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

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THE HUMAN COMEDY
PREFACE
STUDIES OF MANNERS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Scenes from Private Life
AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
AT THE SIGN OF THE CAT AND RACKET
THE BALL AT SCEAUX
LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES
THE PURSE
THE PURSE
MODESTE MIGNON
A START IN LIFE
ALBERT SAVARUS
VENDETTA
A SECOND HOME
DOMESTIC PEACE
MADAME FIRMIANI
STUDY OF A WOMAN
THE IMAGINARY MISTRESS
A DAUGHTER OF EVE
THE MESSAGE
THE GRAND BRETECHE
LA GRENADIERE
THE DESERTED WOMAN
HONORINE
BEATRIX
GOBSECK
A WOMAN OF THIRTY
FATHER GORIOT
COLONEL CHABERT
THE ATHEIST'S MASS
THE COMMISSION IN LUNACY
THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT
ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN
Scenes from Provincial Life
URSULE MIROUET
EUGENIE GRANDET
The Celibates
PIERRETTE
THE VICAR OF TOURS
THE TWO BROTHERS
Parisians in the Country
THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
THE MUSE OF THE DEPARTMENT
The Jealousies of a Country Town
THE OLD MAID
THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES
Lost Illusions
TWO POETS
A DISTINGUISHED PROVINCIAL AT PARIS
EVE AND DAVID
Scenes from Parisian Life
The Thirteen
FERRAGUS
THE DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
THE FIRM OF NUCINGEN
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
ESTHER HAPPY: HOW A COURTESAN CAN LOVE
WHAT LOVE COSTS AN OLD MAN
THE END OF EVIL WAYS
VAUTRIN'S LAST AVATAR
SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN
FACINO CANE
SARRASINE
PIERRE GRASSOU
The Poor Relations
COUSIN BETTY
COUSIN PONS
A MAN OF BUSINESS
A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA
GAUDISSART II
BUREAUCRACY
UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS
THE LESSER BOURGEOISIE
The Seamy Side of History
MADAME DE LA CHANTERIE
THE INITIATE
Scenes from Political Life
Scenes from Military Life
Scenes from Country Life
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
ANALYTICAL STUDIES

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“The count could appoint Monsieur Margueron’s son, and you haven’t any place to give, — remember that,” said the inn-keeper.

“Of course I do; but if the count has the ministry on his side, I have King Louis XVIII.,” said Pere Leger, in a low voice. “Forty thousand of his pictures on coin of the realm given to Moreau will enable me to buy Les Moulineaux for two hundred and sixty thousand, money down, before Monsieur de Serizy can do so. When he finds the sale is made, he’ll be glad enough to buy the farm for three hundred and sixty thousand, instead of letting me cut it up in small lots right in the heart of his property.”

“Well done, bourgeois!” cried the inn-keeper.

“Don’t you think that’s good play?” said Leger.

“Besides,” said the inn-keeper, “the farm is really worth that to him.”

“Yes; Les Moulineaux brings in to-day six thousand francs in rental. I’ll take another lease of it at seven thousand five hundred for eighteen years. Therefore it is really an investment at more than two and a half per cent. The count can’t complain of that. In order not to involve Moreau, he is himself to propose me as tenant and farmer; it gives him a look of acting for his master’s interests by finding him nearly three per cent for his money, and a tenant who will pay well.”

“How much will Moreau make, in all?”

“Well, if the count gives him ten thousand francs for the transaction the matter will bring him fifty thousand, — and well-earned, too.”

“After all, the count, so they tell me, doesn’t like Presles. And then he is so rich, what does it matter what it costs him?” said the inn-keeper. “I have never seen him, myself.”

“Nor I,” said Pere Leger. “But he must be intending to live there, or why should he spend two hundred thousand francs in restoring the chateau? It is as fine now as the King’s own palace.”

“Well, well,” said the inn-keeper, “it was high time for Moreau to feather his nest.”

“Yes, for if the masters come there,” replied Leger, “they won’t keep their eyes in their pockets.”

The count lost not a word of this conversation, which was held in a low voice, but not in a whisper.

“Here I have actually found the proofs I was going down there to seek,” he thought, looking at the fat farmer as he entered the kitchen. “But perhaps,” he added, “it is only a scheme; Moreau may not have listened to it.”

So unwilling was he to believe that his steward could lend himself to such a conspiracy.

Pierrotin here came out to water his horses. The count, thinking that the driver would probably breakfast with the farmer and the inn-keeper, feared some thoughtless indiscretion.

“All these people combine against us,” he thought; “it is allowable to baffle them — Pierrotin,” he said in a low voice as the man passed him, “I promised you ten louis to keep my secret; but if you continue to conceal my name (and remember, I shall know if you pronounce it, or make the slightest sign that reveals it to any one, no matter who, here or at Isle-Adam, before to-night), I will give you to-morrow morning, on your return trip, the thousand francs you need to pay for your new coach. Therefore, by way of precaution,” added the count, striking Pierrotin, who was pale with happiness, on the shoulder, “don’t go in there to breakfast; stay with your horses.”

“Monsieur le comte, I understand you; don’t be afraid! it relates to Pere Leger, of course.”

“It relates to every one,” replied the count.

“Make yourself easy. — Come, hurry,” said Pierrotin, a few moments later, putting his head into the kitchen. “We are late. Pere Leger, you know there’s a hill to climb; I’m not hungry, and I’ll drive on slowly; you can soon overtake me, — it will do you good to walk a bit.”

“What a hurry you are in, Pierrotin!” said the inn-keeper. “Can’t you stay and breakfast? The colonel here pays for the wine at fifty sous, and has ordered a bottle of champagne.”

“I can’t. I’ve got a fish I must deliver by three o’clock for a great dinner at Stors; there’s no fooling with customers, or fishes, either.”

“Very good,” said Pere Leger to the inn-keeper. “You can harness that horse you want to sell me into the cabriolet; we’ll breakfast in peace and overtake Pierrotin, and I can judge of the beast as we go along. We can go three in your jolter.”

To the count’s surprise, Pierrotin himself rebridled the horses. Schinner and Mistigris had walked on. Scarcely had Pierrotin overtaken the two artists and was mounting the hill from which Ecouen, the steeple of Mesnil, and the forests that surround that most beautiful region, came in sight, when the gallop of a horse and the jingling of a vehicle announced the coming of Pere Leger and the grandson of Czerni-Georges, who were soon restored to their places in the coucou.

As Pierrotin drove down the narrow road to Moisselles, Georges, who had so far not ceased to talk with the farmer of the beauty of the hostess at Saint-Brice, suddenly exclaimed: “Upon my word, this landscape is not so bad, great painter, is it?”

“Pooh! you who have seen the East and Spain can’t really admire it.”

“I’ve two cigars left! If no one objects, will you help me finish them, Schinner? the little young man there seems to have found a whiff or two enough for him.”

Pere Leger and the count kept silence, which passed for consent.

Oscar, furious at being called a “little young man,” remarked, as the other two were lighting their cigars:

“I am not the aide-de-camp of Mina, monsieur, and I have not yet been to the East, but I shall probably go there. The career to which my family destine me will spare me, I trust, the annoyances of travelling in a coucou before I reach your present age. When I once become a personage I shall know how to maintain my station.”

“‘Et caetera punctum!’” crowed Mistigris, imitating the hoarse voice of a young cock; which made Oscar’s deliverance all the more absurd, because he had just reached the age when the beard sprouts and the voice breaks. “‘What a chit for chat!’” added the rapin.

“Your family, young man, destine you to some career, do they?” said Georges. “Might I ask what it is?”

“Diplomacy,” replied Oscar.

Three bursts of laughter came from Mistigris, the great painter, and the farmer. The count himself could not help smiling. Georges was perfectly grave.

“By Allah!” he exclaimed, “I see nothing to laugh at in that. Though it seems to me, young man, that your respectable mother is, at the present moment, not exactly in the social sphere of an ambassadress. She carried a handbag worthy of the utmost respect, and wore shoe-strings which — ”

“My mother, monsieur!” exclaimed Oscar, in a tone of indignation. “That was the person in charge of our household.”

“‘Our household’ is a very aristocratic term,” remarked the count.

“Kings have households,” replied Oscar, proudly.

A look from Georges repressed the desire to laugh which took possession of everybody; he contrived to make Mistigris and the painter understand that it was necessary to manage Oscar cleverly in order to work this new mine of amusement.

“Monsieur is right,” said the great Schinner to the count, motioning towards Oscar. “Well-bred people always talk of their ‘households’; it is only common persons like ourselves who say ‘home.’ For a man so covered with decorations — ”

“‘Nunc my eye, nunc alii,’” whispered Mistigris.

“ — you seem to know little of the language of the courts. I ask your future protection, Excellency,” added Schinner, turning to Oscar.

“I congratulate myself on having travelled with three such distinguished men,” said the count, — ”a painter already famous, a future general, and a young diplomatist who may some day recover Belgium for France.”

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