Apartments to let.
The position of these ladies is commensurate with that of their lodgings in these innominate regions. If the house is near the line marked by the Rue de Provence, the woman has money in the Funds, her income is assured; but if she lives out near the exterior boulevards, or on the height towards the horrible suburb of Batignolles, she is certainly poor.
Now when Monsieur de Rochefide first met Madame Schontz, she was lodging on the third floor of the only house then standing in the Rue de Berlin. The name of this unmarried wife, as you will have understood, was neither Aurélie nor Schontz. She concealed her father’s name—that of an old soldier of the Empire, the perennial colonel who always adorns the origin of these existences, as the father or the seducer. Madame Schontz had enjoyed the benefits of a gratuitous education at Saint-Denis, where the young persons are admirably taught, but where the young persons are not provided on leaving with husbands or a living—an admirable foundation of the Emperor’s, the only thing lacking being the Emperor himself! “I shall be there to provide for the daughters of my legionaries,” said he, in answer to one of his Ministers who looked forward to the future. And in the same way Napoleon said, “I shall be there,” to the members of the Institute, to whom it would be better to give no honorarium at all than to pay them eighty-three francs a month, less than the wages of many an office clerk.
Aurélie was very certainly the daughter of the valiant Colonel Schiltz, a leader of those daring Alsatian partisans who so nearly succeeded in saving the Emperor in the French campaign; he died at Metz, robbed, neglected, and ruined. In 1814 Napoleon sent little Joséphine Schiltz, then nine years old, to school at Saint-Denis. Without father or mother, home or money, the poor child was not driven out of the Institution on the second return of the Bourbons. She remained there as under-teacher till 1827; but then her patience failed, and her beauty led her astray. When she was of age, Joséphine Schiltz, the Empress’ goddaughter, embarked on the adventurous life of the courtesan, tempted to this doubtful career by the fatal example of some of her schoolfellows as destitute as she was, and who rejoiced in their decision. She substituted on for il in her father’s name, and placed herself under the protection of Saint-Aurelia.
Clever, witty, and well informed, she made more mistakes than her more stupid companions, whose wrongdoing was always based on self-interest. After various connections with writers, some poor but unmannerly, some clever but in debt; after trying her fortune with some rich men as closefisted as they were silly; after sacrificing ease to a true passion, and learning in every school where experience may be gained, one day, when, in the depths of poverty, she was dancing at Valentino’s—the first stage to Musard’s—dressed in a borrowed gown, hat, and cape, she attracted Rochefide’s attention; he had come to see the famous galop! Her cleverness bewitched the gentleman, who had exhausted every sensation; and when, two years after, being deserted by Béatrix, whose wit had often disconcerted him, he allied himself with a secondhand Béatrix “of the Thirteenth Arrondissement,” no one thought of blaming him.
We may here give a sketch of the four seasons of such a happy home. It is desirable to show how the theory of “a marriage in the Thirteenth Arrondissement” includes all the whole connection. Whether a marquis of forty or a retired shopkeeper of sixty, a millionaire six times over or a man of narrow private means, a fine gentleman or a middle-class citizen, the tactics of passion, barring the differences inseparable from dissimilar social spheres, never vary. Heart and banking account maintain an exact and definite relation. And you will be able to form an idea of the obstacles the Duchess must meet with to her charitable scheme.
Few persons understand the power of words over ordinary folks in France, or the mischief done by the wits who invent them. For instance, no bookkeeper could add up the figures of the sums of money which have lain unproductive and rusty at the bottom of generous hearts and full coffers in consequence of the mean phrase, Tirer une carotte—to fleece or bleed a victim. The words have become so common that they must be allowed to deface this page. Besides, if we venture into the “Thirteenth Arrondissement,” we must needs adopt its picturesque language.
Monsieur de Rochefide, like all small minds, was constantly in fear of being bled. From the beginning of his attachment to Madame Schontz, Arthur was on his guard, and was at that time a dreadful screw, très rat, to use another slang word of the studio and the brothel. This word “rat” (which in French has many slang uses) when applied to a young girl means the person entertained, but applied to a man means the stingy entertainer. Madame Schontz had too much intelligence, and knew men too thoroughly, not to found high hopes on such a beginning. Monsieur de Rochefide allowed Madame Schontz five hundred francs a month, furnished, meagerly enough, a set of rooms at twelve hundred francs a year on the second floor of a house in the Rue Coquenard, and set himself to study Aurélie’s character; and she, finding herself spied upon, gave him character to study.
Rochefide was delighted to have come across a woman of such a noble nature, but it did not astonish him; her mother was a Barnheim of Baden, quite a lady! And then Aurélie had been
