VI
My Stay at Geneva—Correspondence of Alquier-Caze—M. Sparifico—Payment of the Lawyers—An Unlucky Meeting—Weakening of my Health—My Husband’s Exhortations—His Arrival with Driver-Cooper—Fatal Agreement—My Son’s Tutor.
In the middle of the year 1827, soon after the departure of my friend, we transported our household goods to Geneva, where was the school my husband had chosen for our young son; and his first care on our arrival was the carrying out of his barbarous plan.
Unable to make up my mind quite to lose sight of the dear child who, since his birth, had never left me, I hired a house close to his. I was able to go to see him every day, to lavish love upon him, and he himself came to see me twice a week and spent the whole of Sunday with me.
I used to invite several of his school-fellows for the evening, providing all sorts of refreshments for them, and letting them amuse themselves just as they pleased; and their childish games were a real relaxation to me.
Moreover, my dear Marchioness of B. had kindly given me several agreeable introductions, so that in my new home I found something of the pleasure I had enjoyed at Nice.
But this new tranquillity could not last.
For some time past I had noticed that d’Alquier-Caze’s communications were neither so frequent nor so hopeful as they had been. Having mentioned this to him, he answered me by a lengthy enumeration of his supposed services. Another time he wrote that he was going to Nancy to question an old person he had been told of from whose evidence he expected the happiest results.
On another occasion he gave me an account of a conversation he professed to have had with a Minister of his most Christian Majesty.
“The first attempt was to frighten me,” he said; “but my determined aspect speedily destroyed all hope of succeeding in that. Then discouragement was tried; I made a suitable reply. Every possible way of trying to make me speak was used; but I steadily kept myself within the limits of a wise discretion. ‘What do you want?’ I was asked. My answer was yours: ‘All or nothing.’ ‘You’ll ruin yourself.’ ‘I shall do my duty.’ ‘You had better give up such a chimerical business.’ ‘I possess the confidence of milady, and I cannot betray it.’ ‘You will never succeed.’ ‘We shall.’ ‘Every one regards your claims with supreme contempt.’ ‘That’s impossible!’ ‘They can’t conceive on what you found them.’ ‘Do you allow that the exchange took place?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then all that I have to do now is to prove the identity of its perpetrator with the too notorious Orleans.’ ‘Prove even its likelihood, if you can.’ ‘I shall prove its reality.’ ‘How?’ ‘We shall have writings and witnesses.’ ‘Well, we shall always be pleased to see you.’ ‘I shall come again.’ etc.”
Far from satisfied with all this talk, I constantly complained that, since the verdict given at Faenza, I had spent a great deal of money and was still about where I was then. To combat my reproaches he conceived the idea of writing me the extraordinary letter here given—
“You are angry with me, dear milady, are you not? You are both right and wrong. You are right, because in your situation nothing could be more natural than impatience; and wrong, because I am to be excused on account of all the trouble I am taking.
“There is a question I am about to submit to you, and to which you must give a definite answer.
“Certain proposals, in the form of advice, have been made to me in your interest. Would you be disposed—yes or no—to come to an arrangement if its terms were considerable pecuniary advantages to yourself? Please let me know at once. I won’t say more to-day, but that everything is going on well. Believe me, etc.”
What more was wanted to open my eyes and let me clearly see the crafty duplicity of my ill-advised rascal, who up to now had so piqued himself on the nobility of his sentiments?
Knowing in Paris a certain M. Sparifico, I begged him to tell me of some lawyer famous for his ability and still more for his integrity.
First he mentioned several, who, he said, dared not undertake my defence; and then he named others whom I knew to be devoted to my mortal enemy.
I was so disgusted with all these obstacles that I almost made up my mind to give up everything.
The Baron being obliged to go to the capital of France on his own affairs, I requested him to recover all the papers in Alquier-Caze’s possession, which he endeavoured to do; but could not manage till he had paid 200 francs to Maître Hennequin for a memorandum I had never seen; 550 francs to Maître Plé for work of which I had never heard, and 1000 francs to Caze himself for having cheated me out of many times as much.
About this time a certain Henry Driver-Cooper, who, after ruining his creditors in England, had taken refuge on the Continent so as to increase his iniquitous fortune, had just exchanged his modest designation of hop-merchant for the pompous title of jurisconsult, which he thought he had the right to share with Maître Dupin, considering that he had entrusted to him the celebrated Stacpoole case;[10] wherefore he considered that he also ought to share in the glory of its success; since, without him, Maître Dupin would not have intervened. He had his Doctor’s Diploma printed on his visiting-cards, and went from house to house boasting of his triumph.
But he took good care not to add that Maître Dupin himself, thinking but little of his services, had reduced the fee he claimed by a thirty-second!
After this blow the disconsolate hop-merchant, or, if you like, the saddened jurisconsult, was on the look-out for a favourable opportunity. He owned in the neighbourhood of Paris a so-called château, which he had bought in better days, and he was trying to find an obliging tenant who would pay him a big rent for it while still leaving him in possession and even keeping him during the whole duration of the lease.
I was to be this compassionate person; he had foreseen it from the moment that he had first chanced to meet my husband, whom by dexterous suggestions he drew into his net, and negotiations were entered into.
Meanwhile, the damp climate of Geneva having given me a very bad cold, which, as usual, had at once settled on my chest, my friends advised me to take a house in the country where I could breathe more healthy air. I had chosen one, called Coligny, looking over the lake and magnificently situated, when the Baron, writing to me about his lucky discovery, asked my opinion of it.
In spite of his youth, my dear son begged me not to forget how many times I had allowed myself to be caught in the snares of impostors. In consequence I answered evasively, and principally to tell my husband of my resolve to change my house.
I soon received a second letter in which he implored me not to carry out my intention, explained still more fully the conditions laid down by my deliverer, and told me that one of them was that I must live in his house during the whole course of the trial.
This time my answer was decided.
“I will consent,” I said, “to combine with your agent in pecuniary matters if he will pay half the costs and undertake to push on the business briskly. As to the plan for my living in his house, you may give that up at once; for I intend to take the one I have in view here from to-morrow, and nothing will induce me to leave my dear Edward.”
In fact, I signed the agreement and moved to Coligny.
I was hardly settled there when I had a third letter from the Baron, expressing very great displeasure and even reproving me in a way. He spoke enthusiastically of Cooper, extolling his courtesy, enlarging on his ability, and endeavouring above all to convince me that if I did not take advantage of his generous offer I might give up all my hopes; that I should not find any French avocat willing to fight against the powerful Colossus, reputed the first Prince of the Royal Blood, and that the great benefit to my son claimed the sacrifice, however painful to my heart, of a separation destined to procure for him the most brilliant of futures.
That last argument moved and shook me; it was so cleverly put that I consented to see our charlatan. But the clever swindler, not wishing to make it seem that he had come on his own initiative to see me in Switzerland, got a model of the flattering invitation I was to give him sent to me.
My exact copy having reached him, he and my husband arrived.
He left no stone unturned to dazzle our eyes with his cunning promises, and, as soon as he believed us both well prepared, he persuaded us to go to the house of Voltaire at Ferney.
“It shall be on the very table at which the great man wrote his immortal works that our agreement shall be signed; his shade shall preside there, and his presence be the pledge of the most glorious success.”
It was pure farce, I own, but what is easier than to inflame minds already under the spell? Could we haggle when the grandeurs and riches we had a right to claim were, so to speak, at our discretion?
Cooper was able to take advantage of our weakness in the most infamous fashion.
Sitting unmoved in this castle-in-the-air of his own building, caring for nothing but other people’s money, he made us affix our signatures to two deeds, the outcome of his crafty cupidity.
By the first he appointed himself my steward; as such he was, during the whole course of the trial, to lodge and keep me; to furnish me with horses, carriages, and servants, in return for an annual payment of 25,000 francs, payable in advance.
Having made his calculations correctly, by the second, which he had taken care to bring ready drawn-up and in French so uncouth that it was difficult to understand it, he created himself the absolute dispenser of larger sums.
He was to proceed with the business which was my principal object if he thought fit, and in the way he thought best. The costs were to be divided, and, in the case of success, the profits also.
“Perhaps you have not by you the sum you ought to pay me. Well, give me bills.”
And so I did to the amount of £1,150 sterling.
After this delightful expedition, he was ready to return to Paris, begging me to follow quickly.
Although at school my son had all the necessary masters, I had up to now kept on his tutor, called Ragazzini, a native of Tredozzio, who had been recommended to me at Florence as a clever man, and had taken some trouble in the Faenza business.
I wished to discharge him at this time in consequence of many defects he could no longer keep hidden; but Cooper and the Baron were against it, saying that the man, knowing Italy perfectly, might be of the greatest use to us; so, though very reluctantly, I gave way to their urgent representations; and it was arranged that he was to accompany me and my husband.