An Old Maid. Honore de Balzac
traced among the branches of a weeping willow with other sentimentalities invented by royalism during the Terror, – in spite of his ruins, the chevalier, trimming his beard before a shabby old toilet-table, draped with trumpery lace, exhaled an essence of the eighteenth century. All the libertine graces of his youth reappeared; he seemed to have the wealth of three hundred thousand francs of debt, while his vis-a-vis waited before the door. He was grand, – like Berthier on the retreat from Moscow, issuing orders to an army that existed no longer.
“Monsieur le chevalier,” replied Suzanne, drolly, “seems to me I needn’t tell you anything; you’ve only to look.”
And Suzanne presented a side view of herself which gave a sort of lawyer’s comment to her words. The chevalier, who, you must know, was a sly old bird, lowered his right eye on the grisette, still holding the razor at his throat, and pretended to understand.
“Well, well, my little duck, we’ll talk about that presently. But you are rather previous, it seems to me.”
“Why, Monsieur le chevalier, ought I to wait until my mother beats me and Madame Lardot turns me off? If I don’t get away soon to Paris, I shall never be able to marry here, where men are so ridiculous.”
“It can’t be helped, my dear; society is changing; women are just as much victims to the present state of things as the nobility themselves. After political overturn comes the overturn of morals. Alas! before long woman won’t exist” (he took out the cotton-wool to arrange his ears): “she’ll lose everything by rushing into sentiment; she’ll wring her nerves; good-bye to all the good little pleasures of our time, desired without shame, accepted without nonsense.” (He polished up the little negroes’ heads.) “Women had hysterics in those days to get their ends, but now” (he began to laugh) “their vapors end in charcoal. In short, marriage” (here he picked up his pincers to remove a hair) “will become a thing intolerable; whereas it used to be so gay in my day! The reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. – remember this, my child – said farewell to the finest manners and morals ever known to the world.”
“But, Monsieur le chevalier,” said the grisette, “the matter now concerns the morals and honor of your poor little Suzanne, and I hope you won’t abandon her.”
“Abandon her!” cried the chevalier, finishing his hair; “I’d sooner abandon my own name.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Suzanne.
“Now, listen to me, you little mischief,” said the chevalier, sitting down on a huge sofa, formerly called a duchesse, which Madame Lardot had been at some pains to find for him.
He drew the magnificent Suzanne before him, holding her legs between his knees. She let him do as he liked, although in the street she was offish enough to other men, refusing their familiarities partly from decorum and partly for contempt for their commonness. She now stood audaciously in front of the chevalier, who, having fathomed in his day many other mysteries in minds that were far more wily, took in the situation at a single glance. He knew very well that no young girl would joke about a real dishonor; but he took good care not to knock over the pretty scaffolding of her lie as he touched it.
“We slander ourselves,” he said with inimitable craft; “we are as virtuous as that beautiful biblical girl whose name we bear; we can always marry as we please, but we are thirsty for Paris, where charming creatures – and we are no fool – get rich without trouble. We want to go and see if the great capital of pleasures hasn’t some young Chevalier de Valois in store for us, with a carriage, diamonds, an opera-box, and so forth. Russians, Austrians, Britons, have millions on which we have an eye. Besides, we are patriotic; we want to help France in getting back her money from the pockets of those gentry. Hey! hey! my dear little devil’s duck! it isn’t a bad plan. The world you live in may cry out a bit, but success justifies all things. The worst thing in this world, my dear, is to be without money; that’s our disease, yours and mine. Now inasmuch as we have plenty of wit, we thought it would be a good thing to parade our dear little honor, or dishonor, to catch an old boy; but that old boy, my dear heart, knows the Alpha and Omega of female tricks, – which means that you could easier put salt on a sparrow’s tail than to make me believe I have anything to do with your little affair. Go to Paris, my dear; go at the cost of an old celibate, I won’t prevent it; in fact, I’ll help you, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural money-box of a young girl. But don’t drag me into the matter. Listen, my queen, you who know life pretty well; you would me great harm and give me much pain, – harm, because you would prevent my marriage in a town where people cling to morality; pain, because if you are in trouble (which I deny, you sly puss!) I haven’t a penny to get you out of it. I’m as poor as a church mouse; you know that, my dear. Ah! if I marry Mademoiselle Cormon, if I am once more rich, of course I would prefer you to Cesarine. You’ve always seemed to me as fine as the gold they gild on lead; you were made to be the love of a great seigneur. I think you so clever that the trick you are trying to play off on me doesn’t surprise me one bit; I expected it. You are flinging the scabbard after the sword, and that’s daring for a girl. It takes nerve and superior ideas to do it, my angel, and therefore you have won my respectful esteem.”
“Monsieur le chevalier, I assure you, you are mistaken, and – ”
She colored, and did not dare to say more. The chevalier, with a single glance, had guessed and fathomed her whole plan.
“Yes, yes! I understand: you want me to believe it,” he said. “Well! I do believe it. But take my advice: go to Monsieur du Bousquier. Haven’t you taken linen there for the last six or eight months? I’m not asking what went on between you; but I know the man: he has immense conceit; he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and he only spends a quarter of a comfortable income. If you are as clever as I suppose, you can go to Paris at his expense. There, run along, my little doe; go and twist him round your finger. Only, mind this: be as supple as silk; at every word take a double turn round him and make a knot. He is a man to fear scandal, and if he has given you a chance to put him in the pillory – in short, understand; threaten him with the ladies of the Maternity Hospital. Besides, he’s ambitious. A man succeeds through his wife, and you are handsome and clever enough to make the fortune of a husband. Hey! the mischief! you could hold your own against all the court ladies.”
Suzanne, whose mind took in at a flash the chevalier’s last words, was eager to run off to du Bousquier, but, not wishing to depart too abruptly, she questioned the chevalier about Paris, all the while helping him to dress. The chevalier, however, divined her desire to be off, and favored it by asking her to tell Cesarine to bring up his chocolate, which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzanne then slipped away to her new victim, whose biography must here be given.
Born of an old Alencon family, du Bousquier was a cross between the bourgeois and the country squire. Finding himself without means on the death of his father, he went, like other ruined provincials, to Paris. On the breaking out of the Revolution he took part in public affairs. In spite of revolutionary principles, which made a hobby of republican honesty, the management of public business in those days was by no means clean. A political spy, a stock-jobber, a contractor, a man who confiscated in collusion with the syndic of a commune the property of emigres in order to sell them and buy them in, a minister, and a general were all equally engaged in public business. From 1793 to 1799 du Bousquier was commissary of provisions to the French armies. He lived in a magnificent hotel and was one of the matadors of finance, did business with Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalous life of the period, – the life of a Cincinnatus, on sacks of corn harvested without trouble, stolen rations, “little houses” full of mistresses, in which were given splendid fetes to the Directors of the Republic.
The citizen du Bousquier was one of Barras’ familiars; he was on the best of terms with Fouche, stood very well with Bernadotte, and fully expected to become a minister by throwing himself into the party which secretly caballed against Bonaparte until Marengo. If it had not been for Kellermann’s charge and Desaix’s death, du Bousquier would probably have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistances of that secret government whom Napoleon’s luck sent behind the scenes in 1793. (See “An Historical Mystery.”) The unexpected victory of Marengo was the defeat of that party who actually had their proclamations printed to return to the principles of the Montagne