THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 Translated By

 Clara Bell

 DEDICATION

Dedicated to Monsieur le Contre-Amiral Bazoche, Governor of the Isle of Bourbon, by the grateful writer. DE BALZAC. 

In 1828, at about one o'clock one morning, two persons came out ofa large house in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, near theElysee-Bourbon. One was the famous doctor, Horace Bianchon; the otherwas one of the most elegant men in Paris, the Baron de Rastignac;they were friends of long standing. Each had sent away his carriage, and no cab was to be seen in the street; but the night was fine, andthe pavement dry. 

"We will walk as far as the boulevard, " said Eugene de Rastignac toBianchon. "You can get a hackney cab at the club; there is always oneto be found there till daybreak. Come with me as far as my house. "

"With pleasure. "

"Well, and what have you to say about it?"

"About that woman?" said the doctor coldly. 

"There I recognize my Bianchon!" exclaimed Rastignac. 

"Why, how?"

"Well, my dear fellow, you speak of the Marquise d'Espard as if shewere a case for your hospital. "

"Do you want to know what I think, Eugene? If you throw over Madame deNucingen for this Marquise, you will swap a one-eyed horse for a blindone. "

"Madame de Nucingen is six-and-thirty, Bianchon. "

"And this woman is three-and-thirty, " said the doctor quickly. 

"Her worst enemies only say six-and-twenty. "

"My dear boy, when you really want to know a woman's age, look at hertemples and the tip of her nose. Whatever women may achieve with theircosmetics, they can do nothing against those incorruptible witnessesto their experiences. There each year of life has left its stigmata. When a woman's temples are flaccid, seamed, withered in a particularway; when at the tip of her nose you see those minute specks, whichlook like the imperceptible black smuts which are shed in London bythe chimneys in which coal is burnt. . . . Your servant, sir! Thatwoman is more than thirty. She may be handsome, witty, loving--whatever you please, but she is past thirty, she is arriving atmaturity. I do not blame men who attach themselves to that kind ofwoman; only, a man of your superior distinction must not mistake awinter pippin for a little summer apple, smiling on the bough, andwaiting for you to crunch it. Love never goes to study the registersof birth and marriage; no one loves a woman because she is handsome orugly, stupid or clever; we love because we love. "

"Well, for my part, I love for quite other reasons. She is Marquised'Espard; she was a Blamont-Chauvry; she is the fashion; she has soul;her foot is as pretty as the Duchesse de Berri's; she has perhaps ahundred thousand francs a year--some day, perhaps, I may marry her! Inshort, she will put me into a position which will enable me to pay mydebts. "

"I thought you were rich, " interrupted Bianchon. 

"Bah! I have twenty thousand francs a year--just enough to keep up mystables. I was thoroughly done, my dear fellow, in that Nucingenbusiness; I will tell you about that. --I have got my sisters married;that is the clearest profit I can show since we last met; and I wouldrather have them provided for than have five hundred thousand francs ayear. No, what would you have me do? I am ambitious. To what canMadame de Nucingen lead? A year more and I shall be shelved, stuck ina pigeon-hole like a married man. I have all the discomforts ofmarriage and of single life, without the advantages of either; a falseposition to which every man must come who remains tied too long to thesame apron-string. "

"So you think you will come upon a treasure here?" said Bianchon. "Your Marquise, my dear fellow, does not hit my fancy at all. "

"Your liberal opinions blur your eyesight. If Madame d'Espard were aMadame Rabourdin . . . "

"Listen to me. Noble or simple, she would still have no soul; shewould still be a perfect type of selfishness. Take my word for it, medical men are accustomed to judge of people and things; the sharpestof us read the soul while we study the body. In spite of that prettyboudoir where we have spent this evening, in spite of the magnificenceof the house, it is quite possible that Madame la Marquise is indebt. "

"What makes you think so?"

"I do not assert it; I am supposing. She talked of her soul as LouisXVIII. Used to talk of his heart. I tell you this: That fragile, fairwoman, with her chestnut hair, who pities herself that she may bepitied, enjoys an iron constitution, an appetite like a wolf's, andthe strength and cowardice of a tiger. Gauze, and silk, and muslinwere never more cleverly twisted round a lie! Ecco. "

"Bianchon, you frighten me! You have learned a good many things, then, since we lived in the Maison Vauquer?"

"Yes, since then, my boy, I have seen puppets, both dolls andmanikins. I know something of the ways of the fine ladies whose bodieswe attend to, saving that which is dearest to them, their child--ifthey love it--or their pretty faces, which they always worship. A manspends his nights by their pillow, wearing himself to death to sparethem the slightest loss of beauty in any part; he succeeds, he keepstheir secret like the dead; they send to ask for his bill, and thinkit horribly exorbitant. Who saved them? Nature. Far from recommendinghim, they speak ill of him, fearing lest he should become thephysician of their best friends. 

"My dear fellow, those women of whom you say, 'They are angels!' I--I--have seen stripped of the little grimaces under which they hidetheir soul, as well as of the frippery under which they disguise theirdefects--without manners and without stays; they are not beautiful. 

"We saw a great deal of mud, a great deal of dirt, under the waters ofthe world when we were aground for a time on the shoals of the MaisonVauquer. --What we saw there was nothing. Since I have gone into highsociety, I have seen monsters dressed in satin, Michonneaus in whitegloves, Poirets bedizened with orders, fine gentlemen doing moreusurious business than old Gobseck! To the shame of mankind, when Ihave wanted to shake hands with Virtue, I have found her shivering ina loft, persecuted by calumny, half-starving on a income or a salaryof fifteen hundred francs a year, and regarded as crazy, or eccentric, or imbecile. 

"In short, my dear boy, the Marquise is a woman of fashion, and I havea particular horror of that kind of woman. Do you want to know why? Awoman who has a lofty soul, fine taste, gentle wit, a generously warmheart, and who lives a simple life, has not a chance of being thefashion. Ergo: A woman of fashion and a man in power are analogous;but there is this difference: the qualities by which a man raiseshimself above others ennoble him and are a glory to him; whereas thequalities by which a woman gains power for a day are hideous vices;she belies her nature to hide her character, and to live the militantlife of the world she must have iron strength under a frailappearance. 

"I, as a physician, know that a sound stomach excludes a good heart. Your woman of fashion feels nothing; her rage for pleasure has itssource in a longing to heat up her cold nature, a craving forexcitement and enjoyment, like an old man who stands night after nightby the footlights at the opera. As she has more brain than heart, shesacrifices genuine passion and true friends to her triumph, as ageneral sends his most devoted subalterns to the front in order to wina battle. The woman of fashion ceases to be a woman; she is neithermother, nor wife, nor lover. She is, medically speaking, sex in thebrain. And your Marquise, too, has all the characteristics of hermonstrosity, the beak of a bird of prey, the clear, cold eye, thegentle voice--she is as polished as the steel of a machine, shetouches everything except the heart. "

"There is some truth in what you say, Bianchon. "

"Some truth?" replied Bianchon. "It is all true. Do you suppose that Iwas not struck to the heart by the insulting politeness by which shemade me measure the imaginary distance which her noble birth setsbetween us? That I did not feel the deepest pity for her cat-likecivilities when I remembered what her object was? A year hence shewill not write one word to do me the slightest service, and thisevening she pelted me with smiles, believing that I can influence myuncle Popinot, on whom the success of her case----"

"Would you rather she should have played the fool with you, my dearfellow?--I accept your diatribe against women of fashion; but you arebeside the mark. I should always prefer for a wife a Marquise d'Espardto the most devout and devoted creature on earth. Marry an angel! youwould have to go and bury your happiness in the depths of the country!The wife of a politician is a governing machine, a contrivance thatmakes compliments and courtesies. She is the most important and mostfaithful tool which an ambitious man can use; a friend, in short, whomay compromise herself without mischief, and whom he may belie withoutharmful results. Fancy Mahomet in Paris in the nineteenth century! Hiswife would be a Rohan, a Duchesse de Chevreuse of the Fronde, as keenand as flattering as an Ambassadress, as wily as Figaro. Your lovingwives lead nowhere; a woman of the world leads to everything; she isthe diamond with which a man cuts every window when he has not thegolden key which unlocks every door. Leave humdrum virtues to thehumdrum, ambitious vices to the ambitious. 

"Besides, my dear fellow, do you imagine that the love of a Duchessede Langeais, or de Maufrigneuse, or of a Lady Dudley does not bestowimmense pleasure? If only you knew how much value the cold, severestyle of such a woman gives to the smallest evidence of theiraffection! What a delight it is to see a periwinkle piercing throughthe snow! A smile from below a fan contradicts the reserve of anassumed attitude, and is worth all the unbridled tenderness of yourmiddle-class women with their mortgaged devotion; for, in love, devotion is nearly akin to speculation. 

"And, then, a woman of fashion, a Blamont-Chauvry, has her virtuestoo! Her virtues are fortune, power, effect, a certain contempt of allthat is beneath her----"

"Thank you!" said Bianchon. 

"Old curmudgeon!" said Rastignac, laughing. "Come--do not be socommon, do like your friend Desplein; be a Baron, a Knight ofSaint-Michael; become a peer of France, and marry your daughtersto dukes. "

"I! May the five hundred thousand devils----"

"Come, come! Can you be superior only in medicine? Really, youdistress me . . . "

"I hate that sort of people; I long for a revolution to deliver usfrom them for ever. "

"And so, my dear Robespierre of the lancet, you will not go to-morrowto your uncle Popinot?"

"Yes, I will, " said Bianchon; "for you I would go to hell to fetchwater . . . "

"My good friend, you really touch me. I have sworn that a commissionshall sit on the Marquis. Why, here is even a long-saved tear to thankyou. "

"But, " Bianchon went on, "I do not promise to succeed as you wish withJean-Jules Popinot. You do not know him. However, I will take him tosee your Marquise the day after to-morrow; she may get round him ifshe can. I doubt it. If all the truffles, all the Duchesses, all themistresses, and all the charmers in Paris were there in the full bloomof their beauty; if the King promised him the /Prairie/, and theAlmighty gave him the Order of Paradise with the revenues ofPurgatory, not one of all these powers would induce him to transfer asingle straw from one saucer of his scales into the other. He is ajudge, as Death is Death. "

The two friends had reached the office of the Minister for ForeignAffairs, at the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines. 

"Here you are at home, " said Bianchon, laughing, as he pointed to theministerial residence. "And here is my carriage, " he added, calling ahackney cab. "And these--express our fortune. "

"You will be happy at the bottom of the sea, while I am stillstruggling with the tempests on the surface, till I sink and go to askyou for a corner in your grotto, old fellow!"

"Till Saturday, " replied Bianchon. 

"Agreed, " said Rastignac. "And you promise me Popinot?"

"I will do all my conscience will allow. Perhaps this appeal for acommission covers some little dramorama, to use a word of our good badtimes. "

"Poor Bianchon! he will never be anything but a good fellow, " saidRastignac to himself as the cab drove off. 

"Rastignac has given me the most difficult negotiation in the world, "said Bianchon to himself, remembering, as he rose next morning, thedelicate commission intrusted to him. "However, I have never asked thesmallest service from my uncle in Court, and have paid more than athousand visits gratis for him. And, after all, we are not apt tomince matters between ourselves. He will say Yes or No, and there anend. "

After this little soliloquy the famous physician bent his steps, atseven in the morning, towards the Rue du Fouarre, where dwelt MonsieurJean-Jules Popinot, judge of the Lower Court of the Department of theSeine. The Rue du Fouarre--an old word meaning straw--was in thethirteenth century the most important street in Paris. There stood theSchools of the University, where the voices of Abelard and of Gersonwere heard in the world of learning. It is now one of the dirtieststreets of the Twelfth Arrondissement, the poorest quarter of Paris, that in which two-thirds of the population lack firing in winter, which leaves most brats at the gate of the Foundling Hospital, whichsends most beggars to the poorhouse, most rag-pickers to the streetcorners, most decrepit old folks to bask against the walls on whichthe sun shines, most delinquents to the police courts. 

Half-way down this street, which is always damp, and where the guttercarries to the Seine the blackened waters from some dye-works, thereis an old house, restored no doubt under Francis I. , and built ofbricks held together by a few courses of masonry. That it issubstantial seems proved by the shape of its front wall, notuncommonly seen in some parts of Paris. It bellies, so to speak, in amanner caused by the protuberance of its first floor, crushed underthe weight of the second and third, but upheld by the strong wall ofthe ground floor. At first sight it would seem as though the piersbetween the windows, though strengthened by the stone mullions, mustgive way, but the observer presently perceives that, as in the towerat Bologna, the old bricks and old time-eaten stones of this housepersistently preserve their centre of gravity. 

At every season of the year the solid piers of the ground floor havethe yellow tone and the imperceptible sweating surface that moisturegives to stone. The passer-by feels chilled as he walks close to thiswall, where worn corner-stones ineffectually shelter him from thewheels of vehicles. As is always the case in houses built beforecarriages were in use, the vault of the doorway forms a very lowarchway not unlike the barbican of a prison. To the right of thisentrance there are three windows, protected outside by iron gratingsof so close a pattern, that the curious cannot possibly see the usemade of the dark, damp rooms within, and the panes too are dirty anddusty; to the left are two similar windows, one of which is sometimesopen, exposing to view the porter, his wife, and his children;swarming, working, cooking, eating, and screaming, in a floored andwainscoted room where everything is dropping to pieces, and into whichyou descend two steps--a depth which seems to suggest the gradualelevation of the soil of Paris. 

If on a rainy day some foot-passenger takes refuge under the longvault, with projecting lime-washed beams, which leads from the door tothe staircase, he will hardly fail to pause and look at the picturepresented by the interior of this house. To the left is a squaregarden-plot, allowing of not more than four long steps in eachdirection, a garden of black soil, with trellises bereft of vines, andwhere, in default of vegetation under the shade of two trees, paperscollect, old rags, potsherds, bits of mortar fallen from the roof; abarren ground, where time has shed on the walls, and on the trunks andbranches of the trees, a powdery deposit like cold soot. The two partsof the house, set at a right angle, derive light from thisgarden-court shut in by two adjoining houses built on wooden piers, decrepit and ready to fall, where on each floor some grotesque evidenceis to be seen of the craft pursued by some lodger within. Here longpoles are hung with immense skeins of dyed worsted put out to dry;there, on ropes, dance clean-washed shirts; higher up, on a shelf, volumes display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, husbandswhistle, children shout; the carpenter saws his planks, a copper-turnermakes the metal screech; all kinds of industries combine to produce anoise which the number of instruments renders distracting. 

The general system of decoration in this passage, which is neithercourtyard, garden, nor vaulted way, though a little of all, consistsof wooden pillars resting on square stone blocks, and forming arches. Two archways open on to the little garden; two others, facing thefront gateway, lead to a wooden staircase, with an iron balustradethat was once a miracle of smith's work, so whimsical are the shapesgiven to the metal; the worn steps creak under every tread. Theentrance to each flat has an architrave dark with dirt, grease, anddust, and outer doors, covered with Utrecht velvet set with brassnails, once gilt, in a diamond pattern. These relics of splendor showthat in the time of Louis XIV. The house was the residence of somecouncillor to the Parlement, some rich priests, or some treasurer ofthe ecclesiastical revenue. But these vestiges of former luxury bringa smile to the lips by the artless contrast of past and present. 

M. Jean-Jules Popinot lived on the first floor of this house, wherethe gloom, natural to all first floors in Paris houses, was increasedby the narrowness of the street. This old tenement was known to allthe twelfth arrondissement, on which Providence had bestowed thislawyer, as it gives a beneficent plant to cure or alleviate everymalady. Here is a sketch of a man whom the brilliant Marquise d'Espardhoped to fascinate. 

M. Popinot, as is seemly for a magistrate, was always dressed in black--a style which contributed to make him ridiculous in the eyes ofthose who were in the habit of judging everything from a superficialexamination. Men who are jealous of maintaining the dignity requiredby this color ought to devote themselves to constant and minute careof their person; but our dear M. Popinot was incapable of forcinghimself to the puritanical cleanliness which black demands. Histrousers, always threadbare, looked like camlet--the stuff of whichattorneys' gowns are made; and his habitual stoop set them, in time, in such innumerable creases, that in places they were traced withlines, whitish, rusty, or shiny, betraying either sordid avarice, orthe most unheeding poverty. His coarse worsted stockings were twistedanyhow in his ill-shaped shoes. His linen had the tawny tinge acquiredby long sojourn in a wardrobe, showing that the late lamented MadamePopinot had had a mania for much linen; in the Flemish fashion, perhaps, she had given herself the trouble of a great wash no morethan twice a year. The old man's coat and waistcoat were in harmonywith his trousers, shoes, stockings, and linen. He always had the luckof his carelessness; for, the first day he put on a new coat, heunfailingly matched it with the rest of his costume by staining itwith incredible promptitude. The good man waited till his housekeepertold him that his hat was too shabby before buying a new one. Hisnecktie was always crumpled and starchless, and he never set hisdog-eared shirt collar straight after his judge's bands had disorderedit. He took no care of his gray hair, and shaved but twice a week. Henever wore gloves, and generally kept his hands stuffed into his emptytrousers' pockets; the soiled pocket-holes, almost always torn, addeda final touch to the slovenliness of his person. 

Any one who knows the Palais de Justice at Paris, where every varietyof black attire may be studied, can easily imagine the appearance ofM. Popinot. The habit of sitting for days at a time modifies thestructure of the body, just as the fatigue of hearing interminablepleadings tells on the expression of a magistrate's face. Shut up ashe is in courts ridiculously small, devoid of architectural dignity, and where the air is quickly vitiated, a Paris judge inevitablyacquires a countenance puckered and seamed by reflection, anddepressed by weariness; his complexion turns pallid, acquiring anearthy or greenish hue according to his individual temperament. Inshort, within a given time the most blooming young man is turned intoan "inasmuch" machine--an instrument which applies the Code toindividual cases with the indifference of clockwork. 

Hence, nature, having bestowed on M. Popinot a not too pleasingexterior, his life as a lawyer had not improved it. His frame wasgraceless and angular. His thick knees, huge feet, and broad handsformed a contrast with a priest-like face having a vague resemblanceto a calf's head, meek to unmeaningness, and but little brightened bydivergent bloodless eyes, divided by a straight flat nose, surmountedby a flat forehead, flanked by enormous ears, flabby and graceless. His thin, weak hair showed the baldness through various irregularpartings. 

One feature only commended this face to the physiognomist. This manhad a mouth to whose lips divine kindness lent its sweetness. Theywere wholesome, full, red lips, finely wrinkled, sinuous, mobile, bywhich nature had given expression to noble feelings; lips which spoketo the heart and proclaimed the man's intelligence and lucidity, agift of second-sight, and a heavenly temper; and you would have judgedhim wrongly from looking merely at his sloping forehead, his firelesseyes, and his shambling gait. His life answered to his countenance; itwas full of secret labor, and hid the virtue of a saint. His superiorknowledge of law proved so strong a recommendation at a time whenNapoleon was reorganizing it in 1808 and 1811, that, by the advice ofCambaceres, he was one of the first men named to sit on the ImperialHigh Court of Justice at Paris. Popinot was no schemer. Whenever anydemand was made, any request preferred for an appointment, theMinister would overlook Popinot, who never set foot in the house ofthe High Chancellor or the Chief Justice. From the High Court he wassent down to the Common Court, and pushed to the lowest rung of theladder by active struggling men. There he was appointed supernumeraryjudge. There was a general outcry among the lawyers: "Popinot asupernumerary!" Such injustice struck the legal world with dismay--theattorneys, the registrars, everybody but Popinot himself, who made nocomplaint. The first clamor over, everybody was satisfied that all wasfor the best in the best of all possible worlds, which must certainlybe the legal world. Popinot remained supernumerary judge till the daywhen the most famous Great Seal under the Restoration avenged theoversights heaped on this modest and uncomplaining man by the ChiefJustices of the Empire. After being a supernumerary for twelve years, M. Popinot would no doubt die a puisne judge of the Court of theSeine. 

To account for the obscure fortunes of one of the superior men of thelegal profession, it is necessary to enter here into some detailswhich will serve to reveal his life and character, and which will, atthe same time, display some of the wheels of the great machine knownas Justice. M. Popinot was classed by the three Presidents whosuccessively controlled the Court of the Seine under the category ofpossible judges, the stuff of which judges are made. Thus classified, he did not achieve the reputation for capacity which his previouslabors had deserved. Just as a painter is invariably included in acategory as a landscape painter, a portrait painter, a painter ofhistory, of sea pieces, or of genre, by a public consisting ofartists, connoisseurs, and simpletons, who, out of envy, or criticalomnipotence, or prejudice, fence in his intellect, assuming, one andall, that there are ganglions in every brain--a narrow judgment whichthe world applies to writers, to statesmen, to everybody who beginswith some specialty before being hailed as omniscient; so Popinot'sfate was sealed, and he was hedged round to do a particular kind ofwork. Magistrates, attorneys, pleaders, all who pasture on the legalcommon, distinguish two elements in every case--law and equity. Equityis the outcome of facts, law is the application of principles tofacts. A man may be right in equity but wrong in law, without anyblame to the judge. Between his conscience and the facts there is awhole gulf of determining reasons unknown to the judge, but whichcondemn or legitimatize the act. A judge is not God; the duty is toadapt facts to principles, to judge cases of infinite variety whilemeasuring them by a fixed standard. 

France employs about six thousand judges; no generation has sixthousand great men at her command, much less can she find them in thelegal profession. Popinot, in the midst of the civilization of Paris, was just a very clever cadi, who, by the character of his mind, and bydint of rubbing the letter of the law into the essence of facts, hadlearned to see the error of spontaneous and violent decisions. By thehelp of his judicial second-sight he could pierce the double casing oflies in which advocates hide the heart of a trial. He was a judge, asthe great Desplein was a surgeon; he probed men's consciences as theanatomist probed their bodies. His life and habits had led him to anexact appreciation of their most secret thoughts by a thorough studyof facts. 

He sifted a case as Cuvier sifted the earth's crust. Like that greatthinker, he proceeded from deduction to deduction before drawing hisconclusions, and reconstructed the past career of a conscience asCuvier reconstructed an Anoplotherium. When considering a brief hewould often wake in the night, startled by a gleam of truth suddenlysparkling in his brain. Struck by the deep injustice, which is the endof these contests, in which everything is against the honest man, everything to the advantage of the rogue, he often summed up in favorof equity against law in such cases as bore on questions of what maybe termed divination. Hence he was regarded by his colleagues as a mannot of a practical mind; his arguments on two lines of deduction madetheir deliberations lengthy. When Popinot observed their dislike tolistening to him he gave his opinion briefly; it was said that he wasnot a good judge in this class of cases; but as his gift ofdiscrimination was remarkable, his opinion lucid, and his penetrationprofound, he was considered to have a special aptitude for thelaborious duties of an examining judge. So an examining judge heremained during the greater part of his legal career. 

Although his qualifications made him eminently fitted for itsdifficult functions, and he had the reputation of being so learned incriminal law that his duty was a pleasure to him, the kindness of hisheart constantly kept him in torture, and he was nipped as in a visebetween his conscience and his pity. The services of an examiningjudge are better paid than those of a judge in civil actions, but theydo not therefore prove a temptation; they are too onerous. Popinot, aman of modest and virtuous learning, without ambition, anindefatigable worker, never complained of his fate; he sacrificed histastes and his compassionate soul to the public good, and allowedhimself to be transported to the noisome pools of criminalexaminations, where he showed himself alike severe and beneficent. Hisclerk sometimes would give the accused some money to buy tobacco, or awarm winter garment, as he led him back from the judge's office to theSouriciere, the mouse-trap--the House of Detention where the accusedare kept under the orders of the Examining Judge. He knew how to be aninflexible judge and a charitable man. And no one extracted aconfession so easily as he without having recourse to judicialtrickery. He had, too, all the acumen of an observer. This man, apparently so foolishly good-natured, simple, and absent-minded, couldguess all the cunning of a prison wag, unmask the astutest streethuzzy, and subdue a scoundrel. Unusual circumstances had sharpened hisperspicacity; but to relate these we must intrude on his domestichistory, for in him the judge was the social side of the man; anotherman, greater and less known, existed within. 

Twelve years before the beginning of this story, in 1816, during theterrible scarcity which coincided disastrously with the stay in Franceof the so-called Allies, Popinot was appointed President of theCommission Extraordinary formed to distribute food to the poor of hisneighborhood, just when he had planned to move from the Rue duFouarre, which he as little liked to live in as his wife did. Thegreat lawyer, the clear-sighted criminal judge, whose superiorityseemed to his colleagues a form of aberration, had for five years beenwatching legal results without seeing their causes. As he scrambled upinto the lofts, as he saw the poverty, as he studied the desperatenecessities which gradually bring the poor to criminal acts, as heestimated their long struggles, compassion filled his soul. The judgethen became the Saint Vincent de Paul of these grown-up children, these suffering toilers. The transformation was not immediatelycomplete. Beneficence has its temptations as vice has. Charityconsumes a saint's purse, as roulette consumes the possessions of agambler, quite gradually. Popinot went from misery to misery, fromcharity to charity; then, by the time he had lifted all the rags whichcover public pauperism, like a bandage under which an inflamed woundlies festering, at the end of a year he had become the Providenceincarnate of that quarter of the town. He was a member of theBenevolent Committee and of the Charity Organization. Wherever anygratuitous services were needed he was ready, and did everythingwithout fuss, like the man with the short cloak, who spends his lifein carrying soup round the markets and other places where there arestarving folks. 

Popinot was fortunate in acting on a larger circle and in a highersphere; he had an eye on everything, he prevented crime, he gave workto the unemployed, he found a refuge for the helpless, he distributedaid with discernment wherever danger threatened, he made himself thecounselor of the widow, the protector of homeless children, thesleeping partner of small traders. No one at the Courts, no one inParis, knew of this secret life of Popinot's. There are virtues sosplendid that they necessitate obscurity; men make haste to hide themunder a bushel. As to those whom the lawyer succored, they, hard atwork all day and tired at night, were little able to sing his praises;theirs was the gracelessness of children, who can never pay becausethey owe too much. There is such compulsory ingratitude; but whatheart that has sown good to reap gratitude can think itself great?

By the end of the second year of his apostolic work, Popinot hadturned the storeroom at the bottom of his house into a parlor, lightedby the three iron-barred windows. The walls and ceiling of thisspacious room were whitewashed, and the furniture consisted of woodenbenches like those seen in schools, a clumsy cupboard, a walnut-woodwriting-table, and an armchair. In the cupboard were his registers ofdonations, his tickets for orders for bread, and his diary. He kepthis ledger like a tradesman, that he might not be ruined by kindness. All the sorrows of the neighborhood were entered and numbered in abook, where each had its little account, as merchants' customers havetheirs. When there was any question as to a man or a family needinghelp, the lawyer could always command information from the police. 

Lavienne, a man made for his master, was his aide-de-camp. He redeemedor renewed pawn-tickets, and visited the districts most threatenedwith famine, while his master was in court. 

From four till seven in the morning in summer, from six till nine inwinter, this room was full of women, children, and paupers, whilePopinot gave audience. There was no need for a stove in winter; thecrowd was so dense that the air was warmed; only, Lavienne strewedstraw on the wet floor. By long use the benches were as polished asvarnished mahogany; at the height of a man's shoulders the wall had acoat of dark, indescribable color, given to it by the rags andtattered clothes of these poor creatures. The poor wretches lovedPopinot so well that when they assembled before his door was opened, before daybreak on a winter's morning, the women warming themselveswith their foot-brasiers, the men swinging their arms for circulation, never a sound had disturbed his sleep. Rag-pickers and other toilersof the night knew the house, and often saw a light burning in thelawyer's private room at unholy hours. Even thieves, as they passedby, said, "That is his house, " and respected it. The morning he gaveto the poor, the mid-day hours to criminals, the evening to law work. 

Thus the gift of observation that characterized Popinot wasnecessarily bifrons; he could guess the virtues of a pauper--goodfeelings nipped, fine actions in embryo, unrecognized self-sacrifice, just as he could read at the bottom of a man's conscience the faintestoutlines of a crime, the slenderest threads of wrongdoing, and inferall the rest. 

Popinot's inherited fortune was a thousand crowns a year. His wife, sister to M. Bianchon /Senior/, a doctor at Sancerre, had brought himabout twice as much. She, dying five years since, had left her fortuneto her husband. As the salary of a supernumerary judge is not large, and Popinot had been a fully salaried judge only for four years, wemay guess his reasons for parsimony in all that concerned his personand mode of life, when we consider how small his means were and howgreat his beneficence. Besides, is not such indifference to dress asstamped Popinot an absent-minded man, a distinguishing mark ofscientific attainment, of art passionately pursued, of a perpetuallyactive mind? To complete this portrait, it will be enough to add thatPopinot was one of the few judges of the Court of the Seine on whomthe ribbon of the Legion of Honor had not been conferred. 

Such was the man who had been instructed by the President of theSecond Chamber of the Court--to which Popinot had belonged since hisreinstatement among the judges in civil law--to examine the Marquisd'Espard at the request of his wife, who sued for a Commission inLunacy. 

The Rue du Fouarre, where so many unhappy wretches swarmed in theearly morning, would be deserted by nine o'clock, and as gloomy andsqualid as ever. Bianchon put his horse to a trot in order to find hisuncle in the midst of his business. It was not without a smile that hethought of the curious contrast the judge's appearance would make inMadame d'Espard's room; but he promised himself that he would persuadehim to dress in a way that should not be too ridiculous. 

"If only my uncle happens to have a new coat!" said Bianchon tohimself, as he turned into the Rue du Fouarre, where a pale lightshone from the parlor windows. "I shall do well, I believe, to talkthat over with Lavienne. "

At the sound of wheels half a score of startled paupers came out fromunder the gateway, and took off their hats on recognizing Bianchon;for the doctor, who treated gratuitously the sick recommended to himby the lawyer, was not less well known than he to the poor creaturesassembled there. 

Bianchon found his uncle in the middle of the parlor, where thebenches were occupied by patients presenting such grotesquesingularities of costume as would have made the least artisticpasser-by turn round to gaze at them. A draughtsman--a Rembrandt, ifthere were one in our day--might have conceived of one of his finestcompositions from seeing these children of misery, in artlessattitudes, and all silent. 

Here was the rugged countenance of an old man with a white beard andan apostolic head--a Saint Peter ready to hand; his chest, partlyuncovered, showed salient muscles, the evidence of an ironconstitution which had served him as a fulcrum to resist a whole poemof sorrows. There a young woman was suckling her youngest-born to keepit from crying, while another of about five stood between her knees. Her white bosom, gleaming amid rags, the baby with its transparentflesh-tints, and the brother, whose attitude promised a street arab inthe future, touched the fancy with pathos by its almost gracefulcontrast with the long row of faces crimson with cold, in the midst ofwhich sat this family group. Further away, an old woman, pale andrigid, had the repulsive look of rebellious pauperism, eager to avengeall its past woes in one day of violence. 

There, again, was the young workman, weakly and indolent, whosebrightly intelligent eye revealed fine faculties crushed by necessitystruggled with in vain, saying nothing of his sufferings, and nearlydead for lack of an opportunity to squeeze between the bars of thevast stews where the wretched swim round and round and devour eachother. 

The majority were women; their husbands, gone to their work, left itto them, no doubt, to plead the cause of the family with the ingenuitywhich characterizes the woman of the people, who is almost alwaysqueen in her hovel. You would have seen a torn bandana on every head, on every form a skirt deep in mud, ragged kerchiefs, worn and dirtyjackets, but eyes that burnt like live coals. It was a horribleassemblage, raising at first sight a feeling of disgust, but giving acertain sense of terror the instant you perceived that the resignationof these souls, all engaged in the struggle for every necessary oflife, was purely fortuitous, a speculation on benevolence. The twotallow candles which lighted the parlor flickered in a sort of fogcaused by the fetid atmosphere of the ill-ventilated room. 

The magistrate himself was not the least picturesque figure in themidst of this assembly. He had on his head a rusty cotton night-cap;as he had no cravat, his neck was visible, red with cold and wrinkled, in contrast with the threadbare collar of his old dressing-gown. Hisworn face had the half-stupid look that comes of absorbed attention. His lips, like those of all men who work, were puckered up like a bagwith the strings drawn tight. His knitted brows seemed to bear theburden of all the sorrows confided to him: he felt, analyzed, andjudged them all. As watchful as a Jew money-lender, he never raisedhis eyes from his books and registers but to look into the very heartof the persons he was examining, with the flashing glance by which amiser expresses his alarm. 

Lavienne, standing behind his master, ready to carry out his orders, served no doubt as a sort of police, and welcomed newcomers byencouraging them to get over their shyness. When the doctor appearedthere was a stir on the benches. Lavienne turned his head, and wasstrangely surprised to see Bianchon. 

"Ah! It is you, old boy!" exclaimed Popinot, stretching himself. "Whatbrings you so early?"

"I was afraid lest you should make an official visit about which Iwish to speak to you before I could see you. "

"Well, " said the lawyer, addressing a stout little woman who was stillstanding close to him, "if you do not tell me what it is you want, Icannot guess it, child. "

"Make haste, " said Lavienne. "Do not waste other people's time. "

"Monsieur, " said the woman at last, turning red, and speaking so lowas only to be heard by Popinot and Lavienne, "I have a green-grocerytruck, and I have my last baby to nurse, and I owe for his keep. Well, I had hidden my little bit of money----"

"Yes; and your man took it?" said Popinot, guessing the sequel. 

"Yes, sir. "

"What is your name?"

"La Pomponne. "

"And your husband's?"

"Toupinet. "

"Rue du Petit-Banquier?" said Popinot, turning over his register. "Heis in prison, " he added, reading a note at the margin of the sectionin which this family was described. 

"For debt, my kind monsieur. "

Popinot shook his head. 

"But I have nothing to buy any stock for my truck; the landlord cameyesterday and made me pay up; otherwise I should have been turnedout. "

Lavienne bent over his master, and whispered in his ear. 

"Well, how much do you want to buy fruit in the market?"

"Why, my good monsieur, to carry on my business, I should want--Yes, Ishould certainly want ten francs. "

Popinot signed to Lavienne, who took ten francs out of a large bag, and handed them to the woman, while the lawyer made a note of the loanin his ledger. As he saw the thrill of delight that made the poorhawker tremble, Bianchon understood the apprehensions that must haveagitated her on her way to the lawyer's house. 

"You next, " said Lavienne to the old man with the white beard. 

Bianchon drew the servant aside, and asked him how long this audiencewould last. 

"Monsieur has had two hundred persons this morning, and there areeight to be turned off, " said Lavienne. "You will have time to payyour early visit, sir. "

"Here, my boy, " said the lawyer, turning round and taking Horace bythe arm; "here are two addresses near this--one in the Rue de Seine, and the other in the Rue de l'Arbalete. Go there at once. Rue deSeine, a young girl has just asphyxiated herself; and Rue del'Arbalete, you will find a man to remove to your hospital. I willwait breakfast for you. "

Bianchon returned an hour later. The Rue du Fouarre was deserted; daywas beginning to dawn there; his uncle had gone up to his rooms; thelast poor wretch whose misery the judge had relieved was departing, and Lavienne's money bag was empty. 

"Well, how are they going on?" asked the old lawyer, as the doctorcame in. 

"The man is dead, " replied Bianchon; "the girl will get over it. "

Since the eye and hand of a woman had been lacking, the flat in whichPopinot lived had assumed an aspect in harmony with its master's. Theindifference of a man who is absorbed in one dominant idea had set itsstamp of eccentricity on everything. Everywhere lay unconquerabledust, every object was adapted to a wrong purpose with a pertinacitysuggestive of a bachelor's home. There were papers in the flowervases, empty ink-bottles on the tables, plates that had beenforgotten, matches used as tapers for a minute when something had tobe found, drawers or boxes half-turned out and left unfinished; inshort, all the confusion and vacancies resulting from plans for ordernever carried out. The lawyer's private room, especially disordered bythis incessant rummage, bore witness to his unresting pace, the hurryof a man overwhelmed with business, hunted by contradictorynecessities. The bookcase looked as if it had been sacked; there werebooks scattered over everything, some piled up open, one on another, others on the floor face downwards; registers of proceedings laid onthe floor in rows, lengthwise, in front of the shelves; and that floorhad not been polished for two years. 

The tables and shelves were covered with ex votos, the offerings ofthe grateful poor. On a pair of blue glass jars which ornamented thechimney-shelf there were two glass balls, of which the core was madeup of many-colored fragments, giving them the appearance of somesingular natural product. Against the wall hung frames of artificialflowers, and decorations in which Popinot's initials were surroundedby hearts and everlasting flowers. Here were boxes of elaborate anduseless cabinet work; there letter-weights carved in the style of workdone by convicts in penal servitude. These masterpieces of patience, enigmas of gratitude, and withered bouquets gave the lawyer's room theappearance of a toyshop. The good man used these works of art ashiding-places which he filled with bills, worn-out pens, and scraps ofpaper. All these pathetic witnesses to his divine charity were thickwith dust, dingy, and faded. 

Some birds, beautifully stuffed, but eaten by moth, perched in thiswilderness of trumpery, presided over by an Angora cat, MadamePopinot's pet, restored to her no doubt with all the graces of life bysome impecunious naturalist, who thus repaid a gift of charity with aperennial treasure. Some local artist whose heart had misguided hisbrush had painted portraits of M. And Madame Popinot. Even in thebedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes incross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as toshow the senseless labor they had cost. 

The window-curtains were black with smoke, and the hangings absolutelycolorless. Between the fireplace and the large square table at whichthe magistrate worked, the cook had set two cups of coffee on a smalltable, and two armchairs, in mahogany and horsehair, awaited the uncleand nephew. As daylight, darkened by the windows, could not penetrateto this corner, the cook had left two dips burning, whose unsnuffedwicks showed a sort of mushroom growth, giving the red light whichpromises length of life to the candle from slowness of combustion--adiscovery due to some miser. 

"My dear uncle, you ought to wrap yourself more warmly when you godown to that parlor. "

"I cannot bear to keep them waiting, poor souls!--Well, and what doyou want of me?"

"I have come to ask you to dine to-morrow with the Marquise d'Espard. "

"A relation of ours?" asked Popinot, with such genuine absence of mindthat Bianchon laughed. 

"No, uncle; the Marquise d'Espard is a high and puissant lady, who haslaid before the Courts a petition desiring that a Commission in Lunacyshould sit on her husband, and you are appointed----"

"And you want me to dine with her! Are you mad?" said the lawyer, taking up the code of proceedings. "Here, only read this article, prohibiting any magistrate's eating or drinking in the house of eitherof two parties whom he is called upon to decide between. Let her comeand see me, your Marquise, if she has anything to say to me. I was, infact, to go to examine her husband to-morrow, after working the caseup to-night. "

He rose, took up a packet of papers that lay under a weight where hecould see it, and after reading the title, he said:

"Here is the affidavit. Since you take an interest in this high andpuissant lady, let us see what she wants. "

Popinot wrapped his dressing-gown across his body, from which it wasconstantly slipping and leaving his chest bare; he sopped his bread inthe half-cold coffee, and opened the petition, which he read, allowinghimself to throw in a parenthesis now and then, and some discussions, in which his nephew took part:--

"'To Monsieur the President of the Civil Tribunal of the Lower Courtof the Department of the Seine, sitting at the Palais de Justice. 

"'Madame Jeanne Clementine Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, wife of M. Charles Maurice Marie Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquisd'Espard'--a very good family--'landowner, the said Mme. D'Espardliving in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, No. 104, and the said M. D'Espard in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, No. 22, '--to besure, the President told me he lived in this part of the town--'havingfor her solicitor Maitre Desroches'--Desroches! a pettifogging jobber, a man looked down upon by his brother lawyers, and who does hisclients no good--"

"Poor fellow!" said Bianchon, "unluckily he has no money, and herushes round like the devil in holy water--That is all. "

"'Has the honor to submit to you, Monsieur the President, that for ayear past the moral and intellectual powers of her husband, M. D'Espard, have undergone so serious a change, that at the present daythey have reached the state of dementia and idiocy provided for byArticle 448 of the Civil Code, and require the application of theremedies set forth by that article, for the security of his fortuneand his person, and to guard the interest of his children whom hekeeps to live with him. 

"'That, in point of fact, the mental condition of M. D'Espard, whichfor some years has given grounds for alarm based on the system he haspursued in the management of his affairs, has reached, during the lasttwelvemonth, a deplorable depth of depression; that his infirm willwas the first thing to show the results of the malady; and that itseffete state leaves M. The Marquis d'Espard exposed to all the perilsof his incompetency, as is proved by the following facts:

"'For a long time all the income accruing from M. D'Espard's estatesare paid, without any reasonable cause, or even temporary advantage, into the hands of an old woman, whose repulsive ugliness is generallyremarked on, named Madame Jeanrenaud, living sometimes in Paris, Ruede la Vrilliere, No. 8, sometimes at Villeparisis, near Claye, in theDepartment of Seine et Marne, and for the benefit of her son, agedthirty-six, an officer in the ex-Imperial Guards, whom the Marquisd'Espard has placed by his influence in the King's Guards, as Major inthe First Regiment of Cuirassiers. These two persons, who in 1814 werein extreme poverty, have since then purchased house-property ofconsiderable value; among other items, quite recently, a large housein the Grand Rue Verte, where the said Jeanrenaud is laying outconsiderable sums in order to settle there with the woman Jeanrenaud, intending to marry: these sums amount already to more than a hundredthousand francs. The marriage has been arranged by the intervention ofM. D'Espard with his banker, one Mongenod, whose niece he has asked inmarriage for the said Jeanrenaud, promising to use his influence toprocure him the title and dignity of baron. This has in fact beensecured by His Majesty's letters patent, dated December 29th of lastyear, at the request of the Marquis d'Espard, as can be proved by HisExcellency the Keeper of the Seals, if the Court should think properto require his testimony. 

"'That no reason, not even such as morality and the law would concurin disapproving, can justify the influence which the said Mme. Jeanrenaud exerts over M. D'Espard, who, indeed, sees her very seldom;nor account for his strange affection for the said Baron Jeanrenaud, Major with whom he has but little intercourse. And yet their power isso considerable, that whenever they need money, if only to gratify amere whim, this lady, or her son----' Heh, heh! /No reason even such asmorality and the law concur in disapproving!/ What does the clerk orthe attorney mean to insinuate?" said Popinot. 

Bianchon laughed. 

"'This lady, or her son, obtain whatever they ask of the Marquisd'Espard without demur; and if he has not ready money, M. D'Esparddraws bills to be paid by the said Mongenod, who has offered to giveevidence to that effect for the petitioner. 

"'That, moreover, in further proof of these facts, lately, on theoccasion of the renewal of the leases on the Espard estate, thefarmers having paid a considerable premium for the renewal of theirleases on the old terms, M. Jeanrenaud at once secured the payment ofit into his own hands. 

"'That the Marquis d'Espard parts with these sums of money so littleof his own free-will, that when he was spoken to on the subject heseemed to remember nothing of the matter; that whenever anybody of anyweight has questioned him as to his devotion to these two persons, hisreplies have shown so complete an absence of ideas and of sense of hisown interests, that there obviously must be some occult cause at workto which the petitioner begs to direct the eye of justice, inasmuch asit is impossible but that this cause should be criminal, malignant, and wrongful, or else of a nature to come under medical jurisdiction;unless this influence is of the kind which constitutes an abuse ofmoral power--such as can only be described by the word /possession/----'The devil!" exclaimed Popinot. "What do you say to that, doctor. These are strange statements. "

"They might certainly, " said Bianchon, "be an effect of magneticforce. "

"Then do you believe in Mesmer's nonsense, and his tub, and seeingthrough walls?"

"Yes, uncle, " said the doctor gravely. "As I heard you read thatpetition I thought of that. I assure you that I have verified, inanother sphere of action, several analogous facts proving theunlimited influence one man may acquire over another. In contradictionto the opinion of my brethren, I am perfectly convinced of the powerof the will regarded as a motor force. All collusion and charlatanismapart, I have seen the results of such a possession. Actions promisedduring sleep by a magnetized patient to the magnetizer have beenscrupulously performed on waking. The will of one had become the willof the other. "

"Every kind of action?"

"Yes. "

"Even a criminal act?"

"Even a crime. "

"If it were not from you, I would not listen to such a thing. "

"I will make you witness it, " said Bianchon. 

"Hm, hm, " muttered the lawyer. "But supposing that this so-calledpossession fell under this class of facts, it would be difficult toprove it as legal evidence. "

"If this woman Jeanrenaud is so hideously old and ugly, I do not seewhat other means of fascination she can have used, " observed Bianchon. 

"But, " observed the lawyer, "in 1814, the time at which thisfascination is supposed to have taken place, this woman was fourteenyears younger; if she had been connected with M. D'Espard ten yearsbefore that, these calculations take us back four-and-twenty years, toa time when the lady may have been young and pretty, and have won forherself and her son a power over M. D'Espard which some men do notknow how to evade. Though the source of this power is reprehensible inthe sight of justice, it is justifiable in the eye of nature. MadameJeanrenaud may have been aggrieved by the marriage, contractedprobably at about that time, between the Marquis d'Espard andMademoiselle de Blamont-Chauvry, and at the bottom of all this theremay be nothing more than the rivalry of two women, since the Marquishad for a long time lived apart from Mme. D'Espard. "

"But her repulsive ugliness, uncle?"

"Power of fascination is in direct proportion to ugliness, " said thelawyer; "that is the old story. And then think of the smallpox, doctor. But to proceed. 

"'That so long ago as in 1815, in order to supply the sums of moneyrequired by these two persons, the Marquis d'Espard went with his twochildren to live in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, in roomsquite unworthy of his name and rank'--well, we may live as we please--'that he keeps his two children there, the Comte Clement d'Espardand Vicomte Camille d'Espard, in a style of living quite unsuited totheir future prospects, their name and fortune; that he often wantsmoney, to such a point, that not long since the landlord, one Mariast, put in an execution on the furniture in the rooms; that when thisexecution was carried out in his presence, the Marquis d'Espard helpedthe bailiff, whom he treated like a man of rank, paying him all themarks of attention and respect which he would have shown to a personof superior birth and dignity to himself. '"

The uncle and nephew glanced at each other and laughed. 

"'That, moreover, every act of his life, besides the facts withreference to the widow Jeanrenaud and the Baron Jeanrenaud, her son, are those of a madman; that for nearly ten years he has given histhoughts exclusively to China, its customs, manners, and history; thathe refers everything to a Chinese origin; that when he is questionedon the subject, he confuses the events of the day and the business ofyesterday with facts relating to China; that he censures the acts ofthe Government and the conduct of the King, though he is personallymuch attached to him, by comparing them with the politics of China;

"'That this monomania has driven the Marquis d'Espard to conductdevoid of all sense: against the customs of men of rank, and, inopposition to his own professed ideas as to the duties of thenobility, he has joined a commercial undertaking, for which heconstantly draws bills which, as they fall due, threaten both hishonor and his fortune, since they stamp him as a trader, and indefault of payment may lead to his being declared insolvent; thatthese debts, which are owing to stationers, printers, lithographers, and print-colorists, who have supplied the materials for hispublication, called A Picturesque History of China, now coming out inparts, are so heavy that these tradesmen have requested the petitionerto apply for a Commission in Lunacy with regard to the Marquisd'Espard in order to save their own credit. '"

"The man is mad!" exclaimed Bianchon. 

"You think so, do you?" said his uncle. "If you listen to only onebell, you hear only one sound. "

"But it seems to me----" said Bianchon. 

"But it seems to me, " said Popinot, "that if any relation of minewanted to get hold of the management of my affairs, and if, instead ofbeing a humble lawyer, whose colleagues can, any day, verify what hiscondition is, I were a duke of the realm, an attorney with a littlecunning, like Desroches, might bring just such a petition against me. 

"'That his children's education has been neglected for thismonomania; and that he has taught them, against all the rules ofeducation, the facts of Chinese history, which contradict the tenetsof the Catholic Church. He also has them taught the Chinesedialects. '"

"Here Desroches strikes me as funny, " said Bianchon. 

"The petition is drawn up by his head-clerk Godeschal, who, as youknow, is not strong in Chinese, " said the lawyer. 

"'That he often leaves his children destitute of the most necessarythings; that the petitioner, notwithstanding her entreaties, can neversee them; that the said Marquis d'Espard brings them to her only oncea year; that, knowing the privations to which they are exposed, shemakes vain efforts to give them the things most necessary for theirexistence, and which they require----' Oh! Madame la Marquise, this ispreposterous. By proving too much you prove nothing. --My dear boy, "said the old man, laying the document on his knee, "where is themother who ever lacked heart and wit and yearning to such a degree asto fall below the inspirations suggested by her animal instinct? Amother is as cunning to get at her children as a girl can be in theconduct of a love intrigue. If your Marquise really wanted to give herchildren food and clothes, the Devil himself would not have hinderedher, heh? That is rather too big a fable for an old lawyer to swallow!--To proceed. 

"'That at the age the said children have now attained it is necessarythat steps should be taken to preserve them from the evil effects ofsuch an education; that they should be provided for as beseems theirrank, and that they should cease to have before their eyes the sadexample of their father's conduct;

"'That there are proofs in support of these allegations which theCourt can easily order to be produced. Many times has M. D'Espardspoken of the judge of the Twelfth Arrondissement as a mandarin of thethird class; he often speaks of the professors of the College HenriIV. As "men of letters"'--and that offends them! 'In speaking of thesimplest things, he says, "They were not done so in China;" in thecourse of the most ordinary conversation he will sometimes allude toMadame Jeanrenaud, or sometimes to events which happened in the timeof Louis XIV. , and then sit plunged in the darkest melancholy;sometimes he fancies he is in China. Several of his neighbors, amongothers one Edme Becker, medical student, and Jean Baptiste Fremiot, aprofessor, living under the same roof, are of opinion, after frequentintercourse with the Marquis d'Espard, that his monomania with regardto everything Chinese is the result of a scheme laid by the said BaronJeanrenaud and the widow his mother to bring about the deadening ofall the Marquis d'Espard's mental faculties, since the only servicewhich Mme. Jeanrenaud appears to render M. D'Espard is to procure himeverything that relates to the Chinese Empire;

"'Finally, that the petitioner is prepared to show to the Court thatthe moneys absorbed by the said Baron and Mme. Jeanrenaud between 1814and 1828 amount to not less than one million francs. 

"'In confirmation of the facts herein set forth, the petitioner canbring the evidence of persons who are in the habit of seeing theMarquis d'Espard, whose names and professions are subjoined, many ofwhom have urged her to demand a commission in lunacy to declare M. D'Espard incapable of managing his own affairs, as being the only wayto preserve his fortune from the effects of his maladministration andhis children from his fatal influence. 

"'Taking all this into consideration, M. Le President, and theaffidavits subjoined, the petitioner desires that it may please you, inasmuch as the foregoing facts sufficiently prove the insanity andincompetency of the Marquis d'Espard herein described with his titlesand residence, to order that, to the end that he may be declaredincompetent by law, this petition and the documents in evidence may belaid before the King's public prosecutor; and that you will charge oneof the judges of this Court to make his report to you on any day youmay be pleased to name, and thereupon to pronounce judgment, ' etc. 

"And here, " said Popinot, "is the President's order instructing me!--Well, what does the Marquise d'Espard want with me? I knoweverything. But I shall go to-morrow with my registrar to see M. LeMarquis, for this does not seem at all clear to me. "

"Listen, my dear uncle, I have never asked the least little favor ofyou that had to do with your legal functions; well, now I beg you toshow Madame d'Espard the kindness which her situation deserves. If shecame here, you would listen to her?"

"Yes. "

"Well, then, go and listen to her in her own house. Madame d'Espard isa sickly, nervous, delicate woman, who would faint in your rat-hole ofa place. Go in the evening, instead of accepting her dinner, since thelaw forbids your eating or drinking at your client's expense. "

"And does not the law forbid you from taking any legacy from yourdead?" said Popinot, fancying that he saw a touch of irony on hisnephew's lips. 

"Come, uncle, if it were only to enable you to get at the truth ofthis business, grant my request. You will come as the examining judge, since matters do not seem to you very clear. Deuce take it! It is asnecessary to cross-question the Marquise as it is to examine theMarquis. "

"You are right, " said the lawyer. "It is quite possible that it is shewho is mad. I will go. "

"I will call for you. Write down in your engagement book: 'To-morrowevening at nine, Madame d'Espard. '--Good!" said Bianchon, seeing hisuncle make a note of the engagement. 

Next evening at nine Bianchon mounted his uncle's dusty staircase, andfound him at work on the statement of some complicated judgment. Thecoat Lavienne had ordered of the tailor had not been sent, so Popinotput on his old stained coat, and was the Popinot unadorned whoseappearance made those laugh who did not know the secrets of hisprivate life. Bianchon, however, obtained permission to pull hiscravat straight, and to button his coat, and he hid the stains bycrossing the breast of it with the right side over the left, and sodisplaying the new front of the cloth. But in a minute the judgerucked the coat up over his chest by the way in which he stuffed hishands into his pockets, obeying an irresistible habit. Thus the coat, deeply wrinkled both in front and behind, made a sort of hump in themiddle of the back, leaving a gap between the waistcoat and trousersthrough which his shirt showed. Bianchon, to his sorrow, onlydiscovered this crowning absurdity at the moment when his uncleentered the Marquise's room. 

A brief sketch of the person and the career of the lady in whosepresence the doctor and the judge now found themselves is necessaryfor an understanding of her interview with Popinot. 

Madame d'Espard had, for the last seven years, been very much thefashion in Paris, where Fashion can raise and drop by turns variouspersonages who, now great and now small, that is to say, in view orforgotten, are at last quite intolerable--as discarded ministers are, and every kind of decayed sovereignty. These flatterers of the past, odious with their stale pretensions, know everything, speak ill ofeverything, and, like ruined profligates, are friends with all theworld. Since her husband had separated from her in 1815, Madamed'Espard must have married in the beginning of 1812. Her children, therefore, were aged respectively fifteen and thirteen. By what luckwas the mother of a family, about three-and-thirty years of age, stillthe fashion?

Though Fashion is capricious, and no one can foresee who shall be herfavorites, though she often exalts a banker's wife, or some woman ofvery doubtful elegance and beauty, it certainly seems supernaturalwhen Fashion puts on constitutional airs and gives promotion for age. But in this case Fashion had done as the world did, and acceptedMadame d'Espard as still young. 

The Marquise, who was thirty-three by her register of birth, wastwenty-two in a drawing-room in the evening. But by what care, whatartifice! Elaborate curls shaded her temples. She condemned herself tolive in twilight, affecting illness so as to sit under the protectingtones of light filtered through muslin. Like Diane de Poitiers, sheused cold water in her bath, and, like her again, the Marquise slepton a horse-hair mattress, with morocco-covered pillows to preserve herhair; she ate very little, only drank water, and observed monasticregularity in the smallest actions of her life. 

This severe system has, it is said, been carried so far as to the useof ice instead of water, and nothing but cold food, by a famous Polishlady of our day who spends a life, now verging on a century old, afterthe fashion of a town belle. Fated to live as long as Marion Delorme, whom history has credited with surviving to be a hundred and thirty, the old vice-queen of Poland, at the age of nearly a hundred, has theheart and brain of youth, a charming face, an elegant shape; and inher conversation, sparkling with brilliancy like faggots in the fire, she can compare the men and books of our literature with the men andbooks of the eighteenth century. Living in Warsaw, she orders her capsof Herbault in Paris. She is a great lady with the amiability of amere girl; she swims, she runs like a schoolboy, and can sink on to asofa with the grace of a young coquette; she mocks at death, andlaughs at life. After having astonished the Emperor Alexander, she canstill amaze the Emperor Nicholas by the splendor of herentertainments. She can still bring tears to the eyes of a youthfullover, for her age is whatever she pleases, and she has the exquisiteself-devotion of a grisette. In short, she is herself a fairy tale, unless, indeed, she is a fairy. 

Had Madame d'Espard known Madame Zayonseck? Did she mean to imitateher career? Be that as it may, the Marquise proved the merits of thetreatment; her complexion was clear, her brow unwrinkled, her figure, like that of Henri II. 's lady-love, preserved the litheness, thefreshness, the covered charms which bring a woman love and keep italive. The simple precautions of this course, suggested by art andnature, and perhaps by experience, had met in her with a generalsystem which confirmed the results. The Marquise was absolutelyindifferent to everything that was not herself: men amused her, but noman had ever caused her those deep agitations which stir both naturesto their depths, and wreck one on the other. She knew neither hatrednor love. When she was offended, she avenged herself coldly, quietly, at her leisure, waiting for the opportunity to gratify the ill-willshe cherished against anybody who dwelt in her unfavorableremembrance. She made no fuss, she did not excite herself, she talked, because she knew that by two words a woman may cause the death ofthree men. 

She had parted from M. D'Espard with the greatest satisfaction. Had henot taken with him two children who at present were troublesome, andin the future would stand in the way of her pretensions? Her mostintimate friends, as much as her least persistent admirers, seeingabout her none of Cornelia's jewels, who come and go, andunconsciously betray their mother's age, took her for quite a youngwoman. The two boys, about whom she seemed so anxious in her petition, were, like their father, as unknown in the world as the northwestpassage is unknown to navigators. M. D'Espard was supposed to be aneccentric personage who had deserted his wife without having thesmallest cause for complaint against her. 

Mistress of herself at two-and-twenty, and mistress of her fortune oftwenty-six thousand francs a year, the Marquise hesitated long beforedeciding on a course of action and ordering her life. Though shebenefited by the expenses her husband had incurred in his house, though she had all the furniture, the carriages, the horses, in short, all the details of a handsome establishment, she lived a retired lifeduring the years 1816, 17, and 18, a time when families wererecovering from the disasters resulting from political tempests. Shebelonged to one of the most important and illustrious families of theFaubourg Saint-Germain, and her parents advised her to live with themas much as possible after the separation forced upon her by herhusband's inexplicable caprice. 

In 1820 the Marquise roused herself from her lethargy; she went toCourt, appeared at parties, and entertained in her own house. From1821 to 1827 she lived in great style, and made herself remarked forher taste and her dress; she had a day, an hour, for receiving visits, and ere long she had seated herself on the throne, occupied before herby Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauseant, the Duchesse de Langeais, andMadame Firmiani--who on her marriage with M. De Camps had resigned thesceptre in favor of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, from whom Madamed'Espard snatched it. The world knew nothing beyond this of theprivate live of the Marquise d'Espard. She seemed likely to shine forlong on the Parisian horizon, like the sun near its setting, but whichwill never set. 

The Marquise was on terms of great intimacy with a duchess as famousfor her beauty as for her attachment to a prince just now inbanishment, but accustomed to play a leading part in every prospectivegovernment. Madame d'Espard was also a friend of a foreign lady, withwhom a famous and very wily Russian diplomate was in the habit ofdiscussing public affairs. And then an antiquated countess, who wasaccustomed to shuffle the cards for the great game of politics, hadadopted her in a maternal fashion. Thus, to any man of high ambitions, Madame d'Espard was preparing a covert but very real influence tofollow the public and frivolous ascendency she now owed to fashion. Her drawing-room was acquiring political individuality: "What do theysay at Madame d'Espard's?" "Are they against the measure in Madamed'Espard's drawing-room?" were questions repeated by a sufficientnumber of simpletons to give the flock of the faithful who surroundedher the importance of a coterie. A few damaged politicians whosewounds she had bound up, and whom she flattered, pronounced her ascapable in diplomacy as the wife of the Russian ambassador to London. The Marquise had indeed several times suggested to deputies or topeers words and ideas that had rung through Europe. She had oftenjudged correctly of certain events on which her circle of friendsdared not express an opinion. The principal persons about the Courtcame in the evening to play whist in her rooms. 

Then she also had the qualities of her defects; she was thought to be--and she was--indiscreet. Her friendship seemed to be staunch; sheworked for her proteges with a persistency which showed that she caredless for patronage than for increased influence. This conduct wasbased on her dominant passion, Vanity. Conquests and pleasure, whichso many women love, to her seemed only means to an end; she aimed atliving on every point of the largest circle that life can describe. 

Among the men still young, and to whom the future belonged, whocrowded her drawing-room on great occasions, were to be seen MM. DeMarsay and de Ronquerolles, de Montriveau, de la Roche-Hugon, deSerizy, Ferraud, Maxime de Trailles, de Listomere, the twoVandenesses, du Chatelet, and others. She would frequently receive aman whose wife she would not admit, and her power was great enough toinduce certain ambitious men to submit to these hard conditions, suchas two famous royalist bankers, M. De Nucingen and Ferdinand duTillet. She had so thoroughly studied the strength and the weakness ofParis life, that her conduct had never given any man the smallestadvantage over her. An enormous price might have been set on a note orletter by which she might have compromised herself, without one beingproduced. 

If an arid soul enabled her to play her part to the life, her personwas no less available for it. She had a youthful figure. Her voicewas, at will, soft and fresh, or clear and hard. She possessed in thehighest degree the secret of that aristocratic pose by which a womanwipes out the past. The Marquise knew well the art of setting animmense space between herself and the sort of man who fancies he maybe familiar after some chance advances. Her imposing gaze could denyeverything. In her conversation fine and beautiful sentiments andnoble resolutions flowed naturally, as it seemed, from a pure heartand soul; but in reality she was all self, and quite capable ofblasting a man who was clumsy in his negotiations, at the very timewhen she was shamelessly making a compromise for the benefit of herown interest. 

Rastignac, in trying to fasten on to this woman, had discerned her tobe the cleverest of tools, but he had not yet used it; far fromhandling it, he was already finding himself crushed by it. This youngCondottiere of the brain, condemned, like Napoleon, to give battleconstantly, while knowing that a single defeat would prove the graveof his fortunes, had met a dangerous adversary in his protectress. Forthe first time in his turbulent life, he was playing a game with apartner worthy of him. He saw a place as Minister in the conquest ofMadame d'Espard, so he was her tool till he could make her his--aperilous beginning. 

The Hotel d'Espard needed a large household, and the Marquise had agreat number of servants. The grand receptions were held in theground-floor rooms, but she lived on the first floor of the house. Theperfect order of a fine staircase splendidly decorated, and roomsfitted in the dignified style which formerly prevailed at Versailles, spoke of an immense fortune. When the judge saw the carriage gatesthrown open to admit his nephew's cab, he took in with a rapid glancethe lodge, the porter, the courtyard, the stables, the arrangement ofthe house, the flowers that decorated the stairs, the perfectcleanliness of the banisters, walls, and carpets, and counted thefootmen in livery who, as the bell rang, appeared on the landing. Hiseyes, which only yesterday in his parlor had sounded the dignity ofmisery under the muddy clothing of the poor, now studied with the samepenetrating vision the furniture and splendor of the rooms he passedthrough, to pierce the misery of grandeur. 

"M. Popinot--M. Bianchon. "

The two names were pronounced at the door of the boudoir where theMarquise was sitting, a pretty room recently refurnished, and lookingout on the garden behind the house. At the moment Madame d'Espard wasseated in one of the old rococo armchairs of which Madame had set thefashion. Rastignac was at her left hand on a low chair, in which helooked settled like an Italian lady's "cousin. " A third person wasstanding by the corner of the chimney-piece. As the shrewd doctor hadsuspected, the Marquise was a woman of a parched and wiryconstitution. But for her regimen her complexion must have taken theruddy tone that is produced by constant heat; but she added to theeffect of her acquired pallor by the strong colors of the stuffs shehung her rooms with, or in which she dressed. Reddish-brown, marone, bistre with a golden light in it, suited her to perfection. Herboudoir, copied from that of a famous lady then at the height offashion in London, was in tan-colored velvet; but she had addedvarious details of ornament which moderated the pompous splendor ofthis royal hue. Her hair was dressed like a girl's in bands ending incurls, which emphasized the rather long oval of her face; but an ovalface is as majestic as a round one is ignoble. The mirrors, cut withfacets to lengthen or flatten the face at will, amply proved the ruleas applied to the physiognomy. 

On seeing Popinot, who stood in the doorway craning his neck like astartled animal, with his left hand in his pocket, and the right handholding a hat with a greasy lining, the Marquise gave Rastignac a lookwherein lay a germ of mockery. The good man's rather foolishappearance was so completely in harmony with his grotesque figure andscared looks, that Rastignac, catching sight of Bianchon's dejectedexpression of humiliation through his uncle, could not help laughing, and turned away. The Marquise bowed a greeting, and made a greateffort to rise from her seat, falling back again, not without grace, with an air of apologizing for her incivility by affected weakness. 

At this instant the person who was standing between the fireplace andthe door bowed slightly, and pushed forward two chairs, which heoffered by a gesture to the doctor and the judge; then, when they hadseated themselves, he leaned against the wall again, crossing hisarms. 

A word as to this man. There is living now, in our day, a painter--Decamps--who possesses in the very highest degree the art ofcommanding your interest in everything he sets before your eyes, whether it be a stone or a man. In this respect his pencil is moreskilful than his brush. He will sketch an empty room and leave a broomagainst the wall. If he chooses, you shall shudder; you shall believethat this broom has just been the instrument of crime, and is drippingwith blood; it shall be the broom which the widow Bancal used to cleanout the room where Fualdes was murdered. Yes, the painter will touzlethat broom like a man in a rage; he will make each hair of it standon-end as though it were on your own bristling scalp; he will make itthe interpreter between the secret poem of his imagination and thepoem that shall have its birth in yours. After terrifying you by theaspect of that broom, to-morrow he will draw another, and lying by ita cat, asleep, but mysterious in its sleep, shall tell you that thisbroom is that on which the wife of a German cobbler rides off to theSabbath on the Brocken. Or it will be a quite harmless broom, on whichhe will hang the coat of a clerk in the Treasury. Decamps had in hisbrush what Paganini had in his bow--a magnetically communicativepower. 

Well, I should have to transfer to my style that striking genius, thatmarvelous knack of the pencil, to depict the upright, tall, lean mandressed in black, with black hair, who stood there without speaking aword. This gentleman had a face like a knife-blade, cold and harsh, with a color like Seine water when it was muddy and strewn withfragments of charcoal from a sunken barge. He looked at the floor, listening and passing judgment. His attitude was terrifying. He stoodthere like the dreadful broom to which Decamps has given the power ofrevealing a crime. Now and then, in the course of conversation, theMarquise tried to get some tacit advice; but however eager herquestioning, he was as grave and as rigid as the statue of theCommendatore. 

The worthy Popinot, sitting on the edge of his chair in front of thefire, his hat between his knees, stared at the gilt chandeliers, theclock, and the curiosities with which the chimney-shelf was covered, the velvet and trimmings of the curtains, and all the costly andelegant nothings that a woman of fashion collects about her. He wasroused from his homely meditations by Madame d'Espard, who addressedhim in a piping tone:

"Monsieur, I owe you a million thanks----"

"A million thanks, " thought he to himself, "that is too many; it doesnot mean one. "

"For the trouble you condescend----"

"Condescend!" thought he; "she is laughing at me. "

"To take in coming to see an unhappy client, who is too ill to goout----"

Here the lawyer cut the Marquise short by giving her an inquisitoriallook, examining the sanitary condition of the unhappy client. 

"As sound as a bell, " said he to himself. 

"Madame, " said he, assuming a respectful mien, "you owe me nothing. Although my visit to you is not in strict accordance with the practiceof the Court, we ought to spare no pains to discover the truth incases of this kind. Our judgment is then guided less by the letter ofthe law than by the promptings of our conscience. Whether I seek thetruth here or in my own consulting-room, so long as I find it, allwill be well. "

While Popinot was speaking, Rastignac was shaking hands with Bianchon;the Marquise welcomed the doctor with a little bow full of gracioussignificance. 

"Who is that?" asked Bianchon in a whisper of Rastignac, indicatingthe dark man. 

"The Chevalier d'Espard, the Marquis' brother. "

"Your nephew told me, " said the Marquise to Popinot, "how much you areoccupied, and I know too that you are so good as to wish to concealyour kind actions, so as to release those whom you oblige from theburden of gratitude. The work in Court is most fatiguing, it wouldseem. Why have they not twice as many judges?"

"Ah, madame, that would not be difficult; we should be none the worseif they had. But when that happens, fowls will cut their teeth!"

As he heard this speech, so entirely in character with the lawyer'sappearance, the Chevalier measured him from head to foot, out of oneeye, as much as to say, "We shall easily manage him. "

The Marquise looked at Rastignac, who bent over her. "That is the sortof man, " murmured the dandy in her ear, "who is trusted to passjudgments on the life and interests of private individuals. "

Like most men who have grown old in a business, Popinot readily lethimself follow the habits he had acquired, more particularly habits ofmind. His conversation was all of "the shop. " He was fond ofquestioning those he talked to, forcing them to unexpectedconclusions, making them tell more than they wished to reveal. Pozzodi Borgo, it is said, used to amuse himself by discovering otherfolks' secrets, and entangling them in his diplomatic snares, andthus, by invincible habit, showed how his mind was soaked in wiliness. As soon as Popinot had surveyed the ground, so to speak, on which hestood, he saw that it would be necessary to have recourse to thecleverest subtleties, the most elaborately wrapped up and disguised, which were in use in the Courts, to detect the truth. 

Bianchon sat cold and stern, as a man who has made up his mind toendure torture without revealing his sufferings; but in his heart hewished that his uncle could only trample on this woman as we trampleon a viper--a comparison suggested to him by the Marquise's longdress, by the curve of her attitude, her long neck, small head, andundulating movements. 

"Well, monsieur, " said Madame d'Espard, "however great my dislike tobe or seem selfish, I have been suffering too long not to wish thatyou may settle matters at once. Shall I soon get a favorabledecision?"

"Madame, I will do my best to bring matters to a conclusion, " saidPopinot, with an air of frank good-nature. "Are you ignorant of thereason which made the separation necessary which now subsists betweenyou and the Marquis d'Espard?"

"Yes, monsieur, " she replied, evidently prepared with a story to tell. "At the beginning of 1816 M. D'Espard, whose temper had completelychanged within three months or so, proposed that we should go to liveon one of his estates near Briancon, without any regard for my health, which that climate would have destroyed, or for my habits of life; Irefused to go. My refusal gave rise to such unjustifiable reproacheson his part, that from that hour I had my suspicions as to thesoundness of his mind. On the following day he left me, leaving me hishouse and the free use of my own income, and he went to live in theRue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, taking with him my twochildren----"

"One moment, madame, " said the lawyer, interrupting her. "What wasthat income?"

"Twenty-six thousand francs a year, " she replied parenthetically. "Iat once consulted old M. Bordin as to what I ought to do, " she wenton; "but it seems that there are so many difficulties in the way ofdepriving a father of the care of his children, that I was forced toresign myself to remaining alone at the age of twenty-two--an age atwhich many young women do very foolish things. You have read mypetition, no doubt, monsieur; you know the principal facts on which Irely to procure a Commission in Lunacy with regard to M. D'Espard?"

"Have you ever applied to him, madame, to obtain the care of yourchildren?"

"Yes, monsieur; but in vain. It is very hard on a mother to bedeprived of the affection of her children, particularly when they cangive her such happiness as every woman clings to. "

"The elder must be sixteen, " said Popinot. 

"Fifteen, " said the Marquise eagerly. 

Here Bianchon and Rastignac looked at each other. Madame d'Espard bither lips. 

"What can the age of my children matter to you?"

"Well, madame, " said the lawyer, without seeming to attach anyimportance to his words, "a lad of fifteen and his brother, ofthirteen, I suppose, have legs and their wits about them; they mightcome to see you on the sly. If they do not, it is because they obeytheir father, and to obey him in that matter they must love him verydearly. "

"I do not understand, " said the Marquise. 

"You do not know, perhaps, " replied Popinot, "that in your petitionyour attorney represents your children as being very unhappy withtheir father?"

Madame d'Espard replied with charming innocence:

"I do not know what my attorney may have put into my mouth. "

"Forgive my inferences, " said Popinot, "but Justice weighs everything. What I ask you, madame, is suggested by my wish thoroughly tounderstand the matter. By your account M. D'Espard deserted you on themost frivolous pretext. Instead of going to Briancon, where he wishedto take you, he remained in Paris. This point is not clear. Did heknow this Madame Jeanrenaud before his marriage?"

"No, monsieur, " replied the Marquise, with some asperity, visible onlyto Rastignac and the Chevalier d'Espard. 

She was offended at being cross-examined by this layer when she hadintended to beguile his judgment; but as Popinot still looked stupidfrom sheer absence of mind, she ended by attributing his interrogatoryto the Questioning Spirit of Voltaire's bailiff. 

"My parents, " she went on, "married me at the age of sixteen to M. D'Espard, whose name, fortune, and mode of life were such as my familylooked for in the man who was to be my husband. M. D'Espard was thensix-and-twenty; he was a gentleman in the English sense of the word;his manners pleased me, he seemed to have plenty of ambition, and Ilike ambitious people, " she added, looking at Rastignac. "If M. D'Espard had never met that Madame Jeanrenaud, his character, hislearning, his acquirements would have raised him--as his friends thenbelieved--to high office in the Government. King Charles X. , at thattime Monsieur, had the greatest esteem for him, and a peer's seat, anappointment at Court, some important post certainly would have beenhis. That woman turned his head, and has ruined all the prospects ofmy family. "

"What were M. D'Espard's religious opinions at that time?"

"He was, and is still, a very pious man. "

"You do not suppose that Madame Jeanrenaud may have influenced him bymysticism?"

"No, monsieur. "

"You have a very fine house, madame, " said Popinot suddenly, takinghis hands out of his pockets, and rising to pick up his coat-tails andwarm himself. "This boudoir is very nice, those chairs aremagnificent, the whole apartment is sumptuous. You must indeed be mostunhappy when, seeing yourself here, you know that your children areill lodged, ill clothed, and ill fed. I can imagine nothing moreterrible for a mother. "

"Yes, indeed. I should be so glad to give the poor little fellows someamusement, while their father keeps them at work from morning tillnight at that wretched history of China. "

"You give handsome balls; they would enjoy them, but they mightacquire a taste for dissipation. However, their father might send themto you once or twice in the course of the winter. "

"He brings them here on my birthday and on New Year's Day. On thosedays M. D'Espard does me the favor of dining here with them. "

"It is very singular behaviour, " said the judge, with an air ofconviction. "Have you ever seen this Dame Jeanrenaud?"

"My brother-in-law one day, out of interest in his brother----"

"Ah! monsieur is M. D'Espard's brother?" said the lawyer, interruptingher. 

The Chevalier bowed, but did not speak. 

"M. D'Espard, who has watched this affair, took me to the Oratoire, where this woman goes to sermon, for she is a Protestant. I saw her;she is not in the least attractive; she looks like a butcher's wife, extremely fat, horribly marked with the smallpox; she has feet andhands like a man's, she squints, in short, she is monstrous!"

"It is inconceivable, " said the judge, looking like the most imbecilejudge in the whole kingdom. "And this creature lives near here, RueVerte, in a fine house? There are no plain folk left, it would seem?"

"In a mansion on which her son has spent absurd sums. "

"Madame, " said Popinot, "I live in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau; I knownothing of such expenses. What do you call absurd sums?"

"Well, " said the Marquise, "a stable with five horses and threecarriages, a phaeton, a brougham, and a cabriolet. "

"That costs a large sum, then?" asked Popinot in surprise. 

"Enormous sums!" said Rastignac, intervening. "Such an establishmentwould cost, for the stables, the keeping the carriages in order, andthe liveries for the men, between fifteen and sixteen thousand francsa year. "

"Should you think so, madame?" said the judge, looking muchastonished. 

"Yes, at least, " replied the Marquise. 

"And the furniture, too, must have cost a lot of money?"

"More than a hundred thousand francs, " replied Madame d'Espard, whocould not help smiling at the lawyer's vulgarity. 

"Judges, madame, are apt to be incredulous; it is what they are paidfor, and I am incredulous. The Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother musthave fleeced M. D'Espard most preposterously, if what you say iscorrect. There is a stable establishment which, by your account, costssixteen thousand francs a year. Housekeeping, servants' wages, and thegross expenses of the house itself must run to twice as much; thatmakes a total of from fifty to sixty thousand francs a year. Do yousuppose that these people, formerly so extremely poor, can have solarge a fortune? A million yields scarcely forty thousand a year. "

"Monsieur, the mother and son invested the money given them by M. D'Espard in the funds when they were at 60 to 80. I should think theirincome must be more than sixty thousand francs. And then the son hasfine appointments. "

"If they spend sixty thousand francs a year, " said the judge, "howmuch do you spend?"

"Well, " said Madame d'Espard, "about the same. " The Chevalier starteda little, the Marquise colored; Bianchon looked at Rastignac; butPopinot preserved an expression of simplicity which quite deceivedMadame d'Espard. The chevalier took no part in the conversation; hesaw that all was lost. 

"These people, madame, might be indicted before the superior Court, "said Popinot. 

"That was my opinion, " exclaimed the Marquise, enchanted. "Ifthreatened with the police, they would have come to terms. "

"Madame, " said Popinot, "when M. D'Espard left you, did he not giveyou a power of attorney enabling you to manage and control your ownaffairs?"

"I do not understand the object of all these questions, " said theMarquise with petulance. "It seems to me that if you would onlyconsider the state in which I am placed by my husband's insanity, youought to be troubling yourself about him, and not about me. "

"We are coming to that, madame, " said the judge. "Before placing inyour hands, or in any others, the control of M. D'Espard's property, supposing he were pronounced incapable, the Court must inquire as tohow you have managed your own. If M. D'Espard gave you the power, hewould have shown confidence in you, and the Court would recognize thefact. Had you any power from him? You might have bought or sold houseproperty or invested money in business?"

"No, monsieur, the Blamont-Chauvrys are not in the habit of trading, "said she, extremely nettled in her pride as an aristocrat, andforgetting the business in hand. "My property is intact, and M. D'Espard gave me no power to act. "

The Chevalier put his hand over his eyes not to betray the vexation hefelt at his sister-in-law's short-sightedness, for she was ruiningherself by her answers. Popinot had gone straight to the mark in spiteof his apparent doublings. 

"Madame, " said the lawyer, indicating the Chevalier, "this gentleman, of course, is your near connection? May we speak openly before theseother gentlemen?"

"Speak on, " said the Marquise, surprised at this caution. 

"Well, madame, granting that you spend only sixty thousand francs ayear, to any one who sees your stables, your house, your train ofservants, and a style of housekeeping which strikes me as far moreluxurious than that of the Jeanrenauds, that sum would seem well laidout. "

The Marquise bowed an agreement. 

"But, " continued the judge, "if you have no more than twenty-sixthousand francs a year, you may have a hundred thousand francs ofdebt. The Court would therefore have a right to imagine that themotives which prompt you to ask that your husband may be deprived ofthe control of his property are complicated by self-interest and theneed of paying your debts--if--you--have--any. The requests addressedto me have interested me in your position; consider fully and makeyour confession. If my suppositions have hit the truth, there is yettime to avoid the blame which the Court would have a perfect right toexpress in the saving clauses of the verdict if you could not showyour attitude to be absolutely honorable and clear. 

"It is our duty to examine the motives of the applicant as well as tolisten to the plea of the witness under examination, to ascertainwhether the petitioner may not have been prompted by passion, by adesire for money, which is unfortunately too common----"

The Marquise was on Saint Laurence's gridiron. 

"And I must have explanations on this point. Madame, I have no wish tocall you to account; I only want to know how you have managed to liveat the rate of sixty thousand francs a year, and that for some yearspast. There are plenty of women who achieve this in theirhousekeeping, but you are not one of those. Tell me, you may have themost legitimate resources, a royal pension, or some claim on theindemnities lately granted; but even then you must have had yourhusband's authority to receive them. "

The Marquise did not speak. 

"You must remember, " Popinot went on, "that M. D'Espard may wish toenter a protest, and his counsel will have a right to find out whetheryou have any creditors. This boudoir is newly furnished, your roomsare not now furnished with the things left to you by M. D'Espard in1816. If, as you did me the honor of informing me, furniture is costlyfor the Jeanrenauds, it must be yet more so for you, who are a greatlady. Though I am a judge, I am but a man; I may be wrong--tell me so. Remember the duties imposed on me by the law, and the rigorousinquiries it demands, when the case before it is the suspension fromall his functions of the father of a family in the prime of life. Soyou will pardon me, Madame la Marquise, for laying all thesedifficulties before you; it will be easy for you to give me anexplanation. 

"When a man is pronounced incapable of the control of his own affairs, a trustee has to be appointed. Who will be the trustee?"

"His brother, " said the Marquise. 

The Chevalier bowed. There was a short silence, very uncomfortable forthe five persons who were present. The judge, in sport as it were, hadlaid open the woman's sore place. Popinot's countenance of common, clumsy good-nature, at which the Marquise, the Chevalier, andRastignac had been inclined to laugh, had gained importance in theireyes. As they stole a look at him, they discerned the variousexpressions of that eloquent mouth. The ridiculous mortal was a judgeof acumen. His studious notice of the boudoir was accounted for: hehad started from the gilt elephant supporting the chimney-clock, examining all this luxury, and had ended by reading this woman's soul. 

"If the Marquis d'Espard is mad about China, I see that you are notless fond of its products, " said Popinot, looking at the porcelain onthe chimney-piece. "But perhaps it was from M. Le Marquis that you hadthese charming Oriental pieces, " and he pointed to some precioustrifles. 

This irony, in very good taste, made Bianchon smile, and petrifiedRastignac, while the Marquise bit her thin lips. 

"Instead of being the protector of a woman placed in a cruel dilemma--an alternative between losing her fortune and her children, and beingregarded as her husband's enemy, " she said, "you accuse me, monsieur!You suspect my motives! You must own that your conduct is strange!"

"Madame, " said the judge eagerly, "the caution exercised by the Courtin such cases as these might have given you, in any other judge, aperhaps less indulgent critic than I am. --And do you suppose that M. D'Espard's lawyer will show you any great consideration? Will he notbe suspicious of motives which may be perfectly pure anddisinterested? Your life will be at his mercy; he will inquire into itwithout qualifying his search by the respectful deference I have foryou. "

"I am much obliged to you, monsieur, " said the Marquise satirically. "Admitting for the moment that I owe thirty thousand or fifty thousandfrancs, in the first place, it would be a mere trifle to the d'Espardsand the Blamont-Chauvrys. But if my husband is not in the possessionof his mental faculties, would that prevent his being pronouncedincapable?"

"No, madame, " said Popinot. 

"Although you have questioned me with a sort of cunning which I shouldnot have suspected in a judge, and under circumstances wherestraightforwardness would have answered your purpose, " she went on, "Iwill tell you without subterfuge that my position in the world, andthe efforts I have to make to keep up my connection, are not in theleast to my taste. I began my life by a long period of solitude; butmy children's interest appealed to me; I felt that I must fill theirfather's place. By receiving my friends, by keeping up all thisconnection, by contracting these debts, I have secured their futurewelfare; I have prepared for them a brilliant career where they willfind help and favor; and to have what has thus been acquired, many aman of business, lawyer or banker, would gladly pay all it has costme. "

"I appreciate your devoted conduct, madame, " replied Popinot. "It doesyou honor, and I blame you for nothing. A judge belongs to all: hemust know and weigh every fact. "

Madame d'Espard's tact and practice in estimating men made herunderstand that M. Popinot was not to be influenced by anyconsideration. She had counted on an ambitious lawyer, she had found aman of conscience. She at once thought of finding other means forsecuring the success of her side. 

The servants brought in tea. 

"Have you any further explanations to give me, madame?" said Popinot, seeing these preparations. 

"Monsieur, " she replied haughtily, "do your business your own way;question M. D'Espard, and you will pity me, I am sure. " She raised herhead, looking Popinot in the face with pride, mingled withimpertinence; the worthy man bowed himself out respectfully. 

"A nice man is your uncle, " said Rastignac to Bianchon. "Is he reallyso dense? Does not he know what the Marquise d'Espard is, what herinfluence means, her unavowed power over people? The Keeper of theSeals will be with her to-morrow----"

"My dear fellow, how can I help it?" said Bianchon. "Did not I warnyou? He is not a man you can get over. "

"No, " said Rastignac; "he is a man you must run over. "

The doctor was obliged to make his bow to the Marquise and her muteChevalier to catch up Popinot, who, not being the man to endure anembarrassing position, was pacing through the rooms. 

"That woman owes a hundred thousand crowns, " said the judge, as hestepped into his nephew's cab. 

"And what do you think of the case?"

"I, " said the judge. "I never have an opinion till I have gone intoeverything. To-morrow early I will send to Madame Jeanrenaud to callon me in my private office at four o'clock, to make her explain thefacts which concern her, for she is compromised. "

"I should very much like to know what the end will be. "

"Why, bless me, do not you see that the Marquise is the tool of thattall lean man who never uttered a word? There is a strain of Cain inhim, but of the Cain who goes to the Law Courts for his bludgeon, andthere, unluckily for him, we keep more than one Damocles' sword. "

"Oh, Rastignac! what brought you into that boat, I wonder?" exclaimedBianchon. 

"Ah, we are used to seeing these little family conspiracies, " saidPopinot. "Not a year passes without a number of verdicts of'insufficient evidence' against applications of this kind. In ourstate of society such an attempt brings no dishonor, while we send apoor devil to the galleys who breaks a pane of glass dividing him froma bowl full of gold. Our Code is not faultless. "

"But these are the facts?"

"My boy, do you not know all the judicial romances with which clientsimpose on their attorneys? If the attorneys condemned themselves tostate nothing but the truth, they would not earn enough to keep theiroffice open. "

Next day, at four in the afternoon, a very stout dame, looking a gooddeal like a cask dressed up in a gown and belt, mounted JudgePopinot's stairs, perspiring and panting. She had, with greatdifficulty, got out of a green landau, which suited her to a miracle;you could not think of the woman without the landau, or the landauwithout the woman. 

"It is I, my dear sir, " said she, appearing in the doorway of thejudge's room. "Madame Jeanrenaud, whom you summoned exactly as if Iwere a thief, neither more nor less. "

The common words were spoken in a common voice, broken by the wheezingof asthma, and ending in a cough. 

"When I go through a damp place, I can't tell you what I suffer, sir. I shall never make old bones, saving your presence. However, here Iam. "

The lawyer was quite amazed at the appearance of this supposedMarechale d'Ancre. Madame Jeanrenaud's face was pitted with aninfinite number of little holes, was very red, with a pug nose and alow forehead, and was as round as a ball; for everything about thegood woman was round. She had the bright eyes of a country woman, anhonest gaze, a cheerful tone, and chestnut hair held in place by abonnet cap under a green bonnet decked with a shabby bunch ofauriculas. Her stupendous bust was a thing to laugh at, for it madeone fear some grotesque explosion every time she coughed. Her enormouslegs were of the shape which make the Paris street boy describe such awoman as being built on piles. The widow wore a green gown trimmedwith chinchilla, which looked on her as a splash of dirty oil wouldlook on a bride's veil. In short, everything about her harmonized withher last words: "Here I am. "

"Madame, " said Popinot, "you are suspected of having used someseductive arts to induce M. D'Espard to hand over to you veryconsiderable sums of money. "

"Of what! of what!" cried she. "Of seductive arts? But, my dear sir, you are a man to be respected, and, moreover, as a lawyer you ought tohave some good sense. Look at me! Tell me if I am likely to seduce anyone. I cannot tie my own shoes, nor even stoop. For these twenty yearspast, the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of staysunder pain of sudden death. I was as thin as an asparagus stalk when Iwas seventeen, and pretty too--I may say so now. So I marriedJeanrenaud, a good fellow, and headman on the salt-barges. I had myboy, who is a fine young man; he is my pride, and it is not holdingmyself cheap to say he is my best piece of work. My little Jeanrenaudwas a soldier who did Napoleon credit, and who served in the ImperialGuard. But, alas! at the death of my old man, who was drowned, timeschanged for the worse. I had the smallpox. I was kept two years in myroom without stirring, and I came out of it the size you see me, hideous for ever, and as wretched as could be. These are my seductivearts. "

"But what, then, can the reasons be that have induced M. D'Espard togive you sums----"

"Hugious sums, monsieur, say the word; I do not mind. But as to hisreasons, I am not at liberty to explain them. "

"You are wrong. At this moment, his family, very naturally alarmed, are about to bring an action----"

"Heavens above us!" said the good woman, starting up. "Is it possiblethat he should be worried on my account? That king of men, a man thathas not his match! Rather than he should have the smallest trouble, orhair less on his head I could almost say, we would return every sou, monsieur. Write that down on your papers. Heaven above us! I will goat once and tell Jeanrenaud what is going on! A pretty thing indeed!"

And the little old woman went out, rolled herself downstairs, anddisappeared. 

"That one tells no lies, " said Popinot to himself. "Well, to-morrow Ishall know the whole story, for I shall go to see the Marquisd'Espard. "

People who have outlived the age when a man wastes his vitality atrandom, know how great an influence may be exercised on more importantevents by apparently trivial incidents, and will not be surprised atthe weight here given to the following minor fact. Next day Popinothad an attack of coryza, a complaint which is not dangerous, andgenerally known by the absurd and inadequate name of a cold in thehead. 

The judge, who could not suppose that the delay could be serious, feeling himself a little feverish, kept his room, and did not go tosee the Marquis d'Espard. This day lost was, to this affair, what onthe Day of Dupes the cup of soup had been, taken by Marie de Medici, which, by delaying her meeting with Louis XIII. , enabled Richelieu toarrive at Saint-Germain before her, and recapture his royal slave. 

Before accompanying the lawyer and his registering clerk to theMarquis d'Espard's house, it may be as well to glance at the home andthe private affairs of this father of sons whom his wife's petitionrepresented to be a madman. 

Here and there in the old parts of Paris a few buildings may still beseen in which the archaeologist can discern an intention of decoratingthe city, and that love of property, which leads the owner to give adurable character to the structure. The house in which M. D'Espard wasthen living, in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, was one ofthese old mansions, built in stone, and not devoid of a certainrichness of style; but time had blackened the stone, and revolutionsin the town had damaged it both outside and inside. The dignitarieswho formerly dwelt in the neighborhood of the University havingdisappeared with the great ecclesiastical foundations, this house hadbecome the home of industries and of inhabitants whom it was neverdestined to shelter. During the last century a printing establishmenthad worn down the polished floors, soiled the carved wood, blackenedthe walls, and altered the principal internal arrangements. Formerlythe residence of a Cardinal, this fine house was now divided amongplebeian tenants. The character of the architecture showed that it hadbeen built under the reigns of Henry III. , Henry IV. , and Louis XIII. , at the time when the hotels Mignon and Serpente were erected in thesame neighborhood, with the palace of the Princess Palatine, and theSorbonne. An old man could remember having heard it called, in thelast century, the hotel Duperron, so it seemed probable that theillustrious Cardinal of that name had built, or perhaps merely livedin it. 

There still exists, indeed, in the corner of the courtyard, a perronor flight of several outer steps by which the house is entered; andthe way into the garden on the garden front is down a similar flightof steps. In spite of dilapidations, the luxury lavished by thearchitect on the balustrade and entrance porch crowning these twoperrons suggests the simple-minded purpose of commemorating theowner's name, a sort of sculptured pun which our ancestors oftenallowed themselves. Finally, in support of this evidence, archaeologists can still discern in the medallions which show on theprincipal front some traces of the cords of the Roman hat. 

M. Le Marquis d'Espard lived on the ground floor, in order, no doubt, to enjoy the garden, which might be called spacious for thatneighborhood, and which lay open for his children's health. Thesituation of the house, in a street on a steep hill, as its nameindicates, secured these ground-floor rooms against ever being damp. M. D'Espard had taken them, no doubt, for a very moderate price, rentsbeing low at the time when he settled in that quarter, in order to beamong the schools and to superintend his boys' education. Moreover, the state in which he found the place, with everything to repair, hadno doubt induced the owner to be accommodating. Thus M. D'Espard hadbeen able to go to some expense to settle himself suitably withoutbeing accused of extravagance. The loftiness of the rooms, thepaneling, of which nothing survived but the frames, the decoration ofthe ceilings, all displayed the dignity which the prelacy stamped onwhatever it attempted or created, and which artists discern to thisday in the smallest relic that remains, though it be but a book, adress, the panel of a bookcase, or an armchair. 

The Marquis had the rooms painted in the rich brown tones loved of theDutch and of the citizens of Old Paris, hues which lend such goodeffects to the painter of genre. The panels were hung with plain paperin harmony with the paint. The window curtains were of inexpensivematerials, but chosen so as to produce a generally happy result; thefurniture was not too crowded and judiciously placed. Any one on goinginto this home could not resist a sense of sweet peacefulness, produced by the perfect calm, the stillness which prevailed, by theunpretentious unity of color, the keeping of the picture, in the wordsa painter might use. A certain nobleness in the details, the exquisitecleanliness of the furniture, and a perfect concord of men and things, all brought the word "suavity" to the lips. 

Few persons were admitted to the rooms used by the Marquis and his twosons, whose life might perhaps seem mysterious to their neighbors. Ina wing towards the street, on the third floor, there are three largerooms which had been left in the state of dilapidation and grotesquebareness to which they had been reduced by the printing works. Thesethree rooms, devoted to the evolution of the Picturesque History ofChina, were contrived to serve as a writing-room, a depository, and aprivate room, where M. D'Espard sat during part of the day; for afterbreakfast till four in the afternoon the Marquis remained in this roomon the third floor to work at the publication he had undertaken. Visitors wanting to see him commonly found him there, and often thetwo boys on their return from school resorted thither. Thus theground-floor rooms were a sort of sanctuary where the father and sonsspent their time from the hour of dinner till the next day, and hisdomestic life was carefully closed against the public eye. 

His only servants were a cook--an old woman who had long been attachedto his family--and a man-servant forty years old, who was with himwhen he married Mademoiselle de Blamont. His children's nurse had alsoremained with them, and the minute care to which the apartment borewitness revealed the sense of order and the maternal affectionsexpended by this woman in her master's interest, in the management ofhis house, and the charge of his children. These three good souls, grave, and uncommunicative folk, seemed to have entered into the ideawhich ruled the Marquis' domestic life. And the contrast between theirhabits and those of most servants was a peculiarity which cast an airof mystery over the house, and fomented the calumny to which M. D'Espard himself lent occasion. Very laudable motives had made himdetermine never to be on visiting terms with any of the other tenantsin the house. In undertaking to educate his boys he wished to keepthem from all contact with strangers. Perhaps, too, he wished to avoidthe intrusion of neighbors. 

In a man of his rank, at a time when the Quartier Latin was distractedby Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host ofpetty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured bytheir meanness, the outcome of porters' gossip and malevolent tattlefrom door to door, all unknown to M. D'Espard and his retainers. Hisman-servant was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; thenurse was in collusion with Madame Jeanrenaud to rob the madman. Themadman was the Marquis. By degrees the other tenants came to regard asproofs of madness a number of things they had noticed in M. D'Espard, and passed through the sieve of their judgment without discerning anyreasonable motive for them. 

Having no belief in the success of the History of China, they hadmanaged to convince the landlord of the house that M. D'Espard had nomoney just at a time when, with the forgetfulness which often befallsbusy men, he had allowed the tax-collector to send him a summons fornon-payment of arrears. The landlord forthwith claimed his quarter'srent from January 1st by sending in a receipt, which the porter's wifehad amused herself by detaining. On the 15th a summons to pay wasserved on M. D'Espard, the portress had delivered it at her leisure, and he supposed it to be some misunderstanding, not conceiving of anyincivility from a man in whose house he had been living for twelveyears. The Marquis was actually seized by a bailiff at the time whenhis man-servant had gone to carry the money for the rent to thelandlord. 

This arrest, assiduously reported to the persons with whom he was intreaty for his undertaking, had alarmed some of them who were alreadydoubtful of M. D'Espard's solvency in consequence of the enormous sumswhich Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother were said to be receiving fromhim. And, indeed, these suspicions on the part of the tenants, thecreditors, and the landlord had some excuse in the Marquis' extremeeconomy in housekeeping. He conducted it as a ruined man might. Hisservants always paid in ready money for the most trifling necessariesof life, and acted as not choosing to take credit; if now they hadasked for anything on credit, it would probably have been refused, calumnious gossip had been so widely believed in the neighborhood. There are tradesmen who like those of their customers who pay badlywhen they see them often, while they hate others, and very good ones, who hold themselves on too high a level to allow of any familiarity asCHUMS, a vulgar but expressive word. Men are made so; in almost everyclass they will allow to a gossip, or a vulgar soul that flattersthem, facilities and favors they refuse to the superiority theyresent, in whatever form it may show itself. The shopkeeper who railsat the Court has his courtiers. 

In short, the manners of the Marquis and his children were certain toarouse ill-feeling in their neighbors, and to work them up by degreesto the pitch of malevolence when men do not hesitate at an act ofmeanness if only it may damage the adversary they have themselvescreated. 

M. D'Espard was a gentleman, as his wife was a lady, by birth andbreeding; noble types, already so rare in France that the observer caneasily count the persons who perfectly realize them. These twocharacters are based on primitive ideas, on beliefs that may be calledinnate, on habits formed in infancy, and which have ceased to exist. To believe in pure blood, in a privileged race, to stand in thoughtabove other men, must we not from birth have measured the distancewhich divides patricians from the mob? To command, must we not havenever met our equal? And finally, must not education inculcate theideas with which Nature inspires those great men on whose brow she hasplaced a crown before their mother has ever set a kiss there? Theseideas, this education, are no longer possible in France, where forforty years past chance has arrogated the right of making noblemen bydipping them in the blood of battles, by gilding them with glory, bycrowning them with the halo of genius; where the abolition of entailand of eldest sonship, by frittering away estates, compels thenobleman to attend to his own business instead of attending to affairsof state, and where personal greatness can only be such greatness asis acquired by long and patient toil: quite a new era. 

Regarded as a relic of that great institution know as feudalism, M. D'Espard deserved respectful admiration. If he believed himself to beby blood the superior of other men, he also believed in all theobligations of nobility; he had the virtues and the strength itdemands. He had brought up his children in his own principles, andtaught them from the cradle the religion of their caste. A deep senseof their own dignity, pride of name, the conviction that they were bybirth great, gave rise in them to a kingly pride, the courage ofknights, and the protecting kindness of a baronial lord; theirmanners, harmonizing with their notions, would have become princes, and offended all the world of the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve--a world, above all others, of equality, where every one believedthat M. D'Espard was ruined, and where all, from the lowest to thehighest, refused the privileges of nobility to a nobleman withoutmoney, because they were all ready to allow an enriched bourgeois tousurp them. Thus the lack of communion between this family and otherpersons was as much moral as it was physical. 

In the father and the children alike, their personality harmonizedwith the spirit within. M. D'Espard, at this time about fifty, mighthave sat as a model to represent the aristocracy of birth in thenineteenth century. He was slight and fair; there was in the outlineand general expression of his face a native distinction which spoke oflofty sentiments, but it bore the impress of a deliberate coldnesswhich commanded respect a little too decidedly. His aquiline nose bentat the tip from left to right, a slight crookedness which was notdevoid of grace; his blue eyes, his high forehead, prominent enough atthe brows to form a thick ridge that checked the light and shaded hiseyes, all indicated a spirit of rectitude, capable of perseverance andperfect loyalty, while it gave a singular look to his countenance. This penthouse forehead might, in fact, hint at a touch of madness, and his thick-knitted eyebrows added to the apparent eccentricity. Hehad the white well-kept hands of a gentleman; his foot was high andnarrow. His hesitating speech--not merely as to his pronunciation, which was that of a stammerer, but also in the expression of hisideas, his thought and language--produced on the mind of the hearerthe impression of a man who, in familiar phraseology, comes and goes, feels his way, tries everything, breaks off his gestures, and finishesnothing. This defect was purely superficial, and in contrast with thedecisiveness of a firmly-set mouth, and the strongly-marked characterof his physiognomy. His rather jerky gait matched his mode of speech. These peculiarities helped to affirm his supposed insanity. In spiteof his elegant appearance, he was systematically parsimonious in hispersonal expenses, and wore the same black frock-coat for three orfour years, brushed with extreme care by his old man-servant. 

As to the children, they both were handsome, and endowed with a gracewhich did not exclude an expression of aristocratic disdain. They hadthe bright coloring, the clear eye, the transparent flesh which revealhabits of purity, regularity of life, and a due proportion of work andplay. They both had black hair and blue eyes, and a twist in theirnose, like their father; but their mother, perhaps, had transmitted tothem the dignity of speech, of look and mien, which are hereditary inthe Blamont-Chauvrys. Their voices, as clear as crystal, had anemotional quality, the softness which proves so seductive; they had, in short, the voice a woman would willingly listen to after feelingthe flame of their looks. But, above all, they had the modesty ofpride, a chaste reserve, a /touch-me-not/ which at a maturer age mighthave seemed intentional coyness, so much did their demeanor inspire awish to know them. The elder, Comte Clement de Negrepelisse, was closeupon his sixteenth year. For the last two years he had ceased to wearthe pretty English round jacket which his brother, Vicomte Camilled'Espard, still wore. The Count, who for the last six months went nomore to the College Henri IV. , was dressed in the style of a young manenjoying the first pleasures of fashion. His father had not wished tocondemn him to a year's useless study of philosophy; he was trying togive his knowledge some consistency by the study of transcendentalmathematics. At the same time, the Marquis was having him taughtEastern languages, the international law of Europe, heraldry, andhistory from the original sources, charters, early documents, andcollections of edicts. Camille had lately begun to study rhetoric. 

The day when Popinot arranged to go to question M. D'Espard was aThursday, a holiday. At about nine in the morning, before their fatherwas awake, the brothers were playing in the garden. Clement wasfinding it hard to refuse his brother, who was anxious to go to theshooting-gallery for the first time, and who begged him to second hisrequest to the Marquis. The Viscount always rather took advantage ofhis weakness, and was very fond of wrestling with his brother. So thecouple were quarreling and fighting in play like schoolboys. As theyran in the garden, chasing each other, they made so much noise as towake their father, who came to the window without their perceiving himin the heat of the fray. The Marquis amused himself with watching histwo children twisted together like snakes, their faces flushed by theexertion of their strength; their complexion was rose and white, theireyes flashed sparks, their limbs writhed like cords in the fire; theyfell, sprang up again, and caught each other like athletes in acircus, affording their father one of those moments of happiness whichwould make amends for the keenest anxieties of a busy life. Two otherpersons, one on the second and one on the first floor, were alsolooking into the garden, and saying that the old madman was amusinghimself by making his children fight. Immediately a number of headsappeared at the windows; the Marquis, noticing them, called a word tohis sons, who at once climbed up to the window and jumped into hisroom, and Clement obtained the permission asked by Camille. 

All through the house every one was talking of the Marquis' new formof insanity. When Popinot arrived at about twelve o'clock, accompaniedby his clerk, the portress, when asked for M. D'Espard, conducted himto the third floor, telling him "as how M. D'Espard, no longer agothan that very morning, had set on his two children to fight, andlaughed like the monster he was on seeing the younger biting the eldertill he bled, and as how no doubt he longed to see them kill eachother. --Don't ask me the reason why, " she added; "he doesn't showhimself!"

Just as the woman spoke these decisive words, she had brought thejudge to the landing on the third floor, face to face with a doorcovered with notices announcing the successive numbers of thePicturesque History of China. The muddy floor, the dirty banisters, the door where the printers had left their marks, the dilapidatedwindow, and the ceiling on which the apprentices had amused themselveswith drawing monstrosities with the smoky flare of their tallow dips, the piles of paper and litter heaped up in the corners, intentionallyor from sheer neglect--in short, every detail of the picture lyingbefore his eyes, agreed so well with the facts alleged by the Marquisethat the judge, in spite of his impartiality, could not help believingthem. 

"There you are, gentlemen, " said the porter's wife; "there is themanifactor, where the Chinese swallow up enough to feed the wholeneighborhood. "

The clerk looked at the judge with a smile, and Popinot found it hardto keep his countenance. They went together into the outer room, wheresat an old man, who, no doubt, performed the functions of officeclerk, shopman, and cashier. This old man was the Maitre Jacques ofChina. Along the walls ran long shelves, on which the publishednumbers lay in piles. A partition in wood, with a grating lined withgreen curtains, cut off the end of the room, forming a private office. A till with a slit to admit or disgorge crown pieces indicated thecash-desk. 

"M. D'Espard?" said Popinot, addressing the man, who wore a grayblouse. 

The shopman opened the door into the next room, where the lawyer andhis companion saw a venerable old man, white-headed and simplydressed, wearing the Cross of Saint-Louis, seated at a desk. He ceasedcomparing some sheets of colored prints to look up at the twovisitors. This room was an unpretentious office, full of books andproof-sheets. There was a black wood table at which some one, at themoment absent, no doubt was accustomed to work. 

"The Marquis d'Espard?" said Popinot. 

"No, monsieur, " said the old man, rising; "what do you want with him?"he added, coming forward, and showing by his demeanor the dignifiedmanners and habits due to a gentlemanly education. 

"We wish to speak with him on business exclusively personal tohimself, " replied Popinot. 

"D'Espard, here are some gentlemen who want to see you, " then said theold man, going into the furthest room, where the Marquis was sittingby the fire reading the newspaper. 

This innermost room had a shabby carpet, the windows were hung withgray holland curtains; the furniture consisted of a few mahoganychairs, two armchairs, a desk with a revolving front, an ordinaryoffice table, and on the chimney-shelf, a dingy clock and two oldcandlesticks. The old man led the way for Popinot and his registrar, and pulled forward two chairs, as though he were master of the place;M. D'Espard left it to him. After the preliminary civilities, duringwhich the judge watched the supposed lunatic, the Marquis naturallyasked what was the object of this visit. On this Popinot glancedsignificantly at the old gentleman and the Marquis. 

"I believe, Monsieur le Marquis, " said he, "that the character of myfunctions, and the inquiry that has brought me here, make it desirablethat we should be alone, though it is understood by law that in suchcases the inquiries have a sort of family publicity. I am judge on theInferior Court of Appeal for the Department of the Seine, and chargedby the President with the duty of examining you as to certain factsset forth in a petition for a Commission in Lunacy on the part of theMarquise d'Espard. "

The old man withdrew. When the lawyer and the Marquis were alone, theclerk shut the door, and seated himself unceremoniously at the officetable, where he laid out his papers and prepared to take down hisnotes. Popinot had still kept his eye on M. D'Espard; he was watchingthe effect on him of this crude statement, so painful for a man infull possession of his reason. The Marquis d'Espard, whose face wasusually pale, as are those of fair men, suddenly turned scarlet withanger; he trembled for an instant, sat down, laid his paper on thechimney-piece, and looked down. In a moment he had recovered hisgentlemanly dignity, and looked steadily at the judge, as if to readin his countenance the indications of his character. 

"How is it, monsieur, " he asked, "that I have had no notice of such apetition?"

"Monsieur le Marquis, persons on whom such a commission is held notbeing supposed to have the use of their reason, any notice of thepetition is unnecessary. The duty of the Court chiefly consists inverifying the allegations of the petitioner. "

"Nothing can be fairer, " replied the Marquis. "Well, then, monsieur, be so good as to tell me what I ought to do----"

"You have only to answer my questions, omitting nothing. Howeverdelicate the reasons may be which may have led you to act in such amanner as to give Madame d'Espard a pretext for her petition, speakwithout fear. It is unnecessary to assure you that lawyers know theirduties, and that in such cases the profoundest secrecy----"

"Monsieur, " said the Marquis, whose face expressed the sincerest pain, "if my explanations should lead to any blame being attached to Madamed'Espard's conduct, what will be the result?"

"The Court may add its censure to its reasons for its decision. "

"Is such censure optional? If I were to stipulate with you, beforereplying, that nothing should be said that could annoy Madame d'Espardin the event of your report being in my favor, would the Court take myrequest into consideration?"

The judge looked at the Marquis, and the two men exchanged sentimentsof equal magnanimity. 

"Noel, " said Popinot to his registrar, "go into the other room. If youcan be of use, I will call you in. --If, as I am inclined to think, " hewent on, speaking to the Marquis when the clerk had gone out, "I findthat there is some misunderstanding in this case, I can promise you, monsieur, that on your application the Court will act with duecourtesy. 

"There is a leading fact put forward by Madame d'Espard, the mostserious of all, of which I must beg for an explanation, " said thejudge after a pause. "It refers to the dissipation of your fortune tothe advantage of a certain Madame Jeanrenaud, the widow of abargemaster--or rather, to that of her son, Colonel Jeanrenaud, forwhom you are said to have procured an appointment, to have exhaustedyour influence with the King, and at last to have extended suchprotection as secures him a good marriage. The petition suggests thatsuch a friendship is more devoted than any feelings, even those whichmorality must disapprove----"

A sudden flush crimsoned the Marquis' face and forehead, tears evenstarted to his eyes, for his eyelashes were wet, then wholesome pridecrushed the emotions, which in a man are accounted a weakness. 

"To tell you the truth, monsieur, " said the Marquis, in a brokenvoice, "you place me in a strange dilemma. The motives of my conductwere to have died with me. To reveal them I must disclose to you somesecret wounds, must place the honor of my family in your keeping, andmust speak of myself, a delicate matter, as you will fully understand. I hope, monsieur, that it will all remain a secret between us. Youwill, no doubt, be able to find in the formulas of the law one whichwill allow of judgment being pronounced without any betrayal of myconfidences. "

"So far as that goes, it is perfectly possible, Monsieur le Marquis. "

"Some time after my marriage, " said M. D'Espard, "my wife having runinto considerable expenses, I was obliged to have recourse toborrowing. You know what was the position of noble families during theRevolution; I had not been able to keep a steward or a man ofbusiness. Nowadays gentlemen are for the most part obliged to managetheir affairs themselves. Most of my title-deeds had been brought toParis, from Languedoc, Provence, or le Comtat, by my father, whodreaded, and not without reason, the inquisition which familytitle-deeds, and what was then styled the 'parchments' of theprivileged class, brought down on the owners. 

"Our name is Negrepelisse; d'Espard is a title acquired in the time ofHenri IV. By a marriage which brought us the estates and titles of thehouse of d'Espard, on condition of our bearing an escutcheon ofpretence on our coat-of-arms, those of the house of d'Espard, an oldfamily of Bearn, connected in the female line with that of Albret:quarterly, paly of or and sable; and azure two griffins' claws armed, gules in saltire, with the famous motto Des partem leonis. At the timeof this alliance we lost Negrepelisse, a little town which was asfamous during the religious struggles as was my ancestor who then borethe name. Captain de Negrepelisse was ruined by the burning of all hisproperty, for the Protestants did not spare a friend of Montluc's. 

"The Crown was unjust to M. De Negrepelisse; he received neither amarshal's baton, nor a post as governor, nor any indemnity; KingCharles IX. , who was fond of him, died without being able to rewardhim; Henri IV. Arranged his marriage with Mademoiselle d'Espard, andsecured him the estates of that house, but all those of theNegrepelisses had already passed into the hands of his creditors. 

"My great-grandfather, the Marquis d'Espard, was, like me, placedearly in life at the head of his family by the death of his father, who, after dissipating his wife's fortune, left his son nothing butthe entailed estates of the d'Espards, burdened with a jointure. Theyoung Marquis was all the more straitened for money because he held apost at Court. Being in great favor with Louis XIV. , the King'sgoodwill brought him a fortune. But here, monsieur, a blot stained ourescutcheon, an unconfessed and horrible stain of blood and disgracewhich I am making it my business to wipe out. I discovered the secretamong the deeds relating to the estate of Negrepelisse and the packetsof letters. "

At this solemn moment the Marquis spoke without hesitation or any ofthe repetition habitual with him; but it is a matter of commonobservation that persons who, in ordinary life, are afflicted withthese two defects, are freed from them as soon as any passionateemotion underlies their speech. 

"The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was decreed, " he went on. "Youare no doubt aware, monsieur, that this was an opportunity for manyfavorites to make their fortunes. Louis XIV. Bestowed on the magnatesabout his Court the confiscated lands of those Protestant families whodid not take the prescribed steps for the sale of their property. Somepersons in high favor went 'Protestant-hunting, ' as the phrase was. Ihave ascertained beyond a doubt that the fortune enjoyed to this dayby two ducal families is derived from lands seized from haplessmerchants. 

"I will not attempt to explain to you, a man of law, all themanoeuvres employed to entrap the refugees who had large fortunes tocarry away. It is enough to say that the lands of Negrepelisse, comprising twenty-two churches and rights over the town, and those ofGravenges which had formerly belonged to us, were at that time in thehands of a Protestant family. My grandfather recovered them by giftfrom Louis XIV. This gift was effected by documents hall-marked byatrocious iniquity. The owner of these two estates, thinking he wouldbe able to return, had gone through the form of a sale, and was goingto Switzerland to join his family, whom he had sent in advance. Hewished, no doubt, to take advantage of every delay granted by the law, so as to settle the concerns of his business. 

"This man was arrested by order of the governor, the trustee confessedthe truth, the poor merchant was hanged, and my ancestor had the twoestates. I would gladly have been able to ignore the share he took inthe plot; but the governor was his uncle on the mother's side, and Ihave unfortunately read the letter in which he begged him to apply toDeodatus, the name agreed upon by the Court to designate the King. Inthis letter there is a tone of jocosity with reference to the victim, which filled me with horror. In the end, the sums of money sent by therefugee family to ransom the poor man were kept by the governor, whodespatched the merchant all the same. "

The Marquis paused, as though the memory of it were still too heavyfor him to bear. 

"This unfortunate family were named Jeanrenaud, " he went on. "Thatname is enough to account for my conduct. I could never think withoutkeen pain of the secret disgrace that weighed on my family. Thatfortune enabled my grandfather to marry a demoiselle deNavarreins-Lansac, heiress to the younger branch of that house, whowere at that time much richer than the elder branch of the Navarreins. My father thus became one of the largest landowners in the kingdom. Hewas able to marry my mother, a Grandlieu of the younger branch. Thoughill-gotten, this property has been singularly profitable. 

"For my part, being determined to remedy the mischief, I wrote toSwitzerland, and knew no peace till I was on the traces of theProtestant victim's heirs. At last I discovered that the Jeanrenauds, reduced to abject want, had left Fribourg and returned to live inFrance. Finally, I found a M. Jeanrenaud, lieutenant in a cavalryregiment under Napoleon, the sole heir of this unhappy family. In myeyes, monsieur, the rights of the Jeanrenauds were clear. To establisha prescriptive right is it not necessary that there should have beensome possibility of proceeding against those who are in the enjoymentof it? To whom could these refugees have appealed? Their Court ofJustice was on high, or rather, monsieur, it was here, " and theMarquis struck his hand on his heart. "I did not choose that mychildren should be able to think of me as I have thought of my fatherand of my ancestors. I aim at leaving them an unblemished inheritanceand escutcheon. I did not choose that nobility should be a lie in myperson. And, after all, politically speaking, ought those emigres whoare now appealing against revolutionary confiscations, to keep theproperty derived from antecedent confiscations by positive crimes?

"I found in M. Jeanrenaud and his mother the most perverse honesty; tohear them you would suppose that they were robbing me. In spite of allI could say, they will accept no more than the value of the lands atthe time when the King bestowed them on my family. The price wassettled between us at the sum of eleven hundred thousand francs, whichI was to pay at my convenience and without interest. To achieve this Ihad to forego my income for a long time. And then, monsieur, began thedestruction of some illusions I had allowed myself as to Madamed'Espard's character. When I proposed to her that we should leaveParis and go into the country, where we could live respected on halfof her income, and so more rapidly complete a restitution of which Ispoke to her without going into the more serious details, Madamed'Espard treated me as a madman. I then understood my wife's realcharacter. She would have approved of my grandfather's conduct withouta scruple, and have laughed at the Huguenots. Terrified by hercoldness, and her little affection for her children, whom sheabandoned to me without regret, I determined to leave her the commandof her fortune, after paying our common debts. It was no business ofhers, as she told me, to pay for my follies. As I then had not enoughto live on and pay for my sons' education, I determined to educatethem myself, to make them gentlemen and men of feeling. By investingmy money in the funds I have been enabled to pay off my obligationsooner than I had dared to hope, for I took advantage of theopportunities afforded by the improvement in prices. If I had keptfour thousand francs a year for my boys and myself, I could only havepaid off twenty thousand crowns a year, and it would have taken almosteighteen years to achieve my freedom. As it is, I have lately repaidthe whole of the eleven hundred thousand francs that were due. Thus Ienjoy the happiness of having made this restitution without doing mychildren the smallest wrong. 

"These, monsieur, are the reasons for the payments made to MadameJeanrenaud and her son. "

"So Madame d'Espard knew the motives of your retirement?" said thejudge, controlling the emotion he felt at this narrative. 

"Yes, monsieur. "

Popinot gave an expressive shrug; he rose and opened the door into thenext room. 

"Noel, you can go, " said he to his clerk. 

"Monsieur, " he went on, "though what you have told me is enough toenlighten me thoroughly, I should like to hear what you have to say tothe other facts put forward in the petition. For instance, you arehere carrying on a business such as is not habitually undertaken by aman of rank. "

"We cannot discuss that matter here, " said the Marquis, signing to thejudge to quit the room. "Nouvion, " said he to the old man, "I am goingdown to my rooms; the children will soon be in; dine with us. "

"Then, Monsieur le Marquis, " said Popinot on the stairs, "that is notyour apartment?"

"No, monsieur; I took those rooms for the office of this undertaking. You see, " and he pointed to an advertisement sheet, "the History isbeing brought out by one of the most respectable firms in Paris, andnot by me. "

The Marquis showed the lawyer into the ground-floor rooms, saying, "This is my apartment. "

Popinot was quite touched by the poetry, not aimed at but pervadingthis dwelling. The weather was lovely, the windows were open, the airfrom the garden brought in a wholesome earthy smell, the sunshinebrightened and gilded the woodwork, of a rather gloomy brown. At thesight Popinot made up his mind that a madman would hardly be capableof inventing the tender harmony of which he was at that momentconscious. 

"I should like just such an apartment, " thought he. "You think ofleaving this part of town?" he inquired. 

"I hope so, " replied the Marquis. "But I shall remain till my youngerson has finished his studies, and till the children's character isthoroughly formed, before introducing them to the world and to theirmother's circle. Indeed, after giving them the solid information theypossess, I intend to complete it by taking them to travel to thecapitals of Europe, that they may see men and things, and becomeaccustomed to speak the languages they have learned. And, monsieur, "he went on, giving the judge a chair in the drawing-room, "I could notdiscuss the book on China with you, in the presence of an old friendof my family, the Comte de Nouvion, who, having emigrated, hasreturned to France without any fortune whatever, and who is my partnerin this concern, less for my profit than his. Without telling him whatmy motives were, I explained to him that I was as poor as he, but thatI had enough money to start a speculation in which he might beusefully employed. My tutor was the Abbe Grozier, whom Charles X. Onmy recommendation appointed Keeper of the Books at the Arsenal, whichwere returned to that Prince when he was still Monsieur. The AbbeGrozier was deeply learned with regard to China, its manners andcustoms; he made me heir to this knowledge at an age when it isdifficult not to become a fanatic for the things we learn. Atfive-and-twenty I knew Chinese, and I confess I have never been able tocheck myself in an exclusive admiration for that nation, who conqueredtheir conquerors, whose annals extend back indisputably to a periodmore remote than mythological or Bible times, who by their immutableinstitutions have preserved the integrity of their empire, whosemonuments are gigantic, whose administration is perfect, among whomrevolutions are impossible, who have regarded ideal beauty as a barrenelement in art, who have carried luxury and industry to such a pitchthat we cannot outdo them in anything, while they are our equals inthings where we believe ourselves superior. 

"Still, monsieur, though I often make a jest of comparing China withthe present condition of European states, I am not a Chinaman, I am aFrench gentleman. If you entertain any doubts as to the financial sideof this undertaking, I can prove to you that at this moment we havetwo thousand five hundred subscribers to this work, which is literary, iconographical, statistical, and religious; its importance has beengenerally appreciated; our subscribers belong to every nation inEurope, we have but twelve hundred in France. Our book will cost aboutthree hundred francs, and the Comte de Nouvion will derive from itfrom six to seven thousand francs a year, for his comfort was the realmotive of the undertaking. For my part, I aimed only at thepossibility of affording my children some pleasures. The hundredthousand francs I have made, quite in spite of myself, will pay fortheir fencing lessons, horses, dress, and theatres, pay the masterswho teach them accomplishments, procure them canvases to spoil, thebooks they may wish to buy, in short, all the little fancies which afather finds so much pleasure in gratifying. If I had been compelledto refuse these indulgences to my poor boys, who are so good and workso hard, the sacrifice I made to the honor of my name would have beendoubly painful. 

"In point of fact, the twelve years I have spent in retirement fromthe world to educate my children have led to my being completelyforgotten at Court. I have given up the career of politics; I havelost my historical fortune, and all the distinctions which I mighthave acquired and bequeathed to my children; but our house will havelost nothing; my boys will be men of mark. Though I have missed thesenatorship, they will win it nobly by devoting themselves to theaffairs of the country, and doing such service as is not soonforgotten. While purifying the past record of my family, I haveinsured it a glorious future; and is not that to have achieved a nobletask, though in secret and without glory?--And now, monsieur, have youany other explanations to ask me?"

At this instant the tramp of horses was heard in the courtyard. 

"Here they are!" said the Marquis. In a moment the two lads, fashionably but plainly dressed, came into the room, booted, spurred, and gloved, and flourishing their riding-whips. Their beaming facesbrought in the freshness of the outer air; they were brilliant withhealth. They both grasped their father's hand, giving him a look, asfriends do, a glance of unspoken affection, and then they bowed coldlyto the lawyer. Popinot felt that it was quite unnecessary to questionthe Marquis as to his relations towards his sons. 

"Have you enjoyed yourselves?" asked the Marquis. 

"Yes, father; I knocked down six dolls in twelve shots at the firsttrial!" cried Camille. 

"And where did you ride?"

"In the Bois; we saw my mother. "

"Did she stop?"

"We were riding so fast just then that I daresay she did not see us, "replied the young Count. 

"But, then, why did you not go to speak to her?"

"I fancy I have noticed, father, that she does not care that we shouldspeak to her in public, " said Clement in an undertone. "We are alittle too big. "

The judge's hearing was keen enough to catch these words, whichbrought a cloud to the Marquis' brow. Popinot took pleasure incontemplating the picture of the father and his boys. His eyes wentback with a sense of pathos to M. D'Espard's face; his features, hisexpression, and his manner all expressed honesty in its noblestaspect, intellectual and chivalrous honesty, nobility in all itsbeauty. 

"You--you see, monsieur, " said the Marquis, and his hesitation hadreturned, "you see that Justice may look in--in here at any time--yes, at any time--here. If there is anybody crazy, it can only be thechildren--the children--who are a little crazy about their father, andthe father who is very crazy about his children--but that sort ofmadness rings true. "

At this juncture Madame Jeanrenaud's voice was heard in the ante-room, and the good woman came bustling in, in spite of the man-servant'sremonstrances. 

"I take no roundabout ways, I can tell you!" she exclaimed. "Yes, Monsieur le Marquis, I want to speak to you, this very minute, " shewent on, with a comprehensive bow to the company. "By George, and I amtoo late as it is, since Monsieur the criminal Judge is before me. "

"Criminal!" cried the two boys. 

"Good reason why I did not find you at your own house, since you arehere. Well, well! the Law is always to the fore when there is mischiefbrewing. --I came, Monsieur le Marquis, to tell you that my son and Iare of one mind to give you everything back, since our honor isthreatened. My son and I, we had rather give you back everything thancause you the smallest trouble. My word, they must be as stupid aspans without handles to call you a lunatic----"

"A lunatic! My father?" exclaimed the boys, clinging to the Marquis. "What is this?"

"Silence, madame, " said Popinot. 

"Children, leave us, " said the Marquis. 

The two boys went into the garden without a word, but very muchalarmed. 

"Madame, " said the judge, "the moneys paid to you by Monsieur leMarquis were legally due, though given to you in virtue of a veryfar-reaching theory of honesty. If all the people possessed ofconfiscated goods, by whatever cause, even if acquired by treachery, were compelled to make restitution every hundred and fifty years, there would be few legitimate owners in France. The possessions ofJacques Coeur enriched twenty noble families; the confiscationspronounced by the English to the advantage of their adherents at thetime when they held a part of France made the fortune of severalprincely houses. 

"Our law allows M. D'Espard to dispose of his income withoutaccounting for it, or suffering him to be accused of itsmisapplication. A Commission in Lunacy can only be granted when aman's actions are devoid of reason; but in this case, the remittancesmade to you have a reason based on the most sacred and most honorablemotives. Hence you may keep it all without remorse, and leave theworld to misinterpret a noble action. In Paris, the highest virtue isthe object of the foulest calumny. It is, unfortunately, the presentcondition of society that makes the Marquis' actions sublime. For thehonor of my country, I would that such deeds were regarded as a matterof course; but, as things are, I am forced by comparison to look uponM. D'Espard as a man to whom a crown should be awarded, rather thanthat he should be threatened with a Commission in Lunacy. 

"In the course of a long professional career, I have seen and heardnothing that has touched me more deeply than that I have just seen andheard. But it is not extraordinary that virtue should wear its noblestaspect when it is practised by men of the highest class. 

"Having heard me express myself in this way, I hope, Monsieur leMarquis, that you feel certain of my silence, and that you will notfor a moment be uneasy as to the decision pronounced in the case--ifit comes before the Court. "

"There, now! Well said, " cried Madame Jeanrenaud. "That is somethinglike a judge! Look here, my dear sir, I would hug you if I were not sougly; you speak like a book. "

The Marquis held out his hand to Popinot, who gently pressed it with alook full of sympathetic comprehension at this great man in privatelife, and the Marquis responded with a pleasant smile. These twonatures, both so large and full--one commonplace but divinely kind, the other lofty and sublime--had fallen into unison gently, without ajar, without a flash of passion, as though two pure lights had beenmerged into one. The father of a whole district felt himself worthy tograsp the hand of this man who was doubly noble, and the Marquis feltin the depths of his soul an instinct that told him that the judge'shand was one of those from which the treasures of inexhaustiblebeneficence perennially flow. 

"Monsieur le Marquis, " added Popinot, with a bow, "I am happy to beable to tell you that, from the first words of this inquiry, Iregarded my clerk as quite unnecessary. "

He went close to M. D'Espard, led him into the window-bay, and said:"It is time that you should return home, monsieur. I believe thatMadame la Marquise has acted in this matter under an influence whichyou ought at once to counteract. "

Popinot withdrew. He looked back several times as he crossed thecourtyard, touched by the recollection of the scene. It was one ofthose which take root in the memory to blossom again in certain hourswhen the soul seeks consolation. 

"Those rooms would just suit me, " said he to himself as he reachedhome. "If M. D'Espard leaves them, I will take up his lease. "

The next day, at about ten in the morning, Popinot, who had writtenout his report the previous evening, made his way to the Palais deJustice, intending to have prompt and righteous justice done. As hewent to the robing-room to put on his gown and bands, the usher toldhim that the President of his Court begged him to attend in hisprivate room, where he was waiting for him. Popinot forthwith obeyed. 

"Good-morning, my dear Popinot, " said the President, "I have beenwaiting for you. "

"Why, Monsieur le President, is anything wrong?"

"A mere silly trifle, " said the President. "The Keeper of the Seals, with whom I had the honor of dining yesterday, led me apart into acorner. He had heard that you had been to tea with Madame d'Espard, inwhose case you were employed to make inquiries. He gave me tounderstand that it would be as well that you should not sit on thiscase----"

"But, Monsieur le President, I can prove that I left Madame d'Espard'shouse at the moment when tea was brought in. And my conscience----"

"Yes, yes; the whole Bench, the two Courts, all the profession knowyou. I need not repeat what I said about you to his Eminence; but, youknow, 'Caesar's wife must not be suspected. ' So we shall not make thisfoolish trifle a matter of discipline, but only of proprieties. Between ourselves, it is not on your account, but on that of theBench. "

"But, monsieur, if you only knew the kind of woman----" said thejudge, trying to pull his report out of his pocket. 

"I am perfectly certain that you have proceeded in this matter withthe strictest independence of judgment. I myself, in the provinces, have often taken more than a cup of tea with the people I had to try;but the fact that the Keeper of the Seals should have mentioned it, and that you might be talked about, is enough to make the Court avoidany discussion of the matter. Any conflict with public opinion mustalways be dangerous for a constitutional body, even when the right ison its side against the public, because their weapons are not equal. Journalism may say or suppose anything, and our dignity forbids useven to reply. In fact, I have spoken of the matter to your President, and M. Camusot has been appointed in your place on your retirement, which you will signify. It is a family matter, so to speak. And I nowbeg you to signify your retirement from the case as a personal favor. To make up, you will get the Cross of the Legion of Honor, which hasso long been due to you. I make that my business. "

When he saw M. Camusot, a judge recently called to Paris from aprovincial Court of the same class, as he went forward bowing to theJudge and the President, Popinot could not repress an ironical smile. This pale, fair young man, full of covert ambition, looked ready tohang and unhang, at the pleasure of any earthy king, the innocent andthe guilty alike, and to follow the example of a Laubardemont ratherthan that of a Mole. 

Popinot withdrew with a bow; he scorned to deny the lying accusationthat had been brought against him. 

PARIS, February 1836. 

ADDENDUM

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

Note: The Commission in Lunacy is also known as The Interdiction andis referred to by that title in certain of the addendums. 

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

Bordin The Gondreville Mystery The Seamy Side of History Jealousies of a Country Town

Camusot de Marville Cousin Pons Jealousies of a Country Town Scenes from a Cuortesan's Life

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

Espard, Charles-Maurice-Marie-Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquis d' Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Espard, Chevalier d' Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Secrets of a Princess

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

Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie Colonel Chabert A Bachelor's Establishment A Start in Life The Middle Classes Cousin Pons

Grozier, Abbe Lost Illusions

Jeanrenaud Albert Savarus

Mongenod, Frederic The Seamy Side of History

Negrepelisse, De Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

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

Popinot, Jean-Jules Cesar Birotteau Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Middle Classes

Rabourdin, Madame The Government Clerks