"Indeed!"

"Would you like to see them?" said Jacques Collin, with a laugh.

The magistrate felt ashamed.

"I cannot give them to you to read. But, there; no nonsense; this is business and all above board, I suppose?—You must give me back the letters, and allow no one to play the spy or to follow or to watch the person who will bring them to me."

"That will take time," said Monsieur de Granville.

"No. It is half-past nine," replied Jacques Collin, looking at the clock; "well, in four minutes you will have a letter from each of these ladies, and after reading them you will countermand the guillotine. If matters were not as they are, you would not see me taking things so easy.—The ladies indeed have had warning."—Monsieur de Granville was startled.—"They must be making a stir by now; they are going to bring the Keeper of the Seals into the fray—they may even appeal to the King, who knows?—Come, now, will you give me your word that you will forget all that has passed, and neither follow, nor send any one to follow, that person for a whole hour?"

"I promise it."

"Very well; you are not the man to deceive an escaped convict. You are a chip of the block of which Turennes and Condes are made, and would keep your word to a thief.—In the Salle des Pas-Perdus there is at this moment a beggar woman in rags, an old woman, in the very middle of the hall. She is probably gossiping with one of the public writers, about some lawsuit over a party-wall perhaps; send your office messenger to fetch her, saying these words, 'Dabor ti Mandana' (the Boss wants you). She will come.

"But do not be unnecessarily cruel. Either you accept my terms or you do not choose to be mixed up in a business with a convict.—I am only a forger, you will remember!—Well, do not leave Calvi to go through the terrors of preparation for the scaffold."

"I have already countermanded the execution," said Monsieur de Granville to Jacques Collin. "I would not have Justice beneath you in dignity."

Jacques Collin looked at the public prosecutor with a sort of amazement, and saw him ring his bell.

"Will you promise not to escape? Give me your word, and I shall be satisfied. Go and fetch the woman."

The office-boy came in.

"Felix, send away the gendarmes," said Monsieur de Granville.

Jacques Collin was conquered.

In this duel with the magistrate he had tried to be the superior, the stronger, the more magnanimous, and the magistrate had crushed him. At the same time, the convict felt himself the superior, inasmuch as he had tricked the Law; he had convinced it that the guilty man was innocent, and had fought for a man's head and won it; but this advantage must be unconfessed, secret and hidden, while the magistrate towered above him majestically in the eye of day.



As Jacques Collin left Monsieur de Granville's room, the Comte des Lupeaulx, Secretary-in-Chief of the President of the Council, and a deputy, made his appearance, and with him a feeble-looking, little old man. This individual, wrapped in a puce-colored overcoat, as though it were still winter, with powdered hair, and a cold, pale face, had a gouty gait, unsteady on feet that were shod with loose calfskin boots; leaning on a gold-headed cane, he carried his hat in his hand, and wore a row of seven orders in his button-hole.

"What is it, my dear des Lupeaulx?" asked the public prosecutor.

"I come from the Prince," replied the Count, in a low voice. "You have carte blanche if you can only get the letters—Madame de Serizy's, Madame de Maufrigneuse's and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu's. You may come to some arrangement with this gentleman——"

"Who is he?" asked Monsieur de Granville, in a whisper.

"There are no secrets between you and me, my dear sir," said des Lupeaulx. "This is the famous Corentin. His Majesty desires that you will yourself tell him all the details of this affair and the conditions of success."

"Do me the kindness," replied the public prosecutor, "of going to tell the Prince that the matter is settled, that I have not needed this gentleman's assistance," and he turned to Corentin. "I will wait on His Majesty for his commands with regard to the last steps in the matter, which will lie with the Keeper of the Seals, as two reprieves will need signing."

"You have been wise to take the initiative," said des Lupeaulx, shaking hands with the Comte de Granville. "On the very eve of a great undertaking the King is most anxious that the peers and the great families should not be shown up, blown upon. It ceases to be a low criminal case; it becomes an affair of State."

"But tell the Prince that by the time you came it was all settled."

"Really!"

"I believe so."

"Then you, my dear fellow, will be Keeper of the Seals as soon as the present Keeper is made Chancellor——"

"I have no ambition," replied the magistrate.

Des Lupeaulx laughed, and went away.

"Beg of the Prince to request the King to grant me ten minutes' audience at about half-past two," added Monsieur de Granville, as he accompanied the Comte des Lupeaulx to the door.

"So you are not ambitious!" said des Lupeaulx, with a keen look at Monsieur de Granville. "Come, you have two children, you would like at least to be made peer of France."

"If you have the letters, Monsieur le Procureur General, my intervention is unnecessary," said Corentin, finding himself alone with Monsieur de Granville, who looked at him with very natural curiosity.

"Such a man as you can never be superfluous in so delicate a case," replied the magistrate, seeing that Corentin had heard or guessed everything.

Corentin bowed with a patronizing air.

"Do you know the man in question, monsieur?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte, it is Jacques Collin, the head of the 'Ten Thousand Francs Association,' the banker for three penal settlements, a convict who, for the last five years, has succeeded in concealing himself under the robe of the Abbe Carlos Herrera. How he ever came to be intrusted with a mission to the late King from the King of Spain is a question which we have all puzzled ourselves with trying to answer. I am now expecting information from Madrid, whither I have sent notes and a man. That convict holds the secrets of two kings."

"He is a man of mettle and temper. We have only two courses open to us," said the public prosecutor. "We must secure his fidelity, or get him out of the way."

"The same idea has struck us both, and that is a great honor for me," said Corentin. "I am obliged to have so many ideas, and for so many people, that out of them all I ought occasionally to meet a clever man."

He spoke so drily, and in so icy a tone, that Monsieur de Granville made no reply, and proceeded to attend to some pressing matters.

Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin's amazement on seeing Jacques Collin in the Salle des Pas-Perdus is beyond imagining. She stood square on her feet, her hands on her hips, for she was dressed as a costermonger. Accustomed as she was to her nephew's conjuring tricks, this beat everything.

"Well, if you are going to stare at me as if I were a natural history show," said Jacques Collin, taking his aunt by the arm and leading her out of the hall, "we shall be taken for a pair of curious specimens; they may take us into custody, and then we should lose time."

And he went down the stairs of the Galerie Marchande leading to the Rue de la Barillerie. "Where is Paccard?"

"He is waiting for me at la Rousse's, walking up and down the flower market."

"And Prudence?"

"Also at her house, as my god-daughter."

"Let us go there."

"Look round and see if we are watched."

La Rousse, a hardware dealer living on the Quai aux Fleurs, was the widow of a famous murderer, one of the "Ten Thousand." In 1819, Jacques Collin had faithfully handed over twenty thousand francs and odd to this woman from her lover, after he had been executed. Trompe-la-Mort was the only person who knew of his pal's connection with the girl, at that time a milliner.

"I am your young man's boss," the boarder at Madame Vauquer's had told her, having sent for her to meet him at the Jardin des Plantes. "He may have mentioned me to you, my dear.—Any one who plays me false dies within a year; on the other hand, those who are true to me have nothing to fear from me. I am staunch through thick and thin, and would die without saying a word that would compromise anybody I wish well to. Stick to me as a soul sticks to the Devil, and you will find the benefit of it. I promised your poor Auguste that you should be happy; he wanted to make you a rich woman, and he got scragged for your sake.

"Don't cry; listen to me. No one in the world knows that you were mistress to a convict, to the murderer they choked off last Saturday; and I shall never tell. You are two-and-twenty, and pretty, and you have twenty-six thousand francs of your own; forget Auguste and get married; be an honest woman if you can. In return for peace and quiet, I only ask you to serve me now and then, me, and any one I may send you, but without stopping to think. I will never ask you to do anything that can get you into trouble, you or your children, or your husband, if you get one, or your family.

"In my line of life I often want a safe place to talk in or to hide in. Or I may want a trusty woman to carry a letter or do an errand. You will be one of my letter-boxes, one of my porters' lodges, one of my messengers, neither more nor less.

"You are too red-haired; Auguste and I used to call you la Rousse; you can keep that name. My aunt, an old-clothes dealer at the Temple, who will come and see you, is the only person in the world you are to obey; tell her everything that happens to you; she will find you a husband, and be very useful to you."

And thus the bargain was struck, a diabolical compact like that which had for so long bound Prudence Servien to Jacques Collin, and which the man never failed to tighten; for, like the Devil, he had a passion for recruiting.

In about 1821 Jacques Collin found la Rousse a husband in the person of the chief shopman under a rich wholesale tin merchant. This head-clerk, having purchased his master's house of business, was now a prosperous man, the father of two children, and one of the district Maire's deputies. La Rousse, now Madame Prelard, had never had the smallest ground for complaint, either of Jacques Collin or of his aunt; still, each time she was required to help them, Madame Prelard quaked in every limb. So, as she saw the terrible couple come into her shop, she turned as pale as death.

"We want to speak to you on business, madame," said Jacques Collin.

"My husband is in there," said she.

"Very well; we have no immediate need of you. I never put people out of their way for nothing."

"Send for a hackney coach, my dear," said Jacqueline Collin, "and tell my god-daughter to come down. I hope to place her as maid to a very great lady, and the steward of the house will take us there."

A shop-boy fetched the coach, and a few minutes later Europe, or, to be rid of the name under which she had served Esther, Prudence Servien, Paccard, Jacques Collin, and his aunt, were, to la Rousse's great joy, packed into a coach, ordered by Trompe-la-Mort to drive to the Barriere d'Ivry.

Prudence and Paccard, quaking in presence of the boss, felt like guilty souls in the presence of God.

"Where are the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs?" asked the boss, looking at them with the clear, penetrating gaze which so effectually curdled the blood of these tools of his, these ames damnees, when they were caught tripping, that they felt as though their scalp were set with as many pins as hairs.

"The seven hundred and thirty thousand francs," said Jacqueline Collin to her nephew, "are quite safe; I gave them to la Romette this morning in a sealed packet."

"If you had not handed them over to Jacqueline," said Trompe-la-Mort, "you would have gone straight there," and he pointed to the Place de Greve, which they were just passing.

Prudence Servien, in her country fashion, made the sign of the Cross, as if she had seen a thunderbolt fall.

"I forgive you," said the boss, "on condition of your committing no more mistakes of this kind, and of your being henceforth to me what these two fingers are of my right hand," and he pointed to the first and middle fingers, "for this good woman is the thumb," and he slapped his aunt on the shoulder.

"Listen to me," he went on. "You, Paccard, have nothing more to fear; you may follow your nose about Pantin (Paris) as you please. I give you leave to marry Prudence Servien."

Paccard took Jacques Collin's hand and kissed it respectfully.

"And what must I do?" said he.

"Nothing; and you will have dividends and women, to say nothing of your wife—for you have a touch of the Regency about you, old boy!—That comes of being such a fine man!"

Paccard colored under his sultan's ironical praises.

"You, Prudence," Jacques went on, "will want a career, a position, a future; you must remain in my service. Listen to me. There is a very good house in the Rue Sainte-Barbe belonging to that Madame de Saint-Esteve, whose name my aunt occasionally borrows. It is a very good business, with plenty of custom, bringing in fifteen to twenty thousand francs a year. Saint-Esteve puts a woman in to keep the shop——"

"La Gonore," said Jacqueline.

"Poor la Pouraille's moll," said Paccard. "That is where I bolted to with Europe the day that poor Madame van Bogseck died, our mis'ess."

"Who jabbers when I am speaking?" said Jacques Collin.

Perfect silence fell in the coach. Paccard and Prudence did not dare look at each other.

"The shop is kept by la Gonore," Jacques Collin went on. "If that is where you went to hide with Prudence, I see, Paccard, that you have wit enough to dodge the reelers (mislead the police), but not enough to puzzle the old lady," and he stroked his aunt's chin. "Now I see how she managed to find you.—It all fits beautifully. You may go back to la Gonore.—To go on: Jacqueline will arrange with Madame Nourrisson to purchase her business in the Rue Sainte-Barbe; and if you manage well, child, you may make a fortune out of it," he said to Prudence. "An Abbess at your age! It is worthy of a Daughter of France," he added in a hard tone.

Prudence flung her arms round Trompe-la-Mort's neck and hugged him; but the boss flung her off with a sharp blow, showing his extraordinary strength, and but for Paccard, the girl's head would have struck and broken the coach window.

"Paws off! I don't like such ways," said the boss stiffly. "It is disrespectful to me."

"He is right, child," said Paccard. "Why, you see, it is as though the boss had made you a present of a hundred thousand francs. The shop is worth that. It is on the Boulevard, opposite the Gymnase. The people come out of the theatre——"

"I will do more," said Trompe-la-Mort; "I will buy the house."

"And in six years we shall be millionaires," cried Paccard.

Tired of being interrupted, Trompe-la-Mort gave Paccard's shin a kick hard enough to break it; but the man's tendons were of india-rubber, and his bones of wrought iron.

"All right, boss, mum it is," said he.

"Do you think I am cramming you with lies?" said Jacques Collin, perceiving that Paccard had had a few drops too much. "Well, listen. In the cellar of that house there are two hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold——"

Again silence reigned in the coach.

"The coin is in a very hard bed of masonry. It must be got out, and you have only three nights to do it in. Jacqueline will help you.—A hundred thousand francs will buy up the business, fifty thousand will pay for the house; leave the remainder."

"Where?" said Paccard.

"In the cellar?" asked Prudence.

"Silence!" cried Jacqueline.

"Yes, but to get the business transferred, we must have the consent of the police authorities," Paccard objected.

"We shall have it," said Trompe-la-Mort. "Don't meddle in what does not concern you."

Jacqueline looked at her nephew, and was struck by the alteration in his face, visible through the stern mask under which the strong man generally hid his feelings.

"You, child," said he to Prudence Servien, "will receive from my aunt the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs——"

"Seven hundred and thirty," said Paccard.

"Very good, seven hundred and thirty then," said Jacques Collin. "You must return this evening under some pretext to Madame Lucien's house. Get out on the roof through the skylight; get down the chimney into your miss'ess' room, and hide the packet she had made of the money in the mattress——"

"And why not by the door?" asked Prudence Servien.

"Idiot! there are seals on everything," replied Jacques Collin. "In a few days the inventory will be taken, and you will be innocent of the theft."

"Good for the boss!" cried Paccard. "That is really kind!"

"Stop, coachman!" cried Jacques Collin's powerful voice.

The coach was close to the stand by the Jardin des Plantes.

"Be off, young 'uns," said Jacques Collin, "and do nothing silly! Be on the Pont des Arts this afternoon at five, and my aunt will let you know if there are any orders to the contrary.—We must be prepared for everything," he whispered to his aunt. "To-morrow," he went on, "Jacqueline will tell you how to dig up the gold without any risk. It is a ticklish job——"

Paccard and Prudence jumped out on to the King's highway, as happy as reprieved thieves.

"What a good fellow the boss is!" said Paccard.

"He would be the king of men if he were not so rough on women."

"Oh, yes! He is a sweet creature," said Paccard. "Did you see how he kicked me? Well, we deserved to be sent to old Nick; for, after all, we got him into this scrape."

"If only he does not drag us into some dirty job, and get us packed off to the hulks yet," said the wily Prudence.

"Not he! If he had that in his head, he would tell us; you don't know him.—He has provided handsomely for you. Here we are, citizens at large! Oh, when that man takes a fancy to you, he has not his match for good-nature."

"Now, my jewel," said Jacques Collin to his aunt, "you must take la Gonore in hand; she must be humbugged. Five days hence she will be taken into custody, and a hundred and fifty thousand francs will be found in her rooms, the remains of a share from the robbery and murder of the old Crottat couple, the notary's father and mother."

"She will get five years in the Madelonnettes," said Jacqueline.

"That's about it," said the nephew. "This will be a reason for old Nourrisson to get rid of her house; she cannot manage it herself, and a manager to suit is not to be found every day. You can arrange all that. We shall have a sharp eye there.—But all these three things are secondary to the business I have undertaken with regard to our letters. So unrip your gown and give me the samples of the goods. Where are the three packets?"

"At la Rousse's, of course."

"Coachman," cried Jacques Collin, "go back to the Palais de Justice, and look sharp——

"I promised to be quick, and I have been gone half an hour; that is too much.—Stay at la Rousse's, and give the sealed parcels to the office clerk, who will come and ask for Madame de Saint-Esteve; the de will be the password. He will say to you,'Madame, I have come from the public prosecutor for the things you know of.' Stand waiting outside the door, staring about at what is going on in the Flower-Market, so as not to arouse Prelard's suspicions. As soon as you have given up the letters, you can start Paccard and Prudence."

"I see what you are at," said Jacqueline; "you mean to step into Bibi-Lupin's shoes. That boy's death has turned your brain."

"And there is Theodore, who was just going to have his hair cropped to be scragged at four this afternoon!" cried Jacques Collin.

"Well, it is a notion! We shall end our days as honest folks in a fine property and a delightful climate—in Touraine."

"What was to become of me? Lucien has taken my soul with him, and all my joy in life. I have thirty years before me to be sick of life in, and I have no heart left. Instead of being the boss of the hulks, I shall be a Figaro of the law, and avenge Lucien. I can never be sure of demolishing Corentin excepting in the skin of a police agent. And so long as I have a man to devour, I shall still feel alive.—The profession a man follows in the eyes of the world is a mere sham; the reality is in the idea!" he added, striking his forehead.—"How much have we left in the cash-box?" he asked.

"Nothing," said his aunt, dismayed by the man's tone and manner. "I gave you all I had for the boy. La Romette has not more than twenty thousand francs left in the business. I took everything from Madame Nourrisson; she had about sixty thousand francs of her own. Oh! we are lying in sheets that have been washed this twelve months past. That boy had all the pals' blunt, our savings, and all old Nourrisson's."

"Making——?"

"Five hundred and sixty thousand."

"We have a hundred and fifty thousand which Paccard and Prudence will pay us. I will tell you where to find two hundred thousand more. The remainder will come to me out of Esther's money. We must repay old Nourrisson. With Theodore, Paccard, Prudence, Nourrisson, and you, I shall soon have the holy alliance I require.—Listen, now we are nearly there——"

"Here are the three letters," said Jacqueline, who had finished unsewing the lining of her gown.

"Quite right," said Jacques Collin, taking the three precious documents—autograph letters on vellum paper, and still strongly scented. "Theodore did the Nanterre job."

"Oh! it was he."

"Don't talk. Time is precious. He wanted to give the proceeds to a little Corsican sparrow named Ginetta. You must set old Nourrisson to find her; I will give you the necessary information in a letter which Gault will give you. Come for it to the gate of the Conciergerie in two hours' time. You must place the girl with a washerwoman, Godet's sister; she must seem at home there. Godet and Ruffard were concerned with la Pouraille in robbing and murdering the Crottats.

"The four hundred and fifty thousand francs are all safe, one-third in la Gonore's cellar—la Pouraille's share; the second third in la Gonore's bedroom, which is Ruffard's; and the rest is hidden in Godet's sister's house. We will begin by taking a hundred and fifty thousand francs out of la Pouraille's whack, a hundred thousand of Godet's, and a hundred thousand of Ruffard's. As soon as Godet and Ruffard are nabbed, they will be supposed to have got rid of what is missing from their shares. And I will make Godet believe that I have saved a hundred thousand francs for him, and that la Gonore has done the same for la Pouraille and Ruffard.

"Prudence and Paccard will do the job at la Gonore's; you and Ginetta—who seems to be a smart hussy—must manage the job at Godet's sister's place.

"And so, as the first act in the farce, I can enable the public prosecutor to lay his hands on four hundred thousand francs stolen from the Crottats, and on the guilty parties. Then I shall seem to have shown up the Nanterre murderer. We shall get back our shiners, and are behind the scenes with the police. We were the game, now we are the hunters—that is all.

"Give the driver three francs."

The coach was at the Palais. Jacqueline, speechless with astonishment, paid. Trompe-la-Mort went up the steps to the public prosecutor's room.



A complete change of life is so violent a crisis, that Jacques Collin, in spite of his resolution, mounted the steps but slowly, going up from the Rue de la Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where, under the gloomy peristyle of the courthouse, is the entrance to the Court itself.

Some civil case was going on which had brought a little crowd together at the foot of the double stairs leading to the Assize Court, so that the convict, lost in thought, stood for some minutes, checked by the throng.

To the left of this double flight is one of the mainstays of the building, like an enormous pillar, and in this tower is a little door. This door opens on a spiral staircase down to the Conciergerie, to which the public prosecutor, the governor of the prison, the presiding judges, King's council, and the chief of the Safety department have access by this back way.

It was up a side staircase from this, now walled up, that Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was led before the Revolutionary tribunal which sat, as we all know, in the great hall where appeals are now heard before the Supreme Court. The heart sinks within us at the sight of these dreadful steps, when we think that Marie Therese's daughter, whose suite, and head-dress, and hoops filled the great staircase at Versailles, once passed that way! Perhaps it was in expiation of her mother's crime—the atrocious division of Poland. The sovereigns who commit such crimes evidently never think of the retribution to be exacted by Providence.

When Jacques Collin went up the vaulted stairs to the public prosecutor's room, Bibi-Lupin was just coming out of the little door in the wall.

The chief of the "Safety" had come from the Conciergerie, and was also going up to Monsieur de Granville. It was easy to imagine Bibi-Lupin's surprise when he recognized, in front of him, the gown of Carlos Herrera, which he had so thoroughly studied that morning; he ran on to pass him. Jacques Collin turned round, and the enemies were face to face. Each stood still, and the self-same look flashed in both pairs of eyes, so different in themselves, as in a duel two pistols go off at the same instant.

"This time I have got you, rascal!" said the chief of the Safety Department.

"Ah, ha!" replied Jacques Collin ironically.

It flashed through his mind that Monsieur de Granville had sent some one to watch him, and, strange to say, it pained him to think the magistrate less magnanimous than he had supposed.

Bibi-Lupin bravely flew at Jacques Collin's throat; but he, keeping his eye on the foe, gave him a straight blow, and sent him sprawling on his back three yards off; then Trompe-la-Mort went calmly up to Bibi-Lupin, and held out a hand to help him rise, exactly like an English boxer who, sure of his superiority, is ready for more. Bibi-Lupin knew better than to call out; but he sprang to his feet, ran to the entrance to the passage, and signed to a gendarme to stand on guard. Then, swift as lightning, he came back to the foe, who quietly looked on. Jacques Collin had decided what to do.

"Either the public prosecutor has broken his word, or he had not taken Bibi-Lupin into his confidence, and in that case I must get the matter explained," thought he.—"Do you mean to arrest me?" he asked his enemy. "Say so without more ado. Don't I know that in the heart of this place you are stronger than I am? I could kill you with a well-placed kick, but I could not tackle the gendarmes and the soldiers. Now, make no noise. Where to you want to take me?"

"To Monsieur Camusot."

"Come along to Monsieur Camusot," replied Jacques Collin. "Why should we not go to the public prosecutor's court? It is nearer," he added.

Bibi-Lupin, who knew that he was out of favor with the upper ranks of judicial authorities, and suspected of having made a fortune at the expense of criminals and their victims, was not unwilling to show himself in Court with so notable a capture.

"All right, we will go there," said he. "But as you surrender, allow me to fit you with bracelets. I am afraid of your claws."

And he took the handcuffs out of his pocket.

Jacques Collin held out his hands, and Bibi-Lupin snapped on the manacles.

"Well, now, since you are feeling so good," said he, "tell me how you got out of the Conciergerie?"

"By the way you came; down the turret stairs."

"Then have you taught the gendarmes some new trick?"

"No, Monsieur de Granville let me out on parole."

"You are gammoning me?"

"You will see. Perhaps it will be your turn to wear the bracelets."

Just then Corentin was saying to Monsieur de Granville:

"Well, monsieur, it is just an hour since our man set out; are you not afraid that he may have fooled you? He is on the road to Spain perhaps by this time, and we shall not find him there, for Spain is a whimsical kind of country."

"Either I know nothing of men, or he will come back; he is bound by every interest; he has more to look for at my hands than he has to give."

Bibi-Lupin walked in.

"Monsieur le Comte," said he, "I have good news for you. Jacques Collin, who had escaped, has been recaptured."

"And this," said Jacques Collin, addressing Monsieur de Granville, "is the way you keep your word!—Ask your double-faced agent where he took me."

"Where?" said the public prosecutor.

"Close to the Court, in the vaulted passage," said Bibi-Lupin.

"Take your irons off the man," said Monsieur de Granville sternly. "And remember that you are to leave him free till further orders.—Go!—You have a way of moving and acting as if you alone were law and police in one."

The public prosecutor turned his back on Bibi-Lupin, who became deadly pale, especially at a look from Jacques Collin, in which he read disaster.

"I have not been out of this room. I expected you back, and you cannot doubt that I have kept my word, as you kept yours," said Monsieur de Granville to the convict.

"For a moment I did doubt you, sir, and in my place perhaps you would have thought as I did, but on reflection I saw that I was unjust. I bring you more than you can give me; you had no interest in betraying me."

The magistrate flashed a look at Corentin. This glance, which could not escape Trompe-la-Mort, who was watching Monsieur de Granville, directed his attention to the strange little old man sitting in an armchair in a corner. Warned at once by the swift and anxious instinct that scents the presence of an enemy, Collin examined this figure; he saw at a glance that the eyes were not so old as the costume would suggest, and he detected a disguise. In one second Jacques Collin was revenged on Corentin for the rapid insight with which Corentin had unmasked him at Peyrade's.

"We are not alone!" said Jacques Collin to Monsieur de Granville.

"No," said the magistrate drily.

"And this gentleman is one of my oldest acquaintances, I believe," replied the convict.

He went forward, recognizing Corentin, the real and confessed originator of Lucien's overthrow.

Jacques Collin, whose face was of a brick-red hue, for a scarcely perceptible moment turned white, almost ashy; all his blood rushed to his heart, so furious and maddening was his longing to spring on this dangerous reptile and crush it; but he controlled the brutal impulse, suppressing it with the force that made him so formidable. He put on a polite manner and the tone of obsequious civility which he had practised since assuming the garb of a priest of a superior Order, and he bowed to the little old man.

"Monsieur Corentin," said he, "do I owe the pleasure of this meeting to chance, or am I so happy as to be the cause of your visit here?"

Monsieur de Granville's astonishment was at its height, and he could not help staring at the two men who had thus come face to face. Jacques Collin's behavior and the tone in which he spoke denoted a crisis, and he was curious to know the meaning of it. On being thus suddenly and miraculously recognized, Corentin drew himself up like a snake when you tread on its tail.

"Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera."

"And are you here," said Trompe-la-Mort, "to interfere between monsieur the public prosecutor and me? Am I so happy as to be the object of one of those negotiations in which your talents shine so brightly?—Here, Monsieur le Comte," the convict went on, "not to waste time so precious as yours is, read these—they are samples of my wares."

And he held out to Monsieur de Granville three letters, which he took out of his breast-pocket.

"And while you are studying them, I will, with your permission, have a little talk with this gentleman."

"You do me great honor," said Corentin, who could not help giving a little shiver.

"You achieved a perfect success in our business," said Jacques Collin. "I was beaten," he added lightly, in the tone of a gambler who has lost his money, "but you left some men on the field—your victory cost you dear."

"Yes," said Corentin, taking up the jest, "you lost your queen, and I lost my two castles."

"Oh! Contenson was a mere pawn," said Jacques Collin scornfully; "you may easily replace him. You really are—allow me to praise you to your face—you are, on my word of honor, a magnificent man."

"No, no, I bow to your superiority," replied Corentin, assuming the air of a professional joker, as if he said, "If you mean humbug, by all means humbug! I have everything at my command, while you are single-handed, so to speak."

"Oh! Oh!" said Jacques Collin.

"And you were very near winning the day!" said Corentin, noticing the exclamation. "You are quite the most extraordinary man I ever met in my life, and I have seen many very extraordinary men, for those I have to work with me are all remarkable for daring and bold scheming.

"I was, for my sins, very intimate with the late Duc d'Otranto; I have worked for Louis XVIII. when he was on the throne; and, when he was exiled, for the Emperor and for the Directory. You have the tenacity of Louvel, the best political instrument I ever met with; but you are as supple as the prince of diplomates. And what auxiliaries you have! I would give many a head to the guillotine if I could have in my service the cook who lived with poor little Esther.—And where do you find such beautiful creatures as the woman who took the Jewess' place for Monsieur de Nucingen? I don't know where to get them when I want them."

"Monsieur, monsieur, you overpower me," said Jacques Collin. "Such praise from you will turn my head——"

"It is deserved. Why, you took in Peyrade; he believed you to be a police officer—he!—I tell you what, if you had not that fool of a boy to take care of, you would have thrashed us."

"Oh! monsieur, but you are forgetting Contenson disguised as a mulatto, and Peyrade as an Englishman. Actors have the stage to help them, but to be so perfect by daylight, and at all hours, no one but you and your men——"

"Come, now," said Corentin, "we are fully convinced of our worth and merits. And here we stand each of us quite alone; I have lost my old friend, you your young companion. I, for the moment, am in the stronger position, why should we not do like the men in l'Auberge des Adrets? I offer you my hand, and say, 'Let us embrace, and let bygones be bygones.' Here, in the presence of Monsieur le Comte, I propose to give you full and plenary absolution, and you shall be one of my men, the chief next to me, and perhaps my successor."

"You really offer me a situation?" said Jacques Collin. "A nice situation indeed!—out of the fire into the frying-pan!"

"You will be in a sphere where your talents will be highly appreciated and well paid for, and you will act at your ease. The Government police are not free from perils. I, as you see me, have already been imprisoned twice, but I am none the worse for that. And we travel, we are what we choose to appear. We pull the wires of political dramas, and are treated with politeness by very great people.—Come, my dear Jacques Collin, do you say yes?"

"Have you orders to act in this matter?" said the convict.

"I have a free hand," replied Corentin, delighted at his own happy idea.

"You are trifling with me; you are very shrewd, and you must allow that a man may be suspicious of you.—You have sold more than one man by tying him up in a sack after making him go into it of his own accord. I know all your great victories—the Montauran case, the Simeuse business—the battles of Marengo of espionage."

"Well," said Corentin, "you have some esteem for the public prosecutor?"

"Yes," said Jacques Collin, bowing respectfully, "I admire his noble character, his firmness, his dignity. I would give my life to make him happy. Indeed, to begin with, I will put an end to the dangerous condition in which Madame de Serizy now is."

Monsieur de Granville turned to him with a look of satisfaction.

"Then ask him," Corentin went on, "if I have not full power to snatch you from the degrading position in which you stand, and to attach you to me."

"It is quite true," said Monsieur de Granville, watching the convict.

"Really and truly! I may have absolution for the past and a promise of succeeding to you if I give sufficient evidence of my intelligence?"

"Between two such men as we are there can be no misunderstanding," said Corentin, with a lordly air that might have taken anybody in.

"And the price of the bargain is, I suppose, the surrender of those three packets of letters?" said Jacques Collin.

"I did not think it would be necessary to say so to you——"

"My dear Monsieur Corentin," said Trompe-la-Mort, with irony worthy of that which made the fame of Talma in the part of Nicomede, "I beg to decline. I am indebted to you for the knowledge of what I am worth, and of the importance you attach to seeing me deprived of my weapons—I will never forget it.

"At all times and for ever I shall be at your service, but instead of saying with Robert Macaire, 'Let us embrace!' I embrace you."

He seized Corentin round the middle so suddenly that the other could not avoid the hug; he clutched him to his heart like a doll, kissed him on both cheeks, carried him like a feather with one hand, while with the other he opened the door, and then set him down outside, quite battered by this rough treatment.

"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Jacques Collin in a low voice, and in Corentin's ear: "the length of three corpses parts you from me; we have measured swords, they are of the same temper and the same length. Let us treat each other with due respect; but I mean to be your equal, not your subordinate. Armed as you would be, it strikes me you would be too dangerous a general for your lieutenant. We will place a grave between us. Woe to you if you come over on to my territory!

"You call yourself the State, as footmen call themselves by their master's names. For my part, I will call myself Justice. We shall often meet; let us treat each other with dignity and propriety—all the more because we shall always remain—atrocious blackguards," he added in a whisper. "I set you the example by embracing you——"

Corentin stood nonplussed for the first time in his life, and allowed his terrible antagonist to wring his hand.

"If so," said he, "I think it will be to our interest on both sides to remain chums."

"We shall be stronger each on our own side, but at the same time more dangerous," added Jacques Collin in an undertone. "And you will allow me to call on you to-morrow to ask for some pledge of our agreement."

"Well, well," said Corentin amiably, "you are taking the case out of my hands to place it in those of the public prosecutor. You will help him to promotion; but I cannot but own to you that you are acting wisely.—Bibi-Lupin is too well known; he has served his turn; if you get his place, you will have the only situation that suits you. I am delighted to see you in it—on my honor——"

"Till our next meeting, very soon," said Jacques Collin.

On turning round, Trompe-la-Mort saw the public prosecutor sitting at his table, his head resting on his hands.

"Do you mean that you can save the Comtesse de Serizy from going mad?" asked Monsieur de Granville.

"In five minutes," said Jacques Collin.

"And you can give me all those ladies' letters?"

"Have you read the three?"

"Yes," said the magistrate vehemently, "and I blush for the women who wrote them."

"Well, we are now alone; admit no one, and let us come to terms," said Jacques Collin.

"Excuse me, Justice must first take its course. Monsieur Camusot has instructions to seize your aunt."

"He will never find her," said Jacques Collin.

"Search is to be made at the Temple, in the shop of a demoiselle Paccard who superintends her shop."

"Nothing will be found there but rags, costumes, diamonds, uniforms——However, it will be as well to check Monsieur Camusot's zeal."

Monsieur de Granville rang, and sent an office messenger to desire Monsieur Camusot to come and speak with him.

"Now," said he to Jacques Collin, "an end to all this! I want to know your recipe for curing the Countess."

"Monsieur le Comte," said the convict very gravely, "I was, as you know, sentenced to five years' penal servitude for forgery. But I love my liberty.—This passion, like every other, had defeated its own end, for lovers who insist on adoring each other too fondly end by quarreling. By dint of escaping and being recaptured alternately, I have served seven years on the hulks. So you have nothing to remit but the added terms I earned in quod—I beg pardon, in prison. I have, in fact, served my time, and till some ugly job can be proved against me,—which I defy Justice to do, or even Corentin—I ought to be reinstated in my rights as a French citizen.

"What is life if I am banned from Paris and subject to the eye of the police? Where can I go, what can I do? You know my capabilities. You have seen Corentin, that storehouse of treachery and wile, turn ghastly pale before me, and doing justice to my powers.—That man has bereft me of everything; for it was he, and he alone, who overthrew the edifice of Lucien's fortunes, by what means and in whose interest I know not.—Corentin and Camusot did it all——"

"No recriminations," said Monsieur de Granville; "give me the facts."

"Well, then, these are the facts. Last night, as I held in my hand the icy hand of that dead youth, I vowed to myself that I would give up the mad contest I have kept up for twenty years past against society at large.

"You will not believe me capable of religious sentimentality after what I have said of my religious opinions. Still, in these twenty years I have seen a great deal of the seamy side of the world. I have known its back-stairs, and I have discerned, in the march of events, a Power which you call Providence and I call Chance, and which my companions call Luck. Every evil deed, however quickly it may hide its traces, is overtaken by some retribution. In this struggle for existence, when the game is going well—when you have quint and quartorze in your hand and the lead—the candle tumbles over and the cards are burned, or the player has a fit of apoplexy!—That is Lucien's story. That boy, that angel, had not committed the shadow of a crime; he let himself be led, he let things go! He was to marry Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, to be made marquis; he had a fine fortune;—well, a prostitute poisons herself, she hides the price of a certificate of stock, and the whole structure so laboriously built up crumbles in an instant.

"And who is the first man to deal a blow? A man loaded with secret infamy, a monster who, in the world of finance, has committed such crimes that every coin of his vast fortune has been dipped in the tears of a whole family [see la Maison Nucingen]—by Nucingen, who has been a legalized Jacques Collin in the world of money. However, you know as well as I do all the bankruptcies and tricks for which that man deserves hanging. My fetters will leave a mark on all my actions, however virtuous. To be a shuttlecock between two racquets—one called the hulks, and the other the police—is a life in which success means never-ending toil, and peace and quiet seem quite impossible.

"At this moment, Monsieur de Granville, Jacques Collin is buried with Lucien, who is being now sprinkled with holy water and carried away to Pere-Lachaise. What I want is a place not to live in, but to die in. As things are, you, representing Justice, have never cared to make the released convict's social status a concern of any interest. Though the law may be satisfied, society is not; society is still suspicious, and does all it can to justify its suspicions; it regards a released convict as an impossible creature; it ought to restore him to his full rights, but, in fact, it prohibits his living in certain circles. Society says to the poor wretch, 'Paris, which is the only place you can be hidden in; Paris and its suburbs for so many miles round is the forbidden land, you shall not live there!' and it subjects the convict to the watchfulness of the police. Do you think that life is possible under such conditions? To live, the convict must work, for he does not come out of prison with a fortune.

"You arrange matters so that he is plainly ticketed, recognized, hedged round, and then you fancy that his fellow-citizens will trust him, when society and justice and the world around him do not. You condemn him to starvation or crime. He cannot get work, and is inevitably dragged into his old ways, which lead to the scaffold.

"Thus, while earnestly wishing to give up this struggle with the law, I could find no place for myself under the sun. One course alone is open to me, that is to become the servant of the power that crushes us; and as soon as this idea dawned on me, the Power of which I spoke was shown in the clearest light. Three great families are at my mercy. Do not suppose I am thinking of blackmail—blackmail is the meanest form of murder. In my eyes it is baser villainy than murder. The murderer needs, at any rate, atrocious courage. And I practise what I preach; for the letters which are my safe-conduct, which allow me to address you thus, and for the moment place me on an equality with you—I, Crime, and you, Justice—those letters are in your power. Your messenger may fetch them, and they will be given up to him.

"I ask no price for them; I do not sell them. Alas! Monsieur le Comte, I was not thinking of myself when I preserved them; I thought that Lucien might some day be in danger! If you cannot agree to my request, my courage is out; I hate life more than enough to make me blow out my own brains and rid you of me!—Or, with a passport, I can go to America and live in the wilderness. I have all the characteristics of a savage.

"These are the thoughts that came to me in the night.—Your clerk, no doubt, carried you a message I sent by him. When I saw what precautions you took to save Lucien's memory from any stain, I dedicated my life to you—a poor offering, for I no longer cared for it; it seemed to me impossible without the star that gave it light, the happiness that glorified it, the thought that gave it meaning, the prosperity of the young poet who was its sun—and I determined to give you the three packets of letters——"

Monsieur de Granville bowed his head.

"I went down into the prison-yard, and there I found the persons guilty of the Nanterre crime, as well as my little chain companion within an inch of the chopper as an involuntary accessory after the fact," Jacques Collin went on. "I discovered that Bibi-Lupin is cheating the authorities, that one of his men murdered the Crottats. Was not this providential, as you say?—So I perceived a remote possibility of doing good, of turning my gifts and the dismal experience I have gained to account for the benefit of society, of being useful instead of mischievous, and I ventured to confide in your judgment, your generosity."

The man's air of candor, of artlessness, of childlike simplicity, as he made his confession, without bitterness, or that philosophy of vice which had hitherto made him so terrible to hear, was like an absolute transformation. He was no longer himself.

"I have such implicit trust in you," he went on, with the humility of a penitent, "that I am wholly at your mercy. You see me with three roads open to me—suicide, America, and the Rue de Jerusalem. Bibi-Lupin is rich; he has served his turn; he is a double-faced rascal. And if you set me to work against him, I would catch him red-handed in some trick within a week. If you will put me in that sneak's shoes, you will do society a real service. I will be honest. I have every quality that is needed in the profession. I am better educated than Bibi-Lupin; I went through my schooling up to rhetoric; I shall not blunder as he does; I have very good manners when I choose. My sole ambition is to become an instrument of order and repression instead of being the incarnation of corruption. I will enlist no more recruits to the army of vice.

"In war, monsieur, when a hostile general is captured, he is not shot, you know; his sword is returned to him, and his prison is a large town; well, I am the general of the hulks, and I have surrendered.—I am beaten, not by the law, but by death. The sphere in which I crave to live and act is the only one that is suited to me, and there I can develop the powers I feel within me.

"Decide."

And Jacques Collin stood in an attitude of diffident submission.

"You place the letters in my hands, then?" said the public prosecutor.

"You have only to send for them; they will be delivered to your messenger."

"But how?"

Jacques Collin read the magistrate's mind, and kept up the game.

"You promised me to commute the capital sentence on Calvi for twenty years' penal servitude. Oh, I am not reminding you of that to drive a bargain," he added eagerly, seeing Monsieur de Granville's expression; "that life should be safe for other reasons, the lad is innocent——"

"How am I to get the letters?" asked the public prosecutor. "It is my right and my business to convince myself that you are the man you say you are. I must have you without conditions."

"Send a man you can trust to the Flower Market on the quay. At the door of a tinman's shop, under the sign of Achilles' shield——"

"That house?"

"Yes," said Jacques Collin, smiling bitterly, "my shield is there.—Your man will see an old woman dressed, as I told you before, like a fish-woman who has saved money—earrings in her ears, and clothes like a rich market-woman's. He must ask for Madame de Saint-Esteve. Do not omit the DE. And he must say, 'I have come from the public prosecutor to fetch you know what.'—You will immediately receive three sealed packets."

"All the letters are there?" said Monsieur de Granville.

"There is no tricking you; you did not get your place for nothing!" said Jacques Collin, with a smile. "I see you still think me capable of testing you and giving you so much blank paper.—No; you do not know me," said he. "I trust you as a son trusts his father."

"You will be taken back to the Conciergerie," said the magistrate, "and there await a decision as to your fate."

Monsieur de Granville rang, and said to the office-boy who answered:

"Beg Monsieur Garnery to come here, if he is in his room."

Besides the forty-eight police commissioners who watch over Paris like forty-eight petty Providences, to say nothing of the guardians of Public Safety—and who have earned the nickname of quart d'oeil, in thieves' slang, a quarter of an eye, because there are four of them to each district,—besides these, there are two commissioners attached equally to the police and to the legal authorities, whose duty it is to undertake delicate negotiation, and not frequently to serve as deputies to the examining judges. The office of these two magistrates, for police commissioners are also magistrates, is known as the Delegates' office; for they are, in fact, delegated on each occasion, and formally empowered to carry out inquiries or arrests.

These functions demand men of ripe age, proved intelligence, great rectitude, and perfect discretion; and it is one of the miracles wrought by Heaven in favor of Paris, that some men of that stamp are always forthcoming. Any description of the Palais de Justice would be incomplete without due mention of these preventive officials, as they may be called, the most powerful adjuncts of the law; for though it must be owned that the force of circumstances has abrogated the ancient pomp and wealth of justice, it has materially gained in many ways. In Paris especially its machinery is admirably perfect.

Monsieur de Granville had sent his secretary, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, to attend Lucien's funeral; he needed a substitute for this business, a man he could trust, and Monsieur Garnery was one of the commissioners in the Delegates' office.

"Monsieur," said Jacques Collin, "I have already proved to you that I have a sense of honor. You let me go free, and I came back.—By this time the funeral mass for Lucien is ended; they will be carrying him to the grave. Instead of remanding me to the Conciergerie, give me leave to follow the boy's body to Pere-Lachaise. I will come back and surrender myself prisoner."

"Go," said Monsieur de Granville, in the kindest tone.

"One word more, monsieur. The money belonging to that girl—Lucien's mistress—was not stolen. During the short time of liberty you allowed me, I questioned her servants. I am sure of them as you are of your two commissioners of the Delegates' office. The money paid for the certificate sold by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck will certainly be found in her room when the seals are removed. Her maid remarked to me that the deceased was given to mystery-making, and very distrustful; she no doubt hid the banknotes in her bed. Let the bedstead be carefully examined and taken to pieces, the mattresses unsewn—the money will be found."

"You are sure of that?"

"I am sure of the relative honesty of my rascals; they never play any tricks on me. I hold the power of life and death; I try and condemn them and carry out my sentence without all your formalities. You can see for yourself the results of my authority. I will recover the money stolen from Monsieur and Madame Crottat; I will hand you over one of Bibi-Lupin's men, his right hand, caught in the act; and I will tell you the secret of the Nanterre murders. This is not a bad beginning. And if you only employ me in the service of the law and the police, by the end of a year you will be satisfied with all I can tell you. I will be thoroughly all that I ought to be, and shall manage to succeed in all the business that is placed in my hands."

"I can promise you nothing but my goodwill. What you ask is not in my power. The privilege of granting pardons is the King's alone, on the recommendation of the Keeper of the Seals; and the place you wish to hold is in the gift of the Prefet of Police."

"Monsieur Garnery," the office-boy announced.

At a nod from Monsieur de Granville the Delegate commissioner came in, glanced at Jacques Collin as one who knows, and gulped down his astonishment on hearing the word "Go!" spoken to Jacques Collin by Monsieur de Granville.

"Allow me," said Jacques Collin, "to remain here till Monsieur Garnery has returned with the documents in which all my strength lies, that I may take away with me some expression of your satisfaction."

This absolute humility and sincerity touched the public prosecutor.

"Go," said he; "I can depend on you."

Jacques Collin bowed humbly, with the submissiveness of an inferior to his master. Ten minutes later, Monsieur de Granville was in possession of the letters in three sealed packets that had not been opened! But the importance of this point, and Jacques Collin's avowal, had made him forget the convict's promise to cure Madame de Serizy.



When once he was outside, Jacques Collin had an indescribable sense of satisfaction. He felt he was free, and born to a new phase of life. He walked quickly from the Palais to the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, where mass was over. The coffin was being sprinkled with holy water, and he arrived in time thus to bid farewell, in a Christian fashion, to the mortal remains of the youth he had loved so well. Then he got into a carriage and drove after the body to the cemetery.

In Paris, unless on very exceptional occasions, or when some famous man has died a natural death, the crowd that gathers about a funeral diminishes by degrees as the procession approaches Pere-Lachaise. People make time to show themselves in church; but every one has his business to attend to, and returns to it as soon as possible. Thus of ten mourning carriages, only four were occupied. By the time they reached Pere-Lachaise there were not more than a dozen followers, among whom was Rastignac.

"That is right; it is well that you are faithful to him," said Jacques Collin to his old acquaintance.

Rastignac started with surprise at seeing Vautrin.

"Be calm," said his old fellow-boarder at Madame Vauquer's. "I am your slave, if only because I find you here. My help is not to be despised; I am, or shall be, more powerful than ever. You slipped your cable, and you did it very cleverly; but you may need me yet, and I will always be at your service.

"But what are you going to do?"

"To supply the hulks with lodgers instead of lodging there," replied Jacques Collin.

Rastignac gave a shrug of disgust.

"But if you were robbed——"

Rastignac hurried on to get away from Jacques Collin.

"You do not know what circumstances you may find yourself in."

They stood by the grave dug by the side of Esther's.

"Two beings who loved each other, and who were happy!" said Jacques Collin. "They are united.—It is some comfort to rot together. I will be buried here."

When Lucien's body was lowered into the grave, Jacques Collin fell in a dead faint. This strong man could not endure the light rattle of the spadefuls of earth thrown by the gravediggers on the coffin as a hint for their payment.

Just then two men of the corps of Public Safety came up; they recognized Jacques Collin, lifted him up, and carried him to a hackney coach.

"What is up now?" asked Jacques Collin when he recovered consciousness and had looked about him.

He saw himself between two constables, one of whom was Ruffard; and he gave him a look which pierced the murderer's soul to the very depths of la Gonore's secret.

"Why, the public prosecutor wants you," replied Ruffard, "and we have been hunting for you everywhere, and found you in the cemetery, where you had nearly taken a header into that boy's grave."

Jacques Collin was silent for a moment.

"Is it Bibi-Lupin that is after me?" he asked the other man.

"No. Monsieur Garnery sent us to find you."

"And he told you nothing?"

The two men looked at each other, holding council in expressive pantomime.

"Come, what did he say when he gave you your orders?"

"He bid us fetch you at once," said Ruffard, "and said we should find you at the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres; or, if the funeral had left the church, at the cemetery."

"The public prosecutor wants me?"

"Perhaps."

"That is it," said Jacques Collin; "he wants my assistance."

And he relapsed into silence, which greatly puzzled the two constables.

At about half-past two Jacques Collin once more went up to Monsieur de Granville's room, and found there a fresh arrival in the person of Monsieur de Granville's predecessor, the Comte Octave de Bauvan, one of the Presidents of the Court of Appeals.

"You forgot Madame de Serizy's dangerous condition, and that you had promised to save her."

"Ask these rascals in what state they found me, monsieur," said Jacques Collin, signing to the two constables to come in.

"Unconscious, monsieur, lying on the edge of the grave of the young man they were burying."

"Save Madame de Serizy," said the Comte de Bauvan, "and you shall have what you will."

"I ask for nothing," said Jacques Collin. "I surrendered at discretion, and Monsieur de Granville must have received——"

"All the letters, yes," said the magistrate. "But you promised to save Madame de Serizy's reason. Can you? Was it not a vain boast?"

"I hope I can," replied Jacques Collin modestly.

"Well, then, come with me," said Comte Octave.

"No, monsieur; I will not be seen in the same carriage by your side—I am still a convict. It is my wish to serve the Law; I will not begin by discrediting it. Go back to the Countess; I will be there soon after you. Tell her Lucien's best friend is coming to see her, the Abbe Carlos Herrera; the anticipation of my visit will make an impression on her and favor the cure. You will forgive me for assuming once more the false part of a Spanish priest; it is to do so much good!"

"I shall find you there at about four o'clock," said Monsieur de Granville, "for I have to wait on the King with the Keeper of the Seals."

Jacques Collin went off to find his aunt, who was waiting for him on the Quai aux Fleurs.

"So you have given yourself up to the authorities?" said she.

"Yes."

"It is a risky game."

"No; I owed that poor Theodore his life, and he is reprieved."

"And you?"

"I—I shall be what I ought to be. I shall always make our set shake in their shoes.—But we must get to work. Go and tell Paccard to be off as fast as he can go, and see that Europe does as I told her."

"That is a trifle; I know how to deal with la Gonore," said the terrible Jacqueline. "I have not been wasting my time here among the gilliflowers."

"Let Ginetta, the Corsican girl, be found by to-morrow," Jacques Collin went on, smiling at his aunt.

"I shall want some clue."

"You can get it through Manon la Blonde," said Jacques.

"Then we meet this evening," replied the aunt, "you are in such a deuce of a hurry. Is there a fat job on?"

"I want to begin with a stroke that will beat everything that Bibi-Lupin has ever done. I have spoken a few words to the brute who killed Lucien, and I live only for revenge! Thanks to our positions, he and I shall be equally strong, equally protected. It will take years to strike the blow, but the wretch shall have it straight in the heart."

"He must have vowed a Roland for your Oliver," said the aunt, "for he has taken charge of Peyrade's daughter, the girl who was sold to Madame Nourrisson, you know."

"Our first point must be to find him a servant."

"That will be difficult; he must be tolerably wide-awake," observed Jacqueline.

"Well, hatred keeps one alive! We must work hard."



Jacques Collin took a cab and drove at once to the Quai Malaquais, to the little room he lodged in, quite separate from Lucien's apartment. The porter, greatly astonished at seeing him, wanted to tell him all that had happened.

"I know everything," said the Abbe. "I have been involved in it, in spite of my saintly reputation; but, thanks to the intervention of the Spanish Ambassador, I have been released."

He hurried up to his room, where, from under the cover of a breviary, he took out a letter that Lucien had written to Madame de Serizy after that lady had discarded him on seeing him at the opera with Esther.

Lucien, in his despair, had decided on not sending this letter, believing himself cast off for ever; but Jacques Collin had read the little masterpiece; and as all that Lucien wrote was to him sacred, he had treasured the letter in his prayer-book for its poetical expression of a passion that was chiefly vanity. When Monsieur de Granville told him of Madame de Serizy's condition, the keen-witted man had very wisely concluded that this fine lady's despair and frenzy must be the result of the quarrel she had allowed to subsist between herself and Lucien. He knew women as magistrates know criminals; he guessed the most secret impulses of their hearts; and he at once understood that the Countess probably ascribed Lucien's death partly to her own severity, and reproached herself bitterly. Obviously a man on whom she had shed her love would never have thrown away his life!—To know that he had loved her still, in spite of her cruelty, might restore her reason.

If Jacques Collin was a grand general of convicts, he was, it must be owned, a not less skilful physician of souls.

This man's arrival at the mansion of the Serizys was at once a disgrace and a promise. Several persons, the Count, and the doctors were assembled in the little drawing-room adjoining the Countess' bedroom; but to spare him this stain on his soul's honor, the Comte de Bauvan dismissed everybody, and remained alone with his friend. It was bad enough even then for the Vice-President of the Privy Council to see this gloomy and sinister visitor come in.

Jacques Collin had changed his dress. He was in black with trousers, and a plain frock-coat, and his gait, his look, and his manner were all that could be wished. He bowed to the two statesmen, and asked if he might be admitted to see the Countess.

"She awaits you with impatience," said Monsieur de Bauvan.

"With impatience! Then she is saved," said the dreadful magician.

And, in fact, after an interview of half an hour, Jacques Collin opened the door and said:

"Come in, Monsieur le Comte; there is nothing further to fear."

The Countess had the letter clasped to her heart; she was calm, and seemed to have forgiven herself. The Count gave expression to his joy at the sight.

"And these are the men who settle our fate and the fate of nations," thought Jacques Collin, shrugging his shoulders behind the two men. "A female has but to sigh in the wrong way to turn their brain as if it were a glove! A wink, and they lose their head! A petticoat raised a little higher, dropped a little lower, and they rush round Paris in despair! The whims of a woman react on the whole country. Ah, how much stronger is a man when, like me, he keeps far away from this childish tyranny, from honor ruined by passion, from this frank malignity, and wiles worthy of savages! Woman, with her genius for ruthlessness, her talent for torture, is, and always will be, the marring of man. The public prosecutor, the minister—here they are, all hoodwinked, all moving the spheres for some letters written by a duchess and a chit, or to save the reason of a woman who is more crazy in her right mind than she was in her delirium."

And he smiled haughtily.

"Ay," said he to himself, "and they believe in me! They act on my information, and will leave me in power. I shall still rule the world which has obeyed me these five-and-twenty years."

Jacques Collin had brought into play the overpowering influence he had exerted of yore over poor Esther; for he had, as has often been shown, the mode of speech, the look, the action which quell madmen, and he had depicted Lucien as having died with the Countess' image in his heart.

No woman can resist the idea of having been the one beloved.

"You now have no rival," had been this bitter jester's last words.

He remained a whole hour alone and forgotten in that little room. Monsieur de Granville arrived and found him gloomy, standing up, and lost in a brown study, as a man may well be who makes an 18th Brumaire in his life.

The public prosecutor went to the door of the Countess' room, and remained there a few minutes; then he turned to Jacques Collin and said:

"You have not changed your mind?"

"No, monsieur."

"Well, then, you will take Bibi-Lupin's place, and Calvi's sentence will be commuted."

"And he is not to be sent to Rochefort?"

"Not even to Toulon; you may employ him in your service. But these reprieves and your appointment depend on your conduct for the next six months as subordinate to Bibi-Lupin."



Within a week Bibi-Lupin's new deputy had helped the Crottat family to recover four hundred thousand francs, and had brought Ruffard and Godet to justice.

The price of the certificates sold by Esther Gobseck was found in the courtesan's mattress, and Monsieur de Serizy handed over to Jacques Collin the three hundred thousand francs left to him by Lucien de Rubempre.

The monument erected by Lucien's orders for Esther and himself is considered one of the finest in Pere-Lachaise, and the earth beneath it belongs to Jacques Collin.

After exercising his functions for about fifteen years Jacques Collin retired in 1845.

DECEMBER 1847.



ADDENDUM

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

Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d' Father Goriot The Secrets of a Princess Beatrix

Bauvan, Comte Octave de Honorine

Beaumesnil, Mademoiselle The Middle Classes A Second Home

Beaupre, Fanny A Start in Life Modeste Mignon The Muse of the Department

Bianchon, Horace Father Goriot The Atheist's Mass Cesar Birotteau 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 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

Bibi-Lupin (chief of secret police, called himself Gondureau) Father Goriot

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon The Firm of Nucingen The Muse of the Department Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis Beatrix A Man of Business Gaudissart II. The Unconscious Humorists Cousin Pons

Blondet, Emile Jealousies of a Country Town A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Modeste Mignon Another Study of Woman The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve The Firm of Nucingen The Peasantry

Bouvard, Doctor Ursule Mirouet

Braschon Cesar Birotteau

Bridau, Philippe A Bachelor's Establishment

Cachan Lost Illusions

Camusot de Marville Cousin Pons Jealousies of a Country Town The Commission in Lunacy

Camusot de Marville, Madame The Vendetta Cesar Birotteau Jealousies of a Country Town Cousin Pons

Cerizet Lost Illusions A Man of Business The Middle Classes

Chardon, Madame (nee Rubempre) Lost Illusions

Chatelet, Sixte, Baron du Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Thirteen

Chaulieu, Henri, Duc de Letters of Two Brides Modeste Mignon A Bachelor's Establishment The Thirteen

Collin, Jacqueline Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Collin, Jacques Father Goriot Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Member for Arcis

Corentin The Chouans The Gondreville Mystery The Middle Classes

Crottat, Monsieur and Madame Cesar Birotteau

Dauriat A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Modeste Mignon

Derville Gobseck A Start in Life The Gondreville Mystery Father Goriot Colonel Chabert

Desplein The Atheist's Mass Cousin Pons Lost Illusions The Thirteen The Government Clerks Pierrette A Bachelor's Establishment The Seamy Side of History Modeste Mignon Honorine

Desroches (son) A Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert A Start in Life A Woman of Thirty The Commission in Lunacy The Government Clerks A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Firm of Nucingen A Man of Business The Middle Classes

Espard, Charles-Maurice-Marie-Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquis d' The Commission in Lunacy

Espard, Chevalier d' The Commission in Lunacy The Secrets of a Princess

Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d' The Commission in Lunacy A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Letters of Two Brides Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve Beatrix

Estourny, Charles d' Modeste Mignon A Man of Business

Falleix, Jacques The Government Clerks The Thirteen

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

Fouche, Joseph The Chouans The Gondreville Mystery

Gaillard, Theodore A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists

Gaillard, Madame Theodore Jealousies of a Country Town A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists

Gaudissart, Felix Cousin Pons Cesar Birotteau Honorine Gaudissart the Great

Givry Letters of Two Brides The Lily of the Valley

Gobseck, Esther Van Gobseck The Firm of Nucingen A Bachelor's Establishment

Gobseck, Sarah Van Gobseck Cesar Birotteau The Maranas The Member for Arcis

Godeschal, Marie A Bachelor's Establishment A Start in Life Cousin Pons

Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de The Gondreville Mystery The Thirteen A Bachelor's Establishment Modeste Mignon

Grandlieu, Duchesse Ferdinand de Beatrix A Daughter of Eve

Grandlieu, Mademoiselle de A Bachelor's Establishment

Grandlieu, Vicomtesse de Colonel Chabert Gobseck

Grandlieu, Vicomte Juste de Gobseck

Grandlieu, Vicomtesse Juste de Gobseck A Daughter of Eve

Granville, Vicomte de The Gondreville Mystery A Second Home Farewell (Adieu) Cesar Birotteau A Daughter of Eve Cousin Pons

Granville, Baron Eugene de A Second Home

Grindot Cesar Birotteau Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Start in Life Beatrix The Middle Classes Cousin Betty

Herrera, Carlos Lost Illusions

Katt The Middle Classes

La Peyrade, Charles-Marie-Theodose de The Middle Classes

La Peyrade, Madame de The Middle Classes

Lebrun Cousin Pons

Lenoncourt-Givry, Duchesse de The Lily of the Valley Letters of Two Brides

Louchard Cousin Pons

Louis XVIII., Louis-Stanislas-Xavier The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Gondreville Mystery The Ball at Sceaux The Lily of the Valley Colonel Chabert The Government Clerks

Lousteau, Etienne A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment A Daughter of Eve Beatrix The Muse of the Department Cousin Betty A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business The Middle Classes The Unconscious Humorists

Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des The Muse of the Department Eugenie Grandet A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks Ursule Mirouet

Madeleine Cousin Pons

Marron Lost Illusions

Massol The Magic Skin A Daughter of Eve Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Maufrigneuse, Duc de The Secrets of a Princess A Start in Life A Bachelor's Establishment

Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de The Secrets of a Princess Modeste Mignon Jealousies of a Country Town The Muse of the Department Letters of Two Brides Another Study of Woman The Gondreville Mystery The Member for Arcis

Meynardie, Madame The Thirteen

Mirbel, Madame de Letters of Two Brides The Secrets of a Princess

Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de Domestic Peace Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Peasantry A Man of Business Cousin Betty

Nathan, Raoul Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve Letters of Two Brides The Seamy Side of History The Muse of the Department A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business The Unconscious Humorists

Nathan, Madame Raoul The Muse of the Department Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks A Bachelor's Establishment Ursule Mirouet Eugenie Grandet The Imaginary Mistress A Prince of Bohemia A Daughter of Eve The Unconscious Humorists

Navarreins, Duc de A Bachelor's Establishment Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen Jealousies of a Country Town The Peasantry The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess Cousin Betty

Nourrisson, Madame Cousin Betty The Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de The Firm of Nucingen Father Goriot Pierrette Cesar Birotteau Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris 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 Cesar Birotteau Melmoth Reconciled Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Commission in Lunacy Modeste Mignon The Firm of Nucingen Another Study of Woman A Daughter of Eve The Member for Arcis

Peyrade The Gondreville Mystery

Poiret, the elder The Government Clerks Father Goriot A Start in Life The Middle Classes

Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau) Father Goriot The Middle Classes

Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de The Ball at Sceaux Ursule Mirouet Beatrix

Rastignac, Eugene de Father Goriot A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Ball at Sceaux The Commission in Lunacy A Study of Woman Another Study of Woman The Magic Skin The Secrets of a Princess A Daughter of Eve The Gondreville Mystery The Firm of Nucingen Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis The Unconscious Humorists

Rhetore, Duc Alphonse de A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Letters of Two Brides Albert Savarus The Member for Arcis

Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris The Government Clerks Ursule Mirouet

Schmucke, Wilhelm A Daughter of Eve Ursule Mirouet Cousin Pons

Sechard, David Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial At Paris

Sechard, Madame David Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial At Paris

Selerier Father Goriot

Serizy, Comte Hugret de A Start in Life A Bachelor's Establishment Honorine Modeste Mignon

Serizy, Comtesse de A Start in Life The Thirteen Ursule Mirouet A Woman of Thirty Another Study of Woman The Imaginary Mistress

Tours-Minieres, Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des The Seamy Side of History

Vernou, Felicien A Bachelor's Establishment Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Daughter of Eve Cousin Betty

Vivet, Madeleine Cousin Pons

THE END