Part 18 (1/2)
”Well, my dear Monsieur Rivet,” she began, when she had bolted the door of the room. ”You were quite right. Those Poles! They are low villains--all alike, men who know neither law nor fidelity.”
”And who want to set Europe on fire,” said the peaceable Rivet, ”to ruin every trade and every trader for the sake of a country that is all bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of the Cossacks and the peasants--a sort of wild beasts cla.s.sed by mistake with human beings. Your Poles do not understand the times we live in; we are no longer barbarians. War is coming to an end, my dear mademoiselle; it went out with the Monarchy. This is the age of triumph for commerce, and industry, and middle-cla.s.s prudence, such as were the making of Holland.
”Yes,” he went on with animation, ”we live in a period when nations must obtain all they need by the legal extension of their liberties and by the pacific action of Const.i.tutional Inst.i.tutions; that is what the Poles do not see, and I hope----
”You were saying, my dear?--” he added, interrupting himself when he saw from his work-woman's face that high politics were beyond her comprehension.
”Here is the schedule,” said Lisbeth. ”If I don't want to lose my three thousand two hundred and ten francs, I must clap this rogue into prison.”
”Didn't I tell you so?” cried the oracle of the Saint-Denis quarter.
The Rivets, successor to Pons Brothers, had kept their shop still in the Rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, in the ancient Hotel Langeais, built by that ill.u.s.trious family at the time when the n.o.bility still gathered round the Louvre.
”Yes, and I blessed you on my way here,” replied Lisbeth.
”If he suspects nothing, he can be safe in prison by eight o'clock in the morning,” said Rivet, consulting the almanac to ascertain the hour of sunrise; ”but not till the day after to-morrow, for he cannot be imprisoned till he has had notice that he is to be arrested by writ, with the option of payment or imprisonment. And so----”
”What an idiotic law!” exclaimed Lisbeth. ”Of course the debtor escapes.”
”He has every right to do so,” said the a.s.sessor, smiling. ”So this is the way----”
”As to that,” said Lisbeth, interrupting him, ”I will take the paper and hand it to him, saying that I have been obliged to raise the money, and that the lender insists on this formality. I know my gentleman. He will not even look at the paper; he will light his pipe with it.”
”Not a bad idea, not bad, Mademoiselle Fischer! Well, make your mind easy; the job shall be done.--But stop a minute; to put your man in prison is not the only point to be considered; you only want to indulge in that legal luxury in order to get your money. Who is to pay you?”
”Those who give him money.”
”To be sure; I forgot that the Minister of War had commissioned him to erect a monument to one of our late customers. Ah! the house has supplied many an uniform to General Montcornet; he soon blackened them with the smoke of cannon. A brave man, he was! and he paid on the nail.”
A marshal of France may have saved the Emperor or his country; ”He paid on the nail” will always be the highest praise he can have from a tradesman.
”Very well. And on Sat.u.r.day, Monsieur Rivet, you shall have the flat ta.s.sels.--By the way, I am moving from the Rue du Doyenne; I am going to live in the Rue Vanneau.”
”You are very right. I could not bear to see you in that hole which, in spite of my aversion to the Opposition, I must say is a disgrace; I repeat it, yes! is a disgrace to the Louvre and the Place du Carrousel.
I am devoted to Louis-Philippe, he is my idol; he is the august and exact representative of the cla.s.s on whom he founded his dynasty, and I can never forget what he did for the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g-makers by restoring the National Guard----”
”When I hear you speak so, Monsieur Rivet, I cannot help wondering why you are not made a deputy.”
”They are afraid of my attachment to the dynasty,” replied Rivet. ”My political enemies are the King's. He has a n.o.ble character! They are a fine family; in short,” said he, returning to the charge, ”he is our ideal: morality, economy, everything. But the completion of the Louvre is one of the conditions on which we gave him the crown, and the civil list, which, I admit, had no limits set to it, leaves the heart of Paris in a most melancholy state.--It is because I am so strongly in favor of the middle course that I should like to see the middle of Paris in a better condition. Your part of the town is positively terrifying.
You would have been murdered there one fine day.--And so your Monsieur Crevel has been made Major of his division! He will come to us, I hope, for his big epaulette.”
”I am dining with him to-night, and will send him to you.”
Lisbeth believed that she had secured her Livonian to herself by cutting him off from all communication with the outer world. If he could no longer work, the artist would be forgotten as completely as a man buried in a cellar, where she alone would go to see him. Thus she had two happy days, for she hoped to deal a mortal blow at the Baroness and her daughter.
To go to Crevel's house, in the Rue des Saussayes, she crossed the Pont du Carrousel, went along the Quai Voltaire, the Quai d'Orsay, the Rue Bellecha.s.se, Rue de l'Universite, the Pont de la Concorde, and the Avenue de Marigny. This illogical route was traced by the logic of pa.s.sion, always the foe of the legs.
Cousin Betty, as long as she followed the line of the quays, kept watch on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the Seine, walking very slowly. She had guessed rightly. She had left Wenceslas dressing; she at once understood that, as soon as he should be rid of her, the lover would go off to the Baroness' by the shortest road. And, in fact, as she wandered along by the parapet of the Quai Voltaire, in fancy suppressing the river and walking along the opposite bank, she recognized the artist as he came out of the Tuileries to cross the Pont Royal. She there came up with the faithless one, and could follow him unseen, for lovers rarely look behind them. She escorted him as far as Madame Hulot's house, where he went in like an accustomed visitor.