Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

“Eight millions!” exclaimed Modeste.

“My master, who has sold his practice, is going to Provence to attend to the purchase of lands which your father’s agent has suggested to him. The sum that is to be paid for the estate of La Bastie is four millions; your father has agreed to it. You are to have a ‘dot’ of two millions and another million for an establishment in Paris, a hotel and furniture. Now, count up.”

“Ah! then I can be Duchesse d’Herouville!” cried Modeste, glancing at Butscha.

“If it hadn’t been for that comedian of a Canalis you would have kept HIS whip, thinking it came from me,” said the dwarf, indirectly pleading La Briere’s cause.

“Monsieur Butscha, may I ask if I am to marry to please you?” said Modeste, laughing.

“That fine fellow loves you as well as I do, — and you loved him for eight days,” retorted Butscha; “and HE has got a heart.”

“Can he compete, pray, with an office under the Crown? There are but six, grand almoner, chancellor, grand chamberlain, grand master, high constable, grand admiral, — but they don’t appoint high constables any longer.”

“In six months, mademoiselle, the masses — who are made up of wicked Butschas — could send all those grand dignities to the winds. Besides, what signifies nobility in these days? There are not a thousand real noblemen in France. The d’Herouvilles are descended from a tipstaff in the time of Robert of Normandy. You will have to put up with many a vexation from the old aunt with the furrowed face. Look here, — as you are so anxious for the title of duchess, — you belong to the Comtat, and the Pope will certainly think as much of you as he does of all those merchants down there; he’ll sell you a duchy with some name ending in ‘ia’ or ‘agno.’ Don’t play away your happiness for an office under the Crown.”

CHAPTER XXV. A DIPLOMATIC LETTER

The poet’s reflections during the night were thoroughly matter of fact. He sincerely saw nothing worse in life than the situation of a married man without money. Still trembling at the danger he had been led into by his vanity, his desire to get the better of the duke, and his belief in the Mignon millions, he began to ask himself what the duchess must be thinking of his stay in Havre, aggravated by the fact that he had not written to her for fourteen days, whereas in Paris they exchanged four or five letters a week.

“And that poor woman is working hard to get me appointed commander of the Legion and ambassador to the Court of Baden!” he cried.

Thereupon, with that promptitude of decision which results — in poets as well as in speculators — from a lively intuition of the future, he sat down and composed the following letter: —

To Madame la Duchesse de Chaulieu:

My dear Eleonore, — You have doubtless been surprised at not

hearing from me; but the stay I am making in this place is not

altogether on account of my health. I have been trying to do a

good turn to our little friend La Briere. The poor fellow has

fallen in love with a certain Mademoiselle Modeste de La Bastie, a

rather pale, insignificant, and thread-papery little thing, who,

by the way, has the vice of liking literature, and calls herself a

poet to excuse the caprices and humors of a rather sullen nature.

You know Ernest, — he is so easy to catch that I have been afraid

to leave him to himself. Mademoiselle de La Bastie was inclined to

coquet with your Melchior, and was only too ready to become your

rival, though her arms are thin, and she has no more bust than

most girls; moreover, her hair is as dead and colorless as that of

Madame de Rochefide, and her eyes small, gray, and very

suspicious. I put a stop — perhaps rather brutally — to the

attentions of Mademoiselle Immodeste; but love, such as mine for

you, demanded it. What care I for all the women on earth,

— compared to you, what are they?

The people with whom I pass my time, and who form the circle round

the heiress, are so thoroughly bourgeois that they almost turn my

stomach. Pity me; imagine! I pass my evenings with notaries,

notaresses, cashiers, provincial money-lenders — ah! what a change

from my evenings in the rue de Grenelle. The alleged fortune of

the father, lately returned from China, has brought to Havre that

indefatigable suitor, the grand equerry, hungry after the

millions, which he wants, they say, to drain his marshes. The king

does not know what a fatal present he made the duke in those waste

lands. His Grace, who has not yet found out that the lady had only

a small fortune, is jealous of me ; for La Briere is quietly making

progress with his idol under cover of his friend, who serves as a

blind.

Notwithstanding Ernest’s romantic ecstasies, I myself, a poet,

think chiefly of the essential thing, and I have been making some

inquiries which darken the prospects of our friend. If my angel

would like absolution for some of our little sins, she will try to

find out the facts of the case by sending for Mongenod, the

banker, and questioning him, with the dexterity that characterizes

her, as to the father’s fortune? Monsieur Mignon, formerly colonel

of cavalry in the Imperial guard, has been for the last seven

years a correspondent of the Mongenods. It is said that he gives

his daughter a “dot” of two hundred thousand francs, and before I

make the offer on Ernest’s behalf I am anxious to get the rights

of the story. As soon as the affair is arranged I shall return to

Paris. I know a way to settle everything to the advantage of our

young lover, — simply by the transmission of the father-in-law’s

title, and no one, I think, can more readily obtain that favor

than Ernest, both on account of his own services and the influence

which you and I and the duke can exert for him. With his tastes,

Ernest, who of course will step into my office when I go to Baden,

will be perfectly happy in Paris with twenty-five thousand francs

a year, a permanent place, and a wife — luckless fellow!

Ah, dearest, how I long for the rue de Grenelle! Fifteen days of

absence! when they do not kill love, they revive all the ardor of

its earlier days, and you know, better than I, perhaps, the

reasons that make my love eternal, — my bones will love thee in the

grave! Ah! I cannot bear this separation. If I am forced to stay

here another ten days, I shall make a flying visit of a few hours

to Paris.

Has the duke obtained for me the thing we wanted; and shall you,

my dearest life, be ordered to drink the Baden waters next year?

The billing and cooing of the “handsome disconsolate,” compared

with the accents of our happy love — so true and changeless for now

ten years! — have given me a great contempt for marriage. I had

never seen the thing so near. Ah, dearest! what the world calls a

“false step” brings two beings nearer together than the law — does

it not?

The concluding idea served as a text for two pages of reminiscences and aspirations a little too confidential for publication.

The evening before the day on which Canalis put the above epistle into the post, Butscha, under the name of Jean Jacmin, had received a letter from his fictitious cousin, Philoxene, and had mailed his answer, which thus preceded the letter of the poet by about twelve hours. Terribly anxious for the last two weeks, and wounded by Melchior’s silence, the duchess herself dictated Philoxene’s letter to her cousin, and the moment she had read the answer, rather too explicit for her quinquagenary vanity, she sent for the banker and made close inquiries as to the exact fortune of Monsieur Mignon. Finding herself betrayed and abandoned for the millions, Eleonore gave way to a paroxysm of anger, hatred, and cold vindictiveness. Philoxene knocked at the door of the sumptuous room, and entering found her mistress with her eyes full of tears, — so unprecedented a phenomenon in the fifteen years she had waited upon her that the woman stopped short stupefied.