At this juncture Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix was announced. She had Just come from Tours, prompted by her wish to be of service to Birotteau, and the news she brought completely changed the aspect of affairs. At the moment when she came in, everyone but the landowner was advising Birotteau to hold his own against Troubert and Gamard, under the auspices of the aristocratic party, who would support him.
“The Vicar-General,” said Mademoiselle Salomon, “who has all the promotions in his hands, has just been taken ill, and the Archbishop has commissioned Canon Troubert to act in his place. The nomination to the canonry now depends entirely on him. Now yesterday, at Mademoiselle de la Blottière’s, the Abbé Poirel was speaking of the annoyances Monsieur Birotteau occasioned to Mademoiselle Gamard, in such a way as to seem to justify the neglect which will certainly fall on our good Abbé. ‘The Abbé Birotteau is a man who badly needed the Abbé Chapeloud,’ said he, ‘and since that virtuous Canon’s death it has been proved that—’ Then came a series of suppositions and calumnies.—You understand?”
“Troubert will be made Vicar-General,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne solemnly.
“Come now,” cried Madame de Listomère, looking at Birotteau, “which would you prefer—to be made Canon, or to remain with Mademoiselle Gamard?”
“To be made Canon,” was the general outcry.
“Well, then,” Madame de Listomère went on, “the Abbé Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard must be allowed to have their way. Have they not conveyed to you indirectly by Caron’s visit that, provided you consent to leave your rooms, you shall be made Canon? One good turn for another.”
Everyone exclaimed at Madame de Listomère’s acumen and sagacity; but her nephew, the Baron de Listomère, said in a comical tone to Monsieur de Bourbonne:
“I should have liked to see the battle between the Gamard and the Birotteau.”
But, for the Abbé’s worse luck, the forces were not equal, with the worldly-wise on one side, and the old maid upheld by the Abbé Troubert on the other. The time was at hand when the struggle would become more decisive, and assume a greater scope and immense proportions.
By the advice of Madame de Listomère and most of her adherents, who were beginning to take a passionate interest in this intrigue flung into the vacuity of their country life, a footman was despatched for Monsieur Caron. The lawyer returned with amazing promptitude, a fact that alarmed no one but Monsieur de Bourbonne.
“Let us adjourn any decision till we have fuller information,” was the advice of this Fabius in a dressing-gown, whose deep reflections revealed to him some abstruse plan of battle on the Tours chessboard.
He tried to enlighten Birotteau as to the perils of his position. But the “old fox’s” shrewdness did not subserve the frenzy of the moment; he was scarcely listened to.
The meeting between the lawyer and Birotteau was brief. The Abbé came in looking quite scared, and saying, “He requires me to sign a paper declaring my decession.”
“What barbarous word is that?” said the navy lieutenant.
“And what does it mean?” cried Madame de Listomère.
“It simply means that the Abbé is to declare his readiness to leave Mademoiselle Gamard’s house,” replied Monsieur de Bourbonne, taking a pinch of snuff.
“Is that all?—Sign it!” said Madame de Listomère to Birotteau. “If you have really made up your mind to quit her house, there can be no harm done by declaring your will.”—The Will of Birotteau!
“That is true,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne, shutting his snuffbox with a dry snap, of which it is impossible to render the full meaning, for it was a language by itself. “But writing is always dangerous,” he added, placing the snuffbox on the chimney-shelf with a look that terrified the Abbé.
Birotteau was so bewildered by the upheaval of all his ideas, by the swiftness of events which had come on him and found him defenceless, and by the lightness with which his friends treated the most cherished circumstances of his lonely life, that he remained motionless, as if lost in the moon, not thinking of anything, but listening and trying to catch the sense of the hasty words everybody else was so ready with. He took up Monsieur Caron’s document, and read it as though the lawyer’s deed were in fact the object of his attention; but it was merely mechanical, and he signed the paper by which he declared himself ready and willing to give up his residence with Mademoiselle Gamard as well as his board, as provided by the agreement between them. When Birotteau had signed the deed, Caron took it, and asked him where his client was to bestow the goods and chattels belonging to him. Birotteau mentioned Madame de Listomère’s house, and the lady by a nod consented to receive the Abbé for some days, never doubting but that he would ere long be made a Canon. The old landowner wished to see this sort of act of renunciation, and Monsieur Caron handed it to him.
“Why,” said he to the Abbé, after having read it, “is there any written agreement between you and Mademoiselle Gamard? Where is it? What are the conditions?”
“The paper is in my rooms,” said Birotteau.
“Do you know its contents?” the old gentleman asked the lawyer.
“No, monsieur,” said Monsieur Caron, holding out his hand for the ominous document.
“Ah, ha!” said Monsieur de Bourbonne to himself, “you, master lawyer, are no doubt informed of what that agreement contains, but you are not paid to tell us.” And he returned the deed of “decession” to the lawyer.
“Where am I to put all my furniture?” cried Birotteau, “and my books, my beautiful library, my nice pictures, my red drawing-room—all my things, in short!”
And the poor man’s despair at finding himself thus uprooted was so guileless, it so perfectly showed the purity of his life, and his ignorance of the world, that Madame de Listomère and Mademoiselle Salomon said, to comfort him, and
