Works of Honore De Balzac, page 282
“Monsieur,” said Paul to Solonet, “I thank you for the pains you take to conciliate our interests. This arrangement will solve all difficulties far more happily than I expected — if,” he added, turning to Madame Evangelista, “it is agreeable to you, madame; for I could not desire anything that did not equally please you.”
“I?” she said; “all that makes the happiness of my children is joy to me. Do not consider me in any way.”
“That would not be right,” said Paul, eagerly. “If your future is not honorably provided for, Natalie and I would suffer more than you would suffer for yourself.”
“Don’t be uneasy, Monsieur le comte,” interposed Solonet.
“Ah!” thought old Mathias, “they’ll make him kiss the rod before they scourge him.”
“You may feel quite satisfied,” continued Solonet. “There are so many enterprises going on in Bordeaux at this moment that investments for annuities can be negotiated on very advantageous terms. After deducting from the proceeds of the house and furniture the hundred and fifty thousand francs we owe you, I think I can guarantee to madame that two hundred and fifty thousand will remain to her. I take upon myself to invest that sum in a first mortgage on property worth a million, and to obtain ten per cent for it, — twenty-five thousand francs a year. Consequently, we are marrying on nearly equal fortunes. In fact, against your forty-six thousand francs a year, Mademoiselle Natalie brings you forty thousand a year in the Five-per-cents, and one hundred and fifty thousand in a round sum, which gives, in all, forty-seven thousand francs a year.”
“That is evident,” said Paul.
As he ended his speech, Solonet had cast a sidelong glance at his client, intercepted by Mathias, which meant: “Bring up your reserves.”
“But,” exclaimed Madame Evangelista, in tones of joy that did not seem to be feigned, “I can give Natalie my diamonds; they are worth, at least, a hundred thousand francs.”
“We can have them appraised,” said the notary. “This will change the whole face of things. Madame can then keep the proceeds of her house, all but fifty thousand francs. Nothing will prevent Monsieur le comte from giving us a receipt in due form, as having received, in full, Mademoiselle Natalie’s inheritance from her father; this will close, of course, the guardianship account. If madame, with Spanish generosity, robs herself in this way to fulfil her obligations, the least that her children can do is to give her a full receipt.”
“Nothing could be more just than that,” said Paul. “I am simply overwhelmed by these generous proposals.”
“My daughter is another myself,” said Madame Evangelista, softly.
Maitre Mathias detected a look of joy on her face when she saw that the difficulties were being removed: that joy, and the previous forgetfulness of the diamonds, which were now brought forward like fresh troops, confirmed his suspicions.
“The scene has been prepared between them as gamblers prepare the cards to ruin a pigeon,” thought the old notary. “Is this poor boy, whom I saw born, doomed to be plucked alive by that woman, roasted by his very love, and devoured by his wife? I, who have nursed these fine estates for years with such care, am I to see them ruined in a single night? Three million and a half to be hypothecated for eleven hundred thousand francs these women will force him to squander!”
Discovering thus in the soul of the elder woman intentions which, without involving crime, theft, swindling, or any actually evil or blameworthy action, nevertheless belonged to all those criminalities in embryo, Maitre Mathias felt neither sorrow nor generous indignation. He was not the Misanthrope; he was an old notary, accustomed in his business to the shrewd calculations of worldly people, to those clever bits of treachery which do more fatal injury than open murder on the high-road committed by some poor devil, who is guillotined in consequence. To the upper classes of society these passages in life, these diplomatic meetings and discussions are like the necessary cesspools where the filth of life is thrown. Full of pity for his client, Mathias cast a foreseeing eye into the future and saw nothing good.
“We’ll take the field with the same weapons,” thought he, “and beat them.”
At this moment, Paul, Solonet and Madame Evangelista, becoming embarrassed by the old man’s silence, felt that the approval of that censor was necessary to carry out the transaction, and all three turned to him simultaneously.
“Well, my dear Monsieur Mathias, what do you think of it?” said Paul.
“This is what I think,” said the conscientious and uncompromising notary. “You are not rich enough to commit such regal folly. The estate of Lanstrac, if estimated at three per cent on its rentals, represents, with its furniture, one million; the farms of Grassol and Guadet and your vineyard of Belle-Rose are worth another million; your two houses in Bordeaux and Paris, with their furniture, a third million. Against those three millions, yielding forty-seven thousand francs a year, Mademoiselle Natalie brings eight hundred thousand francs in the Five-per-cents, the diamonds (supposing them to be worth a hundred thousand francs, which is still problematical) and fifty thousand francs in money; in all, one million and fifty thousand francs. In presence of such facts my brother notary tells you boastfully that we are marrying equal fortunes! He expects us to encumber ourselves with a debt of eleven hundred and fifty-six thousand francs to our children by acknowledging the receipt of our wife’s patrimony, when we have actually received but little more than a doubtful million. You are listening to such stuff with the rapture of a lover, and you think that old Mathias, who is not in love, can forget arithmetic, and will not point out the difference between landed estate, the actual value of which is enormous and constantly increasing, and the revenues of personal property, the capital of which is subject to fluctuations and diminishment of income. I am old enough to have learned that money dwindles and land augments. You have called me in, Monsieur le comte, to stipulate for your interests; either let me defend those interests, or dismiss me.”
“If monsieur is seeking a fortune equal in capital to his own,” said Solonet, “we certainly cannot give it to him. We do not possess three millions and a half; nothing can be more evident. While you can boast of your three overwhelming millions, we can only produce our poor one million, — a mere nothing in your eyes, though three times the dowry of an archduchess of Austria. Bonaparte received only two hundred and fifty thousand francs with Maria-Louisa.”
“Maria-Louisa was the ruin of Bonaparte,” muttered Mathias.
Natalie’s mother caught the words.
“If my sacrifices are worth nothing,” she cried, “I do not choose to continue such a discussion; I trust to the discretion of Monsieur le comte, and I renounce the honor of his hand for my daughter.”
According to the strategy marked out by the younger notary, this battle of contending interests had now reached the point where victory was certain for Madame Evangelista. The mother-in-law had opened her heart, delivered up her property, and was therefore practically released as her daughter’s guardian. The future husband, under pain of ignoring the laws of generous propriety and being false to love, ought now to accept these conditions previously planned, and cleverly led up to by Solonet and Madame Evangelista. Like the hands of a clock turned by mechanism, Paul came faithfully up to time.
“Madame!” he exclaimed, “is it possible you can think of breaking off the marriage?”
“Monsieur,” she replied, “to whom am I accountable? To my daughter. When she is twenty-one years of age she will receive my guardianship account and release me. She will then possess a million, and can, if she likes, choose her husband among the sons of the peers of France. She is a daughter of the Casa-Reale.”
“Madame is right,” remarked Solonet. “Why should she be more hardly pushed to-day than she will be fourteen months hence? You ought not to deprive her of the benefits of her maternity.”
“Mathias,” cried Paul, in deep distress, “there are two sorts of ruin, and you are bringing one upon me at this moment.”
He made a step towards the old notary, no doubt intending to tell him that the contract must be drawn at once. But Mathias stopped that disaster with a glance which said, distinctly, “Wait!” He saw the tears in Paul’s eyes, — tears drawn from an honorable man by the shame of this discussion as much as by the peremptory speech of Madame Evangelista, threatening rupture, — and the old man stanched them with a gesture like that of Archimedes when he cried, “Eureka!” The words “peer of France” had been to him like a torch in a dark crypt.
Natalie appeared at this moment, dazzling as the dawn, saying, with infantine look and manner, “Am I in the way?”
“Singularly so, my child,” answered her mother, in a bitter tone.
“Come in, dear Natalie,” said Paul, taking her hand and leading her to a chair near the fireplace. “All is settled.”
He felt it impossible to endure the overthrow of their mutual hopes.
“Yes, all can be settled,” said Mathias, hastily interposing.
Like a general who, in a moment, upsets the plans skilfully laid and prepared by the enemy, the old notary, enlightened by that genius which presides over notaries, saw an idea, capable of saving the future of Paul and his children, unfolding itself in legal form before his eyes.
Maitre Solonet, who perceived no other way out of these irreconcilable difficulties than the resolution with which Paul’s love inspired him, and to which this conflict of feelings and thwarted interests had brought him, was extremely surprised at the sudden exclamation of his brother notary. Curious to know the remedy that Mathias had found in a state of things which had seemed to him beyond all other relief, he said, addressing the old man: —
“What is it you propose?”
“Natalie, my dear child, leave us,” said Madame Evangelista.
“Mademoiselle is not in the way,” replied Mathias, smiling. “I am going to speak in her interests as well as in those of Monsieur le comte.”
Silence reigned for a moment, during which time everybody present, oppressed with anxiety, awaited the allocution of the venerable notary with unspeakable curiosity.
“In these days,” continued Maitre Mathias, after a pause, “the profession of notary has changed from what it was. Political revolutions now exert an influence over the prospects of families, which never happened in former times. In those days existences were clearly defined; so were rank and position — ”
“We are not here for a lecture on political ceremony, but to draw up a marriage contract,” said Solonet, interrupting the old man, impatiently.
“I beg you to allow me to speak in my turn as I see fit,” replied the other.
Solonet turned away and sat down on the ottoman, saying, in a low voice, to Madame Evangelista: —
“You will now hear what we call in the profession ‘balderdash.’”
“Notaries are therefore compelled to follow the course of political events, which are now intimately connected with private interests. Here is an example: formerly noble families owned fortunes that were never shaken, but which the laws, promulgated by the Revolution, destroyed, and the present system tends to reconstruct,” resumed the old notary, yielding to the loquacity of the “tabellionaris boa-constrictor” (boa-notary). “Monsieur le comte by his name, his talents, and his fortune is called upon to sit some day in the elective Chamber. Perhaps his destiny will take him to the hereditary Chamber, for we know that he has talent and means enough to fulfil that expectation. Do you not agree with me, madame?” he added, turning to the widow.
“You anticipate my dearest hope,” she replied. “Monsieur de Manerville must be a peer of France, or I shall die of mortification.”
“Therefore all that leads to that end — ” continued Mathias with a cordial gesture to the astute mother-in-law.
“ — will promote my eager desire,” she replied.
“Well, then,” said Mathias, “is not this marriage the proper occasion on which to entail the estate and create the family? Such a course would, undoubtedly, militate in the mind of the present government in favor of the nomination of my client whenever a batch of appointments is sent in. Monsieur le comte can very well afford to devote the estate of Lanstrac (which is worth a million) to this purpose. I do not ask that mademoiselle should contribute an equal sum; that would not be just. But we can surely apply eight hundred thousand of her patrimony to this object. There are two domains adjoining Lanstrac now to be sold, which can be purchased for that sum, which will return in rentals four and a half per cent. The house in Paris should be included in the entail. The surplus of the two fortunes, if judiciously managed, will amply suffice for the fortunes of the younger children. If the contracting parties will agree to this arrangement, Monsieur ought certainly to accept your guardianship account with its deficiency. I consent to that.”
“Questa coda non e di questo gatto (That tail doesn’t belong to that cat),” murmured Madame Evangelista, appealing to Solonet.
“There’s a snake in the grass somewhere,” answered Solonet, in a low voice, replying to the Italian proverb with a French one.
“Why do you make this fuss?” asked Paul, leading Mathias into the adjoining salon.
“To save you from being ruined,” replied the old notary, in a whisper. “You are determined to marry a girl and her mother who have already squandered two millions in seven years; you are pledging yourself to a debt of eleven hundred thousand francs to your children, to whom you will have to account for the fortune you are acknowledging to have received with their mother. You risk having your own fortune squandered in five years, and to be left as naked as Saint-John himself, besides being a debtor to your wife and children for enormous sums. If you are determined to put your life in that boat, Monsieur le comte, of course you can do as you choose; but at least let me, your old friend, try to save the house of Manerville.”
“How is this scheme going to save it?” asked Paul.
“Monsieur le comte, you are in love — ”
“Yes.”
“A lover is about as discreet as a cannon-ball; therefore, I shall not explain. If you repeated what I should say, your marriage would probably be broken off. I protect your love by my silence. Have you confidence in my devotion?”
“A fine question!”
“Well, then, believe me when I tell you that Madame Evangelista, her notary, and her daughter, are tricking us through thick and thin; they are more than clever. Tudieu! what a sly game!”
“Not Natalie,” cried Paul.
“I sha’n’t put my fingers between the bark and the tree,” said the old man. “You want her, take her! But I wish you were well out of this marriage, if it could be done without the least wrong-doing on your part.”
“Why do you wish it?”
“Because that girl will spend the mines of Peru. Besides, see how she rides a horse, — like the groom of a circus; she is half emancipated already. Such girls make bad wives.”
Paul pressed the old man’s hand, saying, with a confident air of self-conceit: —
“Don’t be uneasy as to that! But now, at this moment, what am I to do?”
“Hold firm to my conditions. They will consent, for no one’s apparent interest is injured. Madame Evangelista is very anxious to marry her daughter; I see that in her little game — Beware of her!”
Paul returned to the salon, where he found his future mother-in-law conversing in a low tone with Solonet. Natalie, kept outside of these mysterious conferences, was playing with a screen. Embarrassed by her position, she was thinking to herself: “How odd it is that they tell me nothing of my own affairs.”
The younger notary had seized, in the main, the future effect of the new proposal, based, as it was, on the self-love of both parties, into which his client had fallen headlong. Now, while Mathias was more than a mere notary, Solonet was still a young man, and brought into his business the vanity of youth. It often happens that personal conceit makes a man forgetful of the interests of his client. In this case, Maitre Solonet, who would not suffer the widow to think that Nestor had vanquished Achilles, advised her to conclude the marriage on the terms proposed. Little he cared for the future working of the marriage contract; to him, the conditions of victory were: Madame Evangelista released from her obligations as guardian, her future secured, and Natalie married.
“Bordeaux shall know that you have ceded eleven hundred thousand francs to your daughter, and that you still have twenty-five thousand francs a year left,” whispered Solonet to his client. “For my part, I did not expect to obtain such a fine result.”
“But,” she said, “explain to me why the creation of this entail should have calmed the storm at once.”
“It relieves their distrust of you and your daughter. An entail is unchangeable; neither husband nor wife can touch that capital.”
“Then this arrangement is positively insulting!”
“No; we call it simply precaution. The old fellow has caught you in a net. If you refuse to consent to the entail, he can reply: ‘Then your object is to squander the fortune of my client, who, by the creation of this entail, is protected from all such injury as securely as if the marriage took place under the “regime dotal.”‘“
Solonet quieted his own scruples by reflecting: “After all, these stipulations will take effect only in the future, by which time Madame Evangelista will be dead and buried.”
Madame Evangelista contented herself, for the present, with these explanations, having full confidence in Solonet. She was wholly ignorant of law; considering her daughter as good as married, she thought she had gained her end, and was filled with the joy of success. Thus, as Mathias had shrewdly calculated, neither Solonet nor Madame Evangelista understood as yet, to its full extent, this scheme which he had based on reasons that were undeniable.
