“My dear Count, we will work in partnership if you like.”
De Marsay caught the glance that du Tillet had shot at Nucingen, and which said, “Those millions are ours!”
In fact, these two great financiers were at the very centre of political affairs, enabling them to gamble on the Bourse at a given date and with absolute certainty, against Philippe, when the chances would seem to him to be in his favor, while in reality they were in theirs.
The chance came. In July 1830 du Tillet and Nucingen had enabled the Comte de Brambourg to make fifteen hundred thousand francs; he no longer distrusted them, and thought their advice sound. Philippe, who had risen by the Restoration, and who was misled by intense contempt for civilians, believed in the success of the new decrees, and would play for a rise; while Nucingen and du Tillet, who expected a Revolution, played against him for a fall. But the two shrewd partners affected to agree with Colonel the Comte de Brambourg, and seemed to share his convictions; they held out hopes of his doubling his millions, and arranged to win them from him. Philippe fought like a man to whom victory means four million francs. His zeal was so conspicuous that he was ordered to return to Saint-Cloud with the Duc de Maufrigneuse to sit in council. This mark of favor saved Philippe; for he wanted, on July 25th, to sweep the Boulevards with a charge of cavalry, and he would no doubt have fallen to a bullet from his friend Giroudeau, who commanded a body of the adversary.
Within a month nothing of his immense fortune remained to Colonel Bridau but his mansion, his estate, his pictures, and furniture. He was fool enough too, as he said, to believe in the reestablishment of the elder branch, to which he remained faithful till 1834. Then, on seeing Giroudeau a Colonel, Philippe, prompted by very intelligible jealousy, rejoined the service. In 1835 he, unfortunately, was appointed to the command of a regiment in Algiers, where for three years he was left in a post of danger, hoping to win his general’s epaulettes; but a malignant influence—that of General Giroudeau—left him where he was. Philippe, by this time grown hard, carried military severity to an extreme, and was detested in spite of his Murat-like bravery.
At the beginning of the fatal year 1839, while turning to harry the Arabs in the course of a retreat before superior numbers, he rushed on the foe, supported by one company only. They fell upon a body of Arabs; the struggle was bloody, frightful, hand to hand, and very few of the French horse escaped. Seeing that their Colonel was surrounded, those who were at some little distance did not deem it wise to perish in a vain attempt to rescue him. They heard his shout, “Help! Your Colonel!—A Colonel of the Empire!” followed by fearful cries, but they got back to their regiment. Philippe died a horrible death, for they cut off his head, when he fell hacked almost to pieces by yataghans.
Joseph, who was married about this time by the good offices of the Comte de Sérizy to the daughter of an old millionaire farmer, inherited the house and the estate of Brambourg, which his brother had been unable to sell, though he would gladly have deprived him of his inheritance. What gave the painter most pleasure was the fine collection of pictures. Joseph, whose father-in-law adds daily to his hoards, has already an income of sixty thousand francs. Though he paints splendid pictures, and is always doing services to his fellow-artists, he is not yet a member of the Institute. In consequence of a clause in the parchment of entail, he is now Comte de Brambourg, which often makes him burst out laughing among his friends in his studio.
“Fine birds make fine feathers,” his friend Léon de Lora will then remark; for even now that he is famous as a landscape painter, he has not given up his old trick of perverting proverbs, and he told Joseph apropos of the modesty with which he accepted the favors of fortune, “Never mind. A feast is as good as enough.”
Colophon
The Celibates
was published between 1832 and 1842 by
Honoré de Balzac.
It was translated from French in 1901 by
Clara Bell.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Vince Rice,
and is based on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Portrait of Ernesta Grisi,
a painting completed in the 18th century by
Anonymous.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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