M. Tabourin's law-office is situated in St. André's Square, on the first floor, opposite the court house. It is reached through a dark, dirty corridor at the end of which is an open staircase: for entrance-halls, which are the pride of Paris and frequently of foreign cities as well, are generally sacrificed in the provincial towns of France, so that even large, commodious, roomy apartments with high ceilings, have the most wretched approaches.
As Grenette Square was formerly the business center of Grenoble,—still is in fact,—so St. André's Square was the real heart of the town, since there the religious, the municipal and the judicial life met, and even now are represented by their monuments. The past of Dauphiné dwells there, but one has to search a while to find it, for in this capital of long ago, the old is everywhere hidden beneath the new. As you alight at the station, you see only newly-built districts, houses scarcely finished, and wide avenues, whose perspective terminates in the far-away mountains. An industrious and prosperous town, you conclude, born yesterday in noble surroundings and lacking historic coloring. Even the streets have been renamed; the old "Rue des Jésuites," where Stendhal was born, is now called "Jean Jacques Rousseau." A few fortified gates opened in the ramparts have been ruthlessly dismantled, but those still standing interest the pedestrian, who, little by little, by following the winding paths of L'Ile Verte, finds traces of the wall of enclosure, perceives the bastions against the sides of Mont Rachois, imagines from these evidences of defensive toil the battles of old, and is prepared to discover by chance somewhere in the bright city one or other of those expressions of the spirit of a race which has maintained its integrity with a tenacity that has resisted all the labors of architects and engineers. Saint André's Square should still be satisfying, but it is only half so. There at the western end is the tall tower of the town hall which was once the palace of the Constable de Lesdiguières, and there above the low houses which crowd about it and hide its door, is the church whose venerable octagonal stone steeple is wrought with double windows in a pointed arch. But the court house where the Parliament of Dauphiné sat, shows a façade half Gothic, half Renaissance, the materials of which have been scratched away here, replaced there, and still retain even in the sunlight that cold newness which only the touch of time melts. As to the statue of Bayard,—who is represented as dying against the trunk of a tree,—it only encumbers the narrow square without adorning it.
M. Tabourin had never noticed many monuments from his window. From the time of moving into these offices he had taken pleasure only in the nearness of the court house—which he particularly appreciated when troubled by rheumatism. The brief of a case requiring special knowledge; seizure, dispossession, "the whole gamut," as he said enthusiastically, and involving heavy charges, when handed to him in its light blue envelope was much more attractive than the past of the province with all its memories. So he read the lawyer's petition without sentimental curiosity, and remarked only that Mme. Derize intended to apply for a separation de plano, that is, without preliminary investigation, which would reduce the fee.
"Have you had the corroborative evidence?" he inquired.
"No, sir."
"Was there something about a letter?"
"That is probably being kept back until after the usual attempt at reconciliation."
"Good. You will have the papers drawn up, Vitrolle, at once."
He took it for granted that the existence of a case dates only from the issue of its papers. Then he went into his private office and arranged one by one on the table the documents which he thought he would need for the hearing of the court that opened at nine o'clock. During this mechanical work, his inner contentment made him smile. All Grenoble had been watching this Derize case for two months, since Mme. Derize (née Molay-Norrois), had left Paris and had come to live with her parents. For the first few weeks there had been a pretense of ignorance of the subject; then, some over-gossipy friends felt a desire to provide explanations: M. Derize was traveling to authenticate the sources of some historical work; he had been unable to take his wife and children with him, but was coming back to spend his holidays at Uriage as usual. Little by little another version was given out. Some well-informed persons predicted a divorce. "Would it be tried in Grenoble or in Paris?" the lawyers were asking one another. The question was now settled for M. Tabourin: he was to represent the more sympathetic side in a trial, from which he would derive small remuneration, no doubt, but the widest publicity because of the personality of Albert Derize, the well-known historian, and of the prominent position of the Molay-Norrois family. Thoroughly pleased, he opened the door leading to his private apartments to inform Mme. Tabourin, who was grateful for this fresh bit of news which would supply her with conversation for an entire day. And this act of consideration for his wife seemed to him definitely to establish the case, even before the proceedings were officially begun.
On his return, he found M. Lagier waiting for him in the office. Philippe Lagier, although still under forty, was considered, in civil proceedings, to be one of the most capable lawyers in Grenoble. Short, sickly, with a faded complexion, delicate features, his hair already growing gray, indolent in appearance, nevertheless at the bar he was the equal of the strongest. High-strung and tense, he was tireless in public, never telling of his lonely hours of depression. His colleagues recognized his capacity for work, the modern ideas by which he simplified old methods, suppressed flowery phrases, gestures and digressions, shortened, condensed and clarified the form of pleading until it seemed like pronouncing final sentence; but people in general disliked him for the impertinence of his conversation, which was emphasized by a monocle without a cord, screwed into his eye. They disliked him too for his exaggerated contempt for professional matters and his almost fanatical fondness for the plastic arts, to which he devoted all his spare time, and for the gratification of his interest in which he went to the museums of Italy and Flanders as soon as vacation began, to collect the pictures, drawings and engravings that filled his room. And all this, to the great astonishment of the specialists, did not lessen his clientèle. He was known to be the intimate friend and college chum of Albert Derize, who would no doubt place his interests in Lagier's hands.