Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (66 page)

‘When Monsieur du Hautoy passed through Angoulême in 1804 to take up his consular post at Valencia, he met Madame de Sénonches who was then Mademoiselle Zéphirine.
– And a daughter was born to them,’ Cointet added in a whisper to his interlocutor. ‘Yes,’ he went on as he saw Petit-Claud giving a shrug. ‘Mademoiselle Zéphirine’s marriage with Monsieur de Sénonches followed close upon this secret confinement. The daughter, who was brought up in the country by my mother, is Mademoiselle Françoise de La Haye, now looked after by Madame de Sénonches who, as is usual in such cases, poses as her godmother. As my mother, a farmer’s wife and a tenant of Mademoiselle Zéphirine’s grandmother, Madame de Cardanet, knew the facts about this sole heiress of the Cardanets and the Sénonches – the senior branch – I was commissioned to turn to account the small sum which Monsieur François du Hautoy intended eventually to make over to his daughter. I made a fortune out of these ten thousand francs which today amount to thirty thousand. Madame will certainly provide her ward with a wedding trousseau, silver and a modicum of furniture. And I, my boy,’ said Cointet, giving Petit-Claud a tap on the knee, ‘I can get the girl for you. If you marry Françoise de La Haye, you’ll add a large part of the aristocracy of Angoulême to your clientele. This bar sinister alliance will open out a magnificent future for you… They’ll be satisfied to marry her to a solicitor-advocate: I know they won’t ask more than that.’

‘What must I do?’ asked Petit-Claud with avidity. ‘Maître Cachan is your solicitor.’

‘Yes, and I’m not going to drop Cachan all of a sudden for you. You’ll only have my legal business later,’ said tall Cointet… ‘What are you to do, my friend? Why, you take over David Séchard’s affairs. The poor devil has three thousand francs to pay us in bills: he won’t be able to pay them, and you’ll defend him against legal proceedings in such a way as to load him with enormous costs… Have no misgivings: go ahead, pile up the incidental expenses. Doublon, my bailiff, whose job it will be to carry out the proceedings with Cachan behind him, won’t do things by half… A wink’s as good as a nod… Well now, young man?…’

The two men looked at each other for a time in eloquent silence.

‘Mark this: you and I have never met,’ Cointet continued. ‘I’ve said nothing to you. You know nothing about Monsieur du Hautoy or Madame de Sénonches or Mademoiselle de La Haye. But when the time comes, in two months, you will ask for this young person’s hand in marriage. Whenever we have to get together you’ll come here in the evening. No letter-writing.’

‘So you want to ruin Séchard?’

‘Not entirely. But we’ve got to hold him in prison for a time.’

‘What’s your purpose?’

‘Do you think I’m fool enough to tell you? If you’ve sense enough to guess, you’ll also have sense enough to keep quiet.’

‘Old Séchard’s a rich man,’ said Petit-Claud, who already had a glimmering of Boniface’s purpose and saw that it might be thwarted.

‘The old man won’t give his son a farthing in his lifetime, and he has no intention of passing on just yet.’

‘I’ll take it on,’ said Petit-Claud, having made a prompt decision. ‘I’m not asking you for guarantees. I’m a lawyer. If you made a fool of me we should have accounts to settle.’

‘That rascal will go far,’ Cointet thought as he said good-night to Petit-Claud.

T
HE
day after this colloquy, on 30 April the brothers Cointet presented the first of the three bills Lucien had forged. Unfortunately the draft was handed to poor Eve, who recognized Lucien’s imitation of her husband’s signature. She called David and asked him point-blank: ‘Did you sign this bill?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Your brother was so hard-pressed that he signed it for me.’

She returned the bill to the cashier of the Cointet firm and told him: ‘We cannot meet it,’

Then, feeling faint, she went to her bedroom, with David following.

‘My dear,’ she said to him in a failing voice, ‘hurry to Messrs Cointet. They will show you some consideration. Ask them to wait, and also remind them that when Cérizet’s lease is renewed they will owe you a thousand francs.’

David went straight away to face his enemies.

A foreman-printer may always become a master-printer, but an able typographer is not necessarily a business man. And so David, who was out of his depth, remained dumbstruck before tall Cointet when, after having, with choking voice and racing heart, somewhat clumsily faltered out excuses and made his request, he received the following reply. ‘This is not our concern. We hold the bill from Métivier. Métivier will pay us. Apply to Monsieur Métivier.’

‘Oh!’ said Eve on hearing of this reply. ‘Once the bill is returned to Monsieur Métivier we can be easy in our minds.’

The next day, the bailiff, Victor-Ange-Herménégilde Doublon, brought David the protest at two o’clock, a time at which the Place du Mûrier is crowded with people; and, although he was careful to talk to Marion and Kolb only at the entrance to the alley, the protest was none the less a matter of common knowledge by that evening among the tradespeople of Angoulême. In any case, how could the hypocritical formalities resorted to by Maître Doublon, whom tall Cointet had recommended to show the greatest consideration, have saved Eve and David from the commercial ignominy resulting from a suspension of payment? Let us look into the matter. Even a lengthy disquisition will seem too brief. Ninety per cent of our readers will find the following details as appetizing as the spiciest news-item. They will offer new proof of the truth of this axiom: there is nothing about which people are more ignorant than what they ought to know: the workings of the law!

Indeed, to the immense majority of Frenchmen, a good description of one part of the machinery of banking could be as interesting as a chapter of a book on travels abroad. When a merchant sends a money order from the town in which his
premises lie to a person living in another town, as David was supposed to have done for Lucien’s benefit, he converts a very simple operation, that of a negotiable instrument drawn between two merchants for business purposes, into something resembling a bill which one exchange draws on another. Thus, by accepting Lucien’s three drafts, in order to recover the sum advanced, Métivier was obliged to send them to Messrs Cointet, his correspondents in Angoulême. Hence an initial charge on Lucien designated as
commission for change of place,
which worked out at so much per cent on each draft irrespective of discount. The Séchard notes had thus passed into the category of Bank transactions. One would hardly believe to what extent the function of banker, joined to the august title of creditor, alters conditions for the debtor. Thus, ‘on the Bank’ (note this expression), once a bill transferred from Paris to Angoulême remains unpaid, the bankers owe it to themselves to draw up what in law is called a ‘Return Account’ – such an account, if we may risk a pun, as never any novelist gave of the most breathtaking adventures. For these are the ingenious clowneries authorized by a certain clause in the Commercial Code, and an explanation of them will show how many atrocities are concealed behind the terrible word
legality.

As soon as Maître Doublon had registered his protest he took it in person to the Cointet brothers. The bailiff had an account with these Angoulême sharks and allowed them credits for six months which tall Cointet dragged on for a year by his method of settlement, although month after month he would say to his equally shark-like assistant: ‘Doublon, I suppose you want some money.’ And there was more to it than that. Doublon favoured this powerful firm with a rebate, and thus it made a gain on each process served: just a trifle, a mere nothing – one franc fifty per protest!

Tall Cointet sat down calmly at his desk, took out a little sheet of paper with a thirty-five centimes stamp on it, and chatted with Doublon the while in order to obtain information about the actual situation of certain tradespeople.

‘Well now, are you satisfied with little Gannerac?’

‘He’s not doing badly. After all, a haulage contractor…’

‘Yes, but in fact he’s having to do quite a lot of hauling. They say his wife is spending a lot of his money.’

‘His
money?’ exclaimed Doublon with a leer.

Then the shark, who had just finished ruling lines on his sheet of paper, wrote out in a round hand the sinister heading beneath which he drew up the following account:

RETURN ACCOUNT AND COSTS

To a draft for ONE THOUSAND FRANCS, dated from Angoulême on the tenth of February, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, drawn by SÉCHARD junior to the order of LUCIEN CHARDON styled DE RUBEMPRÉ, passed to the order of MÉΤIVIER and to our order, payable on the thirtieth of April last, protested by DOUBLON, bailiff, on the first of May eighteen hundred and twenty-two.

One thousand thirty-seven francs and forty-five centimes, for which sum we reimburse ourselves by our draft on sight on Monsieur Métivier, rue Serpente, Paris, to the order of Monsieur Gannerac, of L’Houmeau,

Angoulême, the second of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two.

COINTET
brothers.

Underneath this little memorandum, drawn up with the skill that comes from sheer habit – for he was still chatting with Doublon – tall Cointet wrote the following declaration:

We the undersigned, Postel, licensed apothecary of L’Houmeau, and Gannerac, haulage contractor, tradesmen of this city, certify that the charge for exchange between Angoulême and Paris is one and one-quarter per cent.

Angoulême, the third of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two.

‘Look, Doublon, do me the pleasure of going to Postel and Gannerac, ask them to sign this declaration and bring it back tomorrow morning.’

And Doublon, well up in these instruments of torture, went off as if it were the simplest of matters. Clearly, even if the protest had been delivered, as it is in Paris, in a sealed envelope, all Angoulême would have been well informed about the unhappy state of poor Séchard’s affairs. And how many accusations of indifference were levelled against him! Some said that his ruin was due to the excessive love he bore his wife. Others blamed him for being too fond of his brother-in-law. And what fearful conclusions they drew from these premises! One should never devote oneself to the interests of one’s relatives! There was approval and admiration for the severity which old Séchard was showing to his son.

Now, let any reader who for any reason whatsoever has neglected to ‘honour his obligations’ look closely at the perfectly legal proceedings thanks to which, in ten minutes, ‘on the Bank’, twenty-eight francs can be made to accrue from a capital sum of one thousand francs.

In the above ‘Return Account’, the first item alone is beyond dispute.

The second item covers what was due to the Inland Revenue and the bailiff. The six francs levied by the Treasury for registering the debtor’s discomfiture and providing stamped paper will keep that abuse going for a long time still! You should know, moreover, that this item gave a gain of one franc fifty centimes to the banker thanks to the rebate made by Doublon.

The commission of one-half per cent, with which the third item is concerned, is levied on the ingenious pretext that not
to receive payment is equivalent, ‘on the Bank’, to discounting a bill. Nothing could be further from the truth: no two things are more alike than disbursing a thousand francs and not getting them back. But anyone who has offered money orders for discount knows that, over and above the six per cent legally due, the discounter exacts, under the unpretentious name of commission, so much per cent; and that represents the interest which, in addition to the legal rate, comes to him through his ingenuity in exploiting his capital. The more money he hopes to make, the more he demands. It is therefore wiser to get fools to discount one’s bills. But
are
there any fools ‘on the Bank’?