In 1809 Madame Descoings, who never told her age, was sixty-five years old. Spoken of in her day as La Belle Épicière, she was one of those rare women whom time spares, and owed to an excellent constitution the privilege of preserving her beauty, though, of course, it could no longer bear serious examination. Of middle height, plump and fresh-colored, she had fine shoulders, and a warmly fair skin. Her light hair, tending to chestnut, showed no change of hue in spite of Descoings’ disastrous end. She was extremely dainty, and liked cooking rich little dishes for her own eating; but though she seemed devoted to the kitchen, she was also very fond of the theatre, and, moreover, she indulged a vice which she wrapped in the deepest mystery—she put into the lottery. Is not the lottery, perhaps, the gulf which mythology has figured under the bottomless vat of the Danaids?
This woman—we may speak so of one who gambles in the lottery—spent rather too much in dress, no doubt, like all women who are so lucky as to remain youthful in advancing years; but with the exception of these little failings, she was the easiest creature to live with. Ready to agree with everybody, never contradictory, she was attractive by her gentle and contagious cheerfulness. She had especially one Parisian characteristic which bewitches retired clerks and traders—she understood a joke. If she did not marry a third husband, that, no doubt, was the fault of the times. During the wars of the Empire, marrying men found handsome and wealthy girls too readily to trouble their heads about a woman of sixty.
Madame Descoings tried to cheer Madame Bridau; she made her go often to the play, or out driving; she provided her with capital little dinners; she even tried to marry her to her son Bixiou. Alas! she was forced to confess to her the terrible secret that had been so jealously kept, by herself, by the departed Descoings, and by her lawyer. The youthful, dressy Madame Descoings, who owned to no more than thirty-six, had a son of thirty-five named Bixiou, a widower, and Major of the 21st foot, who was afterwards killed at Dresden, as a colonel, leaving an only child, a boy. His mother, who never saw her grandson but in secret, spoke of the colonel as a son of her husband’s by his first wife. Her confession was an act of expediency; the colonel’s boy, who was at school at the Lycée Impérial with the two Bridaus, held a half-scholarship. This youth, very sharp and knowing even in his schooldays, made a great reputation later as an artist and a wit.
Agathe cared for nothing on earth but her children, and would live only for them; she refused to marry again, alike from good sense and from faithful attachment. But a woman finds it easier to be a good wife than to be a good mother. A widow has two duties of a contradictory nature—she is a mother, and she ought to exert a father’s power. Few women are strong enough to understand and play this double part. And so poor Agathe, with all her virtues, was the innocent cause of many misfortunes. As a result of her lack of insight, and the trustfulness habitual to lofty natures, Agathe was the victim of Madame Descoings, who dragged her into overwhelming disaster. This woman had a fancy for sets of three numbers, and the lottery grants no credit to ticket holders. As housekeeper, she could spend the money allotted to the marketing in such ventures, and gradually increased the debt in the hope of enriching her grandson, her dear Agathe, and the young Bridaus. When it amounted to ten thousand francs she staked higher sums, always hoping that the favorite combination, which had not yet come out in ten years, would cover the loss. Then the debt swelled rapidly. It reached the sum of twenty thousand francs; Madame Descoings lost her head, and her numbers did not come out.
Then she wished to pledge her fortune in order to repay her niece, but her lawyer Roguin showed her that this honest scheme was impossible. The elder Rouget, at the death of his brother-in-law Descoings, had taken over his liabilities and assets, indemnifying the widow by a life-annuity, charged on Jean-Jacques Rouget’s estate. No usurer would consent to lend twenty thousand francs to a woman of sixty-five on a life interest worth about four thousand, at a time when ten percent could be got anywhere. One morning Madame Descoings threw herself at her niece’s feet, and with many sobs confessed the state of affairs; Madame Bridau did not reproach her. She sent away the manservant and the cook; sold all but the most indispensable furniture; sold out three-quarters of her State securities, paid everything, and gave up her apartment.
One of the most hideous corners of Paris is, beyond doubt, the Rue Mazarine, between the crossing of the Rue Guénégaud, to where it opens into the Rue de la Seine behind the Palais de l’Institut. The tall, gray walls of the College and Library presented to the city of Paris by Cardinal Mazarin cast chill shadows over this strip of street; the sun rarely shines on it, the northerly blast sweeps through it. The poor ruined widow went to lodge on the third floor of a house in this damp, dark, cold spot.
Facing the house were the buildings of the Institute, where, at that time, were the dens of the wild beasts known to the townsfolk as artists, and to artists as rapins—daubers, art students. A man might go in a rapin, and might come out with the prize scholarship at Rome. This transformation was not effected without much amazing uproar at the time of year when the competitors were shut up in these cages. To take the prize, the aspiring sculptor had to execute, within a given time, a clay model of a
