Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (30 page)

The shareholders’ meeting on the following day was the occasion for some really touching scenes. It was again held in the hall in the Rue Blanche, where a promoter of public dances had gone bankrupt; and before the arrival of the chairman, in the already crowded hall the most favourable rumours were circulating, one especially being whispered to the effect that the minister Rougon, the manager’s brother, having been violently attacked by the increasingly powerful Opposition, was disposed to favour the Universal if the company’s newspaper,
L’Espérance
, a former organ of the Catholic party, would defend the government. A left-wing deputy had just raised the terrible cry: ‘The second of December is a crime!’
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and this had resounded from one end of France to the other, like a reawakening of the public conscience. Great deeds were needed to respond to this: the imminent Universal Exhibition would create a tenfold increase in business, and huge gains would be made in Mexico and elsewhere with the triumph of the Empire at its peak. In one little group of shareholders, who were being indoctrinated by Jantrou and Sabatani, there was a great deal of laughter about another deputy who, during the discussion of the army, had proposed the extraordinary idea that a recruitment system like that of Prussia should be established in France. The Chamber had found this very funny: how deranged by terror of Prussia some people’s minds must be after the Denmark affair
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and the resentment that Italy nurtured against us ever since Solferino!
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But the noise of individual conversations and the general
hubbub of the room suddenly ceased when Hamelin and the other officials made their appearance. Saccard, even more modest here than in the board meeting, had almost disappeared, lost in the crowd; and he did no more than give the signal for applause, approving the report which presented to the assembly the accounts of the first quarter, checked and accepted by the auditors Lavignière and Rousseau, and which proposed the doubling of the company’s capital. This meeting was solely competent to authorize the increase, and it did so with enthusiasm, utterly intoxicated by the millions of the United General Steamboat Company and the Turkish National Bank, and recognizing the need to bring the capital into line with the importance the Universal was going to assume. As for the Carmel Silver Mines, they were greeted with a religious thrill. And when the shareholders had separated, after votes of thanks to the chairman, the board, and the manager, they all dreamed of Carmel and that miraculous shower of silver, raining down in glory from the Holy Land.

Two days later, accompanied now by the vice-chairman Viscount de Robin-Chagot, Hamelin and Saccard returned to the Rue Sainte-Anne to declare, in the office of Maître Lelorrain, the increase of capital which, they asserted, had been entirely subscribed. The truth was that about three thousand shares, refused by the first shareholders to whom they belonged by right, remained in the possession of the company, which once more, with some juggling of the books, passed them over to the account of Sabatani. It was the same old irregularity, but aggravated, the system of concealing a certain number of its own shares in the coffers of the Universal as a sort of fighting-fund, allowing it to speculate, to throw itself into battle on the Bourse if needed, to maintain its share-prices in the event of a coalition of ‘bears’ intent on driving them down.

Anyway, Hamelin, although he disapproved of this illegal manoeuvre, had in the end left all the financial operations to Saccard; and there had been a conversation on the subject between the two men and Madame Caroline, but only in relation to the five hundred shares that Saccard had forced them to take in the first issue, which now, of course, were doubled in the second issue, making a thousand in all, which meant, for the payment of one-quarter of the value plus the premium, a sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand francs, which the brother and sister insisted on paying, since they had just received an unexpected inheritance of about three hundred thousand
francs from an aunt, who had died of the same fever that ten days previously had caused the death of her only son. Saccard let them do as they wished, without offering any explanation of how he was intending to pay for his own shares.

‘Ah, this inheritance!’ said Madame Caroline with a laugh. ‘It’s the first stroke of good fortune we’ve had… I really think you are bringing us luck. My brother has his salary of thirty thousand francs and substantial travelling expenses, and now all this money pours down on us, no doubt just because we don’t really need it any more… We’re rich!’

She gazed at Saccard with her good-hearted gratitude, quite conquered now, trusting in him and losing a little more of her clear-sightedness with each passing day in the growing affection she felt for him. Then, carried away by her gaiety and frankness, she continued:

‘No matter, if I had actually earned this money I assure you I would not be risking it in your ventures… But an aunt we scarcely knew, and money we had never thought of, it’s like money found in the street, it’s something that doesn’t even seem quite honest, and I feel a bit ashamed about it… You understand, it’s not close to my heart, I am prepared to lose it.’

‘Quite so!’ said Saccard, similarly joking. ‘It’s going to grow and will give you millions. There’s nothing like ill-gotten gains for making money! Before a week is out you’ll see, you’ll see how the price will rise.’

And in fact Hamelin, who had had to delay his departure, was able to observe the rapid rise of the Universal share-price. By the settlement at the end of May it had passed the seven-hundred-franc rate. This was just the usual result of an increase of capital: it’s the classic move, the way to whip up success and set the share-prices galloping with each new issue. But it was also due to the real importance of the ventures the bank was launching; and big yellow posters pasted up all over Paris, announcing the forthcoming opening of the Carmel Silver Mines, had further disturbed people’s minds, lighting a spark of intoxication, a passion which would grow and carry away all common sense. The ground had been prepared, the Imperial compost, made of fermenting rubbish, and heated by exacerbated appetites, an extremely fertile ground for one of those mad surges of speculation which, every ten or fifteen years, choke and poison the Bourse, leaving behind them only blood and ruins. Crooked firms were already
springing up like mushrooms, big companies were promoting risky financial ventures, an intense gambling fever was manifesting itself in the rowdy prosperity of the reign, all that razzle-dazzle of pleasure and luxury for which the impending Exhibition would be a last blaze of glory, the mendacious grand finale of the show. And in the giddiness of the crowd and the flurry of all the other fine ventures everywhere on offer, the Universal was at last beginning to get started, like a powerful engine destined to madden and destroy everything in its path, while violent hands went on wildly heating it to the point of explosion.

When her brother had again set off for the East Madame Caroline found herself once more alone with Saccard, taking up again their life of close, almost conjugal, intimacy. She insisted on continuing to manage the household, making savings for him as a loyal housekeeper, even though both their fortunes had considerably changed. And in her good-humoured quietness, her always even temper, she had just one worry, and that was her uneasy conscience about Victor, her hesitation about whether she should go on concealing the existence of his son from the father. At the Work Foundation they were very unhappy about Victor, for he was causing serious trouble. His six months’ trial was coming to an end, so was she going to produce the little monster before he was cleansed of his vices? There were times when she really suffered over this.

One evening she was on the point of speaking up. Saccard, more and more frustrated at the inadequacy of the premises for the Universal, had just persuaded the board to rent the ground floor of the adjoining house in order to enlarge the offices, until such time as he could dare to propose the construction of the luxurious building of his dreams. Once more he was creating new communicating doors, knocking down partition walls, installing new cash desks. And when she came back from the Boulevard Bineau, distraught at the appalling behaviour of Victor who had almost bitten off the ear of one of his schoolfellows, Madame Caroline asked Saccard to come up with her to their rooms.

‘My dear, I have something to tell you.’

But when she saw him, one shoulder covered with plaster, delighted at a new idea he’d just had for further enlargement, by glazing over the courtyard of the adjoining house as he had already done in the Orviedo house, she did not have the heart to upset him with
the deplorable secret. No, she would wait a while yet, the dreadful lout had to be reformed. When faced by the suffering of others she lost all her strength:

‘Ah yes, my dear, it was about that courtyard. I’d had the very same idea.’

T
HE
offices of
L’Espérance
, the failing Catholic paper that Saccard had bought at Jantrou’s suggestion to help launch the Universal, were in the Rue Saint-Joseph, in a dark and damp old building of which they occupied the first floor, at the far end of the courtyard. A corridor led off from the antechamber, where a gaslight was always burning; on the left was the office of Jantrou the editor, then a room that Saccard had allocated to himself, whilst on the right were the communal journalists’ room, the secretary’s office, and various departmental offices. On the other side of the landing were the administrative and cashier’s offices, linked to the journalists’ room by an inner passage running behind the staircase.

That day Jordan, who had installed himself early in the journalists’ room to finish a column without being disturbed, went out just as it was striking four o’clock and came upon Dejoie the office-boy who, in spite of the glorious June day outside, was avidly reading by the broad flame of the gaslight the bulletin from the Bourse, which had just been delivered and which he was always the first to see.

‘Tell me, Dejoie, was that Monsieur Jantrou who just came in?’

‘Yes, Monsieur Jordan.’

The young man paused, feeling a momentary pang that made him pause a few seconds. In the difficult first days of his happy household some old debts had fallen upon him; and in spite of his good luck in finding this newspaper where he could place articles, he was going through a period of gruelling difficulty, all the worse in that his salary had been seized and he had, that very day, to pay another promissory note or else see his few bits of furniture sold. Twice already he had asked in vain for an advance from the editor, who had fallen back on the legal distraint which tied his hands.

However, he was just making up his mind and approaching the door when the office-boy added:

‘But Monsieur Jantrou is not alone.’

‘Ah! Who is with him?’

‘He came in with Monsieur Saccard, and Monsieur Saccard told me to let nobody in except Monsieur Huret, whom he’s expecting.’

Jordan took a deep breath, finding the delay a relief since asking for money was so painful for him.

‘All right. I’ll go and finish my article. Let me know when the editor’s free.’

But as he was moving away Dejoie held him back, with a shout of extreme delight.

‘You know, Universal shares have gone up to 750.’

With a gesture the young man indicated his total indifference and returned to the communal room.

Almost every day, after the Bourse, Saccard went on to the newspaper and often had meetings there in the room he had reserved for himself, dealing with some special and mysterious affairs. Jantrou, anyway, although officially only the editor of
L’Espérance
, for which he wrote political articles in a very academic, polished, and flowery language, recognized even by his enemies as of the ‘purest Attic style’, was Saccard’s secret agent, the complaisant performer of delicate tasks. Among other things, it was he who had just organized a vast publicity campaign for the Universal. From the myriad little financial papers that existed he had selected and bought ten or so. The best of them belonged to seedy banking-houses, whose very simple tactics consisted in publishing then distributing them for two or three francs a year, a sum which did not even cover the cost of postage; they made their money in another way, dealing in the money and shares of the clients that the papers brought them. Under cover of publishing the current stock-exchange rates, the numbers drawn in the bond lotteries, and all the technical information useful to small investors, advertisements were gradually slipped in, in the form of recommendations and advice, at first modest and reasonable but soon becoming extravagant, and with cool impudence spreading ruin among their gullible subscribers. From the great heap of the two or three hundred publications that were wreaking their havoc across Paris and indeed France, Jantrou had cleverly sniffed out the ones that had not yet lied too vigorously and were not already too discredited. But the big deal he had in mind was to buy one of them, the
Cote financière
,
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which had twelve years of absolute probity behind it—but such probity was likely to be expensive; he was waiting for the Universal to get richer and reach the point at which a last trumpet-blast can bring about deafening peals of triumph. His efforts, anyway, were not limited to creating a docile battalion of these special news-sheets
celebrating the glories of Saccard’s works in every issue; he was also contracted to the main political and literary newspapers, keeping up a flow of pleasant notes and approving articles at so much a line, and assuring their support by gifts of shares when there were new share-issues. All this in addition to the daily campaign he was running in
L’Espérance
, not a crude campaign of extravagant plaudits but including explanations and even discussions, thus slowly taking hold of the public and strangling it in a very proper manner.

That day it was to discuss the paper that Saccard had closeted himself with Jantrou. He had found in the paper that morning an article from Huret, so outrageously praising a speech Rougon had made the previous day in the Chamber that he had flown into a rage, and was waiting for the Deputy to arrive to have it out with him. Was he supposed to be working for his brother? Was he being paid to allow the policy of the paper to be compromised by such unqualified approval of the slightest acts of the minister? When he heard him mention the ‘policy of the paper’ Jantrou gave a silent smile. However, he heard Saccard out very calmly, gazing intently at his fingernails, since it was not over his head that the storm was threatening to break. With the cynicism of a disillusioned man of letters, he had the most absolute contempt for literature, for the front page and page two as well, as he was apt to say, indicating the pages on which articles, even his own, appeared; and he showed no real interest in anything except the advertisements. Now he looked quite brand new, in a close-fitting, elegant frock-coat with a buttonhole flourishing a brightly coloured rosette, in summer carrying a thin, light-coloured jacket over his arm, and in winter huddled in a hundred-louis
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fur coat; he was taking great care of his hair, and his hats were impeccable, with a mirror-like sheen. But with all that he still had a few gaps in his elegance, the vague suggestion of a persistent uncleanliness underneath, the old grime of the disgraced professor who had tumbled from the Bordeaux lycée to the Paris Bourse, his skin saturated and stained with all the hideous filth he had endured for ten years; and similarly, even in the arrogant confidence of his new fortune he still showed some features of base submissiveness, quickly getting out of the way when gripped by a sudden fear of a kick on the backside as in former times. He was earning a hundred thousand francs a year and spending twice that, nobody knew on what, for he didn’t appear to have a mistress—prey perhaps to some vile and secret vice which had got
him dismissed from the university. Absinthe, in any case, was gradually destroying him, continuing its work from the infamous cafés of his former years of penury to the luxurious clubs of today, scything off his last strands of hair and giving a grey, leaden cast to his skull and face, a face in which his bushy black beard was the only remaining glory, the beard of a handsome man, still creating some illusion. When Saccard again referred to the ‘policy of the paper’ Jantrou interrupted him with the wearied gesture of a man who, not wishing to waste his time on futile emotions, had decided to talk about serious matters, since they were still waiting for Huret.