The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac. The griffin classics
minutes later a handsome young man, with a fine figure and pleasant face, presented himself, asked for Monsieur Desroches, and gave his name without hesitation to Godeschal.
“I am Frederic Marest,” he said, “and I come to take the place of third clerk.”
“Monsieur Husson,” said Godeschal to Oscar, “show monsieur his seat and tell him about the customs of the office.”
The next day the new clerk found the register lying on his desk. He took it up, but after reading a few pages he began to laugh, said nothing to the assembled clerks, and laid the book down again.
“Messieurs,” he said, when the hour of departure came at five o’clock, “I have a cousin who is head clerk of the notary Maitre Leopold Hannequin; I will ask his advice as to what I ought to do for my welcome.”
“That looks ill,” cried Godeschal, when Frederic had gone, “he hasn’t the cut of a novice, that fellow!”
“We’ll get some fun out of him yet,” said Oscar.
CHAPTER IX, LA MARQUISE DE LAS FLORENTINAS Y CABIROLOS
The following day, at two o’clock, a young man entered the office, whom Oscar recognized as Georges Marest, now head-clerk of the notary Hannequin.
“Ha! here’s the friend of Ali pacha!” he exclaimed in a flippant way.
“Hey! you here, Monsieur l’ambassadeur!” returned Georges, recollecting Oscar.
“So you know each other?” said Godeschal, addressing Georges.
“I should think so! We got into a scrape together,” replied Georges, “about two years ago. Yes, I had to leave Crottat and go to Hannequin in consequence of that affair.”
“What was it?” asked Godeschal.
“Oh, nothing!” replied Georges, at a sign from Oscar. “We tried to hoax a peer of France, and he bowled us over. Ah ca! so you want to jockey my cousin, do you?”
“We jockey no one,” replied Oscar, with dignity; “there’s our charter.”
And he presented the famous register, pointing to a place where sentence of banishment was passed on a refractory who was stated to have been forced, for acts of dishonesty, to leave the office in 1788.
Georges laughed as he looked through the archives.
“Well, well,” he said, “my cousin and I are rich, and we’ll give you a fete such as you never had before, — something to stimulate your imaginations for that register. To-morrow (Sunday) you are bidden to the Rocher de Cancale at two o’clock. Afterwards, I’ll take you to spend the evening with Madame la Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos, where we shall play cards, and you’ll see the elite of the women of fashion. Therefore, gentleman of the lower courts,” he added, with notarial assumption, “you will have to behave yourselves, and carry your wine like the seigneurs of the Regency.”
“Hurrah!” cried the office like one man. “Bravo! very well! vivat! Long live the Marests!”
“What’s all this about?” asked Desroches, coming out from his private office. “Ah! is that you, Georges? I know what you are after; you want to demoralize my clerks.”
So saying, he withdrew into his own room, calling Oscar after him.
“Here,” he said, opening his cash-box, “are five hundred francs. Go to the Palais, and get from the registrar a copy of the decision in Vandernesse against Vandernesse; it must be served to-night if possible. I have promised a PROD of twenty francs to Simon. Wait for the copy if it is not ready. Above all, don’t let yourself be fooled; for Derville is capable, in the interest of his clients, to stick a spoke in our wheel. Count Felix de Vandernesse is more powerful than his brother, our client, the ambassador. Therefore keep your eyes open, and if there’s the slightest hitch come back to me at once.”
Oscar departed with the full intention of distinguishing himself in this little skirmish, — the first affair entrusted to him since his installation as second clerk.
After the departure of Georges and Oscar, Godeschal sounded the new clerk to discover the joke which, as he thought, lay behind this Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos. But Frederic, with the coolness and gravity of a king’s attorney, continued his cousin’s hoax, and by his way of answering, and his manner generally, he succeeded in making the office believe that the marquise might really be the widow of a Spanish grandee, to whom his cousin Georges was paying his addresses. Born in Mexico, and the daughter of Creole parents, this young and wealthy widow was noted for the easy manners and habits of the women of those climates.
“She loves to laugh, she loves to sing, she loves to drink like me!” he said in a low voice, quoting the well-known song of Beranger. “Georges,” he added, “is very rich; he has inherited from his father (who was a widower) eighteen thousand francs a year, and with the twelve thousand which an uncle has just left to each of us, he has an income of thirty thousand. So he pays his debts, and gives up the law. He hopes to be Marquis de las Florentinas, for the young widow is marquise in her own right, and has the privilege of giving her titles to her husband.”
Though the clerks were still a good deal undecided in mind as to the marquise, the double perspective of a breakfast at the Rocher de Cancale and a fashionable festivity put them into a state of joyous expectation. They reserved all points as to the Spanish lady, intending to judge her without appeal after the meeting.
The Marquise de las Florentinas y Cabirolos was neither more nor less than Mademoiselle Agathe-Florentine Cabirolle, first danseuse at the Gaiete, with whom uncle Cardot was in the habit of singing “Mere Godichon.” A year after the very reparable loss of Madame Cardot, the successful merchant encountered Florentine as she was leaving Coulon’s dancing-class. Attracted by the beauty of that choregraphic flower (Florentine was then about thirteen years of age), he followed her to the rue Pastourel, where he found that the future star of the ballet was the daughter of a portress. Two weeks later, the mother and daughter, established in the rue de Crussol, were enjoying a modest competence. It was to this protector of the arts — to use the consecrated phrase — that the theatre owed the brilliant danseuse. The generous Maecenas made two beings almost beside themselves with joy in the possession of mahogany furniture, hangings, carpets, and a regular kitchen; he allowed them a woman-of-all-work, and gave them two hundred and fifty francs a month for their living. Pere Cardot, with his hair in “pigeon-wings,” seemed like an angel, and was treated with the attention due to a benefactor. To him this was the age of gold.
For three years the warbler of “Mere Godichon” had the wise policy to keep Mademoiselle Cabirolle and her mother in this little apartment, which was only ten steps from the theatre; but he gave the girl, out of love for the choregraphic art, the great Vestris for a master. In 1820 he had the pleasure of seeing Florentine dance her first “pas” in the ballet of a melodrama entitled “The Ruins of Babylon.” Florentine was then about sixteen. Shortly after this debut Pere Cardot became an “old screw” in the eyes of his protegee; but as he had the sense to see that a danseuse at the Gaiete had a certain rank to maintain, he raised the monthly stipend to five hundred francs, for which, although he did not again become an angel, he was, at least, a “friend for life,” a second father. This was his silver age.
From 1820 to 1823, Florentine had the experience of every danseuse of nineteen to twenty years of age. Her friends were the illustrious Mariette and Tullia, leading ladies of the Opera, Florine, and also poor Coralie, torn too early from the arts, and love, and Camusot. As old Cardot had by this time acquired five additional years, he had fallen into the indulgence of a semi-paternity, which is the way with old men towards the young talents they have trained, and which owe their success to them. Besides, where could he have found another Florentine who knew all his habits and likings, and with whom he and his friends could sing “Mere Godichon”? So the little old man remained under a yoke that was semi-conjugal and also irresistibly strong. This was the brass age for the old fellow.
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