“It is not certain, madame, that the Court-Royal will reverse the judgment of the court restricting your lien on your husband’s property, for payment of moneys due to you by the terms of your marriage-contract, to household goods and chattels. Your privilege ought not to be used to defraud the other creditors. But in any case, you will be allowed to take your share of the proceeds with the other creditors, and your father-in-law likewise, as a privileged creditor, for arrears of rent. When the court has given the order, other points may be raised as to the ‘contribution,’ as we call it, when a schedule of the debts is drawn up, and the creditors are paid a dividend in proportion to their claims.
“Then M. Petit-Claud is bringing us to bankruptcy,” she cried.
“Petit-Claud is carrying out your husband’s instructions,” said the magistrate; “he is anxious to gain time, so his attorney says. In my opinion, you would perhaps do better to waive the appeal and buy in at the sale the indispensable implements for carrying on the business; you and your father-in-law together might do this, you to the extent of your claim through your marriage contract, and he for his arrears of rent. But that would be bringing the matter to an end too soon perhaps. The lawyers are making a good thing out of your case.”
“But then I should be entirely in M. Séchard’s father’s hands. I should owe him the hire of the machinery as well as the house-rent; and my husband would still be open to further proceedings from M. Métivier, for M. Métivier would have had almost nothing.”
“That is true, madame.”
“Very well, then we should be even worse off than we are.”
“The arm of the law, madame, is at the creditor’s disposal. You have received three thousand francs, and you must of necessity repay the money.”
“Oh, sir, can you think that we are capable—” Eve suddenly came to a stop. She saw that her justification might injure her brother.
“Oh! I know quite well that it is an obscure affair, that the debtors on the one side are honest, scrupulous, and even behaving handsomely; and the creditor, on the other, is only a cat’s-paw—”
Eve, aghast, looked at him with bewildered eyes.
“You can understand,” he continued, with a look full of homely shrewdness, “that we on the bench have plenty of time to think over all that goes on under our eyes, while the gentlemen in court are arguing with each other.”
Eve went home in despair over her useless effort. That evening at seven o’clock, Doublon came with the notification of imprisonment for debt. The proceedings had reached the acute stage.
“After this, I can only go out after nightfall,” said David.
Eve and Mme. Chardon burst into tears. To be in hiding was for them a shameful thing. As for Kolb and Marion, they were more alarmed for David because they had long since made up their minds that there was no guile in their master’s nature; so frightened were they on his account, that they came upstairs under pretence of asking whether they could do anything, and found Eve and Mme. Chardon in tears; the three whose life had been so straightforward hitherto were overcome by the thought that David must go into hiding. And how, moreover, could they hope to escape the invisible spies who henceforth would dog every least movement of a man, unluckily so absentminded?
“Gif montame vill vait ein liddle kvarter hour, she can regonnoitre der enemy’s camp,” put in Kolb. “You shall see dot I oonderstand mein pizness; for gif I look like ein German, I am ein drue Vrenchman, and vat is more, I am ver’ conning.”
“Oh! madame, do let him go,” begged Marion. “He is only thinking of saving his master; he hasn’t another thought in his head. Kolb is not an Alsacien, he is—eh! well—a regular Newfoundland dog for rescuing folk.”
“Go, my good Kolb,” said David; “we have still time to do something.”
Kolb hurried off to pay a visit to the bailiff; and it so fell out that David’s enemies were in Doublon’s office, holding a council as to the best way of securing him.
The arrest of a debtor is an unheard-of thing in the country, an abnormal proceeding if ever there was one. Everybody, in the first place, knows everybody else, and creditor and debtor being bound to meet each other daily all their lives long, nobody likes to take this odious course. When a defaulter—to use the provincial term for a debtor, for they do not mince their words in the provinces when speaking of this legalized method of helping yourself to another man’s goods—when a defaulter plans a failure on a large scale, he takes sanctuary in Paris. Paris
