* * * * *

One of the cruellest scenes of Cesar's life was his forced conference with little Molineux,—the being he had once regarded as a nonentity, who now by a fiction of law had become Cesar Birotteau. He was compelled to go to the Cour Batave, to mount the six flights, and re-enter the miserable appartement of the old man, now his custodian, his quasi judge,—the representative of his creditors. Pillerault accompanied him.

"What is the matter?" said the old man, as Cesar gave vent to an exclamation.

"Ah, uncle! you do not know the sort of man this Molineux is!"

"I have seen him from time to time for fifteen years past at the cafe David, where he plays dominoes. That is why I have come with you."

Monsieur Molineux showed the utmost politeness to Pillerault, and much disdainful condescension to the bankrupt; he had thought over his part, studied the shades of his demeanor, and prepared his ideas.

"What information is it that you need?" asked Pillerault. "There is no dispute as to the claims."

"Oh," said little Molineux, "the claims are in order,—they have been examined. The creditors are all serious and legitimate. But the law, monsieur,—the law! The expenditures of the bankrupt have been disproportional to his fortune. It appears that the ball—"

"At which you were present," interrupted Pillerault.

"—cost nearly sixty thousand francs, and at that time the assets of the insolvent amounted to not more than one hundred and a few thousand francs. There is cause to arraign the bankrupt on a charge of wilful bankruptcy."

"Is that your intention?" said Pillerault, noticing the despondency into which these words had cast Birotteau.

"Monsieur, I make a distinction; the Sieur Birotteau was a member of the municipality—"

"You have not sent for us, I presume, to explain that we are to be brought into a criminal police court?" said Pillerault. "The cafe David would laugh finely at your conduct this evening."

The opinion of the cafe David seemed to frighten the old man, who looked at Pillerault with a startled air. He had counted on meeting Birotteau alone, intending to pose as the sovereign arbiter of his fate,—a legal Jupiter. He meant to frighten him with the thunder-bolt of an accusation, to brandish the axe of a criminal charge over his head, enjoy his fears and his terrors, and then allow himself to be touched and softened, and persuaded at last to restore his victim to a life of perpetual gratitude. Instead of his insect, he had got hold of an old commercial sphinx.

"Monsieur," he replied, "I see nothing to laugh at."

"Excuse me," said Pillerault. "You have negotiated largely with Monsieur Claparon; you have neglected the interests of the main body of the creditors, so as to make sure that certain claims shall have a preference. Now I can as one of the creditors interfere. The commissioner is to be taken into account."

"Monsieur," said Molineux, "I am incorruptible."

"I am aware of it," said Pillerault. "You have only taken your iron out of the fire, as they say. You are keen; you are acting just as you do with your tenants—"

"Oh, monsieur!" said the assignee, suddenly dropping into the landlord,—just as the cat metamorphosed into a woman ran after a mouse when she caught sight of it,—"my affair of the Rue Montorgeuil is not yet settled. What they call an impediment has arisen. The tenant is the chief tenant. This conspirator declares that as he has paid a year in advance, and having only one more year to"—here Pillerault gave Cesar a look which advised him to pay strict attention—"and, the year being paid for, that he has the right to take away his furniture. I shall sue him! I must hold on to my securities to the last; he may owe something for repairs before the year is out."

"But," said Pillerault, "the law only allows you to take furniture as security for the rent—"

"And its accessories!" cried Molineux, assailed in his trenches. "That article in the Code has been interpreted by various judgments rendered in the matter: however, there ought to be legislative rectification to it. At this very moment I am elaborating a memorial to his Highness, the Keeper of the Seals, relating to this flaw in our statutes. It is desirable that the government should maintain the interests of landlords. That is the chief question in statecraft. We are the tap-root of taxation."

"You are well fitted to enlighten the government," said Pillerault; "but in what way can we enlighten you—about our affairs?"

"I wish to know," said Molineux, with pompous authority, "if Monsieur Birotteau has received moneys from Monsieur Popinot."

"No, monsieur," said Birotteau.

Then followed a discussion on Birotteau's interests in the house of Popinot, from which it appeared that Popinot had the right to have all his advances paid in full, and that he was not involved in the failure to the amount of half the costs of his establishment, due to him by Birotteau. Molineux, judiciously handled by Pillerault, insensibly got back to gentler ways, which only showed how he cared for the opinion of those who frequented the cafe David. He ended by offering consolation to Birotteau, and by inviting him, as well as Pillerault, to share his humble dinner. If the ex-perfumer had gone alone, he would probably have irritated Molineux, and the matter would have become envenomed. In this instance, as in others, old Pillerault was his tutelary angel.

Commercial law imposes a horrible torture upon the bankrupt; he is compelled to appear in person at the meeting of his creditors, when they decide upon his future fate. For a man who can hold himself above it all, or for a merchant who expects to recover himself, this ceremony is little feared. But to a man like Cesar Birotteau it was agony only to be compared to the last day of a criminal condemned to death. Pillerault did all in his power to make that terrible day endurable to his nephew.

The steps taken by Molineux, and agreed to by the bankrupt, were as follows: The suit relating to the mortgage on the property in the Faubourg du Temple having been won in the courts, the assignees decided to sell that property, and Cesar made no opposition. Du Tillet, hearing privately that the government intended to cut a canal which should lead from Saint-Denis to the upper Seine through the Faubourg du Temple, bought the property of Birotteau for seventy thousand francs. All Cesar's rights in the lands about the Madeleine were turned over to Monsieur Claparon, on condition that he on his side would abandon all claim against Birotteau for half the costs of drawing up and registering the contracts; also for all payments on the price of the lands, by receiving himself, under the failure, the dividend which was to be paid over to the sellers. The interests of the perfumer in the house of Popinot and Company were sold to the said Popinot for the sum of forty-eight thousand francs. The business of "The Queen of Roses" was bought by Celestin Crevel at fifty-seven thousand francs, with the lease, the fixtures, the merchandise, furniture, and all rights in the Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm, with twelve years' lease of the manufactories, whose various appliances were also sold to him. The assets when liquidated came to one hundred and ninety-five thousand francs, to which the assignees added seventy thousand produced by Birotteau's claims in the liquidation of the "unfortunate" Roguin. Thus the total amount made over to Cesar's creditors was two hundred and fifty-five thousand francs. The debts amounted to four hundred and forty thousand; consequently, the creditors received more than fifty per cent on their claims.

Bankruptcy is a species of chemical transmutation, from which a clever merchant tries to emerge in fresh shape. Birotteau, distilled to the last drop in this retort, gave a result which made du Tillet furious. Du Tillet looked to see a dishonorable failure; he saw an honorable one. Caring little for his own gains, though he was about to get possession of the lands around the Madeleine without ever drawing his purse-strings, he wanted to see his old master dishonored, lost, and vilified. The creditors at the general meeting would undoubtedly show the poor man that they respected him.

By degrees, as Birotteau's courage came back to him, Pillerault, like a wise doctor, informed him, by gradual doses, of the transactions resulting from his failure. These harsh tidings were like so many blows. A merchant cannot learn without a shock the depreciation of property which represents to him so much money, so much solicitude, so much labor. The facts his uncle now told him petrified the poor man.

"Fifty-seven thousand francs for 'The Queen of Roses'! Why, the shop alone cost ten thousand; the appartement cost forty thousand; the mere outlay on the manufactories, the utensils, the frames, the boilers, cost thirty thousand. Why! at fifty per cent abatement, if my creditors allow me that, there would still be ten thousand francs worth of property in the shop. Why! the Paste and the Balm are solid property,—worth as much as a farm!"

Poor Cesar's jeremiads made no impression upon Pillerault. The old merchant took them as a horse takes a down-pour; but he was alarmed by the gloomy silence Birotteau maintained when it was a question of the meeting. Those who comprehend the vanities and weaknesses which in all social spheres beset mankind, will know what a martyrdom it was for this poor man to enter as a bankrupt the commercial tribunal of justice where he once sat as judge; to meet affronts where so often he had been thanked for services rendered,—he, Birotteau, whose inflexible opinions about bankruptcy were so well known; he who had said, "A man may be honest till he fails, but he comes out of a meeting of his creditors a swindler." Pillerault watched for the right moment to familiarize Cesar's mind with the thought of appearing before his creditors as the law demands. The thought killed him. His mute grief and resignation made a deep impression on his uncle, who often heard him at night, through the partition, crying out to himself, "Never! never! I will die sooner."

Pillerault, a strong man,—strong through the simplicity of his life,—was able to understand weakness. He resolved to spare Cesar the anguish of appearing before his creditors,—a terrible scene which the law renders inevitable, and to which, indeed, he might succumb. On this point the law is precise, formal, and not to be evaded. The merchant who refused to appear would, for that act alone, be brought before the criminal police courts. But though the law compels the bankrupt to appear, it has no power to oblige the creditor to do so. A meeting of creditors is a ceremony of no real importance except in special cases,—when, for instance, a swindler is to be dispossessed and a coalition among the creditors agreed upon, when there is difference of opinion between the privileged creditors and the unsecured creditors, or when the concordat is specially dishonest, and the bankrupt is in need of a deceptive majority. But in the case of a failure when all has been given up, the meeting is a mere formality. Pillerault went to each creditor, one after the other, and asked him to give his proxy to his attorney. Every creditor, except du Tillet, sincerely pitied Cesar, after striking him down. Each knew that his conduct was scrupulously honest, that his books were regular, and his business as clear as the day. All were pleased to find no "gay and illegitimate creditor" among them. Molineux, first the agent and then the provisional assignee, had found in Cesar's house everything the poor man owned, even the engraving of Hero and Leander which Popinot had given him, his personal trinkets, his breast-pin, his gold buckles, his two watches,—things which an honest man might have taken without thinking himself less than honest. Constance had left her modest jewel-case. This touching obedience to the law struck the commercial mind keenly. Birotteau's enemies called it foolishness; but men of sense held it up to its true light as a magnificent supererogation of integrity. In two months the opinion of the Bourse had changed; every one, even those who were most indifferent, admitted this failure to be a rare commercial wonder, seldom seen in the markets of Paris. Thus the creditors, knowing that they were secure of nearly sixty per cent of their claims, were very ready to do what Pillerault asked of them. The solicitors of the commercial courts are few in number; it therefore happened that several creditors employed the same man, giving him their proxies. Pillerault finally succeeded in reducing the formidable assemblage to three solicitors, himself, Ragon, the two assignees, and the commissioner.

Early in the morning of the solemn day, Pillerault said to his nephew,—

"Cesar, you can go to your meeting to-day without fear; nobody will be there."

Monsieur Ragon wished to accompany his debtor. When the former master of "The Queen of Roses" first made known the wish in his little dry voice, his ex-successor turned pale; but the good old man opened his arms, and Birotteau threw himself into them as a child into the arms of its father, and the two perfumers mingled their tears. The bankrupt gathered courage as he felt the indulgences shown to him, and he got into the coach with his uncle and Ragon. Precisely at half past ten o'clock the three reached the cloister Saint-Merri, where the Court of Commerce was then held. At that hour there was no one in the Hall of Bankruptcy. The day and the hour had been chosen by agreement with the judge and the assignees. The three solicitors were already there on behalf of their clients. There was nothing, therefore, to distress or intimidate Cesar Birotteau; yet the poor man could not enter the office of Monsieur Camusot—which chanced to be the one he had formerly occupied—without deep emotion, and he shuddered as he passed through the Hall of Bankruptcy.

"It is cold," said Monsieur Camusot to Birotteau. "I am sure these gentlemen will not be sorry to stay here, instead of our going to freeze in the Hall." He did not say the word "Bankruptcy." "Gentlemen, be seated."

Each took his seat, and the judge gave his own armchair to Birotteau, who was bewildered. The solicitors and the assignees signed the papers.

"In consideration of the surrender of your entire property," said Camusot to Birotteau, "your creditors unanimously agree to relinquish the rest of their claims. Your certificate is couched in terms which may well soften your pain; your solicitor will see that it is promptly recorded; you are now free. All the judges of this court, dear Monsieur Birotteau," said Camusot, taking him by the hand, "feel for your position, and are not surprised at your courage; none have failed to do justice to your integrity. In the midst of a great misfortune you have been worthy of what you once were here. I have been in business for twenty years, and this is only the second time that I have seen a fallen merchant gaining, instead of losing, public respect."

Birotteau took the hands of the judge and wrung them, with tears in his eyes. Camusot asked him what he now meant to do. Birotteau replied that he should work till he had paid his creditors in full to the last penny.

"If to accomplish that noble task you should ever want a few thousand francs, you will always find them with me," said Camusot. "I would give them with a great deal of pleasure to witness a deed so rare in Paris."

Pillerault, Ragon, and Birotteau retired.

"Well! that wasn't the ocean to drink," said Pillerault, as they left the court-room.

"I recognize your hand in it," said the poor man, much affected.

"Now, here you are, free, and we are only a few steps from the Rue des Cinq-Diamants; come and see my nephew," said Ragon.

A cruel pang shot through Cesar's heart when he saw Constance sitting in a little office in the damp, dark entresol above the shop, whose single window was one third darkened by a sign which intercepted the daylight and bore the name,—A. POPINOT.

"Behold a lieutenant of Alexander," said Cesar, with the gaiety of grief, pointing to the sign.

This forced gaiety, through which an inextinguishable sense of the superiority which Birotteau attributed to himself was naively revealed, made Ragon shudder in spite of his seventy years. Cesar saw his wife passing down letters and papers for Popinot to sign; he could neither restrain his tears nor keep his face from turning pale.

"Good-morning, my friend," she said to him, smiling.

"I do not ask if you are comfortable here," said Cesar, looking at Popinot.

"As if I were living with my own son," she answered, with a tender manner that struck her husband.

Birotteau took Popinot and kissed him, saying,—

"I have lost the right, forever, of calling him my son."

"Let us hope!" said Popinot. "Your oil succeeds—thanks to my advertisements in the newspapers, and to Gaudissart, who has travelled over the whole of France; he has inundated the country with placards and prospectuses; he is now at Strasburg getting the prospectuses printed in the German language, and he is about to descend, like an invasion, upon Germany itself. We have received orders for three thousand gross."

"Three thousand gross!" exclaimed Cesar.

"And I have bought a piece of land in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau,—not dear,—where I am building a manufactory."

"Wife," whispered Cesar to Constance, "with a little help we might have pulled through."

* * * * *

After that fatal day Cesar, his wife, and daughter understood each other. The poor clerk resolved to attain an end which, if not impossible, was at least gigantic in its enterprise,—namely, the payment of his debts to their last penny. These three beings,—father, mother, daughter,—bound together by the tie of a passionate integrity, became misers, denying themselves everything; a farthing was sacred in their eyes. Out of sheer calculation Cesarine threw herself into her business with the devotion of a young girl. She sat up at night, taxing her ingenuity to find ways of increasing the prosperity of the establishment, and displaying an innate commercial talent. The masters of the house were obliged to check her ardor for work; they rewarded her by presents, but she refused all articles of dress and the jewels which they offered her. Money! money! was her cry. Every month she carried her salary and her little earnings to her uncle Pillerault. Cesar did the same; so did Madame Birotteau. All three, feeling themselves incapable, dared not take upon themselves the responsibility of managing their money, and they made over to Pillerault the whole business of investing their savings. Returning thus to business, the latter made the most of these funds by negotiations at the Bourse. It was known afterwards that he had been helped in this work by Jules Desmarets and Joseph Lebas, both of whom were eager to point out opportunities which Pillerault might take without risk.

Cesar, though he lived with his uncle, never ventured to question him as to what was done with the money acquired by his labor and that of his wife and daughter. He walked the streets with a bowed head, hiding from every eye his stricken, dull, distraught face. He felt, with self-reproach, that the cloth he wore was too good for him.

"At least," he said to Pillerault, with a look that was angelic, "I do not eat the bread of my creditors. Your bread is sweet to me, though it is your pity that gives it; thanks to your sacred charity, I do not steal a farthing of my salary!"

The merchants, his old associates, who met the clerk could see no vestige of the perfumer. Even careless minds gained an idea of the immensity of human disaster from the aspect of this man, on whose face sorrow had cast its black pall, who revealed the havoc caused by that which had never before appeared in him,—by thought! N'est pas detruit qui veut. Light-minded people, devoid of conscience, to whom all things are indifferent, can never present such a spectacle of disaster. Religion alone sets a special seal upon fallen human beings; they believe in a future, in a divine Providence; from within them gleams a light that marks them, a look of saintly resignation mingled with hope, which lends them a certain tender emotion; they realize all that they have lost, like the exiled angel weeping at the gates of heaven. Bankrupts are forbidden to enter the Bourse. Cesar, driven from the regions of integrity, was like an angel sighing for pardon. For fourteen months he lived on, full of religious thoughts with which his fall inspired him, and denying himself every pleasure. Though sure of the Ragons' friendship, nothing could induce him to dine with them, nor with the Lebas, nor the Matifats, nor the Protez and Chiffrevilles, not even with Monsieur Vauquelin; all of whom were eager to do honor to his rare virtue. Cesar preferred to be alone in his room rather than meet the eye of a creditor. The warmest greetings of his friends reminded him the more bitterly of his position. Constance and Cesarine went nowhere. On Sundays and fete days, the only days when they were at liberty, the two women went to fetch Cesar at the hour for Mass, and they stayed with him at Pillerault's after their religious duties were accomplished. Pillerault often invited the Abbe Loraux, whose words sustained Cesar in this life of trial. And in this way their lives were spent. The old ironmonger had too tough a fibre of integrity not to approve of Cesar's sensitive honor. His mind, however, turned on increasing the number of persons among whom the poor bankrupt might show himself with an open brow, and an eye that could meet the eyes of his fellows.



VII

In the month of May, 1821, this family, ever grappling with adversity, received a first reward for its efforts at a little fete which Pillerault, the arbiter of its destinies, prepared for it. The last Sunday of that month was the anniversary of the day on which Constance had consented to marry Cesar. Pillerault, in concert with the Ragons, hired a little country-house at Sceaux, and the worthy old ironmonger silently prepared a joyous house-warming.

"Cesar," said Pillerault, on the Saturday evening, "to-morrow we are all going into the country, and you must come."

Cesar, who wrote a superb hand, spent his evenings in copying for Derville and other lawyers. On Sundays, justified by ecclesiastical permission, he worked like a Negro.

"No," he said, "Monsieur Derville is waiting for a guardianship account."

"Your wife and daughter ought to have some reward. You will meet none but our particular friends,—the Abbe Loraux, the Ragons, Popinot, and his uncle. Besides, I wish it."

Cesar and his wife, carried along by the whirlwind of business, had never revisited Sceaux, though from time to time each longed to see once more the tree under which the head-clerk of "The Queen of Roses" had fainted with joy. During the trip, which Cesar made in a hackney-coach with his wife and daughter, and Popinot who escorted them, Constance cast many meaning glances at her husband without bringing to his lips a single smile. She whispered a few words in his ear; for all answer he shook his head. The soft signs of her tenderness, ever-present yet at the moment forced, instead of brightening Cesar's face made it more sombre, and brought the long-repressed tears into his eyes. Poor man! he had gone over this road twenty years before, young, prosperous, full of hope, the lover of a girl as beautiful as their own Cesarine; he was dreaming then of happiness. To-day, in the coach before him, sat his noble child pale and worn by vigils, and his brave wife, whose only beauty now was that of cities through whose streets have flowed the lava waves of a volcano. Love alone remained to him! Cesar's sadness smothered the joy that welled up in the hearts of Cesarine and Anselme, who embodied to his eyes the charming scene of other days.

"Be happy, my children! you have earned the right," said the poor father in heart-rending tones. "You may love without one bitter thought."

As he said these words he took his wife's hands and kissed them with a sacred and admiring effect which touched Constance more than the brightest gaiety. When they reached the house where Pillerault, the Ragons, the Abbe Loraux, and Popinot the judge were waiting for them, these five choice people assumed an air and manner and speech which put Cesar at his ease; for all were deeply moved to see him still on the morrow of his great disaster.

"Go and take a walk in the Aulnay woods," said Pillerault, putting Cesar's hand into that of Constance; "go with Anselme and Cesarine! but come back by four o'clock."

"Poor souls, we should be a restraint upon them," said Madame Ragon, touched by the deep grief of her debtor. "He will be very happy presently."

"It is repentance without sin," said the Abbe Loraux.

"He could rise to greatness only through adversity," said the judge.

To forget is the great secret of strong, creative natures,—to forget, in the way of Nature herself, who knows no past, who begins afresh, at every hour, the mysteries of her untiring travail.

Feeble existences, like that of Birotteau, live sunk in sorrows, instead of transmuting them into doctrines of experience: they let them saturate their being, and are worn-out, finally, by falling more and more under the weight of past misfortunes.

When the two couples reached the path which leads to the woods of Aulnay, placed like a crown upon the prettiest hillside in the neighborhood of Paris, and from which the Vallee-aux-Loups is seen in all its coquetry, the beauty of the day, the charm of the landscape, the first spring verdure, the delicious memory of the happiest day of all his youth, loosened the tight chords in Cesar's soul; he pressed the arm of his wife against his beating heart; his eye was no longer glassy, for the light of pleasure once more brightened in it.

"At last," said Constance to her husband, "I see you again, my poor Cesar. I think we have all behaved well enough to allow ourselves a little pleasure now and then."

"Ought I?" said the poor man. "Ah! Constance, thy affection is all that remains to me. Yes, I have lost even my old self-confidence; I have no strength left; my only desire is that I may live to die discharged of debt on earth. Thou, dear wife, thou who art my wisdom and my prudence, thou whose eyes saw clear, thou who art irreproachable, thou canst have pleasure. I alone—of us three—am guilty. Eighteen months ago, in the midst of that fatal ball, I saw my Constance, the only woman I have ever loved, more beautiful than the young girl I followed along this path twenty years ago—like our children yonder! In eighteen months I have blasted that beauty,—my pride, my legitimate and sanctioned pride. I love thee better since I know thee well. Oh, dear!" he said, giving to the word a tone which reached to the inmost heart of his wife, "I would rather have thee scold me, than see thee so tender to my pain."

"I did not think," she said, "that after twenty years of married life the love of a wife for her husband could deepen."

These words drove from Cesar's mind, for one brief moment, all his sorrows; his heart was so true that they were to him a fortune. He walked forward almost joyously to their tree, which by chance had not been felled. Husband and wife sat down beneath it, watching Anselme and Cesarine, who were sauntering across the grassy slope without perceiving them, thinking probably that they were still following.

"Mademoiselle," Anselme was saying, "do not think me so base and grasping as to profit by your father's share which I have acquired in the Cephalic Oil. I am keeping his share for him; I nurse it with careful love. I invest the profits; if there is any loss I put it to my own account. We can only belong to one another on the day when your father is restored to his position, free of debt. I work for that day with all the strength that love has given me."

"Will it come soon?" she said.

"Soon," said Popinot. The word was uttered in a tone so full of meaning, that the chaste and pure young girl inclined her head to her dear Anselme, who laid an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow,—so noble was her gesture and action.

"Papa, all is well," she said to Cesar with a little air of confidence. "Be good and sweet; talk to us, put away that sad look."

When this family, so tenderly bound together, re-entered the house, even Cesar, little observing as he was, saw a change in the manner of the Ragons which seemed to denote some remarkable event. The greeting of Madame Ragon was particularly impressive; her look and accent seemed to say to Cesar, "We are paid."

At the dessert, the notary of Sceaux appeared. Pillerault made him sit down, and then looked at Cesar, who began to suspect a surprise, though he was far indeed from imagining the extent of it.

"My nephew, the savings of your wife, your daughter, and yourself, for the last eighteen months, amounted to twenty thousand francs. I have received thirty thousand by the dividend on my claim. We have therefore fifty thousand francs to divide among your creditors. Monsieur Ragon has received thirty thousand francs for his dividend, and you have now paid him the balance of his claim in full, interest included, for which monsieur here, the notary of Sceaux, has brought you a receipt. The rest of the money is with Crottat, ready for Lourdois, Madame Madou, the mason, carpenter, and the other most pressing creditors. Next year, we may do as well. With time and patience we can go far."

Birotteau's joy is not to be described; he threw himself into his uncle's arms, weeping.

"May he not wear his cross?" said Ragon to the Abbe Loraux.

The confessor fastened the red ribbon to Cesar's buttonhole. The poor clerk looked at himself again and again during the evening in the mirrors of the salon, manifesting a joy at which people thinking themselves superior might have laughed, but which these good bourgeois thought quite natural.

The next day Birotteau went to find Madame Madou.

"Ah, there you are, good soul!" she cried. "I didn't recognize you, you have turned so gray. Yet you don't really drudge, you people; you've got good places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that deserves baptism."

"But, madame—"

"Never mind, I don't mean it as a reproach," she said. "You have got my receipt."

"I came to tell you that I shall pay you to-morrow, at Monsieur Crottat's, the rest of your claim in full, with interest."

"Is that true?"

"Be there at eleven o'clock."

"Hey! there's honor for you! good measure and running over!" she cried with naive admiration. "Look here, my good monsieur, I am doing a fine trade with your little red-head. He's a nice young fellow; he lets me earn a fair penny without haggling over it, so that I may get an equivalent for that loss. Well, I'll get you a receipt in full, anyhow; you keep the money, my poor old man! La Madou may get in a fury, and she does scold; but she has got something here—" she cried, thumping the most voluminous mounds of flesh ever yet seen in the markets.

"No," said Birotteau, "the law is plain. I wish to pay you in full."

"Then I won't deny you the pleasure," she said; "and to-morrow I'll trumpet your conduct through the markets. Ha! it's rare, rare!"

The worthy man had much the same scene, with variations, at Lourdois the house painter's, father-in-law of Crottat. It was raining; Cesar left his umbrella at the corner of the door. The prosperous painter, seeing the water trickling into the room where he was breakfasting with his wife, was not tender.

"Come, what do you want, my poor Pere Birotteau?" he said, in the hard tone which some people take to importunate beggars.

"Monsieur, has not your son-in-law told you—"

"What?" cried Lourdois, expecting some appeal.

"To be at his office this morning at half past eleven, and give me a receipt for the payment of your claims in full, with interest?"

"Ah, that's another thing! Sit down, Monsieur Birotteau, and eat a mouthful with us."

"Do us the pleasure to share our breakfast," said Madame Lourdois.

"You are doing well, then?" asked the fat Lourdois.

"No, monsieur, I have lived from hand to mouth, that I might scrape up this money; but I hope, in time, to repair the wrongs I have done to my neighbor."

"Ah!" said the painter, swallowing a mouthful of pate de foie gras, "you are truly a man of honor."

"What is Madame Birotteau doing?" asked Madame Lourdois.

"She is keeping the books of Monsieur Anselme Popinot."

"Poor people!" said Madame Lourdois, in a low voice to her husband.

"If you ever need me, my dear Monsieur Birotteau, come and see me," said Lourdois. "I might help—"

"I do need you—at eleven o'clock to-day, monsieur," said Birotteau, retiring.

* * * * *

This first result gave courage to the poor bankrupt, but not peace of mind. On the contrary, the thought of regaining his honor agitated his life inordinately; he completely lost the natural color of his cheeks, his eyes grew sunken and dim, and his face hollow. When old acquaintances met him, in the morning at eight o'clock or in the evening at four, as he went to and from the Rue de l'Oratoire, wearing the surtout coat he wore at the time of his fall, and which he husbanded as a poor sub-lieutenant husbands his uniform,—his hair entirely white, his face pale, his manner timid,—some few would stop him in spite of himself; for his eye was alert to avoid those he knew as he crept along beside the walls, like a thief.

"Your conduct is known, my friend," said one; "everybody regrets the sternness with which you treat yourself, also your wife and daughter."

"Take a little more time," said others; "the wounds of money do not kill."

"No, but the wounds of the soul do," the poor worn Cesar answered one day to his friend Matifat.

* * * * *

At the beginning of the year 1822, the Canal Saint-Martin was begun. Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was indifferent to Popinot, it is very certain that the lover of Cesarine felt an instinctive hatred for du Tillet. He knew nothing of the theft and the infamous scheme of the prosperous banker, but an inward voice cried to him, "The man is an unpunished rascal." Popinot would never have transacted the smallest business with him; du Tillet's very presence was odious to his feelings. Under the present circumstances it was doubly so, for the banker was now enriched through the forced spoliation of his former master; the lands about the Madeleine, as well as those in the Faubourg du Temple, were beginning to rise in price, and to foreshadow the enormous value they were to reach in 1827. So that after du Tillet had explained the object of his visit, Popinot looked at him with concentrated wrath.

"I shall not refuse to give up my lease; but I demand sixty thousand francs for it, and I shall not take one farthing less."

"Sixty thousand francs!" exclaimed du Tillet, making a movement to leave the shop.

"I have fifteen years' lease still to run; it will, moreover, cost me three thousand francs a year to get other buildings. Therefore, sixty thousand francs, or say no more about it," said Popinot, going to the back of the shop, where du Tillet followed him.

The discussion grew warm, Birotteau's name was mentioned; Madame Cesar heard it and came down, and saw du Tillet for the first time since the famous ball. The banker was unable to restrain a gesture of surprise at the change which had come over the beautiful woman; he lowered his eyes, shocked at the result of his own work.

"Monsieur," said Popinot to Madame Cesar, "is going to make three hundred thousand francs out of your land, and he refuses us sixty thousand francs' indemnity for our lease."

"That is three thousand francs a year," said du Tillet.

"Three—thousand—francs!" said Madame Cesar, slowly, in a clear, penetrating voice.

Du Tillet turned pale. Popinot looked at Madame Birotteau. There was a moment of profound silence, which made the scene still more inexplicable to Anselme.

"Sign your relinquishment of the lease, which I have made Crottat draw up," said du Tillet, drawing a stamped paper from a side-pocket. "I will give you a cheque on the Bank of France for sixty thousand francs."

Popinot looked at Madame Cesar without concealing his astonishment; he thought he was dreaming. While du Tillet was writing his cheque at a high desk, Madame Cesar disappeared and went upstairs. The druggist and the banker exchanged papers. Du Tillet bowed coldly to Popinot, and went away.

"At last, in a few months," thought Popinot, as he watched du Tillet going towards the Rue des Lombards, where his cabriolet was waiting, "thanks to this extraordinary affair, I shall have my Cesarine. My poor little wife shall not wear herself out any longer. A look from Madame Cesar was enough! What secret is there between her and that brigand? The whole thing is extraordinary."

Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went up to speak to Madame Birotteau; she was not in the counting-room, and had doubtless gone to her chamber. Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law and son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other; he therefore rushed up to Madame Cesar's appartement with the natural eagerness of a lover on the threshold of his happiness. The young man was prodigiously surprised to find her, as he sprang like a cat into the room, reading a letter from du Tillet, whose handwriting he recognized at a glance. A lighted candle, and the black and quivering phantoms of burned letters lying on the floor made him shudder, for his quick eyes caught the following words in the letter which Constance held in her hand:—

"I adore you! You know it well, angel of my life, and—"

"What power have you over du Tillet that could force him to agree to such terms?" he said with a convulsive laugh that came from repressed suspicion.

"Do not let us speak of that," she said, showing great distress.

"No," said Popinot, bewildered; "let us rather talk of the end of all your troubles." Anselme turned on his heel towards the window, and drummed with his fingers on the panes as he gazed into the court. "Well," he said to himself, "even if she did love du Tillet, is that any reason why I should not behave like an honorable man?"

"What is the matter, my child?" said the poor woman.

"The total of the net profits of Cephalic Oil mount up to two hundred and forty-two thousand francs; half of that is one hundred and twenty-one thousand," said Popinot, brusquely. "If I withdraw from that amount the forty-eight thousand francs which I paid to Monsieur Birotteau, there remains seventy-three thousand, which, joined to these sixty thousand paid for the relinquishment of the lease, gives you one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs."

Madame Cesar listened with fluctuations of joy which made her tremble so violently that Popinot could hear the beating of her heart.

"Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau as my partner," he went on; "we can use this sum to pay his creditors in full. Add the twenty-eight thousand you have saved and placed in our uncle Pillerault's hands, and we have one hundred and sixty-one thousand francs. Our uncle will not refuse his receipt for his own claim of twenty-five thousand. No human power can deprive me of the right of lending to my father-in-law, by anticipating our profits of next year, the necessary sum to make up the total amount due to his creditor, and—he—will—be—reinstated—restored—"

"Restored!" cried Madame Cesar, falling on her knees beside a chair. She joined her hands and said a prayer; as she did so, the letter slid from her fingers. "Dear Anselme," she said, crossing herself, "dear son!" She took his head in her hands, kissed him on the forehead, pressed him to her heart, and seemed for a moment beside herself. "Cesarine is thine! My daughter will be happy at last. She can leave that shop where she is killing herself—"

"For love?" said Popinot.

"Yes," answered the mother, smiling.

"Listen to a little secret," said Popinot, glancing at the fatal letter from a corner of his eye. "I helped Celestin to buy your business; but I did it on one condition,—your appartement was to be kept exactly as you left it. I had an idea in my head, though I never thought that chance would favor it so much. Celestin is bound to sub-let to you your old appartement, where he has never set foot, and where all the furniture will be yours. I have kept the second story, where I shall live with Cesarine, who shall never leave you. After our marriage I shall come and pass the days from eight in the morning till six in the evening here. I will buy out Monsieur Cesar's share in this business for a hundred thousand francs, and that will give you an income to live on. Shall you not be happy?"

"Tell me no more, Anselme, or I shall go out of my mind."

The angelic attitude of Madame Cesar, the purity of her eyes, the innocence of her candid brow, contradicted so gloriously the thoughts which surged in the lover's brain that he resolved to make an end of their monstrosities forever. Sin was incompatible with the life and sentiments of such a woman.

"My dear, adored mother," said Anselme, "in spite of myself, a horrible suspicion has entered my soul. If you wish to see me happy, you will put an end to it at once."

Popinot stretched out his hand and picked up the letter.

"Without intending it," he resumed, alarmed at the terror painted on Constance's face, "I read the first words of this letter of du Tillet. The words coincide in a singular manner with the power you have just shown in forcing that man to accept my absurd exactions; any man would explain it as the devil explains it to me, in spite of myself. Your look—three words suffice—"

"Stop!" said Madame Cesar, taking the letter and burning it. "My son, I am severely punished for a trifling error. You shall know all, Anselme. I shall not allow a suspicion inspired by her mother to injure my daughter; and besides, I can speak without blushing. What I now tell you, I could tell my husband. Du Tillet wished to seduce me; I informed my husband of it, and du Tillet was to have been dismissed. On the very day my husband was about to send him away, he robbed us of three thousand francs."

"I was sure of it!" said Popinot, expressing his hatred by the tones of his voice.

"Anselme, your future, your happiness, demand this confidence; but you must let it die in your heart, just as it is dead in mine and in Cesar's. Do you not remember how my husband scolded us for an error in the accounts? Monsieur Birotteau, to avoid a police-court which might have destroyed the man for life, no doubt placed in the desk three thousand francs,—the price of that cashmere shawl which I did not receive till three years later. All this explains the scene. Alas! my dear child, I must admit my foolishness; du Tillet wrote me three love-letters, which pictured him so well that I kept them," she said, lowering her eyes and sighing, "as a curiosity. I have not re-read them more than once; still, it was imprudent to keep them. When I saw du Tillet just now I was reminded of them, and I came upstairs to burn them; I was looking over the last as you came in. That's the whole story, my friend."

Anselme knelt for a moment beside her and kissed her hand with an unspeakable emotion, which brought tears into the eyes of both; Madame Cesar raised him, stretched out her arms and pressed him to her heart.

* * * * *

This day was destined to be a day of joy to Cesar. The private secretary of the king, Monsieur de Vandenesse, called at the Sinking-Fund Office to find him. They walked out together into the little courtyard.

"Monsieur Birotteau," said the Vicomte de Vandenesse, "your efforts to pay your creditors in full have accidentally become known to the king. His Majesty, touched by such rare conduct, and hearing that through humility you no longer wear the cross of the Legion of honor, has sent me to command you to put it on again. Moreover, wishing to help you in meeting your obligations, he has charged me to give you this sum from his privy purse, regretting that he is unable to make it larger. Let this be a profound secret. His Majesty thinks it derogatory to the royal dignity to have his good deeds divulged," said the private secretary, putting six thousand francs into the hand of the poor clerk, who listened to this speech with unutterable emotion. The words that came to his lips were disconnected and stammering. Vandenesse waved his hand to him, smiling, and went away.

The principle which actuated poor Cesar is so rare in Paris that his conduct by degrees attracted admiration. Joseph Lebas, Popinot the judge, Camusot, the Abbe Loraux, Ragon, the head of the important house where Cesarine was employed, Lourdois, Monsieur de la Billardiere, and others, talked of it. Public opinion, undergoing a change, now lauded him to the skies.

"He is indeed a man of honor!" The phrase even sounded in Cesar's ears as he passed along the streets, and caused him the emotion an author feels when he hears the muttered words: "That is he!" This noble recovery of credit enraged du Tillet. Cesar's first thought on receiving the bank-notes sent by the king was to use them in paying the debt still due to his former clerk. The worthy man went to the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin just as the banker was returning from the Bourse; they met upon the stairway.

"Well, my poor Birotteau!" said du Tillet, with a stealthy glance.

"Poor!" exclaimed the debtor proudly, "I am very rich. I shall lay my head this night upon my pillow with the happiness of knowing that I have paid you in full."

This speech, ringing with integrity, sent a sharp pang through du Tillet. In spite of the esteem he publicly enjoyed, he did not esteem himself; an inextinguishable voice cried aloud within his soul, "The man is sublime!"

"Pay me?" he said; "why, what business are you doing?"

Feeling sure that du Tillet would not repeat what he told him, Birotteau answered: "I shall never go back to business, monsieur. No human power could have foreseen what has happened to me there. Who knows that I might not be the victim of another Roguin? But my conduct has been placed under the eyes of the king; his heart has deigned to sympathize with my efforts; he has encouraged them by sending me a sum of money large enough to—"

"Do you want a receipt?" said du Tillet, interrupting him; "are you going to pay—"

"In full, with interest. I must ask you to come with me now to Monsieur Crottat, only two steps from here."

"Before a notary?"

"Monsieur; I am not forbidden to aim at my complete reinstatement; to obtain it, all deeds and receipts must be legal and undeniable."

"Come, then," said du Tillet, going out with Birotteau; "it is only a step. But where did you take all that money from?"

"I have not taken it," said Cesar; "I have earned it by the sweat of my brow."

"You owe an enormous sum to Claparon."

"Alas! yes; that is my largest debt. I think sometimes I shall die before I pay it."

"You never can pay it," said du Tillet harshly.

"He is right," thought Birotteau.

As he went home the poor man passed, inadvertently, along the Rue Saint-Honore; for he was in the habit of making a circuit to avoid seeing his shop and the windows of his former home. For the first time since his fall he saw the house where eighteen years of happiness had been effaced by the anguish of three months.

"I hoped to end my days there," he thought; and he hastened his steps, for he caught sight of the new sign,—

CELESTIN CREVEL

Successor to Cesar Birotteau

"Am I dazzled, am I going blind? Was that Cesarine?" he cried, recollecting a blond head he had seen at the window.

He had actually seen his daughter, his wife, and Popinot. The lovers knew that Birotteau never passed before the windows of his old home, and they had come to the house to make arrangements for a fete which they intended to give him. This amazing apparition so astonished Birotteau that he stood stock-still, unable to move.

"There is Monsieur Birotteau looking at his old house," said Monsieur Molineux to the owner of a shop opposite to "The Queen of Roses."

"Poor man!" said the perfumer's former neighbor; "he gave a fine ball—two hundred carriages in the street."

"I was there; and he failed in three months," said Molineux. "I was the assignee."

Birotteau fled, trembling in every limb, and hastened back to Pillerault.

Pillerault, who had just been informed of what had happened in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants, feared that his nephew was scarcely fit to bear the shock of joy which the sudden knowledge of his restoration would cause him; for Pillerault was a daily witness of the moral struggles of the poor man, whose mind stood always face to face with his inflexible doctrines against bankruptcy, and whose vital forces were used and spent at every hour. Honor was to Cesar a corpse, for which an Easter morning might yet dawn. This hope kept his sorrow incessantly active. Pillerault took upon himself the duty of preparing his nephew to receive the good news; and when Birotteau came in he was thinking over the best means of accomplishing his purpose. Cesar's joy as he related the proof of interest which the king had bestowed upon him seemed of good augury, and the astonishment he expressed at seeing Cesarine at "The Queen of Roses" afforded, Pillerault thought, an excellent opening.

"Well, Cesar," said the old man, "do you know what is at the bottom of it?—the hurry Popinot is in to marry Cesarine. He cannot wait any longer; and you ought not, for the sake of your exaggerated ideas of honor, to make him pass his youth eating dry bread with the fumes of a good dinner under his nose. Popinot wishes to lend you the amount necessary to pay your creditors in full."

"Then he would buy his wife," said Birotteau.

"Is it not honorable to reinstate his father-in-law?"

"There would be ground for contention; besides—"

"Besides," exclaimed Pillerault, pretending anger, "you may have the right to immolate yourself if you choose, but you have no right to immolate your daughter."

A vehement discussion ensued, which Pillerault designedly excited.

"Hey! if Popinot lent you nothing," cried Pillerault, "if he had called you his partner, if he had considered the price which he paid to the creditors for your share in the Oil as an advance upon the profits, so as not to strip you of everything—"

"I should have seemed to rob my creditors in collusion with him."

Pillerault feigned to be defeated by this argument. He knew the human heart well enough to be certain that during the night Cesar would go over the question in his own mind, and the mental discussion would accustom him to the idea of his complete vindication.

"But how came my wife and daughter to be in our old appartement?" asked Birotteau, while they were dining.

"Anselme wants to hire it, and live there with Cesarine. Your wife is on his side. They have had the banns published without saying anything about it, so as to force you to consent. Popinot says there will be much less merit in marrying Cesarine after you are reinstated. You take six thousand francs from the king, and you won't accept anything from your relations! I can well afford to give you a receipt in full for all that is owing to me; do you mean to refuse it?"

"No," said Cesar; "but that won't keep me from saving up everything to pay you."

"Irrational folly!" cried Pillerault. "In matters of honor I ought to be believed. What nonsense were you saying just now? How have you robbed your creditors when you have paid them all in full?"

Cesar looked earnestly at Pillerault, and Pillerault was touched to see, for the first time in three years, a genuine smile on the face of his poor nephew.

"It is true," he said, "they would be paid; but it would be selling my daughter."

"And I wish to be bought!" cried Cesarine, entering with Popinot.

The lovers had heard Birotteau's last words as they came on tiptoe through the antechamber of their uncle's little appartement, Madame Birotteau following. All three had driven round to the creditors who were still unpaid, requesting them to meet at Alexandre Crottat's that evening to receive their money. The all-powerful logic of the enamored Popinot triumphed in the end over Cesar's scruples, though he persisted for some time in calling himself a debtor, and in declaring that he was circumventing the law by a substitution. But the refinements of his conscience gave way when Popinot cried out: "Do you want to kill your daughter?"

"Kill my daughter!" said Cesar, thunderstruck.

"Well, then," said Popinot, "I have the right to convey to you the sum which I conscientiously believe to be your share in my profits. Do you refuse it?"

"No," said Cesar.

"Very good; then let us go at once to Crottat and settle the matter, so that there may be no backing out of it. We will arrange about our marriage contract at the same time."

* * * * *

A petition for reinstatement with corroborative documents was at once deposited by Derville at the office of the procureur-general of the Cour Royale.

During the month required for the legal formalities and for the publication of the banns of marriage between Cesarine and Anselme, Birotteau was a prey to feverish agitation. He was restless. He feared he should not live till the great day when the decree for his vindication would be rendered. His heart throbbed, he said, without cause. He complained of dull pains in that organ, worn out as it was by emotions of sorrow, and now wearied with the rush of excessive joy. Decrees of rehabilitation are so rare in the bankrupt court of Paris that seldom more than one is granted in ten years.

To those persons who take society in its serious aspects, the paraphernalia of justice has a grand and solemn character difficult perhaps to define. Institutions depend altogether on the feelings with which men view them and the degree of grandeur which men's thoughts attach to them. When there is no longer, we will not say religion, but belief among the people, whenever early education has loosened all conservative bonds by accustoming youth to the practice of pitiless analysis, a nation will be found in process of dissolution; for it will then be held together only by the base solder of material interests, and by the formulas of a creed created by intelligent egotism.

Bred in religious ideas, Birotteau held justice to be what it ought to be in the eyes of men,—a representation of society itself, an august utterance of the will of all, apart from the particular form by which it is expressed. The older, feebler, grayer the magistrate, the more solemn seemed the exercise of his function,—a function which demands profound study of men and things, which subdues the heart and hardens it against the influence of eager interests. It is a rare thing nowadays to find men who mount the stairway of the old Palais de Justice in the grasp of keen emotions. Cesar Birotteau was one of those men.

Few persons have noticed the majestic solemnity of that stairway, admirably placed as it is to produce a solemn effect. It rises, beyond the outer peristyle which adorns the courtyard of the Palais, from the centre of a gallery leading, at one end, to the vast hall of the Pas Perdus, and at the other to the Sainte-Chapelle,—two architectural monuments which make all buildings in their neighborhood seem paltry. The church of Saint-Louis is among the most imposing edifices in Paris, and the approach to it through this long gallery is at once sombre and romantic. The great hall of the Pas Perdus, on the contrary, presents at the other end of the gallery a broad space of light; it is impossible to forget that the history of France is linked to those walls. The stairway should therefore be imposing in character; and, in point of act, it is neither dwarfed nor crushed by the architectural splendors on either side of it. Possibly the mind is sobered by a glimpse, caught through the rich gratings, of the Place du Palais-de-Justice, where so many sentences have been executed. The staircase opens above into an enormous space, or antechamber, leading to the hall where the Court holds its public sittings.

Imagine the emotions with which the bankrupt, susceptible by nature to the awe of such accessories, went up that stairway to the hall of judgment, surrounded by his nearest friends,—Lebas, president of the Court of Commerce, Camusot his former judge, Ragon, and Monsieur l'Abbe Loraux his confessor. The pious priest made the splendors of human justice stand forth in strong relief by reflections which gave them still greater solemnity in Cesar's eyes. Pillerault, the practical philosopher, fearing the danger of unexpected events on the worn mind of his nephew, had schemed to prepare him by degrees for the joys of this festal day. Just as Cesar finished dressing, a number of his faithful friends arrived, all eager for the honor of accompanying him to the bar of the Court. The presence of this retinue roused the honest man to an elation which gave him strength to meet the imposing spectacle in the halls of justice. Birotteau found more friends awaiting him in the solemn audience chamber, where about a dozen members of the council were in session.

After the cases were called over, Birotteau's attorney made his demand for reinstatement in the usual terms. On a sign from the presiding judge, the procureur-general rose. In the name of his office this public prosecutor, the representative of public vindictiveness, asked that honor might be restored to the merchant who had never really lost it,—a solitary instance of such an appeal; for a condemned man can only be pardoned. Men of honor alone can imagine the emotions of Cesar Birotteau as he heard Monsieur de Grandville pronounce a speech, of which the following is an abridgement:—

"Gentlemen," said that celebrated official, "on the 16th of January, 1820, Birotteau was declared a bankrupt by the commercial tribunal of the Seine. His failure was not caused by imprudence, nor by rash speculations, nor by any act that stained his honor. We desire to say publicly that this failure was the result of a disaster which has again and again occurred, to the detriment of justice and the great injury of the city of Paris. It has been reserved for our generation, in which the bitter leaven of republican principles and manners will long be felt, to behold the notariat of Paris abandoning the glorious traditions of preceding centuries, and producing in a few years as many failures as two centuries of the old monarchy had produced. The thirst for gold rapidly acquired has beset even these officers of trust, these guardians of the public wealth, these mediators between the law and the people!"

On this text followed an allocution, in which the Comte de Grandville, obedient to the necessities of his role, contrived to incriminate the Liberals, the Bonapartists, and all other enemies of the throne. Subsequent events have proved that he had reason for his apprehension.

"The flight of a notary of Paris who carried off the funds which Birotteau had deposited in his hands, caused the fall of your petitioner," he resumed. "The Court rendered in that matter a decree which showed to what extent the confidence of Roguin's clients had been betrayed. A concordat was held. For the honor of your petitioner, we call attention to the fact that his proceedings were remarkable for a purity not found in any of the scandalous failures which daily degrade the commerce of Paris. The creditors of Birotteau received the whole property, down to the smallest articles that the unfortunate man possessed. They received, gentlemen, his clothes, his jewels, things of purely personal use,—and not only his, but those of his wife, who abandoned all her rights to swell the total of his assets. Under these circumstances Birotteau showed himself worthy of the respect which his municipal functions had already acquired for him; for he was at the time a deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement and had just received the decoration of the Legion of honor, granted as much for his devotion to the royal cause in Vendemiaire, on the steps of the Saint-Roch, which were stained with his blood, as for his conciliating spirit, his estimable qualities as a magistrate, and the modesty with which he declined the honors of the mayoralty, pointing out one more worthy of them, the Baron de la Billardiere, one of those noble Vendeens whom he had learned to value in the dark days."

"That phrase is better than mine," whispered Cesar to Pillerault.

"At that time the creditors, who received sixty per cent of their claims through the aforesaid relinquishment on the part of this loyal merchant, his wife, and his daughter of all that they possessed, recorded their respect for their debtor in the certificate of bankruptcy granted at the concordat which then took place, giving him at the same time a release from the remainder of their claims. This testimonial is couched in terms which are worthy of the attention of the Court."

Here the procureur-general read the passage from the certificate of bankruptcy.

"After receiving such expressions of good-will, gentlemen, most merchants would have considered themselves released from obligation and free to return boldly into the vortex of business. Far from so doing, Birotteau, without allowing himself to be cast down, resolved within his conscience to toil for the glorious day which has at length dawned for him here. Nothing disheartened him. Our beloved sovereign granted to the man who shed his blood on the steps of Saint-Roch an office where he might earn his bread. The salary of that office the bankrupt laid by for his creditors, taking nothing for his own wants; for family devotion has supported him."

Birotteau pressed his uncle's hand, weeping.

"His wife and his daughter poured their earnings into the common fund, for they too espoused the noble hope of Birotteau. Each came down from the position she had held and took an inferior one. These sacrifices, gentlemen, should be held in honor, for they are harder than all others to bear. I will now show you what sort of task it was that Birotteau imposed upon himself."

Here the procureur-general read a summing-up of the schedule, giving the amounts which had remained unpaid and the names of the creditors.

"Each of these sums, with the interest thereon, has been paid, gentlemen; and the payment is not shown by receipts under private seal, which might be questioned: they are payments made before a notary, properly authenticated; and according to the inflexible requirements of this Court they have been examined and verified by the proper authority. We now ask you to restore Birotteau, not to honor, but to all the rights of which he was deprived. In doing this you are doing justice. Such exhibitions of character are so rare in this Court that we cannot refrain from testifying to the petitioner how heartily we applaud his conduct, which an august approval has already privately encouraged."

The prosecuting officer closed by reading his charge in the customary formal terms.

The Court deliberated without retiring, and the president rose to pronounce judgement.

"The Court," he said, in closing, "desires me to express to Birotteau the satisfaction with which it renders such a judgment. Clerk, call the next case."

Birotteau, clothed with the caftan of honor which the speech of the illustrious procureur-general had cast about him, stood dumb with joy as he listened to the solemn words of the president, which betrayed the quiverings of a heart beneath the impassibility of human justice. He was unable to stir from his place before the bar, and seemed for a moment nailed there, gazing at the judges with a wondering air, as though they were angels opening to him the gates of social life. His uncle took him by the arm and led him from the hall. Cesar had not as yet obeyed the command of Louis XVIII., but he now mechanically fastened the ribbon of the Legion of honor to his button-hole. In a moment he was surrounded by his friends and borne in triumph down the great stairway to his coach.

"Where are you taking me, my friends?" he said to Joseph Lebas, Pillerault, and Ragon.

"To your own home."

"No; it is only three o'clock. I wish to go to the Bourse, and use my rights."

"To the Bourse!" said Pillerault to the coachman, making an expressive sign to Joseph Lebas, for he saw symptoms in Cesar which led him to fear he might lose his mind.

The late perfumer re-entered the Bourse leaning on the arms of the two honored merchants, his uncle and Joseph Lebas. The news of his rehabilitation had preceded him. The first person who saw them enter, followed by Ragon, was du Tillet.

"Ah! my dear master," he cried, "I am delighted that you have pulled through. I have perhaps contributed to this happy ending of your troubles by letting that little Popinot drag a feather from my wing. I am as glad of your happiness as if it were my own."

"You could not be otherwise," said Pillerault. "Such a thing can never happen to you."

"What do you mean by that?" said du Tillet.

"Oh! all in good part," said Lebas, smiling at the malicious meaning of Pillerault, who, without knowing the real truth, considered the man a scoundrel.

Matifat caught sight of Cesar, and immediately the most noted merchants surrounded him and gave him an ovation boursiere. He was overwhelmed with flattering compliments and grasped by the hand, which roused some jealousy and caused some remorse; for out of every hundred persons walking about that hall fifty at least had "liquidated" their affairs. Gigonnet and Gobseck, who were talking together in a corner, looked at the man of commercial honor very much as a naturalist must have looked at the first electric-eel that was ever brought to him,—a fish armed with the power of a Leyden jar, which is the greatest curiosity of the animal kingdom. After inhaling the incense of his triumph, Cesar got into the coach to go to his own home, where the marriage contract of his dear Cesarine and the devoted Popinot was ready for signature. His nervous laugh disturbed the minds of the three old friends.

It is a fault of youth to think the whole world vigorous with its own vigor,—a fault derived from its virtues. Youth sees neither men nor things through spectacles; it colors all with the reflex glory of its ardent fires, and casts the superabundance of its own life upon the aged. Like Cesar and like Constance, Popinot held in his memory a glowing recollection of the famous ball. Constance and Cesar through their years of trial had often, though they never spoke of it to each other, heard the strains of Collinet's orchestra, often beheld that festive company, and tasted the joys so swiftly and so cruelly chastised,—as Adam and Eve must have tasted in after times the forbidden fruit which gave both death and life to all posterity; for it appears that the generation of angels is a mystery of the skies.

Popinot, however, could dream of the fete without remorse, nay, with ecstasy. Had not Cesarine in all her glory then promised herself to him—to him, poor? During that evening had he not won the assurance that he was loved for himself alone? So when he bought the appartement restored by Grindot, from Celestin, when he stipulated that all should be kept intact, when he religiously preserved the smallest things that once belonged to Cesar and to Constance, he was dreaming of another ball,—his ball, his wedding-ball! He made loving preparation for it, imitating his old master in necessary expenses, but eschewing all follies,—follies that were now past and done with. So the dinner was to be served by Chevet; the guests were to be mostly the same: the Abbe Loraux replaced the chancellor of the Legion of honor; the president of the Court of Commerce, Monsieur Lebas, had promised to be there; Popinot invited Monsieur Camusot in acknowledgment of the kindness he had bestowed upon Birotteau; Monsieur de Vandenesse and Monsieur de Fontaine took the place of Roguin and his wife. Cesarine and Popinot distributed their invitations with much discretion. Both dreaded the publicity of a wedding, and they escaped the jar such scenes must cause to pure and tender hearts by giving the ball on the evening of the day appointed for signing the marriage-contract.

Constance found in her room the gown of cherry velvet in which she had shone for a single night with fleeting splendor. Cesarine cherished a dream of appearing before Popinot in the identical ball-dress about which, time and time again, he had talked to her. The appartement was made ready to present to Cesar's eyes the same enchanting scene he had once enjoyed for a single evening. Neither Constance, nor Cesarine, nor Popinot perceived the danger to Cesar in this sudden and overwhelming surprise, and they awaited his arrival at four o'clock with a delight that was almost childish.

Following close upon the unspeakable emotion his re-entrance at the Bourse had caused him, the hero of commercial honor was now to meet the sudden shock of felicity that awaited him in his old home. He entered the house, and saw at the foot of the staircase (still new as he had left it) his wife in her velvet robe, Cesarine, the Comte de Fontaine, the Vicomte de Vandenesse, the Baron de la Billardiere, the illustrious Vauquelin. A light film dimmed his eyes, and his uncle Pillerault, who held his arm, felt him shudder inwardly.

"It is too much," said the philosopher to the happy lover; "he can never carry all the wine you are pouring out to him."

Joy was so vivid in their hearts that each attributed Cesar's emotion and his stumbling step to the natural intoxication of his feelings,—natural, but sometimes mortal. When he found himself once more in his own home, when he saw his salon, his guests, the women in their ball-dresses, suddenly the heroic measure in the finale of the great symphony rang forth in his head and heart. Beethoven's ideal music echoed, vibrated, in many tones, sounding its clarions through the membranes of the weary brain, of which it was indeed the grand finale.

Oppressed with this inward harmony, Cesar took the arm of his wife and whispered, in a voice suffocated by a rush of blood that was still repressed: "I am not well."

Constance, alarmed, led him to her bedroom; he reached it with difficulty, and fell into a chair, saying: "Monsieur Haudry, Monsieur Loraux."

The Abbe Loraux came, followed by the guests and the women in their ball-dresses, who stopped short, a frightened group. In presence of that shining company Cesar pressed the hand of his confessor and laid his head upon the bosom of his kneeling wife. A vessel had broken in his heart, and the rush of blood strangled his last sigh.

"Behold the death of the righteous!" said the Abbe Loraux solemnly, pointing to Cesar with the divine gesture which Rembrandt gave to Christ in his picture of the Raising of Lazarus.

Jesus commanded the earth to give up its prey; the priest called heaven to behold a martyr of commercial honor worthy to receive the everlasting palm.



ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass The Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study of Woman La Grande Breteche

Bidault (known as Gigonnet) The Government Clerks Gobseck The Vendetta The Firm of Nucingen A Daughter of Eve

Birotteau, Cesar A Bachelor's Establishment At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Birotteau, Abbe Francois The Lily of the Valley The Vicar of Tours

Braschon Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Camusot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons The Muse of the Department At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Camusot de Marville, Madame The Vendetta Jealousies of a Country Town Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Cousin Pons

Cardot, Jean-Jerome-Severin A Start in Life Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Chaffaroux A Prince of Bohemia The Middle Classes

Chiffreville, Monsieur and Madame The Quest of the Absolute

Claparon, Charles A Bachelor's Establishment Melmoth Reconciled The Firm of Nucingen A Man of Business The Middle Classes

Cochin, Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel The Government Clerks The Firm of Nucingen The Middle Classes

Cochin, Adolphe The Firm of Nucingen

Crevel, Celestin Cousin Betty Cousin Pons

Crottat, Monsieur and Madame Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Crottat, Alexandre Colonel Chabert A Start in Life A Woman of Thirty Cousin Pons

Derville, Madame Gobseck

Desmartes, Jules The Thirteen

Desmartes, Madame Jules The Thirteen

Finot, Andoche A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Government Clerks A Start in Life Gaudissart the Great The Firm of Nucingen

Fontaine, Comte de The Chouans Modeste Mignon The Ball at Sceaux The Government Clerks

Gaudissart, Felix Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Cousin Pons Honorine Gaudissart the Great

Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van Gobseck Father Goriot The Government Clerks The Unconscious Humorists

Gobseck, Sarah Van Gobseck The Maranas Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Member for Arcis

Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte) The Gondreville Mystery Honorine A Second Home Farewell (Adieu) Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Daughter of Eve Cousin Pons

Grindot Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Start in Life Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Beatrix The Middle Classes Cousin Betty

Guillaume At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Haudry (doctor) The Thirteen A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Cousin Pons

Keller, Francois Domestic Peace Eugenie Grandet The Government Clerks The Member for Arcis

Keller, Adolphe The Middle Classes Pierrette

La Billardiere, Athanase-Jean-Francois-Michel, Baron Flamet de The Chouans The Government Clerks

Lebas, Joseph At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Cousin Betty

Lebas, Madame Joseph (Virginie) At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Cousin Betty

Lenoncourt, Duc de The Lily of the Valley Jealousies of a Country Town The Gondreville Mystery Beatrix

Listomere, Baronne de The Vicar of Tours The Muse of the Department

Loraux, Abbe A Start in Life A Bachelor's Establishment Honorine

Lourdois At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Matifat (wealthy druggist) A Bachelor's Establishment Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Firm of Nucingen Cousin Pons

Matifat, Madame The Firm of Nucingen

Matifat, Mademoiselle The Firm of Nucingen Pierrette

Molineux, Jean-Baptiste A Second Home The Purse

Mongenod The Seamy Side of History

Montauran, Marquis Alphonse de The Chouans

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de The Firm of Nucingen Father Goriot Pierrette Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Another Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A Man of Business Cousin Betty The Muse of the Department The Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de Father Goriot The Thirteen Eugenie Grandet Melmoth Reconciled Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Commission in Lunacy Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Modeste Mignon The Firm of Nucingen Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve The Member for Arcis

Palma (banker) The Firm of Nucingen Gobseck Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Ball at Sceaux

Popinot, Jean-Jules Honorine The Commission in Lunacy The Seamy Side of History The Middle Classes

Popinot, Anselme Gaudissart the Great Cousin Pons Cousin Betty

Popinot, Madame Anselme A Prince of Bohemia Cousin Betty Cousin Pons

Protez and Chiffreville The Quest of the Absolute

Rabourdin, Xavier The Government Clerks At the Sign of the Cat and Racket The Middle Classes

Ragon, M. and Mme. An Episode Under the Terror

Roguin Eugenie Grandet A Bachelor's Establishment Pierrette The Vendetta

Roguin, Madame At the Sign of the Cat and Racket Pierrette A Second Home A Daughter of Eve

Saillard, Madame The Government Clerks

Sommervieux, Madame Theodore de (Augustine) At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Thirion The Vendetta Jealousies of a Country Town

Thouvenin Cousin Pons

Tillet, Ferdinand du The Firm of Nucingen The Middle Classes A Bachelor's Establishment Pierrette Melmoth Reconciled A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve The Member for Arcis Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Trailles, Comte Maxime de Father Goriot Gobseck Ursule Mirouet A Man of Business The Member for Arcis The Secrets of a Princess Cousin Betty Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists

Vaillant, Madame Facino Cane

Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de The Ball at Sceaux Ursule Mirouet A Daughter of Eve

Vandenesse, Comte Felix de The Lily of the Valley Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Letters of Two Brides A Start in Life The Marriage Settlement The Secrets of a Princess Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery A Daughter of Eve

Werbrust The Firm of Nucingen

THE END