and there is no law against that. As to this unfortunate girl, after all, it is her own fault! Why did she not repulse him? Then she would not have committed a crime,—a monstrous crime! which really puts all society to the blush.' And the hatter or the furrier would be right,—perfectly right. What is there to criminate this gentleman? Of what complicity, direct or indirect, moral or material, can he be charged? This lucky rogue has seduced a pretty girl, and he it is who has brought her there; he does not deny it; where is the law that prevents or punishes him? Society merely says: There are gay young fellows abroad,—let the pretty girls beware! But if a poor wretch, through want or stupidity, constraint, or ignorance of the laws which he cannot read, buys knowingly a rag which has been stolen, he will be sent to the galleys for twenty years as a receiver, if such be the punishment for the theft itself. This is logical, powerful reasoning,—'Without receivers there would be no thieves, without thieves there would be no receivers.' No, no more pity, then—even less pity—for him who excites to the evil than he who perpetrates it. Let the smallest degree of complicity be visited with terrible punishment! Good; there is in that a serious and fertile thought, high and moral. We should bow before Society which had dictated such a law; but we remember that this Society, so inexorable towards the smallest complicity of crime against things, is so framed that a simple and ingenuous man, who should try to prove that there is at least moral similarity, material complicity, between the fickle seducer and the seduced and forsaken girl, would be laughed at as a visionary. And if this simple man were to assert that without a father there would, in all probability, not be offspring, Society would exclaim against the atrocity,—the folly! And it would be right,—quite right; for, after all, this gay youth who might say these fine things to the jury, however little he might like tragic emotions, might yet go tranquilly to see his mistress executed,—executed for child-murder, a crime to which he was an accessory; nay more, the author, in consequence of his shameless abandonment! Does not this charming protection, granted to the male portion of society for certain gay doings suggested by the god of Love, show plainly that France still sacrifices to the Graces, and is still the most gallant nation in the world?"
CHAPTER III.
JACQUES FERRAND.
At the period when the events were passing which we are now relating, at one end of the Rue du Sentier a long old wall extended, covered with a coat of whitewash, and the top garnished with a row of broken flint-glass bottles; this wall, bounding on one side the garden of Jacques Ferrand, the notary, terminated with a corps de logis facing the street, only one story high, with garrets. Two large escutcheons of gilt copper, emblems of the notarial residence, flanked the worm-eaten porte cochère, of which the primitive colour was no longer to be distinguished under the mud which covered it. This entrance led to an open passage; on the right was the lodge of an old porter, almost deaf, who was to the body of tailors what M. Pipelet was to the body of boot-makers; on the left a stable, used as a cellar, washhouse, woodhouse, and the establishment of a rising colony of rabbits belonging to the porter, who was dissipating the sorrows of a recent widowhood by bringing up these domestic animals. Beside the lodge was the opening of a twisting staircase, narrow and dark, leading to the office, as was announced to the clients by a hand painted black, whose forefinger was directed towards these words, also painted in black upon the wall, "The Office on the first floor."
On one side of a large paved court, overgrown with grass, were empty stables; on the other side, a rusty iron gate, which shut in the garden; at the bottom the pavilion, inhabited only by the notary. A flight of eight or ten steps of disjointed stones, which were moss-grown and time-worn, led to this square pavilion, consisting of a kitchen and other underground offices, a ground floor, a first floor, and the top rooms, in one of which Louise had slept. The pavilion also appeared in a state of great dilapidation. There were deep chinks in the walls; the window-frames and outside blinds, once painted gray, had become almost black by time; the six windows on the first floor, looking out into the courtyard, had no curtains; a sort of greasy and opaque deposit covered the glass; on the ground floor there were visible through the window-panes more transparent, faded yellow cotton curtains, with red bindings.
On the garden side the pavilion had only four windows. The garden, overgrown with parasitical plants, seemed wholly neglected. There was no flower border, not a bush; a clump of elms; five or six large green trees; some acacias and elder-trees; a yellowish grass-plat, half destroyed by moss and the scorch of the sun; muddy paths, choked up with weeds; at the bottom, a sort of half cellar; for horizon, the high, naked, gray walls of the adjacent houses, having here and there skylights barred like prison windows,—such was the miserable appearance of the garden and dwelling of the notary.
To this appearance, or rather reality, M. Ferrand attached great importance. In the eyes of the vulgar, carelessness about comfort almost always passes for disinterestedness; dirt, for austerity. Comparing the vast financial luxury of some notaries, or the costly toilets of their wives, to the dull abode of M. Ferrand, so opposed to elegance, expense, or splendour, clients felt a sort of respect for, or rather blind confidence in, a man who, according to his large practice and the fortune attributed to him, could say, like many of his professional brethren, my carriage, my evening party, my country-house, my box at the opera, etc. But, far from this, Jacques Ferrand lived with rigid economy; and thus deposits, investments, powers of attorney, in fact, all matters of trust and business requiring the most scrupulous and recognised integrity, accumulated in his hands.
Living thus meanly as he did, the notary lived in the way he liked. He detested the world, show, dearly purchased pleasures; and, even had it been otherwise, he would unhesitatingly have sacrificed his dearest inclinations to the appearances which he found it so profitable to assume.