One thing is noteworthy in the case of which we write; it was brought about by the urgency of a Colonel of the Imperial Army, quartered in our town by a sentence of the Supreme Court, who, by this marriage, may forfeit his uncle’s fortune. Such disinterestedness is rare enough in our day to deserve to be made public.
Under the contract Rouget settled on Flore a sum of a hundred thousand francs, and an annuity in case of widowhood of thirty thousand francs. After the wedding, which was splendid, Agathe went back to Paris, the happiest of mothers, and there gave to Joseph and Desroches what she called the good news.
“Your son is much too deep not to lay hands on her inheritance,” replied the attorney, when he had heard Madame Bridau out. “And you and your poor Joseph will never have a farthing of your brother’s fortune.”
“You will always be the same—you and Joseph—always unjust to that poor boy,” said his mother. “His conduct before the Court was that of a great politician. He succeeded in saving a great many heads!—Philippe’s errors are the outcome of want of occupation; his great powers lie idle; but he has learned how injurious faults of conduct must be to a man who wants to rise in the world, and he has ambition, I am sure; nor am I the only person who believes in his future. Monsieur Hochon is firmly convinced that Philippe has a high destiny.”
“Oh yes,” said Desroches, “if he chooses to apply his utterly perverse intelligence to making a fortune he will succeed, for he is capable of anything, and men of that stamp get on fast.”
“And why should he not succeed by honest menus?” said Madame Bridau.
“You will see,” answered Desroches. “Lucky or unlucky, Philippe will always be the man of the Rue Mazarine, the murderer of Madame Descoings, the household thief. But be easy; he will seem perfectly honest in the eyes of the world.”
On the day after the marriage Philippe took Madame Rouget by the arm, when his uncle had gone upstairs to dress, for the couple had come down to breakfast, Flore in a wrapper, and the old man in his dressing-gown.
“Aunt-in-law,” said he, leading her into a window recess, “you are now a member of the family. Thanks to me, the lawyers have taken care of you. Now come! no nonsense. I mean to play the game with the cards on the table. I know all the tricks you could play me, and I shall keep a sharper eye on you than any duenna. As to what goes on in the house, I shall sit there, by Heaven! like a spider in the middle of its web.—Now, this will show you that while you were in bed, unable to move hand or foot, I could have had you turned out of doors without a sou. Read this.”
And he held out to Flore the following letter:—
My dear Boy—Florentine, who has at last come out at the Opera, in the new house, in a pas de trois with Mariette and Tullia, has never forgotten you, any more than Florine, who has finally thrown over Lousteau and taken up with Nathan. These two sly-boots have found you the sweetest creature in the world, a child of seventeen, as pretty as an English girl, as prim as a lady at her tricks, as cunning as Desroches, as trustworthy as Godeschal; and Mariette has rigged her out, and wishes you good luck. There is no woman living who could hold her own against this angel, concealing a demon; she will be able to play any part, to get round your uncle, and make him crazy with love. She has the heavenly expression that poor Coralie had; she can cry, she has a voice that would extract a thousand-franc note from a heart of the hardest granite, and the hussy swigs down champagne with the best of us. She is a jewel of a girl; she is under obligations to Mariette, and is anxious to make some return. After gulping down the fortunes of two Englishmen, one Russian, and a Roman prince, Mademoiselle Esther is just now in very low water. If you give her ten thousand francs, she will be content. She said just now, “Well, I have never had a citizen to wheedle; it will be practice for me!” Finot knows her well, Bixiou, des Lupeaulx, all our set, in fact. If there were any fortunes left in France, she would be the most famous courtesan of modern times.
My style smacks of Nathan, Bixiou, and Finot, who are playing the fool with the above-named Esther, in the most splendid rooms you can imagine, which have just been arranged à la Florine by old Lord Dudley, Marsay’s real father, whom the clever little actress has quite bowled over, thanks to the costume of her new part. Tullia is still with the Duc de Rhétoré, Mariette with the Duc de Maufrigneuse, so they between them can get you a ticket-of-leave on the King’s fête day. Try to have your uncle safe under the daisies by next Saint-Louis’ Day, come back with the fortune, and spend some of it with Esther and your old friends, who sign in a body to remind you of their existence.
This letter quivered in Madame Rouget’s hands in a way that betrayed her agitation of mind and body. The aunt dared not look at the nephew, who fixed on her a pair of eyes full of terrible expression.
“I have full confidence in you,” said he. “You see that I have; but I must have something in return. I made you my aunt in order to marry you some day. You are worth quite as much as Esther to my uncle. A year hence we must go to Paris, the only place where beauty can live. Yon
