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

the remedy was heroic, but he had now come to feel the bitterest animosity against Thuillier, so that he was well pleased to see this new tax levied on his self-important inexperience and pompous silliness.

As for Thuillier, the mania for posing as a publicist and getting himself talked about so possessed him that although he moaned over this fresh bleeding of his purse, he had decided on the sacrifice before he even spoke to la Peyrade. The reserved and conditional approval of the latter was, therefore, more than enough to settle his determination, and the same evening he returned to Barbet junior and asked for the list of guests whom he ought to invite.

Barbet gaily produced his little catalogue. Instead of the ten guests originally mentioned, there proved to be fifteen, not counting himself or la Peyrade, whom Thuillier wanted to second him in this encounter with a set of men among whom he himself felt he should be a little out of place. Casting his eyes over the list, he exclaimed, vehemently:--

"Heavens! my dear fellow, here are names of papers nobody ever heard of. Where's the 'Moralisateur,' the 'Lanterne de Diogene,' the 'Pelican,' the 'Echo de la Bievre'?"

"You'd better be careful how you scorn the 'Echo de la Bievre,'" said Barbet; "why, that's the paper of the 12th arrondissement, from which you expect to be elected; its patrons are those big tanners of the Mouffetard quarter!"

"Well, let that go--but the 'Pelican'?"

"The 'Pelican'? that's a paper you'll find in every dentist's waiting-room; dentists are the first _puffists_ in the world! How many teeth do you suppose are daily pulled in Paris?"

"Come, come, nonsense," said Thuillier, who proceeded to mark out certain names, reducing the whole number present to fourteen.

"If one falls off we shall be thirteen," remarked Barbet.

"Pooh!" said Thuillier, the free-thinker, "do you suppose I give in to that superstition?"

The list being finally closed and settled at fourteen, Thuillier seated himself at the publisher's desk and wrote the invitations, naming, in view of the urgency of the purpose, the next day but one for the meeting, Barbet having assured him that no journalist would object to the shortness of the invitation. The meeting was appointed at Vefour's, the restaurant par excellence of the bourgeoisie and all provincials.

Barbet arrived on the day named before Thuillier, who appeared in a cravat which alone was enough to create a stir in the satirical circle in which he was about to produce himself. The publisher, on his own authority, had changed various articles on the bill of fare as selected by his patron, more especially directing that the champagne, ordered in true bourgeois fashion to be served with the dessert, should be placed on the table at the beginning of breakfast, with several dishes of shrimps, a necessity which had not occurred to the amphitryon.

Thuillier, who gave a lip-approval to these amendments, was followed by la Peyrade; and then came a long delay in the arrival of the guests. Breakfast was ordered at eleven o'clock; at a quarter to twelve not a journalist had appeared. Barbet, who was never at a loss, made the consoling remark that breakfasts at restaurants were like funerals, where, as every one knew, eleven o'clock meant mid-day.

Sure enough, shortly before that hour, two gentlemen, with pointed beards, exhaling a strong odor of tobacco, made their appearance. Thuillier thanked them effusively for the "honor" they had done him; after which came another long period of waiting, of which we shall not relate the tortures. At one o'clock the assembled contingent comprised five of the invited guests, Barbet and la Peyrade not included. It is scarcely necessary to say that none of the self-respecting journalists of the better papers had taken any notice of the absurd invitation.

Breakfast now had to be served to this reduced number. A few polite phrases that reached Thuillier's ears about the "immense" interest of his publication, failed to blind him to the bitterness of his discomfiture; and without the gaiety of the publisher, who had taken in hand the reins his patron, gloomy as Hippolytus on the road to Mycenae, let fall, nothing could have surpassed the glum and glacial coldness of the meeting.

After the oysters were removed, the champagne and chablis which had washed them down had begun, nevertheless, to raise the thermometer, when, rushing into the room where the banquet was taking place, a young man in a cap conveyed to Thuillier a most unexpected and crushing blow.

"Master," said the new-comer to Barbet (he was a clerk in the bookseller's shop), "we are done for! The police have made a raid upon us; a commissary and two men have come to seize monsieur's pamphlet. Here's a paper they have given me for you."

"Look at that," said Barbet, handing the document to la Peyrade, his customary assurance beginning to forsake him.

"A summons to appear at once before the court of assizes," said la Peyrade, after reading a few lines of the sheriff's scrawl.

Thuillier had turned as pale as death.

"Didn't you fulfil all the necessary formalities?" he said to Barbet, in a choking voice.

"This is not a matter of formalities," said la Peyrade, "it is a seizure for what is called press misdemeanor, exciting contempt and hatred of the government; you probably have the same sort of compliment awaiting you at home, my poor Thuillier."

"Then it is treachery!" cried Thuillier, losing his head completely.

"Hang it, my dear fellow! you know very well what you put in your pamphlet; for my part, I don't see anything worth whipping a cat for."

"There's some misunderstanding," said Barbet, recovering courage; "it will all be explained, and the result will be a fine cause of complaint--won't it, messieurs?"

"Waiter, pens and ink!" cried one of the journalists thus appealed to.

"Nonsense! you'll have time to write your article later," said another of the brotherhood; "what has a bombshell to do with this 'filet saute'?"

That, of course, was a parody on the famous speech of Charles XII., King of Sweden, when a shot interrupted him while dictating to a secretary.

"Messieurs," said Thuillier, rising, "I am sure you will excuse me for leaving you. If, as Monsieur Barbet thinks, there is some misunderstanding, it ought to be explained at once; I must therefore, with your permission, go to the police court. La Peyrade," he added in a significant tone, "you will not refuse, I presume, to accompany me. And you, my dear publisher, you would do well to come too."

"No, faith!" said Barbet, "when I breakfast, I breakfast; if the police have committed a blunder, so much the worse for them."

"But suppose the matter is serious?" cried Thuillier, in great agitation.

"Well, I should say, what is perfectly true, that I had never read a line of your pamphlet. One thing is very annoying; those damned juries hate beards, and I must cut off mine if I'm compelled to appear in court."

"Come, my dear amphitryon, sit down again," said the editor of the "Echo de la Bievre," "we'll stand by you; I've already written an article in my head which will stir up all the tanners in Paris; and, let me tell you, that honorable corporation is a power."

"No, monsieur," replied Thuillier, "no; a man like me cannot rest an hour under such an accusation as this. Continue your breakfast without us; I hope soon to see you again. La Peyrade, are you coming?"

"He's charming, isn't he?" said Barbet, when Thuillier and his counsel had left the room. "To ask me to leave a breakfast after the oysters, and go and talk with the police! Come, messieurs, close up the ranks," he added, gaily.

"Tiens!" said one of the hungry journalists, who had cast his eyes into the garden of the Palais-Royal, on which the dining-room of the restaurant opened, "there's Barbanchu going by; suppose I call him in?"

"Yes, certainly," said Barbet junior, "have him up."

"Barbanchu! Barbanchu!" called out the journalist.

Barbanchu, his hat being over his eyes, was some time in discovering the cloud above him whence the voice proceeded.

"Here, up here!" called the voice, which seemed to Barbanchu celestial when he saw himself hailed by a man with a glass of champagne in his hand. Then, as he seemed to hesitate, the party above called out in chorus:--

"Come up! come up! _There's fat to be had_!"

When Thuillier left the office of the public prosecutor he could no longer have any illusions. The case against him was serious, and the stern manner in which he had been received made him see that when the trial came up he would be treated without mercy. Then, as always happens among accomplices after the non-success of an affair they have done in common, he turned upon la Peyrade in the sharpest manner: La Peyrade had paid no attention to what he wrote; he had given full swing to his stupid Saint-Simonian ideas; _he_ didn't care for the consequences; it was not _he_ who would have to pay the fine and go to prison! Then, when la Peyrade answered that the matter did not look to him serious, and he expected to get a verdict of acquittal without difficulty, Thuillier burst forth upon him, vehemently:--

"Parbleu! the thing is plain enough; monsieur sees nothing in it? Well, I shall not put my honor and my fortune into the hands of a little upstart like yourself; I shall take some great lawyer if the case comes to trial. I've had enough of your collaboration by this time."

Under the injustice of these remarks la Peyrade felt his anger rising. However, he saw himself disarmed, and not wishing to come to an open rupture, he parted from Thuillier, saying that he forgave a man excited by fear, and would go to see him later in the afternoon, when he would probably be calmer; they could then decide on what steps they had better take.

Accordingly, about four o'clock, the Provencal arrived at the house in the Place de la Madeleine. Thuillier's irritation was quieted, but frightful consternation had taken its place. If the executioner were coming in half an hour to lead him to the scaffold he could not have been more utterly unstrung and woe-begone. When la Peyrade entered Madame Thuillier was trying to make him take an infusion of linden-leaves. The poor woman had come out of her usual apathy, and proved herself, beside the present Sabinus, another Eponina.

As for Brigitte, who presently appeared, bearing a foot-bath, she had no mercy or restraint towards Theodose; her sharp and bitter reproaches, which were out of all proportion to the fault, even supposing him to have committed one would have driven a man of the most placid temperament beside himself. La Peyrade felt that all was lost to him in the Thuillier household, where they now seemed to seize with joy the occasion to break their word to him and to give free rein to revolting ingratitude. On an ironical allusion by Brigitte to the manner in which he decorated his friends, la Peyrade rose and took leave, without any effort being made to retain him.

After walking about the streets for awhile, la Peyrade, in the midst of his indignation, turned to thoughts of Madame de Godollo, whose image, to tell the truth, had been much in his mind since their former interview.


CHAPTER VI. 'TWAS THUS THEY BADE ADIEU

Not only once when the countess met the barrister at the Thuilliers had she left the room; but the same