Works of Honore De Balzac, page 930
“Yes,” replied Maxime, “she is a very clever woman.”
“Questioned closely by the mayoress,” continued Vinet, “who took care to have the mayor present, the peasant-woman was far from categorical. Her grounds for asserting that the new deputy could not be the son of the marquis, and the assurance with which she stated that the latter had long been dead were not, as it appears, very clearly established; vague rumors and the deductions drawn by the village practitioner seem to be all there was to them.”
“Then,” said Rastignac, “what does all this lead to?”
“Absolutely nothing from a legal point of view,” replied the attorney-general; “for supposing the woman were able to establish the fact that this recognition of the said Dorlange was a mere pretence, she has no status on which to proceed farther. By Article 339 of the Civil Code direct heirship alone has the right to attack the recognition of natural children.”
“Your balloon is collapsing fast,” said the minister.
“So that the woman,” continued Vinet, “has no object in proceeding, for she can’t inherit; it belongs to the government to pursue the case of supposition of person; she can do no more than denounce the fact.”
“From which you conclude?” said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is a warning to be concise.
“From which I conclude, judicially speaking, that the Romilly peasant-woman, so far as she is concerned, will have her trouble for her pains; but, speaking politically, the thing takes quite another aspect.”
“Let us see the political side,” said the minister; “up to this point, I see nothing.”
“In the first place,” replied the attorney-general, “you will admit that it is always possible to bring a bad case?”
“Certainly.”
“And I don’t suppose it would signify much to you if the woman did embark in a matter in which she can lose nothing but her costs?”
“No, I assure you I am wholly indifferent.”
“In any case, I should have advised you to let things take their course. The Beauvisage husband and wife have engaged to pay the costs and also the expense of keeping the peasant-woman and her counsel in Paris during the inquiry.”
“Then,” said Rastignac, still pressing for a conclusion, “the case is really begun. What will be the result?”
“What will be the result?” cried the attorney-general, getting excited; “why, anything you please if, before the case comes for trial, your newspapers comment upon it, and your friends spread reports and insinuations. What will result? why, an immense fall in public estimation for our adversary suspected of stealing a name which does not belong to him! What will result? why, the opportunity for a fierce challenge in the Chamber.”
“Which you will take upon yourself to make?” asked Rastignac.
“Ah! I don’t know about that. The matter would have to be rather more studied, and the turn the case might take more certain, if I had anything to do with it.”
“So, for the present,” remarked the minister, “the whole thing amounts to an application of Basile’s famous theory about calumny: ‘good to set a-going, because some of it will always stick.’”
“Calumny!” exclaimed Vinet, “that remains to be seen. Perhaps a good round of gossip is all that can be made of it. Monsieur de Trailles, here, knows better than I do the state of things down there. He can tell you that the disappearance of the father immediately after the recognition had a bad effect upon people’s minds; and every one in Arcis has a vague impression of secret plotting in this affair of the election. You don’t know, my dear minister, all that can be made in the provinces of a judicial affair when adroitly manipulated, — cooked, as I may say. In my long and laborious career at the bar I saw plenty of that kind of miracle. But a parliamentary debate is another thing. In that there’s no need of proof; one can kill one’s man with probabilities and assertions, if hotly maintained.”
“But, to come to the point,” said Rastignac, “how do you think the affair ought to be managed?”
“In the first place,” replied Vinet, “I should leave the Beauvisage people to pay all costs of whatever kind, inasmuch as they propose to do so.”
“Do I oppose that?” said the minister. “Have I the right or the means to do so?”
“The affair,” continued Vinet, “should be placed in the hands of some capable and wily solicitor, like Desroches, for example, Monsieur de Trailles’ lawyer. He’ll know how to put flesh on the bones of a case you justly consider rather thin.”
“Well, it is certainly not my place to say to Monsieur de Trailles or any other man, ‘I forbid you to employ whom you will as your solicitor.’”
“Then we need some pleader who can talk in a moving way about that sacred thing the Family, and put himself into a state of indignation about these surreptitious and furtive ways of entering its honored enclosure.”
“Desroches can point out some such person to you. The government cannot prevent a man from saying what he pleases.”
“But,” interposed Maxime, who was forced out of his passive role by the minister’s coldness, “is not preventing all the help we are to expect in this affair from the government?”
“You don’t expect us, I hope, to take this matter upon ourselves?”
“No, of course not; but we have certainly supposed that you would take some interest in the matter.”
“But how? — in what way?”
“Well, as Monsieur le procureur said just now, by giving a hint to the subsidized newspapers, by stirring up your friends to spread the news, by using a certain influence which power always exerts on the minds of magistrates.”
“Thank you, no!” replied Rastignac. “When you want the government for an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot than that. From your manner this morning I supposed there was really something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice. But really, your scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed to inevitable defeat. If I were not married, and could pretend to the hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of course you will do as you think best. I do not say that the government will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend to make it with you.”
“But see,” said Vinet, interposing to cut off Maxime’s reply, which would doubtless have been bitter; “suppose we send the affair to the criminal courts, and the peasant-woman, instigated by the Beauvisage couple, should denounce the man who had sworn before a notary, and offered himself for election falsely, as a Sallenauve: the question is one for the court of assizes.”
“But proofs? I return to that, you must have proof,” said Rastignac. “Have you even a shadow of it?”
“You said yourself, just now,” remarked Maxime, “that it was always possible to bring a bad case.”
“A civil case, yes; but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious matter. It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of non-lieu. You couldn’t find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as the column of July.”
“So,” said Maxime, “you see absolutely nothing that can be done?”
“For us, no. For you, my dear Maxime, who have no official character, and who, if need be, can support the attack on Monsieur de Sallenauve pistol in hand, as it were, nothing hinders you from proceeding in the matter.”
“Oh, yes!” said Maxime, bitterly, “I’m a sort of free lance.”
“Not at all; you are a man intuitively convinced of facts impossible to prove legally, and you do not give way before the judgment of God or man.”
Monsieur de Trailles rose angrily. Vinet rose also, and, shaking hands with Rastignac as he took leave of him, he said, —
“I don’t deny that your course is a prudent one, and I don’t say that in your place I should not do the same thing.”
“Adieu, Maxime; without bitterness, I hope,” said Rastignac to Monsieur de Trailles, who bowed coldly and with dignity.
When the two conspirators were alone in the antechamber, Maxime turned to his companion.
“Do you understand such squeamishness?” he asked.
“Perfectly,” replied Vinet, “and I wonder to see a clever man like you so duped.”
“Yes, duped to make you lose your time and I mine by coming here to listen to a lecture on virtue!”
“That’s not it; but I do think you guileless to be taken in by that refusal to co-operate.”
“What! do you think — ”
“I think that this affair is risky; if it succeeds, the government, arms folded, will reap the benefit. But if on the contrary we fail, it will not take a share in the defeat. But you may be sure of this, for I know Rastignac well: without seeming to know anything, and without compromising himself in any way, he will help us, and perhaps more usefully than by open connivance. Think! did he say a single word on the morality of the affair? Didn’t he say, again and again, ‘I don’t oppose — I have no right to prevent’? And as to the venom of the case, the only fault he found was that it wasn’t sure to kill. But in truth, my dear monsieur, this is going to be a hard pull, and we shall want all the cleverness of that fellow Desroches to get us through.”
“Then you think I had better see him?”
“Better see him! why, my good friend, you ought to go to him at once.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if he talked with you?”
“Oh! no, no!” exclaimed Vinet. “I may be the man to put the question in the Chamber; and if Desroches were seen with me, I should lose my virginity.”
So saying, he took leave of Maxime with some haste, on the ground that he ought then to be at the Chamber.
“But I,” said Maxime, running after him, — ”suppose I want to consult you in the matter?”
“I leave to-night for my district, to get things into order before the opening of the new session.”
“But about bringing up the question which you say may devolve on you?”
“I or another. I will hasten back as soon as I can; but you understand, I must put my department in order for a six months’ absence.”
“A good journey to you, then, Monsieur le procureur-general,” replied Maxime, sarcastically.
Left to himself, Monsieur de Trailles had a period of discouragement, resulting from the discovery that these two political Bertrands meant that his paw should pull the chestnuts from the fire. Rastignac’s behavior particularly galled him. His mind went back to their first interview at Madame Restaud’s, twenty years earlier, when he himself held the sceptre of fashion, and Rastignac, a poor student, neither knew how to come into a room nor how to leave it. [See “Pere Goriot.”] And now Rastignac was peer of France and minister, while he, Maxime, become his agent, was obliged with folded arms to hear himself told that his plot was weak and he must carry it out alone, if at all.
But this discouragement did not last.
“Yes!” he cried to himself, “I will carry it out; my instinct tells me there is something in it. What nonsense! — a Dorlange, a nobody, to attempt to checkmate Maxime de Trailles and make a stepping-stone of my defeat! To my solicitor’s,” he said to the coachman, opening the door of the carriage himself.
Desroches was at home; and Monsieur de Trailles was immediately admitted into his study.
Desroches was a lawyer who had had, like Raffaelle, several manners. First, possessor of a practice without clients, he had made fish of every case that came into his net; and he felt himself, in consequence, little respected by the court. But he was a hard worker, well versed in all the ins and outs of chicanery, a keen observer, and an intelligent reader of the movements of the human heart. Consequently he had made for himself, in course of time, a very good practice; he had married a rich woman, and the moment that he thought himself able to do without crooked ways he had seriously renounced them. In 1839 Desroches had become an honest and skilful solicitor: that is to say, he assumed the interests of his clients with warmth and ability; he never counselled an openly dishonorable proceeding, still less would he have lent a hand to it. As to that fine flower of delicacy to be met with in Derville and some others like him, besides the sad fact that it is difficult to keep its fragrance from evaporating in this business world of which Monsieur de Talleyrand says, “Business means getting the property of others,” it is certain that it can never be added to any second state of existence. The loss of that bloom of the soul, like that of other virginities, is irreparable. Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself. He no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very ready to undertake.
Desroches was moreover a man of parts and witty; loving the pleasures of the table, and like all men perpetually the slaves of imperious toil, he felt the need of vigorous amusement, taken on the wing and highly spiced. While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses, courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them. Their witty argot, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures, their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their greatness and their weakness, — he understood it all marvellously well; and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever they asked for it. But in order to conceal from his dignified and more valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the clientele he really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was husband and father, especially on Sundays. He appeared in the Bois de Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed the size of her dot), with three children on the front seat, who were luckless enough to resemble their mother. This family picture, these virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches, dining in cafes with all the male and female viveurs of renown, that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim, remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.
It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel, as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in life. Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting, to the long explanation of the case submitted to him. As Maxime hid nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber, — his hatred making him take the possibility for positive evidence.
In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his opinion that this pretended “case” was a mere intrigue. The number of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.
“In the first place,” said Desroches, when the matter was all explained, “a civil suit is not to be thought of. Your Romilly peasant-woman might have her hands full of proofs, but she has no ground herself to stand upon; she has no legal interest in contesting the rights of this recognized natural son.”
“Yes, that is what Vinet said just now.”
“As for the criminal case, you could, no doubt, compel it by giving information to the police authorities of this alleged imposture — ”
“Vinet,” interrupted Maxime, “inclined to the criminal proceeding.”
“Yes, but there are a great many objections to it. In the first place, in order that the complaint be received at all, you must produce a certain amount of proof; then, supposing it is received, and the authorities are determined to pursue the case, you must have more evidence of criminality than you have now; and, moreover, supposing that you can show that the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve committed a fraud, how will you prove that the so-called son was privy to it? He might have been the dupe of some political schemer.”
“But what interest could such a schemer have in giving Dorlange the many advantages he has derived from the recognition?”
“Ah! my dear fellow, in political manners all queer proceedings are possible; there is no such fertile source for compilers of causes celebres and novelists. In the eyes of the law, you must remember, the counterfeiting of a person is not always a crime.”
“How so?” asked Maxime.
“Here,” said Desroches, taking up the Five Codes; “do me the favor to read Article 5 of the Penal Code, the only one which gives an opening to the case you have in mind.”
Maxime read aloud the article, which was as follows: —
“‘Any functionary or public officer who, in the exercise of his function, shall commit forgery — either by false signatures, by alterations of deeds, writings, or signatures, or by counterfeiting persons — ’ There, you see,” said Maxime, interrupting himself, — ”‘by counterfeiting persons — ’”
“Go on,” insisted Desroches.
“‘ — by counterfeiting persons,’” resumed de Trailles, “‘either by writings made or intercalated in the public records or other documents, shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for life.’”
Maxime lingered lovingly over the last words, which gave his revenge a foretaste of the fate that awaited Sallenauve.
“My dear count,” said Desroches, “you do as the barristers do; they read to the jury only so much of a legal document as suits their point of view. You pay no attention to the fact that the only persons affected by this article are functionaries or public officers.”
Maxime re-read the article, and convinced himself of the truth of that remark.
“But,” he objected, “there must be something elsewhere about such a crime when committed by private individuals.”
