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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088388156 
 
^onore tie Balzac 
 
 LA COMEDIE HUMAINE 
 
PARISIAN LIFE 
 
 VOLUME 11 
 
THIS EDITION OF THE COMPLETE TRANSLATION 
 
 OF "the human comedy" IS STRICTLY LIMITED TO 
 
 ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 
 
 NO. 
 
 75 5 
 
THE COUNTESS DE SERIZY AND 
 M. CAMUSOT 
 
 She chose her time, she calculated her movements, 
 and suddenly, with the agility of a cat, she seized 
 the two examinations and flung them into the fire. 
 Camusot snatched them from the blaze, but the 
 countess, springing at the judge, seized the* burning 
 papers. 
 
 A struggle followed, while Camusot was crying 
 out : " Madame ! madame I you are attempting — 
 madame — " 
 
THE NOVELS 
 
 OF 
 
 HONORS DE BALZAC 
 
 NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 
 
 THE SPLENDORS AND MISERIES OF COURTESANS: 
 
 THE IV AY THAT GIRLS LOVE 
 
 HOW MUCH LOVE COSTS OLD MEN 
 
 THE END OF BAD ROADS 
 
 THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 
 
 BY ELLERY SEDGWICK 
 
 WITH TEN ETCHINGS BY FR^DERIC-EMILE JEANNIN 
 AFTER PAINTINGS BY GASTON BUSSIERE 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY 
 
 GEORGE BARRIE, PHILADELPHIA 
 
 
COPYRIGHTED, 1 895, BY G. B. 
 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 
 
PART THIRD 
 
 THE END OF BAD ROADS 
 
 At six o'clock the next morning, two wagons, 
 such as the people in their forceful language call 
 "salad baskets," driven post-haste, left the Force 
 in the direction of the Conciergerie and the Palais 
 de Justice. 
 
 There are few idlers who have not seen this roll- 
 ing gaol; but, although books are generally written 
 for Parisians alone, foreigners will doubtless be well 
 content to read here the description of this formid- 
 able equipage of our criminal law. Who can tell ? 
 The Russian, Austrian or German police, the magis- 
 trates of countries to which salad baskets are un- 
 known, may perhaps profit by this; and in many 
 foreign countries the imitation of this method of 
 transportation will certainly be of benefit to the 
 prisoners. 
 
 This ignoble wagon, a yellow box raised upon two 
 wheels and lined with sheet iron, is divided into 
 two compartments. In the forward portion there 
 is a bench covered with leather, behind which hangs 
 a curtain. This is the free compartment of the 
 salad basket ; it is intended for an officer of the court 
 
 (3) 
 
4 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 and a gendarme. A strong latticed framework of 
 iron completely separates this species of cab from 
 the second compartment, in which are to be found 
 two wooden benches placed lengthwise as they are 
 in an omnibus ; on these the prisoners sit after they 
 have entered by steps leading up to a solid door 
 which opens at the back of the wagon. The name 
 of salad basket comes from the fact that since the 
 wagon was origitially left open on all sides, the 
 prisoners had to be fastened in exactly as leaves of 
 lettuce are secured in their basket. For greater 
 security in case of accident, this vehicle is followed 
 by a mounted gendarme, especially when it carries 
 condemned criminals to the place of execution. 
 Thus escape is impossible. The wagon, lined with 
 iron, cannot be pierced by any tool whatsoever. The 
 prisoners, carefully searched on their arrest or upon 
 their entry into gaol, can at most have preserved 
 a watch spring, somewhat adapted for filing bars, 
 but powerless against flat surfaces. Thus the salad 
 basket, perfected by the ingenuity of the Parisian 
 police, has at length come to serve as a model for 
 the cellulated wagon which transports convicts to 
 prison, and which has replaced that horrible cart — 
 the shame of earlier civilization — in spite of the 
 lustre shed upon it by Manon Lescaut. 
 
 The first step in the judicial process is to hurry 
 the latest arrivals from the diiferent prisons of the 
 capital by means of the salad basket to the Palais 
 de Justice, in order that they may be interrogated 
 by the examining magistrate. In prisoners' slang 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS J 
 
 this is known as "passing examinations." Next 
 the accused are taken from these same prisons to 
 the Palace for trial, provided that their cases come 
 within the jurisdiction of the police court; if, how- 
 ever, to make use of criminal terms, high crimes 
 are to be judged, the prisoners are removed from 
 the gaols to the Conciergerie, the prison of the 
 Department of the Seine. Finally, criminals con- 
 demned to death are conveyed in a salad basket 
 from BicStre to the Barri^re Saint Jacques, the 
 square assigned for public executions since the Revo- 
 lution of July. Thanks to philanthropy, the suf- 
 ferers are no longer compelled to undergo the 
 ignominy of the journey which was formerly made 
 from the Conciergerie to the Place de Gr^ve in a 
 cart precisely like those which woodsellers employ. 
 This cart is used to-day merely to carry the 
 bodies from the scaffold. Without this explanation 
 the remark of a famous criminal to his accomplice 
 as he was stepping into the salad basket, "Now it 
 rests with the horses," could not be understood. 
 Nowhere can a man go to his last punishment more 
 commodiously than in Paris. 
 
 On the occasion of which we speak, the two salad 
 baskets, which had appeared at so early an hour, 
 were employed for the rare service of transferring 
 two new arrivals from the gaol of the Force to the 
 Conciergerie ; and each prisoner occupied a salad 
 basket by himself. 
 
 Nine-tenths of readers and nine-tenths of the last 
 tenth are certainly ignorant of the broad differences 
 
6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 which separate these words : inculp'e, pr'evenu, accus'e, 
 detenu, maison d'arrtt, maison de justice, or maison 
 de detention. All alike will probably be surprised 
 to learn here that the expressions are intimately 
 connected with the whole code of French criminal 
 law. We shall presently give a clear and succinct 
 account of them to the reader, as much for his in- 
 struction as for the intelligibility of this story. 
 Besides, when it is known that the first salad basket 
 contained Jacques Collin, and the second, Lucien, 
 who in a few hours had fallen from the very pin- 
 nacle of social greatness to the depths of a dungeon, 
 the reader's curiosity will be sufificiently aroused. 
 The attitude of the two accomplices was charac- 
 teristic, Lucien de Rubempre hid himself to avoid 
 the looks which passers-by cast upon the bars of the 
 sinister and fatal wagon as it passed through the 
 rue Saint Antoine, on its way to the Quays, 
 through the rue de Martroi and through the Arcade 
 Saint Jean, beneath which it was necessary, at that 
 time, to pass in order to traverse the square of the 
 H6tel-de-Ville. To-day this arcade forms the gate- 
 way of the hotel of the Prefect of the Seine, in 
 the vast municipal palace. The daring convict 
 pressed his face against the grating of his wagon, 
 between the gendarme and the officer of the court, 
 who were talking to each other confident in the 
 security of their salad basket. 
 
 The days of July, 1830, and their tempestuous 
 violence, have hidden former events beneath their 
 uproar, while political interests absorbed France so 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 7 
 
 completely during the last six months of that year 
 that nowadays people can remember only with the 
 greatest difficulty, if at all, the private, judicial and 
 financial catastrophies, extraordinary as they are, 
 which form the annual consummation of Parisian 
 curiosity, and which were not wanting during the 
 first six months of that year. It is then necessary 
 to tell how Paris was for a moment excited by the 
 news of the arrest of a Spanish priest in the house 
 of a courtesan, and of the apprehension of the fash- 
 ionable Lucien de Rubempre, the destined husband 
 of Mademoiselle de Grandlieu, effected upon the 
 highroad to Italy, at the little village of Grez ; for 
 both prisoners were implicated in a murder, the 
 fruits of which amounted to seven millions. The 
 scandal of this trial reached such a height that for 
 several days it surpassed the prodigious interest of 
 the last elections held in the reign of Charles X. 
 
 Firstly, this criminal trial was due in part to an 
 accusation made by the Baron de Nucingen. Next, 
 the arrest of Lucien, on the eve of his appointment 
 as private secretary to the first Minister of State, 
 shocked the noblest society of Paris. In every 
 Parisian salon more than one young man remem- 
 bered how he had envied Lucien when the latter 
 had been favored by the handsome Duchess de 
 Maufrigneuse ; and all the women knew that he 
 had stolen the love of Madame de Serizy, the wife 
 of one of the most prominent personages of the 
 State. Lastly, the beauty of the unfortunate young 
 man enjoyed a singular celebrity in the different 
 
8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 worlds which compose Paris : in the world of nobility, 
 in the financial world, in the world of courtesans, 
 in the world of young men, and in the literary 
 world. Thus for two days all Paris had been talk- 
 ing of these two arrests. The examining judge, 
 upon whom the trial had devolved, M. Camusot, 
 saw therein the possibility of advancement; and in 
 order to proceed with all possible alacrity he had 
 given orders that the transfer of the two culprits 
 from the Force to the Conciergerie be made as soon 
 as Lucien had arrived from Fontainebleau. Since 
 the Abbe Carlos had passed but twelve hours, and 
 Lucien but half a night in the Force, it is unneces- 
 sary to describe this prison, which has since then 
 been entirely rearranged ; and as for the particulars 
 of the registration, they were but a repetition of 
 what was to pass at the Conciergerie. 
 
 But before entering upon the terrible drama of a 
 criminal trial, it is indispensable, as we have said 
 before, to explain the normal proceedings in a pro- 
 cess of this kind ; for, in the first place, its diverse 
 phases will be better understood both in France 
 and abroad ; and secondly, those who are ignorant 
 thereof will learn to appreciate the economy of 
 criminal law as it was conceived by the legislators 
 under Napoleon. It is all the more important inas- 
 much as this great and noble work is at this moment 
 threatened with destruction by what is known as the 
 penitential system. 
 
 A crime is committed ; if it be serious, the incul- 
 pis are arrested by the police of the district and 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 9 
 
 secured in the gaol, which among the people goes 
 by the name of violin, doubtless because within 
 arise the sounds of music of men crying and of men 
 weeping. Thence the inculp&s are led before the 
 Commissioner of Police, who proceeds with a pre- 
 liminary examination and who has power to release 
 the prisoners if there be any mistake. After this 
 the inculpis are transported to the station house of 
 the Prefecture, where the police retain them to be 
 placed at the disposal of the public prosecutor and 
 of the examining judge, who, informed more or less 
 promptly, according to the gravity of the offence, 
 arrive on the scene and cross-question the prisoners, 
 who are still under provisory arrest. Governed by 
 the nature of the presumptions, the examining judge 
 issues a warrant from the station house, and has 
 the inculp^s registered at a maison d'arrSt. Paris 
 has three maisons d' arret: Sainte Pelagie, the Force 
 and the Madelonnettes. 
 
 Notice the term inculpH. The French code has 
 created three essential distinctions in criminal 
 guilt: inculpation, prevention, accusation. So long as 
 the warrant is not signed, the supposed authors of 
 a crime, or of a grave offence, are the inculph; 
 beneath the weight of the warrant they become 
 privenus; they remain privenus pure and simple so 
 long as the examination continues. The examina- 
 tion ended, the moment that the tribunal has decided 
 that the prhenus must be handed over to the regu- 
 lar court, they pass into the condition of accuses 
 when the royal court has determined, upon the 
 
lO SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 request of the public prosecutor, that the charges 
 warrant the transfer of the prisoners to the Court 
 of Assize. Thus persons suspected of a crime pass 
 through three different stages, through three sieves, 
 before they come into the presence of what is called 
 the justice of the country. In the first stage, inno- 
 cent persons possess means of justification in plenty : 
 the public, the keepers, the police. During the 
 second stage, they are before a magistrate, con- 
 fronted by witnesses, and judged either by a Cham- 
 ber of the Tribunal at Paris, or by an entire 
 Tribunal in the departments. In the third, they 
 appear before twelve justices, and the writ of assign- 
 ment to the Court of Assize may, in case of error, 
 or on account of any defect in the formality of the 
 proceedings, be altered to a writ of assignment to 
 the Court of Appeals. The jury does not realize 
 how much popular authority, both administrative 
 and judicial, it annuls when it acquits the accused. 
 Thus, at Paris, we do not speak of other tribunals, 
 it seems to us well nigh impossible for an innocent 
 man ever to sit upon the benches of the Court of 
 Assize. 
 
 The dttenu is the condemned man. The criminal 
 law of France has created maisons d'arrSt, maisons de 
 justice, and maisons de detention, judicial differences 
 which correspond to those of the pr^venu, the accuse 
 and the condamni. Imprisonment is but a slight 
 penalty, the punishment of a slight offense; but 
 imprisonment in the maison d'e detention is bodily 
 restraint, which, in certain cases, is ignominious. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS II 
 
 Thus the present supporters of the penitential sys- 
 tem overturn an admirable criminal code, in which 
 the punishments were carefully graduated, and will 
 eventually chastise peccadillos with almost as much 
 severity as the very greatest crimes. The reader 
 will be able to compare in the "Scenes of Political 
 Life," — see Une Tenebreuse Affaire — the curious 
 differences which existed between the criminal law 
 of the code of Brumaire, in the year IV, and that 
 of the Code Napoleon, by which it was replaced. 
 
 In the greater number of important trials, such 
 as this, inculp'es become pr^venus without delay. 
 Justice issues an immediate warrant from the gaol 
 or from the place of arrest. As a matter of fact, in 
 the largest number of cases the inculpis are in flight 
 or must be surprised without an instant's delay. 
 Thus as we have seen, the police, which is only 
 the instrument of execution, and justice had come 
 upon the domicile of Esther with the swiftness of 
 lightning. Even had not demands for vengeance 
 been whispered by Corentin in the ear of the Judi- 
 cial police, there would still have remained the 
 accusation of a robbery of seven hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs, made by the Baron de Nucingen. 
 
 Just as the first wagon, which contained Jacques 
 Collin, arrived at the dark and narrow passage of 
 the Arcade Saint Jean, a blockade of carriages 
 obliged the postilion to stop beneath the arcade. 
 The prisoner's eyes burned across the grating like 
 two carbuncles, in spite of the evident approach of 
 death, which, the evening before, had brought the 
 
12 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 warden of the Force to believe in the necessity of 
 summoning a physician. Free for an instant, since 
 neither the gendarme nor the officer looked round 
 to see their customer, these blazing eyes spoke 
 such plain language that any sagacious judge, such 
 as M. Popinot, for example, could have recognized 
 instanter the convict clothed in the sacrilege of a 
 priestly robe. From the moment that the salad 
 basket had left the gate of the Force, Jacques Collin 
 had been examining every detail of his surround- 
 ings. In spite of the rapidity of his course he 
 enveloped, with an eager and accurate eye, the 
 houses from garret to basement He saw all the 
 passers-by, and scrutinized every one. God does 
 not embrace the means and end of His creation more 
 perfectly than this man noted the smallest differen- 
 ces in the mass of people and things which he passed. 
 Armed with a single hope, as the last of the Horatii 
 was armed with his sword, he waited for help. To 
 any other than this Machiavel of prisons, this hope 
 would have appeared so impossible to realize that 
 he would mechanically have followed the path trod 
 by all the guilty. No culprit dreams of resistance 
 when he is placed in the situation in which justice 
 and the police of Paris plunge prisoners, and less 
 than ever when he is locked in solitary confinement 
 like Lucien and Jacques Collin. It is difficult to 
 imagine the sudden isolation which comes upon a 
 privenu: the gendarmes who arrest him, the com- 
 missioner who cross-questions him, the guards who 
 lead him to prison, the turnkeys who conduct him 
 
THE END OF BAD ROAD 13 
 
 to what is literally his dungeon, the wardens who 
 hold him beneath his arms in order to place him in 
 a salad basket, all the persons who have been about 
 him since his arrest are mute or else take note of 
 their words so that they can repeat them either to 
 the police or to the judge. This complete separa- 
 tion, so simply attained, between the whole world 
 and the prtoenue causes a total subversion of his 
 faculties, an overpowering prostration of the mind, 
 most perfect when the man is not, through his 
 antecedents, rendered familiar with the course of 
 justice. The duel between the culprit and the 
 judge is all the more terrible because justice has for 
 its allies the silence of its walls and the incorruptible 
 indifference of its agents. 
 
 Nevertheless, Jacques Collin, or Carlos Herrera 
 it is fitting to give him one or the other of these 
 names according to the necessities of his situation, 
 had long been familiar with the methods of police 
 gaol and justice. This colossus of craft and of cor- 
 ruption had employed all the powers of his mind 
 and the resources of his talents for imitation in 
 playing to perfection the amazement and the sim- 
 plicity of innocence without ceasing to deceive the 
 magistrates with the comedy of his death agony. 
 As we have seen, Asia, that wise Locusta, had 
 made him swallow a poison weakened in such a 
 manner as to produce the likeness of a mortal 
 malady. Thus the action of M. Camusot and the 
 Police Commissioner, as well as the interrogative 
 activity of the public prosecutor, had been 
 
14 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 checkmated by the action and the activity of a 
 crushing attaclt of apoplexy. 
 
 "He has poisoned himself!" M. Camusot had 
 exclaimed, horrified by the sufferings of the pre- 
 tended priest, when the officers had carried him 
 down from the garret, writhing in terrible convul- 
 sions. 
 
 Four policemen had with difficulty succeeded in 
 bearing the Abbe Carlos down the staircase to 
 Esther's chamber, where all the magistrates and 
 gendarmes were assembled. 
 
 "It was his best course, if he is guilty," remarked 
 the attorney. 
 
 "Then you think him ill?" inquired the Police 
 Commissioner. 
 
 Police doubt everything, without exception. The 
 three magistrates had then held a colloquy, as may 
 be supposed, apart; but Jacques Collin had divined 
 the subject of their whispered conversation from 
 their faces, and made use of this information to 
 render the summary examination, usually held 
 at the moment of arrest, impossible, or at least 
 wholly insignificant. His words were but muttered 
 phrases wherein Spanish and French were inter- 
 woven to form nonsense. 
 
 At the Force the comedy had obtained a success 
 yet more complete, owing to the fact that the Chief 
 of the Secret Service — an abbreviation of the words 
 chief of the brigade of the police of the secret ser- 
 vice, — Bibi Lupin, who had formerly arrested 
 Jacques Collin in the cheap lodging house of 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 5 
 
 Madame Vauquer,was away on duty in the depart- 
 ments, and his place taken by an agent. This man 
 was designated to become the successor of Bibi 
 Lupin, and to him the convict was unknown. 
 
 Bibi Lupin, himself an ex-convict, had been, at 
 the galleys, the companion of Jacques Collin, but 
 had since become his personal enemy. His hatred 
 traced its source to quarrels from which Jacques 
 Collin had always come forth victorious, and to the 
 supremacy which Trompe-la-Mort had exercised over 
 his companions. Lastly, for ten years Jacques Collin 
 had been the guardian of returned convicts, their 
 chief, their adviser in Paris, their depositary, and 
 consequently the deadly antagonist of Bibi Lupin. 
 
 Although he had been placed in solitary confine- 
 ment, Carlos counted upon the intelligent and abso- 
 lute devotion of Asia, his right arm, and perhaps 
 upon Paccard, his left arm, whom he flattered him- 
 self would again return to his allegiance when 
 the careful lieutenant had once succeeded in placing 
 the seven hundred and fifty thousand stolen francs 
 in some secure nook. 
 
 Such were the reasons for the superhuman minute- 
 ness with which he examined everything which he 
 passed. Strange fortune ! These hopes were des- 
 tined to be fully realized. 
 
The two massive walls of the Arcade Saint Jean 
 were covered to the height of at least six feet with 
 a cloak of permanent mud, produced by the con- 
 tinual splashing of wheels in the neighboring 
 gutter; for at this time foot passengers had no pro- 
 tection from the constant succession of carriages, or 
 from what were then called kicks from carts, other 
 than a narrow ledge of curbstones, long since broken 
 by the hubs of passing wheels. Here more than 
 once a cart loaded with stone had struck and bruised 
 some absent-minded person. Such was Paris, for 
 a long time and in many quarters. This detail de- 
 scribes the narrowness of the Arcade Saint Jean, 
 and shows how easily the passage might be blocked. 
 A cab had entered by the Place de Gr&ve, and as a 
 woman peddler, nicknamed the four seasons, had 
 just pushed her hand-cart full of potatoes through 
 the rue du Martroi into the arcade, the appearance 
 of the third vehicle upon the scene occasioned a 
 blockade. The foot passengers in alarm rushed in 
 various directions, looking for a curbstone to place 
 them beyond the reach of the old-fashioned hubs, 
 whose length was so excessive that they had event- 
 ually to be modified by law. When the salad basket 
 arrived, the arcade was barricaded by one of those 
 women venders of fruit whose type is the more 
 curious as it is still to be seen in Paris, in spite of 
 
 2 (17) 
 
l8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the increasing number of fruit shops. She was so 
 evidently the fruit seller of the streets that a police- 
 man, had the institution been created before that 
 time, would have left her free to wander without 
 asking to see her license, in spite of her sinister 
 face which reeked with crime. Her head, covered 
 with a plaid handkerchief, soiled and ragged, bris- 
 tled with unkempt locks and hair, stiff as a wild 
 boar's. Her red and wrinkled neck was hideous 
 to look upon, and her scarf was too scanty to con- 
 ceal skin bronzed by sun and dust and mud. Her 
 gown looked like patchwork. Her shoes, yawning 
 with rents, seemed to grin at her face, as full of 
 holes as her gown. And what an apron ! A stick- 
 ing plaster had been cleaner! At ten paces this 
 walking heap of fetid rags could but offend delicate 
 nostrils. Her hands had reaped a hundred har- 
 vests ! This woman came from a witches' Sabbath 
 or from some storehouse of beggary. But what looks ! 
 what impudent intelligence, what concentrated life, 
 when the magnetic rays of her eyes and those of 
 Jacques Collin met to exchange a single idea. 
 
 "Get out of the way, you old home for vermin," 
 cried the postilion gruffly. 
 
 "Don't run over me, sir knight of the guillotine," 
 answered she, "your merchandise isn't worth as 
 much as mine." 
 
 Endeavoring to squeeze herself against the wall 
 in order to leave the passage-way free, the peddler 
 blocked the path during the time needful for the 
 accomplishment of her project. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 19 
 
 "Oh! Asia!" thought Jacques Collin, who re- 
 cognized his accomplice instantaneously, "all is 
 well." 
 
 The postilion continued to interchange courte- 
 sies with Asia, and carriages accumulated in the rue 
 de Martroi. 
 
 "AM! Fecair'e fermati. Sounilh. Vedrem!" cried 
 old Asia, with those intonations peculiar to street 
 venders, who garble their words so vilely that they 
 become mere sounds comprehensible for Parisians 
 alone. 
 
 During the uproar in the street and in the midst 
 of the shouts which arose from the surrounding 
 drivers, nobody heeded this savage scream which 
 seemed to be the peddler's cry. But these sounds, 
 which Jacques Collin caught distinctly, poured into 
 his ear in a preconcerted jargon, mingled with frag- 
 ments of bastard Italian and Provengal, this terrible 
 sentence : 
 
 " Your poor boy is taken; but I am there to watch 
 over you. You shall see me again." 
 
 In the midst of the infinite joy which his triumph 
 over justice caused him, for now he hoped to be 
 able to establish communications with the outer 
 world, Jacques Collin was struck by a reaction 
 which would have killed another man. 
 
 "Lucien arrested!" he said to himself, and his 
 consciousness almost left him. For him this news 
 was more frightful than the rejection of a petition, 
 had he been condemned to death. 
 
 Now that the two salad baskets are rolling along 
 
20 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the quays, the interest of this story demands that 
 a few words be spent upon the Conciergerie as 
 it was at the time they were to arrive there. 
 The Conciergerie, historic name, terrible word, but 
 still more terrible in reality, is bound up with 
 the revolutions of France, and especially with 
 those of Paris. It has seen the greater number 
 of noble criminals. If, of all the monuments of 
 Paris, this is the most interesting, it is also the 
 least known — to people who belong to the higher 
 classes of society ; but in spite of the immense in- 
 terest of this historic digression, it will be quite as 
 swift as the course of the salad baskets. 
 
 Who is the Parisian, the foreigner or the country- 
 man who, after two days spent in Paris, has not no- 
 ticed the black walls flanked by three massive towers 
 like pepper boxes, two of which are almost exact 
 mates, the sombre and mysterious ornament of the 
 quai des Lunettes ? This quai begins at the foot of 
 the Pont au Change and extends as far as the Pont 
 Neuf. A square tower, called the Tour de I'Hor- 
 lage, from which the signal of Saint Bartholomew 
 was sounded, a tower almost as lofty as that of 
 Saint Jacques la Bucherie, marks the palace and 
 forms a corner of the quai. These four towers, 
 these walls are covered with that black dampness 
 that comes over every facade in Paris which faces 
 toward the north. Toward the middle of the quai, 
 at a deserted arcade, begin the private buildings, 
 whose erection was determined in the reign of 
 Henry IV., by the construction of the Pont Neuf. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 21 
 
 The Place Royale was a reproduction of the 
 Place Dauphine. It is in the same style of archi- 
 tecture, brici< framed by borders of freestone. This 
 arcade and the rue de Harlay mark the boundaries of 
 the palace to the west Formerly the Prefecture 
 of Police and the mansion of the first presidents of 
 Parliament were connected with the palace. The 
 Cour des Comptes and the Cour des Aides, situated 
 here, completed the supreme justice of the sover- 
 eigns of France. Thus before the Revolution, the 
 palace enjoyed by nature that isolation which to- 
 day men seek to create about it. 
 
 This square, this island of houses and of monu- 
 ments, amongst which stands the Sainte Chapelle 
 — ^the most splendid jewel of Saint Louis' casket; 
 this spot is the sanctuary of Paris : it is its holy 
 place, its sacred ark. Originally this space inclu- 
 ded the limits of the original city, for the site of the 
 Place Dauphine was a meadow dependent upon the 
 royal domain, on which there stood a mill once used 
 as a mint. Hence comes the name rue de la Mon- 
 naie, given to the street which leads to the Pont 
 Neuf. Hence, also, is derived the name of one of 
 the three round towers — ^the second — which is called 
 "La Tour d'Argent;" and this seems to prove that 
 here, too, money was coined in primitive times. The 
 famous mill, which is to be seen in the ancient 
 maps of Paris, should, in all likelihood, be dated to a 
 period later than the years when money was coined 
 in the palace itself; and, no doubt, that building 
 was owing to an improvement in the art of minting. 
 
22 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 The first tower, almost united to the Tour d' Argent, 
 is named the Tour de Montgomery. The third, the 
 smallest, but the best preserved of the three, for it 
 has kept its battlements, is known as the Tour 
 Bonbec. The Sainte Chapelle and these four tow- 
 ers — Including the Tour de I'Horloge — determine 
 accurately the circumference, the perimeter, as any 
 clerk employed for the register of public lands will 
 tell you, of the palace from the Merovingians to the 
 accession of the house of Valois ; but, for us, who 
 are following its transformations, this palace repre- 
 sents more especially the epoch of Saint Louis. 
 
 Charles V. was the first king to abandon the 
 palace. He bestowed it upon the newly created 
 Parliament, and went beneath the protection of the 
 Bastille to live in the famous H6tel Saint Pol, 
 against the walls of which in later times was built 
 the Palais des Tournelles. Then, under the last 
 Valois, royalty left the Bastille for the Louvre, 
 which had been its first fortress. The earliest 
 dwelling of the kings of France, the Palace of Saint 
 Louis, which has kept simply the name of "Le 
 Palais," designed to show its pre-eminence, is 
 included within the Palais de Justice ; it now forms 
 the cellar of that building, for, like the Cathedral, 
 it was built in the Seine, and built so carefully that 
 the river, at its highest level, scarcely covers its 
 first steps. The quai de I'Horloge buries beneath 
 twenty feet of earth these thrice secular construc- 
 tions. Carriages roll at the height of the capitals 
 of the great columns of these three towers, whose 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 23 
 
 elevation was formerly designed to harmonize with 
 the elegance of the palace, and to give a picturesque 
 effect as they rose over the water ; for to-day these 
 towers still rival in height the loftiest monuments 
 of Paris. When one contemplates this vast capital 
 from the summit of the lantern on the Pantheon, 
 the palace, with the Sainte Chapelle, still appears 
 the most monumental among so many monuments. 
 This palace of our kings, over which you walk 
 when you tread the vast "Salle des pas Perdues," 
 was a marvel of architecture, and thus it still is to 
 the intelligent eyes of the poet who comes to study 
 it, in his examination of the Conciergerie. Alas! 
 the Conciergerie has invaded the palace of kings. 
 The heart bleeds to see how the despoilers have 
 mutilated the dungeons, the by-ways, the corridors, 
 the guard rooms, the halls without light or air, in 
 this splendid composition wherein the Byzantine, 
 the Roman, and the Gothic — those three great prin- 
 ciples of ancient art — have been combined in the 
 architecture of the twelfth century. This palace is 
 the monumental history of France in its earliest 
 stage; as the Chateau de Blois is its monumental 
 history in its second stage. In the same manner, 
 as in a single court at Blois — see Study of Catherine 
 de Medicis, Philosophical Studies — you can admire 
 the Chlteau of the Counts de Blois, that of Louis 
 XII., that of Frangois I., that of Gaston; just so at 
 the Conciergerie you will find in the same spot the 
 characteristics of the earliest races, and in the 
 Sainte Chapelle the architecture of Saint Louis. 
 
24 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Municipal council, if you give millions, place at the 
 architect's side a poet or two, if you would save 
 the cradle of Paris, the cradle of kings, which you 
 endeavor to endow Paris and the sovereign court 
 with a palace worthy of France, it is a question to 
 be studied for years before a stone is laid. One or 
 two more prisons built like la Roquette, and the 
 Palace of Saint Louis will be saved ! 
 
 To-day there are many plagues which infect this 
 gigantic monster buried beneath the palace and 
 beneath the quai, like one of those antediluvian 
 creatures among the plaster casts of Montmartre ; 
 but the greatest of all is the fact that it is the Con- 
 ciergerie! Everybody understands this word. In 
 the early times of the monarchy, villains — it is 
 better to cling to this orthography by which the 
 word retains its meaning of peasant — and townsmen 
 belonged to municipal or seignorial jurisdictions, 
 while noble offenders and the possessors of large or 
 small fiefs were brought before the king and confined 
 at the Conciergerie. As only a few of these noble 
 offenders were ever arrested, the Conciergerie was 
 large enough for the king's justice. It is difficult to 
 determine the exact site of the original Conciergerie. 
 Nevertheless since the kitchens of Saint Louis still 
 exist and to-day form what is known as the SouricHre 
 (the mouse trap), it is to be presumed that the 
 original Conciergerie was situated on the spot 
 where stood, before 1825, the Judicial Conciergerie 
 of Parliament, beneath the arcade at the right of 
 the exterior grand staircase, which leads to the Cour 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 25 
 
 Royale. Thence, until 1825, every condemned 
 prisoner went fortli to his punishment Thence 
 went forth all the state criminals, all the victims of 
 statecraft: the Mar^chale d'Ancre as well as the 
 Queen of France, Semblangay as well as Malesher- 
 bes, Damien as well as Danton, Desrues as well as 
 Castaing. Fouquier Tinville's old office occupied 
 the present site of the Attorney-General's cabinet, 
 so that the public prosecutor could watch the pris- 
 oners condemned by the revolutionary tribunal file 
 past him in their carts. Thus the steel-hearted 
 butcher could cast a final glance over the batch. 
 
 Since 1825, under the ministry of M. de Poy- 
 ronnet, a great change has taken place in the pal- 
 ace. The old wicket of the Conciergerie, behind 
 which once passed the ceremonies of registry and 
 search, was closed and transported to the spot where 
 it may be seen to-day between the Tour de I'Hor- 
 lage and the Tour de Montgomery, in an inner court 
 marked by an arcade. To the left is the Sourici^re, 
 to the right the wicket. The salad baskets en- 
 ter this somewhat irregular court and can stop 
 there, turn with ease, or, in case of tumult, can 
 be protected against any attempt at rescue by the 
 strong iron grating of the arcade ; while, formerly, 
 they had not the slightest facilities for manoeuvering 
 in the narrow space which divides the exterior 
 grand stairway from the right wing of the palace. 
 Nowadays the Conciergerie hardly suffices for the 
 number of accused, since accommodation is needed 
 for three hundred persons, men and women, and 
 
26 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 receives neither prhenus nor detenus, excepting on 
 such rare occasions as that which brought thither 
 Lucien and Jacques Collin. • All who are prisoners 
 there must appear before the Court of Assize. As 
 an exception to the rule, the board of magistrates 
 suffers culprits of the upper class, who have already- 
 been sufficiently dishonored by the verdict of the 
 Court of Assize.to be imprisoned outside of the 
 Conciergerie if they prefer to serve out their sen- 
 tences at Melun or at Poissy. Ouvrard chose to be 
 confined at the Conciergerie rather than at Sainte 
 Pelagie. At this very moment the notary, Lehon 
 and the Prince de Bergues are imprisoned there 
 through sufferance, which, however arbitrary, is full 
 of humanity. . 
 
 Ordinarily, the prevenus, whether they dixe passing 
 examinations (to use the palace slang) or whether 
 they are summoned to appear on the benches of the 
 police court, are removed from the salad baskets 
 directly to the SouriciSre. The Sourici^re, which 
 is opposite the wicket gate, is composed of a 
 certain number of cells, constructed within the 
 kitchens of Saint Louis, and here the j>r^^MMS taken 
 from their prisons await the hour of their appear- 
 ance before the tribunal, or the arrival of the judge 
 who is to examine them. The Souricifere is 
 bounded on the north by the qua:, on the east by 
 the guard-house of the municipal guard, on the west 
 by the courtyard of the Conciergerie, and on the 
 south by an immense vaulted hall — doubtless the 
 ancient banqueting hall — which is now used for no 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 27 
 
 particular purpose. Above the Sourici^re there is 
 an interior guard-house, which commands through 
 its v/indow a view of the courtyard of the Con- 
 ciergerie ; it is occupied by a departmental brigade 
 of gendarmes, and here it is that the stairway ends. 
 When the hour of judgment sounds, bailiffs have 
 already called the roll of the pr&venus, as many 
 gendarmes as there are prisoners descend from their 
 quarters. Each gendarme takes a prboenu by the 
 arm, and thus in couples they march down the stair- 
 way, traverse the guard-room, and arrive by certain 
 passages at an apartment adjoining the court-room, 
 where sits the famous sixth chamber of the tribunal, 
 upon which the hearing of cases from the police 
 courts has devolved. This path must be followed by 
 the accusis on their way to and from the Concier- 
 gerie. 
 
 In the Salle des pas Perdues, between the door 
 of the first chamber of the tribunal for trying First 
 Offences, and the steps which lead to the sixth 
 chamber, the stranger notices instantly, though he 
 be walking there for the first time, a doorway with- 
 out a door, unadorned by architectural device, a 
 square ignoble hole. It is through this that judges 
 and lawyers pass into the lobbies and the guard- 
 room and descend to the Souricidre and to the 
 wicket of the Conciergerie. All the offices of the 
 examining judges are situated in this part of the 
 palace on different stories. These are reached by 
 narrow staircases — a labyrinth too apt to bewilder 
 the stranger. The windows of these offices open, 
 
28 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 some on the quai, others on the courtyard of the 
 Conciergerie. In 1830 several offices of examin- 
 ing judges looked out upon the rue de la Barillerie. 
 Thus when a salad basket turns to the left in the 
 courtyard of the Conciergerie it carries the pr^venus 
 toward the Sourici^re, when it turns to the right 
 it brings the accuse to the Conciergerie. It was 
 then toward the latter side that the salad basket, 
 which contained Jacques Collin, was directed, in 
 order to deposit its occupant at the wicket. Noth- 
 ing is more formidable. Criminals or visitors 
 behold two barred gates of wrought iron separated 
 by a space of about six feet, which always open 
 one after the other, and across which everything is 
 noted so carefully, that persons who have been 
 granted permission to enter pass across this interval 
 before the key grates in the lock. The examining 
 magistrates, even those from the office of the pub- 
 lic prosecutor, cannot enter before they are recog- 
 nized. Do but speak of the chance of communica- 
 tion or escape! — The warden of the Conciergerie 
 will wear upon his lips a smile which will freeze 
 the doubts of the boldest romancer in his struggle 
 against reality. In the annals of the Conciergerie 
 the escape of La Valette alone is known ; but the 
 certainty of an august connivance, to-day proved 
 beyond a doubt, has diminished, if not the devotion 
 of a wife, at least the apparent danger of a failure. 
 Standing upon this ground and judging of the nature 
 of the obstacles, the truest friends of the marvelous 
 will recognize that in times past these obstacles 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 29 
 
 have been what they still are, invincible. No ex- 
 pression can depict the strength of the walls and 
 vaulted ceilings. Although the pavement of the 
 courtyard is on a level with that of the quai, after 
 you have passed the wicket it is still necessary to 
 descend several steps before arriving at a great 
 vaulted hall, whose mighty walls, ornamented by 
 splendid columns, are flanked by the Tour de Mont- 
 gomery, which nowadays forms part of the domicile 
 of the warden of the Conciergerie, and by the Tour 
 d' Argent, which serves as a dormitory for the 
 watchmen, keepers, or turnkeys, whichever you 
 are pleased to call them. The number of these 
 guards is not so large as might be imagined (they 
 are but twenty). Their dormitory as well as their 
 bedding does not differ from that of the pistole. This 
 name comes, no doubt, from the fact that the pris- 
 oners used to pay a pistole a week for this lodging, 
 the bareness of which recalls the cold garret where 
 many a poverty-stricken genius has dwelt in Paris 
 at the outset of his career. To the left in this vast 
 entrance hall stands the recorder's office of the 
 Conciergerie, a sort of closet built of glass, in which 
 sit the director and his clerk, and where the gaol- 
 book is kept There the privenu and the accusi are 
 enrolled, described and searched. There is decided 
 the question of lodging, the solution of which is 
 dependent upon the prisoner's purse. Opposite 
 the gateway of this hall there is a glass door open- 
 ing into a parlor where relatives and lawyers talk 
 with the prisoners through a wicket with a double 
 
30 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 grating of wood. This parlor receives its light 
 from the interior prison yard, where the prisoners 
 may breathe the open air and take exercise at cer- 
 tain prescribed hours. 
 
 This great hall, lighted by the uncertain light of 
 the two wickets, for the only window which opens 
 upon the front court-yard is entirely concealed by 
 the recorder's office, presents to the eye an atmos- 
 phere and a light perfectly in harmony with the 
 images preconceived by the imagination. It is the 
 more dreadful when, looking in a direction parallel 
 to the Tours d'Argent and de Montgomery, you per- 
 ceive mysterious crypts, vaulted, awful, and without 
 light, which lead past the parlor to the dungeons of 
 the Queen and Madame Elizabeth and to the solitary 
 cells called les secrets. This labyrinth of freestone, 
 which once witnessed the feasts of royalty, has 
 become the cellar of the Palais de Justice. From 
 1825 to 1832 it was in this vast hall, between a 
 great stove by which it was heated and the first of 
 the two wickets, that the prescribed change of 
 clothes was made by the prisoner. Even now a man 
 does not walk without a tremor across these flags 
 which have felt the horrid secrets of eyes that have 
 looked upon them for the last time. 
 
 To descend from his frightful wagon, the sick 
 man had need of the assistance of two gendarmes, 
 who lifted him, one by each arm, and carried him 
 like a lifeless body into the recorder's office. As 
 he was dragged along, the dying man raised his 
 eyes toward heaven with the expression of a 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 31 
 
 Saviour descended from the cross. Certainly in 
 no picture does Jesus present a face more cadaver- 
 ous or more distorted than did the counterfeit Span- 
 iard ; he seemed about to render up his last breath. 
 When he was seated in the office he repeated in a 
 feeble voice the words which he had addressed to 
 everybody since his arrest: 
 
 "I am known to his excellency, the Spanish am- 
 bassador. ' ' 
 
 "Tell that," answered the warden, "to the 
 examining judge." 
 
 "Ah, God!" replied Jacques Collin, with ^a 
 gasp, "cannot I have a breviary? Will they never 
 allow me a doctor.' I have not two hours to 
 live." 
 
 As Carlos Herrera was to be placed in solitary 
 confinement, it was useless to ask of him whether 
 he desired the privilege of a pistole, that is to say 
 the right to inhabit one of those rooms which en- 
 joyed the sole comfort permitted by law. These 
 rooms are situated at the end of the yard, of which 
 mention will be made hereafter. The bailiff and 
 the recorder went through the formalities of regis- 
 tering the prisoner's name with phlegmatic deliber- 
 ation. 
 
 "Your honor," said Jacques Collin, in execrable 
 French, "I am a dying man. You see it. Tell the 
 judge if you can ; above all, tell him as soon as 
 possible that I solicit as a favor the very test which 
 a criminal should fear most; to appear before him 
 the instant that he arrives; for my sufferings are 
 
32 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 really intolerable, and when I see him all mistakes 
 will be at an end. ' ' 
 
 The general rule; all criminals talk of mistakes! 
 Go to the prisons. Question the prisoners ; they are 
 almost all victims of some mistake of justice. Thus 
 this mere word raises an imperceptible smile to the 
 faces of those who come into contact with prhenus, 
 accuses or condamnis. 
 
 "I can speak to the examining judge of your re- 
 quest, ' ' answered the warden, 
 
 "1 shall bless you, then, sir!" replied the false 
 Spaniard raising his eyes toward heaven. 
 
 As soon as he was registered, Carlos Herrera, 
 supported on either side by a municipal ofificer and 
 accompanied by an overseer, who had been informed 
 by the warden of the cell in which the prhenu was 
 to be confined, was conducted through the subter- 
 ranean maze of the Conciergerie into a chamber 
 which, though certainly healthy, whatever philan- 
 thropists may say, was without the possibility of 
 communication with the outer world. 
 
 When he had disappeared, the overseers, the 
 warden of the prison, the clerk, the bailiff himself, 
 and the gendarmes looked at one another, as if every 
 man were asking his neighbor's opinion; every 
 face expressed doubt But at the appearance of the 
 other prisoner the spectators reassumed their habit- 
 ual uncertainty concealed beneath an air of apparent 
 indifference: except under extraordinary circum- 
 stances, the keepers of the Conciergerie feel but 
 little curiosity ; to them criminals are what customers 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 33 
 
 are to barbers. Thus those formalities, which 
 alarm the imagination, are accomplished by them 
 more simply than bargains are made in the business 
 world, and often more politely. Lucien's appear- 
 ance was that of disheartened guilt; he had lost 
 hope and surrendered himself mechanically to his 
 fate. Since he had left Fontainebleau, the poet had 
 been contemplating his ruin, and saying to himself 
 that the hour of expiation had struck. Pale, wasted, 
 ignorant of all that had happened since his depar- 
 ture from Esther's house, he knew that he was the 
 intimate companion of an escaped convict ; a situa- 
 tion which pictured clearly catastrophes worse than 
 death. When his thoughts took shape, the idea of 
 suicide rose before him. He wished at any price 
 to escape the ignominy which he beheld dimly like 
 the fancies of a painful dream. 
 
 Jacques Collin, as the more dangerous of the two 
 prisoners, was placed in a cell built entirely of free- 
 stone, which received its light from one of those 
 small inner yards such as are found within the 
 palace, and which was situated in the wing contain- 
 ing the ofifice of the Public Prosecutor. This little 
 court served as a prison yard for the women's quar- 
 ters. Lucien was led away in the direction his 
 friend had taken, for according to the orders given 
 by the examining judge, the warden had made 
 preparations for him in a cell next to the pistoles. 
 
 Ordinarily, people who have never become en- 
 tangled with criminal law conceive the blackest 
 ideas of solitary confinement The idea of criminal 
 3 
 
34 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 justice is not yet separated from antiquated ideas 
 of ancient torture, pestiferous prisons, cold walls 
 whose stones sweat tears, rough gaolers and coarse 
 food, the needful accessories of dramas ; but it is 
 not useless to say here that these exaggerations 
 exist on the stage alone, and that such scenes raise 
 a smile to the lips of magistrates and lawyers, and 
 of those who from curiosity or another reason have 
 visited the prisons. For many years prison life 
 was terrible. It is certain that under the ancient 
 parliament, during the reigns of Louis XIII. and 
 Louis XIV., the accused were thrown pell-mell into 
 wretched quarters built above the old wicket. The 
 prisons were one of the crimes of the revolution of 
 1789, and the visitor has only to see the cell of the 
 queen and that of Madame Elizabeth in order to feel 
 deep horror for ancient forms of justice. But now- 
 adays if philanthropy has done incalculable evil to 
 society, it has at least done some good to individ- 
 uals. We owe to Napoleon our criminal Code, 
 which, even more than the civil Code whose reform 
 in certain respects is urgent, will remain one of the 
 greatest monuments of that short reign. This new 
 criminal law closed an abyss of suffering. We may 
 even affirm that, setting aside the fearful moral tor- 
 ture which preys upon persons of the upper class 
 when they are in the power of the law, the action 
 of this power has a softness and simplicity all the 
 greater since they are unexpected. The inculpi 
 and the pr'evenu are certainly not lodged as if they 
 were at home, but the necessities of life are not 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 35 
 
 wanting in Paris prisons. Besides, the heaviness 
 of the prisoner's heart deprives life's comforts of 
 their normal importance. It is not always the body 
 that suffers. The condition of the mind is so turbu- 
 lent that every kind of inconvenience is brutality, if 
 it be met with in his environment, is easy for the 
 prisoner to bear. We must admit that in Paris above 
 all, the innocent man is promptly set at liberty. 
 
 On entering his cell Lucien found in it the faith- 
 ful image of the first room he had occupied in Paris 
 at the Hotel Cluny. A bed such as those which are 
 found in the cheapest lodging houses of the Latin 
 Quarter ; cane-bottomed chairs, a table and a few 
 utensils composed the furniture of one of those 
 chambers, wherein two prisoners are often placed 
 when their behavior is good and when their crimes 
 belong to some such reassuring category as forgery 
 or bankruptcy. This resemblance between the spot 
 which he had reached in innocence and that to which 
 he had now come, at the lowest point of shame and 
 degradation, was so perfectly comprehended by one 
 last effort of his poetic fibre, that the unfortunate 
 young man burst into tears. For four hours he wept, 
 in appearance insensible as a stone statue, but 
 suffering from all his disappointed hopes, wounded 
 by the ruin of every social vanity, tortured by the 
 stings of his pride, and cut off from all the selves 
 which make up the lover, the dandy, the Parisian, 
 the poet, the voluptuary, the ambitious, lucky, 
 privileged man. Everything within him was 
 bruised by this Icarian fall. 
 
36 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 When Carlos Herrera was left alone in his cell he 
 walked round the room as the polar bear walks 
 about his cage in the Jardin des Plantes. He ex- 
 amined the door minutely, and made sure that 
 excepting the prescribed peep-hole no orifice had 
 been made. He sounded every wall, he looked up 
 the chimney through the mouth of which came a 
 feeble light, and he said to himself: 
 
 "1 am in safe keeping." 
 
 He sat down in a corner where the eye of a 
 keeper applied to the grated peep-hole could not see 
 him. Then he took off his wig and immediately 
 tore from it a paper which had been glued to the 
 lining. That side of the paper which had been in 
 contact with the head was so greasy that it seemed 
 to be a part of the tegument of the wig. Had Bibi 
 Lupin thought of taking off this wig to prove the 
 identity of the Spaniard with Jacques Collin, no 
 suspicion of this paper would have crossed his mind, 
 so completely did it seem to form part of the wig- 
 maker's work. The reverse side of the paper was 
 still white and clean enough to receive a few lines 
 of writing. The difficult and delicate operation of 
 tearing it from the lining had been begun at the 
 Force ; two hours would not have sufficed, and half 
 of the day before had been spent upon it. The 
 prisoner begun by cutting this precious paper in 
 such a manner as to procure a band of from four to 
 five lines in length. This he divided into several 
 portions, and then restored his supply of paper to 
 its singular hiding place, after having previously 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 37 
 
 moistened the lining of the wig with gum arabic by 
 the aid of which he could re-establish the adherence 
 of the paper. Next drawing from a lock of his hair, 
 where it had been fastened by glue, one of those 
 bits of lead fine as the shank of a pin, the invention 
 of which, by Susse, was at that time very recent, 
 he broke off a fragment of it, long enough to write 
 with yet small enough to hold within his ear. 
 Having concluded these p(;eparations with the rap- 
 idity and finish of execution peculiar to old convicts 
 who are as .adroit as monkeys, Jacques Collin 
 seated himself on the foot of his bed and began to 
 meditate upon the nature of his instructions to Asia. 
 He felt certain of finding this woman in his path, 
 so confidently did he count upon her ingenuity. 
 
 "In my immediate examination," thought he, "I 
 played the part of a Spaniard, spoke French badly, 
 said that I was intimate with the Spanish ambassa- 
 dor, alleged diplpmatic privileges and understood 
 nothing of what was asked of me. All this has been 
 played in a low key, with rests, sobs, and all 
 the consonance of a dying man. Let us stand 
 our ground. My papers are correct. Asia and I 
 will pull the wool over M. Camusot's eyes; he is 
 scarcely redoubtable. Now then as to Lucien. His 
 courage must be kept up. I must reach the boy at 
 any cost and trace out his plan of conduct : other- 
 wise he will betray himself, betray me and ruin 
 everything. Before his examination he must be 
 taught to sing a different song. Lastly, I need 
 witnesses to testify that I am a priest. 
 
Such was the moral and physical situation of the 
 two prisoners, whose fate depended at this moment 
 upon M. Camusot, examining judge in the Tribunal 
 of First Offence of the Seine, sovereign arbiter, 
 during the time allotted him by the criminal code, of 
 the smallest details of their existence; for he alone 
 had power to allow the chaplain or the doctor of the 
 Conciergerie or anybody whomsoever to communi- 
 cate with them. 
 
 No human power, not the king, nor the keeper 
 of the seals, nor the prime minister can encroach 
 upon the authority of an examining judge ; nothing 
 can stop him, nothing can command him. He is a 
 sovereign subject alone to his conscience and to 
 the law. At this time when philosophers, philan- 
 thropists and publicists are incessantly occupied in 
 diminishing all social authority, the right conferred 
 by our laws upon the examining judges has become 
 the object of attgicks, all the more violent because 
 they are in part justified by this power, which is, 
 we admit, exorbitant. Nevertheless this power 
 should remain unattacked by all intelligent men; 
 its exercise may in some cases be weakened by a 
 special employment of caution ; but society already 
 shaken to its base by the lack of intelligence and by 
 the feebleness of juries — ^those august and supreme 
 magistracies which ought never to be entrusted 
 
 (39) 
 
40 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 to any but chosen men of high reputation- 
 would be menaced with destruction if the column 
 which upholds the whole fabric of our criminal 
 laws should be broken. Preventive arrest is one of 
 those terrible yet necessary powers, the danger of 
 which is counterbalanced by their very grandeur. 
 Besides, to mistrust the magistracy is a beginning 
 of social dissolution. Destroy the institution; 
 reconstruct it upon other bases; demand, as before 
 the revolution, enormous guarantees of money from 
 the magistracy; but believe in it! Do not make 
 of it the image of society in order to heap insults 
 upon it. To-day the magistrate, paid like any other 
 officer, and generally poor, has bartered his former 
 dignity for an insolence which seems intolerable 
 to all whom the law has made his equals, for inso- 
 lence is a kind of dignity devoid of its foundations. 
 There lies the vice of the existing institution. If 
 France were divided into ten departments, it would 
 be possible to raise the position of the magistracy 
 by requiring from the candidates the possession of 
 enormous fortunes, but with twenty-six depart- 
 ments this becomes impossible. The only improve- 
 ment that it is fair to demand in regard to the 
 exercise of the powers confided to the examining 
 judges, is the remodeling of the maison d'arret 
 Arraignment as a prhenu should make no change 
 in the habits of individuals. The maisons d'arret 
 in Paris should be built, furnished and arranged in 
 such a manner as to effect a distinct alteration in 
 the public attitude toward prevenus. The law is 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 41 
 
 good, it is necessary; tiie administration of laws is 
 bad, and custom judges laws after the manner in 
 whicti tliey are administered. In France, Public 
 Opinion by an inexplicable contradiction condemns 
 prhenus and restores accuses to their former status. 
 Perhaps this is the result of the essentially critical 
 spirit that prevails among Frenchmen. This incon- 
 sistency on the part of the Parisian public was one 
 of the motives which led to the catastrophe of this 
 drama ; it was even, as we shall see, one of the 
 most powerful. To be in the secret of these terri- 
 ble scenes which are acted within the office of an 
 examining judge ; to understand with clearness the 
 respective situation of the two warring parties, the 
 prhenus and the law, whose struggle has for its 
 object the secret kept by the former against the 
 curiosity of the judge, who is aptly nicknamed 
 "Old Curiosity," in prison slang, we must not 
 forget that the pr'evenus, kept in solitary confine- 
 ment, are entirely ignorant of everything that the 
 six or seven publics which form the public, say of 
 everything that the police and justice know and of 
 the little that the papers publish in regard to the 
 circumstances of the crime. Thus to a prtvenu, 
 information such as that which Jacques Collin had 
 just received from Asia in regard to the arrest of 
 Lucien, is like a rope to a drowning man. For 
 this reason we shall see a project fail which, 
 without this communication, would certainly have 
 ruined the convict. When once these conditions 
 of the prisoner's situation are understood the most 
 
42 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 self-controlled minds will be wrought upon by the 
 result of these three causes of terror : sol itude, silence 
 and remorse. 
 
 M. Camusot, son-in-law of one of the ushers of 
 the king's cabinet, already so well known that it is 
 unnecessary to explain his connections and position, 
 was at this moment plunged in perplexity almost 
 equal to that of Carlos Herrera in regard to the ex- 
 amination that had been entrusted to his care. But 
 lately, president of the Tribunal of a department, 
 he had been promoted from this office to the highly 
 enviable position of judge at Paris, through the in- 
 fluence of the celebrated Duchess de Maufrigneuse, 
 whose husband, at once companion to the Dauphin 
 and colonel of one of the cavalry regiments of the 
 royal guard, was as high in favor with the king as 
 was his wife with MADAME. For rendering a very 
 slight service, which chanced to be of great impor- 
 tance to the duchess, on the occasion of a charge of 
 forgery brought by a banker of Alengon against the 
 young Comte d'Esgrignon — see in the Scenes of 
 Provincial Life, The Cabinet of Antiques, — he was 
 promoted from a simple judgeship to the presidency 
 of a provincial court, and later became an examin- 
 ing judge at Paris. During the eighteen months 
 he had been sitting in the most important tribunal 
 of the realm, he had already been able, upon the 
 recommendation of the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, 
 to serve the interests of a noble lady no less pow- 
 erful than she, the Marquise d'Espard; but his 
 hopes had been disappointed — see The Interdiction. — 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 
 
 43 
 
 Lucien, as we have seen in the beginning of this 
 story, in order to revenge himself on Madame 
 d'Espard, who wished to have her husband declared 
 incapable of conducting his alTairs, was able to 
 prove the truth of the facts to the Attorney-General 
 and to the Count de Serizy. When these two great 
 powers declared in favor of the Marquis d'Espard, 
 the wife had only escaped the censure of the court 
 through the clemency of her husband. The even- 
 ing before, upon learning of Lucien's arrest, the 
 Marquise d'Espard had despatched her brother-in- 
 law, the Chevalier d'Espard to Madame Camusot's 
 house. Madame Camusot went at once to call upon 
 the illustrious marchioness. She returned at dinner 
 time and took her husband aside into her bedroom : 
 
 "If you can send that little fool, Lucien de Ru- 
 bempre, to the Court of Assizes and make his con- 
 demnation certain," whispered she, "you will be 
 a counsellor of the Royal Court — ' ' 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "Madame d'Espard would like to see the poor 
 fellow lose his head. I felt cold shivers run down 
 my back when I heard the words that hate can 
 make a pretty woman utter." 
 
 "Don't mix yourself up in criminal matters," 
 answered Camusot 
 
 "Mix myself up !" replied his wife. "Anybody 
 might have listened to us without understanding a 
 word of what it was all about. The marchioness 
 and I were both of us as delightfully hypocritical 
 as you are at this moment She wished me to 
 
44 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 thank you for your services in her behalf, and told 
 me that, in spite of ill success, she was not un- 
 grateful. She talked to me about the terrible 
 responsibility that the law puts upon you. 'It is 
 frightful to be obliged to send a man to the scaffold, 
 but with such a villain as he it is but justice ! ' She 
 deplored the fact that such a handsome young man, 
 who had been introduced to Paris by her cousin, 
 Madame du Chatelet, had turned out so badly. 
 That is the path down which bad women, like a 
 Coralie or an Esther, lead young men who are dis- 
 honest enough to share their vile earnings. Then 
 came splendid tirades on charity and religion! 
 Madame du Chatelet had told her that Lucien de- 
 served a thousand deaths for having almost killed 
 his sister and his mother. She went on to speak 
 to me about a vacancy in the royal court, she knew 
 the Keeper of the Seals. 'Your husband, madame, 
 has an admirable opportunity of distinguishing him- 
 self,' said she, in conclusion. And so this is my 
 reason for thinking so." 
 
 "We distinguish ourselves every day by doing 
 our duty," said Camusot. 
 
 "You have a long road to travel, if you are a 
 magistrate everywhere, even with your wife!" 
 exclaimed Madame Camusot. "I once thought you 
 a fool, now I admire you." 
 
 The magistrate wore upon his lips one of those 
 smiles as peculiar to his class as that of a danseuse 
 is to hers. 
 
 "Madame, may I come in.'" asked the maid. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 45 
 
 "What is it that you want?" demanded her 
 mistress. 
 
 " Madame, the Duchess de Maufrigneuse's wait- 
 ing maid came here during madame's absence, and 
 begs madame, on behalf of her mistress to come to 
 the Hotel de Cadignan immediately." 
 
 "Postpone dinner," said the judge's wife, re- 
 membering that the driver of the cab which had 
 brought her was waiting for his payment. 
 
 She put on her hat, stepped into the cab, and in 
 twenty minutes was at the Hotel de Cadignan. 
 Madame Camusot was introduced by a private pas- 
 sage into a boudoir communicating with the duch- 
 ess' bed chamber. After some ten minutes the 
 duchess herself appeared in a gorgeous gown, for 
 she was about to leave for Saint Cloud, whither 
 a court invitation had summoned her. 
 
 "My dear friend, between you and me a word 
 alone is necessary. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, Madame la Duchess." 
 
 "Lucien de Rubempre has been arrested ; your 
 husband is in charge of his case ; I guarantee the 
 poor boy's innocence; let him be set at liberty 
 before twenty-four hours. This is not all. Some- 
 body wishes to see Lucien to-morrow secretly in 
 his prison ; your husband may, if he wish, be pres- 
 ent, provided that he does not allow himself to be 
 seen. I am faithful to those who serve me, you 
 know it. The king expects much from the courage 
 of his magistrates in the serious difficulties which 
 lie before him. I will place your husband in 
 
46 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the fore front, I will recommend him as a man devo- 
 ted to the king, even at the risk of his head. Our 
 Camusot will first be counsellor, then first president 
 somewhere — Adieu. They are waiting for me — You 
 will excuse me, won't you .' You are not only con- 
 ferring a favor upon the Attorney-General, who 
 must not be mentioned in this regard : you are also 
 saving the life of a woman lying at death's door 
 — Madame de Serizy. Thus you cannot want for 
 support You receive this in confidence, I have no 
 need to recommend — you understand!" 
 
 She placed a finger upon her lips and was gone. 
 
 "And I, who could not tell her that the Marquise 
 d'Espard wishes to see Lucien on the scaffold!" 
 thought the magistrate's wife, as she walked back 
 to her cab. 
 
 She arrived at her house in such a state of ex- 
 citement that the moment he saw her, the judge 
 exclaimed: 
 
 "Amelie, what is the matter?" 
 
 "We are between two fires." 
 
 She recounted her interview with the duchess, 
 whispering the words in her husband's ear; so 
 great was her anxiety lest the maid be listening at 
 the door. 
 
 "Which of the two is the more powerful.?" said 
 she in conclusion. "The marchioness almost com- 
 promised you in that stupid attempt to have her 
 husband pronounced incapable of managing his 
 affairs, while we owe everj^hing to the duchess." 
 "One made me vague promises while the other 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 4/ 
 
 said, 'First you shall be counsellor, and then, first 
 president!' God keep me from advising you, I 
 shall never mix myself up with criminal matters; 
 but it is my duty to recount to you faithfully what 
 is said at court and what is in the wind." 
 
 "You don't know, Amelie, the message which the 
 Prefect of Police sent me this morning, and by 
 whom ! By one of the most important men of the 
 general police of the kingdom, the Bibi Lupin of 
 politics, who told me that the government had 
 secret interests in this trial. Let's have dinner 
 and go to the Varietes. We'll talk to-night of all 
 this in the silence of my office, for I shall need 
 your intelligence; the judge's perhaps will not 
 suffice. ' ' 
 
 Nine-tenths of magistrates will deny the influ- 
 ence of the wife over her husband upon such an 
 occasion as this ; but if it is one of the most marked 
 social exceptions, we may remark that it is true, 
 though accidental. The magistrate is like the 
 priest, especially at Paris, where the flower of the 
 magistracy are to be found; he speaks rarely of 
 criminal affairs unless the case be closed. The 
 wives of magistrates not only pretend to know noth- 
 ing, but even more than this, they all have a suffi- 
 ciently acute sense of prudence to divine that they 
 will injure their husbands if, when they know a 
 secret, they allow any trace of their knowledge to 
 become apparent Nevertheless, on great occasions, 
 when there is some prospect of advancement in 
 case such and such a resolution is taken, many a 
 
48 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 wife has, like Amelie, aided the determination of 
 a magistrate. In short, these exceptions, the more 
 easy to deny as they are always unknown, depend 
 entirely upon the manner in which the struggle 
 between two characters is enacted in the bosom of 
 a family. But in the Camusot family the gray 
 mare was the better horse. When all the 
 household was asleep the magistrate and his wife 
 sat down at a desk on which the judge had spread 
 all the documents relating to the case. 
 
 "Here are the memoranda which the Prefect of 
 Police sent at my request," said Camusot. 
 
 "THE ABBE CARLOS HERRERA. 
 
 "This individual is certainly the person named 
 Jacques Collin, alias Trompe-la-Mort, whose last 
 arrest, dating back to the year 1819, was effected 
 at the residence of a certain Madame Vauquer, 
 landlady of a cheap lodging house in the rue Neuve 
 Sainte Genevieve, where he was living under the 
 assumed name of Vautrin. " 
 
 On the margin the following lines were written 
 in the prefect's own hand : 
 
 "Orders have been telegraphed to Bibi Lupin, chief of 
 the secret service, to return immediately in order to 
 testify to the identity of the priest with Jacques Collin; 
 for he has known the latter personally, as he arrested 
 him in 1819, by the co-operation of a certain Made- 
 moiselle Michonneau." 
 
 "The persons who were lodging at the time in 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 49 
 
 the Maison Vauquer are still alive and can be sum- 
 moned in order to prove the identity. 
 
 "The so-called Carlos Herrera is the intimate 
 friend and adviser of M. Lucien de Rubempre, 
 whom for the past three years he has furnished with 
 considerable sums, evidently the profits of thefts. 
 
 "This joint liability, if the identity of the so-called 
 Spaniard with Jacques Collin can be established, 
 will be the condemnation of M. Lucien de Rubempre. 
 
 "The sudden death of the agent Peyrade is due 
 to poison administered by Jacques Collin, by Ru- 
 bempre, or by their accomplices. The reason for 
 the murder comes from the fact that the agent had 
 been for some time past upon the track of these two 
 wily criminals." 
 
 The magistrate pointed to this sentence written 
 upon the margin by the Prefect of Police himself: 
 
 ' ' This is my personal knowledge, and I am certain that 
 M. Lucien de Rubempr^ has most shamefully deceived 
 the Count de Siri^ and the Attorney-General." 
 
 "What have you to say to this, Amelie ?" 
 
 "It is frightful," answered the judge's wife; 
 "goon." 
 
 "The substitution of the Spanish priest for the 
 convict Jacques Collin is the result of some crime 
 more skillfully committed than that by which Cog- 
 niard became Count de Saint Helene." 
 
 "LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE. 
 
 "Lucien Chardon, son of an apothecary of Angou- 
 ISme, and whose mother was a daughter of the 
 4 
 
50 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 house of Rubempre, owes to a royal ordinance the 
 privilege of bearing the name of Rubempre. This 
 permission was granted at the solicitation of the 
 Duchess de Maufrigneuse and of Count de Serizy. 
 
 "In 182 — , this young man came to Paris, with- 
 out any means of support, in the train of the Coun- 
 tess Sixte du Chatelet, then Madame du Bargeton, 
 cousin of Madame d'Espard. 
 
 "Ungrateful to Madame de Bargeton, he lived for 
 some time with a woman named Coral ie, formerly 
 an actress at the Gymnase, who, for his sake, had 
 left M. Camusot, a dealer in silk, of the rue Bour- 
 donnais. 
 
 "Soon plunged into poverty through the insuffi- 
 cient support which this actress gave him, he 
 compromised his respectable brother-in-law, a prin- 
 ter in Angoul^me, very seriously, by issuing coun- 
 terfeit notes, for the payment of which David 
 Sechard was arrested, during a short visit of the 
 aforesaid Lucien in Angoul^me. 
 
 "This affair determined Rubempre's flight; he 
 suddenly reappeared, however, in Paris in company 
 with the Abbe Carlos Herrera. 
 
 "With no apparent means of subsistence this 
 Lucien spent on an average, during the first three 
 years of his second sojourn in Paris, about three 
 hundred thousand francs, which he could only have 
 obtained from the so-called Abbe Carlos Herrera ; 
 but by what means ? 
 
 "Over and above this, he has recently disbursed 
 upward of a million for the purchase of the Rubempre 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 51 
 
 estate, in order to fulfil! a condition necessary 
 for his marriage with Mademoiselle Clotilde de 
 Grandlieu. The rupture of this engagement is 
 owing to the fact that the Grandlieu family, to 
 whom M. Lucien had stated that his funds came 
 from his brother-in-law and sister, obtained infor- 
 mation in regard to those respectable persons, M. 
 and Madame Sechard, notably through the Attorney 
 Derville ; and not only were they totally ignorant of 
 these acquisitions but they even supposed that 
 Lucien was very deeply in debt 
 
 "Moreover, the fortune inherited by M. and 
 Madame Sechard consists in real estate ; and their 
 money, reckoned after their own declaration, 
 amounted to two hundred thousand francs. 
 
 "Lucien has been living secretly with Esther 
 Gobseck ; it is then certain that the vast sums lav- 
 ished by the Baron de Nucingen, this woman's 
 protector, have been transferred to the aforesaid 
 Lucien. 
 
 "Lucien and his companion, the convict, have 
 been able to retain their positions before the world 
 for a longer space than Coignard, by drawing their 
 resources from the prostitution of the aforesaid 
 Esther, a woman who has formerly been under 
 police surveillance." 
 
 In spite of the repetition which these memoranda 
 make in the recital of this drama, it was necessary 
 to repeat them word for word in order to picture 
 the methods of the police in Paris. The police 
 has, as we have already seen when information 
 
52 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 was demanded in regard to Peyrade, records, almost 
 invariably exact, of all the families and all the 
 rndividuals whose behavior is suspected and whose 
 actions are reprehensible. The police does not 
 allow a single deviation to pass unnoted. This 
 universal scrap-book, this balance sheet of con- 
 sciences, is as accurately kept as is the ledger of the 
 Bank of France. In the same way that the bank 
 marks the slightest delay in the dates of payment, 
 weighs the credit of everybody with whom it deals, 
 reckons the fortunes of capitalists and follows their 
 speculations, just so the police watches over the 
 honesty of citizens. Here, as at the palace, inno- 
 cence has nothing to fear ; watch is kept over sins 
 alone. However distinguished a family may be, 
 it can never be quite safe from this social provi- 
 dence. The discretion of this power equals its 
 extent. This vast quantity of statements of police 
 commissioners, of reports, memoranda, of certifi- 
 cates ; this ocean of information sleeps motionless, 
 deep and calm as the sea. But let some great oc- 
 currence happen, a misdemeanor or a crime take 
 place, let justice appeal to the police, and instantly, 
 if the records of the accused be on file, the judge 
 takes notice of it These records, wherein antece- 
 dents are analyzed, are not mere scraps of informa- 
 tion which expire within the walls of the palace ; 
 justice can make no legal use of them, it employs 
 them, it lights its way by them — that is all. These 
 maps display, as it were, the reverse side of the 
 embroidery of crimes and their original causes which 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 53 
 
 remain almost always unpublished. No jury would 
 trust them, the whole country would rise in indig- 
 nation if recognition were taken of them in the 
 cross-examination of the Court of Assize. Thus, 
 in a word, truth is condemned to dwell deep in its 
 well, as is its fate everywhere and always. There 
 is no magistrate who, after a dozen years of practice 
 in Paris, does not know that the Court of Assizes 
 and the Police Court conceal half of those infamous 
 secrets which are like the bed on which crime has 
 brooded over its purposes, and who does not admit 
 that justice does not punish one half the crimes that 
 are committed. If the public could know the lengths 
 to which this discretion is carried by unforgetting 
 agents of police, it would revere these worthy men 
 side by side with the Cheverus. Men think the 
 police crafty, Machiavellan ; it is excessively benign ; 
 only, it listens to passions in their paroxysms ; it 
 receives secrets and it preserves its memoranda. It 
 is terrible, but on one side. What it does for justice 
 it does also for politics; but in politics it is as cruel 
 and unjust as the fire of the Inquisition. 
 
 "So much for that," said the judge, replacing 
 the memoranda in their envelope. "It is a secret 
 between the police and law; the judge will know 
 what it is worth; but M. and Madame Camusot 
 have never known anything about it." 
 
 "Is it necessary to tell me that again?" said 
 Madame Camusot. 
 
 "Lucien is guilty," continued the judge, "but 
 of what?" 
 
54 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "A man loved by the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, 
 by the Countess de Serizy and by Clotilde de 
 Grandlieu, is not guilty," replied Amelie; "the 
 other must have done all." 
 
 "But Lucien is his accomplice!" exclaimed Cam- 
 usot 
 
 "Will you take my advice?" said Amelie. "Ren- 
 der up the priest to diplomacy, whose brightest 
 ornament he is; acquit this poor wretch, and find 
 others guilty." 
 
 "How you gallop!" answered the judge, smiling. 
 "Women fly toward their ends across the bar of 
 law like birds in the air, which stop at nothing." 
 
 "But," replied Amelie, "diplomat or convict, 
 the Abbe Carlos will name somebody in order to 
 extricate himself." 
 
 "1 am but a cap, you are the head, " said Camusot. 
 
 "Well, the council is over; come, kiss your 
 Melie, it is one o'clock." — 
 
 Madame Camusot went to bed, leaving her hus- 
 band to put his papers and ideas in preparation for 
 the examination which the two prisoners were to 
 undergo on the following day. 
 
 While the salad baskets were bringing Jacques 
 Collin and Lucien to the Conciergerie, the exam- 
 ining judge, after breakfast, walked through Paris 
 afoot, in accordance with the simplicity of manners 
 affected by Parisian magistrates, on his way to his 
 office where the documents relating to the case were 
 already collected. They had been brought in this 
 way: 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 55 
 
 Every examining judge has a private secretary, 
 a kind of judicial clerk under oath, whose race, 
 perpetuated without bounties and without encour- 
 agement, produces admirable individuals; among 
 whom silence is as natural as it is absolute. From 
 the origin of parliaments until to-day there has 
 never been an example of an indiscretion com- 
 mitted at the palace by one of these private clerks 
 relating to criminal examinations. Gentil sold the 
 receipt given by Louise of Savoy to Semblan^ay ; 
 a clerk in the war department sold to Czernichef 
 the plan of the Russian campaign ; both these trai- 
 tors were more or less rich. The possibility of a 
 situation in the palace or of a position as registrar, 
 and the traditional conscience of their profession 
 suffice to render the private secretary of an exam- 
 ining judge the successful rival of the grave, for 
 since the progress in chemistry has reached its 
 present development, even the grave has become 
 indiscreet This clerk is the very pen of the judge. 
 Many people, perceiving that such a man might 
 become the shaft of the machine, will ask one an- 
 other how he can be satisfied to remain a simple 
 nut ; but the nut is content : perhaps it is afraid 
 of the machine. Camusot's clerk, a young man of 
 twenty-two, named Coquart, had come in the morn- 
 ing to collect all the judge's documents and memo- 
 randa, and he had already arranged everything in 
 the office when the magistrate was strolling leisurely 
 along the quays, looking at the , curiosities in the 
 shop windows and asking himself : 
 
56 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Howshalll go to work with a rascal as able as 
 Jacques Collin, supposing that it is he ? The chief 
 of the secret service will recognize him; I must 
 seem to know my business even if it be for the ex- 
 clusive benefit of the police. I see so many im- 
 possibilities that the best way would be to enlighten 
 the marchioness and the duchess, too, by showing 
 them the memoranda of the police, and I could also 
 revenge my father from whom Lucien enticed Cora- 
 lie. By detecting such black villains I shall spread 
 the fame of my cleverness abroad, and Lucien will 
 soon be disowned by all his friends. The examin- 
 ation shall decide it," 
 
 He entered a curiosity shop, attracted by a BouUe 
 clock. 
 
 "To be true to my conscience and yet to serve 
 two noble ladies will certainly be a masterpiece of 
 shrewdness, " thought he. "What! are you here? 
 iVlonsieur le Procureur-General ?" exclaimed Camu- 
 sot aloud. "Are you looking for medals?" 
 
 "It's the taste of almost all justices," answered 
 the Count de Granville, laughing, "on account of 
 the reverses." 
 
 Then after having glanced about the shop for a 
 few moments as if he were finishing his examin- 
 ation, he led Camusot away across the quai, so 
 naturally that the latter could not suspect that his 
 company was the result of anything but chance. 
 
 "You are going to examine M. de Rubempre this 
 morning," remarked the attorney-general. "Poor 
 fellow, I was fond of him." — 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 57 
 
 "There are heavy charges against him," said 
 Camusot. 
 
 ' ' Yes, I have seen the pol ice memoranda ; but they 
 are due in part to an agent not connected with the 
 Prefecture, the notorious Corentin, a man who has 
 cut the throats of more innocent men than you have 
 sent guilty men to the scaffold, and — but the fellow 
 is entirely out of our province. Without wishing 
 to influence the conscience of a magistrate such as 
 you, I cannot help saying that if you can be certain 
 of Lucien's ignorance in regard to this woman's tes- 
 tament, it would prove that he had no interest in 
 her death, for she left him a prodigious amount of 
 money." 
 
 "We have positive proof of his absence at the 
 time of the poisoning of this Esther, ' ' said Camu- 
 sot "He was at Fontainebleau watching for the 
 arrival of Mademoiselle de Grandlieu and of the 
 Duchess de Lenoncourt. ' ' 
 
 "Oh," remarked the attorney-general, "he was 
 so confident in regard to his marriage with Made- 
 moiselle de Grandlieu — I have it from the Duchess 
 de Grandlieu herself — ^that it is impossible to sup- 
 pose that so clever a fellow as he would compromise 
 everything by a useless crime." 
 
 "Yes," said Camusot, "above all if this Esther 
 gave him all her earnings. " 
 
 "Derville and Nucingen say that she died with- 
 out hearing of the succession, which had been 
 withheld from her for a long time," added the 
 attorney-general. 
 
58 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "What do you think is the solution, then?" 
 demanded Camusot, "for there is an answer." 
 
 "A crime committed by the servants," replied 
 the attorney-general. 
 
 "Unhappily," remarked Camusot, "it is perfectly 
 consistent with Jacques Collin's character, for, in 
 all probability, the Spanish priest is this escaped 
 convict, to make away with the seven hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs realized by the sale of the three 
 per cent bonds presented by Nucingen." 
 
 "You must weigh everything, my dear Camusot; 
 be prudent The Abbe Carlos Herrera is connected 
 with diplomatic circles — but, should an ambassador 
 commit a crime, he would not be protected by his 
 position. Is he or is he not the Abbe Carlos Her- 
 rera? That is the most important question." — 
 
 And M. de Granville bowed like a man who does 
 not wish an answer. 
 
 "So he too is anxious to save Lucien?" thought 
 Camusot, as he made his way across the quai des 
 Lunettes, while the attorney-general entered the 
 Palais through the Cour de Harlay, 
 
When he had reached the courtyard of the Con- 
 ciergerie, Camusot went straight to the warden's 
 house, and led its master to the middle of the side- 
 walk safe from every ear. 
 
 "My dear sir, be so kind as to goto the Force and 
 learn of your colleague whether he is fortunate 
 enough to possess at this present time any convicts 
 who have been imprisoned at Toulon from 1810 to 
 181 5; find out, also, whether you have any such 
 persons yourself. We shall transfer those now at 
 the Force to your command for a few days, and you 
 will tell me whether the pseudo Spanish priest is 
 recognized by them as Jacques Collin alias Trompe- 
 la-Mort' 
 
 "Certainly, Monsieur Camusot; but Bibi Lupin 
 has arrived — " 
 
 "Ah, already!" exclaimed the judge.' 
 
 "He was at Melun. When he heard that Trompe- 
 la-Mort was in the case he smiled with delight, and 
 now he waits your orders." 
 
 "Send him tome." 
 
 The warden of the Conciergerie had then an 
 opportunity to tell the examining judge of Jacques 
 Collin's petition, and to describe his deplorable 
 condition. 
 
 "It was my intention to examine him first," 
 answered the magistrate; "but not on account of his 
 
 (59) 
 
6o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 health. This morning I received a note from the 
 warden of the Force ; but this fellow, who twenty- 
 four hours ago was at the point of death, slept so 
 well that the doctor, summoned by the warden, was 
 able to enter his cell without arousing him; the 
 doctor did not even feel his pulse, but let him sleep; 
 this seems to prove that his conscience is as good 
 as his health. I am not going to believe in this ill- 
 ness unless it be to study my man's game," said 
 M. Camusot smiling. 
 
 "We have a daily opportunity for that with the 
 pr'eoenus and the accuses," observed the warden of 
 the Conciergerie. 
 
 The Prefecture of Police is connected with the 
 Conciergerie, and the magistrates, as well as the 
 warden of the prison, can appear there with ex- 
 traordinary promptness by means of their acquain- 
 tance with subterranean passages. This is the 
 explanation of the miraculous facility with which 
 the general ministry and the presidents of the Courts 
 of Assizes can, during session, secure certain pieces 
 of information. Thus, when M. Camusot had reached 
 the head of the staircase leading to his office, he 
 came upon Bibi Lupin, who had hastened thither 
 through the Salle des pas Perdus. 
 
 "What zeal!" said the judge with a smile. 
 
 "Ah! that's because, if it is he," answered the 
 chief of the secret service, "you will see a terrible 
 dance in the yard, though there are but few of these 
 runaway horses." (A slang expression for former 
 convicts.) 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 6l 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Trompe-la-Mort has gobbled their cash and I 
 know that they have sworn to do away with him. ' ' 
 
 "They," signified the convicts whose savings, 
 entrusted for twenty years to Trompe-la-Mort, had 
 been squandered on Lucien as the reader knows. 
 
 "Could you find the witnesses of the last arrest?" 
 
 "Give me two summons for witnesses, and I will 
 procure them for you to-day. ' ' 
 
 "Coquart," said the judge, taking off his gloves 
 and placing his hat and cane in a corner, "make 
 out two summons according to the agent's direc- 
 tions." 
 
 He looked at his picture in the glass over the fire- 
 place. On the mantle-piece in place of a clock 
 stood a basin and water pitcher, on one side of this 
 was a carafe full of water and a glass, and on the 
 other a lamp. The judge rang; after a few minutes 
 the usher appeared. 
 
 "Is there anybody waiting to see me?" asked he 
 of the usher, whose duty it was to receive witnesses, 
 to verify their summons and to arrange them in 
 order of their arrival. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Take the names of all who have come; bring 
 me the list." 
 
 Examining judges, avaricious of their time, are 
 sometimes obliged to conduct several examinations 
 at once. This is the explanation of the long line 
 which the witnesses form when they are summoned 
 into an apartment, where ushers are standing about 
 
62 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 and gongs of the examining judges are continually 
 ringing. 
 
 "Now," said Camusot to his usher, "find Abbe 
 Carlos Herrera for me." 
 
 "Ah! He represents himself as Spanish and a 
 priest? So they have told me. It's Collet over 
 again, Monsieur Camusot," exclaimed the chief of 
 the secret service. 
 
 "There is nothing new," replied Camusot 
 
 The judge signed two of those formidable sum- 
 mons which make even the most innocent witness 
 anxious when justice commands him thus to appear, 
 under severe penalties in case of refusal. 
 
 About half an hour before this time Jacques 
 Collin had completed his profound deliberation, 
 and he was resting on his arms. Nothing can more 
 graphically describe this figure of the people in 
 rebellion against the law than the few lines which 
 he had traced upon his greasy papers. 
 
 The meaning of the first ran as follows, for it was 
 written in the language agreed upon between him- 
 self and Asia, the slang of slang, the cipher applied 
 to the idea : 
 
 "Go to the Duchess of Maufrigneuse or to Madame 
 de Serizy; see that one or the other interviews 
 Lucien before his examination, and gives him the 
 paper herein enclosed to read. Then Europe and 
 Paccard must be found, in order that both thieves 
 be at my orders and ready to play the part I shall 
 assign to them. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 63 
 
 "Hasten to Rastignac, tell him on the part of the 
 man whom he met at a ball at the Opera, to come 
 and bear witness that Carlos Herrera resembles in 
 no particular the Jacques Collin arrested at the 
 house of Madame Vauquer. 
 
 "Tell Doctor Bianchon to do likewise. 
 
 "Make Lucien's two wives work toward the same 
 end." 
 
 On the enclosed paper these lines were written 
 in good French : 
 
 "Lucien, confess nothing about me. I must be 
 for you the Abbe Carlos Herrera. Not only is this 
 your justification, but, a little more courage and 
 you shall have seven millions, and your honor safe 
 in the bargain. ' ' 
 
 These two papers glued on the side of the writing 
 in such a way as to appear like a single fragment 
 of the same leaf, were rolled with an art peculiar 
 to those who have pondered in prison over the 
 means of becoming free. The whole assumed the 
 form and consistency of some round particle of 
 grease, large as are those waxen heads which eco- 
 nomical women fasten to needles that have lost their 
 eyes. 
 
 "If it is my turn to go to the examination first, 
 we are saved; but if it is the boy's, all is lost," 
 thought he as he waited. 
 
 This brief delay was so cruel that, redoubtable 
 
64 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 as fie was, Carlos felt the cold sweat start out upon 
 his forehead. This extraordinary person divined as 
 truly in his sphere of crime as Moliere divined in 
 the sphere of dramatic poetry, or as Cuvier con- 
 cerning creations that have disappeared. In all its 
 forms, genius is an intuition. Below this phenom- 
 enon the remainder of remarkable works owe their 
 accomplishment to talent Herein lies the difference 
 which separates persons of the first from persons of 
 the second rank. Crime has its men of genius. 
 Jacques Collin, at bay, was allied with the ambi- 
 tious Madame Camusot, and with Madame de Serizy, 
 in whom love had reawakened beneath the blow of 
 the terrible catastrophe which had engulfed Lucien. 
 Such was the supreme effort of human intelligence 
 against the steel armor of the law. 
 
 As he heard the grating of the heavy iron locks 
 and bolts of his door, Jacques Collin assumed once 
 more the appearance of a dying man ; he was aided 
 in this effort by the intoxicating sensation of joy 
 which came over him as he heard the squeaking of 
 the turnkey's shoes in the corridor. Ignorant of 
 the means by which Asia would succeed in reaching 
 him, he counted upon seeing her near his path, 
 above all after the promise which he had received 
 at the Arcade Saint Jean. 
 
 After that fortunate encounter, Asia had made 
 her way down to the Gr^ve. Before 1830 the name 
 of Gr^ve had a meaning which is now lost All 
 that portion of the quai from the Pont d'Arcole as 
 far as the Pont Louis Philippe was then just as 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 65 
 
 nature had made it, with the exception of a paved 
 walk that slanted to one side. Thus at flood tide 
 boats could ply past the houses and along the streets 
 which sloped toward the river. On this quai the 
 ground floors of the houses were almost all raised to 
 the height of a few steps above the level of the 
 street. When the water splashed against the foun- 
 dation of the houses carriages made a detour by the 
 abominable rue de la Mortellerie, now entirely 
 abolished to enlarge the H6tel de Ville. It was 
 then an easy matter for the sham peddler to push 
 her little cart rapidly to the foot of the quai, and to 
 leave it there until the true owner, who was at this 
 time drinking the proceeds of her wholesale bargain 
 in one of the dirty pot houses of the rue de la Mor- 
 tellerie, should come to find it at the spot where 
 Asia had promised to leave it. At this time work- 
 men happened to be finishing the addition to the 
 Quai Pelletier. The entrance to the workshed was 
 guarded by a disabled soldier, and the cart entrusted 
 to his care ran no risk. 
 
 Asia instantly took a cab on the Place de I'Hotel 
 
 de Ville, and said to the driver : 
 
 "To the Temple, hurry, there' s grease to be had." 
 
 A woman dressed like Asia could, without exciting 
 
 the least curiosity, disappear within the vast market 
 
 where are heaped all the rags of Paris, where a 
 
 thousand hawkers swarm and hundreds of old-clothes 
 
 women chatter the praises of their wares. The two 
 
 prisoners were scarcely registered when Asia was 
 
 busy changing her costume in a small, damp, low 
 
 5 
 
66 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 entresol, situated above one of those vile shops 
 where seamstresses and tailors sell remnants of 
 stolen cloth, kept by an old hag called La Romette, 
 from her christian name of Jer6mette. La Romette 
 was to women of Asia's occupation exactly what 
 Madame Resources themselves are to those women 
 who are styled fashionable when they have run into 
 debt — a lender of money at a hundred per cent 
 
 "Now, old girl," said Asia, "I want to be rigged 
 up. I must be a baroness of the Faubourg Saint 
 Germain at the least. Hurry it up," continued 
 she ; "I'm walking on tacks. You know what gowns 
 become me. First of all rouge ; pick me out some 
 of your best laces, and out with your shiniest jewels 
 — send your little girl to hail a cab, and have the 
 driver stop at our back door." 
 
 "Yes, madame," replied the old woman, with the 
 submission and alacrity of a servant in the presence 
 of her mistress. 
 
 Had there been a witness of this scene, he would 
 have seen at once that the woman hidden beneath 
 the name of Asia was quite at home. 
 
 "1 have an offer of diamonds — " said La Romette 
 as she arranged Asia's hair. 
 
 "Stolen.?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "You must go without, my child, whatever the 
 profit. We have old curiosity to fear for sometime 
 to come. ' ' 
 
 The reader can now understand how Asia was 
 able to be in the Salle des pas Perdus of the Palais 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 6/ 
 
 de Justice with a summons in her hand and an usher 
 to guide her through the corridors and up the stair- 
 ways which lead to the offices of the examining 
 judges, and finally to ask for M. Camusot full fifteen 
 minutes before the arrival of the judge, 
 
 Asia no longer bore any resemblance to herself. 
 After having washed her wrinkled face like an 
 actress, and painted it with red and white, she had 
 covered her head with an admirable blond wig. 
 Dressed precisely like some lady from the Faubourg 
 Saint Germain in quest of her lost dog she looked 
 forty years old, for she had concealed her face beneath 
 a magnificent veil of black lace. Tightly laced stays 
 compressed her huge waist. Neatly gloved, and 
 provided with rather a large bustle, she exhaled an 
 odor of powder k la marechale. While her hands 
 played with a gold-mounted reticule, she divided her 
 attention between the walls of the palais, to which 
 this was evidently her first visit, and the leash of a 
 pretty King Charles' spaniel. Such a dowager did 
 not go long unnoticed by the black-robed population 
 of the Salle de pas Perdus. 
 
 Beside the briefless barristers, who sweep the Salle 
 de pas Perdus with their long gowns and call famous 
 lawyers by their Christian names to one another, 
 after the fashion of grand seigneurs, in order to 
 pretend that they too belong to the aristocracy of 
 their profession, there are often to be seen patient 
 young men at the beck and call of solicitors, who 
 dance attendance for the sake of a single case in 
 which they may be retained as second counsel and 
 
68 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 thus obtain some possible chance to plead in case 
 the lawyers retained as first counsel happen to be 
 delayed — that would be a curious picture which 
 should portray the differences between the black 
 gowns as they pace up and down the vast hall by 
 threes, and occasionally by fours, while the buzz of 
 their conversations echoes through this hall, so aptly 
 named, for walking wears lawyers out as well as the 
 unbounded measure of their speech ; but this descrip- 
 tion will find a place in the study destined to depict 
 the lawyers of Paris. Asia had calculated upon the 
 idlers of the palace ; she laughed in her sleeve at 
 the pleasantries which she overheard, and finally 
 succeeded in attracting the attention of Massol, a 
 young licentiate in law more interested in the Cassette 
 des Tribunaux than in his clients, who smilingly 
 placed his services at the disposal of a woman so 
 perfumed, so sweetly and so richly dressed. 
 
 Asia assumed a little shrill voice to explain to this 
 obliging gentleman that she had come in accordance 
 with the summons of a judge named Camusot. — 
 
 "Ah! for the Rubempre case." 
 
 The case already had its name ! 
 
 "Oh! its not I, but my maid, a girl surnamed 
 Europe, who has been in my service twenty-four 
 hours, and who fled the moment that she saw my 
 butler bring me this stamped paper. ' ' 
 
 Then like all old women, whose lives are passed 
 in gossiping about the hearth, encouraged by Mas- 
 sol, she dilated upon all sorts of wholly foreign sub- 
 jects; she told of her unhappiness with her first 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 69 
 
 husband, one of the three directors of the Treasury 
 of the Interior; she consulted the young lawyer on 
 the question of a possible suit against her son-in- 
 law, the Count de Gross-Narp, who was making her 
 daughter very unhappy, and as to whether the law 
 allowed him to dispose of her fortune. Massol, for 
 all his efforts, could not discover whether the sum- 
 mons had been served upon the mistress or the maid. 
 At the outset he had contented himself with glancing 
 at the judicial paper, samples of which are so fre- 
 quently to be seen ; since, for the sake of greater 
 haste, they are printed, and the clerks and examin- 
 ing judges have only to fill out the blanks left 
 vacant for the names and addresses of witnesses, 
 the hour of their appearance, etc. Asia questioned 
 Massol on the geography of the palace, which she 
 knew better than the lawyer himself, and con- 
 cluded by asking of him at what time M. Camusot 
 was expected. 
 
 "As a general thing, examining judges began their 
 interrogation toward ten o'clock." 
 
 "It is a quarter before ten," said she, looking at 
 a charming little watch, a masterpiece of the jew- 
 eler's art, which made Massol think, "Where the 
 devil will fortune perch at last!" 
 
 At this moment Asia had reached that dark hall 
 opening upon the courtyard of the Conciergerie, 
 where the ushers are in waiting. Perceiving the 
 wicket gate through the window, she exclaimed : 
 
 "What are those enormous walls.'" 
 
 "That is the Conciergerie." 
 
70 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Ah! that's the Conciergerie where our poor 
 queen — Oh! how I should like to see her cell!" 
 
 "It is impossible, your ladyship," replied the 
 lawyer, who had given his arm to the counterfeit 
 dowager; "you must have a permit, and that is 
 difficult to obtain. " 
 
 "I am told," continued she, "that Louis XVIII. 
 wrote the Latin inscription which is placed in Marie 
 Antoinette's cell with his own hand." 
 
 "Yes, your ladyship." 
 
 "I should like to know Latin In order to study the 
 words of that inscription," replied she. 
 
 "Do you think that M. Gamusot could give me 
 a permit?" 
 
 "He has nothing to do with that; but- he might 
 accompany you — ' ' 
 
 "But his examinations.'" said she. 
 
 "Oh!" replied Massol, "the prisoners can wait." 
 
 "Ah! they are prisoners, it is true," replied Asia, 
 naively. "But I know M. de Granville, your attor- 
 ney-general. " 
 
 This bit of information produced a magical effect 
 upon the ushers and upon the lawyer. 
 
 " Ah ! you know the attorney-general .'" said Mas- 
 sol, who was considering a request for the name and 
 address of the client whom chance had brought him. 
 
 "I see him often at the house of his friend, M. de 
 S6rizy. Madame de S6rizy is a relative of mine 
 through the Ronquerolles. " 
 
 "But if madame cares to visit the Conciergerie, " 
 said an usher, "she — " 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 7I 
 
 "Yes," said Massol, 
 
 And the ushers made way for the lawyer and the 
 baroness, who descended the stairs to the small 
 prison yard, from one end of which rises the stair- 
 way of the Sourici^re, a spot well known to Asia, 
 which forms, as we have seen, a post of observation 
 between the Sourici^re and the sixth chamber, 
 before which everybody is obliged to pass. 
 
 "Ask those men whether M. Camusot has come, " 
 said she, pointing toward several gendarmes play- 
 ing at cards. 
 
 "Yes, madame, he has just gone into the Souri- 
 ci^re. " 
 
 "The Sourici^re!" said she. "Which is that.? Oh! 
 how stupid I was not to go straight to the Count de 
 Granville. But I have no time. Please take me to 
 M. Camusot, so that I may speak with him before 
 he is engaged. 
 
 "Oh ! madame, you have plenty of time to speak 
 with M. Camusot," said Massol. "If you will send 
 him your card, he will spare you any disagreeable 
 delay in the ante-room with the witnesses. At the 
 palace ladies such as you do not go unheeded. You 
 have your cards.'" 
 
 At this juncture Asia and her barrister were stand- 
 ing exactly opposite the window of the guardhouse, 
 whence the gendarmes could watch any movement 
 of the wicket of the Conciergerie. The gendarmes, 
 trained in the respect due to the defenders of the 
 widow and the orphan, and knowing well the priv- 
 ileges of the gown, tolerated for a few moments the 
 
72 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 presence of a baroness escorted by a barrister. 
 Asia encouraged the young barrister |to tell her all 
 the dreadful things that a young barrister can say 
 about a wicket. She refused to believe that prisoners 
 were dressed for the scaffold behind the grating 
 which was pointed out to her ; but the brigadier of 
 gendarmes corroborated this statement 
 
 "How I should like to see that!" said she. 
 
 There she stayed chatting with the brigadier and 
 her barrister until the moment thatshe caught sight 
 of Jacques Collin, supported by two gendarmes and 
 preceded by M. Camusot's usher, coming out from 
 the wicket. 
 
 "Ah! There's the prison chaplain who has no 
 doubt been preparing some poor wretch — ," 
 
 "No, no, your ladyship," replied the gendarme; 
 "it's Apr^venu on his way to examination." 
 
 "What is the charge against him?" 
 
 "He's implicated in this poisoning case — " 
 
 "Oh! I should so like to see him!" 
 
 "You cannot remain here," said the brigadier, 
 "for he is in solitary confinement and he i^ coming 
 directly across this guard room. This door, madame, 
 opens upon the stairway. — " 
 
 "Thanks, sir," said the baroness, as she turned 
 toward the door and sprang toward the stairway, 
 where she cried out: — "Why, where am I?" 
 
 Her cry reached the ears of Jacques Collin, whom 
 she had purposed to prepare thus for her appearance. 
 The brigadier dashed after the baroness, seized her 
 by the waist, and bore her, like a feather, to the midst 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 73 
 
 of the five gendarmes, who sprang to their feet like 
 a single man ; for in the guard house nothing is 
 unsuspected. It was an arbitrary measure, but it 
 was necessary. The barrister himself had uttered 
 two exclamations, "madame! madame!" in a tone 
 full of alarm, so great was his fear lest he should 
 compromise himself. 
 
 The Abbe Carlos Herrera sank almost senseless 
 upon a chair in the guard room. 
 
 "Poor man!" said the baroness. "Is he guilty?" 
 
 These words, although they were spoken in the 
 ear of the young barrister, were heard by everybody, 
 for in this dreadful guard room there reigned the 
 silence of death. Some few exceptional persons 
 obtain the occasional privilege of seeing notorious 
 criminals as they pass through the guard room or 
 the lobbies so that the usher and the gendarmes 
 charged with conducting the Abbe Carlos Herrera 
 paid no heed to Asia's presence. Besides, thanks 
 to the prompt action of the brigadier, who had seized 
 the baroness in order to prevent any possible com- 
 munication between the pr'evenu and the strangers, 
 the prisoner was still at a very safe distance. 
 
 "Let us proceed!" said Jacques Collin, making 
 an effort to rise. 
 
 At this instant the tiny ball fell from his sleeve, 
 and the spot where it dropped was noted by the 
 baroness, whose eyes, protected by her veil, were 
 left at liberty. The moist and greasy paper did 
 not roll ; for these small details, apparently unthought 
 of, had all been calculated by Jacques Collin in 
 
74 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 order to make the success of his stratagem complete. 
 When the prisoner had been led up the stairs, Asia 
 dropped her reticule quite naturally, and picked it up 
 slowly ; but as she stooped over she had picked up the 
 ball, which, from its color, absolutely like that of the 
 dust and mud of the wooden floor, was invisible. 
 
 "Ah!" said she, "that breaks my heart! — He 
 is dying." 
 
 "Or he seems so," replied the brigadier. 
 
 "Sir," said Asia to the lawyer, "show me the 
 way, at once, to M. Camusot; this very trial is my 
 reason for coming — and perhaps he will be glad to 
 have seen me before examining the poor priest." 
 
 The barrister and the baroness left the guard 
 room, with its greasy and smoke-stained walls ; but 
 when they had reached the top of the staircase, Asia 
 suddenly cried out: 
 
 ' ' My dog ? Oh, sir ; my poor dog !' ' and like a mad 
 woman she darted into the Salle des pas Perdus, 
 asking everybody for tidings of her dog. She reached 
 the Galerle Marchande and dashed toward a stair- 
 case, saying: 
 
 "There he is!" 
 
 This staircase was that which led to the Cour de 
 Harlay, and now that her comedy was played, Asia 
 rushed through the court, jumped into one of the 
 cabs which stood on the quai des Orfeveres, and 
 disappeared with the summons to appear directed 
 against Europe, whose real name was still unknown 
 to the police and to justice. 
 
 "Rue Neuve Saint Marc," she cried to the driver. 
 
Asia could count upon the inviolable discretion 
 of a certain dealer in old clothes, called Madame 
 Nourrisson, known likewise under the name of 
 Madame de Saint-Esteve, who had lent her not only 
 her personality but even her shop, where Nucingen 
 had haggled for the delivery of Esther. In this shop 
 Asia was completely at home, for she occupied a 
 room in Madame Nourrisson's dwelling. She paid 
 her fare and went up to her room, after nodding to 
 Madame Nourrisson hastily, to show her that there 
 was no time for words. 
 
 Once safe from all danger of detection, Asia began 
 to unfold the papers with the scrupulous care of 
 scholars unrolling palimpsests. After reading the 
 instructions, she judged it necessary to transcribe 
 upon note paper the lines destined for Lucien ; then 
 she went downstairs to the shop and talked with 
 Madame Nourrisson, while a little shop girl went 
 to the Boulevard des Italiens to secure a cab. Asia 
 then procured the addresses of the Duchess de 
 Maufrigneuse and of Madame de Serizy, with which 
 Madame Nourrisson was familiar through her rela- 
 tions with their chambermaids. 
 
 These diverse proceedings, these minute occupa- 
 tions employed more than two hours. Madame la 
 Duchess de Maufrigneuse, who lived in the upper 
 part of the Faubourg Saint Honore, kept Madame 
 <75) 
 
76 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 de Saint-EstSve waiting for a whole hour, although 
 the maid, after knocking at her mistress' door, had 
 sent in Madame de Saint-EstSve's card on which 
 Asia had written, " Come on most urgent business 
 regarding Lucien." 
 
 At the first glance which she cast at the duchess' 
 face, Asia understood that her visit was most inoppor- 
 tune ; thus she excused herself for having disturbed 
 her ladyship's repose, pleading in her defence the 
 imminent danger in which Lucien stood. — 
 
 "Who are you?" demanded the duchess, without 
 any expression of politeness, as she stared at Asia, 
 who might easily be taken for a baroness by Master 
 Massol in the Salle des pas Perdus, but who, as she 
 trod the carpet of the little parlor of the H6tel de 
 Cadignan, produced an effect not unlike a spot of 
 carriage grease upon a white satin gown. 
 
 "I am a tradeswoman, your ladyship, and I deal 
 in second-hand clothes ; for at such a juncture as 
 this people address themselves to women whose 
 business rests upon absolute discretion. I have 
 never betrayed a soul, and God knows how many 
 noble ladies have confided their diamonds to me for 
 a month and secured in return counterfeit ornaments 
 precisely like — " 
 
 "You have another name.'" said the duchess, 
 smiling at a reminiscence which this response called 
 to her mind. 
 
 "Yes, your ladyship, on great occasions I become 
 Madame de Saint-Est^ve, but in business my name 
 is Madame Nourrisson." 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS jj 
 
 "Good!" answered the duchess quickly, chang- 
 ing her tone. 
 
 "I am able," continued Asia, "to render great 
 services, for we keep husband's secrets as well as 
 those of wives. I have frequently done business 
 with M. de Marsay, whom your ladyship — ' ' 
 
 "Enough! enough!" exclaimed the duchess ; "let 
 us think about Lucien. " 
 
 "If your ladyship wishes to save him you must 
 be brave enough to lose no time in dressing ; besides, 
 your ladyship could not be handsomer than she is 
 at this moment On the word of an old woman, 
 you are pretty enough to eat! Don't have your 
 horses harnessed, madame, but get into my cab with 
 me. Come to Madame de Serizy, if you would avoid 
 greater misfortune than death of this cherub — " 
 
 "Go on, I follow," said the duchess after a 
 moment's hesitation ; " we two shall encourage Leon- 
 tine—" 
 
 In spite of the truly devilish activity of this Dorine 
 of prisons, the clock was striking two when Asia, 
 accompanied by the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, 
 entered the house of Madame de Serizy, who lived 
 in the rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin. But there, 
 thanks to the duchess, not an instant was lost. Both 
 women were immediately introduced into the pres- 
 ence of the countess, whom they discovered reclin- 
 ing upon a divan under a miniature chalet, in the 
 midst of a garden perfumed with the rarest flowers. 
 
 "It is well," said Asia, glancing about her, "we 
 cannot be overheard. ' ' 
 
78 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Ah! mydearest, lamdying. Diane, what have 
 you done?" cried the countess, springing forward 
 like a fawn and bursting into tears as she threw 
 her arms about the duchess' shoulders. 
 
 "Courage, Leontine, there are seasons when 
 women, like you and me, should not weep but act," 
 said the duchess, forcing the countess to sit down 
 beside her on the couch. 
 
 Asia studied the countess with that look peculiar 
 to women grown old in cunning, with which they 
 search another's soul, with the swiftness of a sur- 
 geon's knife probing a wound. The companion of 
 Jacques Collin 'could discern traces of the rarest 
 sentiment known to a worldly woman, true sorrow ! 
 That sorrow which ploughs upon both heart and 
 face furrows which cannot be effaced. There was 
 not a trace of coquetry in her attire. The countess 
 had seen forty-five summers; her loose gown of 
 printed muslin was rumpled and showed no mark of 
 care ! She was without stays ; her eyes encircled 
 by black rings, her stained cheeks bore witness of 
 bitter tears; her waist was bound by no girdle; the 
 embroidery of her petticoat was worn; her hair, 
 caught up beneath a lace cap untouched by comb 
 for twenty-four hours, was woven into a short light 
 braid, while a few curly wisps appeared in all their 
 bareness. Leontine had forgotten to put on her 
 false braids. 
 
 "You love for the first time in your life," said 
 Asia, sententiously. 
 
 Leontine noticed Asia, and made a startled gesture. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 79 
 
 "Who is that, dear Diane?" said she to the 
 Duchess de Maufrigneuse. 
 
 "Whom do you suppose that I would bring you 
 if she were not a woman devoted to Lucien and 
 ready to serve us?" 
 
 Asia had divined the truth. Madame de S^rizy, 
 who passed for one of the most fickle of worldly 
 women, had once felt for the Marquis d' Aiglemont an 
 attachment that had lasted for ten years. Since the 
 marquis' departure for the colonies, she had become 
 wildly in love with Lucien, and had torn him away 
 from the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, ignorant, as 
 was all Paris at that time, of Lucien's love for 
 Esther. In the best society, a single authentic 
 attachment hurts a woman's reputation more than 
 ten obscure intrigues; and two such attachments 
 wound her good name in full proportion. Never- 
 theless, as Madame de Serizy cared nothing for 
 what people say, her biographer might guarantee 
 her virtue with the slight exception of a blemish or 
 two. She was a blond of middle height, preserved 
 like blonds who are preserved, that is to say looking 
 scarcely thirty, slender without thinness, pale with 
 ash-colored hair ; her feet, hands and figure were 
 of an aristocratic delicacy. As a RonqueroUes she 
 was witty, and in consequence as displeasing to 
 women as she was attractive to men. Through her 
 vast fortune and through the distinguished positions 
 of her husband and of her brother, the Marquis de 
 RonqueroUes, she had always been sheltered from 
 the mortifications which would doubtless have 
 
8o SPLENDORS AND MJSERIES 
 
 overwhelmed another woman in her position. She 
 had one great merit: she was candid in regard to her 
 vices, and openly avowed her taste for the manners 
 of the Regency. This woman, now forty-two years 
 old, had hitherto only considered men as amusing 
 toys, though, strange to say, she had granted them 
 much, thinking that in love you have to submit, to 
 ultimately conquer, but at the mere sight of Lucien, 
 she was seized with love similar to Baron Nucingen's 
 for Esther. She had then loved, as Asia had just 
 told her, for the first time in her life. These trans- 
 positions of youth are more common than is sup- 
 posed among women in Paris in the highest circle 
 of society, and cause inexplicable falls of virtuous 
 women at the moment they reach the harbor of 
 forty years. The Duchess de Maufrigneuse was 
 the sole confidant of this terrible and consummate 
 passion, whose joys, from the infantine sensations 
 of first love to the indulgence of unbounded pleasure, 
 made Leontine mad and insatiate. 
 
 True love, as everybody knows, is pitiless. The 
 discovery of an Esther had been followed by one of 
 those angry ruptures in which woman's rage does 
 not shrink from murder; then came the stage of 
 cowardice to which sincere love surrenders with 
 sweet delight. Thus, for a month past the countess 
 would have given ten years of her life to see Lucien 
 but for a week. In a word, she had come to accept 
 the rivalry of Esther at the moment when, in this 
 paroxysm of tenderness, the news of her lover's 
 arrest had burst upon her like the trumpet call of 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 8 1 
 
 the last judgment The countess had been near to 
 death; her husband, fearing the revelations of deli- 
 rium had himself kept watch over her bedside ; and 
 for twenty-four hours she had been living with a 
 dagger at her heart In the heat of fever, she 
 cried aloud to her husband : 
 
 "Save Lucien; and henceforth 1 will live for you 
 alone. ' ' 
 
 "It's of no use to cry your eyes out, as her lady- 
 ship, the duchess, says, ' ' exclaimed the terrible Asia, 
 seizing the countess by the arm. "If you wish to 
 save him there's not an instant to lose. He is inno- 
 cent, I swear it on my mother's bones." 
 
 "Yes, yes, is he not innocent ?' ' cried the countess 
 looking kindly into Asia's hideous face. 
 
 "But," said Asia, continuing, "if M. Camusot 
 makes a had examination he can condemn Lucien by 
 a word ; and if you have the power to open the 
 doors of the Conciergerie and speak with him, go 
 this instant and give him this letter. — To-morrow 
 he shall be free, I swear it You must rescue him, 
 for it was you that drove him to his fate." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Yes, you ! You noble ladies never have a penny, 
 though you have your millions. The ragamuffins 
 who made love to me used to have their pockets 
 full of money. I liked to see them happy. It's 
 pleasant to be mother and mistress at once. You 
 let the men who love you starve like dogs, and 
 never trouble yourself to ask about them. Esther 
 had no fine words, but at the price of her body and 
 6 
 
82 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 her soul she gave the million which they demanded 
 of your Lucien, and that is what has driven him to 
 the place where he is." 
 
 "Poor girl ! Did she do that? I love her — ' ' said 
 Leontine. 
 
 "Ah! now — " said Asia with cold irony. 
 
 "She was very beautiful, but now, my angel, you 
 are far more beautiful than she; and Lucien's 
 marriage with Clotilde is broken past mending," 
 whispered the duchess to Leontine. 
 
 The effect of this reflection and calculation was 
 so strong that the countess ceased to suffer; she 
 passed her hand over her forehead ; she was young 
 again. 
 
 "Come, my pet; off with you, hurry!" said 
 Asia, who saw this metamorphosis and divined its 
 power. 
 
 "But," said Madame de Maufrigneuse, "first of 
 all we must prevent M. Camusot from examining 
 Lucien; we can write him a line and send it to the 
 palace by your valet, Leontine. ' ' 
 
 "Come into my room," said Madame de S^rizy. 
 
 Let us find out what was going on at the palace 
 while Lucien's protectresses were carrying out the 
 orders written by Jacques Collin. 
 
 The gendarmes carried the dying man in a chair 
 and placed him directly opposite the window of the 
 office of M. Camusot, who was sitting in an arm 
 chair before his desk. Coquart, pen in hand, bent 
 over a small table a few feet from the judge. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 83 
 
 The situation of the otificers of examining judges 
 is not a matter of indifference, and if it has not 
 been chosen with foresight, we must admit that 
 chance has treated justice like a sister. Like 
 painters, these magistrates need the pure and uni- 
 form light which comes from the north, for the faces 
 of their criminals are pictures which need the most 
 careful study. Thus almost all examining judges 
 place their desks in the position chosen by Camu- 
 sot ; so that their backs are turned toward the win- 
 dow while the faces of those whom they examine 
 are exposed to the full glare of the light. There is 
 not one of them who, after six months' practice, 
 neglects to assume a careless absent-minded expres- 
 sion whenever his spectacles are off his nose, so long 
 as the examination lasts. It was to a sudden change 
 of countenance, observed by this method and caused 
 by a question asked point-blank, that was owed the 
 discovery of a crime committed by Castaing at the 
 very moment when, after a long consultation with 
 the attorney-general, the judge was about to re- 
 lease this deep offender against society in default 
 of proof. This detail may explain to persons of 
 the smallest comprehension how animated, interes- 
 ting, curious, dramatic and terrible is the struggle 
 of a criminal examination, a struggle without wit- 
 nesses but always written down. God knows what 
 remains on paper of this frigid yet burning scene, 
 in which the eyes, the accent, a tremor of the face, 
 the slightest tinge of color rising at a thought, are 
 as perilous as they are among savages who scrutinize 
 
84 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 one another to discover secrets and to murder. 
 The written report is but the ashes of the confla- 
 gration. 
 
 "What is your real name?" demanded Camusot 
 of Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Don Carlos Herrera, canon of the royal chapter 
 of Toledo, secret envoy of his Majesty, Ferdinand 
 VII." 
 
 We must mention here that Jacques Collin was 
 speaking a vile jargon of Spanish and French, muti- 
 lating the latter to such a degree that his answers 
 were almost unintelligible, and had to be repeated 
 at the judge's request. The Germanisms of M. de 
 Nucingen have already been strewn too thickly 
 through this book to allow us to add other dialects 
 which are difficult to read, and delay the unravel- 
 ing of the plot 
 
 "You have papers which support your affirma- 
 tion .'' ' inquired the judge. 
 
 "Yes, your honor, a passport, a letter from his 
 Catholic Majesty authorizing my mission. — In short, 
 you can send at once to the Spanish Embassy a line 
 which I shall write in your presence ; my testi- 
 mony will be corroborated. Then, if you require 
 more proofs, I will write to his Eminence, the Grand 
 Almoner of France, and he will dispatch his private 
 secretary hither immediately." 
 
 "You still maintain that you are dying?" said 
 Camusot. "If you had really experienced the suffer- 
 ing of which you have complained you would 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 85 
 
 certainly have died before this," added the judge 
 ironically. 
 
 "You regulate the trial according to the courage 
 of an innocent man and to the strength of his con- 
 stitution !' ' answered the pr^enu with gentleness. 
 
 "Coquart, ring! Send for the doctor of the Con- 
 ciergerie and his assistant. — ^We shall be obliged 
 to remove your coat and proceed to the verification 
 of the mark upon your shoulder, ' ' continued Camu- 
 sot. 
 
 "I am in your honor's hands." 
 
 The prisoner asked if the judge would have the 
 goodness to explain to him what this mark was and 
 why they sought for it upon his shoulder. The 
 judge was expecting this question. 
 
 "You are suspected of being Jacques Collin, an 
 escaped convict, whose audacity recoils before noth- 
 ing, not even sacrilege! — " said the judge suddenly, 
 darting his glance into the prisoner's eyes. Jacques 
 CoUin did not tremble, his color did not change; he 
 sat quite calm, and his face assumed an expression 
 of ingenuous curiosity as he stared at Camusot 
 
 "I, a convict, your honor? May the order to 
 which I belong, and may God pardon you for such 
 an error ! Tell me ever5^hing that I must do to 
 prevent you from persisting in so serious an insult 
 to the rights of man, to the Church, and to the 
 King, my Master. ' ' 
 
 Without returning a direct answer, the judge 
 explained to the prisoner that if he had undergone 
 the branding inflicted by law upon the shoulders 
 
86 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 of criminals condemned to hard labor, a few blows 
 would make the letters immediately reappear. 
 
 "Ah! sir!" said Jacques Collin, "it would be 
 hard if my devotion to the royal cause were to be 
 the cause of my ruin." 
 
 "Explain yourself," said the judge; "that is the 
 reason why you are here. ' ' 
 
 "I will, your honor. I must have many a scar 
 on my back, for I have been fusilladed from behind 
 as a traitor to my country, because I was faithful 
 to my king, by the Constitutionals who left me for 
 dead." 
 
 "You have been shot by a file of soldiers and yet 
 you are alive!" said Camusot. 
 
 "I had some understanding with the soldiers, 
 who had received money from several pious per- 
 sons ; and thus they placed me so far away that the 
 bullets were almost spent when they struck me; the 
 soldiers aimed at my back. It is a fact to which 
 his Excellence, the Ambassador, can bear wit- 
 ness — ' ' 
 
 "This devilish man has an answer for everything. 
 So much the better," thought Camusot, who did 
 not appear more severe than was necessary to sat- 
 isfy the demands of justice and of the police. "How 
 is it that a man of your cloth," said the judge ad- 
 dressing the convict, "is found in the house of 
 Baron de Nucingen's mistress; — and of such a mis- 
 tress as she, a former prostitute." 
 
 "This is the reason why they found me in the 
 house of a courtesan, your honor," replied Jacques 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 8? 
 
 Collin. "But before telling you my motive in 
 going there I ought to observe that at the instant 
 that I stepped upon the staircase I was seized by 
 the sudden attack of my illness; thus I did not 
 even have time to speak to the v/oman. I had had 
 information of Mademoiselle Esther's intended sui- 
 cide and since this concerned the interests of young 
 Lucien de Rubempre, for whom 1 have a peculiar 
 affection, the motives of which are sacred, I was 
 going to attempt to lead the poor creature from the 
 path down which despair was hurrying jher; I 
 wished to tell her that Lucien was certain to fail in 
 his last attempt to win Mademoiselle Clotilde; and 
 by telling her that she was the heiress of seven 
 millions, I hoped to give her courage to live. I am 
 certain, sir, that I have been the victim of the 
 secrets confided to me. By the manner in which I 
 was struck down, I believe that I had been poisoned 
 that very morning, but the strength of my constitu- 
 tion has saved me. I know that for some time past 
 an agent of the political police has been following 
 me, seeking to entrap me in some wicked snare. — 
 If, upon my request after my arrest, you had sum- 
 moned a physician you would have had proof of what 
 1 tell you now in regard to the state of my health. 
 Believe me, sir, that persons in high authority 
 have extraordinary interests in confounding me with 
 some rascal in order to find a legal method of getting 
 rid of me. To serve kings is not wholly gain; they 
 have their littlenesses. The Church alone is perfect." 
 It is impossible to describe the play of Jacques 
 
88 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Collin's features as he spent, intentionally, ten 
 minutes in enunciating this tirade, phrase by 
 phrase ; the whole was so credible, above all the 
 allusion to Corentin, that the judge's conviction 
 was shaken. 
 
 "Can you confide to me the reasons of your affec- 
 tion for M. Lucien de Rubempre?" 
 
 "Cannot you guess? I am sixty years old, your 
 honor. — I implore you not to write it — it is — must 
 I tell — unavoidably ?' ' 
 
 "It is for your interest, and above all for the in- 
 terest of M. de Rubempr6 to tell ever3d:hing, ' ' an- 
 swered the judge. 
 
 "Then, it is — oh, my God! — He is my son!" 
 added the priest with an effort. 
 
 He fainted. 
 
 "Don't write that, Coquart," said Camusot in a 
 whisper. 
 
 Coquart rose to get a small vial of strong vinegar. 
 
 ' ' If this is Jacques Coll in, he is a truly great actor !' ' 
 thought Camusot 
 
 Coquart put the vinegar below the nostrils of the 
 ex-convict, while the judge looked on with all the 
 acute ness of a lynx and a magistrate. 
 
 "His wig must be taken off," said Camusot, 
 waiting until Jacques Collin should recover his 
 senses. 
 
 The old convict heard these words and shivered 
 with terror, for he well knew the base expression 
 which his countenance would assume. 
 
 "If you have not strength to remove your wig — 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 89 
 
 yes, Coquart, take it off," said the judge to his 
 secretary. 
 
 Jacques Collin bent his head toward the secre- 
 tary with admirable resignation; but once deprived 
 of its covering his head was horrible to see, its 
 real character was imprinted upon it. This spec- 
 table plunged Camusot once again into great uncer- 
 tainty. While he waited for the doctor and his 
 assistant he began to classify and examine all the 
 papers and objects which had been seized in Lu- 
 cien's dwelling. After the law had done its work 
 in the rue Saint Georges at Madame Esther's house, 
 it had descended upon the quai Malaquais to finish 
 its search. 
 
 "You have laid hands upon the letters of the 
 Countess de Serizy," said Carlos Herrera;"but I do 
 not know why you have almost all Lucien's papers, ' ' 
 added he, with a smile of withering irony directed 
 at the judge. 
 
 As Camusot perceived the smile, he understood 
 the meaning of the word almost ! 
 
 "Lucien de Rubempre, suspected of being your 
 accomplice, is under arrest," answered he, wishing 
 to see what effect this news would have upon the 
 prb)enue. 
 
 "You have done a great evil, for he is as inno- 
 cent as I," replied the pretended Spaniard without 
 showing the least emotion. 
 
 "We shall see. As yet we 'have not got beyond 
 the question of your identity," answered Camusot, 
 surprised by the prisoner's tranquillity. "If you 
 
90 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 are really Don Carlos Herrera, the proof of this 
 would at once alter the situation of Lucien Char- 
 don." 
 
 "Yes, she was Madame Chardon, Mademoiselle 
 de Rubempre!" murmured Carlos. "Ah, it was 
 one of the blackest sins of my life!" 
 
 He raised his eyes toward heaven, and by the 
 way in which his lips moved, beseemed to be utter- 
 ing a fervent prayer. 
 
 "But if you are Jacques Collin; if he has been 
 wilfully the accomplice of an escaped convict, the 
 partner of a sacrilege, all the crimes which the law 
 suspects become more than probable. ' ' 
 
 Herrera sat like a statue of bronze during the 
 judge's cleverly conceived speech, and for all answer 
 to the words: wilfully, escaped convict, he xdAsed his 
 hands with a gesture of noble sorrow. 
 
 "Monsieur I'Abbe," the judge continued, with 
 excessive politeness, "if you are Don Carlos Her- 
 rera, you will pardon [us for everjM:hing that we 
 are obliged to do in the interests of truth and jus- 
 tice—" 
 
 Jacques Collin discerned a trap by the mere tone 
 in which the judge pronounced the words Monsieur 
 I'AWe ; his face remained unchanged. Camusot ex- 
 pected a movement of joy which would have been 
 the first indication of the convict's character. The 
 visible sign of the unspeakable delight which the 
 criminal feels in deceiving his judge, but he found 
 this hero of crime resting upon the arms of the most 
 machiavelian dissimulation. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 91 
 
 "I am a diplomat, and I belong to an order whose 
 vows are very severe," replied Jacques Collin, 
 with apostolic gentleness; "I understand every- 
 thing and 1 am accustomed to suffering. I should 
 already have been free, had you discovered in my 
 room the hiding place in which my papers are; for 
 I see that you have taken only the most insignifi- 
 cant." 
 
 This was the finishing stroke for Camusot; 
 Jacques Collin had already counter-balanced, by 
 his ease and simplicity, every suspicion which 
 the appearence of his bared head had aroused. 
 
 "Where are these papers?" 
 
 "I will tell you, if you will have your messenger 
 accompanied by a secretary of legation from the 
 Spanish embassy, who will take them and make 
 answer to you of their contents; my own official 
 position is at stake, as well as diplomatic documents 
 and secrets which would compromise the late King 
 Louis XVIII. — Ah! your honor, it would be better 
 — but you are a magistrate ! — besides, the Ambassa- 
 dor to whom I appeal in this whole matter will un- 
 derstand." 
 
 At this moment the physician and his assist- 
 ant entered, after having been announced by the 
 usher. 
 
 "How do you do. Monsieur Lebrun," said Camu- 
 sot to the doctor; "I need your assistance in order 
 to ascertain the physicial condition of this prisoner. 
 He affirms that he has been poisoned, and that two 
 days ago he was at death's door; see whether there 
 
92 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 is danger in undressing iiim, and proceeding to verify 
 the mark." 
 
 Doctor Lebrun took Jacques Collin's hand, felt 
 his pulse, asked him to show his tongue, and looked 
 at him very intently. This inspection lasted ten 
 minutes. 
 
 "The prisoner," answered the doctor, "has 
 suffered much, but at this moment he enjoys great 
 strength." 
 
 "This artificial strength is due, monsieur, to the 
 nervous excitement resulting from my strange situa- 
 tion," replied Jacques Collin with the ecclesiastical 
 dignity of a bishop. — 
 
 "That may be," said M. Lebrun. 
 
 At a sign from the judge the prisoner was un- 
 dressed. His trousers were not removed, but he 
 was stripped even of his shirt; so that the company 
 could admire a hairy torso of cyclopean strength. 
 It was the Farnese Hercules of Naples without his 
 colossal exaggeration. 
 
 "For what purpose does nature destine men built 
 thus?" said the doctor to Camusot. 
 
 The usher returned with that species of ebony 
 mallet, which since time immemorial has been the 
 symbol of the operation we are about to describe, 
 and which is called a rod. With this implement 
 the usher struck several blows upon the spot where 
 the executioner had applied the fatal letters. Seven- 
 teen holes then reappeared, but so capriciously dis- 
 tributed that, in spite of the care with which the 
 back was examined, no trace of letters could be 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 93 
 
 found. The usher, alone, discerned the cross-bar 
 of a T, indicated by two holes forming the down 
 strokes at either end, while another hole marked 
 the base of the letter. 
 
 "Yet, this is very uncertain," said Camusot, as 
 he saw doubt painted upon the face of the physician. 
 
 Carlos demanded that the same operation should 
 be made upon the other shoulder and upon the 
 middle of his back. Some fifteen other scars ap- 
 peared, which were examined, at the Spaniard's re- 
 quest, and the doctor then stated that the back had 
 been so deeply furrowed by scars that it was im- 
 possible for the mark to be discernable, even if it 
 had been actually branded by the executioner. 
 
 At this moment an official messenger from the Pre- 
 fecture of Police entered, and presenting a sealed 
 note to M. Camusot, asked for an answer. When 
 fie had read the contents the magistrate whispered 
 to Coquart, but so low that not a syllable could be 
 overheard ; yet by a glance at Camusot, Jacques 
 Collin divined that some information concerning 
 him had been forwarded by the Prefect of Police. 
 
 That friend of Peyrade's is always on my heels, ' ' 
 thought Jacques Collin; "if I knew who he was 
 I would get rid of him as I did of Contenson. Why 
 cannot I see Asia once more ?' ' 
 
 After having signed the paper written by Coquart, 
 the judge put it into an envelope and handed it 
 to the messenger of the Bureau of Assignments. 
 
 The Bureau of Assignments is an indispensable 
 aid to justice. This bureau, presided over by a 
 
94 SPLENDORS AND MISERrES 
 
 commissioner of police ad hoc, is composed of ofificers 
 of the peace, who, by the aid of police commis- 
 sioners, serve warrants for appearance in court and 
 even arrest, upon persons suspected of complicity 
 in crimes or misdemeanors. These delegates of 
 Judicial authority save precious time to magistrates 
 conducting examinations. 
 
 Upon a sign from the judge, the prisoner was 
 dressed by M. Lebrun and by his assistant, who 
 withdrew together with the usher. Camusot sat 
 down at his desk and began to toy with his pen. 
 
 "You have an aunt," said Camusot suddenly to 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 "An aunt!" replied Don Carlos Herrera in aston- 
 ishment, "Why, your honor, 1 have no relations; I 
 am an unrecognized son of the late Duke d'Ossuna," 
 and to himself he added, "They burn!" in allusion 
 to the game of hide and seek, infantile image of the 
 terrible struggle between justice and the criminal. 
 
 "Bah!" said Camusot, "your aunt is still alive; 
 Mademoiselle Jacqueline Collin, whom you placed in 
 the service of Mademoiselle Esther, beneath the 
 fantastic name of Asia." 
 
 Jacques Collin shrugged his shoulders carelessly, 
 a gesture perfectly in harmony with the air of 
 curiosity with which he received the communica- 
 tion of the judge who examined him with cunning 
 scrutiny. 
 
 "Take care," continued the judge; "hear me 
 out. • ' 
 
 "1 am listening, your honor." 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 95 
 
 "Your aunt is a vender at the Temple; her busi- 
 ness is managed by a woman named Paccard, sister 
 of a convict surnamed La Romette, and formerly an 
 honest person. Justice is upon your aunt's traces, 
 and in a few hours we shall have decisive proof. 
 This woman is very devoted to you — ' ' 
 
 "Continue, sir," said Jacques Collin quietly, 
 in answer to the pause which Camusot made, "I 
 am listening." 
 
 "Your aunt, who is some five years your senior, 
 has been the mistress of Marat, of odious memory. 
 It is from this bloody source that the nucleus of her 
 present fortune has sprung. According to the in- 
 formation I possess she is exceedingly clever at 
 concealing the traces of her crimes, for at present 
 there are no proofs against her. After Marat's 
 death she seems to have belonged, according to 
 statements which I have at hand, to a chemist, con- 
 demned to death in the year XII. for the crime of 
 counterfeiting. She appeared as a witness at the 
 trial. It was during her intimacy with this man 
 that she seems to have acquired a knowledge of 
 poisons. From the year XII. to 1806, she dealt in 
 second-hand clothes. She underwent two years 
 imprisonment in 1812 and 1816, for having enticed 
 girls under age into vice. You were already con- 
 demned for the crime of forgery; you had left the 
 bank where your aunt had placed you as clerk, 
 thanks to the education which you had received, 
 and to the patronage which your aunt enjoyed from 
 persons for whose pleasures she furnished victims. 
 
96 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 All this, prisoner, seems to bear but small resem- 
 blance to the greatness of the dukes of Ossuna. Do 
 you persist in your denial ?" 
 
 Jacques Collin listened to M. Camusot as if he 
 were thinking of his happy childhood at the College 
 des Oratoriens, where he had graduated; medita- 
 tions which lent him an air of realistic astonish- 
 ment. In spite of his adroit interrogative diction, 
 Camusot did not arouse the slightest movement in 
 this placid countenance. 
 
 "If you have written correctly the explanation 
 which I gave you in the first place, you may read 
 it again," replied Jacques Collin, "I cannot alter it 
 — I had never before been to the courtesan's house ; 
 how should I know who was her cook ? I am an 
 absolute stranger to the person of whom you speak. ' ' 
 
 "In spite of your denial, we shall proceed to tes- 
 timony which may diminish your assurance." 
 
 "A man who has once been shot under sentence 
 of court martial is accustomed to everything, ' ' re- 
 plied Jacques Collin, gently. 
 
 Camusot again glanced over the pile of confiscated 
 papers while he waited for the return of the Chief 
 of the Secret Service. The expedition of the latter 
 was extraordinary, for the examination had begun 
 about half past ten and now, at half past eleven, 
 the usher appeared and announced in a low voice 
 that Bibi Lupin had arrived. 
 
 "Show him in!" replied M. Camusot 
 
Bibi Lupin entered the room. Instead of crying out 
 "It is he!" as the judge had expected, he stood still 
 in surprise. He no longer recognized the face of his 
 customer in a visage furrowed by the ravages of 
 small-pox. 
 
 This hesitation was not without its effect on the 
 judge. 
 
 "It is certainly his figure, his proportions," said 
 the agent — "Ah, it is you, Jacques Collin!" re- 
 plied he, examining the eyes, the shape of the fore- 
 head and the ears. "There are some things which 
 cannot be disguised. — It is he beyond question. 
 Monsieur Camusot — Jacques has the scar left by a 
 knife blade upon his left arm, make him take off 
 his coat; you shall see it." 
 
 Once again Jacques Collin was obliged to remove 
 his coat. Bibi Lupin drew back the sleeve of his 
 shirt and pointed to the scar he had named. 
 
 "It is a ball," replied Don Carlos Herrera; 
 "here are many other scars." 
 
 "Ah, that is his voice!" exclaimed Bibi Lupin. 
 
 "Your certainty," said the judge, "is simply an 
 assertion; it is not proof." 
 
 "I know it," answered Bibi Lupin humbly; "but 
 I shall find witnesses. Already one of the boarders 
 of the Maison Vauquer is here — " said he, looking 
 at Collin. 
 
 7 (97) 
 
98 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Collin's placid countenance was undisturbed. 
 
 "Admit the woman," said M. Camusot, with a 
 peremptoriness which showed his discontent in 
 spite of his apparent indifference. 
 
 This alteration was marked by Jacques Col- 
 lin, who, counting but little upon the sympathy 
 of the examining judge, sank into an appar- 
 ent unconsciousness, produced by the violent medi- 
 tation through which he sought to discover its 
 cause. The usher introduced Madame Poiret, 
 whose unexpected appearance sent a shudder 
 through the convict's frame, which was not re- 
 marked by the judge. Camusot seemed to have 
 decided on his course. 
 
 "What is your name?" demanded the judge, pro- 
 ceeding with the formalities which begin all depo- 
 sitions as well as examinations. 
 
 Madame Poiret, a little old woman, pale, wrinkled 
 as a sweetbread, and dressed in a gown of coarse 
 blue silk, declared that her name was Christine- 
 Michelle Michonneau, that she was the wife of M. 
 Poiret, that she was fifty-one years old, had been 
 born in Paris, dwelt in the rue des Poules, at the 
 corner of the rue des Postes, and that for a living 
 she let furnished apartments. 
 
 "In 1818 and 1819, Madame," said the judge, 
 "you lived in a cheap boarding house kept by a 
 certain Madame Vauquer?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; it was there that I made the acquaint- 
 ance of M. Poiret, a retired clerk who has since be- 
 come my husband, and at whose bedside I have 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 99 
 
 been watching for the past year. — Poor man — he is 
 very sick, and so I must not be long away from 
 home. ' ' 
 
 "At that time there was in this boarding house a 
 certain Vautrin .'' ' inquired the judge. 
 
 "Oh! sir, that's a long story! He was a dread- 
 ful convict." 
 
 "You aided in his arrest." 
 
 "It is false, sir." 
 
 "You are in the presence of the law, be careful !" 
 said M. Camusot severely. 
 
 Madame Pbiret was silent. 
 
 "Collect your thoughts," continued Camusot. 
 
 "Do you remember this man distinctly.' Would 
 you recognize him." 
 
 "I believe so." 
 
 "Is this the man?" said the judge. 
 
 Madame Poiret put on her spectacles and looked 
 at the Abb6 Carlos Herrera. 
 
 "It is his breadth of shoulders, his figure; but — 
 no — if, your honor," continued she, "I might be 
 allowed to see his chest bare, I could identify him 
 at once." (See Pore Gorist.) 
 
 In spite of the gravity of their functions neither 
 the judge nor the clerk could hold back their laugh- 
 ter; Jacques Collin shared their hilarity, but in 
 moderation. The prisoner had not put on his coat 
 which Bibi Lupin had just removed, and at. a sign 
 from the judge he opened his shirt complacently. 
 
 "That is his hair — but it has grown gray. Mon- 
 sieur Vautrin!" exclaimed Madame Poiret. 
 
100 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "What have you to say to this?" demanded the 
 judge of the prisoner. 
 
 "That she is mad!" replied Jacques Collin, 
 
 "Ah! Heaven! If I had a doubt, for he has no 
 longer the same face, that voice would suffice — he is 
 certainly the man who threatened me. Ah ! that 
 is his look!" 
 
 "The agent of the detective police and this 
 woman cannot have made any preconcerted agree- 
 ment to say the same thing about you," continued 
 the judge, addressing Jacques Collin, "for neither 
 of them had seen you. How do you explain 
 this.?" 
 
 "Justice has committed errors still greater than 
 that which might follow from the testimony of a 
 woman who recognizes a man by the hair of his 
 chest, and the suspicions of a detective," replied 
 Jacques Collin. "They find in me resemblances in 
 voice, look and figure, to a great criminal; that is 
 vague enough. As to a reminiscence which seems 
 to prove between this woman and my Sosie rela- 
 tions at which she does not blush — you laughed at 
 it yourself. Will you, sir, in the interests of truth 
 which I desire to establish for my own sake more 
 strongly than you can wish to do in behalf of jus- 
 tice, ask this woman ! — Foi — ' ' 
 
 "Poiret." 
 
 — "Poiret — pardon me — I am a Spaniard — 
 whether she recalls the persons who lived in this 
 — what do you call the house?" 
 
 "A pension bourgeoise," said Madame Poiret 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS lOI 
 
 "I don't know what that is," replied Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 "It's a house where you can lunch and dine by 
 season tickets." 
 
 "Right you are!" exclaimed Camusot, who made 
 a motion of the head favorable to Jacques Collin, 
 so forcibly was he struck by the apparent good faith 
 with which the prisoner furnished him with the 
 means of arriving at a result. "Try," he added , 
 "to recall the persons boarding at this house at the 
 time of Jacques Collin's arrest" 
 
 "There was M. de Rastignac, Doctor Bianchon, 
 M. Goriot, Mademoiselle Taillefer — " 
 
 "Well," said the judge, who had not ceased to 
 gaze at Jacques Collin, whose face remained impas- 
 sible, "Well, this M. Goriot?"— 
 
 "He is dead," said Madame Poiret. 
 
 "Sir," said Jacques Collin, "I have often met at 
 Lucien's rooms a M. de Rastignac, an intimate 
 friend, I believe, of Madame de Nucingen, and if he 
 is the person in question, he has never taken me 
 for the convict with whom they are trying to con- 
 found me — " 
 
 "M. de Rastignac and Dr. Bianchon," said the 
 judge, "both enjoy social positions such that their 
 testimony, if favorable for you, would suffice to set 
 you at liberty — Coquart, prepare their. summons. " 
 
 In a few minutes the formalities of Madame Poi- 
 ret's deposition were concluded; Coquart read 
 aloud to her the written report of ^the scene which 
 had taken place, and she affixed her signature ; but 
 
102 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the prisoner refused to sign his name, alleging his 
 ignorance of the forms of French law. 
 
 "This is quite enough for to-day," said M. 
 Camusot; "you must have need of food. I will 
 have you escorted to the Conciergerie, ' ' 
 
 "Alas! I suffer too much to eat," said Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 Camusot intended to make Jacques Collin's 
 return coincide with the hour in which prisoners 
 were allowed to walk in the yard ; but he wished 
 to obtain from the director of the Conciergerie an 
 answer to the order which he had given him that 
 morning, and he rang in order to dispatch his usher 
 to the prison. The usher appeared and said that 
 the janitress of the house on the quai Malaquais 
 had given him an important letter relative to M. 
 Lucien de Rubempre. The incident was so import- 
 tant that Camusot forgot his design. 
 
 "Admit her!" said he. 
 
 "Pardon; excuse me, sir," said the janitress, 
 bowing first to the judge and then to the Abbe Carlos. 
 "My husband and I have been so frightened by 
 the two visits which the law has made us that we 
 forgot a letter in our bureau addressed to M. Lucien, 
 for which we paid ten sous, although, it comes from 
 Paris, for it is very heavy. Will you make good 
 the postage ? Heaven knows when we shall see our 
 lodgers again!" 
 
 "This letter was given you by the postman?" 
 demanded Camusot, after having examined the 
 envelope with minute care. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 103 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Coquart, make out the report of this declara- 
 tion. You, my good woman, give your name and 
 occupation. ' ' 
 
 After having administered the oath to the jani- 
 tress, Camusot dictated the report. 
 
 During the accomplishment of these formalities, 
 he verified the postmark, which bore the dates of 
 the hours of collection and of delivery as well as 
 of the day of the month. This letter, delivered at 
 Lucien's lodgings on the day following Esther's 
 death, had no doubt been written and posted on the 
 day of the catastrophe. 
 
 Now the reader can judge of the stupefaction 
 which came over M. Camusot as he read this letter, 
 written and signed by the very woman whom jus- 
 tice believed to be the victim of a crime : 
 
 "ESTHER TO LUCIEN. 
 
 "MONDAY, May 13, 1830. 
 
 "(My last day at ten o'clock in the morning.) 
 
 "My Lucien: — I have not an hour to live. At 
 eleven o'clock I shall be dead, and I shall die with- 
 out sorrow. I have paid fifty thousand francs for a 
 pretty little black gooseberry, which kills with the 
 swiftness of lightning. Thus, dear heart, you may 
 say, 'My little Esther did not suffer.' Yes, I shall 
 have suffered only in writing you these pages. 
 
104 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "The brute that has bought me so dearly, know- 
 ing that the day on which I should belong to him 
 should have no morrow for me, Nucingen, has just 
 gone away drunk as a drunken bear. For the first 
 and last time in my life I have been able to con- 
 trast my former trade, as a courtesan, with a life of 
 honest love, to rate the tenderness which expands 
 into the infinite higher than the horror of duty which 
 had rather die than submit to one kiss. I need this 
 disgust in order to find death sweet I have taken 
 a bath ; I wished to summon the confessor from the 
 convent where I was baptized, in order to confess and 
 thus to cleanse my soul. But this would have been to 
 profane a sacrament, and besides I feel that I am 
 washed in the waters of sincere repentance. God 
 will work His will upon me. 
 
 "Enough of these complaints ; 1 wish to be yours, 
 your Esther, until the last moment, and not to dis- 
 tress your mind with thoughts of my death, of the 
 future, and of the good God who would not be good 
 were He to torture me in another life when I have 
 tasted such sorrow in this. 
 
 "1 have before me your lovely miniature painted 
 by Madame de Mirbel. This ivory leaf is my con- 
 solation for your absence ; I look at it with mad 
 delight as I write you my last thoughts and describe 
 to you the last beats of my heart. I will send you 
 the miniature in this letter, for I do not wish it to 
 be stolen or sold. The mere thought that my sole 
 delight may be placed in some shop-window among 
 ladies and officers of the Empire, or Chinese 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS lOJ 
 
 oddities, makes me feel death already upon me. De- 
 stroy this picture, my darling; do not give it away 
 — unless this present can buy you the heart of that 
 petticoated walking lath, Clotilde de Grandlieu, 
 whose angular bones are enough to give you a 
 nightmare. Yes, I consent to that; I should still be 
 of some use to you as I was while I was alive. Ah ! 
 if it were to give you pleasure, or if it were but 
 to make you laugh, 1 would stand before a brazier 
 with an apple in my mouth to cook it for you ! My 
 death will be useful to you ; I should have disturbed 
 the peace of your household. Oh! that Clotilde; I 
 do not understand her ! To have it in her power 
 to be your wife, to bear your name, to leave you 
 neither night nor day, to be yours, and yet to stand 
 on ceremony; a woman must belong to the Fau- 
 bourg Saint Germain to do that — and not have ten 
 pounds of flesh upon her bones 1 — 
 
 "Poor Lucien, vainly ambitious boy, 1 dream of 
 your future 1 Go your way. You will more than 
 once regret your poor faithful dog, the devoted 
 woman who stole for you, who would gladly have 
 been dragged before a Court of Assizes were it to 
 insure your happiness whose sole occupation was to 
 dream of your present pleasures, and to invent fresh 
 delights, who loved you with her hair, her feet, her 
 ears, in a word your plaything; whose every 
 glance was a benediction on you ; who for six years 
 thought only of you, who was so completely your 
 creature that 1 have never been but an emanation of 
 your soul as light is of the sun. But, without 
 
Io6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 money and honor, alas ! I cannot become your wife 
 — I have always provided for your future by giving 
 you all that I possess. Come the instant you re- 
 ceive this letter and take that which is under my 
 pillow, for I distrust the servants of the house. 
 
 "I wish to be beautiful in death. I shall undress, 
 I shall lie down in my bed, I shall pose. Then I 
 shall press the gooseberry against my palate and I 
 shall not be disfigured by convulsions nor any ridicu- 
 lous posture. 
 
 "I know that Madame de Serizy has quarreled 
 with you because of me ; but you can plainly see, 
 my darling, that when she learns that I am dead, 
 she will pardon ; you must be attentive to her and 
 she will arrange a noble marriage for you, if the 
 Grandlieu persist in their refusal. 
 
 "My sweetheart, I do not wish you to lament 
 long over my death. First, I must tell you that the 
 hour of eleven on Monday the thirteenth of May is 
 but the termination of a long illness which began 
 on the day when, upon the terrace of Saint Ger- 
 main, you cast me back into my old life. The 
 soul has its illness as well as the body, but unlike 
 the body, it cannot endure suffering blindly. The 
 body does not support the soul as the soul supports 
 the body, and the soul has strong medicine in the 
 thought of recourse to the sempstress' bushel of 
 charcoal. You gave me life, the day before yester- 
 day, by saying that if Clotilde were to refuse you, 
 you would marry me. This would have been a 
 great misfortune for both of us, I should have died still 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 107 
 
 more, so to speak, for some deaths are more bitter 
 than others. The world would never have accepted 
 us. 
 
 "For two months I have been meditating upon 
 many things. A poor girl is in the mire as I was 
 before my entry into the convent; men find her 
 fair, they use her for their pleasures, without con- 
 sideration; they come for her in a carriage and send 
 her away afoot; if they do not spit in her face it is 
 because her beauty protects her from this outrage : 
 morally, they commit a greater sin. Well, if this 
 girl inherits five or six millions, she will be sought 
 by princes, men will bow to her with respect when 
 she passes in her carriage — she can make her choice 
 among the most ancient escutcheons of France and 
 of Navarre. This world, which would have ex- 
 claimed "raca," had it seen two beautiful creatures 
 united and happy, has often uncapped itself before 
 Madame de Stael, in spite of the romances of her 
 life, simply because she had an income of two 
 hundred thousand francs. The world, which bows 
 before money or glory, will not bow before happiness 
 or virtue, for I should have done good — Ah ! how 
 many tears I should have dried ! — as many, I sup- 
 pose, as I have shed already. Yes, it would have 
 been my wish to live only for you and charity. 
 
 "These are the thoughts which make death sweet 
 for me. So do not weep for me, my love ! Say 
 often to yourself: 'There have been two loving 
 women, two beautiful creatures, who have both 
 died for me without regret, for they worshipped 
 
I08 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 me!' Call up within your heart a picture of 
 Coralie, and one of Esther, and go your way. Do 
 you remember the day that you pointed out to me a 
 shriveled, old woman, in a dull green cape that hung 
 down over a gray gown, padded and stained with 
 black grease spots, the mistress of a poet before 
 the Revolution? The sun scarcely warmed her, 
 although she was sitting in the gardens of the Tuil- 
 eries, anxiously watching a wretched spaniel, the 
 most bedraggled of spaniels. You know she had 
 owned lackeys and carriages and a hotel ! I said 
 to you, 'Better die at thirty;' well, that day you 
 found me thoughtful, and caressed me to distract 
 my mind ; and between two kisses I spoke to you 
 again, and said, 'Every day pretty women go out 
 from the play before the curtain falls!' — I have not 
 wished to see the last act, that is all. — 
 
 "You must find me garrulous, but it is my last 
 chance. I write as I used to .talk, and I like to talk 
 gaily to you. Weeping sempstresses have always 
 disgusted me. You know that once already I have 
 known how to die properly, upon my return from 
 that fatal ball of the Opera, where they told you 
 what my past had been. 
 
 "Oh no, my dearest; never give away this por- 
 trait ! If you knew the floods of love which I have 
 buried in your eyes as I have been gazing at them 
 during a pause of drunken pleasure, you would 
 think, as you received the love which I have tried 
 to incrust upon this ivory, that the soul of your 
 beloved darling was there. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 109 
 
 "Dead and asking alms; there is something comic 
 in the notion ! I must learn to lie quietly in my 
 grave. 
 
 "You can imagine how heroic my death would 
 seem to simpletons if they knew that last night 
 Nucingen offered me two millions if I would consent 
 to love him as I have loved you. He will be neatly 
 tricked when he finds out that I kept my word and 
 died of him. 
 
 "I have tried everything to continue to breathe 
 the air which you breathe. I said to the fat rob- 
 ber: 'Do you wish to be loved as you desire.' I 
 will even promise never to see Lucien again.' 
 
 'What must I do?' he demanded. — 'Give me two 
 millions for him?' No! If you had seen his 
 grimace. I should have laughed if it all had not 
 been so tragic. 'Spare yourself a refusal !' 1 said. 
 'I see, you care more for two millions than for me: 
 — A woman is always pleased to know what she is 
 worth,' I added, turning my back upon him. 
 
 "In a few hours the old rascal will know that I 
 was not joking. 
 
 "Who will be able to part your hair like me? 
 Bah ! I do not wish to think of life; I have but five 
 minutes more, I give them to God ; do not be jeal- 
 ous, my beloved angel, I wish to speak to Him of 
 you, to ask of Him your happiness as the price of 
 my death, and of my punishment in another 
 world. I hate to go to hell ; I should have liked 
 well to see the angels and learn whether they were 
 like you. 
 
no SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Adieu, my darling, adieu. I bless you for all 
 my sorrow. Even in the grave I shall be, 
 
 "YOUR ESTHER. 
 
 "Eleven o'clock is striking. I have made my 
 last prayer. I am about to lie down and die. Once 
 more, good-bye ! I wish that the warmth of my 
 hand might leave my soul upon your picture as I 
 imprint upon it one last kiss ; and I wish once more 
 to call you my sweet darling, although you are the 
 cause of the death of 
 
 "Your Esther." 
 
 A touch of jealousy pricked the judge's heart as 
 he finished reading the only letter of a suicide 
 which he had ever seen written in a spirit of 
 gaiety ; though it was but a feverish gaiety, the 
 last effort of blind adoration. 
 
 "What is it that makes a man loved thus.-"' 
 thought he, repeating the question of every man 
 who has not the gift of pleasing women. — "If it is 
 possible for you not only to prove that you are not 
 Jacques Collin, the ex-convict, but also that you 
 are actually Don Carlos Herrera, canon of Toledo, 
 and secret envoy of his Majesty, Ferdinand VII.," 
 continued the judge, addressing Jacques Collin, 
 "you shall be set at liberty, for the impartiality 
 which my office demands compels me to tell you 
 that I have this moment received a letter written 
 by Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck, in which she 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS III 
 
 avows the intention of suicide, and intimates sus- 
 picions concerning lier servants, which appear to 
 designate them as the authors of the robbery of 
 the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs. ' ' 
 
 As he spoke M. Camusot compared the handwri- 
 ting of the letter with that of the will, and it was 
 clear to him that letter and testament had been 
 written by the same hand. 
 
 "Your honor was too ready to believe in a mur- 
 der; do not believe too hastily in a theft." 
 
 "Ah!" said Camusot, casting a magisterial look 
 upon the prisoner. 
 
 "Do not think that I compromise myself in say- 
 ing that this sum can be recovered," continued 
 Jacques Collin, showing the judge that he under- 
 stood his suspicion. "This poor woman was much 
 beloved by her servants ; and if I were free I would 
 undertake a search for the money which now be- 
 longs to the being I love most in the world, to 
 Lucien. Will you be so kind as to allow me to read 
 this letter? It will not take long. It is the proof 
 of the innocence of my dear child — you cannot fear 
 that I would destroy it, nor speak of it, for I am in 
 solitary confinement." 
 
 "In solitary confinement!" cried the magistrate, 
 "you shall be so no longer. It is I who beg you to 
 establish your identity as soon as possible; send 
 word to your ambassador if you wish — " 
 
 Camusot handed the letter to Jacques Collin, glad 
 to be rescued from his quandary and to be able to 
 satisfy at once the attorney-general, the Duchess 
 
112 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 de Maufrigneuse and Madame de Serizy. None the 
 less coldly and curiously, however, did he examine 
 the face of his prisoner as the latter read the cour- 
 tesan's letter ; and in spite of the sincerity of the 
 emotions painted upon it, he said to himself: 
 
 "And yet it is the face of a criminal !" 
 
 "See how he is loved," said Jacques Collin, re- 
 turning the letter, as he turned toward the judge, 
 his face bathed in tears. 
 
 "If you knew him!" continued he, "he is so 
 young, so fresh, so gloriously handsome; a child, a 
 poet. — You cannot see him without an irresistible 
 desire of sacrificing yourself to him and of satisfying 
 his least desires. Dear Lucien is so fascinating 
 when he cares to charm !" 
 
 "Now," said the magistrate, making one more 
 effort to discover the truth, "you cannot be 
 Jacques Collin." 
 
 "No, sir," replied the convict 
 
 Jacques Collin became more than ever Don 
 Carlos Herrera. In his desire to complete his work 
 he advanced toward the judge, led him into the 
 embrasure of the window, and assuming the man- 
 ners of a prince of the Church, he said in a con- 
 fidential tone. 
 
 "I love this child so well, sir, that if it were 
 necessary for me to become the criminal for whom 
 you take me in order to spare myself a quarrel with 
 this idol of my heart, I would be my own accuser," 
 said he in a low voice. "I would imitate the poor 
 girl who has killed herself for his advantage. Thus, 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 113 
 
 sir, I beg of you to grant me a favor ; it is to set 
 Lucien at liberty at once." 
 
 "My duty does not allow it," said Camusot 
 kindly: "but if heaven can be accomodating, justice 
 can also be oolite, and if you can give me good 
 reasons — Speak freely, this shall not be written." 
 
 "Then, " continued Jacques Collin, deceived by 
 Camusot's kindliness" 1 know all that this poor child 
 suffers at this moment; he is capable of attempt- 
 ing his life when he finds himself in prison — " 
 
 "Oh! as to that — " said Camusot, shrugging his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You do not know whom you oblige in obliging 
 me," added Jacques Collin, who wished to pull 
 other strings. "You are doing a service to an order 
 more powerful than Countess de Serizy or Duchess 
 de Maufrigneuse, who will scarcely pardon you for 
 having read their letters in your office," said he, 
 pointing toward two perfumed packets. "My order 
 is not forgetful. " — 
 
 "Sir," said Camusot, "enough! Find other rea- 
 sons to offer me. 1 owe my duty more to the pris- 
 oner than to the vindictiveness of the public." 
 
 "Ah! believe me, I know Lucien; his is a 
 woman's soul, a poet's, a southerner's, without con- 
 sistency or will," continued Jacques Collin, who 
 thought the day surely gained. "You are certain 
 of the innocence of this young man ; do not torture 
 him; do not examine' him; give him this letter, tell 
 him that he is Esther's heir, and set him free. If 
 you act otherwise, you will drive him to despair ; 
 8 
 
114 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 while if you release him purely and simply, I will 
 explain to you — keep me in solitary confinement — ^to- 
 morrow — to-night, everything that may appear to 
 you mysterious about this trial, and the reasons for 
 the malignant pursuit which follows me ; but I will 
 stake my life upon it, my head has been in danger 
 for five years past — Lucien free, rich, and married 
 to Clotilde de Grandlieu, my task here on earth is 
 accomplished, I shall no longer defend my life. — My 
 persecutor is a spy of your late king's." 
 
 "Ah! Corentin!" 
 
 "Ah! His name is Corentin? I thank you. 
 Well, sir, will you promise to grant my request?" 
 
 "A judge cannot and ought not to promise any- 
 thing. Coquart, tell the usher and gendarmes to 
 lead the prisoner back to the Conciergerie. I shall 
 give orders so that you may spend to-night in a 
 pistole," added he kindly, making a slight inclina- 
 tion of his head toward the prisoner. 
 
 Struck with the demand that Jacques Collin had 
 just addressed to him, and recalling the prisoner's 
 urgent appeal to be examined first, pleading the crit- 
 ical state of his health, Camusot resumed all his 
 distrust. As he listened to these indeterminate 
 suspicions, he saw the man who had pretended to 
 be at the point of death walking, striding like a 
 Hercules, without a trace of those contortions which 
 he had feigned so admirably on his arrival. 
 
 "Sir.?—" 
 
 Jacques Collin turned. 
 
 "My clerk, in spite of your refusal to sign, is 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 115 
 
 going to read you the report of your examina- 
 tion." 
 
 The prisoner was in perfect health ; the move- 
 ment with which he took his seat near the cleric 
 was another gleam of light for the judge, 
 
 "You have been promptly cured?" said Camusot. 
 
 "lam caught," thought Jacques Collin. Then 
 he answered aloud. 
 
 "Joy, sir, is the only panacea that exists— this 
 letter, the proof of innocence which I never doubted, 
 that is the great remedy." 
 
 The judge followed his prisoner with a thoughtful 
 look as the usher and gendarmes surrounded him ; 
 then he started as though from deep sleep, and 
 tossed Esther's letter upon the clerk's desk. 
 
 "Coquart, copy that letter !" 
 
 If it is in man's nature to mistrust a request, 
 when the favor demanded of him is against his 
 interests or his duty, or often, even, when it is a 
 matter of indifference, this feeling is the law of an 
 examining judge. The more plainly the prisoner, 
 whose fate still hung in the balance, could discern 
 the clouds that would rise over the horizon in case 
 Lucien were examined, the more necessary this ex- 
 amination appeared to Camusot. 
 
 This formality was demanded by neither Code 
 nor precedent, unless it were required by the ques- 
 tion of Don Carlos' identity. Every career has its 
 own peculiar conscience. Had he lacked curiosity 
 Camusot would have questioned Lucien as he had 
 questioned Jacques Collin, from his sense of 
 
Il6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 magisterial honor, making use of the artifices which 
 the most upright magistrates employ. The favor, 
 which it lay in his power to confer, his own 
 advancement, everything in Camusot's mind was 
 subordinate to the overpowering desire of learning 
 the truth and of unearthing it himself, even though 
 he were never to divulge the secret He drummed 
 upon the window-panes and gave himself up to the 
 flood tide of his conjectures, for at times such as 
 this, thought is like a river flowing through a thou- 
 sand different regions. Lovers of the truth, magis- 
 trates are like jealous women : they give way to a 
 thousand suppositions and, armed with the dagger 
 of suspicion, they search their victims' hearts like 
 the sacrificial priest of ancient times ; then they halt 
 not at the true, but at the probable, and at last they 
 obtain a distant vision of the truth. A woman 
 questions the man she loves as a judge interrogates 
 a criminal. When their minds are in this state a 
 flash of light, a word, an inflection of the voice, 
 the hesitation of an instant suflBceto discover buried 
 truth, treason and crime. 
 
 "The manner in which he has painted his devo- 
 tion to his son — if he be his son — inclines me to be- 
 lieve that he was in Esther's house to watch over 
 the harvest; and not suspecting that the dead 
 woman's pillow hid a will, he has taken for his 
 son's sake the seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs, provisionally! This is the reason of his 
 promise to recover the money. M. de Rubempre 
 owes it to himself and to justice that he should 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 17 
 
 throw light upon the civil status of his father. And 
 to think of his promising me the protection of his 
 order — his order! — if I do not examine Lucien — " 
 
 His meditation broke off at this point. 
 
 As we have seen, an examining magistrate directs 
 an examination according to his pleasure. He is 
 free to use craft or to lack it. An examination 
 is nothing, or it is everything. There lies the 
 importance of influence. Camusot rang; the 
 usher returned. The judge ordered him to 
 bring M. Lucien de Rubempre, and bade him see 
 to it that the prisoner communicated with nobody 
 on the way. It was then two o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 "There is a secret," said the judge to himself, 
 "and this secret must be of the last importance. 
 The reasoning of my amphibian, who is neither 
 priest nor layman, convict nor Spaniard, but who 
 "fears lest some terrible word escape his pupil's lips 
 is this: 'The poet is weak, he is womanish, he is 
 not like me, who am a Hercules of diplomacy, 
 and you can easily tear our secret from him.' So 
 our young innocent shall tell us all." 
 
 He began to rap the table with his ivory-handled 
 knife while his clerk was busy copying Esther's let- 
 ter. How many idiosyncracies there are in the use 
 of our faculties ! Camusot, thinking every crime 
 possible, passed over the only one which the pris- 
 oner had committed — the forged will in Lucien's 
 favor. Let those who envy the position of a magis- 
 trate ponder well over his life passed in perpetual 
 
Il8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 suspicions, the tortures which weigh upon his 
 mind, for civil suits are not less tortuous than 
 criminal trials, and perhaps they will think that 
 the magistrate's harness is heavy as the priest's 
 and as thickly studded with inward-pointing 
 nails. Every profession has its hair-shirt and its 
 tomahawk. 
 
It was almost two o'clock when Lucien entered 
 M. Camusot's office. The prisoner was pale and 
 wasted, his eyes red and swollen, and his whole 
 frame so nerveless that the judge was enabled to 
 compare nature with art, and contrast the dying 
 man in real life with the dying actor upon the stage. 
 The passage from the Conciergerie to the judge's 
 office, made between two gendarmes, with an usher 
 going before, had brought Lucien to the pinnacle of 
 despair. It is in a poet's soul to prefer punishment 
 to judgment When the examiner saw this nature 
 so entirely bereft of the moral courage essential to 
 decision, the quality which had been displayed by 
 the other prisoner in such an extraordinary degree, 
 M. Camusot's compassion was aroused at the pros- 
 pect of this easy victory, yet rising scorn allowed 
 him to strike home and gave him in this encounter 
 that awful freedom of the will which characterizes 
 the marksman as he decides which puppet to strike 
 down. 
 
 "Compose your thoughts, Monsieur de Rubempre, 
 you are in the presence of a magistrate most eager 
 to repair the wrong which justice does involuntarily 
 in making an arrest, for the sake of prevention, 
 when the charge proved to be unfounded. I believe 
 that you are innocent; you shall be set at liberty 
 immediately. Here is the proof of your innocence; 
 ("9) 
 
I20 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 it is a letter kept by your janitress in your absence, 
 which she brought to me a minute ago. In the dis- 
 turbance caused by the descent of the police and 
 by the news of your arrest at Fontainebleau, the 
 woman had forgotten this letter, which comes from 
 Mademoiselle Esther Gobseck — read it!" 
 
 Lucien took the letter, read it, and burst into 
 tears. He sobbed so violently that he could not 
 utter a syllable. After a quarter of an hour, an 
 interval which scarcely allowed Lucien time to re- 
 cover, the clerk handed him a copy of the letter and 
 asked him to sign a certificate that this copy conforms 
 to the original, so that it may be produced when ne- 
 cessary at any time during this trial, and at the same 
 time offered to compare the two documents word for 
 word; Lucien, however, naturally relied upon 
 Coquart's word as to the accuracy of the copy. 
 
 "Sir," said the judge, in a most friendly tone, 
 "it is, nevertheless, difficult to give you your lib- 
 erty until we fulfill our formalities and ask you a 
 few questions. It is almost as a witness that I re- 
 quire of you to answer. I deem it well nigh useless 
 to remind a man like you that the oath to tell the 
 whole truth is not only an appeal to your conscience, 
 but also a necessity of your position, which for a 
 few hours is placed in a doubtful light. Whatever 
 it may be the truth cannot alter your position, but 
 a lie would send you to the Court of Assizes, and 
 oblige me to have you led back to the Concier- 
 gerie ; while by answering my questions frankly, 
 you will sleep to-night in your own bed "and your 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 121 
 
 reputation will be restored by this statement which 
 the newspapers will publish: 'M. de Rubempre 
 arrested yesterday at Fontainebleau, was released 
 immediately after a very brief examination.' " 
 
 This speech produced a lively impression upon 
 Lucien's mind, and, noticing the disposition of his 
 prisoner, the judge added : 
 
 "I repeat to you, you were suspected of complic- 
 ity in a murder by means of poison committed upon 
 the person of Mademoiselle Esther : there is proof 
 of her suicide, so much is satisfactorily answered;" 
 but a sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs, which depends upon the will, has been 
 abstracted, and you are the heir. In this, unhap- 
 pily, there is a crime. This crime has preceded 
 the discovery of the will. Justice, however, has 
 reasons for believing that a person who loves you 
 as well as this Mademoiselle Esther loved you, has 
 suffered this crime to be committed for the sake of 
 your interests — Do not interrupt me, ' ' said Camu- 
 sot, with a gesture imposing silence, as Lucien 
 attempted to speak; "I am not examining you yet. 
 I wish to make you understand how deeply your 
 honor is concerned in this question. Cast aside 
 the false, the wretched ideas of honor which bind 
 accomplices together, and tell the whole truth. ' ' 
 
 The reader must have already noticed the exces- 
 sive disproportion of weapons in this struggle be- 
 tween prisoner and examining judge. A denial 
 cleverly managed, it is true, is sufficient in itself, 
 and completes the criminal's defense; but it is, as 
 
122 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 it were, a panoply which crushes its wearer when 
 once the searching knife of examination discovers 
 an unprotected joint, since denial is powerless in 
 the face of certain evident facts, and the prisoner is 
 placed absolutely at the discretion of the judge. 
 Take, for example, the case of a partial criminal 
 like Lucien, saved from his first fall from virtue, 
 he might yet become a useful servant to his country ; 
 but yet he will perish in the toils of the exam- 
 ination. The judge writes out a very concise re- 
 port, a faithful analysis of questions and answers ; 
 but of his insidiously paternal speeches, and of his 
 captious remonstrances, such as Camusot employed 
 in this scene, there remains no trace. The judges 
 of the Superior Court and the juries see the results, 
 but do not know the means. Thus, according to 
 the judgments of several excellent minds, the trial 
 by jury, as it is in England, might with advantage 
 supersede the present method of examination. 
 
 France enjoyed this system for a brief time. 
 Under the Code of Brumaire, in the year IV., this 
 institution was known as the jury of accusation, to 
 distinguish it from the jury of judgment. If juries 
 of accusation should again be instituted, the final 
 decision would, of necessity, be referred to the royal 
 courts unassisted by juries of any kind. 
 
 "Now," said Camusot, after a pause "what is 
 your name ? — Monsieur Coquart, attention !' ' added 
 he to the clerk. 
 "Lucien Chardon de Rubempre." 
 
 "You were born — ?" 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 123 
 
 "In AugoulSme — " 
 
 Lucien gave the day, the month and the year. 
 
 "You have never had any patrimony?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 "Nevertheless, during your first sojourn in Paris 
 you have made expenditures that were very large 
 in proportion to your small fortune .'' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir; but at that time I had in Mademoiselle 
 Coralie a friend absolutely devoted to my welfare. 
 It has since been my misfortune to lose her. It was 
 the sorrow which her death caused me that brought 
 me back to my native place. ' ' 
 
 "Sir," said Camusot, "I commend your frank- 
 ness ; it shall not pass unnoticed. ' ' 
 
 As the reader perceives, Lucien was on the high 
 road to a general confession. 
 
 "You spent sums far larger still upon your return 
 from AugoulSme to Paris," continued Camusot; 
 "you lived as if you enjoyed an income of some 
 sixty thousand francs. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Who furnished you with this money?" 
 
 "My protector, the Abbe Carlos Herrera." 
 
 "Where did you meet him?" 
 
 "I met him upon the highway, just as I was 
 about to rid myself of life by suicide — " 
 
 "You have never heard him spoken of in your 
 family — by your mother ?' ' 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Your mother never told you that she had met 
 the Spaniard ?' ' 
 
124 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Can you recall the month and the year when 
 you met Mademoiselle Esther?" 
 
 "Toward the end of the year 1823, at a small 
 theatre on the boulevard. ' ' 
 
 "Did she, at first, cost you money?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Lately, with the intention of marrying Made- 
 moiselle de Grandlieu, you purchased what is left 
 of the Chateau de Rubempre, and you have an- 
 nexed to its estate lands to the amount of a million 
 francs; you told the Grandlieu family that your 
 sister and brother-in-law had recently come into 
 possession of a large inheritance, and that you 
 owed these sums to their liberality ? You did say 
 this, sir?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You are ignorant of the reasons which led to the 
 rupture of your marriage?" 
 
 "Entirely, sir." 
 
 "They are these: the Duke de Grandlieu sent one 
 of the most reliable attorneys in Paris to your 
 brother-in-law in order to obtain authentic informa- 
 tion. In Angoul^me, the lawyer learned from the 
 personal avowals of your sister and brother-in-law 
 not only that they had lent you little, yet further- 
 more that their inheritance was composed of real 
 estate, valuable, it is true, but that their capital 
 scarcely amounted to two hundred thousand francs. 
 — You must not think it strange that a family like 
 the Grandlieu recoils before a fortune of dishonest 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 125 
 
 origin. This, sir — is the pass to which a lie has 
 brought you." 
 
 Lucien was horror-stricken at this revelation, and 
 the little strength of mind which he had preserved 
 now deserted him. 
 
 "The police and justice Icnow everything they 
 care to Icnow," said Camusot; "remember that. 
 Now," continued he, thinking of the declaration of 
 fatherhood which Jacques Collin had made, "do you 
 know who this so-called Carlos Herrera is ?' ' 
 
 "Yes, sir; but I learned the secret too late." 
 
 "What do you mean .' too late } explain yourself. " 
 
 "He is not a priest, he is not a Spaniard, 
 he is — " 
 
 "An escaped convict?" said the judge quickly. 
 
 "Yes," replied Lucien. "When the fatal secret 
 was revealed to me I was his debtor ; I had supposed 
 myself bound to a respectable priest — ' ' 
 
 "Jacques Collin — •" said the judge, beginning a 
 sentence. 
 
 "Yes, Jacques Collin," repeated Lucien; "that 
 is his name." 
 
 "So far so good. Jacques Collin," continued 
 Camusot, "has just been recognized by a woman, 
 and if he still denies his identity it is, I believe, 
 for your interests. But I asked you whether you 
 knew who this man is in order to bring to light 
 another imposture of Jacques Collin." 
 
 Lucien felt a red-hot iron sear his very entrails 
 as he heard this ominous speech. 
 
 "Do you not know," continued the judge, "that 
 
126 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 he pretends to be your father in order to justify the 
 extraordinary affection which he feels for you?" 
 
 "He, my father! Oh! sir!— He said that!" 
 
 "Can you suspect from what source the sums 
 came which he gave to you ; for if I must believe 
 the letter which you hold in your hand, this poor 
 unfortunate Mademoiselle Esther would later have 
 done you the same service which Mademoiselle 
 Coralie has rendered you already; but you have 
 contrived, as you have just said, to live for several 
 years, and in luxury too, without receiving a 
 penny from her." 
 
 "It is of you I ask, sir" cried Lucien, "the 
 sources of a convict's money! — A Jacques Collin, 
 my father ! O, my poor mother !' ' 
 
 The young man burst into tears. 
 
 "Clerk, read aloud to the prisoner that portion of 
 the examination of the pretended Carlos Herrera in 
 which he states that he is the father of Lucien de 
 Rubempre." 
 
 The poet listened to this reading in silence, with 
 an expression painful to see. 
 
 "I am lost!" he cried. 
 
 "No man is lost upon the path of honor and of 
 truth," replied the judge. 
 
 "But you will send Jacques Collin before the 
 Court of Assizes?" asked Lucien. 
 
 "Certainly," replied Camusot, who wished to 
 make Lucien continue his confession. "Finish 
 what you were about to say. ' ' 
 
 But in spite of the efforts and the remonstrances 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 127 
 
 of the judge, Lucien returned no answer. Reflection 
 had come too late, as it ever must to men who are 
 the slaves of sensation. There lies the difference 
 between the poet and the man of action : one sur- 
 renders himself to the sentiment he wishes repro- 
 duced in lifelike images, he never judges until 
 afterward ; while the other feels and judges simulta- 
 neously. Lucien stood there, sad and pale ; he felt 
 himself at the foot of a precipice, down which the 
 judge had hurled him. His poet's nature had been 
 deceived by the kindliness of his examiner. He 
 had betrayed not his benefactor, but the accomplice 
 who had defended their position with all the cour- 
 age of a lion, and with craft that left no spot unpro- 
 tected. At the moment when Jacques Collin had 
 saved all by his audacity, Lucien, the clever Lucien, 
 had lost all by his stupidity and by his want of re- 
 flection. This infamous lie which had aroused his 
 indignation served as a screen for a yet more infa- 
 mous truth. Confounded by the subtlety, and 
 unnerved by the cruel ingenuity of the judge who 
 had struck his blows in quick succession, making 
 use of all the naked sins of Lucien's life, like 
 drag-hooks to rake his conscience, the poet stood 
 motionless as an animal whom the axe of the 
 slaughter-house has missed. He had entered the 
 office free and innocent; in an instant he had 
 proved himself guilty by his own avowals. Then, 
 last and most solemn mockery of all, the cold, calm 
 judge told Lucien that his revelations were the 
 fruit of a mistake. Camusot was intent upon the 
 
128 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 character of father which Jacques Collin had 
 assumed, while Lucien, simply fearing lest his alli- 
 ance with an escaped convict become public, had 
 imitated the famous error of the murderers of 
 Ibycus. 
 
 It is one of the glories of Royer-CoUard that he 
 proclaimed the perpetual triumph of natural obli- 
 gations over the obligations enforced by social 
 decrees, and that he upheld the cause of the prior- 
 ity of oaths by declaring, for example, that the law 
 of hospitality must bind, even though it annulled, the 
 virtue of the judicial oath. He confessed this the- 
 ory before the world at the bar of a French court; 
 he boldly lauded the conspirators, and showed that 
 it was human to obey the dictates of friendship 
 rather than tyrannical laws discharged from the 
 social arsenal and directed against such and such a 
 circumstance. Natural justice is governed by laws 
 which, though they have never been promulgated, 
 are yet more efficacious and better known than the 
 bolts forged by society. To his own hindrance 
 Lucien had disregarded the law of joint and separ- 
 ate liability, which commanded him to be silent 
 and to allow Jacques Collin to defend himself; far, 
 more than this, he had been the accuser of his 
 accomplice; for his own interest this man should 
 always have been to him Don Carlos Herrera. ' 
 
 M. Camusot enjoyed his triumph, he held two 
 culprits within his grasp ; with the right hand of 
 justice he had struck down one of fashion's favor- 
 ites and he had discovered the undiscoverable 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 29 
 
 Jacques Collin. He was destined to be proclaimed 
 one of the cleverest of examining judges. He did 
 not question his victim, but he studied this silence 
 born of consternation, he watched the drops of 
 sweat gather upon the poet's disturbed countenance, 
 grow big, and fall at length mingled with two 
 streams of tears. 
 
 "Why do you weep. Monsieur de Rubempre?" 
 You are, as I have told you, the heir of Made- 
 moiselle Esther, who has no other heirs either 
 collateral or direct. This property amounts to well- 
 nigh eight millions if the seven hundred and fifty 
 thousand stolen francs are recovered." 
 
 This was the last stroke for the culprit. Courage 
 but for ten minutes, as Jacques Collin had written 
 him in his note and Lucien would have attained 
 the goal of his desires! He might have settled 
 accounts with Jacques Collin, parted from him, 
 become rich, married Mademoiselle de Grandlieu. 
 Nothing can show more eloquently than this scene, 
 the power which the isolation and separation of 
 prisoners bestow upon the judge, or the priceless 
 value of a communication like that which Asia had 
 made to Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Ah! sir," answered Lucien, with all the bitter- 
 ness and irony of a man who stands upon the ped- 
 estal of misfortune which his own hands have built, 
 "how right men are to talk in your language about 
 'suffering an examination.' Between the physical 
 torture of the past and the moral torture of to-day 
 I should not hesitate to make my choice, I should 
 9 
 
130 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 choose the sufferings which the executioner, in 
 times of old, used to inflict — What more do you 
 wish of me?" he added proudly. 
 
 "In this place, sir," said the magistrate, answer- 
 ing the poet's pride with mingled scorn and haugh- 
 tiness, "I alone have the right to question." 
 
 "I had the right to give no reply," murmured 
 poor Lucien, whose intelligence had returned in all 
 its clearness. 
 
 "Clerk, read the prisoner his examination." 
 
 "1 have become a prisoner once more!" said 
 Lucien to himself. 
 
 While the secretary was reading this report 
 Lucien took a resolution which determined him to 
 use all courtesy toward the magistrate. When 
 the murmur of Coquart's voice ceased, the poet 
 shook like a man who has slept among sounds 
 to which his organs have grown accustomed, and 
 who at length is startled from his slumber by 
 silence. 
 
 "You must sign the report of your examination," 
 said the judge. 
 
 "And you set me at liberty.'" inquired Lucien, 
 ironical in his turn. 
 
 "Not yet," replied Camusot, "but to-morrow, 
 after you are brought face to face with Jacques 
 Collin, you will doubtless be given your liberty. 
 Now, justice must learn whether you are or are not 
 an accomplice of crimes which may have been com- 
 mitted by that person since his escape, which dates 
 from 1820. Nevertheless, your confinement is no 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 131 
 
 longer solitary. I shall write to the warden to 
 place you in the best chamber of the pistole." 
 
 "Shall I find writing materials there?" 
 
 "You will be provided with everything you re- 
 quire. I shall send orders to that effect by the 
 usher who is to conduct you thither." 
 
 Lucien signed the report mechanically, and wrote 
 his initials on several papers as Coquart directed 
 him, with the docility of a victim reconciled to his 
 fate. A single detail will tell more about his condi- 
 tion than the most minute description. At the 
 announcement of his confrontation with Jacques 
 Collin, the beads of sweat had dried upon his 
 face and his dry eyes glittered with marvelous 
 brightness. In a moment, swift as lightning, 
 he had become like Jacques Collin, a man of 
 bronze. 
 
 In persons whose character is like Lucien's, which 
 Jacques Collin had analyzed so accurately, these 
 sudden transitions from a condition of absolute de- 
 moralization to a condition as metallic as human 
 power can attain, are the most striking phenomena 
 in the life of ideas. The will returns like water in 
 a dry spring ; it permeates the machine set in motion 
 by the unknown essence of which it is made, and 
 then the lifeless body is made man and the man, ' 
 filled with strength, springs forward to the supreme 
 struggle of existence. 
 
 Lucien placed Esther's letter and the portrait 
 which she had sent him, next to his heart. Then 
 bowing disdainfully to M. Camusot, he walked 
 
132 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 down the corridor, between two gendarmes, with a 
 firm step, 
 
 "There goes an arrant scoundrel !" said the judge 
 to his cleri< out of revenge for the crushing scorn 
 which the poet had displayed toward him. "He 
 thought to save himself at the expense of his accom- 
 plice." 
 
 "Of the two," said Coquart timidly, "the con- 
 vict is the stronger — ' ' 
 
 "You are excused for the day, Coquart," said the 
 judge; "we have- done quite enough. Send away 
 the persons who are waiting, and warn them that 
 they must appear to-morrow. Ah ! You will go at 
 once to the attorney-general and find out whether 
 he is still in his office ; if he is, ask for a moment's 
 audience for me. Oh! — he'll be there," continued 
 the judge, as he glanced toward a wretched wooden 
 clock painted green and decorated with gilded fil- 
 lets, "it's a quarter after three." 
 
 These examinations, which can be read so rap- 
 idly, are written out in full, questions as well as 
 answers, and thus consume a great deal of time. 
 This is one of the causes of the delays of criminal 
 processes and the duration of preventive arrests. 
 For the poor, it means ruin ; for the rich, it is dis- 
 grace; since for them an immediate discharge 
 repairs, so far as anything can repair, the misfor- 
 tune of an arrest. This is why the two scenes we 
 have so faithfully reproduced filled all the time con- 
 sumed by Asia in deciphering her master's com- 
 mands, in carrying away a duchess from her boudoir, 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 133 
 
 and in inspiring Madame de Serizy with the energy- 
 she lacked. 
 
 At this moment Camusot, who was deliberating 
 . how he could best reap the rewards of his clever- 
 ness, took the two reports and read them again, and 
 decided to show them to the attorney-general and ask 
 his advice. While he was still lost in meditation, 
 his usher appeared to announce that the valet of 
 Madame la Countess de Serizy insisted upon speak- 
 ing with his worship. Upon a sign from Camusot 
 an elaborately dressed valet entered, gazed alter- 
 nately at the usher and the magistrate, and said : 
 
 "It is certainly M. Camusot whom I have the 
 honor — ?' ' 
 
 "Yes," replied judge and usher. 
 
 Camusot took a letter offered him by the servant 
 and read as follows : 
 
 "As you know already, my dear Camusot, the 
 interests of many persons demand that you do not 
 examine M. Lucien de Rubempre ; we bring you the 
 proofs of his innocence in order that he may be 
 given his liberty immediately. 
 
 " L. DE Serizy, d. de maufrigneuse. 
 "P. S.— Burn this letter." 
 
 Camusot felt the magnitude of the error he had 
 committed in spreading nets for Lucien, and his 
 first act was in obedience to the commands of the 
 two noble ladies : he lighted a candle and destroyed 
 
134 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the letter written by the duchess. The valet 
 bowed respectfully. 
 
 "Madame de Serizy is on her way hither then?" 
 inquired Camusot. 
 
 "Her horses were being harnessed," replied the 
 valet. 
 
 At this juncture Coquart arrived to tell M. 
 Camusot that the attorney-general was awaiting 
 him. 
 
 Weighed down beneath the weight of the error 
 which he had made to the detriment of his ambi- 
 tion and the advancement of justice, the judge, who 
 in seven years of practice had developed that fin- 
 ished art which belongs to every man that for 
 duty's sake has crossed swords with grisettes, 
 sought for weapons to defend himself against the 
 revenge of two powerful women. The candle in 
 whose flame he had burned the letter was still 
 lighted, he made use of it to seal the thirty notes 
 written by the Duchess de Maufrigneuse to Lucien 
 and the voluminous correspondence of Madame de 
 Serizy. Then he made his way to the office of the 
 attorney-general. 
 
The Palais de Justice is a confused mass of build- 
 ings piled one upon anotiier ; some full of grandeur, 
 and others so mean that the effect is injured by lack 
 of harmony. The Salle de pas Perdus is the most im- 
 posing of halls, but its bareness is most unsightly. 
 This vast cathedral of chicane chokes the royal court. 
 The Galerie Marchande leads to two great sewers. 
 In this gallery there is a staircase flanked by balus- 
 ters, and beneath it there is a large doorway with 
 two swinging doors. The staircase leads to the 
 Court of Assizes, and the lower door to a second 
 Court of Assizes. In certain years the crimes com- 
 mitted in the Department of the Seine required two 
 sessions. Beyond this door are situated the office 
 of the attorney-general, the chamber of barristers 
 and their library, the cabinets of the leading law- 
 yers, and those of the substitutes of the attorney- 
 general. These places, for we must use the generic 
 term, are united by small circular stairways, and 
 by those dark corridors, the shame of architecture, 
 the corridor of la Ville de Paris and that of la 
 France. In its interior the first of our sovereign 
 courts of justice surpasses the prisons in everything 
 most hideous that they possess. The painter of 
 manners would recoil before the necessity of de- 
 scribing the mean lobby of a metre's breadth used 
 as an ante-room for the witnesses of the Superior 
 (135) 
 
136 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Court of Assizes. As for the stove which serves to 
 warm the hall when the sittings are held, it would 
 disgrace a cafe of the boulevard Montparnasse. 
 
 The attorney-general's ofiflce is situated in an 
 octagonal pavilion, flanking the main body of the 
 Galerie Marchande, which at a date very recent in 
 comparison with the age of the palace, has en- 
 croached upon the prison yard annexed to the 
 women's quarters. 
 
 All this portion of the Palais de Justice is over- 
 shadowed by the high and splendid walls of the 
 Sainte Chapelle. Thus it is sombre and silent. 
 
 M. de Granville, worthy successor of the great 
 magistrates of the old parliament, did not wish to 
 leave the palace until Lucien's fate had been de- 
 cided. He was awaiting news from Camusot, and 
 the judge's message plunged him into the involun- 
 tary revery which suspense brings upon the strong- 
 est minds. He was seated in the embrasure of his 
 office window; he rose and began to pace up and 
 down the room, for that morning he had found 
 Camusot, in whose path he had stationed himself, 
 but little comprehensible ; he felt a vague anxiety 
 and was ill at ease. This is the explanation : the 
 dignity of his functions forbade the attorney-gen- 
 eral to tamper with the absolute independence of an 
 inferior magistrate ; and in this trial was at stake 
 the honor and reputation of his best friend and 
 warmest protector, the Comte de Serizy, Minister 
 of State, member of the Privy Council, vice- 
 president of the Council of State, the future 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 137 
 
 chancellor of France, in case that the noble old man 
 who was holding this august office should chance to 
 die. It was M. de Serizy's misfortune to adore his 
 wife, in spite of her failings; he was always ready 
 to shelter her beneath his protection. Yet the 
 attorney-general could well foresee the wild excite- 
 ment both in society and at court, which would fol- 
 low the conviction of a man whose name had been 
 linked so frequently and so disgracefully with that 
 of the countess. 
 
 "Ah 1" he said to himself, as he crossed his arms, 
 "authority used to have the resource of transferring 
 cases to other courts. — Our mania of equality — he 
 dared not say legality, the word which latterly has 
 been so boldly pronounced by a poet in the pres- 
 ence of the Chamber — will be the destruction of 
 this era. — " 
 
 This worthy magistrate knew the allurements 
 and the misfortunes of unlawful love. As we have 
 seen, Esther and Lucien had succeeded to the 
 apartment which the Count de Granville had shared 
 in secret with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille and 
 whence a scoundrel had one day succeeded in entic- 
 ing her. (See A Double Household in the Scenes of 
 Private Life.) 
 
 Just as the attorney-general was saying to him- 
 self: "Camusot will be sure to entangle us in some 
 foolish scrape!" the examining judge rapped twice 
 upon the office door. 
 
 "Well, my dear sir, how goes" the case about 
 which I was talking to you this morning?" 
 
138 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Badly, Monsieur le Count; read it and judge for 
 yourself. ' ' 
 
 He handed the two reports of the examinations to 
 M. de Granville, who placed his eye-glasses upon 
 his nose and walked into the embrasure of the win- 
 dow to read the papers. His perusal was very 
 rapid. 
 
 "You have done your duty, " said the attorney- 
 general, with a voice which betrayed emotion. 
 "The case is closed; justice will take its course. 
 You have displayed too great ability to allow the 
 government ever to deprive itself of such an exam- 
 ining judge." 
 
 Had M. Granville said to Camusot, "You will re- 
 main an examining judge all the days of your life," 
 he would not have spoken more explicitly than 
 in this complimentary sentence. Camusot felt a 
 shiver course down his backbone. 
 
 "Madame la Duchess de Maufrigneuse, to whom 
 I owe much, has asked me — " 
 
 "Ah! the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, — she is the 
 friend of Madame deSerizy," said Granville, inter- 
 rupting the judge. "It is true — you have bent be- 
 fore no influence, I see ; you have done your duty, 
 sir, you will become a great magistrate." 
 
 At this moment Count Octave de Bauvan opened 
 the door without knocking, and said to the Count 
 de Granville : 
 
 "I am bringing you a charming woman who 
 scarcely knew which way to turn. She was losing 
 herself in our labyrinth." 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 139 
 
 The Count Octave led by the hand the Countess 
 de Serizy, who for a quarter of an hour had been 
 wandering blindly through the palace. 
 
 "What! you here, madame!" exclaimed the at- 
 torney-general, pushing forward his own arm- 
 chair, "at such a time as this, too! — This is M. 
 Camusot, madame," he added, pointing toward the 
 judge; — "Bauvan," continued he, addressing that 
 illustrious ministerial orator of the Restoration, 
 "wait for me in the office of the first president, he 
 is still there, I will rejoin you in an instant" 
 
 Count Octave de Bauvan understood not only that 
 his presence was superfluous, but likewise that the 
 attorney-general sought an excuse to leave his office. 
 
 Madame de Serizy had not been so foolish as to 
 drive to the palace in her magnificent coupe, with 
 its blue draperies and armorial bearings, its lace- 
 trimmed coachman and its two footmen in knee 
 breeches and white silk stockings. As the countess 
 was about to start, Asia had explained to the two 
 ladies the necessity of taking the cab in which she 
 and the duchess had arrived; lastly she had as- 
 signed to Lucien's mistress an attire such as among 
 women corresponds to the dun-colored cloak once in 
 vogue among men. The countess wore a brown 
 coat, an old black shawl, and a velvet hat, from 
 which the flowers had been torn to make room for 
 a veil of very thick black lace. 
 
 "You have received our letter?" she inquired of 
 Camusot, whose stupefaction appeared to her a 
 proof of respectful admiration. 
 
140 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Too late, alas! Countess," replied the judge, 
 whose tact and ready wit deserted him when he 
 was not seated in his ofiSce cross-questioning a 
 prisoner. 
 
 "What do you mean by 'Too late?' " 
 
 She glanced at M. de Granville and saw conster- 
 nation painted upon his face, 
 
 "It cannot, it must not be too late yet," she 
 added with the intonation of a despot. 
 
 Women, pretty women, in Madame de Serizy's 
 situation are the spoiled children of French civiliza- 
 tion. If the women of other countries knew every- 
 thing that a rich and titled woman of fashion is at 
 Paris, they would all dream of attaining this splen- 
 did royalty. Women governed solely by their own 
 ideas of propriety and by that collection of petty laws, 
 already called so often in The Human Comedy, 
 the Female Code, scoff at the laws which men have 
 made. They say everything; they recoil before no 
 fault, before no folly ; for they have all learned by 
 heart the fact that they are responsible for nothing 
 in life, except for their own and their children's 
 honor. They give utterance to the greatest enor- 
 mities and laugh. Be the event what it will, they 
 repeat the words spoken by the pretty Madame de 
 Bauvan in the early days of her married life, to her 
 husband, whom she had come to carry away from 
 the palace; "Have done with your judging and 
 come with me!" 
 
 "Madame," said the attorney-general, "M. Lucien 
 de Rubempre is guilty neither of robbery nor 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 14 1 
 
 assassination ; but M. Camusot has made him con- 
 fess a crime greater than these." 
 
 "What?" she demanded. 
 
 "He has acknowledged himself," whispered M. 
 de Granville in her ear, "to be the friend and pupil 
 of an escaped convict, the Abbe Carlos Herrera ; 
 this Spaniard, who has lived with him for nearly 
 seven years seems to be none other than our famous 
 Jacques Collin. — " 
 
 Every word fell upon Madame de Sdrizy's ear 
 with all the weight of an iron club, and this notori- 
 ous name was the finishing blow. 
 
 "The meaning of this?" she asked in a voice 
 which was but a breath. 
 
 "Is," interrupted M. de Granville, continuing the 
 countess' phrase in a low tone, "that the convict 
 will come before the Court of Assizes, and that if 
 Lucien does not appear at his side for having wil- 
 fully profited by his crimes, he will be brought into 
 court as a witness and his reputation will be seri- 
 ously compromised." 
 
 "Ah! never!" — cried she aloud, with extraordi- 
 nary firmness. "Were I to choose, I should not 
 hesitate between death and the prospect of seeing a 
 man, whom the world looks upon as my dearest 
 friend, declared legally the comrade of a convict. 
 The king likes my husband well — " 
 
 "Madame," said the attorney-general aloud, as a 
 smile passed over his lips, "the king has not the 
 slightest control over the pettiest judge within his 
 realm, nor of the pleading in the Court of Assizes. 
 
142 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 There lies the grandeur of our new institutions. I, 
 myself, have just been congratulating M. Camusot 
 upon his adroitness — " 
 
 "Upon his stupidity," retorted the countess 
 quickly, who felt far less concern at Lucien's rela- 
 tions with an outlaw than at his love for Esther. 
 
 "If you will read the examinations of the two 
 prisoners, conducted by M. Camusot, you will see 
 that everything depends upon him — " 
 
 After this remark, the only one that the attorney- 
 general allowed himself to hazard, and after a look 
 of feminine, or rather, perhaps, of judicial subtlety, 
 he turned toward the door. As he stood on the sill 
 he turned and added : 
 
 "Pardon me, madame, 1 have a word or two to 
 say to Bauvan. ' ' 
 
 This, in the language of society, signified to the 
 countess, "I cannot be a witness of what is about to 
 pass between you and Camusot. ' ' 
 
 "What are these examinations.'" asked Leon- 
 tine gently of Camusot, who stood abashed in the 
 presence of the wife of one of the great officers of 
 state. 
 
 "Madame," replied Camusot, "a clerk takes 
 down in writing the questions of the judge and the 
 answers of the prisoners ; the report is signed by 
 the clerk, by the judge, and by the prisoner. Sub- 
 sequent proceedings are built upon the foundation 
 of these reports, which determine the indictment 
 and the committal of prisoners to the Court of 
 Assizes." 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 143 
 
 "Well," answered she, "suppose that these re- 
 ports be suppressed?" 
 
 "Ah! madame, that would be a crime such as no 
 magistrate could commit, a crime against society!" 
 
 "To write them was a far greater crime against 
 me ; but at present there is no other proof against 
 Lucien. Read me his examination so that we may 
 know whether there is any expedient left which 
 can save us all, sir. My own peace is not alone at 
 stake, for I would go to my grave cheerfully ; the 
 happiness of M. de Serizy depends upon the result." 
 
 "Madame," said Camusot, "do not imagine that 
 I have forgotten the gratitude which I owe you. 
 Had M. Popinot, for instance, been intrusted with 
 this examination, you would have been still more 
 unfortunate than you are with me; for he would 
 never have come to consult the attorney-general, 
 and all that has passed would be a mystery. 
 Why, madame, all M. Lucien's effects were seized, 
 even your letters — " 
 
 "Oh! my letters!" 
 
 "Here they are, sealed," said the magistrate. 
 
 In her perturbation, the countess rang the bell as 
 though she had been at home, and the attorney-gen- 
 eral's ofiSce boy appeared. 
 
 "A light," said she. 
 
 The boy lighted a candle and placed it upon the 
 mantel-piece, while the countess collected her let- 
 ters, counted them, crumpled them in her hand and 
 threw them into the fireplace. Then twisting the 
 last letter with her fingers she used it as a torch to 
 
144 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 light the mass of papers. Camusot stood stupidly 
 watching the blaze, with the two reports in his 
 hand. The countess, who appeared solely occu- 
 pied with the annihilation of every proof of her ten- 
 derness, observed the judge from the corners of her 
 eyes. She chose her time, she calculated her move- 
 ments, and suddenly, with the agility of a cat, she 
 seized the two examinations and flung them into the 
 fire. Camusot snatched them from the blaze; 
 the countess, springing at the judge, seized the 
 burning papers. 
 
 A struggle followed, while Camusot was crying 
 out, "Madame! madame! you are attempting — 
 madame — " a man dashed into the office, and the 
 countess could not restrain a cry as she recognized 
 the Count de Serizy, followed by M. de Bauvan and 
 the attorney-general. Even then, Leontine, deter- 
 mined to save Lucien at any cost, did not relax her 
 grasp from the fatal stamped papers, which her 
 fingers clasped with the strength of pincers, although 
 the flame made her delicate skin look as though it 
 had been cauterized. Camusot, whose fingers were 
 also singed, appeared ashamed of his position and 
 loosened his hold. Of the papers nothing remained 
 except the portion that had been clinched by the 
 struggling hands, so tightly that the fire could not 
 reach Jt. This entire scene passed more quickly 
 than the moment required to read its recital. 
 
 "What can there be between you and Madame de 
 Serizy which admits of dispute?" demanded the 
 Minister of State of Camusot. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 145 
 
 Before the judge could answer, the countess held 
 the papers in the flame of the candle and tossed 
 them upon the fragments of her letters which the 
 fire had not entirely consumed. 
 
 "It will be my duty," said Camusot, "to enter 
 a complaint against Madame la Countess," 
 
 "Eh! What has she done?" inquired the attor- 
 ney-general, looking alternately at the countess and 
 the judge. 
 
 "I have burned the examinations," answered the 
 woman of fashion with a laugh; for Leontine was 
 so happy at the success of her desperate venture that 
 she was still unconscious of her burns. "If it's a 
 crime, why in that case this gentleman can write 
 his horrible scrawls over again." 
 
 "It is true," replied Camusot, endeavoring to re- 
 cover his dignity. 
 
 "After all, everything is for the best," said the 
 attorney-general. "But, my dear countess, it would 
 be unsafe to take such liberties with the magistracy 
 often, for it might fail to recognize you." 
 
 "M. Camusot has courageously resisted a woman 
 whom nothing can resist: the honor of the gown is 
 saved!" said the Count de Bauvan, laughing. 
 
 "Ah! M. Camusot resisted .?" said the attorney- 
 general laughing in his turn ; "he is audacity itself, 
 I should never have dared to lift a finger against the 
 countess. ' ' 
 
 Thus, in a moment, this gravely criminal offence 
 became the joke of a pretty womanj, and Camusot 
 laughed over it himself. 
 
146 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 The attorney-general noticed one man who did not 
 laugh. Justly alarmed by the attitude and the ex- 
 pression of the Count de Serizy, M. de Granville 
 took him aside. 
 
 "Myfriend," whispered he, "your sorrow hasde- 
 termined me to compound with my conscience for 
 the first and only time in my life." 
 
 The magistrate rang ; the office boy appeared. 
 
 "Tell M. de Chargeboeuf to come and speak with 
 me." 
 
 M. de Chargeboeuf, a young man recently ad- 
 mitted to the bar, was the attorney-general's secre- 
 tary. 
 
 ' ' My dear sir, ' ' replied the attorney-general, draw- 
 ing Camusot toward the embrasure of the window, 
 "go to your office ; make out anew, with your clerk's 
 help, the examination of the Abbe Carlos Herrera, 
 which, as it was without a signature, can be begun 
 again without difficulty. ' ' To-morrow you will con- 
 front this Spanish diplomat with De Rastignac and 
 Bianchon, who will not recognize him as our Jacques 
 Collin. Upon his release he will sign his examina- 
 tion. As for Lucien de Rubempre, set him at liberty 
 to-night, for he will not be the man to disclose the 
 examination when the report has been suppressed, 
 especially after the warning which I shall give him. 
 The Ga^^tte des Tribunaux will announce in to- 
 morrow's issue the young man's immediate release. 
 Now let us see whether justice suffers by these 
 measures. If the Spaniard is the convict we have 
 a thousand and one means of rearresting him, and 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 14/ 
 
 of examining him a second time, for we shall re- 
 ceive diplomatic intelligence concerning his conduct 
 in Spain ; Corentin, the chief of the counter-police, 
 will shadow him, and thus he will never be beyond 
 our reach; thus it is better to treat him well rather 
 than to incarcerate him longer in solitary confine- 
 ment Have we a right to kill the count, the Coun- 
 tess de Serizy, and Lucien to boot, for a robbery of 
 seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, still un- 
 proved, and committed to Lucien's detriment? 
 Would it not be better to let him lose this amount, 
 than to let him lose his reputation? Above all, 
 when he drags downward in his fall a min- 
 ister of state, his wife, and the Duchess de Mau- 
 frigneuse ? This young man is a tainted orange, 
 don't let it rot The whole thing won't take half 
 an hour. Go, we wait for you. It is half after 
 three, the judges have not all gone ; find out for me 
 whether you can obtain a verdict of insufficient evi- 
 dence — or perhaps Lucien can wait until to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 Caniusot left the room with a low bow, which 
 Madame de Serizy, stung with the pain of her 
 scorched hand, did not return. M. de Serizy who 
 had hastened from the office while the attorney-gen- 
 eral was talking with the judge, now returned with 
 a small pot of pure wax, with which he dressed his 
 wife's hands as he whispered : 
 
 "Leontine, why did you come without telling 
 me?" 
 
 "Dearest,"' she answered in his ear, "pardon 
 
148 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 me ; you think me mad ; but it was for your sake as 
 well as mine." 
 
 "Love this young man, if fate will have it so; 
 but don't flaunt your passion in the eyes of the 
 world," replied her poor husband. 
 
 "My dear countess," said M. de Granville, after 
 some conversation with the Count Octave, "I trust 
 that you will take M. de Rubempre home to dine 
 with you to-night." 
 
 This half promise aroysed so strong a reaction in 
 Madame de Serizy that she burst into tears. 
 
 "I thought that I had done with weeping," said 
 she, with a smile; "could you not summon M. de 
 Rubempre hither?" 
 
 "I'll try to find ushers to spare him the com- 
 pany of gendarmes," replied M. de Granville. 
 
 "You are kind as an angel !" said Leontine to the 
 attorney-general, with an effusion of tenderness 
 which transformed her voice into divine music. 
 
 "Such women as she are always fascinating, irre- 
 sistible! — " said the Count de Bauvan to himself, 
 as a melancholy picture of his own wife crossed his 
 mind. (See Honorine, in the Scenes of Private 
 Life.) 
 
 On his way out, M. de Granville was stopped by 
 the young de Chargebceuf, to whom he gave in- 
 structions concerning the account which should be 
 given to Massol, one of the editors of the Galeae des 
 Tribunaux. 
 
While pretty women, ministers and magistrates 
 alike, were conspiring to save Lucien, the wretched 
 prisoner was spending his time as follows: As he 
 passed through the wicket, the poet stated at the 
 record office that M. Camusot had given him per- 
 mission to write, and asked for pens, ink and 
 paper. M. Camusot's usher whispered a word in 
 the warden's ear, and a turnkey was immediately 
 given orders to fulfill the request. During the few 
 minutes which the turnkey required to collect the 
 requisite articles and deliver them at Lucien's 
 door, that unhappy young man, to whom the 
 thought of confrontation with Jacques Collin 
 seemed insupportable, sank into one of those 
 fatal meditations wherein the idea of suicide, to 
 which he had already yielded without accomplish- 
 ing his purpose, reaches the proportions of madness. 
 According to several distinguished physicians who 
 have made a specialty of mental disease, suicide, in 
 certain organizations, is the termination of insanity ; 
 but since his arrest, this determination had re- 
 mained fixed in Lucien's brain. Esther's letter, 
 reread many times, increased his longing for death, 
 and recalled to his mind how Romeo had at length 
 been restored to his Juliet. This is what he wrote: 
 (149) 
 
150 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "THIS IS MY TESTAMENT. 
 "The Conciergerie, 
 "This fifteenth day of May, 1830. 
 
 "I, the undersigned, do give and bequeath to the 
 children of my sister, Madame ^ve Chardon, wife 
 of David Sechard, formerly a printer in AngoulSme, 
 and of M. David Sechard, all my property, whether 
 personal or otherwise, which shall belong to me on 
 the day of my death, deduction being made for pay- 
 ments and for legacies which I request my testa- 
 mentary executor to arrange. 
 
 "I beg of M. de Serizy to accept the charge of be- 
 coming my testamentary executor. 
 
 Payment is to be made : i. To the Abbe Carlos 
 Herrera the sum of three hundred thousand francs. 
 2. To the Baron de Nucingen, that of fourteen 
 hundred thousand francs, which is to be dimin- 
 ished by the sum of seven hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand francs in case that the money stolen from the 
 domicile of Mademoiselle Esther be recovered. 
 
 " I give and bequeath, as heir of Mademoiselle 
 Esther Gobseck, the sum of seven hundred and 
 sixty thousand francs to' the alms houses of Paris, 
 to be devoted to the purpose of founding an asylum 
 to be set apart for the use of fallen women who wish 
 to abandon their career of vice and of perdition. 
 
 "Furthermore, I bequeath to the alms houses the 
 sum necessary for the purchase of five per cent 
 bonds yielding thirty thousand francs a year; 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 51 
 
 whereof the annual interest is to be devoted twice 
 each year to the deliverance of persons imprisoned 
 for debt, whose obligations amount at the most to 
 two thousand francs. The administrators of the 
 alms houses shall make their choice from among the 
 most honorable of the imprisoned debtors. 
 
 "I request M. de Serizy to devote a sum of forty 
 thousand francs to raising a monument to the mem- 
 ory of Mademoiselle Esther in the Cemetery of the 
 East, and I earnestly request to be buried by her 
 side. This tomb is to be made after the fashion of 
 ancient monuments ; it shall be square, figures of us 
 both carved in white marble shall lie upon its sur- 
 face ; the heads reclining upon cushions, the hands 
 joined and pointed toward heaven. This monu- 
 ment shall have no inscription. 
 
 "I request M. the Count de Serizy to give to M. 
 Eugene de Rastignac, as a souvenir, the dressing- 
 table that will be found in my house. 
 
 "Lastly, in virtue of his position, I request my 
 testamentary executor to accept the gift which I 
 make him of my library. 
 
 "LUCIEN CHARDON de RUBEMPRE." 
 
 This testament was inclosed within a letter 
 addressed to the Count de Granville, attorney-gen- 
 eral of the Royal Court at Paris, which ran as 
 follows : 
 "Monsieur le Count: 
 
 "1 intrust my will to your keeping. When you 
 unfold this letter 1 shall have ceased to be. In my 
 
152 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 desire to recover my liberty I have answered so 
 pusillanimously the crafty questions of M. 
 Camusot, that in spite of my innocence, I can be 
 incriminated in a disgraceful trial. Even in case 
 1 were acquitted without spot, life would still be 
 impossible in the face of a captious world. 
 
 "Give, I beg you, the enclosed letter to the Abbe 
 Carlos Herrera, unopened, and forward to M. Camu- 
 sot's hands the formal retraction which is included 
 within this cover, 
 
 " I do not think that my gaolers will dare open a 
 packet which is addressed to you. Trusting in this, 
 I bid you good-bye, offering you my respects for the 
 last time and asking you to believe that in writing 
 to you I give you a token of my gratitude for all the 
 kindnesses whichjyou have heaped upon your dead 
 servant, 
 
 "LUCIEN deR." 
 
 "TO THE ABB^ CARLOS HERRERA. 
 "My Dear Abbe: 
 
 "From you I have received naught but benefits, 
 and yet I have betrayed you. This , involuntary 
 ingratitude kills me, and when you read these lines 
 I shall have ceased to live; you cannot be at my 
 side to save me. 
 
 "You have given me full permission to ruin you 
 and to cast you from me like the butt of a cigar, if 
 by so doing I might secure some advantage for my- 
 self; but I have sacrificed you stupidly. Simply to 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 53 
 
 extricate himself from danger, deceived by an artful 
 question of the judge, I, your spiritual son, him 
 whom you have adopted, has ranged himself in the 
 ranks of those who wish to murder you at any 
 cost by establishing a false identity between you 
 and a French scoundrel. This is the whole story. 
 
 "Between a man of your power and me, of whom 
 you wished to make more great than I could ever 
 have been, there must be no exchange of idle re- 
 proaches at this moment of eternal separation. You 
 desired to make me powerful and glorious ; you have 
 hurled me into the abyss of suicide; this is all. 
 It is a long time since I have ceased to hear the 
 whirr of the mighty wings of giddiness swooping 
 down upon me. 
 
 "There is the posterity of Cain as well as that of 
 Abel, as you have sometimes said. In the great 
 drama of humanity, Cain is the enemy. You are 
 descended from Adam by that line whose flame the 
 devil has fanned unceasingly since its first spark 
 fell upon Eve. Among the demons of this race there 
 appear from time to time terrible beings whose vast 
 organizations contain the sum of all the powers of 
 man, and who are like those restless beasts of the 
 desert that need the immense solitudes they inhabit 
 Creatures like these are as dangerous to society as 
 lions turned loose in the heart of Normandy. They 
 need a pasturage, they devour common men and 
 browse upon the money of fools. Their very games 
 are so perilous that at length they kill the meek 
 dog which they have chosen for a companion, for 
 
154 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 an idol. When God so wills it, these mysterious 
 beings are Moses, Attila, Charlemagne, Mohammed, 
 or Napoleon; but when he lets these gigantic 
 instruments rust at the bottom of the ocean of a 
 generation, they are but Pugatcheff, Fouche, 
 Louvel, or the Abbe Carlos Herrera, Endued 
 with boundless influence over sensitive souls, 
 they attract them and grind them to powder. It 
 is great, in its way it is beautiful. It is the 
 venemous plant of gorgeous colors which fasci- 
 nates children in the woods. It is the poetry of 
 evil. Men such as you should dwell in caverns 
 and never come forth. You have made me live this 
 giant life and I have finished my full measure of 
 existence. Thus I may draw my neck from the gor- 
 dian knots of your projects to slip it into the run- 
 ning noose of my cravat. 
 
 "To repair my fault I transmit to the attorney- 
 general a full retraction of my examination. — You 
 will find this document of advantage to you. 
 
 ' ' By the wish formally expressed in my testament, 
 you will receive the sums belonging to your order, 
 which you have very imprudently expended in my 
 behalf, on account of the fatherly affection which 
 you have displayed toward me. 
 
 "Adieu, then, adieu, mighty statue of Evil and of 
 Corruption. Adieu, you who, in the path of right, 
 might have been more than XimenSs, more than 
 Richelieu! You have kept your promises; once 
 more I find myself such as I was upon the bank 
 of the Charente after having owed to you the 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 155 
 
 enchantments of a dream ; but, unhappily, it is no 
 longer the river of tny native place wherein 1 was 
 about to drown all my boyhood's sins; it is the 
 Seine, and my pit is a cell of the Conciergerie. 
 
 "Do not regret me; my contempt for you was 
 as great as my admiration. 
 
 "LUCIEN." 
 
 " DEPOSITION. 
 
 "I, the undersigned, declare that 1 retract every 
 word that is contained in the examination which M. 
 Camusot forced me to undergo this day. 
 
 "The Abbe Carlos Herrera was very apt to call 
 himself my spiritual father, and I allowed myself to 
 be deceived by this word, understood by the judge 
 in another sense, doubtless by mistake. 
 
 "1 know that for political ends, in order to bury 
 certain secrets which concern the cabinets both of 
 Spain and of the Tuileries, obscure agents of diplo- 
 macy are endeavoring to identify the Abbe Carlos 
 Herrera with a convict named Jacques Collin ; but 
 the Abbe Carlos Herrera has made me his confi- 
 dant in this respect only so far as relates his efforts 
 to procure authentic proof of the death or the exist- 
 ence of Jacques Collin." 
 
 "The Conciergerie, this fifteenth day of May, 1830. 
 
 "LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE." 
 
 The fever of sucide lent Lucien great clearness of 
 ideas, and that dexterity of hand which authors 
 
156 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 know when they are a prey to the fever of compo- 
 sition. The change wrought in him was so great 
 that these four documents were written within the 
 space of half an hour. He made the papers into a 
 packet, closed it by means of wafers, and stamped 
 upon it the impress of his arms from the ring he 
 wore upon his finger with the feverish strength of 
 delirium. Surely it would have been difficult to 
 behave with more dignity in the false situation 
 into which a life of infamy had plunged Lucien; he 
 was saving his memory from opprobrium, and re- 
 pairing the evil which he had done his accomplice 
 so far as the wit's cleverness could efface the effects 
 of the poet's disclosure. 
 
 Had Lucien been confined in one of the solitary 
 cells he would have been encountered at the outset 
 by the impossibility of accomplishing his design, 
 for these boxes of freestone have no other furniture 
 than a kind of camp-bed and a bucket. There is not 
 a nail, not a chair, not even a stool. The bed is so 
 firmly fixed that it cannot be moved without an 
 operation which would probably alarm the turn- 
 key, for the iron-bound peep-hole is always open. 
 As a further safeguard, whenever the prisoner 
 arouses suspicion he is carefully watched by a gen- 
 darme or detective. In the apartments of the pis- 
 tole, as in that which Lucien occupied on account 
 of the consideration which the judge thought fit to 
 show toward a young man belonging to the best 
 society in Paris, the movable bed, the table and the 
 chair are of service in eifecting a suicide, although 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 1 57 
 
 they do not render it an easy matter. Lucien wore 
 a long blue silk cravat, and as he walked back from 
 the examination his mind was already meditating 
 upon the manner in which Pichegru had met a 
 more or less voluntary death. To hang himself a 
 man must have a fixture from which the rope can 
 depend and sufficient space between his body and 
 the ground to prevent his feet from receiving any 
 support. The window of Lucien's cell, looking out 
 upon the prison yard, was without a sash, while the 
 iron bars clamped to the exterior of the wall, did not 
 lend themselves to his purpose. 
 
 Lucien's rapid investigation speedily suggested 
 this plan to consummate his suicide. If the screen 
 that covered the aperture cut off Lucien's view of 
 the prison yard, this screen likewise prevented the 
 guards from perceiving what was happening within 
 the cell ; although in the lower part of the window 
 the glass had been replaced by two stout planks, 
 the upper portion still preserved small lights held 
 in place by the crossbars which framed in the glass. 
 By standing upon his table Lucien could reach 
 the glazed division of his window, and remove or 
 break two lights in such a way as to make of the angle 
 of the lowest crossbar a support strong enough to 
 bear his weight. His design was to pass his cravat 
 over this, wind it once about his neck, knot it firmly 
 and kick the table from beneath his feet. 
 
 Lucien pushed the table noiselessly toward the 
 window ; he took off his coat and waistcoat, and 
 then without hesitation stepped upon the table to 
 
158 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 break the pane above and that below the lowest 
 crossbar. When he stood upon the table he could 
 look out upon the prison yard, a magical sight of 
 which he now caught sight for the first time. The 
 warden of the Conciergerie, having received in- 
 structions from Camusot to treat Lucien with the 
 utmost consideration, had ordered the gendarmes to 
 lead their prisoner through the interior passages 
 of the Conciergerie, the entrance of which is in the 
 dark vault opposite the Tour d' Argent, and thus to 
 avoid exhibiting the young and elegant Lucien to 
 the crowd of criminals who are always walking in 
 the prison yard. The reader will judge whether 
 this scene is of a nature to print a deep impression 
 on a poet's soul. 
 
 The yard of the Conciergerie is bounded upon the 
 quay by the Tour d'Argent and by the Tour 
 Bonbec ; and its extent is plainly marked from with- 
 out by the space which separates them. The gal- 
 lery, named after Saint Louis, which leads from 
 the Galerie Marchande to the Court of Appeals and 
 to the Tour Bonbec, where tradition still points 
 to the closet of Saint Louis, can describe to accur- 
 ate observers the extent of the prison yard, with 
 which it is of equal length. The solitary cells and 
 the pistoles are situated beneath the Galerie Mar- 
 chande. Thus the Queen Marie Antoinette, whose 
 dungeon lies beneath the present solitary cells, was 
 led to the revolutionary tribunal then sitting in the 
 solemn court of audience of the Court of Appeals by 
 means of a gloomy stairway now condemned, built 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 159 
 
 against the massive walls that uphold the Galerie 
 Marchande. One side of the prison yard, that of 
 which the first story is occupied by the Galerie de 
 Saint Louis, displays a long line of Gothic columns, 
 and between these the architects of some epoch 
 have constructed a double tier of cells, designed to 
 accommodate the greatest possible number of prison- 
 ers, and have covered with plaster, bars and bolts 
 the capitals, arches and the shafts of this magnifi- 
 cent gallery. Beneath the so-called cabinet of Saint 
 Louis, in the Tour Bonbec, a spiral stair winds up 
 to these cells. This prostitution of one of the 
 grandest monuments of France is hideous to see. 
 
 From the height at which Lucien was placed, 
 looking obliquely from his window, he could view 
 this gallery and the details of the building which 
 connects the Tour d' Argent with the Tour Bonbec; 
 he saw the pointed roofs of the two towers. He 
 stood in silent wonder; his death was delayed by 
 his admiration. In our time the phenomena of hal- 
 lucination are so freely admitted by physicians that 
 this mirage of our senses, this curious faculty of our 
 minds, is no longer contestable. Beneath the im- 
 pulse of a feeling, raised by its intensity to the 
 height of a monomania, a man falls into the same 
 condition that is produced by opium, haschisch, , or 
 protoxyde of asote. At such times spectres and 
 phantoms arise, dreams become incarnate in bodil}/^ 
 forms, things long destroyed revive in their ancient 
 shapes. That which within the brain lived but as 
 an idea, becomes an animated and living creature. 
 
l6o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Modern science believes that beneath the strain of 
 this paroxysm of passion, the brain is suffused with 
 blood and that this congestion produces the alarming 
 creations of waking dreams, so strongly does it object 
 to considering thought as a live and generating 
 force. — See Louis Lambert, Philosophical Studies. — 
 Lucien beheld the palace in all its primitive beauty. 
 The colonnade was slender, young, fresh. The 
 dwelling of Saint Louis reappeared as it had been 
 of old, and he marveled at its Babylonian propor- 
 tions and its oriental fancifulness. He received the 
 glorious vision as a poetic adieu to civilized crea- 
 tion. As he prepared to die, he asked himself why 
 this marvel had so long existed unknown in Paris. 
 There were two Luciens, Lucien, the poet, walking 
 through the Middle Ages beneath the arcades and 
 turrets of Saint Louis; and Lucien, preparing for 
 suicide. 
 
 Just as M. de Granville had given his final in- 
 structions to his young secretary, the warden of the 
 Conciergerie appeared, and the expression of his 
 countenance foretold misfortune to the attorney- 
 general. 
 
 "Have you met M. Camusot?" he asked. 
 
 "No sir," replied the warden. "His clerk, 
 Coquart, told me to relax the severity of the Abbe 
 Carlos' confinement and to release M. de Rubempre 
 altogether; but it is too late." 
 
 ' ' Good God ! What has happened .'' ' 
 
 "Here, sir," said the warden, "is a packet of 
 
SUICIDE OF LUCIEN 
 
 When the cell door was opened, and the countess 
 saw Lucien hanging as though his garments were 
 suspended from a peg, she bounded toward him to 
 seize and clasp him to her. 
 
v'.-a\T'\i "Ao a.di'^iwjz 
 
 ii-i^s^wo-i 'l'^^ Viwft ,\i'i«'b\ft law -^ci^iV \\"i-> 'isVi sx'iiVlJ 
 
 .T)\\ (i^ \»\'u\ \lft\-i \>'Aft 'at'vjl 
 
/?-rf^ 'to /,, t) "^ 
 
 
 J I I 
 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS l6l 
 
 letters for you which will explain the catastrophe. 
 The sentinel in the prison yard heard the sound 
 of breaking glass coming from the pistole, and a 
 prisoner in the next cell to M. Lucien's shrieked 
 aloud for he could hear the death agony of the poor 
 young man. The sentinel returned pale with fright 
 at the sight which he had seen. The prisoner had 
 hung himself from the sash by means of his cravat " 
 
 Although the warden was speaking in a low 
 voice, the terrible cry that Madame de Serizy 
 uttered proved that in the crisis of life our organs 
 are endowed with incalculable power. The coun- 
 tess heard or divined the truth. Before M. de 
 Granville could turn round, before her husband or 
 M. Bauvan could block her rapid course, the coun- 
 tess darted like an arrow through the doorway, 
 reached the Galerie Marchande, and rushed through 
 it as far as the staircase which leads to the rue de 
 la Barillerie. 
 
 A barrister was taking off his gown before the 
 door of one of those shops which for so many years 
 encumbered the gallery with their busy trade in 
 shoes and caps and gowns. The countess asked the 
 way to the Conciergerie. 
 
 "Go down and turn to the left. The entrance 
 is on the quai de I'Horloge, in the first arcade." 
 
 "The woman's mad!" said the shop-girl, "you 
 must follow her." 
 
 Nobody could have followed L^ontine ; she flew. 
 A doctor must explain how these women of society, 
 whose strength has long been unexercised, can find 
 
l62 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 such a reserve of power at the great crisis of life. 
 The countess dashed through the arcade toward the 
 wicket so swiftly that the gendarme on duty did not 
 see her pass. She flung herself against the grating 
 like a feather whirled by some mighty wind ; she 
 shook the iron bars with such fury that one of them 
 snapped in her hands; she crushed her breast against 
 the jagged points until the blood spurted, andthen 
 she fell to the ground, crying, "Open! open!" in a 
 voice at which the guards shuddered. 
 
 The turnkey ran to the gate. 
 
 "Open! I am sent by the attorney-general to 
 save the dead." — 
 
 As the countess was making this detour by the 
 rue de la Barillerie and the quay de I'Horloge, M 
 de Granville and M. de Serizy, guessing her in- 
 tention, hurried to the Conciergerie through the 
 interior of the palace, but in spite of their haste, 
 they did not arrive until the moment when the gen- 
 darmes, whom the noise had summoned from their 
 guard room, were raising the fallen body of the coun- 
 tess who had fainted before the outer wicket On 
 the appearance of the warden of the Conciergerie the 
 wicket opened and the countess was carried into the 
 record office. Springing suddenly to her feet 
 Leontine clasped her hands and fell upon her knees. 
 
 "To see him, only to see him! Oh, gentlemen, 
 1 shall do no harm ; if you don't wish to see me die 
 before your eyes let me look at Lucien, living or 
 dead. Ah ! my dear husband, you are there too. 
 Choose between my death or — " 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 163 
 
 She sank to the floor. 
 
 "You are good," she murmured; "I will love 
 you. ' ' 
 
 "Carry her away,' said M. de Bauvan. 
 
 "No, let us go to Lucien's cell," said M. de Gran- 
 ville, reading M . de Serizy's intention in his disor- 
 dered look. 
 
 He caught hold of the countess, raised her to her 
 feet and supported her by one arm while M. de 
 Bauvan upheld her by the other. 
 
 "Sir," said M. de Serizy to the warden, "be 
 silent as death in regard to all this." 
 
 "Rely upon me," replied the warden. "You have 
 acted wisely. This lady — " 
 
 "Is my wife." 
 
 "Ah! Pardon me, sir. She is certain to faint 
 when she sees the young man, and while she is un- 
 conscious she can be taken to a carriage." 
 
 "I thought of that," said the count; "send one of 
 your men to.the Cour de Harlay to tell my grooms to 
 come to the wicket My carriage is there, alone." 
 
 "We can save him," said the countess, walking 
 with a courage and strength that amazed her friends. 
 "He can be brought back to life — " 
 
 She dragged the two magistrates along, crying 
 out to the keeper : 
 
 "On; on, faster! Every second is worth the 
 lives of three men!" 
 
 When the cell door was opened, and the countess 
 saw Lucien hanging as though his garments were 
 suspended from a peg, she bounded toward him to 
 
l64 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 seize and clasp him to her; but, suddenly she fell 
 face downward upon the floor of the cell, uttering 
 shrieks that were stifled by a rattle in her throat. 
 Five minutes later she was lying in the count's car- 
 riage on her way to her hotel, stretched at full 
 length on one of the cushions, while her husband 
 knelt at her side. The Count de Bauvan had 
 hurried for a physician to bring timely relief to the 
 countess. 
 
 The warden of the Conciergerie examined the 
 outer grating of the wicket, and said to his clerk : 
 
 "No expense has been spared! The iron bars 
 were forged ; they have been tested, and cost dear 
 enough, too; yet there was a flaw in that spike!" 
 
 When the attorney-general reached his office he 
 was obliged to give other instructions to his secre- 
 tary. Luckily Massol had not yet returned. 
 
 A few moments after the departure of M. de Gran- 
 ville, who had hastened off to see M. de Serizy, 
 Massol arrived to find his fellow barrister, De Char- 
 gebceuf, in the attorney-general's office. 
 
 "My friend," said the young secretary, "if you 
 wish to do me a favor, you will insert in to-mor- 
 row's number of your Gazette the lines that I am 
 going to dictate to you in the place which you assign 
 to judicial news. Print at the head of the column. 
 Write!" 
 
 He dictated as follows : 
 
 "It has been fully proved that Mademoiselle 
 Esther Gobseck killed herself voluntarily. 
 
THE END OF BAD ROADS 165 
 
 "The satisfactory alibi of M. Luciende Rubempre 
 and his complete innocence make his arrest still 
 more a matter of regret, inasmuch as, at the moment 
 when the examining judge was on the point of giv- 
 ing orders for his release, the young man died very 
 suddenly." 
 
 "I have no need," said the young lawyer to 
 Massol, "to recommend to you the utmost discre- 
 tion in the small service which is asked of you. ' ' 
 
 "Since you do me the honor of placing your con- 
 fidence in me," replied Massol, "I will take the 
 liberty of making a suggestion. This notice will 
 lead to disagreeable imputations upon justice." 
 
 "Justice will be strong enough to support them," 
 replied the young novice of the bar with all the 
 pride of a future magistrate educated by M. de 
 Granville. 
 
 "My dear sir, if you will allow me, I can avoid 
 this mishap by two sentences. 
 
 The barrister wrote as follows : 
 
 "The forms of justice have nothing to do with 
 this melancholy event. The autopsy which took 
 place immediately proved that death was due to the 
 rupture of an aneurism in its last stage. Had M. de 
 Rubempre been affected by his arrest, his death 
 would have taken place much sooner than it actually 
 did. But we believe we can safely afifirm that far 
 from being afflicted by his arrest, this much- 
 lamented young man laughed at it, and told the 
 
l66 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 gendarmes who had escorted him from Fontaine- 
 bleau to Paris that his innocence was certain to be 
 recognized the instant that he should be taken 
 before a magistrate. ' ' 
 
 "Does not that avert all danger ?' ' — demanded the 
 barrister-journalist. 
 
 "You are right." 
 
 "The attorney-general will be very much pleased 
 with you to-morrow," replied Massol, adroitly. 
 
 And now for most readers, and especially for the 
 more fastidious, this study, perhaps, seems quite 
 completed by the deaths of Esther and of Lucien ; 
 perhaps, however, Jacques Collin, Asia, Europe and 
 Paccard are of sufficient interest to induce the 
 reader to follow their fortunes to the end. This last 
 act of the drama may, moreover, complete the pic- 
 ture of manners and customs so far as the limits of 
 this story will allow, and finish the story of divers 
 fortunes, still untold, which Lucien's life has so 
 curiously interwoven, mingling some of the vilest 
 figures of the galleys with persons in the highest 
 walks of life we have seen. 
 
 Thus we have seen that the greatest events of 
 human life are exemplified by the pettiest details 
 of life in Paris, whether they are true or false ; and 
 the same truth holds good of many things far more 
 august than these. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF 
 VAUTRIN 
 
'iSi^i^,t,^^£u^ /fSf^^ SS 
 
 
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, M. GAULT 
 AND COLLIN 
 
 M. de Granville looked carefully at Jacques Collin 
 and saw that he was outwardly calm, but he soon 
 perceived the truth of what the director had told 
 him. The convict's deceptive attitude hid the cold 
 and terrible irritation of the nerves of a savage. 
 Volcanic fire was smouldering in his eyes and his 
 hands were clenched ; he was like a tiger. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 
 
 "What is the matter, Madeleine?" asked Madame 
 Camusot, as her waiting-maid entered her chamber, 
 with that troubled expression which servants assume 
 at critical seasons. 
 
 "Madame," replied Madeleine, "M. Camusot has 
 just returned from the palace ; but he looks so upset 
 and miserable that perhaps madame had better go 
 at once to see him." 
 
 "Did he say anything?" asked Madame Camusot. 
 
 "No, madame; but we have never seen him look 
 as he does ; he will probably be very ill indeed ; he 
 is yellow; he seems to be going to pieces and — " 
 
 "Without waiting for the end of this sentence 
 Madame Camusot rushed from the room and went 
 to her husband's study. She found the judge seated 
 in an arm chair, with his legs stretched rigidly in 
 front of him, his head thrown back, his hands hang- 
 ing lirnp at his sides, his face white, his eyes star- 
 ing exactly as if he were about to swoon. 
 
 "Dearest, what is the matter with you?" asked 
 the young wife in alarm. 
 
 "Ah ! my poor Amelie, the saddest thing has hap- 
 pened. — It makes me shudder still. Just imagine; 
 the attorney-general — no, Madame de Serizy — I 
 don't know where to begin. ' ' 
 (169) 
 
I70 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Begin at the end!" — said Madame Camusot 
 
 "Well, then, I was in the Council Chamber of 
 the Superior Court. M. Popinot had just written 
 the last requisite signature at the conclusion of my 
 report of insufficient evidence which was to give 
 Lucien de Rubempre his liberty; in fact every- 
 thing was over, the clerk was carrying away the 
 minutes of the proceedings, I was just about to 
 wash my hands of the whole affair, when suddenly 
 in comes the president of the tribunal and examines 
 the verdict. 
 
 " 'You are releasing a corpse,' said he, with cold 
 irony ; 'this young man has gone, to use M. de Bon- 
 ald's expression, before his natural judge. He has 
 been struck dead by a violent attack of apoplexy. ' 
 
 " — I breathed more freely, supposing that it was 
 an accident. 
 
 " — 'If I understand aright, sir,' said M. Popinot 
 to the president, 'it was an attack of apoplexy like 
 Pichegru's,' — 
 
 " — 'Gentlemen,' continued the president, in his 
 grave manner, 'you must know that, so far as the 
 world is concerned, young Lucien de Rubempre has 
 died through the rupture of an aneurism. ' 
 
 "We all looked at one another. 
 
 " — 'High interests are entangled in this sad 
 affair,' said the president; 'God grant, for your 
 sake, M. Camusot, although you have but done 
 your duty, that Madame de Serizy does not go 
 mad from the blow which she received ; she was 
 carried away more dead than alive. I have just 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 171 
 
 met our attorney-general in a state of despair pain- 
 ful to see. — My dear Camusot,' he added in my 
 ear, 'you took the wrong tack that time. ' 
 
 "So, my dearest, when 1 was ready to come 
 away, I could scarcely walk. My legs were trem- 
 bling so that I dared not venture into the street, and 
 I went into my ofifice to lie down, and then Coquart, 
 who was arranging the documents of this unlucky 
 trial, told me how a beautiful lady had taken the 
 Conciergerie by storm ; how she had tried to save 
 Lucien, with whom she is madly in love, and how 
 she fainted dead away when she saw him hang- 
 ing by his cravat from the window sash in his cell. 
 The thought that the manner in which I examined 
 this unhappy young man — who, between you and 
 me, was clearly guilty — had been the cause of his 
 suicide, has pursued me from the moment I left the 
 palace, and I have been on the point of fainting ever 
 since. ' ' 
 
 "So, you are going to think yourself a murderer 
 because a prisoner hangs himself in prison just as 
 you were about to release him?" — cried Madame 
 Camusot "A judge in your position is like a gen- 
 eral who has had a horse shot under him. — That's 
 all." 
 
 "My dear, these comparisons are at the best but 
 jokes, and this is no time for joking, in this case 
 death kills life. Our hopes are buried in Lucien's 
 coffin." 
 
 "Really?" — said Madame Camusot with an ac- 
 cent of profound irony. 
 
172 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Yes; my career is over. I shall remain all my 
 life long a mere judge of the Tribunal of the Seine. 
 Even before this fatal event, M. de Granville was 
 very dissatisfied with the turn which the examina- 
 tion was taking; but his speech to our president 
 makes me certain that so long as M. de Granville is 
 attorney-general, I shall never be promoted!" 
 
 Promotion! That is a terrible word; an idea 
 which in our era transforms the magistrate into the 
 functionary. 
 
 In former times the magistrate had already re- 
 ceived all the honors he had a right to expect 
 Three or four presidencies of Chambers satisfied 
 the ambitious spirits of each parliament. A coun- 
 sellorship contented a De Brosses as well as a Mole, 
 either at Dijon or at Paris. This position, a for- 
 tune in itself, required a great fortune to be 
 maintained with dignity. In Paris, outside of par- 
 liament, lawyers can aspire to but three great 
 prizes: the comptroller-generalcy, the seals, and the 
 chancellor's robe. Below the dignity of the parlia- 
 mentary sphere, the deputy of a Court of Judicature 
 considered himself a personage of suificient distinc- 
 tion to rest upon his laurels. Contrast the position 
 of a councillor of the Royal Court at Paris in 1829, 
 whose entire fortune was bounded by the limits of 
 his salary and that of a councillor of the Parliament 
 in 1729. Vast is the difference! To-day, when 
 money has become the universal guarantee of soci- 
 ety, the great wealth which magistrates formerly 
 possessed is no longer required of them ; thus we 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 173 
 
 see parliamentary deputies, peers of France, heap- 
 ing magistracy on magistracy, becoming judges and 
 legislators at once, borrowing importance from posi- 
 tions other than those upon which alone their repu- 
 tation should rest. 
 
 In a word, magistrates never cease to think of 
 distinguishing themselves in order that they may 
 be promoted as a man is promoted in the army or in 
 the administration. 
 
 Even if this thought does not affect a magis- 
 trate's independence, it is too well-known, too nat- 
 ural, and its effects are too evident to allow the 
 dignity of his office to remain untarnished in the 
 public eye. The salaries paid by the state meta- 
 morphose priest and magistrate to clerks. The 
 possibility of advancement stimulates ambition, and 
 fosters a desire to please the powers that be, while 
 the modern dogma of equality places the judge 
 upon the same social footing with men who are 
 amenable to his jurisdiction. Thus the two pillars 
 of every social system. Religion and Law, have both 
 grown less in this XlXth century, the so-called age 
 of universal progress. 
 
 "Why should your chances of promotion fail.'" 
 said Amelie Camusot. She cast a mocking glance 
 at her husband ; for she felt the necessity of encour- 
 aging the tool of her ambitious hopes. 
 
 "Why do you despair.'" continued she with a 
 gesture which painted her indifference to the pris- 
 oner's death. "This suicide will rejoice Lucien's 
 two enemies, Madam d'Espard and her cousin, the 
 
174 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Countess du Chatelet Madame d'Espard is most 
 intimate with tiie Keeper of the Seals; and through 
 her you can obtain an audience with his Excellency 
 and tell him the secret of this affair. If the Min- 
 ister of Justice is on your side what have you to fear 
 from your president or from the attorney -general ?' ' 
 "But the Count and Countess de Serizy!" — cried 
 the poor judge. "I tell you that Madame de Serizy 
 is stark mad ; and mad, they tell me, by my fault ' ' 
 
 "If she is mad, most injudicious judge, " ex- 
 claimed Madame Camusot, laughing, "she cannot 
 harm you. Tell me all the particulars of the day. ' ' 
 
 "Great heaven!" replied Camusot, "just after I 
 had heard the unhappy young man's confession and 
 when he had declared that this so-called Spanish 
 priest is actually Jacques Collin, the Duchess de 
 Maufrigneuse and Madame de S6rizy sent me a valet 
 with a brief note requesting me not to examine 
 him. All was over — " 
 
 "You must have lost your senses," said Amelie, 
 "for, as you can rely upon your secretary, you 
 might have recalled Lucien and by a little encour- 
 agement it would have been easy to make him alter 
 his deposition." 
 
 "You are exactly like Madame de Serizy in your 
 contempt of law!" retorted Camusot, who could not 
 bring himself to make a mockery of his profession. 
 "Madame de Serizy seized my reports and tossed 
 them into the fire!" 
 
 "She's a woman to be proud of! bravo!" ex- 
 claimed Madame Camusot. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 175 
 
 "Madame de Serizy told me that she had rather 
 blow up the palace than suffer a young man who 
 had stood high in the good graces of the Duchess 
 de Maufrigneuse and in her own to appear at the 
 bar of the Court of Assizes side by side with a con- 
 vict!"— 
 
 "But, Camusot," said Am^lie, who could not re- 
 strain a smile of superiority, "your position is 
 glorious. ' ' — 
 
 "Oh! yes. Glorious!" 
 
 "You have done your duty." — 
 
 "Yes, but most unfortunately and contrary to the 
 Jesuitical advice of M. de Granville, who met me 
 on the quai Malaquais — " 
 
 "This morning?" 
 
 "This morning." 
 
 "At what time?" 
 
 "At nine o'clock." 
 
 "Oh! Camusot!" said Amelia, wringing her 
 hands and clasping them together. "To think how 
 many times I have warned you to take care of 
 everything. Good heavens! it's not a man that I 
 am dragging after me, but a load of stone. — But, 
 Camusot, your attorney-general was waiting for 
 you on your way, — ^then he must have recom- 
 mended some course. ' ' 
 
 "Yes;— he did." 
 
 "And you did not understand him! If you are 
 deaf, you will remain an examining judge with no- 
 body to examine as long as you live. Kindly have 
 sense enough to listen to me," she added, silencing 
 
176 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 her husband, who wished to defend himself. "You 
 think that the game is up. ' ' 
 
 Camusot looked at his wife with the expression 
 of a peasant staring at a juggler. 
 
 "If the Duchess de Maufrigneuse and the Coun- 
 tess de Serizy are compromised, they must both 
 become your protectresses," continued Amelie. 
 "Madame d'Espard will obtain an audience for 
 you with the Keeper of the Seals ; you can tell him 
 your secret, and he will make use of it to amuse 
 the King; for all sovereigns like to know the seamy 
 side of things, and to learn the real motives of 
 events which the public gapes at in amazement 
 From thenceforth all danger from M. de Serizy and 
 the attorney-general will be at an end — ' ' 
 
 "What a blessing it is to have such a wife!" ex- 
 claimed the judge, more cheerfully. "After all, I 
 have unearthed Jacques Collin, and I shall send 
 him to settle his accounts with the Court of 
 Assizes. "It is a victory in the career of an exam- 
 ining judge, that — " 
 
 "Camusot," interrupted Amelie, delighted to see 
 her husband recovering from the moral and physi- 
 cal prostration into which the news of Lucien's sui- 
 cide had plunged him. "The president told you 
 just now, that you had taken the wrong tack and 
 now you have tacked too far in the opposite direc- 
 tion. — You are further from your course than ever, 
 my dear!" 
 
 The examining judge stood looking at his wife 
 with an air of stupefaction. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 177 
 
 "The King and the Keeper of the Seals may be 
 glad to learn the secret of this trial and at the same 
 time be displeased to see lawyers of the liberal 
 party dragging to the bar of public opinion and of the 
 Court of Assizes, in their pleas, such names as 
 Serizy, Maufrigneuse and Grandlieu, in short all 
 those who are involved directly or indirectly in 
 this case." 
 
 "Every one of them is incriminated — I have 
 them!" exclaimed Camusot 
 
 The judge, who had risen from his seat, paced up 
 and down his study floor as Sganarelle does upon 
 the stage when he is trying to extricate himself 
 from some scrape. 
 
 "Listen to me, Amelie!" said the judge, halting 
 before his wife," a circumstance comes back to my 
 mind which, trivial as it seems, is of capital import- 
 ance in my present position. Picture to yourself, 
 dearest, this Jacques Collin, a colossus of craft, dis- 
 simulation, and of deceit, — a man of such depth — 
 what can I call him? — The Cromwell of the 
 galleys! — I have never met so shrewd a ras- 
 cal; he came within an ace of hoodwinking me. 
 — But in criminal examinations a chance thread 
 leads to a skein which guides a man through 
 the labyrinth of the darkest conscience and the 
 most deeply-hidden facts. When Jacques Collin 
 noticed that I was skimming over the papers 
 seized in Lucien de Rubempre's lodgings, the crafty 
 rogue glanced at them as if he were looking to see 
 whether some particular packet were among them, 
 
178 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 and he allowed a gesture of evident satisfaction to 
 escape him. This look of a thief estimating a 
 treasure, this prisoner's gesture, which meant, 'I 
 have my weapons,' taught me a world of things. 
 It is only you women who, like judges and prison- 
 ers, can gather from a single glance whole histories 
 of fraud more complex than a system of prison 
 locks. Volumes of suspicion are read in a single 
 second ! It is frightful ; life or death in the twink- 
 ling of an eye. 'The villain has other letters in 
 his power, ' thought I ; and then the thousand and 
 one other details of the case absorbed my attention. 
 I passed by this incident because I expected to bring 
 my prisoners face to face, and to clear up this matter 
 at a later stage of the examination. But we may 
 consider it certain that Jacques Collin has stowed 
 away in some safe spot, after the fashion of these 
 wretches, the most compromising letters of this 
 young Apollo who was adored with so much— ' ' 
 
 "And yet you tremble, Camusot! You will be 
 president of a Chamber in the Royal Court 
 much sooner than I expected!" cried Madame 
 Camusot, whose face beamed with delight. 
 "Mark my words, you must behave so as to sat- 
 isfy everybody; for this trial has become so import- 
 ant that it might be stolen from us I — Did they not 
 take the case out of M. Popinot's hands to entrust 
 it to yours, at the time when Madame d'Espard 
 applied for an injunction against her husband?" 
 continued Amelie, in answer to her husband's ges- 
 ture of astonishment. "Now, can't the attorney- 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 179 
 
 general, who takes such a lively interest in the 
 honor of the Count de Serizy and his wife, transfer 
 the case to the Royal Court and intrust it to a coun- 
 cillor of his own choosing, so that the whole process 
 may begin afresh. — " 
 
 "My dearest wife, where did you learn your crim- 
 inal law?" cried Camusot. "You know ever3rthing, 
 you are my master — " 
 
 "What! can't you see that to-morrow morning M. 
 de Granville will be alarmed at the probable action 
 of some liberal lawyer. Jacques Collin will have 
 no trouble in finding one, for any of them would 
 gladly pay him for the right to be his counsel ! 
 These ladies know their danger quite as well, if 
 not better, than you ; they will make a confidant of 
 the attorney-general, who sees already how close 
 these families are to the prisoner's dock on account 
 of the intimacy between this convict and Lucien de 
 Rubempre, the accepted suitor of Mademoiselle de 
 Grandlieu, Lucien the lover of Esther, the former 
 flame of the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, the idol of 
 Madame de Serizy. You must, therefore, manoeuvre 
 in such a way as to win the affection of your attor- 
 ney-general and the gratitude of M. de Serizy, of 
 the Marchioness d'Espard and of the Countess du 
 Chatelet alike, to reinforce the duchess' protection 
 by that of the house of Grandlieu, and to invite the 
 commendation of your president The countess, 
 the duchess, and Madame Grandlieu will be my 
 care ; it is yours to see the attorney-general to-mor- 
 row morning. M. de Granville does not live with 
 
l8o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 his wife ; for the past dozen years he has had a mis- 
 tress, Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille. She has borne 
 him children, has she not? This magistrate is no 
 saint; he is a man like the rest of you; he can be 
 seduced ; there is some way to gain a hold upon 
 him. You must discover his weak point, flatter 
 him, ask his advice, point out to him the danger of 
 the case. Try to implicate him as well as yourself, 
 and you shall — " 
 
 "No, I ought to kiss the dust beneath your feet!" 
 said Camusot interrupting his wife, as he slipped 
 his arm about her waist and pressed her to his 
 heart. "Amelie, you are my saviour!" 
 
 "It was I, who dragged you from Alengon to 
 Mantes and from Mantes to the Tribunal of the 
 Seine," replied Amelie. "So you may trust me 
 now! Five years hence, I wish to be spoken of as 
 'the president's wife;' but, my love, always think 
 a long time before you come to a decision. A 
 judge's calling is not like a fireman's, there's never 
 a conflagration in your papers, you have time to 
 reflect; thus in your place stupid mistakes are inex- 
 cusable. — " 
 
 "The strength of my position rests entirely upon 
 the identity of the sham Spanish priest with Jacques 
 Collin," said the judge, after a long pause. "When 
 once this identity is firmly established, even if the 
 court should take cognizance of the case, it will 
 always be a fact of which no magistrate, judge or 
 counsellor, can rid himself. I shall be like the child 
 who has fastened an iron chain to a cat's tail ; no 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN l8l 
 
 matter where the prosecution is conducted, it will 
 always jangle Jacques Collin's irons." 
 
 "Bravo!" said Amelie. 
 
 "The attorney-general will be more anxious to 
 come to terms with me while 1 hold this sword of 
 Damocles suspended over the heart of the Faubourg 
 Saint-Germain than with anybody else ! But you 
 don't realize the difficulty of arriving at this glori- 
 ous result! The attorney-general and I, a few min- 
 utes ago in his office, agreed to take Jacques Collin 
 at his word, and consider him to be Carlos Herrera, 
 canon of the Chapter of Toledo. We have agreed 
 to recognize his capacity of diplomatic envoy and to 
 allow him to be declaimed by the Spanish Ambas- 
 sador. It was in accordance with this plan that I 
 signed the order for Lucien de Rubempre's release, 
 and that I began a fresh examination of my prison- 
 ers, making them appear white as snow. To-mor- 
 row de Rastignac, Bianchon, and 1 don't know who 
 besides, must be confronted with the self-styled 
 canon of the Royal Chapter of Toledo ; they will 
 not recognize in him Jacques Collin, whose arrest 
 took place in their presence some ten years ago, in 
 a family boarding house, where they had known 
 him under the name of Vautrin." 
 
 There was a moment's pause, while Madame 
 Camusot reflected. 
 
 "Are you positive that your prisoner is Jacques 
 Collin?" she asked. 
 
 "Positive," replied the judge, "and so is the 
 attorney-general. " 
 
l82 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Then try to create some excitement in the Palais 
 de Justice, but take care to l<eep your claws well 
 covered up. If your man is still in solitary con- 
 finement go instantly to the warden of the Con- 
 ciergerie and make arrangements to have the 
 convict publicly recognized. Instead of imitating 
 children, imitate the ministers of police in absolute 
 monarchies, who invent conspiracies against the 
 sovereign in order to gain the credit of thwarting 
 them, and so to render themselves indispensable. 
 Put three families in danger in order to reap the 
 glory of saving them. ' ' 
 
 "Ah, how lucky!" cried Camusot; "my brain is 
 in such confusion that I had forgotten one circum- 
 stance. The order to remove Jacques Collin to the 
 pistole was carried by Coquart to M. Gault, the 
 warden of the Conciergerie. But, through the 
 solicitude of Bibi Lupin, Jacques Collin's enemy, 
 three criminals who know him personally have 
 been transferred from the Force to the Conciergerie ; 
 and, if he enters the prison yard to-morrow morn- 
 ing, terrible scenes are anticipated — ' ' 
 
 "Why!"' 
 
 "Jacques Collin, my dear, is the depositary of 
 considerable sums of money entrusted to him by 
 prisoners, which he is accused of having squan- 
 dered to support the luxury of the late Lucien ; and 
 they are going to demand a strict account. Bibi 
 Lupin told me that there will be a butchery if the 
 guards don' t interfere ; at any rate the secret will 
 be disclosed. Jacques Collin's life will be at stake. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 183 
 
 By going to the palace early in the morning, I 
 shall be able to draw up a formal report of his 
 identity. ' ' 
 
 "Ah! if his creditors would take him of¥ your 
 hands, you would be looked upon as a master work- 
 man, indeed. Don't go to M. de Granville's house ; 
 wait for him at his office with this dreadful weapon. 
 It is a cannon leveled against the three most im- 
 portant families of the court and peerage. Be bold ; 
 suggest to M. de Granville to rid you of Jacques 
 Collin by transferring him to the Force, where 
 convicts need no schooling to make away with in- 
 formers. I, myself, shall go to the Duchess de 
 Maufrigneuse, who will take me to see the Grand- 
 lieus. Possibly I shall see M. de S^rizy as well. 
 Trust to me to spread the alarm everywhere. We'll 
 agree on some message for you to write me in case 
 the Spanish priest is formally recognized as Jacques 
 Collin. Make your arrangements to leave the palace 
 at two o'clock; I shall arrange a private audience 
 for you with the Keeper of the Seals ; perhaps he 
 will be at Madame d'Espard's house." 
 
 Camusot stood, with his legs planted wide apart, 
 lost in such admiration that the ingenious Amelie 
 smiled. 
 
 "Come to dinner, and be gay," said she, in con- 
 clusion. "Do you realize that we have scarcely 
 been two years in Paris, and here you are on the 
 high road to a counsellorship before the year is 
 out — From there, my dear, you will pass on to the 
 presidency of onq of the chambers of the court, for 
 
l84 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 the gap is none too wide to be bridged over by some 
 political service. 
 
 This secret deliberation shows how deeply the 
 actions and the slightest words of Jacques Collin, 
 the lowest actor in this drama, affected the honor of 
 the families in whose bosoms he had placed his dead 
 Lucien. 
 
The death of Lucien and the attack upon the 
 Conciergerie by the Countess de Serizy had so 
 clogged the wheels of that machine that the warden 
 had forgotten to remove the counterfeit priest from 
 his solitary cell. 
 
 Although there had been more than one example 
 in judiciary annals of a prisoner's death during his 
 trial, yet this occurrence was so rare that on the 
 present occasion guards, clerk, and warden alike, 
 had laid aside their ordinary calm. Nevertheless, 
 for them, the great event was not the transforma- 
 tion of a handsome young prisoner into a lifeless 
 body, but rather that a wrought iron bar of the 
 outer gate had snapped in the delicate hands of a 
 fashionable woman. Thus, the moment that the 
 attorney-general and the Count Octave de Bauvan 
 had departed in the Count de Serizy's carriage, tak- 
 ing with them his unconscious wife; warden, clerk, 
 and turnkeys hurried to the wicket, escorting M. 
 Lebrun, the prison doctor, who had been summoned 
 to verify Lucien's death and to hold a consultation 
 with the physician of the dead of the district where 
 that unfortunate young man had lived. 
 
 In Paris, the Physician of the Dead is the name 
 given to the doctor of the mayoralty, whose duty it 
 is to confirm all deaths and to ascertain their causes. 
 
 With rapid and characteristic decision, M. de 
 (185) 
 
l86 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Granville had judged it necessary for the honor of the 
 families concerned, that the official report of Lucien's 
 death be drawn up at the mayoralty of the quai of 
 Malaquais, the district in which the dead man had 
 resided, and that the body be carried from Lucien's 
 own dwelli'ng to the Church of Saint-Germain des 
 Pres, where the funeral service was to take place. 
 M. de Chargeboeuf, M. de Granville's secretary, was 
 summoned, and received orders in this regard. Pre- 
 parations were begun for the removal of the body 
 during the night. The young secretary was 
 directed to make immediate arrangements with the 
 authorities, the church and the undertakers. Thus, 
 for the world, Lucien must seem to have died a free 
 man in his own house. The funeral procession was 
 to start from his door and his friends were to be 
 invited to attend the ceremony. 
 
 At the moment when Camusot, with his mind at 
 rest, was sitting down to table with his ambitious 
 helpmate, the warden of the Conciergerie and M. 
 Lebrun, the prison doctor, were standing outside the 
 wicket deploring the fragility of iron bars and the 
 strength of amorous women. 
 
 "It is not known," the doctor was saying to M. 
 Gault, as he was about to take his leave, "what 
 limit there is to the nervous power of a man under 
 the excitement of excessive passion. Dynamics 
 and mathematics are without either figures or tables 
 by which this force might be computed. Why only 
 yesterday I was witness of an experiment which 
 frightened me, and which illustrates the terrible 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 187 
 
 physical power this little woman just now dis- 
 played." 
 
 "Tell me about it," said M. Gault; "I have the 
 weakness to take an interest in mesmerism ; although 
 I do not believe in it, still it puzzles me." 
 
 "A mesmeric physician, for there are persons 
 among us who believe in mesmerism," con- 
 tinued Doctor Lebrun, "proposed to me to make 
 upon myself an experiment of a phenomenon which 
 he had described to me and which I doubted. Curious 
 to see with my own eyes one of those strange, ner- 
 vous crises by which they prove the existence of 
 mesmerism, I consented. This is what happened. 
 I should like to know what our academy of medicine 
 would say if its members one after another sub- 
 mitted to this action which leaves no loophole to 
 incredulity. My old friend — 
 
 "This physician," continued Dr. Lebrun, be- 
 ginning a parenthesis, "is an old man who has 
 been persecuted for his belief by the Faculty 
 since Mesmer's time; he is seventy-one or two 
 years old and his name is Bouvard. To-day he 
 is the patriarch of the doctrine of animal mag- 
 netism. He has always treated me as his son, 
 and I owe my position to his kindness. Well then, 
 this elderly and respectable Bouvard proposed to me 
 to prove that the nervous force aroused by the mes- 
 merist was not infinite, for man is subject to deter- 
 minate laws ; but that it acts like natural forces 
 whose complete principles escape our calculations. 
 
 "'Thus,' said he to me, 'if you will consent to 
 
l88 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 place your wrist in the hand of a somnambulist, 
 who in the waking state could not press it beyond 
 a certain appreciable force, you will admit that 
 in the condition so absurdly called somnambulistic, 
 her fingers can gripe like a locksmith's pincers!' 
 
 "Thus, sir, when I had placed my wrist within 
 the woman's hand — the woman was not asleep, for 
 Bouvard disapproves of this expression; but iso- 
 lated — and when the old doctor had bidden her to 
 squeeze my wrist indefinately with all her strength, 
 I was obliged to implore her to stop, for 1 felt the 
 blood on the point of spurting from the tips of my 
 fingers. Please look at this bracelet which I shall 
 wear for more than three months. ' ' 
 
 "The devil!" exclaimed M. Gault, as he looked 
 at a livid band which resembled the scar of a burn. 
 
 "My dear Gault," continued the doctor, "had 
 my flesh been clinched in an iron band, and had a 
 blacksmith constantly twisted it more tightly by 
 a screw, I should not have felt the metal circlet as 
 painful as were this woman's fingers; her grip was 
 of inflexible steel, and I am perfectly certain that 
 she might have broken the bones and severed my 
 hand from the wrist. This pressure began almost 
 imperceptibly, and continued without relaxation, 
 adding continuously new force to its former pres- 
 sure. I tell you, sir, no tourniquet could have done 
 better service than this hand metamorphosed into 
 an instrument of torture. It appeared to me, then, 
 quite certain, that under the dominion of passion, 
 which is but the will concentrated upon a single 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 1^9 
 
 point, and reaching an incalculable quantity of 
 animal force — like all the different varieties of 
 electric power — man can bring all his vitality to 
 bear, either for attack or resistance, in such or such 
 organs. This little woman, under the weight of 
 her despair, concentrated all her vital power in her 
 wrists." 
 
 "She needed a devilish amount of it to break a 
 bar of wrought iron," — said one of the gaolers, 
 shaking his head. 
 
 "There was a flaw in it!" remarked M. Gault. 
 
 "I myself," continued the doctor, "dare not 
 assign limits to nervous force. It is by this means 
 that mothers, to save their children, mesmerize 
 lions, climb through flames along a cornice where 
 a cat can scarcely stand, and support the agony of 
 some child-births. There lies the secret of the 
 attempts of prisoners or convicts to regain their lib- 
 erty. We do not yet know the limit of mortal 
 strength, it is akin to the power of nature, and we 
 draw from it as from unknown springs!" 
 
 "Sir," whispered a gaoler in the ear of the war- 
 den, who had escorted Dr. Lebrun to the outer 
 wicket of the Conciergerie, "number 2, in soli- 
 tary confinement, says that he is sick, and demands 
 to see the doctor. He declares that he is going to 
 die, ' ' added the gaoler. 
 
 "Really?" said the warden. 
 
 "There is a rattle in his throat!" replied the 
 gaoler. 
 
 "It is five o'clock," observed the doctor; "I have 
 
igo SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 not dined yet. But, after all, I am practically there 
 already. So we'll go." 
 
 "Number 2, in solitary confinement, is that 
 very Spanish priest suspected of being Jacques Col- 
 lin," said M. Gaulttothe doctor, "and one of the 
 prisoners in the same case in which that poor 
 young fellow was implicated." — 
 
 "I have seen him before; this morning," replied 
 the doctor. "M. Camusot gave me directions to 
 make a diagnosis of his condition, and, between you 
 and me, the rascal could not be in better health. I 
 tell you he could make his fortune by posing for a 
 Hercules in some troop of acrobats. ' ' 
 
 "He may want to kill himself too," said M. 
 Gault. "Let's both look in upon his cell; for I 
 ought to go there, if it is only to have him moved 
 to the pistole. M. Camusot has ordered me to 
 lighten this nameless criminal's confinement — " 
 
 Jacques Collin, called Trompe-la-Mort in the 
 world of crime, to whom henceforward we need give 
 no name other than his own, had been, since his 
 return to his cell, in accordance with Camusot's 
 orders, a prey to such anxiety as he had never 
 known during a life chequered by numberless 
 crimes, by three escapes from prison, by two con- 
 demnations before the Court of Assizes. This man 
 was the incarnation of the life, the strength, the 
 cunning and the passions of the galleys ; he was its 
 very worst expression, and yet was he not rendered 
 monstrously beautiful by an attachment worthy of 
 the canine race, toward him whom he had made 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 191 
 
 his friend? Unpardonable, infamous and horrible 
 on so many sides, this perfect devotion to his idol 
 makes him so truly interesting that this Study, long 
 as it has already been, would seem curtailed and 
 incomplete if the last chapters of this life of crime 
 did not follow the death of Lucien de Rubempre. 
 The little spaniel is dead, and the reader asks 
 whether his terrible comrade, the lion, will live ! 
 
 In real life, in society, the chain of things is 
 linked so closely that no event can happen singly. 
 The waters of the flood form a kind of liquid sea; 
 there is no wave, angry and towering as it may be, 
 whose mighty crest is not submerged beneath the 
 mass of waters which' overwhelm in their swift cur- 
 rent the rebellious gulfs, and sweep them down in 
 their tempestuous course. Just as you may be in- 
 terested in watching confused images float past you 
 in running water, so, perhaps, you desire to meas- 
 ure the pressure of social power upon that whirl- 
 pool called Vautrin ; to see how far from shore the 
 turbulent wave will be overwhelmed, and to learn 
 the destiny of this man who, however diabolical, is 
 yet linked to humanity by love ; so hard is it for 
 this heavenly principle to perish in the most can- 
 kered hearts. 
 
 The ignoble convict, incarnating the cherished 
 ideal of so many poets, Moore, Lord Byron, Ma- 
 thurin, Canalis — a demon ruling over an angel, 
 enticed in to hell to refresh himself upon dew stolen 
 from paradise — Jacques Collin, if we have pene- 
 trated into his brazen heart, had for seven years 
 
ig2 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 renounced himself. His powerful faculties, absorbed 
 in Lucien, were brought into being for Lucien's 
 sake; his delight was in Lucien's progress, in his 
 love, in his ambition. For him Lucien was his 
 visible soul. 
 
 Trompe-la-Mort dined with the Grandlieus, glided 
 into the boudoir of noble ladies, loved Esther by 
 proxy. In a word he saw in Lucien a Jacques 
 Collin, young, handsome, noble, destined to become 
 an ambassador of France. 
 
 Trompe-la-Mort had realized the German super- 
 stition of a double by means of a phenomenon of 
 moral paternity, that sensation which a woman will 
 receive, if throughout her life she has loved sin- 
 cerely, if she has felt her soul mingled with that of 
 the man whom she adores, and has lived his life, 
 whether it be noble or base, happy or sorrowful, 
 obscure or glorious; if, though far away, she has 
 suffered the throbbing of his wound, and has felt 
 intuitively when he has fought a duel; if, to 
 paint her by a single expression, she has had no 
 need to be told of an infidelity to know of its 
 existence. 
 
 When he had been replaced in his cell, Jacques 
 Collin said to himself: 
 
 "They are examining the boy!" 
 
 He trembled ; Trompe-la-Mort, who murdered as 
 a workman drinks. 
 
 "Has he been able to see his mistresses?" he 
 asked himself. "Did my aunt find these cursed 
 women? Have these duchesses, these countesses 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 193 
 
 taken any steps ; have they stopped the examina- 
 tion? — Has Lucien received my instructions? — If 
 fate will have him examined, how will he hold 
 out? Poor boy! It was I who brought him to this 
 pass. That thief of a Paccard and that weasel, 
 Europe, were at the bottom of the whole trouble by 
 prigging the seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs which Nucingen gave to Esther. Those two 
 rascals have pushed us to the last notch, but they 
 shall pay dearly for their sport. One day more and 
 Lucien would have been rich; he would have mar- 
 ried his Clotilde de Grandlieu. Esther would have 
 been off my hands. Lucien was too fond of that 
 girl, while he never could have loved our sole 
 anchor, Clotilde — Ah! the boy might have been 
 wholly mine ! To think that our fate hangs upon 
 a look, a blush, of Lucien before this ever-watchful 
 Camusot, who does not lack a judge's cunning, for 
 when he showed me the letters, our eyes met in a 
 glance by which we sounded each other, and he 
 divined that I can make Lucien's mistresses sing to 
 any tune I wish!" 
 
 This monologue lasted for three hours. The 
 anguish was so terrible that the prisoner required 
 all the strength of his constitution of iron and of 
 vitriol. Jacques Collin, whose brain was on fire 
 with the madness of suspense, felt a thirst so insa- 
 tiate that he swallowed, without perceiving it, the 
 entire provision of water contained in one of the 
 two buckets which, together with the bed, formed 
 all the furniture of his cell. 
 13 
 
194 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "If he loses his head, what will become of him? 
 The dear boy lacks Theodore's strength of mind!" 
 thought he, as he lay down upon his camp bed 
 which was like that of a guard room. 
 
 We must say a word or two concerning this Theo- 
 dore, whom Jacques Collin called to mind at this 
 supreme crisis. Theodore Calvi, a young Corsi- 
 can, condemned to the galleys for life on account of 
 eleven murders committed before he had reached 
 the age of eighteen, had been from 1819 to 1820 the 
 companion of Jacques Collin's chain, thanks to 
 influence bought at the price of gold. Jacques 
 Collin's last escape was one of his most complete 
 combinations — he had left the prison disguised as a 
 gendarme and leading Theodore Calvi, who walked 
 at his side in convict's dress, as if he were on his 
 way to see the Commissioner of Police. — This mas- 
 terpiece had taken place in the seaport of Rochefort, 
 where convicts die like sheep, and where the gov- 
 ernment had hoped that these two dangerous persons 
 would end their lives. Companions in escape, they 
 had been forced to separate by the dangers of their 
 flight. Theodore had been retaken and returned to 
 the galleys. Jacques Collin made his way to Spain ; 
 transformed himself into Carlos Herrera, and then 
 started back toward Rochefort, in order to meet his 
 accomplice. It was at this time that he met Lucien 
 on the borders of the Charente. The bandit hero 
 of Corsican forests, to whom Trompe-la-Mort owed 
 his knowledge of the Italian tongue, was naturally 
 sacrificed to this new idol. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 195 
 
 Life with Lucien, a young man free from unpar- 
 donable sins, with a conscience burdened only by 
 the peccadilloes of youth, rose before his mind 
 beautiful and splendid as the sun of a summer's 
 day; while, in league with Theodore, Jacques Col- 
 lin could see no other perspective than the scaffold 
 at the end of a long line of inevitable crimes. 
 
 The idea of a tragedy caused by Lucien's weak- 
 ness, whose determination might well falter beneath 
 the rigors of prison life, assumed vast proportions in 
 Jacques Collin's brain ; and as he meditated upon the 
 possibility of a catastrophe, the unhappy wretch felt 
 his eyes wet with tears, a strange occurrence which 
 never since his childhood had happened in his life. 
 
 "1 must have a violent fever," thought he, "and 
 by summoning a doctor I might persuade him to put 
 me into communication with Lucien for a handsome 
 sum." 
 
 At this moment a turnkey entered with the pris- 
 oner's dinner. 
 
 "It's useless, my boy, I can't eat. Ask the war- 
 den to send the doctor to me. I feel so ill that I 
 believe my last hour has come. " 
 
 Hearing the rattle in the throat with which the 
 convict accompanied this speech, the turnkey nod- 
 ded and went out. Jacques Collin clung passion- 
 ately to this hope; but, when he saw the doctor 
 enter his cell in company with the warden, he felt 
 that success was impossible, and coolly awaiting 
 the result of the visit he let the doctor feel his 
 pulse. 
 
ig6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "The prisoner has fever," said the doctor to M. 
 Gault; "but it is the fever which is common to all 
 prisoners, and which," he added in the counterfeit 
 Spaniard's ear, "always seems to me the proof of 
 guilt." 
 
 At this juncture the warden, to whom the attor- 
 ney-general had intrusted the letter written by 
 Lucien to Jacques Collin, left the doctor and pris- 
 oner in the turnkey's care and went to fetch the 
 letter. 
 "Sir," said Jacques Collin to the doctor, seeing 
 the turnkey at the door and at a loss to under- 
 stand the warden's departure, "I should not stickle 
 about thirty thousand francs, if it would enable me 
 to dispatch five lines to Lucien." 
 
 "I don't care to steal your money," replied the 
 doctor; "nobody in this world can communicate 
 with him longer." — 
 
 "Nobody?" exclaimed Jacques Collin in amaze- 
 ment, "why?" 
 
 "He has hung himself." — 
 
 Never did tigress, when she found her whelps 
 stolen from her lair, make the jungles of India re- 
 echo with a cry so terrible as that which Jacques 
 Collin uttered. He sprang to his feet, as a tigress 
 to her paws, and glared at the doctor with a look 
 burning as the bright lightning when it strikes; 
 then he sank back upon his bed murmuring: 
 
 "Oh! my son!"— 
 
 "Poor man!" exclaimed the doctor, moved by this 
 terrible convulsion of nature. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 197 
 
 In fact, this explosion was followed by such utter 
 weakness that the words, "Oh ! my son !" were but 
 a whisper. 
 
 "Is this fellow going to die on our hands, too?" 
 asked the turnkey. 
 
 "No; it can't be so!" continued Jacques Collin, 
 raising himself and gazing at the two witnesses of 
 this scene with a cold fireless eye. "You are 
 wrong; it is not he! you mistook another. A man 
 cannot hang himself in a solitary cell. How could I 
 hang myself here ? All Paris is answerable to me 
 for that life ! God owes it to me !" 
 
 The turnkey and the doctor, who for years had 
 been surprised at nothing, were stupefied in their 
 turn. M. Gault entered with Lucien's letter in his 
 hand. At the appearance of the warden, Jacques 
 Collin, prostrated beneath the violence of his out- 
 burst of grief, appeared to grow calm. 
 
 "Here is a letter which the attorney-general bade 
 me to give you still unopened, ' ' said M. Gault. 
 
 "It is from Lucien.?" — said Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Is it true, sir, that this young man is — ?" 
 
 "Is dead," interrupted the warden. "Even if 
 the doctor had been in the prison at the time, he 
 must have come too late. — The young man is dead; 
 there — in one of the pistoles — " 
 
 "May I see him with my own eyes?" asked 
 Jacques Collin, timidly. "Will you allow a father 
 to weep over his son's body?" 
 
 "You may, if you wish, take his apartment, for 
 
ig8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 I have orders to transfer you to one of the chambers 
 of the pistole. Your solitary confinement is over. ' ' 
 
 The prisoner's eyes, from which all the warmth 
 of life had departed, turned slowly from the war- 
 den to the doctor ; Jacques Collin questioned them, 
 for he feared some trap and hesitated to leave his 
 cell. 
 
 "If you wish to see the body," said the doctor, 
 "you have no time to lose ; it is to be removed this 
 very night. ' ' — 
 
 "If you have children, gentlemen," said Jacques 
 Collin, "you will understand my imbecility; I can 
 scarcely see — this blow is more terrible to me than 
 death; but you cannot understand what I say. — If 
 you are fathers at all, you are only fathers in one 
 way ; — I am a mother too ! — I — I am mad — I know 
 it" 
 
 By passing through passages, whose unyielding 
 doors opened before the warden alone, it is possible 
 to go from the cells designed for solitary confine- 
 ment to the pistoles in a very brief time. These 
 two rows of rooms are separated by a subterranean 
 corridor that runs between two massive walls which 
 uphold the vault upon which rests that gallery of 
 the Palais de Justice, known as the Galerie Mar- 
 chande. Thus Jacques Collin, accompanied by the 
 turnkey, who held him by the arm, preceded by 
 the warden and followed by the physician, arrived 
 in a few minutes at the cell where Lucien lay 
 stretched upon the bed. 
 
 At the sight, Jacques Collin flung himself upon 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 199 
 
 the body and clasped it with such desperation that 
 the three witnesses of the scene shuddered at the 
 passionate vehemence of the embrace. 
 
 "This," said the doctor to the warden," is an 
 example of what I was saying. You will see ; — he'll 
 crush the body, and yet you don't know what a 
 corpse is; it is a stone. — " 
 
 "Leave me alone," — said Jacques Collin in a 
 dying voice; "I have not long to see him. They 
 are coming to take him away from me to — " 
 
 He stopped before the word bury. 
 
 "You'll allow me to keep some remembrance of 
 my beloved child ! — ^Will you please cut for me your- 
 self, sir," said he to Dr. Lebrun, "a few locks of 
 his hair, for I cannot — " 
 
 "It is his son, indeed!" said the doctor. 
 
 "Do you think so?" replied the warden, with an 
 air of deep thought which threw the physician into 
 a short revery. 
 
 The warden ordered the turnkey to leave the pris- 
 oner alone in the cell, and to cut a few locks from 
 the son's head and give them to the pretended 
 father before the body was taken away. 
 
 At half past five on a May evening it is easy to 
 read a letter in the Conciergerie in spite of the iron 
 bars and the wire meshes of the lattice which 
 darken the windows. Jacques Collin read the ter- 
 rible letter slowly, without loosing his grasp of 
 Lucien's hand. 
 
 We know no man who, for ten minutes, can hold 
 a piece of ice and squeeze it firmly in the hollow of 
 
200 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 his hand. Cold glides to the fountain of life with 
 deadly speed. Yet the effect of this intense cold, 
 acting, though it does, like poison, is scarcely com- 
 parable to impression stamped upon the soul by the 
 stiff chill hand of a corpse held thus in a living 
 grasp. Then death speaks to life and tells black 
 secrets which kill all feeling; for when feeling 
 changes, does it not die ? 
 
 Upon re-reading Lucien's letter, together with 
 Jacques Collin, these last words will appear what the 
 wretched convict felt them to be, a draught of poison : 
 
 "TO THE ABB6 CARLOS HERRERA. 
 
 "My Dear Abb6: 
 
 "From you I have received naught but benefits, 
 and yet I haVe betrayed you. This involuntary 
 ingratitude kills me, and when you read these lines 
 I shall have ceased to live; you cannot be at my 
 side to save me. 
 
 "You have given me full permission to ruin you, 
 and to cast you from me like the butt of a cigar, 
 if by so doing I might secure some advantage for 
 myself; but 1 have sacrificed you stupidly. In order 
 to extricate himself from danger, deceived by an 
 artful question of the judge, I, your spiritual son, him 
 whom you have adopted, has ranged himself in the 
 ranks of those who wish to murder you at any cost, 
 by establishing a false identity between you and a 
 French scoundrel. This is the whole story. 
 
 "Between a man of your power and me, whom 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 201 
 
 you wished to be more great than I could ever have 
 been, there must be no exchange of idle reproaches 
 at this moment of eternal separation. You desired 
 to make me powerful and glorious ; you have hurled 
 me into the abyss of suicide : this is all. It is a 
 long time since I have ceased to hear the whirr of 
 the mighty wings of giddiness swooping down 
 upon me. 
 
 "There is the posterity of Cain as well as that of 
 Abel, as you have sometimes said. In the great 
 drama of humanity, Cain is the enemy. You are 
 descended from Adam by that line whose flame the 
 devil has fanned unceasingly since its first spark 
 fell upon Eve. Among the demons of this race 
 there appear, from time to time, terrible beings, 
 whose vast organizations contain the sum of all the 
 powers of man, and who are like those restless 
 beasts of the desert that need the immense soli- 
 tudes they inhabit. Creatures like these are as 
 dangerous to society as lions turned loose in the 
 heart of Normandy : they need a pasturage ; they 
 devour common men and browse upon the money 
 of fools. Their very games are so perilous that 
 at length they kill the meek dog which they have 
 chosen for a companion, for an idol. When God 
 so wills it, these mysterious beings are Moses, 
 Attila, Charlemagne, Mohammed or Napoleon, but 
 when he lets these gigantic instruments rust at the 
 bottom of the ocean of a generation, they are but 
 Pagatcheff, Fouche, Louvel or the Abbe Carlos 
 Herrera. Endued with boundless influence over 
 
202 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 sensitive souls, they attract them and grind them to 
 powder. It is great; in its way it is beautiful. It 
 is the venomous plant of gorgeous colors which 
 fascinates children in the woods. It is the poetry 
 of evil. Men, such as you, should dwell in caverns 
 and never come forth. You have made me live this 
 giant life and I have finished my full measure of 
 existence. Thus I may draw my neck from the 
 gordian knots of your projects to slip it into the 
 running noose of my cravat. 
 
 "To repair my fault I transmit to the attorney- 
 general a full retraction of my examination. — You 
 will find this document of advantage to you. 
 
 "By the wish formally expressed in my testa- 
 ment, you will receive the sums belonging to your 
 order, which you have very imprudently expended 
 in my behalf, on account of the fatherly affection 
 which you have displayed toward me. 
 
 "Adieu, then, adieu, mighty statue of Evil and of 
 Corruption. Adieu, you who, in the path of right, 
 might have been more than Ximen^s, more than 
 Richelieu! You have kept your promises; once 
 more 1 find myself such as I was upon the bank 
 of the Charente after having owed to you the 
 enchantments of a dream; but, unhappily, it is 
 no longer the river of my native place wherein I 
 was about to drown all my boyhood's sins ; it is the 
 Seine ; and my pit is a cell of the Conciergerie. 
 
 "Do not regret me; my contempt for you was as 
 great as my admiration. 
 
 "LUCIEN." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 203 
 
 Before one o'clock in the morning, when the por- 
 ters came to carry away the body, they found 
 Jacques Collin kneeling before the bed, while the 
 letter lay upon the ground by his side, fallen, no 
 doubt, as the pistol falls from the hand of the sui- 
 cide; but the unhappy prisoner still held Lucien's 
 hand clasped between his own and prayed. 
 
 At the sight of this man, the porters stopped a 
 moment, for he resembled one of those stone figures 
 which the sculptor's genius has made to kneel for- 
 ever upon the tombs of the Middle Ages. This 
 sham priest, with eyes bright as those of tigers', and 
 body stiffened into unnatural rigidity, made so deep 
 an impression upon the spectators that they asked 
 him with gentleness to get up. 
 
 "Why?" he asked timidly. 
 
 The dauntless Trompe-Ia-Mort had become feeble 
 as a child. 
 
 The warden pointed this spectacle out to M. de 
 Chargeboeuf, who, filled with respect in the pres- 
 ence of great sorrow, and not doubting that Jacques 
 Collin was indeed the true father, explained M. de 
 Granville's orders in regard to the funeral and 
 Lucien's removal ; and told the prisoner that it was 
 absolutely necessary to carry Lucien to his former 
 dwelling on the quai Malaquais, where priests were 
 waiting to watch beside the body during the remain- 
 der of the night 
 
 "I see in this the magistrate's noble soul," ex- 
 claimed the convict in a melancholy voice. "Tell 
 him, sir, that he can count upon my gratitude — yes. 
 
204 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 I can render him great services. — Do not forget what 
 I say; it is of the highest importance to him. Ah, 
 sir, a man's heart is strangely altered when he has 
 wept for seven hours over a child like this. — I shall 
 never see him again — !" 
 
 Casting one look upon Lucien, the look of a 
 mother from whose side the body of her son is torn, 
 Jacques Collin sank to the floor. As he watched 
 the porters raise Lucien's body, he uttered a groan 
 which made them hasten to finish their duty. 
 
 The attorney-general's secretary and the warden 
 had already found an opportunity to withdraw. 
 
 What had become of this brazen nature wherein 
 the decision was rapid as the glance and thought 
 and action burst forth like a single stroke of light- 
 ning; whose nerves, toughened by three escapes, 
 by three imprisonments, had attained the metallic 
 solidity of the nerves of a savage? At a certain 
 heat iron yields to blows or to continual pressure ; 
 its impenetrable molecules, purified by man and 
 rendered homogeneous, disintegrate, and unless it 
 be in a state of fusion, the metal has no longer the 
 same virtue of resistance. Farriers, blacksmiths, 
 cutlers, all who work this metal continually, express 
 its condition at this stage by a technical word. 
 The iron is retted, they say, appropriating this 
 expression which belongs exclusively to flax, whose 
 fibers are separated by steeping. Just so, the 
 human soul, or, if you prefer, the triple energy of 
 body, heart and mind, when it has been struck by 
 certain repeated blows, comes into a condition 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 205 
 
 analagous to that of iron. Men are then like flax and 
 iron, they are retted. Science, justice, and the 
 public seek a thousand causes for the terrible catas- 
 trophies upon railroads resulting by the rupture of 
 an iron rail — of this the accident at Bellevue fur- 
 nishes the most frightful example — but nobody has 
 asked the opinion of the best judges, the smiths, 
 who have all given the same answer, "The iron 
 was retted. ' ' This danger cannot be foreseen. The 
 metal which has become soft, and the metal which 
 has remained unyielding, offer the same appear- 
 ance. 
 
 It is in this condition that priests and examining 
 judges often find great criminals. The terrible sen- 
 sations aroused by the Court of Assizes and by the 
 prison-dress affects, even in the strongest natures, 
 this dislocation of the nervous system. The most 
 violently compressed lips open and let confessions 
 pass; the hardest hearts break; and strangest 
 feature of all, it is at a moment when confession is 
 useless that this last feebleness snatches from the 
 prisoner his mask of innocence, beneath which he 
 has alarmed the law, always uneasy when the con- 
 demned man dies without confessing his crime. 
 
 Napoleon felt this dissolution of all human 
 strength upon the field of battle at Waterloo ! 
 
At eight o'clock in the morning, the turnkey of 
 the pistoles entered the room where Jacques Collin 
 was confined, and found him pale and calm like a 
 man strengthened by some violent resolution. 
 
 "It is time to go to the yard," said the turnkey; 
 "you have been confined for three days; if you 
 wish to walk and get the air, you may!" 
 
 Absorbed in his thoughts, Jacques Collin had 
 ceased to take an interest in his fate; looking upon 
 himself as a garment without a body, as a mere 
 rag, he did not suspect the trap which Bibi Lupin 
 had set for him, nor the importance of his entry into 
 the prison yard. The wretched man left his cell 
 mechanically, and walked down the corridor past 
 the cells built against the cornices that decorated 
 the magnificent arcade of the palace of French kings, 
 upon which rests the so-called gallery of Saint Louis 
 which leads to the various dependencies of the 
 Court of Appeals. This corridor joins that of the 
 pistoles and, as may be interesting to know, the cell 
 once occupied by Louvel, one of the most famous of 
 regicides, is situated in the right angle formed by 
 the elbow of these two corridors. Beneath the 
 attractive office in the Tour Bonbec is a spiral stair- 
 case which leads down from this gloomy corridor ; 
 and by these stairs the prisoners lodged in the pis- 
 toles, or in the cells, make their exits and their 
 entrances to and from the yard. 
 (207) 
 
208 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 All the detenus, the accusis, both those about to ap- 
 pear at the bar of the Court of Assizes, and those 
 who have appeared there, the pr^venus who are no 
 longer in solitary confinement, in short all the pris- 
 oners of the Conciergerie, walk in this narrow 
 paved spot for a few hours every day, and generally 
 during the summer months, in the early morning. 
 This yard, the antechamber, which leads to prison 
 or the scaffold, is linked to society by the gen- 
 darme, by the office of the examining magistrate, 
 and by the Court of Assizes. It is more awful to 
 look upon than the scaffold itself. The scaffold 
 may become a ladder ascending into heaven ; but 
 the prison yard is a mass of all the earth's vileness 
 heaped up without means of escape ! 
 
 Whether it be the yard of the Force, or of Poissy, 
 or of Melun, or of Sainte-Pelagie, a prison yard is 
 a prison yard. The same features are reproduced 
 down to their least details, even the color of the 
 walls and the height and width of the enclosure. 
 Besides, the Studies of Manners would belie their 
 title did they not contain an exact description of 
 this Parisian pandemonium. 
 
 Beneath the mighty arches which support the 
 audience chamber of the Court of Appeals, there 
 is in the fourth arcade a stone, from which they 
 say Saint Louis was accustomed to distribute his 
 alms, and which to-day serves as a counter 
 where the prisoners may buy certain kinds of 
 food and drink. Thus, the moment that they are 
 admitted to the yard, the prisoners gather hastily 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 209 
 
 a()out this stone laden with such luxuries as rum 
 and brandy. 
 
 The first two arches on that side of the yard 
 which faces the splendid byzantine gallery, that last 
 vestige of the beauty of Saint Louis' palace, are 
 partitioned off so as to form a parlor where lawyers 
 consult with prisoners. The clients are admitted 
 by a formidable wicket, through which run two 
 paths separated from each other by an enormous 
 grating, and comprised within the limits of the third 
 arch. This double entrance resembles those path- 
 ways temporarily constructed at theatre doors to 
 contain the crowd thronging to buy tickets for some 
 popular play. This parlor, situated at one end of 
 the vast hall, opposite the present wicket of the 
 Conciergerie, was formerly lighted by small win- 
 dows looking out toward the prison yard, and has 
 lately been brightened by glazed frames at the side 
 of the wicket placed so near the ground that it is 
 easy for those without to see the lawyers in confer- 
 ence with their clients. This innovation has been 
 rendered necessary by the too dangerous fascination 
 which pretty women exercised over their defenders. 
 We can never be sure how far morality will go! 
 These precautions resemble those ready-made ex- 
 aminations of conscience wherein the purest imagi- 
 nations become corrupted by mere thought of 
 immorality, whose realization they do not know. 
 In this parlor, also, take place the interviews of 
 the prisoners with such relatives or friends as they 
 are permitted to see. 
 14 
 
2IO SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 The reader must now understand what the 
 prison yard means to the two hundred prisoners 
 of the Conciergerie ; it is their garden, a garden 
 without trees, earth or flowers; in a word it is 
 a prison yard. The appurtenances of the parlor 
 and of Saint Louis' stone, over which the author- 
 ized eatables and drinkables are dispensed, form the 
 only possible communication with the outside world. 
 
 The minutes which the prisoner spends in the 
 yard are his only opportunity to enjoy air or com- 
 panionship. In other prisons the inmates are 
 allowed to work together, but at the Conciergerie 
 no occupation is permitted to prisoners who are not 
 confined in a pistole. The drama of the Court of 
 Assizes fills every mind, for no person is taken to 
 the Conciergerie who is not to undergo examination 
 or judgment. This court yard is a dreadful spec- 
 tacle ; it cannot be imagined unless a man see it, or 
 has seen it once. 
 
 The assemblage of a hundred prisoners in a space 
 forty yards long by thirty in breadth is not com- 
 posed of the flower of society. These wretches, 
 who for the most part belong to the lowest classes, 
 are ill-clad, their faces are debased or brutal, for a 
 criminal who has come from the higher spheres of 
 the social scale is happily a rare exception. Pecula- 
 tion, forgery, or fraudulent failures, the only crimes 
 which can bring respectable people to prison, are all 
 permitted the privilege of the pistole ; and the pris- 
 oner confined under these conditions scarcely ever 
 leaves his cell. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 211 
 
 This promenade framed in by fine, yet blackened 
 and forbidding walls, by a colonnade divided into 
 cells, by a fortified facade that faces the quay, by the 
 grated chambers of the pistole, toward the north, 
 guarded by watchful turnkeys, crammed with a herd 
 of degraded criminals, each suspicious of his neigh- 
 bor, is at first but a sad sight for the casual specta- 
 tor ; but soon he grows alarmed when he sees himself 
 the centre of glances pregnant with hate, curiosity 
 and despair which these dishonored creatures cast 
 upon him. Joy is banished; places and men are 
 imbued with the same melancholy. Walls and con- 
 sciences are silent alike. For these wretches, dan- 
 ger is omnipresent; they dare not trust in one 
 another or rely upon a friendship, sinister as its 
 birth place — ^the galleys. The turnkeys, hovering 
 about, poison the atmosphere and corrupt every- 
 thing, even the handshake of two friends in misery. 
 A criminal who meets his best friend there cannot 
 be sure whether the latter has not repented of their 
 intimacy and confessed in the selfish interest of his 
 own fate. This absence of security, this fear of 
 sheep, annihilates the deceitful liberty of the prison 
 yard. In prison slang the sheep is a detective, ap- 
 parently overwhelmed by the weight of some crime, 
 whose proverbial cleverness consists in playing the 
 part of a friend. The word friend signifies in slang 
 a crafty and consummate thief, who wishes to remain 
 a thief all his life, and abides faithfully by the laws 
 of the swell-mob. 
 
 Crime bears some resemblance to madness. The 
 
212 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 prisoners in the yard of the Conciergerie are but a 
 repetition of the madmen in the garden of an 
 asylum. Both these classes of men walk up and 
 down avoiding their comrades and casting from side 
 to side strange or angry looks, according to the feel- 
 ings of the moment. They are never happy, never 
 quite serious ; for they either know or fear one 
 another. Suspense, remorse and anxiety give to 
 those who walk about this yard the haggard uneasy 
 look of madness. Life-long criminals alone acquire 
 an assurance which resembles the tranquillity of an 
 honest life and the sincerity of a pure conscience. 
 
 The presence of men of the middle class is excep- 
 tional, for shame holds within their cells the few 
 whom crime has sent thither ; and so the prisoners 
 in the yard are generally dressed like persons of the 
 working class. The smock-frock, the blouse and 
 the velveteen waistcoat predominate. These coarse 
 and dirty costumes, in harmony with low and 
 vicious faces with manners still brutal although 
 somewhat subdued by melancholy thoughts, contri- 
 bute to the terror and disgust of the rare visitor for 
 whom some influential person has secured the dis- 
 tinguished privilege of studying the Conciergerie. 
 
 In the same way that an anatomical museum, 
 wherein the vilest diseases are portrayed in wax, 
 awakens determination for a better life in the breast 
 of a young man, the sight of the Conciergerie and 
 the aspect of the prison yard, crowded with its deni- 
 zens sentenced to imprisonment, the scaffold or some 
 other disgraceful penalty, inspires with the fear of 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 213 
 
 human retribution men long deaf to the voice of 
 divine justice, loud as its voice may sound within 
 their consciences; and so they go their ways, 
 honest people for a long time to come. 
 
 Since the prisoners, who were walking about the 
 yard when Jacques Collin entered it, were destined 
 to be actors in one of the great scenes of the life 
 of Trompe-la-Mort, it is not unnecessary to describe 
 a few of the principal figures in this terrible assem- 
 blage. 
 
 There, as in all places where men meet together ; 
 there, as at college, physical and moral strength are 
 the ruling powers; and there, as in the convict 
 prisons, aristocracy is built upon a scale of crime. 
 He, whose head is in danger, overtops all his com- 
 panions. The yard, as we believe, is a school of 
 criminal law; it is taught there far better than in 
 the Place du Pantheon. A periodic amusement 
 consists of repeating the drama of the Court of 
 Assizes, of appointing a president, a jury, a public 
 prosecutor and a lawyer for the defence, and of con- 
 ducting' a trial in due form. This horrible farce 
 takes place almost always upon the occasion of the 
 committal of some famous crime. At the time of 
 which we speak there was an important criminal 
 trial in process at the Court of Assizes : a brutal 
 murder committed upon the persons of M. Crottat, 
 an old farmer, and his wife, the father and mother of 
 the notary of that name. As evidence in this pain- 
 ful case proved, the aged couple were in possession 
 of eight hundred thousand francs in gold. One of the 
 
214 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 authors of this double murder was the notorious 
 Dannepont, alias La Pourraille, an escaped convict, 
 who for five years had eluded the most diligent re- 
 searches of the police, thanks to the protection of 
 seven or eight different names. The disguises of 
 this rascal were so perfect that he had served two 
 years' imprisonment under the name of Delsouq, one 
 of his own pupils, a famous thief, who in his trade 
 never outstepped the limits of the police court 
 jurisdiction. La Pouraille had committed three 
 murders since his escape from the galleys. The 
 certainty of a death sentence rendered this mur- 
 derer an object of terror and admiration to his 
 fellow prisoners ; and their respect was still further 
 increased by his reputed wealth, for not a penny of 
 the stolen hoard had been recovered. In spite of 
 the events of July, 1830, many readers can still re- 
 call the horror that Paris felt at this bold crime, 
 which in importance may be compared with the 
 robbery of the medals from the Library ; for the 
 unhappy tendency of our time to value every- 
 thing by its price, renders a murder striking in pro- 
 portion to the amount of money for the sake of 
 which it is committed. 
 
 La Pouraille, a small, thin, spare man, with fea- 
 tures like a weasel's, was, at the age of forty-five, 
 one of the most notorious criminals of three prisons, 
 the first of which he had entered at the age of nine- 
 teen. At one time, as the reader will soon per- 
 ceive, he had been an intimate acquaintance of 
 Jacques Collin. Transferred from the Force to the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 21 5 
 
 Conciergerie during the last twenty-four hours, in 
 company with La Pouraille, were two other convicts 
 who had recognized their comrade on the spot and 
 had spread throughout the prison yard, the sinister 
 celebrity of this friend doomed to the scaffold. One 
 of the prisoners, formerly a discharged convict, 
 named Selerier, and surnamed variously I'Auverg- 
 nat, Father Ralleau and le Rouleur, who, in the 
 society which convict-slang terms the swell mob, 
 went by the cognomen of Fil-de-Soie, a title due 
 to the address with which he threaded his way 
 through the dangers of his trade, was a former 
 accomplice of Trompe-la-Mort 
 
 Trompe-Ia-Mort suspected Fil-de-Soie so strongly 
 of playing a double game, of being in the pay of the 
 police while he retained his place at the council 
 board of the swell mob, that he had attributed to him 
 — see Pere Goriot — his arrest in the Maison Vauquer 
 in 1819. Selerier, whom we shall call Fil-de-soie in 
 like manner as Dannepont will be known as La 
 Pouraille, already charged with escape from prison, 
 was implicated in considerable robberies, which, 
 although no blood had been spilled, were sufficient 
 to condemn him to a term of at least twenty 
 years. The other convict, named Riganson, and 
 his mistress, who was surnamed la Biffe, formed 
 one of the most redoubtable couples of the swell 
 mob. Riganson, who from youth up had been 
 at variance with the law, went by the nickname 
 of le Biffon. Le Biffon was the masculine of la 
 Biffe, for in the swell mob nothing is held sacred. 
 
2l6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 These savages respect neither law nor religion ; not 
 even natural history whose sacred nomenclature is, 
 as we have seen, parodied by them. 
 
 A digression is necessary at this point; for 
 Jacques Collin's entrance into the prison yard and 
 his sudden appearance in the midst of his enemies, 
 so cleverly contrived by Bibi Lupin and the exam- 
 ining judge, as well as the curious scenes which 
 are to follow, would be inadmissible and incompre- 
 hensible without some words of explanation upon 
 the world of thiefs and convicts, upon their laws, 
 their customs, and above all upon their language, 
 whose hideous p6etry is indispensable to this chap- 
 ter of the story. First of all, let us describe the 
 language of blacklegs, and of cheats, of robbers, 
 and of murderers, called slang, which in these latter 
 days has been borrowed by literature with such 
 success that more than one word of this strange 
 vocabulary has passed through the rosy lips of 
 young women, echoed beneath gilded panels, and 
 delighted princes, of whom more than one has 
 found an opportunity to declare himself done brown. 
 Let us affirm, though many people, perhaps, will be 
 astonished at such a declaration, that there is no 
 language more forcible and none more picturesque 
 than that of this subterranean world ; a language 
 which, so long as great cities have existed, has been 
 spoken in cellars, in sewers, and in the third base- 
 ments of society, if we may borrow a vivid and 
 descriptive expression from dramatic art Is not 
 the world a stage? The third basement is the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 217 
 
 lowest cellar situated beneath the boards of the 
 opera, wherein are stored scenes, and scene-shift- 
 ers, foot-lights, apparitions and all the blue devils 
 which rise from the mouth of hell. 
 
 Every word in this language is a brutal, ingeni- 
 ous or terrible metaphor. Trousers are sit upons, 
 there is no need of explaining this. In slang a man 
 does not sleep, he does the balmy. Note the force 
 with which this word expresses the sleep peculiar 
 to the hunted, weary, defiant beast whom society 
 calls robber, and who, the instant that he reaches a 
 place of safety, falls in his tracks and sinks into 
 profound and necessary slumber, while the strong 
 wings of suspicion still hover over him. Fearful 
 repose, like that of some wild creature which sleeps 
 and snores while their ears double the prudent 
 keenness of their watch 1 
 
 Everything about this idiom is grim. The sylla- 
 bles which begin and end the words are dissonant 
 and strange. A woman is a moll. There is poetry, 
 too ; straw becomes cast-away feathers. The word 
 "midnight" is rendered by the periphrasis: // 
 clangs a d6:(en. Is not that a sound to shudder at ? 
 To scoop a closet means to rifle a bedroom. What 
 force has the expression, "go to bed," compared 
 with to slough, to cast off an old skin ? What imagi- 
 nation is there in their imagery ! To play domi- 
 noes, means to eat ; how do hunted men eat ? 
 
 Slang never stands still ; it follows close upon the 
 heels of civilization. At each new invention it 
 enriches itself with new expressions. The potato, 
 
2l8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 created and brought to light by Louis XVI. and 
 Parmentier, is instantly greeted by a new title, 
 pig-oranges. Banknotes are invented; the convict 
 terms them Carat's shivers, after the name of 
 Garat, the cashier, by whom they are signed. 
 Shiver! cannot you hear the rustle of the crisp 
 papers.' The thousand-franc note is a. male shiver; 
 the note of five hundred francs is a female shiver. 
 You may be sure that convicts will soon baptize 
 one-hundred and two-hundred franc notes by some 
 fanciful name. 
 
 In 1790, for humanity's interest, Guillotin invents 
 the expeditious machine which solves all problems 
 raised by the institution of the death penalty. 
 Immediately, convicts and discharged galley-slaves 
 examine this mechanism placed on the monarchical 
 confines of the old system and upon the frontiers 
 of modern law. All at once they call it the Abbey 
 of the Sorrowful Mount! They study the angle de- 
 scribed by the steel blade, and to paint its action 
 they coin the word mow! When we remember that 
 the prison is called the meadow, those of us who are 
 interested in the study of language must admire the 
 creation of these horrible vocables, as Charles Nodier 
 would have called them. 
 
 Let us not forget the great antiquity of slang. 
 A tenth of the words are descended from the 
 Roman tongue, another tenth are derived from the 
 old Gallic language of Rabelais. Effondrer, "to 
 crack," means to force open; otolondrer, "to spur," 
 is to bore; cambrioler, to live licentiously; aubert. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 219 
 
 "wad," money; gironde, "beautiful," the name of 
 a river in the langue d'oc; fouillousse, "cly," 
 pocket All these belong to the language of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. /4ffe, for life, is 
 of the highest antiquity. From the expression, 
 Troubler I'affe is derived affres, a popular word that 
 means "blowing up;" whence, in its turn, springs 
 the word affrevx, the interpretation of which is ' 'that 
 which troubles life." 
 
 At least a hundred slang words belong to the lan- 
 guage of Panurge, who, in the Rabelesian works, 
 typifies the people ; for this name is composed of 
 two Greek words which mean, "he who does all." 
 Science changes the face of civilization with the 
 steam engine; slang has already christened it le 
 Roulant Vif. "The Rattler. ' ' 
 
 The name of the head, while it is still on the 
 shoulders, la sorbonne, indicates the remote source 
 of this tongue in the works of the most ancient 
 romancers, Cervantes, the Italian story-tellers and 
 Arentino. From time immemorial la fille, the 
 prostitute, the heroine of so many romances, has 
 been the protectress, comrade, and the consolation 
 of cheat, robber, thief, knave, and blackleg alike. 
 
 Prostitution and theft are two living protests, 
 male and female, of the natural state against the 
 laws of society. Thus philosophers, innovators, 
 humanitarians, with communists and the followers 
 of Fourier in their train, unconsciously arrive at 
 these two conclusions, prostitution and theft. The 
 thief does not write sophistical books to argue 
 
220 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 concerning ownership and inheritance, the guaran- 
 tees of social order : he simply ignores them. For 
 him to steal is but to regain his own. He does not 
 discuss marriage ; he does not attack it; he does not, 
 in printed Utopias, demand this mutual consent, 
 this narrow alliance of souls that cannot become 
 universal. He chooses his mate violently, and the 
 chain which binds him to her is riveted more and 
 more tightly by the hammer of necessity. Modern 
 innovators write windy, gossamer, nebulous theo- 
 ries or philosophical romances; but the thief acts ; 
 he is lucid as fact, logical as a blow from the 
 shoulder. And what a style he has acquired ! — 
 
 One other observation. The world of harlots, of 
 thieves, and of murderers, the galleys and the 
 prisons contain a population of from sixty to eighty 
 thousand individuals, male and female. This mul- 
 titude must not be neglected in the description of 
 our manners, and in the literal reproduction of our 
 social state. Justice, the gendarmes, and the police 
 furnish another army whose numbers almost equal 
 its adversary. This is a strange fact This battle 
 between hunters and hunted is an immense duel, 
 eminently dramatic, sketched in this study. Thiev- 
 ery and the trade of harlot are like the stage, the 
 police, the priesthood, and the system of gendarm- 
 ery. Under these six conditions the individual 
 assumes an indelible character. He no longer has 
 the power to become other than he is. The stigmata 
 of holy priesthood are quite as ineradicable as those 
 of the soldier. The same truth holds good of other 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 221 
 
 careers which are natural enemies, contraries in 
 civilization. These violent diagnostics, strange, 
 peculiar and sui generis as they are, render the 
 harlot and the thief, the murderer and the discharged 
 convict, as easy for their enemies, the detective 
 and the gendarme, to recognize, as game is for the 
 hunter : they have their own inalienable mien, bear- 
 ing, complexion, look, color, odor, in short, their 
 own unmistakable peculiarities. Hence comes that 
 perfect knowledge of disguise which is the accom- 
 plishment of every famous convict. 
 
 One word more upon the constitution of this 
 society, which the abolition of the brand, the miti- 
 gation of punishments, and the stupid leniency of 
 the jury render very dangerous. Certainly within 
 twenty years Paris will be surrounded by an army 
 of forty thousand discharged convicts, since the 
 Department of the Seine, with its fifteen hundred 
 thousand inhabitants, is the only spot in all France 
 where these unhappy wretches can hope to dis- 
 appear. For them Paris is what the virgin forest is 
 for wild beasts. 
 
 The swell mob, which in this society takes the 
 place of the aristocracy of the Faubourg Saint Ger- 
 main, was, in the year 1816, after the conclusion 
 of a peace which endangered so many lives, organ- 
 ized into an association called the good pals, in 
 which were numbered the most celebrated chiefs of 
 the numerous gangs of burglars, and several bold 
 adventurers, who were entirely without other 
 means of livelihood. This word pals implied at 
 
222 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 once brothers, friends and comrades. All robbers, 
 convicts and prisoners are />fl/s. But the good pals, 
 worthy offspring of the swell mob, has been for 
 twenty years and more the Court of Appeals, the 
 Institute, the Chamber, and the peerage of this 
 people. The good pals all possessed their own pri- 
 vate means, while they owned certain funds in 
 common and separate dwelling places. Every man 
 knew his mates and owed them aid and comfort in 
 adversity. Wholly superior to the ruse and seduc- 
 tive offers of the police, they possessed their own 
 constitution, their own pass words and signs. 
 
 These dukes and peers of the galleys had formed, 
 between the years 1815 and 1819, the famous 
 society of the Ten Thousand, — see P&re Goriot — 
 thus named from the constitution, by virtue of 
 which no member might undertake a job which 
 promised to yield less than ten thousand francs. 
 Even at the present time, in 1829 and 1830, memo- 
 randa are published wherein the numbers of this 
 society and the very names of its members are 
 recorded by one of the celebrities of the detective 
 police. The reader learned with dismay of the 
 existence of a great army of men and women — an 
 army so formidable, so adroit, and often so lucky, 
 that Pastourel, Collonge and Chimaux, burglars of 
 from fifty to sixty years of age, are mentioned as 
 having been in revolt against society from their 
 cradles! — What greater proof of the impotence of 
 law is there than the mere existence of robbers 
 grown old in crime. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 223 
 
 Jacques Collin was treasurer not only of the 
 society of the Ten Thousand, but also of the good 
 pals, the heroes of the galleys. By the testimony 
 of competent authorities, the galleys are never 
 without their treasuries. It is not difficult to 
 understand the reason of this peculiarity, for unless 
 the case be exceptional, stolen money is never 
 recovered. Criminals condemned to the galleys 
 are unable to take their gains with them, and so are 
 compelled to have recourse to any secret and reli- 
 able agency at their command, and to deposit their 
 wealth, just as in society people deposit their 
 money in some bank. 
 
 Originally, Bibi Lupin, for ten years chief of the 
 secret service, had been a member of the aristocracy 
 of the good pals. His treason was the result of 
 wounded pride ; he had seen his reputation eclipsed 
 at every step by the keen intelligence and pro- 
 digious strength of Trompe-la-Mort. From this 
 origin came the vindictive hate which the well- 
 known chief of the secret service cherished against 
 Jacques Collin; hence, likewise arose certain 
 mutual agreements between Bibi Lupin and his 
 former comrade, which now began to engross the 
 attention of the magistrates. 
 
 Thus, in his keen desire for vengeance, to which 
 the examining judge had given full rein, owing to 
 the necessity of establishing Jacques Collin's iden- 
 tity, the chief of the secret service had chosen his 
 allies with great shrewdness when he loosed upon 
 the Spaniard's trail la Pouraille, Fil-de-Soie, and 
 
224 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 le Biffon; for la Pouraille belonged to the Ten 
 Thousand, while Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon were both 
 members of the good pals. 
 
 La Biffe, Biffon's redoubtable mistress, who, 
 thanks to her numerous and fashionable disguises, 
 still eludes the vigilance of the police, was at large 
 at this time. This woman, the admirable mimic of 
 marchioness, baroness and countess alike, owns a 
 carriage and servants. This feminine Jacques Col- 
 lin is the only woman who can be compared with 
 Jacques Collin's right arm, Asia, Every hero of 
 the galleys, in fact, has a double in the guise of a 
 devoted woman. The annals of crime, the secret 
 chronicles of the Palais de Justice will tell you this 
 truth. No passionate love of an honest woman, not 
 even the adoration of a nun for her confessor, can 
 surpass the attachment of the mistress, who shares 
 the perils of some great criminal. 
 
 In this sphere of society, passion is almost invari- 
 ably the primitive reason for boundless audacity 
 and recklessness of murder. The excessive love 
 which drags them, constitutionally, as doctors say, 
 toward women, consumes all the moral and physical 
 strength of these giants of energy. Hence comes 
 the idleness which consumes their days; for this 
 violent love will admit of no rival occupation. This 
 infatuation accounts for their dislike to every 
 species of labor ; a repugnance which compels these 
 wretches to resort to the most rapid methods of pro- 
 curing money. Nevertheless, the necessity of liv- 
 ing, and of living in comfort, strong as it is, is but 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 22$ 
 
 Irifling in comparison witli the prodigality inspired 
 by the woman upon whom these generous Medors 
 heap gowns and jewels, which are received with 
 an insatiate desire for more. The woman desires a 
 shawl, the lover steals it, and the woman sees 
 therein a new proof of love ! Thus it is that men 
 come to steal, and if the human heart be examined 
 beneath a microscope, this sentiment will appear 
 almost natural. Theft leads to murder, and step by 
 step murder leads the lover to the scaffold. 
 
 The uncurbed physical love of these men seems 
 to be, if we may believe the Medical Faculty, the 
 origin of seven-tenths of the crimes which they 
 commit A palpable and striking proof of this 
 appears at the autopsy of a man who has been exe- 
 cuted. Then is made plain the adoration that the 
 mistress feels for her unnatural lover, the bugbear 
 of society. It is the feminine devotion that lies 
 crouched at the prison door always watchful to foil 
 the crafty thrusts of the examining judge ; the incor- 
 ruptible guardians of the blackest secrets, who ren- 
 der hidden mysteries impenetrable. In this wild 
 union lie at once the prisoner's weakness and his 
 strength. In the language of prostitutes, to be honest 
 means simply and solely never to fail in any law of 
 this attachment ; it means to give the last penny to 
 the jugged — imprisoned — man ; to hold sacred every 
 promise given to him, and to stop at nothing if it be 
 for his sake. The most cruel reproach that one of 
 these women can cast in another's teeth is to accuse 
 her of infidelity toward a smugged — apprehended — 
 15 
 
226 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 lover. A woman who has fallen to this depth is 
 looked upon as wholly without heart. 
 
 La Pouraille was passionately fond of a woman, 
 as we shall have occasion to see. Fil-de-Soie, an 
 egotistical philosopher, who robbed for his pocket's 
 sake, bore a strong resemblance to Jacques Collin's 
 devoted slave, Paccard, who had fled with Prudence 
 Servien, and seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs in the bargain. He had no attachments, he 
 despised women, and cared for Fil-de-Soie alone; 
 on the other hand Biff on, as the reader knows, owed 
 his nickname to his attachment for la Biffe. All 
 these three examples of the swell mob were deter- 
 mined to call Jacques Collin to accounts that would 
 be difficult, indeed, to settle. 
 
 The treasurer alone knew the number of deposi- 
 tors who still survived, and the fortune of each 
 one. The mortality, peculiar to his associates, had 
 entered into his calculations at the time when 
 Trompe-la-Mort had resolved to make away with 
 this money for the sake of the advantages that 
 would accrue to Lucien. Since he had successfully 
 avoided the researches of his comrades and of the 
 police for nine years, Jacques Collin felt confident 
 of inheriting, in accordance with the terms of the 
 constitution of the good pals, the property of at least 
 two-thirds of his depositors. Could he not, besides, 
 allege payments made to mown — guillotined — pals? 
 In a word, this chief of good pals was bound by no 
 restraint. His fellow convicts had no choice other 
 than to rely upon his probity, for the hunted lives 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 227 
 
 that these creatures lead entailed the utmost delicacy 
 among the aristocratic class of this savage society. 
 Jacques Collin had stolen three hundred thousand 
 francs, he might, perhaps, free himself from all obli- 
 gations by the payment of a hundred thousand. 
 At this time, as the reader knows, la Pouraille, one 
 of Jacques Collin's creditors, had but ninety days 
 to live. Furnished with funds, far more consider- 
 able, doubtless, than those which he had entrusted 
 to his chief, la Pouraille was not likely to create 
 much disturbance. 
 
 One of the infallible tests by which prison war- 
 dens and their turnkeys, the police and its agents, 
 and even the examining magistrates recognize old 
 horses — ^that is to say those who have already eaten 
 the fare of beans which the state deals out to its 
 prisoners — is their evident familiarity with their 
 surroundings. Returned convicts are naturally no 
 strangers' to the customs of prison life; they are at 
 home, and show astonishment at nothing. 
 
By keeping a ceaseless watch over his own 
 actions, Jacques Collin had thus far played to per- 
 fection the part of an innocent man, entirely unac- 
 quainted with both the Force and the Conciergerie. 
 But, crushed beneath the weight of grief and of a 
 double death, for on this fatal night he had twice 
 passed through death's agony, he was transformed 
 once again into Jacques Collin. The turnkey was 
 amazed when he found that the Spanish priest 
 needed no guidance to find his way to the prison 
 yard. Consummate actor as he was, Collin forgot 
 his part; he descended the spiral staircase of the 
 Tour Bonbec with the careless precipitation of an 
 old inmate of the Conciergerie. 
 
 "Bibi Lupin is right," muttered the turnkey to 
 himself; "he's an old horse, he's Jacques Collin." 
 
 At the moment when Trompe la-Mort appeared in 
 the frame which the doorway of the Tower formed 
 about his figure, the prisoners, who had completed 
 their purchases at the stone table of Saint Louis, 
 were dispersing themselves about the yard, always 
 too narrow for their wants. Thus everybody per- 
 ceived the new comer at the same instant, and with 
 all the more rapidity as nothing can be more perfect 
 than the vision which these prisoners acquire 
 cooped up in a yard like spiders in their webs. 
 This comparison is mathematically exact, for since 
 (229) 
 
230 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 his view is hemmed in on every side by high and 
 black wails, the prisoner, even without turning 
 his eyes, can see the door by which the turnkeys 
 enter, the windows of the parlor, of the staircase 
 and of the Tour Bonbec, the sole means of exit from 
 the yard. In his profound isolation, everything 
 seems to him to involve some chance of accident, 
 every detail absorbs his attention. The very weari- 
 ness of his mind, like that of the caged tiger in the 
 Jardin des Plantes, multiplies his powers of atten- 
 tion. It is interesting to observe that Jacques Col- 
 lin, dressed like an ecclesiastic who does not confine 
 himself to a strict observance of his cloth, wore a 
 pair of black trousers, black socks, shoes orna- 
 mented by silver buckles, a black waistcoat, and a 
 coat of dark maroon color, the cut of which betrayed 
 the priest in spite of the situation of its master, 
 above all since its testimony was corroborated by 
 the characteristic method of wearing the hair. 
 Jacques Collin wore a wig superlatively ecclesiastic 
 and marvelously true to life. 
 
 "Look, look," said la Pouraille toBiffon; "That's 
 a bad sign. A boar — priest! — What brings him 
 here?" 
 
 "It's one of their dodges, a new kind of cook 
 — detective) — .It's some trapper — ^the old-fashioned 
 mounted gendarme — in disguise, who has come on 
 business. ' ' 
 
 The gendarme has different names in slang: 
 when he is in pursuit of a thief he is a trapper; 
 when he is escorting him to prison he becomes a 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 231 
 
 butcher bird, and, finally, as he conducts the sufferer 
 to the scaffold, he is called the knight of the guillo- 
 tine. 
 
 To make the picture of the prison yard complete, 
 it is necessary to describe in a few words the 
 appearance of the two other pals. SelSrier, alias 
 I'Auvergnat, Father Ralleau, le Rouleur, in short, 
 Fil-de-Soie — he had thirty names and as many pass- 
 ports — will henceforward be designated by this title; 
 the only one recognized among the good pals. This 
 profound philosopher, who discerned a gendarme 
 beneath the guise of the false priest, was a fellow of 
 some five feet four inches, with muscles that pro- 
 truded from his body in lumps. Set deep in his 
 head, his small eyes gleamed brightly, although 
 they were overhung by lids gray, heavy and leaden 
 as those of a bird of prey. At first sight, his thick- 
 set, prominent jaw gave him the appearance of a 
 wolf, but the cruelty and the ferocity which this 
 resemblance entailed was counterbalanced by the sly 
 and vivacious play of his features, furrowed, though 
 they were, with the ravages of small-pox. The 
 clear-cut lines of his face seemed to denote wit, and 
 it was easy to read mockery in his expression. The 
 life of criminals, chequered with hunger, thirst, 
 nights passed in bivouac on wharves and river- 
 banks, on bridges and in streets, by orgies where 
 the triumph of crime was celebrated with strong 
 drink, had washed this face, as it were, with a coat 
 of varnish. Had an agent of police or a gendarme 
 caught sight of Fil-de-Sole in his accustomed dress. 
 
232 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 at thirty paces he would have recognized his game ; 
 but in the art of painting his face and of disguising 
 his figure this master rivaled Jacques Collin him- 
 self. At this moment Fil-de-Soie, carelessly dressed, 
 like great actors who give no heed to their attire 
 when they are off the stage, wore a kind of hunt- 
 ing waistcoat, lacking several buttons, with torn 
 button holes that disclosed glimpses of white lining, 
 old green slippers, nankeen pantaloons, grown 
 threadbare with age, and upon his head a cap with- 
 out a visor, from beneath which fell the corners of 
 an old bandanna handkerchief riddled with holes 
 and very much faded. 
 
 Beside Fil-de-Soie, le Biffon made a complete 
 contrast. This famous burglar, short of stature, 
 square, stout, agile, with a livid complexion and 
 deep-set black eyes, dressed like a cook, and planted 
 firmly upon two very bowed legs, frightened the 
 observer by a physiognomy wherein predominated 
 all the symptoms of the organization peculiar to 
 carnivorous animals. 
 
 Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon were both paying their 
 court to la Pouraille, who had now lost all hope. 
 This man, in whom murder had become a habit, 
 knew that before four months came to an end he 
 would be tried, condemned and executed. Thus 
 Fil-de-Soie and le Biffon, friends of la Pouraille, 
 invariably spoke of him as the Chaplain, that is to 
 say, the Chaplain of the Monastery of the Sorrowful 
 Mount — the slang name for the guillotine. — It is not 
 difficult for the reader to guess the reason for the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 233 
 
 obsequious attention which Fil-de-Soie and le 
 Biffon paid to la Pouraille. La Pouraille had 
 buried two hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold, 
 his share of the plunder stolen — as the form of in- 
 dictment ran — ^from the dwelling of M. and Madame 
 Crottat. What a magnificent inheritance to be- 
 queath to a pair of pals, even though these two 
 hardened criminals were themselves doomed to re- 
 turn to the galleys within a few days. Le Biffon 
 and Fil-de-Soie were to be condemned for complex 
 theft — ^that is to say, thefts entailing certain aggra- 
 vating circumstances — ^to fifteen years imprison- 
 ment, to which must be added ten years of a previous 
 sentence which they had taken the liberty of inter- 
 rupting. Thus, although one of them had twenty- 
 two, and the other twenty-six years of hard labor 
 to undergo, yet neither was without hope of making 
 his escape and unearthing la Pouraille's treasure. 
 The Ten Thousand, however, kept his secret to 
 himself; for it appeared to him quite useless to sur- 
 render it when he was not so much as condemned. 
 A member of the proudest aristocracy of the gal- 
 leys, he had revealed nothing concerning his 
 accomplices. His character was well known; M. 
 Popinot, the examiner of this dreadful mystery, 
 could not draw a syllable from his lips. 
 
 This terrible triumvirate stood at the upper end 
 of the yard, or, to speak more plainly, immediately 
 below the pistoles, Fil-de-Soie was giving his last 
 words of advice to a young man on trial for his first 
 offence, who, sure of being sentenced to ten years 
 
234 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 at hard labor, was gathering information concerning 
 the different yfeWs — prisons — . 
 
 "Well, my boy," Fil-de-Soie was saying senten- 
 tiously at the moment Jacques Collin appeared; 
 "the difference between Brest, Toulon and Rochefort 
 lies in this — " 
 
 "We shall see, old fellow," said the young man, 
 with the curiosity of a novice. 
 
 This prisoner, a young man of respectable family, 
 arrested on the charge of forgery, had come from a 
 pistole adjoining that in which Lucien had been con- 
 fined. 
 
 "You see, my boy; at Brest you're sure of find- 
 ing beans in the bucket by the third time you dip 
 in your spoon ; at Toulon you'll not find 'em till 
 your fifth try, and at Rochefort, you won't get any 
 at all if you're not an old hand." 
 
 When he had delivered himself thus, the pro- 
 found philosopher rejoined la Pouraille and Le 
 Biffon, who, absorbed in the contemplation of the 
 boar, began to stroll down the yard, while Jacques 
 Collin, overpowered by the weight of his sorrow, 
 moved toward them from the opposite direction. 
 Trompe-la-Mort, at the mercy of his terrible 
 thoughts, the thoughts of a discrowned emperor, did 
 not notice that he was the centre of all looks, the 
 object of all interest; he walked slowly, with his 
 eyes fixed upon the fatal window from whose sash 
 Lucien de Rubempre had hung himself. Not one 
 of the prisoners knew of this event, for Lucien's 
 neighbor, the young forger, through motives which 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 235 
 
 will soon be disclosed to the reader, had kept the 
 tragedy a close secret. The three pals disposed 
 themselves in such a way as to bar the priest's pro- 
 gress. 
 
 "He's not a boar," whispered la Pouraille to Fil- 
 de-Soie; "he's an old horse. See how he drags his 
 right!" 
 
 It is necessary to explain here, for the curiosity 
 of all readers has not led them to inspect the 
 prisons of France, that every convict is fastened to 
 another — an old criminal to a young one — by a 
 chain. The weight of this chain, riveted to a 
 ring immediately above the ankle, is so great 
 that at the end of a year it creates a permanent 
 defect in the convict's gait Obliged to use 
 more strength in one leg than in the other, in 
 order to drag his manacle, that is the name the 
 prisoners give this iron ring, the prisoner con- 
 tracts the inalienable habit of this effort Later, 
 when he has ceased to carry his chain, the same 
 phenomenon occurs which happens in the case of 
 amputated limbs: the convict feels the ring riveted 
 forever about his leg; he never can rid himself of 
 the lameness he has thus acquired. To use the 
 technical slang of the police, he drags his right. 
 This diagnostic, as widely known among convicts 
 as it is among the agents of police, completes the 
 identification of a comrade, if it does not aid in his 
 immediate recognition. 
 
 In Trompe-la-Mort, whose escape had occurred 
 eight years before, this halt had grown almost 
 
236 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES. 
 
 imperceptible ; but through the absorbing effect of 
 his meditation, his pace was now so slow and solemn 
 that, slight as was the defect in his gait, it could not 
 escape the practiced eye of la Pouraille. It is easy to 
 imagine that convicts, who, at the galleys, are never 
 out of one another's presence, and who have only one 
 another to observe, have studied the physiognomies 
 of their fellow-prisoners with such exactness that 
 they have to come to observe certain habits which 
 escape the scrutiny of their systematic enemies: 
 detectives, gendarmes and the commissioners of 
 police. Thus it was owing to a certain twitching 
 of the maxillary muscles of the left cheek, discerned 
 by a convict who had been sent to a review of the 
 Legion of the Seine, that the lieutenant-colonel of 
 the corps, the celebrated Coignard, owed his arrest ; 
 for, in spite of Bibi Lupin's testimony, the police 
 dared not believe in the identity of the Count Pontis 
 deSainte Helfene with Coignard. 
 
 "He's our toss — master!" — said Fil-de-Soie, as he 
 felt Jacques Collin's eyes rest upon him in that 
 vacant stare which a man casts upon everj^hing 
 about him when he has sunk into the last stage of 
 despair. 
 
 "I'll swear to him. It's Trompe-la-Mort I" said 
 Biffon, rubbing his hands. "Yes! That's his figure 
 and the cut of his shoulders ; but what has he done ? 
 He doesn't look like himself." 
 
 "Oh! I have it!" said Fil-de-Soie. "He's got 
 some scheme; he's trying to see his fl««^— friend — , 
 who is to be executed shortly. ' ' 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 237 
 
 To give the reader a vague idea of the person 
 which the turnkeys, the keepers and the wardens 
 call the aunt, it is sufficient to relate the splendid 
 answer which the director of one of the central 
 prisons gave the late Lord Durham, who visited all 
 the prisons while in Paris. This nobleman was so 
 anxious to know all the details of French justice, 
 that he induced the late Sanson, the high execu- 
 tioner, to erect a guillotine and execute a living 
 calf that he could see exactly how the machine 
 worked, which the French Revolution had made 
 celebrated. 
 
 After the director had shown him the whole 
 prison, the yards, the workshops, the cells, etc., 
 he pointed with a gesture of disgust to a room and 
 said: "I shall not take your excellency to that 
 place, it is the aunts' quarter. ' ' 
 
 — "Hay!" said Lord Durham, "and what is 
 that?"— 
 
 "It is the third sex, my lord." 
 
 "They're going to ^■^— guillotine — Theodore!" 
 said la Pouraille, "and a pretty boy he is! Clever 
 with his fingers, and with brass to boot; what a 
 loss for the society!" 
 
 "Yes, Theodore Calvi is bolting his last mouth- 
 ful," said Le Biffon. "Ah! his molls will be a 
 blinking their eyes, for they were fond of him, poor 
 little beggar!" 
 
 "So it's you, is it, old boy.'" said la Pouraille, 
 addressing Jacques Collin, as he blocked the new 
 comer's path, with one of his acolytes on either arm. 
 
238 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "So, boss, you've turned boar?" added la Pou- 
 raille. 
 
 "They tell me that you've scooped our tin — picked 
 our pockets of gold, — " chimed in le Biffon with a 
 menacing air. 
 
 "You're going to cough up the wad — give us back 
 our money? — " demanded Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 These three questions were snapped like as many 
 pistol shots. 
 
 "Don't trifle with a poor priest who is here by 
 mistake," answered Jacques Collin, mechanically; 
 for he had recognized his three comrades on the 
 instant. 
 
 "That's the ring of his voice; but it's not his 
 ph^," said la Pouraille, laying his hand on Jacques 
 Collin's shoulder. 
 
 This gesture and the sudden appearance of his 
 three comrades startled the boss violently from his 
 mental prostration, and restored him to the recogni- 
 tion of the realities about him ; for during that fatal 
 night he had wandered through the spiritual and 
 infinite regions of the imagination, seeking after 
 some new path. 
 
 "Don't cook your boss's hash — do not awaken sus- 
 picions concerning your master," — said Jacques 
 Collin in a low tone, while his voice sounded hollow 
 and threatening as the deep growl of a lion. "The 
 peelers — the police — are there, let 'em gulp the bait 
 — fall into the trap. — I am playing the game for a 
 pal at the top notch — a comrade in the last extrem- 
 ity."— 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 239 
 
 This was said with all the unction of a priest con- 
 verting sinners to repentance, and it was accom- 
 panied by a look with which Jacques Collin 
 embraced the entire yard, saw the turnkeys grouped 
 beneath the arcades, and pointed them out mock- 
 ingly to his three companions. 
 
 "Aren't there cooks here? Tip up your winkers 
 and use your wipes — look and see. — Don't queer me; 
 but out withyour sneakers, and handle me like a boar 
 — act like complete strangers ; take every precaution, 
 and treat me like a priest; — or I'll swamp you, and 
 your molls and your wad in the bargain — I will ruin 
 you with your women and your fortunes — . 
 
 "So you're sniffing about us that way — you dis- 
 trust us — ," said Fil-de-Soie. "You've come to 
 pull out your aunt — ^to save your friend — . ' ' 
 
 "Madeleine is all tricked out to mount the stump 
 — ready to ascend the scaffold — , ' ' said la Pouraille. 
 
 "Theodore!" said Jacques Collin, restraining a 
 scream and a start 
 
 This was the final pang which torture held in 
 store for this fallen colossus. 
 
 "They are going to maw him," repeated la Pou- 
 raille. 
 
 "He was billed through to the devil two months 
 ago — condemned to death — ." 
 
 An overpowering weakness came over Jacques 
 Collin. His knees would have bent beneath him 
 had he not been supported by his three companions. 
 In this extremity he had the presence of mind to 
 fold his hands together with a remorseful air. La 
 
240 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Pouraille and le Biffon respectfully supported the 
 sacrilegious Trompe-la-Mort, while Fil-de-Soie ran 
 toward the turnkey on duty before the door of the 
 wicket which leads to the parlor. 
 
 "This venerable priest wants to sit down, bring 
 him a chair." 
 
 Thus the stratagem contrived by Bibi Lupin 
 failed, Trompe-la-Mort had won the respectful obedi- 
 ence of three convicts, like Napoleon when he was 
 recognized by his soldiers. Two words had been 
 enough. These two words were your molls andyour 
 wad, — your women and your money ; — ^the epitome 
 of all man's genuine affection. To the three con- 
 victs this menace was the stamp of sovereign power ; 
 the boss still held their fortunes in his hand. Still 
 outwardly all-powerful, their boss had not betrayed 
 them as false brothers had insinuated. Their chief's 
 unbounded reputation for skill and cunning stimu- 
 lated the curiosity of the three convicts; for in 
 prison, curiosity becomes the sole spur of these lost 
 souls. 
 
 The hardihood of Jacques Collin's disguise pre- 
 served even within the bolted doors of the Con- 
 ciergerje, won still further admiration of his three 
 brother criminals. 
 
 "I've been in solitary confinement for four days, 
 and I didn't know that Theodore was so near the 
 monastery," — said Jacques Collin. "I had come to 
 save a poor boy who hung himself there yesterday, 
 at four o'clock; and now I am on the threshold of 
 a new misfortune. My last ace is played." — 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 241 
 
 "Poor boss/" said Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "Ah! the baker — the devil — gives me up!" cried 
 Jacques Collin, breaking away from the grasp of 
 his two companions, and drawing himself up fiercely. 
 "There is a time when the world is too strong for 
 us. The stork — ^the Palais de Justice — swallows us 
 in the end." 
 
 The warden of the Conciergerie, apprised of the 
 priest's sudden ailment, came himself to the yard 
 to see what was the matter. He made him sit down 
 upon a chair in the sun and scrutinized him with 
 the extraordinary acuteness which increases from 
 day to day in the exercise of duties such as his, 
 although it is hidden beneath an exterior of appar- 
 ent indifference. 
 
 "Ah, great heaven" exclaimed Jacques Collin. 
 "To be cast among these people, the refuse of soci- 
 ety, thieves and assassins all of them ! — But God 
 will not forsake his servant. My dear sir, I will 
 leave the stamp of my passage through this place 
 by acts of charity, the remembrance of which shall 
 last I will lead these unhappy creatures into the 
 fold; they shall learn that they have souls, that 
 life immortal awaits them, and that, if they have 
 lost all they have upon earth, yet paradise may still 
 be won, the paradise which can belong to them at 
 the price of true, sincere repentance." 
 
 Twenty or thirty prisoners had run forward and 
 
 grouped themselves a yard behind the three terrible 
 
 convicts, and, deterred from approaching nearer by 
 
 the sullen looks of the pals, the inquisitive throng 
 
 16 
 
242 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Stood still and listened to this harangue pronounced 
 with priestly unction. 
 
 "That man, Monsieur Gault," said the formidable 
 la Pouraille. "We were listening to him." — 
 
 "They tell me," continued Jacques Collin, near 
 whom M. Gault was standing, "that there is in this 
 prison a man condemned to death." 
 
 "At this moment they are reading him the rejec- 
 tion of his petition," said M. Gault. 
 
 "I don't know what that means?" said Jacques 
 Collin ingenuously, looking about him. 
 
 "Lord! He's simple," said the small young man 
 who had recently been consulting Fil-de-Soie con- 
 cerning the best field beans. 
 
 "Well, to-day or to-morrow they mow him I" said 
 a prisoner. 
 
 "Mow?" inquired Jacques Collin, whose innocent 
 air of perplexity struck his three comrades with 
 admiration." 
 
 "In their language," replied the warden, "that 
 means the execution of the death penalty. If the 
 clerk is reading the rejection, doubtless the execu- 
 tioner is about to receive orders for the execution. 
 The unhappy man has persistently refused the con- 
 solation of religion." — 
 
 "Ah, sir! it is a soul to save!" — cried Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 The sacrilegious impostor clasped his hands with 
 the gesture of a despairing lover, which the atten- 
 tive warden took for the effect of holy fervor. 
 
 "Ah, sir," continued Trompe-Ia-Mort, "suffer me 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 243 
 
 to prove to you who I am and what I can do, by 
 allowing me to plant the seed of repentance in this 
 hardened heart God has given me the power of 
 saying words which sometimes work great changes. 
 I break hearts, I open them — what have you to 
 fear. Let me be accompanied by gendarmes, 
 guards, by whomsoever you will." 
 
 "I will see whether the prison chaplain is willing 
 that you should replace him," said M. Gault. 
 
 The warden turned away, struck with the per- 
 fectly indifferent, although curious air, with which 
 the prisoners surveyed the priest, whose evangeli- 
 cal voice spread a charm over his half-French, half- 
 Spanish jargon. 
 
 "How is it that you are here.father ?" asked Fil- 
 de-Soie's young interlocutor of Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Oh! by a mistake," replied Jacques Collin, 
 looking into the inquirer's face. "I was found in 
 the house of a courtesan, who had been robbed after 
 her death. It is proved that she committed suicide; 
 and the perpetrators of the robbery, who are prob- 
 ably the servants, have not as yet been arrested. 
 
 "And it is on account of this robbery that this 
 young man hanged himself.'" — 
 
 "Doubtless the poor child could not bear the 
 thought of being branded by an unjust imprison- 
 ment," replied Trompe-la-Mort, raising his eyes 
 toward heaven. 
 
 "Yes," said the young man; "they were just 
 about to set him at liberty when he killed himself. 
 How unlucky!" 
 
244 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "None but innocent people are carried away 
 thus by their imagination," said Jacques Collin. 
 "Notice that the robbery was committed to his pre- 
 judice." ' 
 
 "How much was there in it.?" demanded the deep 
 and subtle Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "Seven hundred and fifty thousand francs," re- 
 plied Jacques Collin very quietly. 
 
 The three convicts looked at one another, and 
 withdrew from the group which all the prisoners 
 formed about the pretended ecclesiastic. 
 
 "It's he that scooped the girl's deep — robbed the 
 woman's cellar — 1" whispered Fil-de-Soie to le 
 Biffon, "and they wanted to scare us about our 
 balls — ^five franc pieces. — " 
 
 "He'll always be the good pal's boss," replied 
 la Pouraille. "Our bird hasn't flown." 
 
 La Pouraille, looking for a man upon whom he 
 could rely, was naturally eager to find Jacques 
 Collin an honest man; it is most commonly in 
 prison that a man believes in what he hopes. 
 
 "I'll bet he juggles the stork's boss — that he out- 
 wits the attorney-general and pulls out his aunt — 
 saves his friend — !" said Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "If he succeeds," said le Biffon, "I shan't \h\nk 
 him the great boss — God — himself; but as every- 
 body says, he certainly has had a puff with the 
 baker — smoked a pipe with the devil — . " 
 
 "Didn't you hear him exclaim : 'Ihe baker hdi.s 
 given me up! '" remarked Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed la Pouraille, "if he caredto/)«W 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 245 
 
 out my poll — save my head — ; what a chase I'd lead 
 with my hit of a wad — what a life I should lead with 
 my share of money — , and the yellow balls that I've 
 stowed away — the stolen gold that I have hidden — . ' ' 
 
 "Follow his lead," — do as he bids you — ! said 
 Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "You're joking?" said le Pouraille, looking at 
 his comrade. 
 
 "You're an ass. You'll be billed through to the 
 devil — condemned to death — . Besides, your only 
 chaince of sticking on your pins and bolting, gu^^ling 
 and prigging again is to give him a boost — of keep- 
 ing on your feet, of eating, drinking and steal- 
 ing more is to help him along, — " replied le Biffon. 
 
 "This much is sure," continued la Pouraille, 
 "not one of us will peach on the boss — will betray 
 the master — or I'll take him along with me to the 
 place where I'm going. — " 
 
 "He'll do as he says!" exclaimed Fil-de-Soie. 
 
 "Even those persons, who feel the least sympathy 
 for this strange society, can imagine the situation 
 of Jacques Collin's mind, as he thought of the 
 corpse of the idol he had worshipped for five hours 
 that night, and the approaching death of the former 
 companion of his chain, the future corpse of the 
 young Corsican, Theodore. To gain an interview 
 with the unhappy prisoner required cunning far 
 more than is given to most men ; but to rescue him 
 needed a miracle ; yet already Jacques Collin was 
 planning this miracle. 
 
 In order to understand what Jacques Collin was 
 
246 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 about to attempt it is important to say here that 
 assassins, thieves and all the inmates of the gal- 
 leys are not so redoubtable as men believe them. 
 With a few very rare exceptions, these wretches are 
 all cowards; doubtless on account of the fear which 
 presses unceasingly at their hearts. Their faculties 
 are continually strained to the uttermost by the ex- 
 citement of robbery, and the execution of crime de- 
 mands the employment of all their vital power, 
 alertness of mind equal to the readiness of body, and 
 an intensity that weaicens the intellect. When the 
 violent exercise of their will is past they become 
 stupid, for the same reason that a prima donna or a 
 dancer falls exhausted after a fatiguing step, or after 
 one of those formidable duets, which modern com- 
 posers inflict upon the public ear. In fact, malefac- 
 tors are so bereft of reason, or so overpowered by 
 fear, that they become mere children. Credulous to 
 the last degree, they are ensnared by the simplest 
 device. After the success of a.job,they fall into such a 
 state of prostration that, yielding to the peremptory 
 need of debauchery, they make themselves drunk 
 on wine and liquor, and rush passionately to the 
 embraces of their women, seeking in vain for calm 
 amid the wreck of their strength and for forgetful- 
 ness of crime in the forgetfulness of reason. In 
 this condition they are at the mercy of the police. 
 Once that they are arrested, they are blind; they 
 lose their head, and feel so great a need for hope 
 that they are ready to believe in everything; thus 
 there is no absurdity which they cannot be induced 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 247 
 
 to admit An example will explain to what lengths 
 this stupidity of the nabbed criminal will go. 
 Bibi Lupin secured the confession of a murderer, 
 nineteen years old, by persuading him that minors 
 never were executed. When the boy was trans- 
 ferred to the Conciergerie to undergo his sentence, 
 when his petition had been rejected, this terrible 
 agent of the law came to see him. "Are you cer- 
 tain that you are not twenty ?' ' he asked of the boy. 
 
 "Yes, I am but nineteen years and six months," 
 replied the murderer with perfect calm. 
 
 "Then," answered Bibi Lupin, "you have no 
 cause to fear; you will never be twenty." — 
 
 "Why not.?" 
 
 "Eh! but you'll be mown within three days," 
 answered the chief of the secret service. 
 
 The murderer, who, even after his sentence, sup- 
 posed that minors were never executed, collapsed 
 like an omelette souffle 
 
 These men, rendered so cruel by the necessity of 
 suppressing testimony, for they commit murder 
 only to make away with proof — ^this is one of the 
 arguments set forth by those who demand the aboli- 
 tion of capital punishment — ; these giants of skill 
 and cunning, in whom eye and strength are devel- 
 oped as they are among savages, become the 
 heroes of wrong-doing only in the theatre of their 
 exploits. When a crime has been committed their 
 difficulties begin, for they are as stupefied before 
 the necessity of concealing their new wealth as they 
 had been formally prostrated by poverty; more than 
 
248 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 this, they are weak as the woman who has just 
 risen from child-bed. Alarmingly energetic in 
 their conceptions, when success comes, they behave 
 like children. In a word their nature, like some 
 savage beasts, is an easy prey when it has gorged 
 its fill. In prison, these singular men are men by 
 virtue of their dissimulation and discretion, which 
 weakens only at the last moment when the spirit is 
 broken and prostrated by long imprisonment 
 
 The reader can now understand how the three 
 convicts instead of betraying their chief, were eager 
 to serve him ; they admired him, for they suspected 
 him of being the possessor of the seven hundred 
 and fifty thousand stolen francs. They saw him 
 self-possessed even under.the locks of the Concier- 
 gerie, and they believed him able to take them 
 under his protection. 
 
On leaving the counterfeit Spaniard, M. Gault 
 walked back through the parlour to his office, and 
 then went to find Bibi Lupin. He came upon the 
 spy crouched down beneath one of the windows that 
 opened on the yard, where he had been stationed 
 for twenty minutes, watching through a peep-hole 
 everything that had happened in the yard since 
 Jacques Collin's entry. 
 
 "Not one of them has recognized him," said M. 
 Gault, "and Napolitas, who is keeping an eye on 
 them, has heard nothing. Last night, in all his 
 dejection, the poor priest did not say a single word 
 which could imply that his cassock is hiding 
 Jacques Collin." 
 
 "That proves that he's been a prisoner before," 
 replied the chief of the secret service. 
 
 Napolitas, Bibi Lupin's secretary, unsuspected 
 by all the prisoners, was confined at this time 
 within the Conciergerie, and was playing there, the 
 part of a well-to-do young man under the charge of 
 forgery. 
 
 "To be brief, he asks to be allowed to confess 
 the condemned man," continued the warden. 
 
 "There lies our last chance!" exclaimed Bibi 
 
 Lupin. I never thought of it before. Theodore 
 
 Calvi, this Corsican, was the companion of Jacques 
 
 Collin's chain; they tell me that in the Field 
 
 {249) 
 
250 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Jacques Collin used to make plugs for him with the 
 greatest care. ' ' — 
 
 Convicts make a certain kind of wad which they 
 insert between their iron rings and the skin in 
 order to ease the weight of the ring upon their 
 ankle bones and instep. These wads are composed 
 of tow and linen, and in the galleys they are known 
 as plugs. 
 
 "Who is watching the condemned man?" de- 
 manded Bibi Lupin of M. Gault. 
 
 "Coeur-la-Virole." 
 
 "Good, I'll turn gendarme. I'll be there, and 
 listen to them. I'll answer for everything. " 
 
 "If it is Jacques Collin, aren't you afraid of being 
 strangled in case he recognizes you?" inquired the 
 warden of the Conciergerie. 
 
 "As a gendarme, 1 shall have my sword," replied 
 the detective; "besides, if it's Jacques Collin, 
 he'll not do anything to convict himself; and if he's 
 a priest, I'm quite safe." 
 
 "There's no time to lose," said M. Ganlt. "It's 
 half-past eight Father Sauteloup has finished 
 reading Calvi the rejection of his plea ; M. Sanson 
 is awaiting the judge's orders in the main hall." 
 
 "Oh! It's for to-day that the widow's knights 
 — another and a terrible name for the machine — are 
 ordered," replied Bibi Lupin. "I can understand 
 how the attorney-general hesitates ; the fellow has 
 always declared that he is innocent, and, in my 
 opinion, the proofs against him are not convincing." 
 
 "He's a true Corsican," answered M. Gault; 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 251 
 
 "he has not said a word and has showed fight at 
 every step. ' ' 
 
 The last words spoken by the warden of the Con- 
 ciergerie to the chief of the secret service were an 
 epitome of the gloomy history of condemned crimi- 
 nals. A man, whom justice has cut off from the 
 number of the living, belongs to the oificers of the 
 prosecution; the prosecution is sovereign; it is 
 dependent upon nobody ; it cannot be moved unless 
 it be by its own conscience. The prison belongs 
 to the prosecution; he is its absolute master. 
 Poetry has seized upon this social subject, so emi- 
 nently fitted to appeal to the imagination — the con- 
 demned criminal. Poetry has been sublime ; prose 
 has no other resource than the actual, but the 
 actual is so terrible that in itself it is able to wres- 
 tle with the sublimity of poetry. The life of a con- 
 demned man, who has not confessed his crimes nor 
 his accomplices, is a prey to frightful tortures. 
 There are no boots which crush the feet, nor waters 
 forced into the stomach, nor hideous machines that 
 tear the limbs asunder ; but, in their stead, is tor- 
 ture, silent, and, so to speak, negative. The prose- 
 cution gives the condemned man up wholly to 
 himself; it leaves him in silence and in darkness, 
 with one companion — a sheep — , whom the prisoner 
 cannot but mistrust. 
 
 The tender philanthropy of modern times believes 
 that the atrocious punishment of isolation is her 
 invention; she is deceived. When torture was 
 abolished in the very natural desire to reassure the 
 
252 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 over-delicate consciences of juries, the officers of 
 prosecution conceived the terrible weapon that soli- 
 tude gives to justice against remorse. Solitude is 
 vacuum, and moral nature hates it quite as much 
 as physical nature. Solitude can be dwelt in only 
 by the man of genius, who fills it with his ideas, 
 children of the spiritual world, or by some contem- 
 plator of divine works who sees it illuminated by 
 the light of heaven and animated by the voice of 
 God. With the exception of these two types, both 
 on the threshold of paradise, solitude bears the 
 same relation to torture that moral does to physical 
 nature. Between solitude and torture there is all 
 the difference which separates nervous disease from 
 the disease which can be cured by surgery. It is 
 suffering multiplied by the infinite. The body 
 touches the infinite through the nervous system as 
 the spirit penetrates thither by the thought Thus 
 in the annals of the Court at Paris, it is an easy 
 matter to count the criminals who have not con- 
 fessed. 
 
 This sinister situation, which, in certain cases 
 assumes vast proportions, as for example in politics 
 when a dynasty or a nation is at stake, will have its 
 story told in its own volume of the HUMAN COMEDY. 
 But, here, the description of the stone box, where, 
 under the Restoration, the criminal court of Paris 
 immured its condemned prisoners, may dimly show 
 the horror that attends a sufferer's last days. 
 
 Before the Revolution of July, there existed, and 
 there still exists to-day, at the Conciergerie a room 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 253 
 
 known as the death chamber. It adjoins the office, 
 from which it is separated by a solid freestone 
 wall, and on the opposite side is flanked by the 
 immense wall seven or eight feet thick that 
 strengthens a portion of the vast Salle des pas 
 Perdus. You reach it by the first door in the long 
 dark corridor into which you can look from the mid- 
 dle of the great vaulted entrance hall. This gloomy 
 chamber is lighted by a ventilator, protected by a 
 formidable iron grating, and invisible from the ex- 
 terior ; for it pierces the wall within the narrow 
 limits between the office window, beside the en- 
 trance gate, and the lodging of the clerk of the Con- 
 ciergerie, which the architect has placed like a 
 wardrobe at the end of the entrance court. The 
 situation of this room, shut in by four massive 
 walls, explains why, at the time of the alterations 
 made in the Conciergerie, it was devoted to so sin- 
 ister and funereal a purpose. AH escape from it is 
 impossible. The corridor, which leads to the solitary 
 cells and the women's quarters, opens opposite the 
 stove, where there is always a group of gendarmes 
 and gaolers. The ventilator, the sole opening in 
 the external wall, is nine feet above the floor, and 
 looks out on the first court-yard guarded by the 
 sentries that stand at the front gate of the Con- 
 ciergerie. No human power could assail the mighty 
 walls, and besides, the condemned prisoner is 
 always clothed in a strait-jacket that prevents him 
 from moving his hands. He is, moreover, chained 
 by one foot to his camp bedstead, and a sheep — one 
 
254 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 of his fellow prisoners — is appointed to serve and 
 watch him. The chamber is paved with thick 
 slabs of stone, and the daylight is so faint that it is 
 almost impossible to distinguish anything. 
 
 You cannot enter there without feeling chilled to 
 the bone, even to-day, although the room has been 
 unused for sixteen years, owing to the changes in- 
 troduced into the execution of the law's decrees in 
 Paris. Imagine the criminal there, in the company 
 of his remorse, in the twin terrors of silence and dark- 
 ness, and you will wonder that these are not enough 
 to drive him mad. How powerful an organization 
 must the prisoner have who can endure such a 
 life, with the added immobility and inaction com- 
 pelled by the strait-jacket. 
 
 Theodore Calvi, a Corsican then twenty-seven 
 years of age, entrenched himself behind a barrier 
 of absolute silence, and for two months succeeded 
 in resisting the influence of the dungeon and the 
 insidious friendship of the spy! — The account of 
 the singular criminal case which led to the young 
 Corsican's conviction, is here given, but curious 
 as the story is the analysis must be very brief. 
 
 It is impossible to make a long digression at the 
 end of a scene that has been already so protracted, 
 and that offers no interest other than that which 
 surrounds Jacques Collin, whose horrrible person- 
 ality, like a kind of vertebral column, forms the 
 connecting link between Phe Goriot and Lost Illu- 
 sions and between Lost Illusions and this present 
 Study. Moreover, the reader's imagination is free 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 255 
 
 to develop the obscure theme, which, at this mo- 
 ment, was causing great anxiety to the jury of the 
 court before which Theodore Calvi had been brought 
 for trial. For a weeic after the rejection of the 
 criminal's petition by the Court of Appeals, M. de 
 Granville's attention had been engrossed by this 
 affair, and from day to day he delayed giving orders 
 for the execution of the young man, so desirous was 
 he of satisfying the jury by making it public that 
 the prisoner had confessed his crime before he died, 
 A poor widow of Nanterre, whose house stood 
 without the town which lies, as everybody knows, 
 in the midst of the barren plain stretching between 
 Mont Valerien, Saint Germain and the hills of 
 Sartrouville and Argenteuil, had been robbed and 
 murdered, a few days after she had received her 
 share of an unexpected legacy. This share 
 amounted to three thousand francs, a dozen spoons 
 and forks, a gold watch and chain, and some linen. 
 Instead of investing the three thousand francs in 
 Paris as she was advised to do by the notary of the 
 deceased wine merchant who had bequeathed her 
 the inheritance, the old woman insisted upon keep- 
 ing it all in her possession. In the first place, she 
 had never seen so much money of her own before, 
 and besides, like most peasants and people of the 
 lower class, she suspected everybody in every kind 
 of business transaction. After exhaustive conver- 
 sations with a wine merchant of Nanterre, who was 
 a relative both of her's and of the wine merchant 
 who had died, the widow finally resolved to buy a 
 
256 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 life-annuity with the money, to sell her house at 
 Nanterre, and set up as a bourgeoise at Saint 
 Germain. 
 
 The house she lived in, which was surrounded by 
 a good-sized garden, shut in by a wretched fence, 
 was one of those miserable dwellings that the small 
 farmers in the neighborhood of Paris build for 
 themselves. The plaster and rough stone, so 
 abundant at Nanterre, where the land is covered 
 with open quarries, had been, as is generally seen 
 about Paris, hastily put together, without any 
 architectural plan. Such a building may be called 
 the hut of the civilized savage. The house was 
 composed of a ground floor and an upper floor, above 
 which were the attics. 
 
 The woman's husband, who was a quarryman, 
 had built the house himself, and had provided all 
 the windows with very solid iron bars. The front 
 door also was remarkably strong, for the man knew 
 that he lived in a lonely spot in the open country, 
 and what a country! His customers were among 
 the chief master masons of Paris, so he was able to 
 bring back from thence, on his empty carts, the 
 more important materials needed for the house that 
 he was building at five hundred feet from his own 
 quarry. He chose the stuff he wanted from houses 
 in Paris that had been torn down, and bought it at 
 a very low price. So it was that his windows, 
 gratings, doors, shutters and woodwork had all come 
 from depredations authorized by the law, or were 
 the well-chosen gifts of his customers. Whenever 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 257 
 
 he was offered the choice of two window-sashes, 
 he selected the stronger one. In front of the house 
 there was a large court-yard that contained the sta- 
 bles and was inclosed by walls from the high-road. 
 The door was made of a strong iron grating; there 
 were two watch-dogs in the stable, and a little dog 
 slept in the house. Behind the house there was a 
 garden of somewhat more than two acres in extent. 
 
 After she was left a widow, and without children, 
 the quarryman's wife lived alone in the house with 
 one servant The price brought by the quarry 
 which she sold, paid the debts of her husband, who 
 had now been dead two years. The widow had no 
 other property than the lonely house, where she 
 kept cows and chickens, selling the milk and eggs 
 at Nanterre. As she no longer employed a stable- 
 man, carter, or the laborers at the quarry, whom 
 her husband had been used to set to all kinds of odd 
 jobs, she let the garden run to waste, and gathered 
 only the few herbs and vegetables that still grew 
 in the stony soil. 
 
 As the proceeds of the house and the money she 
 had inherited amounted to some seven or eight 
 thousand francs, the widow thought she could live 
 comfortably at Saint Germain on an annuity of 
 seven or eight hundred francs that she expected to 
 purchase with her eight thousand francs. She had 
 already had several interviews with the notary of 
 Saint Germain, for she refused to invest her 
 money with the wine-merchant who promised her 
 the annuity. The widow Pigeau's affairs were in 
 17 
 
258 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 this condition, when one day it was observed that 
 neither she nor her servant had appeared for some 
 time. The gate of the court-yard, the front door of 
 the house and the shutters were all fast closed. 
 After three da:ys' time, the officers of the law were 
 informed of this state of things, and made a visit 
 to the house. M. Popinot, an examining judge, 
 accompanied by the public prosecutor, came from 
 Paris, and the following facts were established: 
 
 Neither the iron gate of the court-yard nor the 
 front door of the house showed any signs of having 
 been tampered with. The key was still in the lock, 
 on the inside of the front door. Not a single iron 
 bar had been removed. The locks, shutters, and 
 all the fastenings of the house were intact 
 
 The walls offered no trace of having been scaled 
 by thieves, and as the tiled chimneys had no prac- 
 ticable openings, it was evident that no one could 
 have entered through them. The roofs were whole 
 and uninjured, and bore no marks of violence. 
 When the two magistrates, the gendarmes and Bib! 
 Lupin reached the rooms on the second floor, they 
 discovered the widow Pigeau and her servant-maid, 
 both strangleid in their beds by means of their own 
 night-handkerchiefs. The three thousand francs 
 had been taken, as well as the spoons and forks 
 and the watch and chain. The two bodies were in 
 a state of putrefaction, as were also those of the 
 little dog and of a big dog in the court-yard. The 
 garden fence was examined, and was found to ie 
 unbroken, and there were no trades on the garden 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 259 
 
 paths. The examining judge thought it probable 
 that the murderer had walked upon the grass, in 
 order to avoid leaving any foot-prints, in case he 
 had effected his entrance through the garden ; but 
 how could he have penetrated into the house itself? 
 On the garden side the door was furnished with 
 three iron bars that had remained untouched, and 
 the key was in the lock, just as it had been found 
 in the front door opening upon the court-yard. 
 
 As soon as these inexplicable facts were estab- 
 lished by M. Popinot, by Bibi Lupin, who spent a 
 whole day examining everything, by the public 
 prosecutor himself, and by the commander of the 
 post at Nanterre, the murder became a fearful prob- 
 lem in which the state and the law seemed destined 
 to be worsted. 
 
 This drama that was published by the "Gazette 
 des Tribuneaux" took place in the winter of 1828 
 to 1829, Heaven knows what curiosity may have 
 been awakened in Paris by this extraordinary oc- 
 currence, but Paris has new dramas to digest every 
 day and forgets everything. The police forget 
 nothing. After three months of vain search, a 
 woman of the town, who had excited the suspicions 
 of Bibi Lupin's agents by her extravagance, ^nd 
 who had been under surveillance on account of Jier 
 acquaintance with certain thieves, tried to induce 
 a friend to pawn for her a dozen forks and spoons 
 and a gold watch and chain. The friend refused 
 the request, but the circumstance reached the ears 
 of Bibi Lupin, whp remembered the twelve forks 
 
26o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 and spoons and the gold watch and chain that had 
 been stolen at Nanterre. The commissioners of 
 the Mont-de-Piete,and all the receivers of stolen 
 goods in Paris were advised of the fact, and Bibi 
 Lupin set a strict watch upon the girl who was 
 known as Manon la Blonde. 
 
 It was soon discovered that Manon la Blonde was 
 madly in love with a young man about whom very 
 little was known, and who was supposed to be indif- 
 ferent to all the blandishments of the blonde Manon. 
 Mystery upon mystery. The young man who was 
 watched by spies was soon found, and recognized 
 as an escaped convict, the famous hero of the Corsi- 
 can vendettas, the handsome Theodore Calvi, alias 
 Madeleine. 
 
 One of those double-faced receivers of stolen goods 
 who are ready to serve both thieves and police, 
 was sent in pursuit of Theodore, and promised to 
 buy from him the silver and the watch and chain. 
 At the very moment that the pawnbroker from 
 the Cour Saint Guillaume, was counting out the 
 money to Theodore, disguised as a woman, the 
 police made a descent upon the shop Guillaume, 
 arrested Theodore and seized the articles. 
 
 The examination began at once, but with so little 
 evidence it was impossible, in the opinion of the 
 court, to secure sentence of death against the young 
 man. Calvi was never inconsistent, and never 
 contradicted himself. He afifirmed that a country- 
 woman had sold him the articles at Argenteuil, and 
 that after he had bought them, the report of the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 25l 
 
 murder committed at Nanterre had enlightened him 
 upon the danger of possessing the silver and the 
 watch and chain, which, as they had been men- 
 tioned in the inventory made after the death of the 
 Paris wine-merchant, uncle of the widow Pigeau, 
 had evidently been identified with the stolen arti- 
 cles. He said that as he was forced by his poverty 
 to sell these articles, he had tried to get rid of them 
 through a person who was in no wise connected 
 with the affair. 
 
 Nothing farther could be extracted from the 
 escaped convict, who, by his firmness and silence, 
 succeeded in making the officers of the law believe 
 that the wine-merchant of Nanterre had committed 
 the crime, and that the merchant's wife was the 
 woman from whom Theodore had bought the stolen 
 articles. The unfortunate cousin of the widow 
 Pigeau and his wife were arrested, but after a 
 week's imprisonment and careful investigation, it 
 was ascertained that neither husband nor wife had 
 been away from home at the time the crime was 
 committed. Moreover, Calvi did not recognize the 
 merchant's wife as the woman who, according to 
 his testimony, had sold him the silver and the 
 trinkets. , 
 
 As Calvi's concubine, who was implicated in the 
 trial, was proved to have spent about a thousand 
 francs in the interval between the occurrence of 
 the murder and Calvi's attempt to pawn the 
 silver and the watch and chain, there appeared 
 sufficient evidence to send the convict and his 
 
262 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES. 
 
 mistt'ess before the Assizes. This murder was the 
 eighteenth Theodore had committed; and he was 
 condemned to death as he appeared to be guilty of 
 this skilfully planned crime. Though he did not 
 recognize the wife of the wine-merchant of Nan- 
 terre, he himself was recognized by both the hus- 
 band and wife. The examination had proved by 
 means of various witnesses that Theodore had lived 
 for about a month at Nanterre ; hie had worked for 
 masons there, and had been seen ill-dressed' with 
 his face covered with powdei* from the plaster. At 
 Na:nterre, people thought him a boy of eighfeeh, 
 and yet he must have been plotting this crime for 
 at least a month before its execution. 
 
 The prosecution believed that he had accoriVpKces. 
 The chimney-flues were measured with reference 
 to the size of Manon la Blonde, to see whether it 
 were possible that She could have slipped through 
 one of them; but a child of six could not have 
 passed through the tiled pipeSwhich modern archi- 
 tecture has substituted for the large chimneys of 
 former days. If it had riot been for this singular 
 and exasperating mystery, Theodore wOuId have 
 been executed a Week earlier. The prison chap- 
 lain had totally failed, as we have seen, in elicit- 
 ing a confession from him. 
 
 The whole affair and the name of Calvi had 
 escaped the notice of Jacques Collin, who was then 
 absorbed by his contest with Contenson, Corentin 
 and Peyfade. Moreover, Trompe-la-Mort was en- 
 deavoring to banish from his mind all Recollections 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 263 
 
 of his former friends and ever jrthing connected with 
 the Palais de Justice, He trembled at the idea of 
 meeting face to face a comrade who might demand 
 from his boss an account which he could never give. 
 
 The director of the Conciergerie went immedi- 
 ately to the office of the attorney-general, and found 
 the public prosecutor already there talking with M. 
 de Granville, and holding the order for execution 
 in his hand. M. de Granville had just come from 
 the hatel de Serizy, were he had been passing the 
 night, and was overwhelmed with fatigue and 
 grief, as the doctors dared not as yet promise that 
 the countess should recover her reason; yet, on 
 account of the important execution that was to take 
 place, he felt it his duty to spend some hours in his 
 office after talking for a moment with the director, 
 M. de Granville took back the order for execution 
 from the public prosecutor and gave it to Gault 
 
 "You are to proceed with the execution," said 
 he, "except in case of any extraordinary circum- 
 stances, of which you must be the judge; I rely 
 upon your discretion. You may dejay the erection 
 of the scaffold till half-past ten, so you have an 
 hour left In such a morning as this an hour is 
 worth a century, and many events may happen in 
 a century ! Do not allow any hope of a reprieve. 
 Let the prisoner be dressed for death, and if there 
 be no farther disclosure give the order to Sanson at 
 half -past nine. Meantime, let him wait!" 
 
 As the director of the prison left the office of the 
 attorney-genera;! be met in the vaulted corridor 
 
264 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Opening into the gallery M. Camusot, who was on 
 his way to see M. de Granville. Gault had a rapid 
 conversation with the judge, and after informing 
 him of all that had happened at the Conciergerie, 
 with reference to Jacques Collin, he hastened 
 thither himself to arrange an interview between 
 Trompe-la-Mort and Theodore. He would not, 
 however, allow the self-styled ecclesiastic to hold 
 any communication with the condemned prisoner 
 until Bibi Lupin, perfectly disguised as a gendarme, 
 had replaced the sheep who had been watching the 
 young Corsican. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the profound astonish- 
 ment of the three convicts when they saw a gaoler 
 come to take Jacques Collin into the cell of the con- 
 demned man. They all bounded simultaneously 
 toward the chair in which Jacques Collin was sitting. 
 
 — "It is to-day, isn't it. Monsieur Julien?" asked 
 Fil-de-Soie of the gaoler. 
 
 — "Oh! yes. Chariot is waiting," answered the 
 gaoler with perfect indifference. 
 
 Chariot is the name that prisoners and the offi- 
 cers of prisons give to the executioner of Paris. 
 It dates from the Revolution of 1789, and the sensa- 
 tion it now produced upon the prisoners was im- 
 mense. They all looked at one another. 
 
 "It is all over !" the gaoler continued ; "the order 
 for the execution has been given to M. Gault, and 
 the sentence has been read. ' ' 
 
 — "Then," said la Pouraille, "has the pretty 
 Madeleine received the sacraments.'" 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 265 
 
 He drew in a long breath as if it were his case. 
 
 "Poor little Theodore!" cried le Biffon, "he is 
 such a nice boy; it is a great pity to come to the 
 guillotine so young," — 
 
 The gaoler moved toward the gate, expecting 
 Jacques Collin to follow him; but the Spaniard 
 walked slowly, and when he was within ten feet of 
 Julien, appeared to totter and beckoned to la 
 Pouraille to give him his arm. 
 
 "He is a murderer!" said Napolitas to the priest, 
 pointing to la Pouraille and offering his own arm. 
 
 "No, in my eyes he is but an unfortunate man," 
 — answered Trompe-la-Mort with the presence of 
 mind and the unction of an archbishop of Cambrai. 
 
 He drew away from Napolitas, whom he suspected 
 at the first glance ; then he added in a low voice to 
 the pals. 
 
 "He is on the first step of the Monastery of Sor- 
 rowful Mount — ^the scaffold — ,but I am the prior of 
 it I am going to show you how I can get round the 
 stork, — ^fool the attorney-general — and pull the boys 
 poll from his claws." 
 
 "On account of his montante!" — breeches — said 
 Fil-de-Soie, smiling. 
 
 "I want to give this soul to heaven!" he added 
 fervently, seeing that he was surrounded by several 
 other prisoners. 
 
 He rejoined the gaoler at the gate, 
 
 — "He has come to save Theodore," said Fil-de- 
 Soie; "we guessed right. What a boss he is," — 
 
 "How can he.' The knights of the guillotine 
 
266 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 are there; he can't even see him," objected: le 
 Biffon. 
 
 — "He's got the iaher behind him>" cried la 
 Pouraille, ' 'What, he prig our wad ? He loves his 
 pals too much for that! Besides he depends too 
 much on us. They tried to make ns peach on him, 
 but we're no such fools. If he saves Theodore, he 
 shall have my secret I' ' 
 
 These last words had the effect of increasing the 
 devotion of the three convicts to their god; for 
 now their famous boss was their only hopie. 
 
 In spite of Theodore's danger, Jacques Collin did 
 not forget to play his part to perfection. He, who 
 knew the Conciergerie as well as he knew the 
 three galleys, mistook his way so naturally that 
 the gaoler was continually obliged to direct him, 
 until they reached the registration office. There 
 Jacques Collin's first glance met a tall stout man — 
 leaning against the stove, — whose long red face 
 was not lacking in a certain kind of distinction 
 and whom he recognized as Sanson. 
 
 — "Are you the chaplain, sir?" said he, going up 
 to him politely. 
 
 The mistake was so ghastly that the spectators 
 were appalled. 
 
 "No, sir," replied Sanson, "I have other duties." 
 
 Sanson, father of the last executioner of that 
 name, who has been recently deprived of office, 
 was a son of the man who executed Louis XVI. 
 
 After the exercise of this calling had been four 
 hundred years in the family, the heir of so many 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 267 
 
 torturers had attempted to rid himself of the hered- 
 itary burden. The Sansons had been executioners 
 at Rouen for two centuries before they were pro- 
 moted to the first position of the kind in the king- 
 dom, and from father to son they had executed 
 the sentences of the law since the XIII. century. 
 There are few families which can offer the example 
 of an office or a title that has descended from father 
 to son for sijf centuries. Just at the time that the 
 young man had been made captain of a cavalry 
 fegiment, and saw a fine military career marked 
 out for him, his father compelled him to lend him^ 
 his aid in the execution of the king, and after- 
 ward, he named him his assistant, when in 
 1793 there were two scaffolds permanently erected, 
 one at the Barriere du Tr6ne, and the other in 
 the Place de Gr^ve. This terrible functionary,^ 
 now about sixty years of age, was remarkable 
 for his jgentleman-like address, for his calm and 
 quieli manner, and for the great scorn he showed 
 toward Bibi Lupin and his acolytes, the purveyors 
 of the guillotine. The only indication of his inher- 
 iting the blood of his ancestors, the torturers of the 
 Middle Ages, lay in the formidable size and thick- 
 ness of his hands. He was well educated, very 
 tenacious of his privileges as a citizen and an elec- 
 tor, and was said to be passionately fond of garden- 
 ing. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a quiet digni- 
 fied demeanor^ and a high bald forehead, he looked 
 far more like a member of the English aristocracy 
 thsSn an executioner. Thus a Spanish ecclesiastic 
 
268 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 would have been likely to make the same error that 
 Jacques Collin made voluntarily. 
 
 — "He's no convict," said the head gaoler to the 
 warden. 
 
 "I begin to think so myself," thought M. Gault, 
 as he nodded to his subordinate. 
 
 Jacques Collin was introduced into a kind of a 
 small cellar, where he found young Theodore 
 bound in a strait-jacket and seated on the edge of 
 his miserable camp bedstead. A momentary gleam 
 of light shone from the corridor and Trompe-la-Mort 
 instantly recognized Bibi Lupin in the gendarme 
 who was standing there leaning on his sword. 
 
 — "lo sono Gaba-Morto! Parla nostra italiano," 
 said Jacques Collin hastily, "yengo ti salvar." 
 — I am Trompe-la-Mort Speak Italian, I have come 
 to save your life. — 
 
 The whole conversation of the friends was going 
 to be unintelligible to Bibi Lupin, but as he was 
 placed there to guard the prisoner, he could not 
 leave his post. The rage of the head of the detec- 
 tive police was indescribable. 
 
 Theodore Calvi was a young man of pale olive 
 complexion, light hair, and deep-set eyes of a dull 
 blue colour; he was well proportioned and pos- 
 sessed prodigious muscular strength hidden under 
 the lymphatic exterior natural to so many south- 
 erners. His face would have been charming, were 
 it not for the arched eyebrows, and the retreating 
 forehead that lent it a sinister expression; and 
 without the cruel red lips and the twitching of the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 269 
 
 muscles indicative of the Corsican, that is so quick 
 to murder in a sudden quarrel. 
 
 Surprised to hear the tones of Jacques Collin's 
 voice, Theodore raised his head abruptly, believing 
 himself to be under some hallucination ; but as in 
 two months' time he had become accustomed to the 
 extreme darkness of his stone cell, he looked at the 
 pretended priest and sighed deeply. He did not 
 recognize Jacques Collin, whose face, seamed by 
 the action of sulphuric acid, no longer appeared 
 to him to be that of his boss. 
 
 — "It is I, your own Jacques; I am dressed as a 
 priest, and am come to save you. Don't be fool 
 enough to show that you recognize me, but pretend 
 to confess." 
 
 Jacques Collin said this very rapidly, and then 
 addressing the gendarme, he added : 
 
 "The young man is much overcome; the idea of 
 death terrifies him, and he is going to confess 
 everything. ' ' 
 
 "Tell me something that will prove to me that 
 you are he, for you have only te voice," said Theo- 
 dore. 
 
 — "Do you see ? the poor lad is telling me that he 
 is innocent," said Jacques Collin to the gendarme. 
 
 Bibi Lupin dared not speak, for fear of being 
 recognized. 
 
 — "Sempre-mi!" said Jacques Collin, returning to 
 Theodore, and whispering the password in his ear. 
 
 — "Sempre-ti!" answered the young man replying 
 to the password. "You are my boss indeed!" — 
 
270 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 — "Did you do that business?" 
 
 —"Yes." 
 
 — "Tell me everything, so I may know what I 
 must do to save you; it is time, for Chariot is 
 waiting." 
 
 The Corsican threw himself on his knees as if he 
 meant to confess. Bibi Lupin did not know what 
 to do, for this conversation was so rapid that it oc- 
 cupied less time than is needed to read it Theo- 
 dore related promptly the circumstances that were 
 known concerning his crime, as Jacques Collin was 
 still in ignorance of them. 
 
 — "The jury have condemned me without proof," 
 said he as he ended. 
 
 — "Do you want to argue now, child, when they 
 are going to cut your hair .■" '^ 
 
 — "I ought to be convicted only of pawning the 
 silver and the watch and chain. Yet this is how- 
 the law works, and in Paris, too!" — 
 
 — "But how did you do the job.'" demanded 
 Trompe-la-Mort 
 
 — "I'll tell you. Since I last saw you I made the 
 acquaintance of a little Corsican girl, whom I met 
 when I arrived at Pantin — Paris — " 
 
 — "When a man is idiot enough to fall in love 
 with a woman," exclaimed Jacques Collin, "she 
 always brings him to grief! — ^Women are tigers at 
 large, tigers that chatter and are always admiring 
 themselves in looking-glasses. — You've been a 
 fool!" 
 
 "But—" 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 27-T 
 
 — "Come, what did the damned «Jo// have to do 
 with this business?" 
 
 — "The little love of a girl, slim as an eel and 
 nimble as a monkey, got into the house through the 
 top of the oven, and let me in by the door. We 
 had poisoned the dogs and they were all dead. 
 I laid the two women cold. As soon as we had got 
 the money, Ginetta locked the door and went out 
 by the same way she came in." 
 
 "You deserve to live for such a clever plan as 
 that," said Jacques Collin, who admired the skill 
 with which the crime had been accomplished, as a 
 sculptor admires a beautiful statue. 
 
 "I was fool enough to waste all that cleverness 
 for a beggarly three thousand francs." — 
 
 — "No, for a woman !" returned JacquesCollin. "I 
 have already told you that they rob us of our wits !' ' — 
 
 He cast a look of flaming scorn upon Theodore. 
 
 "You were not with me anymore," replied the 
 Corsican "and I had no one to advise me." 
 
 — "Do you love the girl.'" demanded Jacques 
 Collin, sensible to the reproach contained in Theo- 
 dore's answer. 
 
 — "Ah! If I desire life, it's now more for your 
 sake than for her's." 
 
 — "Put your mind at ease; my name is not 
 Trompe-la-Mort for nothing! I will be responsible 
 for your life." 
 
 — "What! is it life?" cried the young Corsican, 
 raising his manacled arms toward the damp vaulted 
 roof. 
 
272 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 — "My little Madeleine, you must make up your 
 mind to return to the Fields," answered Jacques 
 Collin. 
 
 "You must not expect to be garlanded with roses 
 like the prize ox at Shrovetide. — If they want to 
 send us to Rochefort, it will mean that they are 
 trying to get rid of us, but I shall arrange to get 
 you dispatched to Toulon. From there you can 
 escape and return to Pantin — Paris, — where I shall 
 manage to set you up in some comfortable little 
 business." — 
 
 Theodore heaved a sigh, such as had seldom re- 
 sounded under that inflexible roof, a sigh of joy at 
 the prospect of deliverance. The stone walls sent 
 back the echo, which has no equal in the musical 
 scale, into the astonished ears of Bibi Lupin. 
 
 — "It is the effect of the absolution I have prom- 
 ised him, on account of his confession," said 
 Jacques Collin to the chief of the secret service. 
 "You see, sir, the Corsicans are very devout 
 But he is spotless as a lamb, and 1 am going to try 
 to save him." — 
 
 "God be with you, sir," — said Theodore in 
 French to the Abbe. 
 
THEODORE CALVPS CONFESSION 
 
 " The jury have condemned me without proof" 
 said he as he ended. 
 
 " Do you want to argue now, child, when they are 
 going to. cut your hair ?" 
 
 " I ought to be convicted only of pawning the 
 silver and the watch and chain. Yet this is how 
 the law works, and. in Paris, too!" 
 
 ''But how did you do the job?" demanded 
 Trompe-la-I^ort. 
 
 " I'll tell you." 
 
Kf)e L(iin^/oj ,j<' 
 
Trompe-la-Mort, more Carlos Herrera, more priest 
 than ever, left the condemned cell, and rushing out 
 into the corridor, presented himself to M. Gault, 
 with an expression of feigned horror upon his coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 — "Sir, the young man is innocent and has dis- 
 closed to me the name of the guilty person. — Like 
 a true Corsican he was going to die for a mistaken 
 point of honor. — Go and ask the attorney-general 
 to spare me five minutes' audience, M. de Gran- 
 ville cannot refuse an instant hearing to a Spanish 
 priest, who has suffered so much at the hands of 
 French law." 
 
 — "I will go immediately," answered M. Gault, 
 to the great astonishment of all who witnessed this 
 extraordinary scene. 
 
 — "Please have me taken back to the court-yard, 
 while I am waiting," continued Jacques Collin, 
 "so that I may complete the conversion of a crim- 
 inal, whose heart I have already touched. — Ah! 
 these people have so much heart!" 
 
 His speech produced a stir among the persons 
 present. The gendarmes, the keeper of the books, 
 the gaolers, Sanson and his assistant who were all 
 awaiting the order to "set up the machine," as 
 they call it in the prison; all these persons, 
 18 (273) 
 
274 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 ordinarily unsusceptible to emotion, were moved 
 by a curiosity that may be easily imagined. 
 
 At this moment was heard the sound of a carriage 
 drawn by spirited horses, stopping in a significant 
 manner on the quay outside the gate of the Con- 
 ciergerie. The carriage door was opened and the 
 steps let down so rapidly that the prison officials 
 expected the arrival of a great personage. Pres- 
 ently a lady waving a bit of blue paper in her hand 
 presented herself at the iron gate, followed by a 
 footman and a groom. She was dressed magnifi- 
 cently in black, her bonnet was covered with a 
 veil, and she was drying her eyes with a large em- 
 broidered handkerchief. 
 
 Jacques Collin instantly recognized Asia, or 
 to give his aunt her rightful name, Jacqueline 
 Collin. 
 
 This horrible old woman was worthy of her 
 nephew, all whose thoughts were concentrated 
 upon the prisoner that he was defending with an 
 intelligence and perspicacity, at least, equal to 
 those of the law. She had obtained a permit, 
 given the night before, in the name of the maid of 
 the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, upon the recommen- 
 dation of M. de Serizy, to hold communication with 
 Lucien and the Abbe Carlos Herrera as soon as he 
 should be released from solitary confinement The 
 chief of the department of prisons had written 
 a few lines upon the permit, which, moreover, 
 by its color alone, indicated powerful recommenda- 
 tion, as these permits, like complimentary theatre 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 275 
 
 tickets, differ in form and color from those which 
 are usually given. 
 
 So the turnkey hastened to unlock the gate, influ- 
 enced especially by the sight of the plumed groom, 
 whose green and gold livery was as brilliant as 
 that of a Russian general, and vouched for the 
 presence of an aristocratic visitor of almost royal 
 pretensions. 
 
 "Oh! my dear Abbe!" cried the pretended mar- 
 chioness, bursting into a torrent of tears at the 
 sight of the ecclesiastic, "how could they shut you 
 up here, even for a moment ; you, who are such a 
 holy man!" 
 
 The warden took the permit and read: "On the 
 recommendation of his excellency, the Count de 
 S'eri^^. ' ' 
 
 "Ah! Madame de San Esteban, Madame la Mar- 
 quise," exclaimed Carlos Herrera, "what true 
 devotion!" 
 
 — "Madame, there is no communication allowed 
 with the prisoners here," said good old Gault He 
 tried at the same time to bar the way to the 
 advancing mass of black silk and lace, 
 
 "Still, at this distance!" begged Jacques Collin, 
 "and before all of you!" — he added, looking round 
 at the assembled company. 
 
 Jacques Collin's aunt, whose costume had an 
 amazing effect upon them all, clerk, warden, gaolers 
 and gendarmes, was redolent of musk. Besides 
 three thousand francs worth of lace, she wore a 
 black cashmere shawl that must have cost six 
 
276 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 thousand. Her groom was parading the court-yard 
 of the Conciergerie with all the insolence of a 
 lackey who thinks himself indispensable to an 
 exacting mistress of high station. He did not speak 
 to the footman, who had taken up his post at the 
 door opening on the quay, which was left open all 
 day. 
 
 — "What do you want, and what am I to do.'" 
 said Madame de San Esteban, in the slang dialect 
 that aunt and nephew had agreed to use. 
 
 This slang consisted in giving words terminations 
 in ar or or, al or /, and in lengthening them, whether 
 they were French or slang, so as to render them 
 unintelligible. It was a diplomatic cipher applied 
 to language. 
 
 — "Put all the letters in a safe place, choose 
 those among them that are most compromising for 
 the ladies, dress yourself in rags, and come back to 
 the Salle des pas Perdus to wait for my orders." 
 
 Asia, or Jacqueline, as she really was, knelt 
 down to receive a benediction, which the sham 
 priest pronounced with evangelical unction. 
 
 — "Addio, marckesa!" said he aloud, and then 
 added in their own slang, "find Europe and Paccard 
 with the seven hundred and fifty thousand francs 
 they stole, for I must have them. ' ' 
 
 — "Paccard is here," answered the pious mar- 
 quise, looking tearfully toward the groom. 
 
 His aunt's ready wit not only forced a smile 
 from Jacques Collin, but even surprised him, whom 
 nobody else in the world could have surprised. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 277 
 
 The pretended marquise turned toward the spec- 
 tators like a woman in the habit of striking an 
 attitude, and said in bad French : 
 
 — "The good man is in despair that he cannot go 
 to his child's funeral ; this unfortunate mistake of 
 the police has disclosed his secret. — I am on my 
 way to the requiem mass. There, sir," said she 
 to M. Gault, as she handed him a purse of gold, 
 "here is something for the relief of the poor pris- 
 oners. ' ' 
 
 — "That's a good move," whispered her nephew, 
 much pleased. 
 
 Jacques Collin followed the gaoler into the prison 
 yard. 
 
 Bibi Lupin, now in despair, succeeded at last in 
 attracting the attention of a gendarme, to whom he 
 had been hemming significantly ever since the de- 
 parture of Jacques Collin, and the man came to take 
 his place in the cell of the condemned. Trompe-la- 
 Mort's enemy was too late to see the lady, who 
 had driven away in her brilliant equipage, but her 
 voice, which he heard, was suggestive of drink, 
 in spite of its disguise. 
 
 — "Three hundred balls — ^francs — ^for the pris- 
 oners!" said the head gaoler, showing Bibi Lupin 
 the purse that M. Gault had given to his clerk. 
 
 — "Let me see. Monsieur Jacomety," said Bibi 
 Lupin. 
 
 The chief of the secret service took the purse, 
 poured the gold into his hand and examined it care- 
 fully. 
 
278 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 — "It is really gold," — he said, "and the purse 
 has a coat of arms. Ah ! how consummately clever 
 the scoundrel is ! He can take us all in, and when- 
 ever he chooses ! — He ought to be shot down like a 
 dog!" 
 
 — "Why do you say that?" asked the clerk 
 taking back the purse. , 
 
 — "The woman must be a thief!" — cried Bibi 
 Lupin, stamping with rage on the pavement out- 
 side the prison door. 
 
 His words produced a great sensation among the 
 spectators grouped at a little distance from M. 
 Sanson, who still stood leaning against the large 
 stove in the middle of the vast vaulted hall, wait- 
 ing for an order to make the criminal's toilet, and 
 set up the guillotine in the Place de Gr^ve. 
 
 After re-entering the prison-yard Jacques Collin 
 walked up to his friends with the step that is pecu- 
 liar to prisoners. 
 
 — "What have you on hand?" he asked of la 
 Pouraille. 
 
 — "I'm in a bad way," answered the murderer, 
 whom Jacques Collin had drawn aside. "What I 
 need now is a friend I can count on." 
 
 —"Why?" 
 
 La Pouraille told the story of his crimes to his 
 chief, speaking in his dialect, ending with the de- 
 tails of the murder and robbery he had committed 
 in the Crottat household. 
 
 — "I congratulate you," said Jacques Collin. 
 
 "You did well, but I think you made a mistake." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 279 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "As soon as you had finished your business you 
 should have got a Russian passport, disguised your- 
 self as a Russian prince, and bought a carriage with 
 armorial bearings; then you could have gone boldly 
 to a banker to deposit your money, and asked for 
 a letter of credit on Hamburg. Afterward, it would 
 have been an easy matter for you to take the post, 
 accompanied by a valet, a maid-servant and your 
 mistress dressed like a princess, and at Hamburg 
 you could have embarked for Mexico. With two 
 hundred and eighty thousand francs in gold, a fel- 
 low of spirit can do what he wants and go where 
 he pleases, you fool!" 
 
 "Oh! you can think of these things, because 
 you are the boss I — You'll never lose your poll, 
 but I"— 
 
 — "I may as well tell you that giving good advice 
 to a man in your position is like wasting good broth 
 on a dead man," rejoined Jacques Collin, fixing his 
 fascinating glance upon his comrade. 
 
 "That may be true," said la Pouraille doubtfully, 
 "but please give me the broth all the same; if it 
 doesn't prove nourishing, I'll make a footbath 
 of it—" 
 
 — "Here you are seized by the stork with five 
 considerable robberies and three murders on your 
 head, the last one concerning two rich bourgeois, — 
 No jury likes to have bourgeois killed either. — 
 You'll certainly be billed through to the devil; 
 there isn't the least hope for you." 
 
28o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 —"They've all told me the same thing," replied 
 la Pouraille, ruefully. 
 
 "My aunt Jacqueline, whom I have just been 
 talking with, before all the prison oificials, and who 
 is, as you know, a mother to all our good comrades, 
 told me that the stork wanted to get rid of you, 
 because you are considered dangerous." 
 — "But," said la Pouraille, with an ingenuousness 
 that showed how completely thieves are convinced 
 of their «fl/«ra/ right to rob; "I have money enough 
 now; what can they be afraid of?" 
 
 — "We have no time for philosophising," said 
 Jacques Collin. "We must return to your situa- 
 tion."— 
 
 — "What is it you want of me?" demanded la 
 Pouraille, interrupting his master. 
 
 — "You shall see! A dead dog has his worth." 
 
 — "For others!" said la Pouraille. 
 
 — "I will let you help in my game!" replied 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 — "Even that is something!" — said the murderer. 
 "What else.'" 
 
 — "I don't ask where your money is, but I want 
 to know what you mean to do with it ' ' 
 
 — La Pouraille watched closely the inscrutable 
 expression of his boss, as the latter continued 
 coolly: 
 
 — "Have you any moll that you love, or a child or 
 any pal you care to help along? I shall be out- 
 side the walls in an hour, and I can do anj^ing 
 for any friends of yours. ' ' 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 28 1 
 
 La Pouraille still hesitated, and could not make 
 up his mind. Jacques Collin brought forward a 
 final argument. 
 
 — "Your share in our common funds is thirty 
 thousand francs ; are you going to leave them to the 
 pals? or do you mean to give them to somebody in 
 particular .' The money is safe, and I can hand it 
 over this evening to anybody you may wish to be- 
 queath it to. ' ' 
 
 La Pouraille could not conceal his pleasure. 
 
 — "Now I have him !" thought Jacques Collin. — 
 "But there is no time to waste; think quickly!" — 
 he went on, in a whisper. "We haven't ten 
 minutes to ourselves, old fellow. " — " The attorney- 
 general will send for me, and I'm to have a con- 
 ference with him. I have tight hold of the man, 
 and I can twist the stork's neck. I am certain to 
 save Madeleine. ' ' 
 
 — "If you save Madeleine, dear boss, you might 
 save me — " 
 
 — "Don't waste your breath," said Jacques Col- 
 lin abruptly. "Make your will." 
 
 — "Well, 1 should like to give the money to la 
 Gonore, " answered la Pouraille, sadly. 
 
 "Indeed! — Is she your mistress then, the widow 
 of Moses, the Jew, who was at the head of the 
 southern swindlers.'" inquired Jacques Collin. 
 
 Like all great generals, Trompe-la-Mort had a per- 
 sonal knowledge of all his troops. 
 
 "Yes, that is she," said la Pouraille, extremely 
 flattered. 
 
282 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "She is a pretty woman," said Jacques Collin, 
 who understood perfectly how to work his terrible 
 machines, "and shrewd too. She's a clever girl, 
 and honest into the bargain. She's really an ac- 
 complished thief. So you had la Gonore for an 
 ally, did you ? It was stupid of you to get into 
 trouble when you had a mistress like her. You 
 fool! You ought to have set up in some respect- 
 able trade, and have scraped along together! — 
 What sort of prigging is she engaged in ?' ' 
 
 — "She lives in the rue Sainte Barbe and keeps 
 a house — ' ' 
 
 — "So you make her your heiress? You see the 
 result, old fellow, when a man is fool enough to 
 love one of those hussies," 
 
 — "Yes, but don't give her a penny till I have 
 kicked the bucket!" 
 
 — "I promise," said Jacques Collin, seriously. 
 "Then you leave nothing to the pals}" 
 
 — "Nothing; they betrayed me!" replied la 
 Pouraille, vindictively. 
 
 — "Who sold you .' Do you want me to revenge 
 you?" asked Jacques Collin, trying to stir the last 
 chord that could vibrate in la Pouraille's heart at a 
 critical moment like this. 
 
 — "Who knows, oXdpal, that I couldn't manage to 
 revenge you and make your peace with the siork at 
 the same time?" 
 
 The murderer stared at his boss, dazed with joy. 
 
 — "But," began the boss, replying to the speak- 
 ing expression of his countenance, "I am now 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 283 
 
 acting this little comedy for Theodore alone. If it 
 succeeds, old boy, I might do a great deal for a 
 friend of mine, and you are one." 
 
 — "If I can only see you able to put off the cere- 
 mony for poor little Theodore, I will do anything 
 you want. ' ' 
 
 — "I have done it already, for I'm sure oi pulling 
 his poll out all right. You see, la Pouraille, if we 
 mean to get out of this mess we must all stick to 
 one another. — Nobody can do anything by him- 
 self."— 
 
 — "That's true!" cried la Pouraille. 
 
 La Pouraille's confidence and fanatical faith in 
 his boss was now so complete that he hesitated no 
 longer. 
 
 He then disclosed the names of his accomplices, a 
 secret which he had kept inviolate until then. This 
 was all that Jacques Collin wanted to know. 
 
 — "Here's my secret! Ruffard, Bibi Lupin's 
 agent, went thirds with Godet and me in the job, 
 which we had long been planning — " 
 
 — "Arrache Laine?" — exclaimed Jacques Collin, 
 giving Ruffard his thieves' name. 
 
 — "Yes, that's he, and the rogues sold me because 
 I knew the place where they kept their money, 
 and they didn't know mine." 
 
 — "You grease my hoots — are making it easy for 
 me — my love!" said Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "See," Jacques answered, "what you gain by 
 trusting me! — Now, I shall make your revenge a 
 
284 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 point of my game — ! I don't ask you to tell me 
 where you keep your money, you will tell me that 
 at the last moment, but tell me all about Ruffard 
 and Godet." 
 
 — "You are our boss and always will be, so I 
 have no secrets from you," replied la Pouraille. 
 "My money is in la Gonore's deep — cellar — . " 
 
 — "Can you trust your mistress then ?" 
 
 — "Oh! she knows nothing of the performance!" 
 la Pouraille went on. "I made la Gonore tipsy, 
 although she wouldn't tell to save her neck. Still 
 such a lot of gold !' ' 
 
 — "Yes, it would be enough to turn the milk of 
 the purest conscience," said Jacques Collin. 
 
 — ' ' In that way I could work with no eye upon 
 me. All the hens had gone to roost. The gold lies 
 three feet below ground, behind the wine-bottles, 
 and I covered it with a layer of pebbles and 
 mortar." 
 
 — "Good," said Jacques Collin. "And where 
 do the others keep their wads?" 
 
 — "Ruifard keeps his share in la Gonore's house, 
 in the very room of the poor creature, whom he 
 holds in his power, in this way; for she might be 
 discovered to be an accomplice in receiving stolen 
 goods, and end her days at Saint Lazare." 
 
 — "The rogue! It takes the peelers to train a 
 thief properly!" said Jacques. 
 
 — "Godet's wad is at his sister's, who is a clear- 
 starcher and an honest girl. She might easily get 
 five years in jail, without suspecting why. He 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 285 
 
 took up the tiles of the floor, fitted them back 
 again, and decamped." 
 
 — "Can you guess what I want of you?" said 
 Jacques Collin, fixing his magnetic gaze upon la 
 Pouraille. 
 
 —"What is it?" 
 
 "I want you to take Theodore's concern upon 
 your shoulders — ' ' 
 
 La Pouraille gave an expressive shrug, and then 
 promptly resumed his obedient attitude, under his 
 master's eye. 
 
 — "What! Are you objecting already? Do you 
 want to manage my game ? What do you suppose 
 is the difference between three or four murders?" 
 
 — "There may not be much difference!" 
 
 — "By the god of pals, you have no blood in your 
 veins ! And 1 was thinking of saving you !" 
 
 — "How could you?" 
 
 — "You're a fool! If you offer to return the 
 money to the family you will get off with the field 
 for life. I wouldn't give a straw for your poll if 
 they had the money, but at this very moment you 
 are worth seven hundred thousand francs, you 
 idiot, you!" 
 
 "O! boss!" cried la Pouraille, in ecstasy. 
 
 — "And," Jacques Collin continued, "we can 
 accuse Ruffard of the murders. — That will put an 
 end to Bibi Lupin at once! — I have him!" 
 
 La Pouraille was completely dazed by this new 
 idea; his eyes opened wider and wider, and he 
 stood motionless as a statue. It was three months 
 
286 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 since he had been arrested, and he was on the eve 
 of appearing before the Court of Assizes ; he had 
 asked the advice of his friends in prison, but he 
 had not told them of his accomplices, and an inves- 
 tigation of his crimes had left him so utterly de- 
 spondent that nobody had been clever enough to 
 think of this plan. So this slender hope made him 
 almost beside himself. 
 
 — "Have Ruffard and Godet had a spree yet? 
 Have they been airing any of their shiners — gold 
 pieces? — " asked Jacques Collin. 
 
 — "They dare not," replied la Pouraille. 
 
 "The scoundrels are waiting for my head to be 
 mowed. That's the news that my mistress sent 
 me by la Biffe, when she came to see le Biffon. " 
 
 — "We shall have all the money in twenty-four 
 hours, then!" exclaimed Jacques Collin. "The 
 wretches won't be able to make restitution as you 
 can ; you will be white as snow, and they will be 
 stained with all the blood! I shall take care to 
 have it believed that you were an honest fellow 
 misled by them. There will be money enough to 
 get alibis on your other charges, and once in the 
 field — for you'll have to go back there — you can 
 make your escape somehow. — It is a nasty kind of 
 life, but still it's life!" 
 
 La Pouraille's eyes expressed a state of delirious 
 excitement. 
 
 — "With seven hundred thousand francs you 
 have many chances, old fellow!" said Jacques Col- 
 lin, filling his comrade with intoxicating hopes. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 287 
 
 Boss ! Boss ! 
 
 "I'll bewilder the attorney-general! — ^Ah! Ruff- 
 ard shall dance for this; he's a police agent and fair 
 prey. Bibi Lupin is cooked!" 
 
 "It's a go!" cried la Pouraille with savage joy. 
 "Give me your orders, and I'll obey." 
 
 He hugged Jacques Collin, with tears in his 
 eyes, for his head felt firm upon his shoulders. 
 
 —"That's not all," said Jacques Collin. "The 
 stork has a difficult digestion, especially when 
 there is a revelation of new facts. What we must 
 do now is to bring a false charge against some 
 moll." 
 
 — "How can we .' and what would be the good of 
 it ?' ' asked the murderer. 
 
 — "Help me, and you'll see!" — replied Trompe- 
 la-Mort. 
 
 He then related briefly the story of the crime 
 committed at Nanterre, showing la Pouraille the 
 need of finding a woman who would consent to play 
 Ginetta's part Then he and la Pouraille, who was 
 now in good spirits, walked toward le Biffon. 
 
 "I know how much you love la Biffe, — "said 
 Jacques Collin to le Biffon. 
 
 There was a dreadful poem to be read in le 
 Biffon's look. 
 
 — "What is she to do while you are mths field?" 
 
 A tear softened le Biffon's savage eyes. 
 
 — "Suppose I got her locked up in a house of 
 correction for women, (at the Force, the Madelon- 
 ettes, or Saint-Lazare), for a year.? That would 
 
288 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 cover the time of your trial, your departure, your 
 arrival at the field, and your escape." 
 
 — "You can't work miracles, and she's clean of 
 this Job," replied la Biffe's lover. 
 
 —"Oh! le Biffon!" said la Pouraille, "our boss 
 is more powerful than God." 
 
 — "What is your password with her?" Jacques 
 Collin inquired of le Biffon, with all the assurance 
 of a master who never takes a refusal. 
 
 —r" 'A night in Paris. ' When she hears that, she 
 will know you come from me, and if you want her 
 to obey you, show her a five-franc piece, and say 
 the word 'TondifP " 
 
 — "She will be convicted at la Pouraille's trial, 
 and released for confessing the matter after a year 
 in prison," said Jacques Collin, slowly, with his 
 eye upon la Pouraille. 
 
 La Pouraille understood the plot and promised 
 his master with a look that he would do his best 
 to make le Biffon co-operate in persuading la Biffe 
 to assume a pretended complicity in the crime he 
 was about to take upon his own shoulders, 
 
 — "Good-bye, my children. You will soon learn 
 that I have saved the boy from Chariot's clutches," 
 said Trompe-la-Mort "Yes, Chariot was in his 
 office, with his attendants, waiting to make Made- 
 leine's toilet. There," he added, "the attorney- 
 general has sent some one for me, now. ' ' 
 
 It was as he said ; a gaoler came through the gate 
 and beckoned to this extraordinary man, now 
 roused by the danger of his favorite, the young 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 289 
 
 Corsican, to regain possession of his savage power 
 for struggling against society. 
 
 It may be worth while to observe that at the 
 moment when Jacques Collin was robbed of 
 Lucien's body, he made a mighty resolution to 
 attempt a final incarnation, not in the person of 
 a human being, but in the likeness of a thing. He 
 decided upon the fatal course that Napoleon adopted 
 when he stepped upon the boat that was to carry 
 him to the "Bellerophon. " Owing to a strange 
 concurrence of circumstances, everything aided to 
 keep his evil and corrupt genius in the enterprise 
 he had marked out for it 
 
 19 
 
Although the unexpected ending of Jacques Col- 
 lin's criminal life may lose something in its char- 
 acter of the marvelous, — a quality to be obtained 
 now-a-days only by the wildest improbabilities — 
 before entering the office of the attorney-general, 
 we must follow Madame Camusot in the various 
 visits she made, while the events related above 
 were taking place at the Conciergerie. One of 
 the most serious obligations of the historian of 
 manners, is to try never to introduce dramatic inci- 
 dents at the expense of the truth, especially when 
 truth itself happens to be romantic. Human society, 
 above all, in Paris, admits of such startling possi- 
 bilities, and such intricate and capricious associa- 
 tions of circumstances, that the most inventive 
 imagination is outstripped at every turn. Truth 
 soars boldly to situations outside of the domain of 
 art, so improbable and indecorous are they, unless 
 the writer soften, purify and chasten them. 
 
 Madame Camusot undertook to invent a costume 
 for the morning that should be as near good taste 
 as possible, and this was a difficult task for the 
 wife of a judge who had been living in the prov- 
 inces for nearly six years. It was very important 
 for her, however, to avoid encountering any criti- 
 cism from the Marquise d' Espard, or the Duchess 
 de Maufrigneuse, whom she meant to call upon 
 (291) 
 
292 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 between eight and nine o'clock in the morning. 
 Amelie-Cecile Camusot, although born a Thirion, 
 only half succeeded, we must confess, and in a 
 matter of dress, a miss is as good as a mile. 
 
 People little know the usefulness of Parisian 
 women to men who are ambitious; they are as 
 necessary in the great world as they are in the 
 world of thieves, where, as we have just seen, 
 they play an essential part. For instance, suppose 
 that, under penalty of being left behind in the 
 arena, a man is forced to address himself to the 
 Keeper of the Seals, who was a great personage at 
 the time of the Restoration. Choose a man who 
 is placed in favorable circumstances, say a judge, 
 that is, a person who is familiar with the house. 
 He is obliged to secure an interview with the head 
 of a department or a private secretary, or a general 
 secretary, and to show some adequate reason for 
 obtaining an immediate audience. A Keeper of the 
 Seals can never be seen at once. In the middle of 
 the day, if he is not at the Chamber, he is at the 
 council of ministers, or else he is signing papers, or 
 giving audiences. In the morning he is sleeping, 
 though no one knows where. In the evening he has 
 public and social duties to fulfil. If every judge 
 could insist upon an audience on any pretext what- 
 ever, the chief officer of justice would be besieged. 
 The object for which a private and immediate inter- 
 view is requested is, therefore, subjected to the 
 consideration of an intermediary power, who may 
 bar the passage like a closed door, even though the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 293 
 
 way is forstalled by no other competitor. But when 
 one woman goes to see another she can walk into 
 her bedroom without delay, and succeed in rousing 
 the curiosity of either the mistress or the maid, 
 especially when the mistress is absorbed in some 
 important interest or pressing necessity. 
 
 Madame d' Espard, who represented all the au- 
 thority of a minister, may be taken as an illustra- 
 tion of feminine power. When she chose to write 
 a little perfumed note it was instantly carried by 
 her lackey to the minister's valet. When the 
 minister awakes the note is immediately handed 
 to him, and he reads it without delay. No matter 
 how urgent the duties of his ofifice, he finds personal 
 pleasure in calling upon one of the queens of Paris, 
 who was a power of the Faubourg Saint Germain, 
 and a favorite of Madame, of the Dauphiness, or of 
 the King. Casimir-Perier, the only real prime 
 minister produced by the Revolution of July, left 
 everything to pay a visit to an ex-first gentleman 
 of the bed-chamber of Charles X. 
 
 Upon this theory, we can understand the power of 
 the announcement: "Madame, Madame Camusot is 
 here to see you on very pressing business, which you 
 know of," made to Madame d' Espard by her wait- 
 ing-maid, who believed her mistress to be awake. 
 
 The Marquise ordered Amelie to be introduced 
 forthwith, and the judge's wife .obtained an atten- 
 tive hearing when she began, as follows : 
 
 — "Madame la Marquise, we have ruined our- 
 selves by revenging you — " 
 
294 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 — "What do you mean, my dear?" said the Mar- 
 quise, looking at Madame Camusot, who was stand- 
 ing in the half-light of the open door. "You look 
 fascinating this morning, in that charming little 
 hat. Where did you find a shape like it? — " 
 
 — "You are very kind Madame, — but you must 
 know that the manner in which Camusot conducted 
 Lucien de Rubempre's examination, reduced the 
 young man to such despair, that he hung himself 
 in prison — " 
 
 — "What will become of Madame de Serizy?" 
 cried the Marquise," pretending not to know any- 
 thing about the tragedy, so that she might listen to 
 the particulars over again. 
 
 — "Alas! She is supposed to be crazy," — an- 
 swered Amelie. "Oh! If you can only induce 
 His Grace to send a courier to the Palais de Jus- 
 tice for my husband, the minister will hear strange 
 secrets from him, which he will certainly feel it 
 his duty to tell the king. — In that way, Camusot's 
 enemies will be forced to keep silence." 
 
 — "Who are Camusot's enemies?" inquired the 
 Marquise. 
 
 — "The attorney-general and now M. de Serizy, 
 besides." — 
 
 — "Don't be afraid, my dear," replied Madame 
 d' Espard, who owed to M. de Granville and M. de 
 Serizy her defeat in the shameful suit she had 
 brought for the purpose of obtaining an injunction 
 against her husband. "1 will defend you. I never 
 forget my friends nor my enemies. ' ' 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 295 
 
 She rang, and ordered the curtains drawn aside ; 
 the daylight poured into the room. Then asking 
 for her desk, which her maid brought to her, the 
 marchioness rapidly scribbled a little note. 
 
 — "Tell Godard to take a horse and carry this 
 note to the Chancellerie; there is no answer," she 
 said to her maid. 
 
 The woman left the room hastily, but in spite of 
 her orders, lingered outside the door for some min- 
 utes. 
 
 — "There is some great mystery, then?" de- 
 manded Madame d'Espard. "Tell me all about it, 
 my dear. Did Clotilde de Grandlieu have any part 
 in all this?" 
 
 "You will hear everjrthing from his Grace, 
 madame, but my husband told me nothing; he 
 merely warned me of his danger. It would be 
 better for us to have Madame de Serizy die than to 
 have her live insane." 
 
 — "Poor woman!" said the marquise; "but 
 wasn't she half mad already ?' ' 
 
 Women of fashion have a hundred ways of pro- 
 nouncing the same phrase, that show an acute ob- 
 server the infinite variety of sounds in the musical 
 scale. The whole soul may be expressed in the 
 voice as well as in the eye ; it may be as readily 
 impressed on air as it is on light, those two medi- 
 ums, through which the eyes and the throat are 
 able to act. By the accent with which the mar- 
 quise pronounced the two words, "poor woman," 
 she betrayed the joys of triumph and satisfied 
 
296 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 hatred. There was no misfortune she did not 
 wish for Lucien's patroness ! The insatiable hatred 
 that survives the death of its object has something 
 appalling in its intensity, and even Madame Cam- 
 usot, who had a harsh, vindictive and mischief- 
 making nature, was shocked. She found nothing 
 to say in return, and was silent. 
 
 — "Diane told me that Leontine had gone to the 
 prison," Madame d'Espard went on. "The poor 
 duchess is in despair over the scandal, for she is 
 weak enough to love Madame de Serizy. That is 
 easy to understand, however, for they both adored 
 that little fool of a Lucien, and almost at the same 
 time; nothing unites or separates two women like 
 paying their devotions at the same altar. So the 
 dear creature spent two hours yesterday in Leon- 
 tine's room. It seems the poor countess said dread- 
 ful things, quite disgusting in fact. — A well-bred 
 woman should never allow herself to be subject to 
 such outbursts! — Fie! It was a disgraceful pas- 
 sion. — The duchess was pale as death when she 
 came to see me, though she was full of courage ! 
 There is something monstrous about this whole 
 thing."— 
 
 "My husband will tell everything to the Keeper 
 of the Seals, so that he may justify himself ; for they 
 wanted to save Lucien, and he only did his duty, 
 Madame la Marquise. An examining judge is 
 obliged to question prisoners privately, and within 
 the time the law prescribes. — It was necessary to 
 ask the poor little wretch some questions, and he 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 297 
 
 didn't understand that it was merely a form, so he 
 confessed at once — ' ' 
 
 — "He was always a silly, saucy fellow," said 
 Madame d'Espard, dryly. 
 
 The judge's wife said nothing, as she listened to 
 this judgment. 
 
 — "Though we failed in getting an injunction 
 against M. d' Espard, it was not Camusot's fault, 
 and I shall always remember that," the marquise 
 continued, after a pause. "It was Lucien, M. de 
 Serizy, M. de Bauvan and M. de Granville that 
 made us lose the case. God will help me, in time, 
 and every man of them will come to grief. Don't 
 worry any more. I will dispatch the Chevalier 
 d' Espard to the Keeper of the Seals, and make him 
 send for your husband, if you really think it is of 
 use — " 
 
 —"Ah! Madame!"— 
 
 — "Listen to me," said the marquise, "I promise 
 you the decoration of the Legion of Honor, at once, 
 to-morrow! It will be a public recognition to your 
 husband's conduct in this affair. Yes, it will be 
 incriminating to Lucien, too, and everybody will 
 believe him guilty. A man rarely hangs himself 
 for amusement. — ^Good-bye, my dear!" 
 
 Ten minutes later, Madame Camusot entered the 
 bedroom of the beautiful Diane de Maufrigneuse 
 who had never slept, though it had struck nine, 
 and she had gone to bed at one o'clock the night 
 before. 
 
 A duchess may be unfeeling by nature, yet hard 
 
298 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 as her heart may be, she cannot see a friend in the 
 paroxysms of madness without some trace of deep 
 feeling. 
 
 Moreover, though Diane's connection with Lu- 
 cien had been broken eighteen months before, it 
 was still fresh enough in her memory to allow his 
 tragic death to give her a violent shock. All night 
 long Diane had seen before her the handsome 
 youth, the charming poetic lover, hanging as Leon- 
 tine had so graphically described him, in the ravings 
 of her delirium. She had kept Lucien's eloquent, 
 rapturous letters, that might be compared to those 
 written by Mirabeau to Sophie, save that these 
 were more literary and careful in form, as they had 
 been dictated by vanity, the strongest of human 
 passions ! Lucien's head had been turned by the 
 happiness of possessing the heart of the loveliest of 
 duchesses, and the knowledge that for his sake she 
 was guilty of secret folly. The pride of the lover 
 had inspired the poet. So the duchess had kept 
 these stirring letters, as old men sometimes keep 
 indecent pictures, because of the extravagant praise 
 they contained of such qualities of hers as were 
 least worthy of a duchess. 
 
 — "And he died in a shameful prison!" said she, 
 clutching her letters in alarm, as she heard her 
 maid tap softly at the door. 
 
 — "Madame Camusot has come to see you on a 
 most important matter that interests you," the 
 maid announced. 
 
 Diane sprang up in terror. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 299 
 
 — "Oh!" said she as she saw Amelie, who as- 
 sumed an expression of suitable gravity. "I know 
 what you have come for ! You want my letters — 
 Ah! my letters — my letters!" — 
 
 She sank back upon a sofa, remembering that, 
 in the madness of her passion, she had answered 
 Lucien in his own tone, that she had written him 
 as enthusiastically of his charms as he had of hers, 
 and in what romantic strains ! 
 
 — "It is too true, madam," answered Madame 
 Camusot; "I have come to save more than your 
 life, for your honor is at stake. — Collect yourself 
 and dress ; we must go to the Duchess de Grand- 
 lieu, for, happily for you, you are not the only 
 woman compromised." 
 
 — "Butl am told that Leontine burned all the 
 letters poor Lucien left at the Palais yesterday. ' ' 
 
 "But Lucien had a double in Jacques Collin, 
 madame, " cried the judge's wife. "You forget 
 that pernicious intimacy which was certainly the 
 sole cause of the death of the charming young man 
 whom we regret so deeply. That Machiavelli of the 
 galleys never lost his head in his life, and M. Cam- 
 usot is sure that the monster has put in a place of 
 safety the most compromising among the love- 
 letters received by his — " 
 
 — "His friend," said the duchess, quickly. 
 "You are right, my dear; we must go and hold 
 council with the Grandlieus. We are all involved 
 in this matter, and fortunately Serizy will lend us a 
 helping hand." 
 
300 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 — The extremity of danger has, as we have just 
 seen in the scenes at the Conciergerie, as terrific a 
 power over the soul as that of the strongest re- 
 agents over the body. It is a moral Voltaic bat- 
 tery, and perhaps the day is not far distant when 
 it will be discovered by what method feeling is 
 chemically condensed into a fluid, somewhat simi- 
 lar to electricity. 
 
 The same phenomenon took place with the 
 duchess as with the convict. This weak, exhausted 
 woman, who had not slept all night; this duchess 
 who usually spent so much time at her toilet, was 
 suddenly possessed of the strength of a lioness at 
 bay, and the presence of mind of a general under 
 fire. Diane selected her garments herself, and 
 dressed as rapidly as a grisette, who is her own 
 tiringwoman. The change was so remarkable that 
 her maid stood motionless with astonishment star- 
 ing at her mistress, who was clad in her chemise, 
 pleased, perhaps, to have the judge's wife see, 
 through its transparent veil of linen, her body, that, 
 white and perfect as Canova's Venus, was like a 
 jewel glittering through the delicate paper that 
 envelops it. It suddenly occurred to Diane to put 
 on a comfortable pair of stays that hooked together 
 in front, and spared her the time and trouble nec- 
 essary for lacing them. After she had arranged 
 the lace ruffles of her chemise and laid them sys- 
 tematically in place, her maid brought her petti- 
 coat to her and finally her dress. Then the woman 
 signed to Amelie to fasten the duchess' dress in 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 301 
 
 the back, while she ran to fetch a pair of Scotch 
 thread stoci<ings, and velvet shoes, a shawl and a 
 hat. Amelie and the maid together put on the 
 duchess' shoes and stockings. 
 
 — "You are the most beautiful woman I ever 
 saw," said Amelie, adroitly, as with a sudden 
 movement she bent down and kissed Diane's beau- 
 tiful and polished knee. 
 
 — "Madame has not her equal," said the maid. 
 
 — "Come Josette, be quiet," rejoined the 
 duchess.^" Have you a carriage.?" she asked of 
 Madame Camusot. "Come, my dear, we can talk 
 on the way. ' ' 
 
 The duchess ran down the great stairway of the 
 Hotel de Cadignan, drawing on her gloves as she 
 went, a sight that had never been seen before. 
 
 — "To the H6tel de Grandlieu, and very 
 quickly!" said she to one of her servants to whom 
 she beckoned to mount behind the carriage. 
 
 The man hesitated, for the vehicle was nothing 
 but a hack. 
 
 — "Ah! Madame, you never told me the young 
 man had letters from you ! If you had let me know 
 that, Camusot would have proceeded very differ- 
 ently."— 
 
 — "Leontine's condition absorbed me so com- 
 pletely that I quite forgot about it, ' ' answered the 
 duchess. "The poor thing was already half crazed 
 the day before yesterday, so you may imagine 
 what a shock she received from this fatal event! 
 Oh! if you only knew, my dear, what a morning 
 
302 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 we had yesterday, — It is enough to make me for- 
 swear love forever. Yesterday, Leontine and I 
 were dragged by a hideous hag, an old clothes- 
 dealer, who was a clever enough woman though, 
 into that evil-smelling, blood-stained den they call 
 a place of justice. On our way to the Palais, I said 
 to her: 'I should like to kneel down and pray, like 
 Madame de Nucingen, in a bad storm she met 
 with on the Mediterranean, on a voyage to Naples : ' 
 "My God! save me this time, and I won't ask it 
 again. " These are two days that I shall never for- 
 get ! How stupid it is to write ! — But when a woman 
 is in love and receives letters that burn through her 
 eyes into her heart, she catches fire, loses sight of 
 prudence and answers them." — 
 
 — "Why should she write, when she can act?" 
 asked Madame Camusot 
 
 — "It is so glorious to love!" — cried the duchess 
 proudly. "It is the soul's joy. " 
 
 — "A beautiful woman," returned Madame Cam- 
 usot, modestly, "is excusable, for she has so many 
 more temptations than the rest of us. ' ' 
 
 The duchess smiled. 
 
 "I have been much too generous," she said. "In 
 the future, 1 mean to do like that abominable 
 Madame d'Espard." 
 
 "What does she do?" asked the judge's wife, 
 curiously. 
 
 — "She has written a thousand love-letters. — " 
 
 "As many as that?" — cried Madame Camusot, 
 interrupting her. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 303 
 
 — "Yes, and I can assure you, my dear, that you 
 could not find a compromising sentence in one of 
 them."— 
 
 "You are incapable of being so cold and circum- 
 spect," replied Madame Qamusot. "You are one 
 of those lovely women who can never resist the 
 devil—" 
 
 — "I have vowed that I shall never write again. 
 In all my life I have never written to anybody but 
 poor Lucien. — I shall keep his letters till I die. 
 They burn with passion, my dear child, and some- 
 times I need — " 
 
 ■ — "Suppose they were found?" said Madame 
 Camusot, with a timid little gesture. 
 
 — "Oh! I shall say they are part of a novel I 
 began; for I have copied them all, my dear, and 
 burnt the originals." 
 
 — "Oh! Let me read them for my reward, 
 madame !' ' — 
 
 — "Perhaps," said the duchess. "Then you can 
 see, my dear, that he wrote quite differently to 
 Leontine!" 
 
 These last words revealed the nature of a true 
 woman — the woman of all times and countries. 
 
 Like the frog in la Fontaine's fable, Madame 
 Camusot was bursting with pleasure at calling 
 upon the Grandlieus in company with the beautiful 
 Diane de Maufrigneuse. She was, this morning, 
 to establish a connection that was necessary to her 
 ambition, and would hear herself addressed as 
 "Madame la Presidente." She felt the ineffable 
 
304 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 joy of triumphing over great obstacles, the principal 
 one of which was the incapacity of her husband, a 
 fact of which she was fully aware, although the 
 world had not as yet found it out. To make an 
 inferior man succeed gives women as well as kings 
 the same kind of pleasure that actors feel in play- 
 ing a poor piece for the hundredth time. It is the 
 very ecstacy of egotism, the saturnalia of power. 
 Power understands its own extent, only by the 
 anomaly of crowning a nonentity with the palm of 
 success, and insulting genius, which is sole force 
 outside the reach of absolute power. The imperial 
 farce of the promotion of Caligula's horse has had, 
 and will always have, many representations. 
 
 In a few minutes' time, Diane and Amelie had 
 passed from the elegant disorder of Diane's bed- 
 room to the severe luxury and grandeur of the H6tel 
 de Grandlieu. 
 
 The Duchess de Grandlieu, who was a Portu- 
 guese, and very pious, rose every morning, at 
 eight o'clock, to hear mass in the little Church of 
 Sainte Val^re, a chapel of Saint Thomas d' Aquinas, 
 then standing on the esplanade of the Invalides. 
 The chapel has been torn down since then, and the 
 congregation has removed to the rue de Bourgogne, 
 pending the building of a Gothic church, which is 
 to be dedicated to Sainte Clotilde. 
 
 After the Duchess de Grandlieu had heard the 
 first words that Diane de Maufrigneuse whispered 
 in her ear, the pious Duchess de Grandlieu went in 
 search of M. de Grandlieu, whom she brought back 
 
MME. C AMU SOT AND THE DUCHESS 
 
 After she had arranged the lace ruffles of her 
 chemise and laid them systematically in place, her 
 maid brought her petticoat to her and finally her 
 dress. Then the woman signed to Amelie to fasten 
 the duches^ dress in the back, while she ran to fetch 
 a pair of Scotch thread stockings, and velvet shoes, 
 a shawl and a hat. Amelie and the maid together 
 put on the duchess' shoes and stockings. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 305 
 
 with her. The duke took in Madame Camusot with 
 the rapid glance which a man of rank can probe the 
 life and even the soul of a stranger. Amelie's 
 dress, also, helped him largely to guess the middle- 
 class existence she had led from Alengon to Mantes, 
 and from Mantes to Paris. 
 
 Ah ! if the judge's wife had known this ducal 
 gift, she could not have borne so graciously the 
 polite irony of his gaze. As it was, she only saw 
 the politeness of it; ignorance sometimes shares 
 the privileges of knowledge. 
 
 — "This is Madame Camusot, the daughter of 
 Thirion, one of the cabinet ushers," said the 
 duchess to her husband. 
 
 The duke bowed very politely to the judge's wife, 
 and his face relaxed somewhat its serious expres- 
 sion. He rang for his valet, who immediately 
 presented himself. 
 
 — ' ' Take a carriage, and go to the rue Honore- 
 Chevalier," said the duke. "On reaching there, 
 ring the bell at a small door, number 10. Tell the 
 servant who opens the door that I wish to see his 
 master at once; and bring the gentleman back with 
 you, if he is at home. Use my name, which will 
 prevent your having any trouble, and try to return 
 within fifteen minutes." 
 
 As soon as the man had gone, the duchess' 
 valet appeared at the door. 
 
 — "Go to the Due de Chaulieu, and send in this 
 card," said the duke. He gave the valet a card 
 that was turned down in a peculiar manner. When 
 20 
 
306 ' SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 either duke wished to see the other immediately on 
 urgent and mysterious business that did not admit 
 of writing, he notified his friend in this way. 
 
 All classes of society have the same customs, 
 which differ only in manner, fashion and degree. 
 The great world has its slang, too, only its slang is 
 known as style. 
 
 — "Are you very sure of the existence of the 
 letters said to be written by Mademoiselle Clotilde 
 de Grandlieu to this young man?" asked the duke 
 of Madame Camusot. He sounded her with a look, 
 as a sailor sounds the sea. 
 
 — "I have not seen them, but I fear they exist," 
 she answered, trembling. 
 
 — "My daughter can never have written any- 
 thing she would be ashamed to confess!" cried the 
 duchess. 
 
 — "Poor duchess!" thought Diane, looking at 
 the duke in a way that made him shudder. 
 
 — "What do you think, dear little Diane?" whis- 
 pered the duke in Diane's ear, drawing her into the 
 embrasure of a window. 
 
 — "Clotilde was so crazy about Lucien, my dear, 
 that she made an appointment with him, before she 
 left. If it had not been for the little Lenoncourt, 
 she might have run away with him in the forest of 
 Fontainebleau. I know that Lucien wrote Clotilde 
 letters that were enough to turn the head of a saint. 
 We are three daughters of Eve enveloped in the 
 coils of the serpent of correspondence." — 
 
 The duke and Diane returned from the embrasure 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 307 
 
 of the window and rejoined the duchess and 
 Madame Camusot, who were talking together in a 
 low tone. Amelie had followed the advice of the 
 Duchess de Maufrigneuse, and was posing as a 
 very pious person, in order to make a good impres- 
 sion upon the haughty Portuguese lady. 
 
 — "We are at the mercy of a vile convict!" said 
 the duke, shrugging his shoulders. "That is what 
 comes of receiving people whom you are not quite 
 sure of! Before admitting anybody, you should 
 know all about his family, his fortune, and all his 
 antecedents. ' ' — 
 
 This phrase of his gives a moral to the tale, from 
 an aristocratic point of view. 
 
 — "It can't be undone, now," said the Duchess 
 de Maufrigneuse. "We must devote all our ener- 
 gies to saving poor Madame de Serizy, Clotilde and 
 myself." — 
 
 — "We must wait for Henri, whom I have sent 
 for, and ever5^hing depends upon the person whom 
 Gentil has gone in search of. Heaven grant that 
 he is in Paris! — Madame," he added, addressing 
 Madame Camusot, "I thank you for the interest you 
 have shown us." — 
 
 This was the signal for Madame Camusot to take 
 her leave. The daughter of the cabinet usher was 
 wise enough to understand the duke and rose to go ; 
 but the Duchess de Maufrigneuse, with the enchant- 
 ing grace that won for her the good-will and affection 
 of all who knew her, took Amelie by the hand in a 
 way to call the attention of the duke and duchess. 
 
308 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "For my own sake," said she, "and not because 
 she has been up since the dawn to try to save us 
 all, I ask you to give more than a passing thought 
 to dear Madame Camusot. In the first place, she 
 has already obliged me in a way that I shall never 
 forget; and then, she and her husband are abso- 
 lutely devoted to our interests. I have promised 
 her that Camusot shall be advanced, and I entreat 
 you to use all your influence for him, to please me. " 
 
 — "You had no need of this recommendation," 
 said the duke to Madame Camusot. ' ' The Grandlieus 
 are not accustomed to forget the services that have 
 been rendered them. The king's adherents will 
 soon have an opportunity of distinguishing them- 
 selves and showing their devotion to him. Your 
 husband shall be put in the breach." — 
 
 Madame Camusot withdrew, puffed up with pride 
 and pleasure. She went home full of triumphant 
 admiration for herself, and thought that she could 
 now make light of the attorney-general's enmity. 
 
 — "If we could but make M. de Granville lose 
 his place!" thought she. 
 
 She had left the H6tel Grandlieu only just in 
 time, for the Due de Chaulieu, one of the king's 
 favorites, encountered her on the steps, on her 
 way out. 
 
 — "Henri!" cried the Due de Grandlieu, as his 
 friend was announced ; "do go to the chateau and 
 try to get audience of the king. I will tell you 
 why." 
 
 He drew the duke toward the same window 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 309 
 
 where he had lately talked with the gay and gra- 
 cious Diane. 
 
 From time to time the Due de Chaulieu threw 
 stolen glances at the volatile duchess, who returned 
 them in spite of a sermon which she was evidently 
 receiving from the pious Duchess de Grandlieu. 
 
 "My dear girl," said the Due de Grandlieu, at last, 
 when his private interview was at an end, "you 
 must try to be wiser in future. You must be more 
 careful about appearances," he added, taking 
 Diane's hands in his, "and don't commit yourself 
 again. Never write, for letters, my dear, have 
 caused as many private as public calamities. — What 
 is excusable in a young girl like Clotilde, who is in 
 love for the first time, cannot be forgiven in a — " 
 
 — "In an old grenadier who has smelt powder!" 
 said Diane, making the duke a pretty little grimace. 
 
 Her jest and her droll expression brought a smile 
 to the troubled faces of the two dukes, and even to 
 the lips of the pious duchess herself. 
 
 — "It is four years since I have written a love- 
 letter! — Are we safe now?" asked Diane, hiding 
 her anxiety under her assumed playfulness. 
 
 — "Not yet!" said the Due de Chaulieu, "for 
 you don't know how hard it is to commit an arbi- 
 trary act For a constitutional king it is as difficult 
 of performance as infidelity is to a married woman. 
 It is his adultery." 
 
 "His darling sin!" rejoined the Due de Grand- 
 lieu. 
 
 "Forbidden fruit!" cried Diane, with a smile. 
 
3IO SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Oh! how I should like to be the government; for 
 I have no more fruit, myself; I've eaten it all up." 
 
 "Oh! my dear, dear child!" said the pious 
 duchess, "you are going too far." 
 
 Just then the noise of a carriage driving up to 
 the door at full galop was heard. The two gentle- 
 men bowed, and leaving the ladies alone together, 
 went to the Due de Grandlieu's study, where they 
 were to receive the gentleman from the rue Honore- 
 Chevalier. This was no other than the obscure, 
 but powerful Corentin, the chief of the counter- 
 police of the chateau, that is, of the political police. 
 
 "Walk in," said the Due de Grandlieu, "walk 
 in. Monsieur de Saint Denis." 
 
 Corentin, who was surprised to find the duke 
 had so good a memory, bowed profoundly to the two 
 gentlemen, and walked in before them. 
 
 — "We have sent for you, my dear sir, on account 
 of the same person, or rather on a matter relating 
 to him," observed the Due de Grandlieu. 
 
 — "But he is dead," said Corentin. 
 
 — "He has a comrade who is still alive, how- 
 ever," returned the Due de Chaulieu, "and a 
 formidable fellow, too." 
 
 — "The convict Jacques Collin!" replied Cor- 
 entin. 
 
 — "Tell him, Ferdinand," said the Due de 
 Chaulieu to the old ambassador. 
 
 — "The miscreant is to be dreaded," resumed 
 the Due de Grandlieu, "for, in the hope of ransom 
 he has possessed himself of certain letters, written 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 311 
 
 by Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse 
 to his creature, Lucien Chardon. It seems the 
 young man made a system of getting passionate 
 letters from ladies, in exchange for his; for it is 
 supposed that Mademoiselle de Grandlieu wrote 
 him some, or at least we fear so ; but we cannot be 
 sure about it, as she is abroad. ' ' — 
 
 — "That silly young fellow," replied Coren- 
 tin, "was incapable of any such premeditated 
 scheme! — It is a precaution of the Abbe Carlos 
 Herrera!" 
 
 Corentin leaned his elbow on the arm of his 
 chair, and dropping his head in his hand, sat lost 
 in thought 
 
 "Money!" — said he. "The man has more than 
 we. He used Esther Gobseck as a bait to fish 
 nearly two millions out of that golden lake, 
 Nucingen. — Gentlemen, let me have full authority 
 from whomever has the right to give it, and I will 
 rid you of this man!" — 
 
 — "And — how about the letters.'" asked the Due 
 de Grandlieu. 
 
 — "Listen, gentlemen!" returned Corentin, jump- 
 ing up, his face convulsed with excitement. 
 
 He thrust his hands in the pockets of his black 
 cloth breeches. This great actor in the historical 
 drama of our time still wore his morning trousers, 
 for he had not stopped to change them on being 
 summoned, and had merely put on another coat and 
 waistcoat, as he was well aware how thankful great 
 people can be for promptness on certain occasions. 
 
312 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 He walked familiarly up and down the room, dis- 
 cussing the matter aloud to himself, as if he were 
 alone. 
 
 — "He is a convict!" he said; "we might shut 
 him up without a trial in solitary confinement at 
 BicStre, and leave him to die there, with no 
 possibility of communicating with the outside 
 world. — But he may have foreseen such a pro- 
 ceeding and given instructions in consequence to 
 his friends!" 
 
 — "He was put in solitary confinement at once," 
 interrupted the Due de Grandlieu, "after he was 
 arrested so unexpectedly in the house of that 
 woman." 
 
 "It isn't possible to keep a rascal like him shut 
 up by himself," answered Corentin. "He has as 
 many resources as — I have." The two dukes ex- 
 changed a glance that showed their perplexity. 
 
 — "We might send him back to the galleys at 
 once," Corentin went on; "at Rochefort he would 
 be a dead man in six months. Oh ! without any 
 interference on our part, ' ' he added, in reply to a 
 gesture from the Due de Grandlieu. "It could not 
 be otherwise; a convict can't live more than six 
 months in the heat of summer, when he is set to 
 hard labor in the unhealthy district of the Charente. 
 Still, this would be of use only in case our man 
 has taken no precautions about the letters. If the 
 wretch mistrusted his enemies, as is probable, we 
 must discover what his precautions are. If the 
 person who holds the letters is poor, he can be 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 313 
 
 bribed — so we must try to get Jacques Collin to 
 tell his secrets. What a piece of work that would 
 be ! I should never succeed ! It would be a better 
 plan to buy the letters from him with other letters — 
 letters of pardon, and taking him into my service. 
 Jacques Collin is the only man capable of succeed- 
 ing me, now that poor Contenson and Peyrade are 
 dead. It seems as if Jacques Collin had killed 
 those two incomparable detectives to make a place 
 for himself. You see, gentlemen, you must give me 
 full authority. I am going to see M. de Granville 
 at his ofifice. Send some trustworthy person to meet 
 me there, for I need a letter of introduction to M. 
 de Granville, who does not know me; — I will 
 give the letter, besides, to the president of the 
 council; — or else I need somebody of imposing 
 appearance to introduce me. — You have half 
 an hour, for that is about the time I shall require 
 to dress myself, that is, to put myself in the 
 proper trim for presenting myself to the attorney- 
 general." 
 
 — "I know your consummate skill, sir," said 
 the Due de Chaulieu, "and I only ask you to 
 answer me yes or no. Can you assure us of your 
 success?" — 
 
 — "Yes, if you allow me full powers, and give 
 me your word to ask no questions. My plan is 
 made up." 
 
 The two gentleman shuddered slightly at this 
 sinister reply. 
 
 — "Very well, sir!" said the Due de Chaulieu, 
 
314 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "please put down your expenses in this matter in 
 the usual account ' ' 
 
 Corentin bowed, and left the room. 
 
 Henri de Lenoncourt, for whom Ferdinand de 
 Grandlieu ordered a carriage, drove at once to the 
 king, whom the privileges of his ofifice allowed him 
 to see at all times. 
 
Thus the various interests of the highest and 
 lowest, inextricably tangled, were brought by 
 necessity to meet together in the oiifice of the attor- 
 ney-general. They were represented by three 
 men : the law by M. de Granville, the family by 
 Corentin, and social evil in all its savage energy 
 by the terrible Jacques Collin. 
 
 This was a struggle in which the forces of justice 
 and despotism were marshalled together against the 
 cunning of the galleys, the galleys, that typify the 
 daring that annihilates calculation and reflection ; 
 that never hesitates about its means, and, free from 
 the hypocrisy of arbitrary power, is the hideous 
 symbol of the cravings of a hungry stomach, the 
 hasty, red-handed protest of starvation. Were not 
 assault and self-protection represented here, rob- 
 bery and property ? The terrible question of the 
 social state and the natural state was to be decided 
 within the narrowest limits. In short it was the 
 terrible, living image of an anti-social compromise, 
 made with a savage mob by the feeble ministers of 
 justice. 
 
 When M. Camusot was announced to the attor- 
 ney-general, the latter made a sign to have him 
 shown in. M. de Granville, who had been expect- 
 ing this visit, was desirous of coming to an under- 
 standing with the judge on the best manner of 
 (315) 
 
3l6 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 ending the case in which Lucien had been the cen- 
 tral figure. The conclusion could no longer be 
 what he and Camusot had planned the evening 
 before the poor young poet's death. 
 
 — "Sit down, Monsieur Camusot," said M. de 
 Granville, sinking back in his chair. 
 
 When they were left alone together, M. de Gran- 
 ville allowed the despondency which he felt to 
 become apparent Camusot looked at him and saw 
 that his face was pale, almost livid, and that it 
 wore an expression of extreme weariness, a total 
 prostration that spoke of sufferings perhaps more 
 cruel than those of the condemned prisoner to 
 whom the clerk of the court had announced the 
 rejection of his appeal for mercy. And yet, in the 
 administration of justice, that rejection meant: 
 "Prepare to die, for your hour has come." 
 
 — "I will come back, later, sir," said Camusot, 
 "although my business is pressing." — 
 
 — "Stay," answered the attorney-general, with 
 dignity. "A true magistrate, sir, should accept 
 his troubles, and try to hide them. I have done 
 wrong to allow you to see that I am disturbed." — 
 
 Camusot made a deprecating gesture. 
 
 "God grant that you may never know the ex- 
 treme hardships of our life," M. de Granville went 
 on. "It is almost more than I can bear ! I have 
 been spending the night at the house of one of my 
 friends; I have but two intimate friends, the Count 
 Octave de Bauvan, and the Count de S6rizy. From 
 six o'clock in the evening to six o'clock this 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 317 
 
 morning, M. de Serizy, Count Octave and I took 
 turns in watching beside Madame de Serizy's bed, 
 and every time we were in terror lest we should find 
 her dead or hopelessly insane. Desplein, Bianchon, 
 Sinard and the two nurses never left the room. 
 The count adores his wife, so you may imagine the 
 night I spent between a woman crazed with love 
 and a man crazed with despair. A statesman does 
 not show his despair as a fool does, Serizy sat as 
 calm as if he were at a council of state, writhing in 
 his chair in his efforts to maintain a serene expres- 
 sion. — The sweat stood out in drops upon his fore- 
 head, that forehead bent by, so much toil ! I was 
 overcome with fatigue and slept from five to half- 
 past seven; at eight o'clock I was obliged to be 
 here to give the order for an execution. You may 
 believe me. Monsieur Camusot, when a man has 
 spent the night in the depths of anguish, and has 
 felt God's hand pressing heavily on human life, 
 and wounding noble hearts, it is very hard for him 
 to sit at his desk, and say coldly : 'Take off a man's 
 head at four o'clock! Kill one of God's creatures, 
 who is full of life and strength and health !' And 
 yet it is my duty to say it ! — ^Worst sorrow of all, I 
 must give the order for raising a scaffold. — 
 
 "The condemned prisoner does not know that his 
 judge suffers an agony of mind that equals his. At 
 present we are bound each to each by a sheet of 
 paper, I, as avenging society, and he, as the crime 
 to be expiated, we are a type of a two-sided duty, 
 two existences that are united for a moment by the 
 
3l8 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 sword of the law. Who can pity or console the mag- 
 istrate's profound distress? — It is our pride to bury 
 it deep in our hearts. The priest, who has offered 
 his life a sacrifice to God, and the soldier who is 
 ready to die a thousand deaths for his country, seem 
 to me happier than the magistrate, with his doubts, 
 his fears, and his terrible responsibility." 
 
 "Do you Icnow who the prisoner is, who is to be 
 executed to-day ?' ' the attorney-general continued. 
 ' ' A young man of twenty-seven, handsome as the 
 boy who died yesterday, and with fair hair like 
 him. His head will fall contrary to our expectations, 
 for there was no evidence against him, save that he 
 was in possession of stolen goods. He has avowed 
 nothing since his conviction, and for seventy days 
 has resisted all our efforts to obtain a confession, 
 insisting that he was innocent. In these two 
 months I have two deaths on my shoulders. Oh 1 
 I would gladly give a year of my life to make him 
 confess, for the jury cannot be satisfied without his 
 confession. — Think what a blow to the law, if it be 
 hereafter discovered that the crime for which he is 
 to die was committed by another. 
 
 "The importance of every event is exaggerated in 
 Paris, and the slightest incident of the law-courts 
 assumes a political character. 
 
 "The jury, which the revolutionary legislators 
 thought so effective an institution, is an element 
 of social ruin ; it has failed in its mission of pro- 
 tecting society and plays with its functions. 
 Jurors are divided into two parties, one of which is 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 319 
 
 averse to capital punishment, and the result of this 
 is the total overthrow of equality before the law. 
 The horrible crime of parricide may obtain the ver- 
 dict of not guilty in one department, while in an- 
 other a comparatively slight crime is punished 
 with death! How would it be, if, in Paris, our 
 own jurisdiction, an innocent man were executed.* 
 
 — "He is an escaped convict," timidly observed 
 M. Camusot 
 
 "He would become a paschal lamb in the hands 
 of the opposition and the press !' ' exclaimed M. de 
 Granville. "And the opposition would have a fair 
 opportunity for whitewashing him, for he is a 
 fanatical Corsican, full of the ideas of his country, 
 and his crimes are attributable to the vendetta. 
 — In Corsica, a man may kill his enemy, and yet 
 still be a respectable person in his own considera- 
 tion and in that of others." — "Ah! Right-minded 
 magistrates are much to be pitied. They should 
 live apart from society like the priestly cast of 
 old, and should never be seen by the world except 
 at fixed hours, issuing from their cells, grave, old 
 and venerable, to sit in judgment after the manner 
 of those ancient high priests, who united in them- 
 selves the judicial power and the sacerdotal power. 
 Then we should be seen only upon our thrones ; but, 
 as it is, we are seen sad or gay like the rest of 
 the world! We are seen in the drawing-room, in 
 our own families, with the same passions as other 
 
 *At the present day, 1843, there are In the galleys twentf-ibra PARRICIDES, 
 who have been allowed the benefit of extenuating circumstances. 
 
320 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 citizens, and we run the risk of appearing gro- 
 tesque instead of terrible." — 
 
 This cry of anguish, interrupted, as it was, by 
 pauses and exclamations, and accompanied by ges- 
 tures that lent it an eloquence not to be transferred 
 to paper, made Camusot shudder. 
 
 —"Sir," began Camusot, "I, too, began yester- 
 day the apprenticeship in suffering of my profes- 
 sion. — The death of that young man was almost the 
 end of me ; the poor fellow did not understand my 
 partiality toward him, and killed himself." — 
 
 "You ought not to have examined him," cried 
 M. de Granville. "It would have been so easy to 
 help him by abstaining from questions." — 
 
 —"And how about the law?" replied Camusot; 
 "it was already two days since his arrest." — 
 
 — ' ' The harm is done now, ' ' resumed the attorney- 
 general. "I have done my best to repair what in- 
 deed is irreparable; I sent my carriage and servants 
 to the poor, weak poet's funeral. Serizy followed 
 my example ; furthermore, he accepts the trust be- 
 queathed him by the luckless young man, and con- 
 sents to be his executor. When he made this 
 promise, he could see a sign of intelligence in his 
 wife's eyes ; and finally, Count Octave went to the 
 funeral in person." 
 
 —"Now, sir," said Camusot, "let us arrange for 
 the matter in hand. There still remains a very 
 dangerous prisoner, who is, as you must know, 
 Jacques Collin. The wretch will be recognized for 
 what he is — " 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 32 1 
 
 "Then we are lost!" cried M. de Granville. 
 
 "He is at this present moment with the condemned 
 man, whom he took under his protection at the 
 galleys just as he took Lucien under his protection 
 here in Paris. — 
 
 "Bibi Lupin is disguised as a gendarme in order 
 to be present at the interview." 
 
 "Why does the detective-police interfere? " asked 
 the attorney-general. " It should act only under 
 my orders! " — 
 
 "All the Conciergerie will know that we have 
 got Jacques Collin. — Now 1 have come to tell you 
 that this great and daring criminal is supposed to 
 have in his possession some very dangerous letters 
 written by Madame de Serizy, the Duchess de 
 Maufrigneuse, and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grand- 
 lieu." 
 
 "Are you certain of it ? " — demanded M. de 
 Granville, his face full of pained surprise. 
 
 " You may decide, sir, if I have cause to fear it. 
 When I untied the bundle of letters seized among 
 Lucien's papers, I saw Jacques Collin look at them 
 keenly with a satisfied smile, the meaning of which 
 could not escape an examining judge. As clever 
 a rascal as Jacques Collin takes good care not to 
 let go a weapon that is so useful to him. Imagine 
 these documents in the hands of his counsel, whom 
 the rogue is sure to choose among the enemies of 
 the government and the aristocracy ! My wife, to 
 whom the Duchess de Maufrigneuse has been very 
 kind, went to warn her this morning, and, at the 
 
 21 
 
322 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 present moment, they must be holding a council of 
 war at the Grandlieu's." — 
 
 "We can never try the man!" cried the attor- 
 ney-general, springing up and striding through the 
 office. " He has certainly placed the letters in safe 
 keeping." — 
 
 " I know where," said Camusot. 
 
 These words entirely did away with the preju- 
 dice the attorney-general had conceived against the 
 judge. 
 
 " Tell me all you know," — said M. de Granville, 
 sitting down again. 
 
 "On my way to the Palais, this morning, I 
 thought over the whole distressing affair carefully. 
 Jacques Collin has an aunt, a real aunt, not a 
 fictitious one, a woman whom the political police 
 has already called to the attention of the prefecture. 
 He is her pupil and idol, and she is his father's sister, 
 Jacqueline Collin by name. The woman has set up 
 an old clothes shop, and by aid of the privileges of 
 her trade, she has been able to learn many family 
 secrets. If Jacques Collin gave the papers that are 
 so important for him into anybody's trust, it must 
 have been into hers. Let us arrest her — " 
 
 The attorney-general glanced shrewdly at Camu- 
 sot, in a way that said ; ' ' The man is not such a 
 fool as I took him for yesterday ; but he is young 
 still and has not yet learned to hold the reins of the 
 law." 
 
 "But," continued Camusot, "to succeed we 
 must change all the measures we adopted yesterday. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 323 
 
 and I have come here to get your advice and your 
 orders." — 
 
 The attorney-general took up his paper-cutter 
 and tapped softly on the edge of the table, with a 
 gesture natural to a man who is absorbed in thought. 
 
 " Three noble families in peril! " cried he. "We 
 must be careful not to make a blunder! You are 
 right ; let us follow Fouche's maxim : Arrest him ! 
 Jacques Collin must be instantly put back into soli- 
 tary confinement." 
 
 "We should then be admitting him to be a 
 convict, and that would be incriminating to Lucien's 
 memory." — 
 
 "What a dreadful business this is," said M. de 
 Granville; "no plan is safe." 
 
 Just then the warden of the Conciergerie knocked 
 and entered ; the attorney-general's office is always 
 so well guarded that persons belonging to the court 
 can alone reach the door. 
 
 "Sir," said M. Gault, "the prisoner known as 
 Carlos Herrera desires to speak with you." 
 
 " Has he had communication with anybody ? " 
 asked the attorney-general. 
 
 "With the prisoners, for he has been in the 
 prison-yard since about half-past seven. He has 
 seen the condemned man, who seems to have talked 
 with him." 
 
 At a few words from M. Camusot, M. de Gran- 
 ville understood in a flash what material aid toward 
 the recovery of the letters would be afforded by 
 obtaining an avowal of Jacques Collin's intimacy 
 
324 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 with Theodore Calvi. He was happy to have an 
 excuse for delaying the execution, and beckoned to 
 M. Gault to come to him. 
 
 "It is my intention," said he, "to put off the 
 execution till to-morrow, but I don't wish them to 
 know anything of it at the Conciergerie. You must 
 keep absolute silence, and the executioner must 
 appear to be superintending his preparations. Send 
 the Spanish priest here under sufiScient guard ; the 
 Spanish embassy has claimed him. Let the gen- 
 darmes bring him by your private staircase, so that 
 he may see no one, and let a man hold him on 
 either side, and not let him go till he reaches my 
 ofiSce. Are you quite sure. Monsieur Gault, that this 
 dangerous foreigner has had no communication with 
 anybody outside the prison? " 
 
 "Ah! Just as he was leaving the cell of the 
 condemned man, a lady came to see him." — 
 
 At this the two magistrates exchanged a mean- 
 ing look. 
 
 " What lady.' " asked Camusot. 
 
 "One of his penitents — a marchioness," answered 
 M. Gault. 
 
 "Worse and worse !" cried M. de Granville, 
 turning to Camusot. 
 
 " She took away the breath of the gendarmes 
 and gaoler," resumed M. Gault. 
 
 "You should neglect no part of your duty," 
 said the attorney-general, severely. " The Con- 
 ciergerie is not walled in for nothing. How did the 
 woman enter? " 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 325 
 
 "With the usual permit, sir," replied the war- 
 den. " The lady came very well-dressed, in a 
 handsome carriage, with a mounted groom and a 
 footman, and asked to see her confessor, as she 
 was on her way to the funeral of the unfortunate 
 young man, whose body you had sent away." — 
 
 " Bring me the permit from the prefecture," said 
 M. de Granville. 
 
 " It was granted on the recommendation of His 
 Excellency, Count Serizy. 
 
 "What kind of a woman was she ?" asked the 
 attorney -general. 
 
 " We thought she looked like a lady." 
 
 " Did you see her face? " 
 
 " She wore a black veil." 
 
 "What did they say?" 
 
 " She was a pious person with a prayer-book ; — 
 what could she say ? — She asked the abbe's bless- 
 ing, and knelt down." — 
 
 " Did they have a long conversation ?" asked the 
 judge. 
 
 " Not five minutes ; but none of us could under- 
 stand what they said, and we thought they were 
 speaking Spanish." 
 
 "Tell us everything," continued the attorney- 
 general. " I repeat that the slightest detail is of 
 vital importance for us. Let this be an example to 
 you." 
 
 " She was crying, sir." 
 
 "Was she really crying?" 
 
 "We could not see, as she hid her face in her 
 
326 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 handkerchief. She left three hundred francs in gold 
 for the prisoners." 
 
 " It can't be she! " cried Camusot. 
 
 "When Bibi Lupin heard about it," resumed M. 
 Gault, "he said she was a thief." 
 
 "He knows what he is talking about," said M. 
 de Granville. — "Send out your warrant," he 
 added to Camusot, "and make haste to put the seals 
 on everything in her house. — But how could she ob- 
 tain a recommendation from M. de Serizy? — Bring 
 me the permit from the prefecture — go Monsieur 
 Gault and send me the abbe at once. The danger 
 will be held in check as long as he is with us, and 
 in two hours' conversation a man can see a great 
 way into another man's mind." 
 
 " Especially an attorney-general like yourself," 
 put in Camusot artfully. 
 
 "You will be with me," returned the attorney- 
 general politely, and then relapsed into his medita- 
 tions. 
 
 " In every prison parlor there ought to be a super- 
 intendent of visitors, who should receive a good 
 salary, and be chosen from the cleverest and most 
 devoted of the police agents," said he, after a long 
 pause. " Bibi Lupin might end his days in that 
 prison, and we should have eyes and ears in a place 
 which r'equires more careful watching than it re- 
 ceives at present. M. Gault could not tell us any- 
 thing decisive." 
 
 "He is so busy," said Camusot; "but, be- 
 tween the prison cells and ourselves there is a great 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 327 
 
 gap which ought not to exist. When a prisoner is 
 brought from the Conciergerie to one of our ofifices, 
 he has to pass through corridors, courtyards and 
 stairways. Our agents are not always attentive 
 enough, whereas the prisoner is constantly on the 
 alert." 
 
 "They tell me a woman presented herself in 
 Jacques Collin's way when he was taken from his 
 cell to his examination. She got in as far as the 
 place where the gendarmes are stationed, at the 
 head of the staircase leading from the Souriciere, 
 the ushers told me. I scolded the gendarmes well 
 for it." 
 
 "Oh! the palace ought to be entirely rebuilt," 
 said M. de Granville ; "but it would require an out- 
 lay of twenty or thirty millions. — Fancy asking the 
 Chambers for thirty millions for the convenience of 
 the law 1" 
 
 The steps of several persons and the sound of 
 arms were heard without. Jacques Collin was evi- 
 dently approaching. 
 
 The attorney-general assumed an expression of 
 profound gravity, — under which was hidden his true 
 self — and Camusot followed his example. Gault 
 left the room. 
 
The office boy opened the door, and Jacques Collin 
 appeared calm and composed. 
 
 "You wished to see me," said the magistrate. 
 " I will hear what you have to say." 
 
 " Sir, I am Jacques Collin ; I surrender myself to 
 you I" 
 
 Camusot shuddered, but the attorney-general re- 
 mained unmoved. 
 
 "You must suppose me to have some motive for 
 my present action," Jacques Collin went on with 
 a sneering look that embraced both magistrates, " I 
 am giving you a great deal of trouble, for, if I were 
 only a Spanish priest, you would send me with a 
 company of gendarmes to the frontier of Bayonne, 
 and there the Spanish bayonets would rid you of me." 
 
 The two judges remained silent and impassive. 
 
 " Sir," continued the convict, " I have reasons 
 still more serious than these, though they are devil- 
 ishly personal; but I can tell them only to you. — If 
 you were afraid — " 
 
 "Afraid of whom, of what?" asked the Count 
 de Granville. 
 
 His attitude and gesture, the carriage of his head, 
 his face, his look, all transformed this great attorney 
 into the living image of magistracy, whose duty it is 
 to offer the noblest example of civil courage. For a 
 fleeting moment, he rose to the level of the 
 (329) 
 
330 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 magistrates of the ancient parliament, in the times of 
 civil war, when the presidents stood face to face 
 with death, and remained as immovable as the stat- 
 ues which have since been erected to their memory, 
 
 "Afraid of being alone with an escaped convict," 
 said Jacques Collin. 
 
 "Leave us alone, Monsieur Camusot," said the 
 attorney-general, quickly. 
 
 " I meant to propose that you should have me 
 bound hand and foot," observed Jacques Collin, 
 coldly fixing his terrible gaze on the two magis- 
 trates. 
 
 He paused, and then went on gravely : 
 
 "Count, I esteemed you before, but now I admire 
 you." — 
 
 "Do you think yourself so formidable?" de- 
 manded the magistrate, disdainfully. 
 
 "Think myself formidable ?" said the convict; 
 " what good would that do? I am formidable, and I 
 know it !" 
 
 Jacques Collin took a chair and sat down with the 
 ease of a man who knows himself on his adversary's 
 level, in a conference in which one power treats with 
 another on equal terms. 
 
 Just then, M. Camusot, who was outside the 
 threshold of the door which he was about to close, 
 re-entered the room and returned to M. de Granville, 
 to whom he handed two folded papers. 
 
 " Look," said he, drawing the attorney-general's 
 attention to one of the papers. 
 
 "Call back M. Gault," cried the Count de 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 331 
 
 Granville, as he read the name of the maid of 
 Madame de Maufrigneuse, who was known to him. 
 
 The director of the Conciergerie returned. 
 
 " Describe the woman who came to see the 
 prisoner," said the attorney-general in his ear. 
 
 "She was short, broad, stout and thickset," 
 answered M. Gault. 
 
 " The person to whom the permit was granted, 
 is tall and slender," said M. de Granville. "About 
 what age was she? " 
 
 "About sixty." 
 
 " This has something to do with me, gentlemen, 
 hasn't it.'" said Jacques Collin. " Come," he went 
 on good-naturedly, "don't look any farther; the 
 woman is my aunt, a real aunt, and old. I can spare 
 you a great deal of trouble. — You cannot find my 
 aunt, unless I am willing. — If we beat about the bush 
 in this way, we shall never get any further." 
 
 " He doesn't speak French with a Spanish ac- 
 cent any more ; he can talk plainly enough now," 
 said M. Gault. 
 
 " Because things are not plain, my dear Monsieur 
 Gault," answered Jacques Collin, with a bitter 
 smile, calling the warden by name. 
 
 At that M. Gault rushed to the attorney-general 
 and whispered in his ear : 
 
 " Take care, sir ; the man is in a fury !" 
 
 M. de Granville looked carefully at Jacques Collin 
 and saw that he was outwardly calm, but he soon 
 perceived the truth of what the director had told 
 him. The convict's deceptive attitude hid the cold 
 
332 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 and terrible irritation of the nerves of a savage. 
 Volcanic fire was smouldering in his eyes and his 
 hands were clenched ; he was like a tiger, crouch- 
 ing to spring upon his prey. 
 
 "Leave us," said the attorney-general with a grave 
 air, to the judge and the warden of the Conciergerie. 
 
 " You did well to send away Lucien's assassin," — 
 said Jacques Collin, not caring whether Camusot 
 could hear him or not. " I could bear it no longer ; 
 I was going to strangle him." — 
 
 M. de Granville shuddered ; he had never seen 
 such blood-red eyes, such pale cheeks, such con- 
 tracted muscles, nor a forehead like Jacques Collin's 
 that dripped with sweat. 
 
 "What good would it do for you to commit a 
 murder ?" asked the attorney-general, calmly. 
 
 " Every day you avenge, or think you avenge, the 
 wrongs of society, sir, and you ask me why I wish 
 for revenge? — Have you never felt the rolling billows 
 of vengeance surge through your veins.' — Don't you 
 know that that imbecile judge killed him ? For you 
 loved my Lucien and he loved you ; I know you by 
 heart, sir. The dear boy told me everything ; every 
 night when he came home, I used to put him to 
 bed as a nurse does her child, and made him give 
 me an account of his day. — He confided everything 
 to me, even his most trifling sensations. — Ah ! a de- 
 voted nurse never loved her only son so tenderly as I 
 loved that angel. If you only knew how good 
 thoughts sprang up in his heart, as flowers spring up 
 in the fields ! He was weak, that was his only fault; 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 333 
 
 weak as the chord of a lyre, that may be so strong 
 when it is stretched. — The weakness of fine natures 
 is the result of their tenderness, their power of 
 admiration and their faculty of expanding in the 
 sunlight of art, of love, and of the beauty that God 
 has given in so many forms to man. — There was 
 something of a woman in Lucien. Ah ! why did I 
 not tell the brute beast who has just gone out. — Ah ! 
 sir, in my sphere as a prisoner before his judge, I 
 did what God would have done to save His son, if 
 it had been His will, and he had gone with Him 
 before Pilate! "— 
 
 A torrent of tears burst froni his light yellow eyes, 
 that a moment earlier had flamed like those of a 
 starving wolf after six months of snow in the 
 Ukraine. Then he continued : 
 
 " That blockhead would listen to nothing, and he 
 was the cause of Lucien's death. — Ah 1 sir, I bathed 
 the boy's body with my tears, and prayed to Him 
 whom I know not, and who is above us all ; I, who 
 do not believe in God, — for, if I were not a mater- 
 ialist, I should not be what I am. — This one word 
 may explain everything. You cannot know, no man, 
 except me can know, what grief is. The fire of my 
 grief dried up my tears last night, and I could not 
 weep, but now 1 weep, for I feel that you under- 
 stand me. A little while ago I saw you sitting on 
 the judgment seat.— Ah ! sir, may God, — ^whom I 
 can almost believe in now, — may God preserve you 
 from ever being as I am. — That damned judge has 
 robbed me of my soul. Oh ! sir, sir, at this very 
 
334 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES. 
 
 moment they are burying my life, my beauty, my 
 virtue, my conscience, and all my strength. Can 
 you think of a dog that has been drained of its life 
 blood by a chemist ? — I am like that dog, and, there- 
 fore, I have come to tell you — I am Jacques 
 Collin and give myself up to you. — This was my 
 resolve this morning when they came to tear from 
 me the body that I was kissing as a madman or a 
 mother would, or as the Virgin kissed Jesus at the 
 tomb. — Then I determined to surrender myself to 
 the law, without conditions, — but now I mean to 
 make my terms, and you shall know my reason." — 
 
 " Are you speaking to M. de Granville or to the 
 attorney-general," asked the magistrate. 
 
 These two men, who represented CRIME and JUS- 
 TICE, gazed at each other. The magistrate was 
 profoundly moved by the criminal, and overcome 
 with divine pity for the unfortunate man whose 
 life and feelings he thought he could divine. More- 
 over, in his capacity as a magistrate — for a magis- 
 trate is always a magistrate, — and knowing nothing 
 of Jacques Collin's conduct since his escape, he 
 believed that he could gain the mastery over a crim- 
 inal, who was, after all, guilty only of forgery. He 
 was anxious to try the effect of generosity upon a 
 nature that was made up of good and evil, as bronze 
 is made up of various metals. Added to this, M. de 
 Granville had reached the age of fifty -three without 
 having ever inspired another with love for him, and 
 like all men who have never been loved he felt 
 great admiration for tender natures. Perhaps this 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 335 
 
 very disappointment of his, whicli he shared with 
 those of his fellows who have never secured anything 
 from a woman beyond her esteem and friendship, was 
 the secret of his great intimacy with M. de Bauvan 
 and M. de Serizy ; for a common grief as well as a 
 common joy binds souls together in harmony. 
 
 "You have a future!" said the attorney -gen- 
 eral, casting a searching glance upon the desponding 
 criminal. 
 
 The man made a gesture expressive of the most 
 profound indifference for all that concerned himself. 
 
 " Lucien left a will in which he bequeaths you 
 three hundred thousand francs." — 
 
 "Poor, poor boy!" cried Jacques Collin, "he 
 was always too honest ! I was everything that was 
 bad ; he was good, noble, beautiful and sublime. 
 Such a soul as his could not be corrupted ; he never 
 took anything from me except my money, sir." 
 
 His profound, complete self-abandonment of the 
 personality which the magistrate was unable to re- 
 vive, proved the truth of his words so entirely that 
 M. de Granville went over to his side. But the 
 attorney-general remained immovable. 
 
 " If you no longer take interest in anything," said 
 M. de Granville, "what did you come to say to me ?" 
 
 " Was it not a great deal for me to give myself 
 up to you ? You thought you would catch me, but 
 you would not have succeeded ; besides, I should 
 have given you more trouble than you wanted." — 
 
 "What an adversary!" thought the attorney- 
 general. 
 
336 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 " Sir, you are going to cut off the head of an in- 
 nocent man, and I have found the real criminal," 
 Jacques Collin went on gravely, as he dried his 
 tears. "I have not come here on their account, 
 but on yours. I have come to save you from re- 
 morse, for I care for all those who took any interest 
 in Lucien, just as I shall pursue with my hatred all 
 those who have had a share in his death. — What do 
 you suppose a convict is to me ?" he resumed, after 
 a short pause, '.' He is less to me than an ant is to 
 you. I am like those high-spirited Italian brigands 
 who shoot down any traveler who will bring them 
 more than the cost of a charge of powder. I thought 
 only of you. The young man Calvi confessed to 
 me; he could trust in me because I was once his 
 chain companion. He is very soft-hearted, and 
 thought he could do his mistress a service by under- 
 taking to sell or pawn some stolen goods; but he 
 was no more guilty of the Nanterre crime than you 
 are. He comes from Corsica, where it is the custom 
 for men to take their revenge and kill one another 
 like flies. There is no respect for human life in Italy 
 or Spain, and the reason of it is simple enough, for 
 the people in those countries think they have souls 
 or some image of themselves that will survive and 
 live eternally. Go, and tell such trash to our 
 analysts ! It is in the atheistical and philosophical 
 countries that they make men pay dear for attempt- 
 ing to take human life, and they are quite right, 
 since they believe only in matter and in the present. 
 If Calvi had told you the name of the woman who 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 337 
 
 gave him the stolen property, you would have found, 
 not the real culprit, for he is already within your 
 grasp, but an accomplice that poor Theodore is un- 
 willing to implicate, as she is a woman. — You need 
 not be surprised; every condition of life has its point 
 of honor, and the galleys and the thieves have 
 theirs. Now, I know the murderer of the two 
 women, and the authors of this strange, peculiar and 
 daring crime, and I have heard every detail of it. 
 Put off Calvi's execution, and you shall hear every- 
 thing; but you must give me your word to commute 
 his sentence and send him back to the galleys. — No 
 man as broken with grief as I am could take the 
 trouble to lie, and you know it. I am telling you 
 the truth."— 
 
 "Although it seems like offering an indignity to the 
 law, which should never admit of such compromises, 
 I think I might relax something of the rigor of my 
 ofifice for you, Jacques Collin, and refer this subject 
 to those who have a right to decide upon it." 
 
 " Will you grant me his life .'" 
 
 " Possibly."— 
 
 " I ask you to give me your word, sir ; that 
 would be enough." 
 
 M. de Granville made a gesture of wounded pride. 
 
 " I hold in my hand the honor of three noble 
 families, and you hold only three convicts," Jacques 
 Collin continued; " I am stronger than you."* 
 
 " I might order you back to a dungeon ; what 
 would you do then ?" — demanded the attorney-gen- 
 eral. 
 
338 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "Are you playing a game?" asked Jacques 
 Collin. " I was speaking quite frankly, and thought 
 I was talking with M. de Granville; but if it is with 
 the attorney-general I shall take back my cards and 
 not allow you to see my game. — And, if you had 
 only given me your word I should have given you 
 back the letters that Mademoiselle Clothilde de 
 Grandlieu wrote to Lucien." 
 
 He said this with a look and accent of deliberation 
 that convinced M. de Granville of the danger of 
 making the least blunder with such an adversary. 
 
 "Is that all you ask ?" said the attorney-gen- 
 eral. 
 
 " I am now going to speak to you on my own 
 account," said Jacques Collin. " The honor of the 
 Grandlieu family pays for the commutation of Theo- 
 dore's sentence, so I am giving a great deal and re- 
 ceiving very little in return. What is a convict 
 condemned to penal servitude for life? — If he escapes 
 you can so easily rid yourself of him; he is a bill of 
 exchange upon the guillotine. But as they might 
 shut him up at Rochefort with the uncharitable pur- 
 pose of making a speedy end of him, you must 
 promise me to send him to Toulon, with a recom- 
 mendation to have him well treated. I am going to 
 ask for something more. I have also the letters of 
 Madame de Serizy and Duchess de Maufrigneuse, 
 and what letters they are! — When women of the 
 streets write they have a good style and fine senti- 
 ment, but I tell you, sir, that great ladies, who live 
 fashionably and indulge in fine sentiment all day 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 339 
 
 long, write as these despised women beiiave. Phi- 
 losophers may look for the reason of this contradic- 
 tion, but I don't care to do so. Woman is an inferior 
 being; she is too much influenced by the weakness 
 of her organization. I never admire her, except in 
 so far as she resembles man. These little ladies of 
 yours have manly brains, and have written master- 
 pieces. — The letters are as fine as the famous ode 
 of Piron, from beginning to end." — 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Should you like to see them.'" — said Jacques 
 Collin, with a smile. 
 
 The magistrate felt mortified. 
 
 "I can let you read them," — said Jacques Col- 
 lin; "but come, no more nonsense! This is a fair 
 game, isn't it.' — You promise to return me the let- 
 ters, and to forbid that the person who brings them 
 shall be watched, followed, or even observed." 
 
 "Will it take long?" asked the attorney-gen- 
 eral. 
 
 "No; it is now half-past nine," — answered 
 Jacques Collin, looking at the clock. "Well, in four 
 minutes we shall have a letter of each of these two 
 ladies; after you have read them you will be sure 
 to countermand the guillotine. If it were not so I 
 shouldn't be so calm about it. Moreover, the ladies 
 have been warned." — 
 
 M. de Granville made a gesture of surprise. 
 
 "They must be already stirring at this time," 
 Jacques Collin went on; " they are going to set the 
 Keeper of the Seals to work, and, who knows, they 
 
340 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 may go to the King himself. — Come, do you give me 
 your word to pay no attention to the person who 
 comes here; neither to follow that person yourself, 
 nor, for an hour, to allow anybody to do so?" 
 
 "I promise." 
 
 "Very well; I know you don't mean to deceive 
 an escaped convict. You are made of the same stuff 
 as Turenne, and will keep your word to a thief. — 
 Now, at this very instant, in the middle of the Salle 
 des pas-Perdus, there is an old ragged beggar- 
 woman. She is probably talking with one of the 
 public writers on the subject of some lawsuit about 
 a party-wall; send your ofiSce boy for her, and let 
 him say to her: ' Dabor ti mandana.' She will 
 come. — But don't be uselessly cruel ; — either accept 
 my proposition or make no compromises with a crimi- 
 nal — ^though 1 beg you to remember that I am only 
 a forger. — Moreover, I entreat you not to leave Calvi 
 in the agonizing anticipation of instant death." — 
 
 "The execution has been already counter- 
 manded. — And I do not wish," said M. de Granville 
 to Jacques Collin, " that you should be more gen- 
 erous than the justice which I represent." 
 
 Jacques Collin looked wonderingly atthe attorney- 
 general as he saw him ring the bell. 
 
 ' ' You will not try to escape, will you ? Give 
 me your word, and that is enough. Go and bring 
 the woman." — 
 
 The office boy appeared. 
 
 "Felix ! send away the gendarmes," said M. de 
 Granville. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 341 
 
 Jacques Collin was beaten. 
 
 In his contest with the magistrate he wished to be 
 the greater, stronger and more generous of the two, 
 and the magistrate had surpassed him. Neverthe- 
 less, the convict felt a sense of superiority inasmuch 
 as he was playing a game with the law by making 
 out a guilty man to be innocent, and successfully 
 saving a head from its clutches ; but his superiority 
 was dumb, secret and hidden, whereas the stork 
 overcame him openly and majestically. 
 
 Jacques Collin had no sooner left M. de Gran- 
 ville's office than the Count des Lupeaulx, deputy 
 and secretary-general of the Council, presented 
 himself, in company with a frail old man. The 
 latter was closely wrapped in a dark brown wadded 
 coat, as if it were still winter ; his hair was pow- 
 dered, and his face wan and cold ; he walked 
 unsteadily like a man with the gout, leaning on a 
 gold-headed cane. His feet were clad in clumsy 
 calfskin shoes, he carried his hat in his hand and 
 wore in his buttonhole a small pin with seven crosses. 
 
 " What is it, my dear des Lupeaulx ?" asked the 
 attorney-general. 
 
 "The prince has sent me," replied the count 
 in a low voice. "You have full authority for recov- 
 ering the letters of Madame de Serizy, Madame de 
 Maufrigneuse and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grand- 
 lieu. You can talk it over with this gentleman." — 
 
 " Who is he ?" whispered the attorney-general. 
 
 " I have no secrets from you, attorney-gen- 
 eral," answered des Lupeaulx, "he is the famous 
 
342 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Corentin. His Majesty wishes you to report to him 
 all the circumstances of this affair, and the condi- 
 tions necessary for success." 
 
 " Do me the favor," said the attorney-general, 
 " to tell the prince that matters are already settled, 
 and that I do not need this gentleman," he added, 
 alluding to Corentin. " I shall go to receive His 
 Majesty's orders as to the conclusion of this affair, 
 which will require the services of the Keeper of the 
 Seals, as two pardons are to be granted." 
 
 "You have acted wisely in going ahead by 
 yourself," said des Lupeaulx, shaking hands with 
 the attorney-general. " The King is determined not 
 to have the peerage and these great families publicly 
 dishonored on the eve of his great enterprise. — It is 
 not simply a low criminal suit, it is an affair of State." 
 
 "Tell the prince that all was arranged before 
 you came." 
 
 "Really.?" 
 
 " 1 believe so." 
 
 "Then, my dear sir, you will be Keeper of the 
 Seals, when the present Keeper is made Chan- 
 icellor."— 
 
 "I have no ambition," — replied the attorney- 
 general. 
 
 Des Lupeaulx went out, laughing. 
 
 " Beg the prince to ask the King to give me ten 
 minutes' audience towards half-past two," added 
 M. Granville, as he showed out the Count des Lu- 
 peaulx. 
 
 " So you are not ambitious ! " said des Lupeaulx, 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 343 
 
 with a shrewd glance at M. de Granville. "Well, you 
 have two children, and, at least you would like to 
 be made a peer of France." — 
 
 " If you have those letters, sir, my intervention 
 is useless," observed Corentin, when he was left 
 alone with M. de Granville, who watched him with 
 a curiosity that may be easily understood. 
 
 " The services of a man like yourself are never 
 superfluous in an affair so delicate as this," replied 
 the attorney-general, seeing that Corentin had either 
 overheard or guessed everything. 
 
 Corentin answered with a little nod that was 
 almost patronizing. 
 
 "Do you know, sir, the person in question?" 
 inquired M. de Granville. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; he is Jacques Collin, the head of the 
 Society of the Ten Thousand, and banker of the 
 three different galleys, a convict, who for five years 
 has been masquerading in the cassock of the Abbe 
 Carlos Herrera. I cannot tell you how he became 
 charged with a mission from the King of Spain for 
 the late King, for none of us have succeeded in 
 fathoming the truth of the matter. I am expecting 
 an answer from Madrid, where I have sent a man 
 with letters. Our convict holds the secrets of two 
 kings." — 
 
 " He is a man of immense hardihood. There 
 are only two ways open to us ; we must either take 
 him into our service, or rid ourselves of him," said 
 the attorney -general. 
 
 "We came to the same conclusion, and that is 
 
344 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 a great honor for me," replied Corentin. "1 am 
 forced to think so much, and for so many people, 
 that I must expect occasionally to meet a man of 
 sense among them." 
 
 This was spoken so dryly and in such a chilling 
 tone of voice that the attorney-general said nothing 
 further, but turned his attention to some pressing 
 matters that he had in hand. 
 
It would be impossible to describe Mademoiselle 
 Jacqueline Collin's astonishment when she saw 
 Jacques Collin enter the Salle des pas Perdus. 
 She stood quite still, with her hands on her hips, 
 for she was in the dress of a costermonger. How- 
 ever accustomed she was to her nephew's feats, 
 this exceeded all that had gone before. 
 
 " If you stand staring at me as if I were an 
 object in a museum of natural history," said Jacques 
 Collin, taking his aunt by the arm and leading her 
 out of the Salle des pas Perdus, " we shall both be 
 taken for curiosities; they might arrest us, and that 
 would waste time." 
 
 They went down the stairway leading from the 
 Galerie Marchande to the rue de la Barillerie. 
 
 "Where is Paccard?" 
 
 " He is waiting for me near la Rousse's, walking 
 about on the quai aux Fleurs." 
 
 "And Prudence.?" 
 
 " She is living there as my god-daughter." 
 
 " Let us go there." — 
 
 " Look and see whether we are followed." — 
 
 La Rousse, who kept a hardware shop on the 
 quai aux Fleurs, was the widow of a notorious mur- 
 derer, one of the Ten Thousand. In 1819, after her 
 lover's execution, Jacques Collin had faithfully 
 remitted her twenty odd thousand francs from him. 
 (345) 
 
346 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Trompe-Ia-Mort was the only person who knew of 
 the intimacy between this young girl, who was then 
 a milliner, and his comrade. 
 
 "I am your lover's boss," he had said to the 
 young milliner, whom he met by appointment in the 
 Jardin des Plantes at the time when he was a boarder 
 at Madame Vauquer's. " You must have heard him 
 speak of me, my girl. Whoever betrays me dies 
 within the year, but whoever is faithful has nothing 
 to fear from me. I should rather die than say a 
 word that would bring a friend into trouble. You 
 must obey me as a soul does the devil, and you will 
 find it to your advantage. I promised your poor 
 Auguste that I should make you happy ; he wanted 
 to make you rich, and came to his death for your 
 sake. Don't cry, but listen to me. Nobody in the 
 world except me knows that you were the mistress 
 of a convict, the murderer who was executed last 
 Saturday, and I shall never tell. You are pretty, 
 and only twenty-two; now that you are in posses- 
 sion of twenty-six thousand francs, you must forget 
 Auguste, marry and set up as an honest woman if 
 you can. In return for all this prosperity I ask you 
 to serve me, and those who come to you from me, 
 without hesitation. I shall never ask anything that 
 might compromise you, your children, your husband, 
 if you have one, or your family. In my profession 
 I often require a safe place in which I can talk to 
 my friends or hide myself. I need a woman I can 
 trust to carry my letters and do my errands. You 
 shall be a letter-box, a porter's lodge, my messenger; 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 347 
 
 nothing else. Your hair is too light ; Auguste 
 and I used to call you la Rousse, and you must keep 
 that name. I shall put you in communication with 
 my aunt, who keeps a shop in the Temple; she is 
 the only person in the world you must obey. Tell 
 her everything that happens; she will see that you 
 get married, and will prove very useful to you." 
 
 Thus he concluded his diabolical compact, which 
 was of the same nature as that which had bound 
 Prudence Servien to him for so long a time. Collin 
 never failed to cement the compacts he had made, 
 for like the devil himself he was possessed with the 
 passion of recruiting. 
 
 Jacques Collin had married la Rousse to the head 
 clerk of a rich wholesale hardware dealer, towards 
 1 82 1, and this head clerk, who had bought out his 
 master's business, was now on the high road to 
 prosperity, the father of two children, and assistant 
 mayor of his district. La Rousse, now Madame Pre- 
 lard, had never had the slightest ground of complaint 
 against Jacques Collin or his aunt, but she trembled 
 from head to foot every time they asked for her ser- 
 vices. She now turned deadly pale as she saw 
 these two terrible people enter her shop. 
 
 "We have to speak to you on business, 
 madame," said Jacques Collin. 
 
 " My husband is at home," said she. 
 
 " Very well ; we have no special need of you 
 just at present ; I never inconvenience anybody 
 unnecessarily. " 
 
 "Send for a cab, my dear," said Jacqueline 
 
348 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Collin, "and tell my god-daughter to come down- 
 stairs. I have found a situation for her as maid to a 
 great lady, whose steward is waiting to take her 
 with'him." 
 
 Paccard, who looked like a gendarme in civilian's 
 clothes, was talking with M. Prelard concerning an 
 important supply of iron wire for a bridge. 
 
 A clerk ran for a cab, and in a few minutes 
 Europe, or to drop the name under which she had 
 served Esther, Prudence Servien, Paccard, Jacques 
 Collin and his aunt got into the vehicle, to the great 
 joy of la Rousse, and Trompe-la-Mort ordered the 
 driver to take them to the Barrifere d'lvry, 
 
 .Prudence Servien and Paccard trembled before 
 their master like guilty souls in the presence of 
 God. 
 
 "Where are the seven hundred and ^^ thous- 
 and francs?" asked Jacques Collin, fixing upon his 
 slaves the clear gaze that chilled the blood of these 
 damned souls when they felt themselves in the 
 wrong, and disconcerted them so thoroughly that 
 their hair stood on end. 
 
 " The seven hundred and thirty thousand 
 francs," said Jaqueline Collin to her nephew, " are 
 quite safe; I gave them.to la Romette this morning 
 in a sealed package." — 
 
 " If you had not given them to Jacqueline you 
 would have gone straight there," — said Trompe-la- 
 Mort, pointing to the Place de Gr^ve, in front of 
 which they were passing. 
 
 Prudence Servien made a sign of the cross, after 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 349 
 
 the custom of her country, as if she had seen the 
 lightning strike. 
 
 " I forgive you," resumed their master, " on con- 
 dition that you never commit the same fault again, 
 and that you serve me like these two fingers of my 
 right hand, " he added, holding up his first and middle 
 finger; "for this good moll here is the thumb!" 
 
 He slapped his aunt's back, and went on: 
 
 "Listen to me. Henceforward you, Paccard, 
 have nothing to fear, and you can follow your nose 
 wherever you please in Pantin. I give you permis- 
 sion to marry Prudence." 
 
 Paccard took Jacques Collin's hand and kissed it 
 respectfully. 
 
 " What shall I do for you ?" he asked. 
 
 "Nothing; and you shall have a good income and 
 as many wives as you choose beside your lawful 
 one, for you are quite worthy of the times of the 
 Regency, old fellow. — That's what comes of being 
 too handsome a man!" 
 
 Paccard blushed at receiving this ironical compli- 
 ment from his master. 
 
 "But you. Prudence," continued Jacques, "you 
 need a career, a position, a future, and you must 
 remain in my service. Now listen I There is in 
 the rue Sainte Barbe a very good house belonging 
 to Madame de Saint Est&ve, whose name my 
 aunt borrows occasionally. It is a good business, 
 with an excellent custom that brings in fifteen 
 or twenty thousand francs a year. Madame Saint 
 Est^ve has the house kept by " 
 
350 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 "La Gonore," said Jacqueline. 
 
 "Poor la Pouraille's mistress," put in Paccard. 
 "I took refuge there with Europe the day that our 
 poor mistress, Madame Van Bogseck, died " 
 
 " Do you dare chatter while I am talking ?" said 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 There was profound silence in the cab, and Pru- 
 dence and Paccard did not venture to look at each 
 other. 
 
 "The house, then, is kept by la Gonore," 
 Jacques Collin continued. " If you and Prudence 
 went there to hide, I see, Paccard, that you are clever 
 enough to cheat the police, but not clever enough 
 to bamboozle her," — he added, stroking his aunt's 
 chin. " I can guess now how she could find you. — 
 That is all very well; you shall return to la Gon- 
 ore's. — But to continue: Jacqueline will negotiate 
 with Madame Nourrisson for the purchase of her 
 establishment in the rue Sainte Barbe. You may 
 make your fortune there, if you are well-behaved, 
 my girl !" said he, turning to Prudence. " An 
 abbess at your age ; that is worthy of a daughter of 
 France," he concluded, sarcastically. 
 
 Prudence threw her arms round Trompe la Mort's 
 neck and kissed him; but with a smart blow that 
 showed his extraordinary strength, he repulsed her 
 so violently that if it had not been for Paccard the 
 girl's head would have broken the cab-window. 
 
 " Put down your paws ! I don't like such man- 
 ners," said Trompe la Mort, dryly; "they are dis- 
 respectful to me." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 351 
 
 " He is right, my girl," said Paccard. " You see 
 it is quite the same as if he gave us a hundred 
 thousand francs. The business is worth that, for 
 the house is on the boulevard, opposite the Gym- 
 nase, and we shall get the people on their way out 
 from the theatre." — 
 
 "I shall do still more," said Trompe la Mort, 
 " I shall buy the house too." 
 
 "We shall be worth millions in six years," 
 cried Paccard. 
 
 Weary of so many interruptions, Trompe la Mort 
 gave Paccard a kick in the shin that would have 
 broken the bone if his nerves had not been of india- 
 rubber and his bones of iron. 
 
 "No more of that; I'll keep quiet," said Pac- 
 card. 
 
 "Do you think I'm talking nonsense?" con- 
 tinued Trompe la Morte, who had just observed that 
 Paccard had taken a glass too much. 
 
 " Listen ; in the cellar of the house there are 
 two hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold ! " — 
 
 Again there was absolute silence in the cab. 
 
 " The gold lies under some solid masonry — you 
 must dig it up, and you have but three nights to do 
 it in. Jacqueline will help you — a hundred thous- 
 and will be enough to pay for the establishment, fifty 
 thousand for the house, and you may leave the rest." 
 
 "Where?" asked Paccard. 
 
 " In the cellar ?" inquired Prudence. 
 
 " Silence !" said Jacqueline. 
 
 — "Yes, but we must obtain the consent of the 
 
352 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 police for the transference of the business," objected 
 Paccard. 
 
 " We shall obtain it," said Trompe-la-Mort dryly. 
 " What are you meddling for ?" — 
 
 Jacqueline looked at her nephew, and was struck 
 by the change in his face, beneath the impas- 
 sive mask under which he habitually hid his emo- 
 tions. 
 
 "My girl," said Jacques Collin to Prudence Ser- 
 vien, " my aunt will give you the seven hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs." 
 
 "Seven hundred and thirty thousand," re- 
 marked Paccard. 
 
 "Well, seven hundred and thirty thousand, 
 then," returned Jacques Collin. "You must go 
 back to-night, under some pretext or other, to Madame 
 Lucien's house. You must climb through the sky- 
 light to the roof, and go down the chimney to the 
 bedroom of your late mistress. Then you are to 
 put the package she made of the money into the 
 mattress of her bed." — 
 
 "Why not go in by the door ?" asked Prudence 
 Servien, 
 
 " The seals are on it, you fool !" replied Jacques 
 Collin. "The inventory will be taken in a few 
 days, and then it will appear that you are innocent 
 of the theft."— 
 
 " Long live the boss I" cried Paccard. " How good 
 you are to us !" 
 
 " Stop, driver !" called Jacques Collin in his power- 
 ful voice. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 353 
 
 The carriage stopped opposite the cab stand of 
 the Jardin des Plantes. 
 
 " Now, off with you, my children," said Jacques 
 Collin, "and be careful not to blunder. Go to the 
 pont des Arts this afternoon at five o'clock, and my 
 aunt will tell you if there is any counter order, — We 
 must foresee all contingencies," he added, in alow 
 voice to his aunt. — "Jacqueline will explain to you to- 
 morrow, ' ' he resumed aloud, ' 'your safest plan for dig- 
 ging up the gold from the deep. It is a ticklish job. ' ' — 
 
 Prudence and Paccard jumped out on the pave- 
 ment, happy as released prisoners. 
 
 "What a wonderful man the boss is !" exclaimed 
 Paccard. 
 
 " He would be the king of men if he were not so 
 scornful to women." 
 
 " Ah ! he is very good !" exclaimed Paccard. 
 " Did you see the kicks he gave ? We deserve to 
 be sent to our fathers, for, after all, it was we who 
 got him into trouble." 
 
 "I only hope," said the shrewder Prudence, 
 " that he does not mean to implicate us in any crime 
 in order to send us to the field." 
 
 " He ? If the fancy took him he would tell us. 
 You don't know him ! — What a pretty career he has 
 marked out for you ! We shall be respectable citi- 
 zens ; what luck ! When that man is fond of you, 
 he hasn't his match-for kindness." — 
 
 " Now, my puss," said Jacques Collin to his aunt, 
 "you must take care of la Gonore and see that 
 she is put to sleep. In five days time she will be 
 23 
 
354 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 arrested, and there will be found in her room the one 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs in gold that remain 
 from another share of the proceeds of the murder of 
 the old Crottats, father and mother of the notary." 
 
 "She will get five years in the Madelonettes, " 
 said Jacqueline, 
 
 "About that," rejoined Jacques Collin. "So 
 that will be a reason for Madame Nourrisson to get 
 rid of her house ; she cannot carry it on herself, 
 and it isn't easy to find the right kind of a manager. 
 You can arrange this yithout trouble. We shall 
 have an eye there. — But these three operations are 
 subordinate to the negotiations in which I am engaged 
 concerning the letters. So rip your gown and give 
 me the specimens of our wares. Where are the 
 three packets of letters ?" 
 
 " At la Rousse's, of course." 
 
 " Driver," cried Jacques Collin, " take us back to 
 the Palais de Justice, and make haste. — I promised 
 to be quick," he said to his aunt, " and I have been 
 gone half an hour ; that's too long. Stay at la 
 Rousse's and give the sealed packets to the office 
 boy, who will come and ask for Madame de Saint 
 Estdve. The de will be his password, and he will 
 say to you : Madame, I have come from the attorney- 
 general for something you will know about. -Stand 
 before la Rousse's door, and pretend to be watch- 
 ing what goes on in the flower market, so as not to 
 draw Prelajd's attention. As soon as you have 
 despatched your letters, you can give your orders 
 to Pacca,rd and Prudence." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 355 
 
 " I can guess what your are about," said Jacque- 
 line ; " you mean to take Bibi Lupin's place. That 
 boy's death has made you crazy." 
 
 "And Theodore, too, who was to have his hair 
 cut for execution at four o'clock this afternoon," cried 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 " It isn't such a bad idea, after all ; we shall end 
 our days as respectable citizens on a fine estate in 
 the beautiful climate of Touraine." 
 
 "What could I do else ? I lost my soul and my 
 interest in life with Lucien ; I have some thirty 
 weary years ahead of me, and I have no heart left. 
 Instead of being boss of the galleys, 1 shall be the 
 Figaro of the law, and shall avenge Lucien. Unless 
 I become one of the police I cannot be sure of de- 
 molishing Corentin. It will give me new life to have 
 a man to ruin. Difference in position in the world 
 is only in appearance ; a man's ideas are the real 
 thing," he added, tapping his forehead, " How much 
 of our treasure have you still .!"' 
 
 " None at all," said his aunt, alarmed by the ac- 
 cent and manner of her nephew. " I gave you 
 everything for the boy. La Romette has but twenty 
 thousand francs to carry on her business. I took all 
 Madame Nourrisson had, about sixty thousand francs. 
 — We are sleeping in sheets that have not been 
 washed for a year. That boy of yours used up all 
 our treasure, all the pals' wad, and Madame Nour- 
 risson's money in the bargain." 
 
 "And that was how much ?" 
 
 " Five hundred and sixty thousand." — 
 
356 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES. 
 
 "We have a hundred and fifty thousand in gold 
 that Paccard and Prudence will owe us, and I will 
 tell you where you can get two hundred thousands 
 more. — The rest must come out of Esther's estate. 
 We must pay back Nourrisson. With Theodore, 
 Paccard, Prudence, Nourrisson and you, I shall soon 
 have the whole blooming battalion I want. — Now, 
 listen, for we are almost there." — 
 
 " Here are the three letters," said Jacqueline, who 
 had just given the final snip of the scissors to the 
 lining of her gown. 
 
 "Good," said Jacques Collin, taking the three 
 precious autographs written on vellum paper, about 
 which the perfume still lingered. " Theodore is 
 guilty of the Nanterre job." 
 
 "Ah! it was he " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, for time is precious. He 
 wanted to fill the bill of his little Corsican bird, 
 Ginetta. — You must set Nourrisson to work finding 
 her, and I will send a letter with the necessary in- 
 structions to you by Gault. You must be at the 
 gate of the Conciergerie in two hours from now. 
 ■ You will put the little girl up at the house of Godet's 
 sister, who is a washerwoman, and let her lodge 
 there. — Godet and Ruffard were la Pouraille's ac- 
 complices in the murder and robbery he committed 
 at the Crottats. The four hundred and fifty thous- 
 and francs are intact: one-third, la Pouraille's 
 share, is in la Gonore's cellar; Ruffard's share is 
 in la Gonore's own room, and the third share is in 
 Godet's sister's house. We shall begin by taking a 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 357 
 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs of la Pouraille's 
 wad, then a hundred thousand of Godet's, and a 
 hundred thousand of Ruffard's. When Ruffard and 
 Godet are safely locked up, we shall make it appear 
 that it was they themselves who set aside the miss- 
 ing part of their treasure. I can get Godet to be- 
 lieve that we have put away a hundred thousand 
 francs for him, and Ruffard and la Pouraille that 
 la Gonore saved theirs for them. — Prudence and Pac- 
 card are to do the work at la Gonore's, and you and 
 Ginetta, she's a sly boots, shall manage at the sister 
 Godet. I shall signalize my first appearance in 
 comedy by finding the four hundred thousand francs 
 stolen from the Crottats and the guilty men them- 
 selves, for the stork. I shall seem to clear up the 
 Nanterre murder. We shall get back our money and 
 be in the very heart of the police. We were the 
 game, but we have turned hunters, that's all. Give 
 three francs to the driver." — 
 
 The cab had stopped at the palace. Jacqueline, 
 who was bewildered, paid the man, and Trompe-la- 
 Mort went up the stairs on his way to the attorney- 
 general. 
 
 A total change of his manner of life is such a 
 violent crisis in a man's existence, that, in spite of 
 his resolution, Jacques Collin walked slowly up the 
 steps of the staircase that leads from the rue de la 
 Barillerie to the Galerie Marchande, where the Pub- 
 lic Prosecutor's offices open gloomily from under the 
 peristyle of the Court of Assizes. Some political 
 occurrence had drawn together a crowd at the foot 
 
358 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 of the double stairway leading to the Court of As- 
 sizes, so that the ex-convict, who was absorbed in 
 his reflections, was detained for some moments by 
 the throng. At the left of this double stairway, 
 there stands, like a vast pillar, one of the buttresses 
 of the palace, and in the middle of the great mass 
 of masonry of which it is composed, a little door is 
 to be seen. The door opens upon a winding stair 
 that serves as a means of communication with the 
 Conciergerie, for the convenience of the attorney- 
 general, the warden of the Conciergerie, the presi- 
 dents of the Court of Assizes, the king's advocates 
 and the Chief of the police. It was by a branch of 
 this stairway, no\y fallen into disuse, that Marie 
 Antoinette, Queen of France, was brought before 
 the Revolutionary tribunal, which sat, as we know, 
 in the great hall of solemn audience of the Court of 
 Appeals. 
 
 It is sad to think that the daughter of Maria Theresa 
 whose head-dress, crinoline and retinue once filled 
 the whole stairway at Versailles, passed up this nar- 
 row, awful stair. — Perhaps it was in expiation of 
 her mother's crime, the hideous division of Poland. 
 Evidently the sovereigns who are guilty of such 
 crimes forget the retribution ordained by Providence. 
 
 At the very moment that Jacques Collin was 
 about to ascend the vaulted staircase to go to the 
 attorney-general's office, Bibi-Lupin happened to 
 come out by the secret door in the wall. 
 
 The chief of the detective police was on his way 
 from the Conciergerie to M. de Granville. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 359 
 
 It is easy to imagine Bibi Lupin's amazement 
 when he saw himself confronted by the Abb6 Carlos 
 Herrera in the same dress in which he had observed 
 him so particularly that morning. He ran on to try 
 to get ahead of him, and Jacques Collin turned 
 round. The two enemies found themselves face to 
 face. Each stood motionless, and the same look 
 flashed from the two pairs of eyes that were so 
 different, just as two pistols are fired simultaneously 
 in a duel. 
 
 " I have you this time, you brigand! " cried the 
 Chief of police. 
 
 "Ah! you have, have you ! " — answered Jacques 
 Collins, ironically. It suddenly occurred to him 
 that M. de Granville had ordered him to be followed, 
 and strange to say, it pained him to think the attor- 
 ney-general a smaller man than he had imagined. 
 
 Bibi Lupin sprang boldly at the throat of Jacques 
 Collin, who, with his eye fixed upon his adversary, 
 gave him a smart blow that sent him sprawling three 
 paces away. Then Trompe-la-Mort walked up 
 quietly to Bibi Lupin and put out his hand to help 
 him to his feet, exactly like an English boxer, who 
 is sure of his own strength and anxious for another 
 round. Bibi Lupin had too much sense to make a 
 noise, but he jumped up, ran to the entrance of the 
 corridor, and beckoned to a gendarme to take his 
 stand there. Then, quick as lightning, he returned 
 to his enemy, who had been serenely watching him, 
 Jacques Collin had made up his mind as to what he 
 meant to do : 
 
360 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 " Either the attorney-general has broken his word 
 to me or he has not tal<en Bibi Lupin into his 
 confidence; in that case I must explain the situation." 
 " Do you want to arrest me ? " he asked of his 
 enemy. " If you do, say so, and be done with it. 
 Don't you suppose I know you are the the stronger, 
 here in the very heart of the police? I could kill 
 you with a kick, but I couldn't manage all the 
 gendarmes of the line. Let's be quiet about it; 
 where do you want to take me.'" 
 
 " To M. Camusot." 
 
 "Let's go to M. Camusot then," said Jacques 
 Collin. " But why shouldn't we go to the attorney- 
 general's office? — It is nearer," he added. 
 
 Bibi Lupin, who knew that he was in disfavor 
 in the higher regions of judicial power, and sus- 
 pected of making a fortune out of the criminals 
 and their victims, was not sorry to present him- 
 self before the attorney-general with such prey as 
 this. 
 
 " Very well," said he, " we'll go there; but since 
 you give yourself up, let me tie you up a bit; I am 
 afraid you might scratch." 
 
 And he drew the handcuffs out of his pocket. 
 
 Jacques Collin extended his hands, and Bibi 
 Lupin fitted the irons upon them. 
 
 "Now, since you are so well-behaved," he con- 
 tinued, "tell me how you got out of the Concier- 
 gerie." 
 
 " By the little staircase, the same way that you 
 came." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 361 
 
 "You played another trick on the gendarmes, 
 then?" 
 
 " No; M. de Granville let me go on parole." 
 
 " Are you joking?" 
 
 "You shall see. — Perhaps you may have a turn 
 at the handcuffs yourself." 
 
At this very moment, Corentin was saying to the 
 attorney-general: 
 
 " Now, sir, it is just an hour since our man went 
 off, and aren't you afraid he was fooling you? — He 
 is very likely already on the road to Spain, where 
 we shan't find him in a hurry, for it's a very lawless 
 country." 
 
 " Either I don't know a man when I see him, or 
 Jacques Collin will come back; all his interests 
 compel him to do so; he has more to gain in this 
 than I."— 
 
 Just then, Bibi Lupin appeared. 
 
 "Sir," said he, "I have good news for you: I 
 have re-arrested Jacques Collin, who had made his 
 escape." 
 
 "There, you have not kept your word to me," 
 cried Jacques Collin to M. de Granville. " Ask 
 your double-faced agent where he found me." 
 
 "Where?" asked the attorney-general. 
 
 "A few steps from here, on the staircase," re- 
 plied Bibi Lupin. 
 
 "Take off these irons of yours," said M. de 
 Granville, severely to Bibi Lupin: " and let me tell 
 you that you are to let that man alone until you 
 have orders to arrest him again. — Now, go! — You 
 are too much in the habit of behaving as if you had 
 all the law and the police under your control." 
 
 The attorney-general turned his back on the 
 (363) 
 
364 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Chief of secret service, wlio turned pale, particu- 
 larly as he caught a look from Jacques Collin that 
 announced his downfall. 
 
 " I have not left my ofiFice, and have been waiting 
 for you. You can't doubt that I have kept my word 
 as you have kept yours," said M. de Granville to 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 " I doubted you for the first moment, sir, and 
 perhaps, in my place, you would have thought as I 
 did; but on reflection I see that I was unjust. I 
 have more to give than you; you could have no in- 
 terest in deceiving me.^' — 
 
 The magistrate exchanged a rapid glance with 
 Corentin. Trompe la Mort saw it, for he was watch- 
 ing M. de Granville closely, and it called his attention 
 to the curious little old man sitting in an arm-chair 
 in the corner. Warned by his quick, keen instinct 
 that assured him of the presence of an enemy, 
 Jacques Collin observed the stranger, and seeing at 
 once that his eyes did not correspond with the degree 
 of age implied by his style of dress, he was sure 
 that the man was disguised. Thus, in a moment, 
 Jacques Collin had taken his revenge upon Corentin 
 for the rapid inspection with which the latter had 
 unmasked him at Peyrade's. 
 
 "We are not alone," — said Jacques Collin to M. 
 de Granville. 
 
 "No," replied the attorney-general, dryly. 
 
 "And this gentleman," continued the convict, " is 
 one of my most valued acquaintances — is it not 
 so ? "— 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 365 
 
 He stepped forward and recognized Corentin, the 
 real and avowed author of Lucien's destruction. 
 Jacques Collin, whose face was naturally brick-red, 
 became, for a moment of almost imperceptible dura- 
 tion, pale and nearly white; all his blood rushed to 
 his heart, so great was his wild and frantic desire to 
 leap upon this dangerous brute and crush the life 
 from his limbs. But he forced back his savage 
 impulse, and, repressing it with the energy that 
 made him so formidable, he assumed the amiable 
 manner and tone of obsequious politeness to which 
 he had accustomed himself while playing the part of 
 an ecclesiastic of high rank. 
 
 "Monsieur Corentin," said he, bowing to the 
 little old man, " is it to chance I owe the pleasure of 
 meeting you, or have I the honor of being the object 
 of your visit to the office?" 
 
 The attorney-general was amazed, and devoted 
 his attention to the two men who had met face to 
 face. Jacques Collin's movements and tone of 
 voice indicated a crisis, and M. de Granville was 
 curious to discover the cause. At the convict's 
 sudden and remarkable recognition of his personality, 
 Corentin started up as a snake does when some one 
 has trodden on its tail. 
 
 " Yes, it is I, my dear Abbe Carlos Herrera." 
 
 " Have you come to interpose between the 
 attorney -general and me," — asked Trompe-la-Mort, 
 " or am I so happy as to be the subject of one of 
 those negotiations in which your talents are so con- 
 spicuous.' — Here, sir," he added, turning to the 
 
366 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 attorney-general, " in order that you may not waste 
 your valuable time, here are the specimens of my 
 wares; you may read them." — 
 
 He handed M. de Granville the three letters which 
 he took from the inside pocket of his coat. 
 
 " While you are looking over them I shall have 
 a little talk with this gentleman, if you will allow 
 me." 
 
 "That is a great honor for me," said Corentin, 
 who could not repress a shudder. 
 
 "You were completely successful in the contest 
 we had together, sir," said Jacques Collin; " I was 
 beaten," he added, as lightly as the gambler who 
 has lost his stakes; " but you left some men on the 
 field. — It was a dearly bought victory." — 
 
 "Yes," said Corentin, carrying on the jest; "if 
 you lost your queen, I lost my two castles." — 
 
 "Oh! Contenson was nothing but a pawn," 
 said Jacques Collin, in a mocking tone. " You can 
 easily replace him. If you will allow me to praise 
 you to your face, I should like to say that I think 
 you an extraordinary man, upon my honor I do." — 
 
 " Oh ! no, I bow before your superiority," 
 replied Corentin, with the air of a professional jester 
 who says, " If you want chaff, very good ; let's have 
 it." " You know I have everything at my com- 
 mand," he continued, " whereas you are quite 
 alone, so to speak." — 
 
 "Ha! you think so!" remarked Jacques Collin, 
 
 "And yet you nearly won the battle," said Coren- 
 tin, noticing his exclamation, "You are the most 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 367 
 
 wonderful man I have ever met, and I have seen 
 many who were wonderful in their way, for the peo- 
 ple I am pitted against are all remarkable for their 
 daring and for the boldness of their conceptions. 
 To my misfortune, I was very intimate with the late 
 Duke d'Otrante; I worked for Louis XVIII. during his 
 reign, and, after his exile, for the Emperor and the 
 Directory. — You have the stamp of Louvel, who 
 was the most perfect political instrument I ever saw; 
 and, besides, you have the versatility of the prince of 
 diplomats. And what allies you have ! — I could send 
 many heads to the guillotine if I could have poor 
 little Esther's cook in my service. — Where did you 
 find that pretty creature who took the Jewess's 
 place with M. de Nucingen for a time ? I can't find 
 such people when I want them." 
 
 " Sir, sir," said Jacques Collin, " you overwhelm 
 me. — Such praise from you would turn any man's 
 head."— 
 
 " You deserve it all. Just think! You deceived 
 Peyrade, who took you for an officer of the peace. 
 — If you had not had that little fool to defend, you 
 would have beaten us all." — 
 
 " You forget, sir, that Contenson was disguised 
 as a mulatto, — and Peyrade as an Englishman. 
 Actors have the resources of the stage, but only you 
 and yours can be so great at all times, even in 
 broad daylight." — 
 
 "Now," said Corentin, "we are each persuaded 
 of the other's skill and merit. We are both lonely, 
 too, for I have lost my old friend, and you the 
 
368 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 young fellow you had under your wing. At this 
 present moment 1 am the stronger of the two, so 
 why shouldn't we follow the example of the people 
 in the Auherge des Adrets ? I hold out my hand and 
 say ' Let us shake hands and be friends.' Here in 
 the presence of the attorney-general I offer you a 
 full and complete pardon; you shall be one of my 
 men, next to myself, and perhaps in time you may 
 succeed me." 
 
 "So you offer me a position?" — said Jacques 
 Collin. " A pretty position, tool I am to change 
 characters." — 
 
 " You will find yourself in a sphere where your 
 talents will be appreciated, well -rewarded, and you 
 can do as you please. The political and govern- 
 mental police has its perils; even I have been twice 
 imprisoned, — but I am none the worse for it. Then 
 you can travel, and be anything you like. — You will 
 be the scene-shifter in political dramas, and great 
 lords will treat you with consideration. — How do you 
 like the idea of all this, my dear Jacques Collin?" — 
 
 "Have you your orders for this? " asked the con- 
 vict. 
 
 "I have full authority," — replied Corentin, much 
 pleased with his happy inspiration. 
 
 " You are jesting; you are a wonderfully clever 
 man, and you can't object to my mistrusting you. 
 — You have sold more than one man by tying him 
 up in the bag into which you had first made him 
 jump of his own free will. — I know your famous 
 battles — ^the Montauran and the Simeuse affairs. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 369 
 
 They might be called the Marengos of the detective 
 world." 
 
 "You esteem the attorney-general, don't you?" 
 asked Corentin. 
 
 "Yes," replied Jacques Collin, bowing respect- 
 fully; "I admire his noble character, firmness and 
 high-mindedness, and would give my life to make 
 him happy. The first thing I shall do will be to put 
 an end to Madame de Serizy's dangerous condition." 
 
 The attorney-general showed that he was pleased. 
 
 "Then you may ask him," resumed Corentin, " if 
 I have not full authority to save you from your pres- 
 ent disgraceful position, and put you in my train." 
 
 " It is all true," said M. de Granville to the con- 
 vict. 
 
 " True that I shall receive absolution for my past 
 and a promise to succeed you, provided I give suffi- 
 cient proof of my ability? " 
 
 " Between two men like ourselves, no miscon- 
 ception is possible," rejoined Corentin with a mag- 
 nanimous air that was most convincing. 
 
 " Of course the price of this transaction is the 
 restoration of the three packets of letters?" — re- 
 marked Jacques Collin. 
 
 " I thought it would be superfluous to mention 
 it."— 
 
 "My dear Monsieur Corentin," said Trompe-la- 
 Mort with an irony equal to that which achieved 
 Talma's triumph, in his part of NicomSde, " I thank 
 you, and am indebted to you for letting me know 
 my own worth and the importance attached to 
 24 
 
370 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 depriving me of my weapons. — I shall never forget 
 it, — I shall be forever at your service, and, instead 
 of saying, like Robert Macaire : ' Let us embrace 
 each other,' I shall begin by embracing you." 
 
 He seized Corentin round the waist so quickly that 
 the latter was unable to escape his embrace; he 
 pressed him to his heart like a puppet, kissed him on 
 both cheeks, lifted him up with one hand, like a 
 feather, and opening the office door with the other, 
 set him down outside, bruised and shaken with the 
 rough treatment he had received. 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear fellow," he whispered in a 
 low voice. "We are separated from each other by 
 three dead bodies; we have measured swords, and 
 they are of the same size and temper. — Let us re- 
 spect each other, but I must be your equal, not your 
 subordinate.. — With such arms as you possess, I 
 think you would be too dangerous a general for your 
 lieutenant. We shall set a boundary between us, 
 and woe unto you if you invade my territory. — You 
 call yourself the State, just as lackeys are known 
 by their master's name; so I shall borrow the name 
 of Justice. We shall often see each other, and let 
 us continue to treat each other with all the more 
 dignity and propriety, for the reason that we shall 
 always be — abominable rascals," he added, in his 
 ear. " I set you an example by embracing you." — 
 
 Corentin was confused for the first time in his life, 
 and allowed his terrible adversary to shake his hand. 
 
 " If it is as you say," said he, " I think it will be 
 for our mutual interest to rema.m friends." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 37 1 
 
 " We shall each be stronger on our own side, and 
 more dangerous, too," continued Jacques Collin, in 
 a low tone. " So you will allow me 'to ask you 
 to-morrow for the earnest of our bargain." — 
 
 "I see," said Corentin, good-naturedly, "that 
 you are taking this business out of my hands to 
 place it in the attorney-general's. You will be the 
 cause of his promotion, but I cannot help telling you 
 that you are doing right. — Bibi Lupin is too well 
 known, and his day is over; if you succeed him you 
 will find yourself in the only position appropriate 
 to you, and I shall be charmed to see you occupying 
 it; — upon my word I shall." — 
 
 " I hope we shall soon see each other again," said 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
Upon his return, Trompe-la-Mort found the attor- 
 ney-general sitting at his desk, with his head buried 
 in his hands. 
 
 " Do you really mean that you can prevent the 
 Countess de Serizy from becoming insane?" — asked 
 M. de Granville. 
 
 " In five minutes," replied Jacques Collin. 
 
 " And you can return me all the letters of the 
 three ladies?" 
 
 " Have you read the three I gave you?" — 
 
 "Yes," said the attorney-general, quickly; "and 
 I blush for the women who wrote them." — 
 
 "Very well; we are alone now; give orders that 
 no one shall be admitted, and we can come to 
 terms," said Jacques Collin. 
 
 " One moment; — ^the law must do its duty first of 
 all, and M. Camusot has orders to arrest your 
 aunt."— 
 
 " He can never find her," said Jacques Collin. 
 
 "The police are to search an establishment kept in 
 the Temple by a certain Mademoiselle Paccard." — 
 
 "They will find nothing but rags, old clothes, 
 diamonds and uniforms. Still we must put some 
 limit to M. Camusot's zeal." 
 
 M. de Granville rang and told the office boy to 
 ask M. Camusot to come and speak with him. 
 
 " Now," said he to Jacques Collin," let us make 
 (373) 
 
374 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 an end of this. I am most anxious to learn your 
 receipt for curing tlie countess." — 
 
 "Sir," said Jacques gravely, "I was, as you 
 know, sentenced to five years of penal servitude 
 for the crime of forgery. I love my liberty, — but this 
 love of mine, like all other loves, defeated its own 
 object, for lovers quarrel when they are too adoring. 
 Owing to my escape and recapture 1 have passed 
 seven years in all at the galleys, so you have to 
 pardon me only for the increase of penalty I incurred 
 — incurred at the field — pardon, at the galleys — 
 I have really undergone my punishment, and, 
 until they find me in another crime — ^which I defy 
 the law and even Corentin to do, I ought to be 
 restored to my rights as a French citizen. Exiled 
 from Paris, and under the supervision of the police, 
 what kind of a life should I have? Where could I 
 go, and what could I do? You know my capacity; 
 you saw Corentin himself, that mass of stratagem 
 and treachery, turn pale before me and do justice to 
 my talents. — That man has robbed me of my all; 
 for it was he, and he alone, who, I know not by 
 what means, nor in what interest, overthrew Lu- 
 cien's fortunes. — Corentin and Camusot did every- 
 thing in their power " 
 
 "No recriminations," said M. de Granville, "go 
 straight to the point." 
 
 " Here is the point, then. Last night, as I held 
 the cold hand of the poor dead boy in mine, I re- 
 solved to renounce the frantic warfare that I have 
 been waging against the whole of society for twenty 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 375 
 
 years. You cannot suspect me of any affected 
 piety after what I have told you of my religious 
 opinions. — For twenty years I have seen the world 
 on its seamy side, in its dens and cellars, and I have 
 been obliged to recognize that in the course of things 
 there is a force that you call Providence, that I used to 
 call chance, and that my companions call luck. Every 
 wrong action is visited with retribution of some sort, 
 however adroit a man may be in trying to escape it. 
 In this fight against the world he may have the best 
 cards in his hands and the lead to boot ; then a 
 candle falls and sets fire to the cards, or he himself 
 is struck with apoplexy. — That is Lucien's story. 
 That angelic boy never committed the shadow of a 
 crime. He only allowed others to lead him and do 
 with him as they chose. He was to marry Made- 
 moiselle de Grandlieu, and to be made a marquis ; 
 his career seemed assured; well! a girl unexpectedly 
 poisons herself, hides the proceeds of the title of 
 an annuity, and the edifice of his fortunes that had 
 been so laboriously raised, crumbles in a moment. 
 Who was it that gave us the first sword thrust ? 
 A man covered with secret infamy, a monster who 
 has committed such crimes in the business world (see 
 THE HOUSE OF NUCINGEN) that every penny of 
 his fortune has been drenched with the tears of 
 a family ; it was Nucingen, — a Jacques Collin in 
 the world of finance, — who had managed to keep 
 within the bounds of the law. You know as well as I 
 the bankruptcies and damnable tricks of that man. 
 My irons will always brand my actions, even the 
 
376 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 most virtuous. To be a shuttlecock between two 
 battledores, the galleys and the police, is a life in which 
 success involves infinite labor, and peace seems 
 impossible. Jacques Collin is now being buried, 
 Monsieur de Granville, with Lucien, whom they are 
 at this moment sprinkling with holy water before 
 taking him to P6re Lachaise, I need a place, not 
 to live in, but to die in. — In the present state of 
 things, the law has not taken into consideration the 
 civil and social condition of the released convict. 
 The law may be satisfied, but society is not ; it 
 continues to mistrust him and tries to justify its sus- 
 picions to itself. It makes him an impossible being ; 
 it should restore all his rights, but it forbids him to 
 live within certain limits. Society says to the re- 
 leased convict : ' Paris is the only place you can hide 
 in, but you shall live neither in Paris nor in her 
 suburbs within a prescribed distance.' — Moreover, 
 society subjects the convict to the supervision of the 
 police. Do you think it possible to live under such 
 conditions ? To live a man must work, for he 
 doesn't come out from the galleys with money in his 
 pocket. You take pains that the convict shall be 
 plainly marked, easily recognized and penned in on 
 every side, and then you expect your citizens to 
 have confidence in him, when society, law and the 
 world about him have none. You compel him to 
 starve or to commit crime. He can find no work, 
 and is fatally impelled toward his old trade that is 
 sure to send him to the scaffold. So, although I 
 wished to renounce my struggle against the law, I 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 377 
 
 could find no place to live in. Only one position 
 would suit me, and that is in the service of the 
 authority that presses so heavily against us, and, as 
 this idea occurred to me, I became conscious of the 
 power in my hands, that I have told you of. Three 
 great families who are under my control. Don't think 
 that I want to blackmail them. Blackmail is one of 
 the basest of crimes ; in my eyes it is viler than mur- 
 der, for the murderer is possessed of demoniacal 
 courage. I am willing to act out my opinions, for 
 the letters that ensure my safety and allow me to 
 speak with you as I am doing now on equal terms — I 
 who represent crime, with you who represent the 
 law — are at your disposal. You may send your office 
 boy for them and they will be handed over to him. — 
 1 ask no compensation, for I do not sell them. Alas ! 
 sir, when I laid them away I was not thinking of 
 myself, but of Lucien's possible danger. If you do not 
 see fit to comply with my request, I am tired enough 
 of life and have enough courage left to blow my 
 brains out and rid you of me. — Or, with a passport, 
 I could go to America and live there in solitude, for I 
 have stuff in me that would make a savage. — Such 
 are my last night's thoughts. Your secretary must 
 have repeated to you the message which I charged 
 him with. " When I saw the precautions you were 
 taking to save Lucien's memory from blame, I gave 
 my life to you, a poor gift indeed! I cared for it no 
 longer ; I saw that I could not carry it on without 
 the light that illuminated it, or the happiness that 
 animated it; without the thought that gives it 
 
378 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 meaning, the well-being of the young poet who was 
 its sun, and I determined to give you the three 
 packets of letters." — 
 
 M. de Granville bowed. 
 
 " Then I went into the prison-yard, where I found 
 the authors of the crime of Nanterre, and learned that 
 my young chain companion was under sentence of 
 death for his involuntary participation in their crime. 
 I heard that Bibi Lupin is cheating the law, that one 
 of his agents is the murderer of the Crottats ; and was 
 it not what you call providential .' — Then it was that 
 I foresaw the possibility of doing good, of employing 
 my natural gifts and the melancholy knowledge I 
 have acquired for the service of society, and of being 
 useful instead of harmful, so I ventured to count on 
 your intelligent comprehension and your goodness." 
 
 The air of frankness and ingenuous simplicity with 
 which the man made his confession, without any of 
 the harsh philosophy of vice that had hitherto made 
 him so terrible to listen to, seemed convincing proof 
 of his transformation. He was no longer the same 
 person. 
 
 ' ' I have such implicit faith in you that I wish to 
 put myself entirely at your disposal," he went on 
 with penitent humility. "You see me standing 
 where three roads meet: suicide, America and the 
 rue de Jerusalem. Bibi Lupin is rich and has served 
 his time; he is double-faced in his dealings with you, 
 and if you give me leave to act against him I will 
 punch his chestnut — catch him in the act in less 
 than a week. If you give me the rogue's place 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 379 
 
 you will be doing a great service to society. / need 
 nothing more — I siiall be honest with you — and 
 1 have all the qualities required for the office. I am 
 better educated than Bibi Lupin, and even went so 
 far as studying rhetoric at school. I shall be cleverer 
 than he, and can have good manners when I choose. 
 I have no other ambition than that of becoming an 
 element of law and order, and ceasing to be a type 
 of corruption. I shall never induce anybody else to 
 enlist in the great army of vice. When you take 
 the enemy's general captive on the field of battle, 
 sir, you don't shoot him, but you return him his 
 sword and give him a town for a prison. Well, I 
 am the general of the galleys, and I surrender. I 
 am not overcome by the law, but by the death of a 
 friend. The sphere in which I desire to move and 
 act is the sole one fitted to me, and in it I can 
 develop the power that I am conscious of posses- 
 sing. — You must decide." — 
 
 Jacques Collin maintained a humble but respectful 
 attitude. 
 
 "You have placed the letters at my disposal ?" — 
 said the attorney-general. 
 
 "You may send for them, and they will be given 
 to your messenger." 
 
 "How can that be ?" 
 
 Jacques Collin read the heart of the attorney- 
 general, and continued to play the same game. 
 
 " You have promised me to commute Calvi's sen- 
 tence of death to twenty years of penal servitude. 
 Oh! I don't say this to make a treaty with you," 
 
38o SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 he exclaimed quickly in reply to a gesture from the 
 attorney-general; — " his life must be saved on other 
 grounds, for the boy is innocent." — 
 
 " How can I get the letters?" asked the attorney- 
 general. "It is my right and my duty to know 
 whether you are the man you say you are. I want 
 no conditions — " 
 
 " Send a man you can trust to the Qua! aux 
 Fleurs, and there he will see at the door of a hard- 
 ware shop at the sign of the Shield of Achilles — " 
 
 " The house of the shield?" — 
 
 "Yes," said Jacques Collin, with a bitter smile, 
 " my shield is there. Your messenger will find an 
 old woman, dressed, as I told you before, like a 
 well-to-do fish-wife, with ear-rings in her ears; alto- 
 gether, in the costume of a rich market-woman. 
 Your man must ask her for Madam de Saint Est^ve, 
 and don't let him forget the de. — Then he must say 
 The attorney -general sends me for something you know 
 about, and she will instantly give him the three 
 sealed packets." — 
 
 "Are the letters all there?" inquired M. de Gran- 
 ville. 
 
 " You are thorough!" said Jacques Collin, smiling; 
 "you did not get your office on false pretences. I see 
 that you think me capable of playing with you and 
 giving you blank paper. — You don't know me," he 
 added; " I trust you as a son does his father." — 
 
 " You are to be taken back to the Conciergerie," 
 said the attorney-general, "and to await there the 
 decision that will be made concerning you." 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 38 1 
 
 The attorney-general rang, and said to the boy 
 who answered the bell : 
 
 "Ask M. Garnery to come here, if you find him at 
 home." 
 
 Beside the forty-eight commissaries of the police 
 who watch over Paris lil<e forty-eight minor provi- 
 dences, and not counting the officers of the detective 
 police, who have given rise to the term of quarter of 
 an eye in thieves' slang, as there are four of them in 
 every ward of the city, there are two other commis- 
 saries attached both to the police and to the courts 
 to execute delicate missions, and occasionally to 
 replace the examining judges. The office of these 
 two magistrates, for these commissaries of the police 
 are really magistrates, is called the office of the 
 deputies, inasmuch as the commissaries are regularly 
 deputed and appointed to effect searches and arrests. 
 This position calls for men of ripe age, proved capac- 
 ity, high moral character and absolute discretion, 
 and it is one of those miracles that Proyidence works 
 for Paris that it is always possible to find men of 
 this stamp. A description of Paris would be inexact 
 without a mention of this preventive magistracy, so 
 to speak, which is a powerful auxiliary of the 
 law; for if the law, through the stress of circum- 
 stances, has lost any part of its ancient pomp and 
 splendor, we must acknowledge that in other 
 ways it has gained materially. At Paris espe- 
 cially its mechanism has reached a high degree 
 of perfection. 
 
 M. de Granville had sent his secretary, M. de 
 
382 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Chargeboeuf, to Lucien's funeral, so that he now 
 needed a trustworthy man to send in his stead on 
 this mission, and M. Garnery was one of the two 
 commissary deputies. 
 
 "Sir," resumed Jacques Collin, "I have already 
 proved to you that I have a regard for my honor. — 
 You let me go free, and I came back to you. — It is 
 nearly eleven o'clock — the requiem mass for Lucien 
 must be nearly over, and they will be taking him 
 to the cemetery. — Instead of sending me back to 
 the Conciergerie let me follow that boy's body to 
 Pfere Lachaise. I will come back and give myself 
 up to you again." — 
 
 " Go," said M. de Granville, very kindly. 
 
 " One last word, sir. The money of that girl, 
 Lucien's mistress, was not stolen. — In the few free 
 moments you allowed me I was able to question 
 some friends — I am as sure of them as you are of 
 your two commissary deputies, therefore I know 
 that the money raised by Esther Gobseck on the 
 title of the annuity will be found in her room on 
 the removal of the seals. Her maid told me that 
 she was very suspicious and secretive, and probably 
 hid the banknotes in her bed. Give orders to have 
 the bed carefully searched and taken apart ; let 
 them open the mattress and pillows, and the money 
 will be found." — 
 
 " Are you sure of it ?" 
 
 " I can rely on the relative honesty of my 
 rogues, for they never deceive me. — I have power 
 of life and death over them ; I judge and condemn 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 383 
 
 them, and I execute my sentences without any of 
 your formalities. You have already seen what my 
 power can effect. I shall find for you the money that 
 was stolen from M. and Madame Crottat ; I mean 
 to catch Bibi Lupin's chief agent and right-hand at 
 one of his tricks, and I can tell you the secret of 
 the crime that was committed at Nanterre. — That's 
 the earnest of what I shall do for you ! — Now, if 
 you will put me in the service of the law and the 
 police, you will be pleased with my disclosures 
 before the year is over. I promise to be all that you 
 require, and I am confident of succeeding in the 
 business with which I am entrusted." 
 
 " I am not at liberty to promise anything farther 
 than my good will," replied M. de Granville. " What 
 you ask does not depend upon me. The King alone, 
 on the report of the Keeper of the Seals, has the 
 right to grant a pardon, and the position which you 
 want is in the gift of the Prefect of the Police." 
 
 " M. Garnery," announced the ofifice boy. 
 
 At a motion from the attorney-general the com- 
 missary-deputy entered, and, recognizing Jacques 
 Collin at a glance, repressed his astonishment at 
 hearing M. de Granville tell the convict that he was 
 free to go. 
 
 "Will you allow me," said Jacques Collin, "to 
 stay until M. Garnery has delivered all my arms to 
 you, so that I may carry with me a proof of your 
 satisfaction ?" 
 
 His humility and evident good faith touched the 
 attorney-general. 
 
384 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 " Go," said he to him, " I am sure of you." 
 
 Jacques Collin bowed low with the deference due 
 from an inferior to his superior. Ten minutes later M. 
 de Granville was in possession of the three packets 
 of letters, the seals of which were still unbroken. 
 The importance of the transaction and Jacques 
 Collin's half-confession made him forget the con- 
 vict's promise to cure Madame de Serizy. 
 
 Once outside Jacques Collin experienced a feel- 
 ing of ineffable well-being. He felt himself a free 
 man, and born again into a new life, and walked 
 briskly from the palais to the church of Saint-Ger- 
 main des Pres, where mass was already over. 
 They were sprinkling holy water on the bier, and 
 Jacques Collin arrived in time to share in this Chris- 
 tian rite of farewell to the mortal remains of the 
 boy he had loved so tenderly, then he got into a 
 cab and followed the body to the cemetery. 
 
 In funerals at Paris, except in the case of the 
 burial of some celebrity, or when death has occurred 
 under extraordinary circumstances, the crowd that 
 collects at the church gradually diminishes on the 
 way to PSre Lachaise. People find time to be pres- 
 ent at the services, but everybody is in haste to 
 return to his business. On this occasion, therefoie, 
 of the ten mourning coaches not four were filled, 
 and when the procession reached P^re Lachaise the 
 cortege was composed of only a dozen persons, 
 one of whom was Rastignac. 
 
 "It is very well that you are faithful to him!" 
 said Jacques Collin to his old acquaintance. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 385 
 
 Rastignac started with surprise at seeing Vautrin, 
 tiie former boarder at Madame Vauquer's. 
 
 " Be calm," Jacques Collin went on, "the mere 
 fact of seeing you here is enough to make me your 
 slave. My support is not to be despised, for I am 
 or shall be, more powerful than ever. You have 
 slipped your cable, and have been very sharp, but 
 you may perhaps need me hereafter, and I am 
 always at your service." 
 
 " What are you going to be ?" 
 
 " The purveyor of the galleys instead of being a 
 lodger there," answered Jacques Collin. 
 
 Rastignac made a motion expressive of disgust. 
 
 "Ah! you may be robbed," — said Jacques Collin. 
 
 Rastignac quickened his pace to get away from 
 Jacques Collin. 
 
 " You cannot tell in what circumstances you may 
 find yourself," added the convict. 
 
 They had by that time reached the grave that was 
 dug beside Esther's. 
 
 "These two creatures, who loved each other 
 and were so happy, are now reunited," said 
 Jacques Collin. " There is still some happiness for 
 them in ; coming to dust together. I shall lie there, 
 too." 
 
 When Lucien's body was lowered into the grave, 
 Jacques Collin fell down in a dead faint. Strong 
 man that he was, he could not endure the slight 
 noise of the few shovelsful of earth that the grave- 
 diggers threw upon the coffin before coming to ask 
 for their fees. At that moment two detective agents 
 25 
 
386 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 appeared on the scene, recognized Jacques Collin, 
 and carried him into a cab. 
 
 " What is the matter now?" — asked Jacques Col- 
 lin, after regaining consciousness and looking round 
 him in the cab. 
 
 He found himself seated between two police agents; 
 one of these he recognized as Ruffard, and turned a 
 look on him that probed the assassin's soul and read 
 the secret of la Gonore that was written there. 
 
 "The attorney-general has asked for you," 
 answered Ruffard, "we have gone everywhere to 
 look for you, and found you only in the cemetery, 
 where you came near tumbling head-first into that 
 young man's grave." 
 
 Jacques Collin was silent for a moment. 
 
 " Was it Bibi Lupin who sent for me?" he asked 
 of the other police agent. 
 
 " No; it was M. Garnery," was the answer. 
 
 " Did he say nothing to you?" 
 
 The two agents consulted each other's opinion in 
 expressive dumb show. 
 
 " Tell me, how did he give you the order?" 
 
 "He ordered us," replied Ruffard, "to bring you 
 immediately, and told us you were at the Church of 
 Saint-Germain des Pres, but that if the procession 
 had left the church you would be at the cemetery." 
 
 " Did the attorney-general ask for me?" 
 
 " Perhaps he did." 
 
 " That's it," rejoined Jacques Collin; " he needs 
 me."— 
 
 He relapsed again into silence that discomfited the 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 387 
 
 two agents. About half-past two, as Jacques Collin 
 entered M. de Granville's office, he found there a 
 gentleman who was a stranger to him, the Count 
 Octave de Bauvan, M. de Granville's predecessor, 
 one of the presidents of the Court of Appeals. 
 
 "You have forgotten Madame de Serizy's danger, 
 and you promised me to save her," said the attorney- 
 general. 
 
 " Sir, you may ask those fellows of yours what 
 condition they found me in," said Jacques Collin, 
 signing to the two detectives to enter. 
 
 "Quite unconscious, sir, on the brink of the grave 
 of the young man they were burying," said one of 
 the police agents. 
 
 "Save Madame de Serizy," said M. de Bauvan, 
 " and you may have everything you want." 
 
 " I want nothing," returned Jacques Collin; "I 
 surrendered without conditions, and the attorney- 
 general must have already received " 
 
 "All the letters," interrupted M. de Granville; 
 " but you promised to save Madame de Serizy's 
 reason; can you really do it, or was it only out of 
 bravado that you said so?" 
 
 "I hope to be able to accomplish it," replied 
 Jacques Collin, modestly. 
 
 " Very well; come with me, then, " said the Count 
 Octave. 
 
 "No, sir," said Jacques Collin; "I could not sit 
 beside you in the same carriage, — I am still a con- 
 vict. I desire to serve the law, and I cannot begin 
 by dishonoring it. — Go to the Countess's, and I 
 
388 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 shall be there a little later. — Tell her that Lucien's 
 best friend, the Abb6 Carlos Herrera, is coming to 
 see her, — and the knowledge of his intended visit 
 will necessarily make an impression upon her and 
 render the crisis favorable. You will be so good as 
 to allow me to return for this once to my assumed 
 character of a Spanish ecclesiastic, as it is for the 
 purpose of doing a good action." 
 
 "1 shall meet you there about four," said M. de 
 Granville; " I am now going to the King with the 
 Keeper of the Seals." 
 
 Jacques Collin went back to his aunt, who was 
 waiting for him on the Quai aux Fleurs. 
 
 "Then you have given yourself up to the stork?" 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That's risky." 
 
 " No; I owed poor Theodore his life, and he will 
 be pardoned." 
 
 "And you yourself?" 
 
 " I shall be precisely what I should be. I shall 
 always make our people tremble before me. — But 
 you must go to work. Go and tell Paccard to bestir 
 himself, and make Europe carry out my orders." 
 
 " That's all right; I know how to manage la 
 Gonore!" — said the terrible Jacqueline. " I haven't 
 been lying idle, losing my time with the dimber 
 girls." 
 
 " Ginetta, the Corsican girl, must be found by 
 to-morrow," added Jacques Collin, smiling at his 
 aunt. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 389 
 
 " Somebody must put me on her tracks." 
 
 " Manon la Blonde will," replied Jacques Collin. 
 
 "We'll have her to-night, then," said his aunt. 
 •' You are as keen as a hawk about it. — There must 
 be some fat in it." 
 
 " I want my first efforts to surpass the best thing 
 Bibi Lupin ever did. I had a little conversation 
 with the monster that- killed my Lucien, and I live 
 only to take my revenge upon him. Thanks to our 
 two positions we shall be equally armed, and under 
 equal patronage. I shall need several years to hit 
 the wretch, but I shall strike him to the heart in 
 the end." 
 
 "He must owe you an equal grudge," said his 
 aunt, "for he has taken home with him Peyrade's 
 girl ; the same one, you know, who was sold to 
 Madame Nourrisson. 
 
 " The first thing we must do is to give him a ser- 
 vant." 
 
 " That will be a hard job, for he knows what he 
 is about," said Jacqueline. 
 
 " Hatred will help things along. Go to work all 
 of you." 
 
 Jacques Collin hailed a cab and drove without 
 delay to the little room on the Quai Malaquais, where 
 he had lodged and which was separate from Lucien's 
 apartment. The porter was amazed to see him, 
 and was anxious to talk over the events that had 
 just occurred. 
 
 "I know everything," said the pretended Abb6. 
 " I was compromised in spite of the sanctity of my 
 
390 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 character, but I have been set at liberty, thanks to 
 the intervention of the Spanish ambassador." 
 
 He ran up quickly to his room, and took from 
 inside a breviary a letter that Lucien had written to 
 Madame de Serizy at the time she had dismissed 
 him in disgrace, after seeing him v/ith Esther at the 
 opera. 
 
 Lucien had never sent this masterly letter, for in 
 his despair he had thought himself lost forever ; 
 but Jacques Collin had read it, and, as everything 
 Lucien wrote was sacred in his eyes, he had laid it 
 aside in his breviary for the sake of the poetic ex- 
 pressions of a love that was all vanity. When 
 M. de Granville had spoken to Jacques Collin of 
 Madame de Serizy's dangerous condition, it justly 
 occurred to the acute ex -convict that the reason of 
 the great lady's despair and madness must lie in the 
 quarrel she had allowed to subsist between Lucien 
 and herself. He knew women as a judge knows 
 criminals, and could guess the most secret feelings 
 of their hearts, so it struck him at once that the 
 countess must think herself partly responsible for 
 Lucien's death, on account of her cruelty towards 
 him, and that she must consequently reproach her- 
 self most bitterly for it. It was clear that if she 
 had made him happy with her love he would never 
 have killed himself. The knowledge that Lucien 
 had always loved her, in spite of her unkindness, 
 might restore her reason. 
 
 Jacques Collin was a great general of the galleys, 
 and he was no less a great healer of souls, so his 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 39I 
 
 arrival at the Hotel Serizy brought with it both shame 
 and hope. Beside the count and the doctors several 
 persons had been waiting in the little boudoir that 
 opened into the countess' sleeping apartment: to keep 
 his honor from all stain the Count de Bauvan sent 
 everybody away and remained alone with his friend. 
 It was a severe shock for the vice-president of the 
 Council of State and a member of the Privy Coun- 
 cil to be obliged to receive so sombre and sinister a 
 guest. 
 
 Jacques Collin had changed his dress and appeared 
 in coat and trousers of black cloth ; his manner, look 
 and gesture were in accordance with perfect 
 propriety. He bowed to the two statesmen and 
 asked if he could enter the countess' bed- 
 chamber. 
 
 " She is expecting you with impatience," said M. 
 de Bauvan. 
 
 "With impatience? — Then she is saved," said 
 the terrible magician. 
 
 And so it was, for after a conversation of half an 
 hour's duration, Jacques Collin opened the door, 
 saying : 
 
 " Come in, count, you have nothing farther to 
 fear." 
 
 The countess was holding the letter pressed 
 against her heart ; she was calm and apparently 
 reconciled with herself. Upon seeing this the count 
 heaved a deep sigh of relief. 
 
 "And these are the men who decide upon our 
 destinies and those of a whole race!" thought Jacques 
 
392 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Collin, shrugging his shoulders, as the two friends 
 passed into the adjoining room. "A woman's sigh 
 turns their brain inside out like a glove; they lose 
 their heads at a glance from her. If she puts on a 
 petticoat a little longer or a little shorter, they race 
 about Paris in despair. The vagaries of a woman 
 react upon the State. Oh! how much stronger a 
 man is when he has escaped, like me, being subject 
 to their childish tyranny, their virtue that is so easily 
 overset by passion, their open profligacy, and savage 
 wiles! Woman, with her genius for racking and 
 torturing is, and always will be, the ruin of man. 
 Attorney-general, minister, and all the rest of them, 
 are writhing in blind agony to get back the letters 
 of a duchess and a little girl, and to restore reason 
 to a woman who will be madder with all her senses 
 than ever she was when she was crazy." 
 
 He smiled proudly. 
 
 "And they all believe me," said he ; "they act 
 as I order them, and they will leave me in my 
 rightful place, I shall always reign over the same 
 world that has obeyed me for twenty -five years." — 
 
 Jacques Collin had brought to bear upon Madame 
 de Serizy the supreme power that he had before 
 exerted over poor Esther. As we have often seen, 
 his words, looks and gestures had ascendency over 
 mad people, and he succeeded in persuading the 
 countess that Lucien had died with her image in his 
 heart. 
 
 No woman can resist the idea that she alone has 
 been beloved. 
 
THE LAST INCARNATION OF VAUTRIN 39? 
 
 "You have no rival now," was his last word of 
 calculating mockery. 
 
 He stayed in the parlor for an hour, quite forgotten. 
 When M. de Granville returned he found him 
 standing there, serious, and lost in such a revery as is 
 natural to a man who is deciding upon the i8th 
 Brumaire in his life. 
 
 The attorney-general stepped to the threshold of 
 the countess' room, and remained there a few mo- 
 ments; then he returned to Jacques Collin, and 
 asked: 
 
 " Do you persist in your intention?" 
 
 "I do, sir." 
 
 " Then you shall have Bibi Lupin's place, and 
 Calvi's sentence shall be commuted." 
 
 " He will not be sent to Rochefort?" 
 
 " Not even to Toulon, and you can employ him 
 in your service; but his pardon and your nomination 
 must depend upon your conduct during the six 
 months in which you are to be Bibi Lupin's 
 assistant." 
 
394 SPLENDORS AND MISERIES 
 
 Within a week Bibi Lupin's assistant enabled the 
 police to return the four hundred thousand francs 
 that had been stolen from the Crottat family, and 
 delivered Ruffard and Godet into the hands of the 
 law. 
 
 Esther Gobseck's money was discovered in her 
 bed, and M. de Serizy paid Jacques Collin the three 
 hundred thousand francs that were left to him in 
 Lucien de Rubempre's will. 
 
 The monument that Lucien ordered for Esther 
 and himself is considered one of the finest in the 
 cemetery of P^re Lachaise, and the ground about 
 it belongs to Jacques Collin. 
 
 After working in his new position for about fifteen 
 years, Jacques Collin retired in 1845. 
 
 December, 1847. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LIST OF ETCHINGS 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE COUNTESS DE SERIZY AND M. CAMUSOT Fronts. 
 
 SUICIDE OF LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE l6o 
 
 THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, M. GAULT AND COLLIN . 169 
 
 THEODORE CALVI'S CONFESSION 272 
 
 Mme. CAMUSOT AND THE DUCHESS 304 
 
 2 C. H., S. & M., C. 395 
 

 
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