I sent a dubious smile across to Théaulon and a sign of gratitude. From that day dated our acquaintance, or rather, let us say, our friendship with Desforges. Whilst Desforges was at Bordeaux starting Le Kaléidoscope, Ferdinand Langlé was starting La Nouveauté newspaper in Paris; yet another open tribute to the new school, another finger-post marking a step forward.
Langlé had conceived a financial idea which was not so bad for an assistant-surgeon in the Guards, especially when one considers that the idea preceded by seven years the appearance of Émile de Girardin, the man who had the most ideas about printing concerns: the first thousand subscribers to La Nouveauté at an outlay of 60 francs were to become proprietors of half the shares of the paper; the other half naturally belonged to the founder, Ferdinand Langlé. A fortnight after the prospectus had been sent out, they had 60,000 francs in the bank. I say in the bank, but, unluckily, there wasn't a bank: it was the want of a fixed place for depositing the money which led to there being only one cashier in a short time. Heaven knows that it was not the cashier who had eaten up the money, we can give unexceptionable proof of this. The banker of La Nouveauté had a horse and carriage and a negro servant; he gave Zoyo (that was the servant's name) 7 francs per week for his board, and for that of his horse 28 francs per month! It was for him to make what profit he could out of it. He managed to feed himself out of the 7 francs, and to feed his horse with the outside rinds of melons, the leaves of salad and cabbage stalks which he found on rubbish heaps—he called it putting César out to grass. When that was insufficient, Zoyo begged from the passers-by.
"Why are you begging, you odd fish?" one of them asked him.
"Monsieur," replied Zoyo, "it is not for myself but for my poor César, who is dying of hunger."
Then he would point to the horse, whose noble and dignified bearing inspired sympathy. When the melon rinds, salad leaves and cabbage stalks were insufficient, and the appeals to public charity had yielded badly, Zoyo arrived at a great decision. He went to the boot-blacks who had an establishment at the entrance of the passage Feydeau, and blacked boots at half-price for the manager of the business. When he had earned 10 sous by cleaning ten pairs of boots, he converted his gain into a small quantity of oats or half a truss of hay, and César dined as well as possible. When the bank closed at five o'clock, César was harnessed and put into the trap; Zoyo clad himself in white breeches with top-boots, a yellow waistcoat, green coat and a broad-laced hat, decorated with a black cockade, and brought the trap round to the office door, No. 67 rue de Richelieu, opposite the bibliothèque Nationale. The banker jumped up into his trap, Zoyo flung back the hood and mounted up behind; they went to the boulevard, and drove as far as the place Louis XV., then along the Champs-Élysées and took a turn or two under the trees.
If people asked—
"Who is the gentleman with the chestnut horse, green trap and negro groom?"
The reply was—
"He is the banker of la Nouveauté newspaper."