Agathe subsided into the depression which always follows such attacks. Later, when Monsieur Goddet returned to his patient he found her regretting that she had ever quitted Paris.

"Well," said Madame Hochon to Monsieur Goddet, "how is Monsieur Gilet?"

"His wound, though serious, is not mortal," replied the doctor. "With a month's nursing he will be all right. I left him writing to Monsieur Mouilleron to request him to set your son at liberty, madame," he added, turning to Agathe. "Oh! Max is a fine fellow. I told him what a state you were in, and he then remembered a circumstance which goes to prove that the assassin was not your son; the man wore list shoes, whereas it is certain that Monsieur Joseph left the house in his boots--"

"Ah! God forgive him the harm he has done me--"

The fact was, a man had left a note for Max, after dark, written in type-letters, which ran as follows:--

"Captain Gilet ought not to let an innocent man suffer. He who
struck the blow promises not to strike again if Monsieur Gilet
will have Monsieur Joseph Bridau set at liberty, without naming
the man who did it."

After reading this letter and burning it, Max wrote to Monsieur Mouilleron stating the circumstance of the list shoes, as reported by Monsieur Goddet, begging him to set Joseph at liberty, and to come and see him that he might explain the matter more at length.

By the time this letter was received, Monsieur Lousteau-Prangin had verified, by the testimony of the bell-ringer, the market-women and washerwomen, and the miller's men, the truth of Joseph's explanation. Max's letter made his innocence only the more certain, and Monsieur Mouilleron himself escorted him back to the Hochons'. Joseph was greeted with such overflowing tenderness by his mother that the poor misunderstood son gave thanks to ill-luck--like the husband to the thief, in La Fontaine's fable--for a mishap which brought him such proofs of affection.

"Oh," said Monsieur Mouilleron, with a self-satisfied air, "I knew at once by the way you looked at the angry crowd that you were innocent; but whatever I may have thought, any one who knows Issoudun must also know that the only way to protect you was to make the arrest as we did. Ah! you carried your head high."

"I was thinking of something else," said the artist simply. "An officer in the army told me that he was once stopped in Dalmatia under similar circumstances by an excited populace, in the early morning as he was returning from a walk. This recollection came into my mind, and I looked at all those heads with the idea of painting a revolt of the year 1793. Besides, I kept saying to myself: Blackguard that I am! I have only got my deserts for coming here to look after an inheritance, instead of painting in my studio."

"If you will allow me to offer you a piece of advice," said the procureur du roi, "you will take a carriage to-night, which the postmaster will lend you, and return to Paris by the diligence from Bourges."

"That is my advice also," said Monsieur Hochon, who was burning with a desire for the departure of his guests.

"My most earnest wish is to get away from Issoudun, though I leave my only friend here," said Agathe, kissing Madame Hochon's hand. "When shall I see you again?"

"Ah! my dear, never until we meet above. We have suffered enough here below," she added in a low voice, "for God to take pity upon us."

Shortly after, while Monsieur Mouilleron had gone across the way to talk with Max, Gritte greatly astonished Monsieur and Madame Hochon, Agathe, Joseph, and Adolphine by announcing the visit of Monsieur Rouget. Jean-Jacques came to bid his sister good-by, and to offer her his caleche for the drive to Bourges.

"Ah! your pictures have been a great evil to us," said Agathe.

"Keep them, my sister," said the old man, who did not even now believe in their value.

"Neighbor," remarked Monsieur Hochon, "our best friends, our surest defenders, are our own relations; above all, when they are such as your sister Agathe, and your nephew Joseph."

"Perhaps so," said old Rouget in his dull way.

"We ought all to think of ending our days in a Christian manner," said Madame Hochon.

"Ah! Jean-Jacques," said Agathe, "what a day this has been!"

"Will you accept my carriage?" asked Rouget.

"No, brother," answered Madame Bridau, "I thank you, and wish you health and comfort."

Rouget let his sister and nephew kiss him, and then he went away without manifesting any feeling himself. Baruch, at a hint from his grandfather, had been to see the postmaster. At eleven o'clock that night, the two Parisians, ensconced in a wicker cabriolet drawn by one horse and ridden by a postilion, quitted Issoudun. Adolphine and Madame Hochon parted from them with tears in their eyes; they alone regretted Joseph and Agathe.

"They are gone!" said Francois Hochon, going, with the Rabouilleuse, into Max's bedroom.

"Well done! the trick succeeded," answered Max, who was now tired and feverish.

"But what did you say to old Mouilleron?" asked Francois.

"I told him that I had given my assassin some cause to waylay me; that he was a dangerous man and likely, if I followed up the affair, to kill me like a dog before he could be captured. Consequently, I begged Mouilleron and Prangin to make the most active search ostensibly, but really to let the assassin go in peace, unless they wished to see me a dead man."

"I do hope, Max," said Flore, "that you will be quiet at night for some time to come."

"At any rate, we are delivered from the Parisians!" cried Max. "The fellow who stabbed me had no idea what a service he was doing us."

The next day, the departure of the Parisians was celebrated as a victory of the provinces over Paris by every one in Issoudun, except the more sober and staid inhabitants, who shared the opinions of Monsieur and Madame Hochon. A few of Max's friends spoke very harshly of the Bridaus.

"Do those Parisians fancy we are all idiots," cried one, "and think they have only got to hold their hats and catch legacies?"

"They came to fleece, but they have got shorn themselves," said another; "the nephew is not to the uncle's taste."

"And, if you please, they actually consulted a lawyer in Paris--"

"Ah! had they really a plan?"

"Why, of course,--a plan to get possession of old Rouget. But the Parisians were not clever enough; that lawyer can't crow over us Berrichons!"

"How abominable!"

"That's Paris for you!"

"The Rabouilleuse knew they came to attack her, and she defended herself."

"She did gloriously right!"

To the townspeople at large the Bridaus were Parisians and foreigners; they preferred Max and Flore.

We can imagine the satisfaction with which, after this campaign, Joseph and Agathe re-entered their little lodging in the rue Mazarin. On the journey, the artist recovered his spirits, which had, not unnaturally, been put to flight by his arrest and twenty-four hours' confinement; but he could not cheer up his mother. The Court of Peers was about to begin the trial of the military conspirators, and that was sufficient to keep Agathe from recovering her peace of mind. Philippe's conduct, in spite of the clever defender whom Desroches recommended to him, roused suspicions that were unfavorable to his character. In view of this, Joseph, as soon as he had put Desroches in possession of all that was going on at Issoudun, started with Mistigris for the chateau of the Comte de Serizy, to escape hearing about the trial of the conspirators, which lasted for twenty days.

It is useless to record facts that may be found in contemporaneous histories. Whether it were that he played a part previously agreed upon, or that he was really an informer, Philippe was condemned to five years' surveillance by the police department, and ordered to leave Paris the same day for Autun, the town which the director-general of police selected as the place of his exile for five years. This punishment resembled the detention of prisoners on parole who have a town for a prison. Learning that the Comte de Serizy, one of the peers appointed by the Chamber on the court-martial, was employing Joseph to decorate his chateau at Presles, Desroches begged the minister to grant him an audience, and found Monsieur de Serizy most amiably disposed toward Joseph, with whom he had happened to make personal acquaintance. Desroches explained the financial condition of the two brothers, recalling the services of the father, and the neglect shown to them under the Restoration.

"Such injustice, monseigneur," said the lawyer, "is a lasting cause of irritation and discontent. You knew the father; give the sons a chance, at least, of making a fortune--"

And he drew a succinct picture of the situation of the family affairs at Issoudun, begging the all-powerful vice-president of the Council of State to take steps to induce the director-general of police to change Philippe's place of residence from Autun to Issoudun. He also spoke of Philippe's extreme poverty, and asked a dole of sixty francs a month, which the minister of war ought, he said, for mere shame's sake, to grant to a former lieutenant-colonel.

"I will obtain all you ask of me, for I think it just," replied the count.

Three days later, Desroches, furnished with the necessary authority, fetched Philippe from the prison of the Court of Peers, and took him to his own house, rue de Bethizy. Once there, the young barrister read the miserable vagabond one of those unanswerable lectures in which lawyers rate things at their actual value; using plain terms to qualify the conduct, and to analyze and reduce to their simplest meaning the sentiments and ideas of clients toward whom they feel enough interest to speak plainly.