Badly as the streets of Paris were lighted at the close of the reign of Louis XV., the art of illuminating ballrooms was as well understood then as it is in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The guests who flocked to the receptions of M. de Bocher, after passing through streets in which a few flickering oil-lamps scarcely succeeded in making darkness visible, found themselves in the centre of floods of dazzling light, and surrounded by all that was bright, fashionable, and gay in the pleasure-loving city of Paris.
Times had much altered since the days of the Grand Monarque, and the hard and fast lines of society, then so rigidly observed, were now well-nigh obliterated. A precursor of the great Revolution which was hereafter to overthrow the state, was to be found in the invasion of the saloons of the nobility by financiers and capitalists, who were received with open arms by those who wished either to borrow money from them, or to recruit their shattered fortunes by alliances with the money-bags of the period. Nor was this all; for the poets and writers of the day, anxious to secure the support of well-known and wealthy patrons, flocked to these reunions, which they enlivened with their geniality and wit.
Monsieur de Bocher could lay but little real claim to the patrician prefix which he had for some years adhibited to his otherwise plebeian name. But he held a quasi-official appointment, which, although outside the Cabinet, gave him almost the dignity of a minister; while his well-known wealth and splendid entertainments attracted the best society in Paris. He was, moreover, a man of wit and learning, and as he possessed the somewhat rare faculty of playing the host to perfection, had an excellent cook and a cellar of first-class wine, his mansion in the Faubourg St Germain was one of the most popular in Paris. Dukes and peers, ambassadors and foreigners of distinction, the simple gentleman, the poet, the literary man, the barrister, and the capitalist, all found here a common ground for the display of their various talents. Fools were rare, for they soon found that the climate was not congenial; and the conversation was not only remarkable for its piquancy, but its intellectual character. Each guest, after paying his respects to Madame de Bocher, mixed at once in the throng, and was soon busied in discussing the last news of the day, or deep in the question which agitated Paris. Marmontel and Diderot, La Harpe and Helvetius, seldom missed a reception; but here, as indeed throughout Paris, Voltaire was the presiding genius. It was a hopeless struggle for any young author to attempt to hold his own against so powerful a clique. Voltaire denounced him before his face; Diderot caricatured him at the Café Procope; he was jeered and laughed at everywhere, and ended by submitting to his tormentors. The result of such a censorship was not difficult to foresee; and in a short time no literary effort which did not contain at least a covert attack upon religion, in accordance with the principles of the fashionable philosophy, had a chance of success. Let us now tell the story of M. de Bocher’s acquisition of wealth.
His origin indeed was of the lowliest, for his father was but a working mason in the days of the Grand Monarque. One evening, as the father was returning home with his work-basket on his shoulder and trowel in hand, a man wrapped in a long brown cloak, and closely followed by a carriage without any armorial bearings or ciphers, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him whether he would like to earn five-and-twenty louis. The mason eagerly acquiesced; and having entered the carriage, his eyes were bandaged, and the horses started off at a great rate. For several hours the carriage was driven rapidly about the streets of Paris, with the obvious intention of making the occupant lose all trace of the route he had traversed; and when the object had been accomplished, the carriage stopped suddenly in the court-yard of a large mansion. Bocher was then desired to alight; and was at once conducted, his eyes still bandaged, into a kind of cellar, where his eyesight was restored to him. Here he found two men, both armed, and with their faces concealed by masks. The poor man was in an agony of terror, believing that his last hour had come, but was somewhat reassured by the gestures of his companions, who, fearful of trusting their voices, made signs to him to make some mortar of the lime which was lying on the floor. A hole in the wall disclosed a recess; and the two men raising with difficulty a weighty strong box, placed it in the interior, and made signs to the mason to build up the wall afresh. Bocher, seeing that nothing was required of him but the legitimate exercise of his craft, quickly recovered his self-possession; and guessing that the proprietors of the treasure were obliged to quit the country, and had hit upon this device for concealing it until better times should dawn upon them, the notion of appropriating it to his own use flashed like lightning across his brain.
When he concluded his work, as if intending to give a last polish to its completion, he placed his hand, thickly covered with wet mortar, on the new wall, and thus left the distinct impression of his five fingers on the hiding-place of the treasure-deposit. The promised five-and-twenty louis were then faithfully counted out into his hand; his eyes were again bandaged, and he was re-conducted to the carriage, which after following the same course of deception for three long hours, at last deposited him in the same street as that in which the man in the brown cloak had found him.
From that day forth Bocher abandoned the use of the hammer and trowel, and passed his time in wandering about Paris inspecting the houses advertised to be sold, directing his attention especially to the cellars and lower regions of the buildings; seeking everywhere, but without success, that imprint of his hand which would point the way to unlimited wealth. In the pursuit of this phantom, not only the twenty-five louis but all the little savings of his hard work rapidly melted away, and misery and hunger began to knock loudly at the mason’s door. One after another he sold the petty articles of furniture which had embellished his humble home, to procure the bread which was necessary to sustain life; and pale and in rags he wandered about Paris, reading every new announcement of vacant houses, and became a nuisance to the porters intrusted with the care of shewing them.
Two years thus passed away—two long years, occupied day by day in seeking a fortune, and night by night in dreaming that it was found. He was returning home one evening, sad and dispirited, with the proceeds of the sale of the bed upon which his mother had died, and which had been one of the very last articles of furniture he possessed, when his eye was caught by a large posting-bill announcing the sale of a magnificent mansion belonging to the Duc de Cairoux, in the immediate vicinity of his own dwelling. He recollected the story of the sudden disappearance of the Duke, and on reading the bill, found that the property was sold under a legal decree, which constituted the heirs proprietors with a power of sale. A last hope crossed poor Bocher’s mind, and he at once proceeded to the house, and knocked hastily at the door. It was almost dark, and no one paid any attention to his eager summons. After a sleepless night he again made his appearance at the portal of the Duke’s mansion; but although it was now opened, another difficulty presented itself, for the porter hesitated to admit a man so ragged and dirty as the poor mason had become. At length, however, he agreed to do so upon the understanding that a servant accompanied the strange visitor during his survey of the premises. The powdered lackey was scarcely more courteous than the porter, and scornfully exhibited the rich furniture, pictures, and priceless china which adorned the apartments, to his humble companion. But these were not what Bocher had come to see, and at last he induced the man to shew him the cellars. Whilst the footman was descanting upon the quantity and quality of the wines around them, Bocher was anxiously scrutinising all the walls, in hopes of finding that print on the mortar which was to open to him the door to untold wealth. It was all in vain; and deaf to the man’s insolence, Bocher was on the point of leaving, convinced that his last hope had vanished like its predecessors, and that this could not have been the house he had visited on that eventful evening, when he suddenly perceived a small cellar situated in an angle of the wall, which had hitherto escaped observation. He turned back and examined it closely, his technical knowledge as a mason at once shewing him that the mortar in one part of the wall was much fresher than elsewhere. He approached the spot, and there—yes, there was no doubt about it—there were the marks of the five fingers, plain and distinct!
‘At last, at last!’ he murmured to himself; and to make assurance doubly sure, he traced out each of the impressions with a trembling hand. There could be no doubt whatever about it. At last his long search was ended.
Eight days afterwards the property was to be sold by auction, and numbers of the aristocracy of Paris sent their stewards to bid for it. It was put up at fifty thousand louis d’or, and two thousand louis were at once added by the steward of the Duc de Berri.
‘Sixty thousand louis,’ said a voice from a corner; and the audience turning round to look at the man who had the audacity to outbid the richest man in Paris, discovered a poor man whom they had supposed to be a beggar.